Page 23 of The Baroness of Sin
Martha blinked in disbelief, “Please don’t take offense to this My Lord, but you are in earnest? You don’t speak in jest?”
“I am afraid not. The circumstances of my inheritance are incredibly bleak,” he admitted. He examined the look on her face. “I apologize if that is too direct. Though I was raised with some sense of decorum and knowledge of proper manners, I was not raised in high society itself. I feel very much like a fish trying to climb a tree.”
Martha nodded awkwardly, completely unsure what to say to the dower gentleman. After a moment, she tried to grasp at any conversation she could dredge up. “And now... you wish to marry?”
He nodded. “I know that to be the proper course of action for a gentleman in my standing to take. I knew your brother from our studies and was lamenting my utter uncertainty of this situation, and he suggested I meet you.”
Martha bit her tongue, saving a few choice words for her brother later. She pitied this poor gentleman, but the last thing he needed right now was to get married to a widowed lady. He would be even more outside his realm of experience. It was reasonably safe to think that he would have little concept of how she was supposed to behave.
That was when an idea struck Martha. Not one wholly malicious, but one that was not in the best of taste either. Still, it would probably be wise to nip this whole situation right in the bud.
She just hoped the idea didn’t backfire.
“You said that you didn’t socialize in high society before your inheritance of the title, My Lord? So, you are fairly inexperienced in the realm of socializing?” Martha prodded gently.
Lord Wyldwen nodded with that same forlorn look. “I was provided for by my distant family, but my perceived lack of status meant they wanted me to be as private as possible. I rarely socialized outside of the occasional family event.”
“Well, if that is the case, I am surprised that my brother would be so keen on having you meet with me,” Martha said nonchalantly.
“Excuse me, My Lady?” The Lord looked confused.
“Well, he informed you of my circumstances?” she questioned.
“He had only informed me that you were widowed. Was there more to it than that?” he asked with uncertainty.
“Not in this context, not particularly. I am just surprised my brother thought that it was a wise move, to have you consider courting a formerly married lady,” she said with a sweet smile. She felt a little bad because this poor gentleman did not know the trap he was wandering into, and even if he did, she knew he had no defense for it.
“I am not, um, exactly clear to your meaning, but I can assure you that your previous marriage doesn’t bother me. I don’t believe that would make you less of a suitable prospect for a wife,” he told her, a faint trace of worry crept into his voice.
“No, I didn’t assume you felt like that. I just mean…” Martha smiled a little wider. “Well, I was married, so my expectations of a husband might be a little higher than you are prepared for,” she said gently.
His confusion didn’t lessen but shifted a little as he tried to sort out her meaning. “I may have never been married, but I don’t think I would be an improper husband.” His brow scrunched unsure if she was insulting him.
“Oh no, My Lord, not improper at all, just a little inexperienced.” This time she arched an eyebrow to punctuate her sentence.
Lord Wyldwen continued to stare at her with a blank look in his eyes. She sighed internally. She had been prepared to elaborate slightly in this ruse, but she hadn’t anticipated he would be this hard to get through to. She wasn’t embarrassed enough to break off the plan yet, but she was growing concerned.
“My Lord, I was married. A husband and wife have certain responsibilities to one another. I am used to having my needs as a wife met to a certain degree in proficiency.” This was a lie, but the goal was to scare this Lord away, not open up to him. “A proficiency that I do not think is wholly incorrect for me to assume you are unfamiliar with, given the circumstances.” She stressed each word to make sure that her message was as direct as possible.
She watched the slow realization down in his face. The realization became shock, and then they sat in silence, his expression unchanging. At first, Martha felt a little bad, but the longer the silence went on the more comical it became to her. Was this gentleman really so terrified by what she was insinuating? Maybe he really was too inexperienced for her.
“My Lady,” he began finally and immediately stumbled, searching for the words that would lead him to the end of a coherent sentence. “I thought that perhaps... well what I imagined was…” He really was lost, the poor gentleman. Martha would have sworn she could measure time by the slow rise of red spreading up through the gentleman’s face as he stammered.
“You thought what?” Martha knew this was her time to deal the final blow if she wanted to scare him away for good, and although she felt some pity, she couldn’t help but enjoy teasing this gentleman who had been sent to her expecting a timid, doe-eyed lady. “My days of being a blushing court-lady have passed, My Lord. I am looking for a gentleman who will keep me content.” She leaned forward, a predatory note in her tone as she rested her elbows on her knees and rested her chin in the palms of her hands and eyed him like a hungry cat. “Do you think you can keep me happy, Lord Wyldwen?”
She would swear later that the gentleman leapt from his seat and walked quickly over to the door without a word, somehow pale and bright red at the same time, never to be heard from by a member of her family again. That was despite multiple attempts by her brother to get in touch with the Lord about how the meeting went.
Letty would later testify that other servants had told her that the gentleman had politely, if quickly, begged her pardon and departed in the middle of tea, though she didn’t tell that version to people often, as she felt Lady Carrington’s better captured the spirit of what the young Lord wanted to do rather than what he actually did.
In later tellings, Benjamin declined to discuss the matter at all and would become quite perturbed if he was pressed for details about how the Count of Wyrdwen was fairing.
Chapter Seventeen
James kept a sharp eye on Martha’s home the day that another unfamiliar carriage pulled up. This time he felt slightly different from before. He did know who was in the carriage this time, and he knew for sure what their intent with the lady was. He wasn’t nearly as bothered as before; his meeting the other night with Martha had reassured him.
Still, he tried to push the whole idea out of his mind. He thought that his mind had been wandering to the lady of that home far too often for his own comfort. He thought himself a gentleman with more than a small amount of self-control. He never felt so gripped by temptation as when he thought of Martha. Whenever he pictured her in his mind, he could feel his heart begin to thump in his chest. Waiting the two weeks before had been torturous, but he was certain that the remaining week would be utter agony.
As he turned to go back to his office, off to fail to find something to distract his mind, he spotted a figure moving quickly to the waiting carriage. The figure seemed to scramble hurriedly. James worried for a moment before he became far too amused trying to imagine what the lady did to scare the gentleman off.
