Page 14 of The Mad Baron's Bride
Leda decided not to tell her the entire truth. Lady Oxmantown had never much liked her, but the matter of Mr. Crutch had sealed Leda’s villainy in her eyes.
“Agnes, I do find myself surprised at the liberties you afford your servants,” Lady Oxmantown went on. “Why, here is milord with his glass nearly empty, and your butler has not yet stirred himself to pour more wine.”
Gibbs, following Lady Plume’s nod, hastened to his lordship’s elbow with the bottle of Madeira. Her ladyship abhorred drunkenness at her table and had given Gibbs very specific instructions about fortifying Oxmantown, who would not on his own exhibit the least restraint.
Brancaster, Leda noted, enjoyed small sips from his cup, but at the same slow pace demonstrated by Mr. Warren, whom Leda suspected had not strayed far from his former merchant’s shop and more temperate bourgeois values.
“As for your companion, as you call her.” Lady Oxmantown was not finished with her diatribe. “Why, here she is in a splendid gown, sitting at your table enjoying your largesse, and telling your friends how they ought to go on. Do you suppose any other lady in town would afford her the same license?”
“No, which is how I have allowed no one else in town to lure her away from me,” Lady Plume answered. “Including yourself when you asked, Jane. Leda keeps me very comfortable, and I like to reward her for it.”
“And yet you proposed, just this morning, loaning me to Brancaster to set his affairs in order and find him a wife,” Leda could not help remarking.
“But who says an excursion to Norfolk would not be a reward,” Lady Plume replied, cutting a French bean. “It’s lovely this time of year, and Holme Hall is quite charming.”
Brancaster took a bracing draught of wine.
Leda could not go to Norfolk, because she had to figure out how to keep her character but leave her very comfortable position with Lady Plume if the ghost she had seen this morning were indeed real, not the dead man but the dead man’s heir, here in town, meaning to stay long enough that his path might cross with Leda’s. She had changed a great deal in ten years, at least on the inside; she was wiser, calmer, and would not be commanded. She must take a moment to think, not blindly rush into the cold and the darkness when she felt she was under threat.
But if older and grown she still possessed the same dark brown hair and unusual eyes, the same shape to her face and form, the scar her husband had left in the hairline at her left temple. She, too, would look a ghost come alive to the interloper, since for the last six years he had thought her dead.
She had left the express command that he be told this.
And she would die in truth did he make her go back.
The beads decorating Leda’s gown grew constricting, though she had worn her most comfortable stays. They lay against her skin like so many small needles, and the swoop on her bodice that had in the shop looked so beguiling now seemed to outline exactly where a man might plunge a knife to best pierce her heart.
Brancaster watched her curiously. Damn the man and his all too perceptive eyes. Why could he not be preoccupied with food, wine, and his own importance, like Oxmantown?
She had been safe in Bath, or if not safe, at least hidden. But Lady Oxmantown reminded her how precarious her position was. Lady Plume had petted Leda because Leda’s skills at managing and fixing—oh, all right, some would call it meddling—kept Lady Plume at the center of interesting schemes and the best gossip. Her ladyship could, and would, turn Leda off in a moment if Leda were no longer a credit to her establishment orin any way brought discord into the luxurious comfort that Lady Plume enjoyed.
What poetic justice that it should be Brancaster—the man who drove women mad—who had stirred up this hornet’s nest for her. If she had to give up the life she’d built and leave once again with nothing, Leda might go mad in truth.
Lady Plume did notfancy herself a literary sort, but she housed a few shelves of books in the smaller drawing room on the second floor. It was here Leda repaired after the guests at last departed, Mr. Ravelli far overstaying his welcome to persuade Leda to perform one more duet with him, and then one more. She was only a passable musician at best, no compare to Mr. Ravelli’s truly fine tenor, but if he were not attempting to recruit her as a music teacher for his school, then he was doing a creditable job of showing her what life as his wife would be like.
If Leda married again, she could not fall into the clutches of the ghost. By law she was free to marry, she thought. Or at least, she was no longer bound to a husband. She was not entirely apprised of the finer points of law when it came to marrying a woman who had been locked away for being mad.
The library might offer her ideas, so she stole there with her chamber candle after she hung up the delicate red gauze, wondering when she might have occasion to wear such a beautiful gown again. Certainly she couldn’t take her fine things on the run, and the goal of her foray into Lady Plume’s tiny library was to find a map to tell her where in the world she might go.
Wales? She’d heard it was an uncharted place, filled with trolls and wild men in caves. The farthest reaches of Cornwall, where land dropped into the rocky sea? She might be trapped like a fox at bay there. Perhaps she ought to consider goingnorth, to the untamed Highlands, to hide herself among the craggy mountains and misty moors and vast tracts of unpeopled land. Toplady would never look for her there.
A light shone in the drawing room around the deep upholstered chair. Brancaster sat within it, ankle crossed over one knee. In what was no doubt a nod to Lady Plume’s sense of propriety he had worn knee breeches with silk stockings and black pumps to dinner, and the fabric stretched over his muscular legs. She oughtn’t look at his thighs.
Leda moved her gaze up and lost track of her breathing for a moment. He’d set aside his coat and cravat and sat in his shirtsleeves, which ended in a small ruffled cuff at his wrist, and a beautifully embroidered brocade waistcoat. She hadn’t had an opportunity to appreciate it at dinner, but she took a moment now to admire the delicate swirls of thread, and the masculine strength in his broad shoulders and chest.
He looked up from his book. His hair was slightly mussed, the waves not as smooth as they’d been over dinner, and a small shadow of stubble cloaked his jaw, making him seem a bit rakish. She hadn’t seen a man in undress in years, and never a man who appealed so completely to her sense of aesthetics. Sally the kitchen maid would call him a prime article and no mistake, and she would not be wrong.
“I’ve interrupted you.”
He didn’t speak, so she did, needing to break the spell his steady gaze cast over her. She was undressed as well, having pulled over her undergown the morning gown she would never actually wear in the morning, because it was likely Lady Plume would receive callers or want to go out. The loose neckline revealed more of her decolletage than she was accustomed to showing in company and, while the voluminous folds concealed the outlines of her body, the sheer fabric showed the form beneath despite herself.
The candlelight shivered and danced, much as Leda’s pulse was doing.
“You are welcome to interrupt me.”
The low rasp of his voice raised the hair on her arms and shoulders, a thrill of alarm.
She had never encountered this before, an imposing man in her private spaces. She hadn’t realized they could take up so much space in a chair, in a room, even when sitting still, emanating a sense of strength leashed and waiting beneath that touchable fabric. She’d forgotten, or pushed aside, the memory of the ways of men, their big hands, their scents of spice and tobacco, their deep voices.
