The Pleasure of Bedding a Baroness (37 page)

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Authors: Tamara Lejeune

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His terrier was less friendly. Leaping up, it seized a mouthful of Patience’s skirt and refused to let go, twisting and growling with all its might as it hung on.
“Mr. Moffat?” Patience said, doing her best to remain polite as she struggled to rescue her skirt from the dog. “I am Patience, Lady Waverly. The new owner of Wildings This is my husband, Mr. Farnese.”
The lantern swung from one face to the other.
“Would you be good enough to call off your dog?” Max said sharply.
The little man did so, eyeing them with resentment.
“You
are
Mr. Moffat, aren’t you?” Patience asked, checking the damage to her skirts as the dog was banished to the recesses of the house.
“I’m Archie Moffat. What yer want?” he repeated suspiciously.
“Her ladyship has explained it to you already,” Max said angrily. “Now stand aside, my good man! We have had quite enough of this nonsense.”
“You don’t mean yer coming in?” he said, apparently amazed.
“I do mean it,” Max said curtly. “Our vehicle is bogged down in your lawn—in your weeds, I should say. Send someone this instant to collect my lady’s trunk.”
“Ain’t no one here but me,” said Moffat, thrusting his jaw out fiercely.
“Then
you
go!” Max snapped. “Quicker, please! And direct my men to the stables. Thank you!” he added, dragging the man from the doorway and sending him on his way down the path. The terrier, no longer restrained by his master’s foot, lunged at Patience again.
Ignoring him, Max lifted his bride in his arms and carried her over the threshold with the terrier still attached to her skirt, which was beginning to tear.
It was extremely dark within, despite the modest fire in the big hearth. The furnishings were sparse, namely a pair of worn wooden settles and an age-blackened table in the inglenook. The stone floor was strewn with leaves that seemed to have blown in from the outdoors. In the farthest corner of the room, a milk cow stood in a mound of straw, placidly chewing her cud. As Max and Patience stared at her, she greeted them with a dull moo.
“We seem to have found the stables,” Max said, setting Patience on her feet. Kneeling down, he pried the terrier’s jaws apart and freed her skirt. Tucking the dog under his arm for safekeeping, he climbed to his feet.
“You mean this is not the house? Oh, thank God!”
“No, this is the house,” he told her apologetically. “This is the house
and
the stable.”
“Oh, dear,” she said, looking around in dismay. “I think the cow has been eating the curtains.”
“I think you are right,” he said. “Have a seat by the fire,” he added, handing her the dog. “Dry your skirts. I’ll see if there’s anything to eat in this cursed place. I am hungry, but not hungry enough to eat the curtains.”
Patience carried the squirming dog to the inglenook while Max lit a candle and went off to find the kitchen. The table between the two benches in the nook was covered with books, old newspapers, and shoe-black. Mr. Archie Moffat, she supposed, had been polishing his boots when they arrived. Patience sat down on one of the benches and removed her bonnet, setting it on the bench next to her.
It was a mistake. The terrier instantly seized it and ran off. Patience gave chase, pursuing him to the stairs, shouting, “You rascal! Come back here!”
At the staircase, she caught the newel post and skidded to a stop as the dog darted up the stairs and dropped her bonnet at the feet of the tall, spare gentleman on the landing. As Patience stared, the tall man stooped to retrieve her bonnet.
“His name is Rufus,” he said. “He is indeed a rascal.”
Patience stared at the man in disbelief. He was much older than she remembered, but his eyes were a clear green without a trace of hazel and his features were finely sculpted.
“My God!” she gasped, pale and struggling to breathe.
“No,” he said, coming down the stairs toward her, with his little dog on his heels. “I must insist his name is Rufus. I know, you see; I named him.”
“I beg your pardon!” Patience stammered. “For a moment, I thought you were someone else. Who—who are you?”
“Who am I?” he repeated. “Don’t you know, child? I know who you are.”
“But ... it can’t be,” she whispered. “You’re dead.”
“No, child,” he said, drawing nearer. Slowly, he reached out and placed his thin hand on her shoulder.
Patience looked into his green eyes, and, for the first time in her life, she fainted.
 
 
When she came to, she was lying in the inglenook, on one of the settles, and Max was hovering over her with a look of concern on his dark face. “Oh, Max!” she said, throwing her arms around him. “I have seen a ghost.”
“Drink this,” he said calmly. Helping her sit up, he handed her wine in a cracked glass. As she took the glass, he wrapped a blanket around her shoulders. It smelled strongly of shoe polish and tobacco. “There’s no such thing as ghosts,” he told her firmly.
“I know that,” she said. “But I have seen one all the same. My father is here. I mean, his spirit is here. He has come back from beyond the grave! He must have something very important to say to me.”
“No, Patsy,” he said gently, again pressing her to drink from the glass.
“He is here!” she insisted. “Max, I tell you: I saw him! I am not mad.”
“I’m not your father, child,” said another voice. Its owner sat down on the other side of the table. “I am your uncle, Ambrose Waverly. I’m sorry I gave you a fright,” he added.
Patience shook her head rapidly. “No! You’re dead.”
“So is your father, if it comes to that,” said Ambrose Waverly. Impatiently, he looked at Max. “I say! You told me she was a sensible young woman.”
“I am a sensible young woman,” Patience said indignantly.
“Well, then!” he said. “Cease your prattle! Arthur is dead, I suppose, but
I
am very much alive. Heavens! Did Arthur never tell you he had a twin brother?”
Patience shook her head. “My father never mentioned you,” she said. “He never spoke of his family at all.”
Ambrose, Lord Waverly, grunted. “No? Well, he wouldn’t, would he? We never got on. I suppose he blamed
me
for having been born first.”
“That does not sound like my father,” Patience murmured.
He looked at her keenly. “You have a twin sister, I believe, or so Campbell tells me. Does
she
ever resent
you
?”
“No,” said Patience, glaring at Max, who could not help rolling his eyes. “Of course she doesn’t.”
Lord Waverly grunted.
“I beg your pardon, sir,” Patience said tentatively, “but if you are not dead, sir ...”
“Of course I’m not dead!” he snapped.
“Then who was it they pulled out of the river?” she asked. “Who is buried in your grave?”
“An excellent question,” said Max, sitting next to her on the settle.
Lord Waverly looked annoyed. “How should I know? Whoever he was, he was a thief, and I’m not sorry he’s dead. Why should I be?”
“If you don’t know him, how do you know he was a thief?” Patience asked reasonably.
“He had my watch in his pocket, didn’t he?” said her uncle. “That’s what it said in the newspapers, anyway. Well, I didn’t
give
my watch to him. Ergo, he must have been a thief. Still, he did me a favor. I was very glad to hear that I was dead. My debts had become quite tiresome!”
“Yes, I know,” Patience said dryly. “As your heir, I was called upon to pay them!”
“As my heir, I’d say it was the least you could do!” he retorted.
“So you decided to play dead in order to escape your creditors,” said Max. “It would appear the jig is up, my lord. What now?”
“What do you mean the jig is up?” Lord Waverly squawked. “You ain’t going to peach on me, are you?”
“We can’t go on pretending that you’re dead, Uncle,” said Patience.
“I’d liefer be dead, if you don’t mind,” he replied. “Look here, you can keep the title. Just sign the sale papers.”
“I see,” said Max. “The sale was your idea.”
“I can’t sell something that doesn’t belong to me!” Patience protested. “Why don’t you sell the place yourself? It’s your property, not mine.”
He looked at her as if she were an imbecile. “I can’t sell it; I signed an entail when I was just a nipper. My hands are tied.
You
haven’t signed any entail, have you?” he asked sharply.
“No.”
He beamed at her. “Good girl! Then you can sell it and give me the money.”
“Uncle! That would be fraudulent.”
His eyes narrowed. “Oh, I see! You want a piece of the action. Well, I won’t give you more than five percent.”
“I don’t want money,” Patience laughed.
“Well, of course you don’t,” he said. “You’re an heiress, aren’t you? And your husband is rich as Midas, too. Why do you begrudge me a mere ten thousand? I must have something to live on.”
“You must have something to live on because you are alive,” Patience pointed out. “Be glad of that, Uncle.”
He made a face. “No, I must stay dead. I owe Sir Charles Stanhope more than this place is worth.”
“Sir Charles!” Patience said scornfully. “He doesn’t even have an IOU.”
Lord Waverly chuckled. “Yes, I tricked him proper, didn’t I? He thought I’d gone over to the writing desk to give him my vowels. But, in fact, I wrote in plain English: “Kiss mine arse”! By the time the old fool read it, they were pulling me out of the river!”
“Oh, Uncle!” Patience chided him, though she could not help laughing.
“I was not so clever with Lord Banville,” he muttered.
“That was only twenty-five hundred pounds,” said Patience. “I will pay it.”
“That is good of you,” he approved. “But it still doesn’t give me anything to live on.”
Patience frowned. “Have you no income from the estate?”
“A pittance!” Slyly, Lord Waverly looked at Max. “You see how it is, don’t you, Purefoy? I’m not a greedy man, I hope. Ten thousand pounds would set me up forever!”
“Uncle!”
“Surely that is not too much to ask?” Lord Waverly said belligerently. “After all, I am giving you my favorite niece. What say you, Purefoy?”
Patience put her hand on Max’s arm. “I’m afraid you misunderstand the situation, Uncle,” she said coolly. “My husband is not as rich as Midas. He can give you nothing. Even if he could, I would forbid him to do so. I am not to be purchased like a head of beef!”
“You talk nonsense, baggage,” Lord Waverly snarled at his favorite niece. “Is he not nephew and heir to the Duke of Sunderland? I daresay his income sits pretty at ten thousand a year! Of course he shall pay. And you are not yet twenty-one, I believe.”
“What has that to say to anything?” Patience said angrily. “Do not presume that you are my guardian!”
“I do so presume, you brazen hussy! You
will
be purchased like a head of beef, if I have anything to say about it. I shall be paid, or, by God, I’ve a mind to challenge this marriage. I’ll have it annulled, so I will.”
Max held up his hands for peace. “Let us come to an understanding,” he said quietly. “My lord, we have no quarrel with you. Ten thousand pounds is more than reasonable. I will pay.”
“What?” cried Patience. “Even if you had that kind of money, which you don’t—! Max, I forbid you to give him so much as a penny!”
“A penny! ’Tis no more than you’re worth, too, little saucebox!”
“You’re barking up the wrong tree, Uncle,” Patience told him coldly. “My husband is the Duke of Sunderland’s nephew, but he’s not his heir. Not anymore. The duke had his parents’ marriage annulled. He’s not even a Purefoy anymore. His name is Farnese. And, since I am no more Lady Waverly, that means I am Mrs. Farnese.”
“Mrs. Farnese! What nonsense is this? This is the son of Lord Richard Purefoy and his lawful wife. There’s no annulling
that
marriage; ’twas attempted at the time. Even if it could be annulled, Sunderland wouldn’t do it. He’s a sentimental old fool, fond of the boy.”
“But Max’s father was not twenty-one when he married,” said Patience, glancing at Max. “I know it is painful for you, my love, but you must tell my uncle you are not the golden goose he thinks you are!”
“Not twenty-one!” Lord Waverly snorted. “True enough, I suppose. He was four and twenty at least. I should know, for we were at school together. Somebody’s sold you a bill of goods, my girl! I shouldn’t be at all surprised to find that your marriage is a sham through and through.”
“Max!”
“Don’t be absurd,” Max said angrily. “Of course it is not a sham. Patience is my wife.”

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