Page 20 of The Mad Baron's Bride
Brancaster joined them, and Leda’s nerves fired at his nearness. He seemed so large, difficult to harm. He could not be overpowered by a mere woman.
But what might he, with his own power, do to a woman? There was strength in his shoulders, in the chest straining the buttons of his morning coat. There was power in his hands.
Hands that had led her so gracefully in their dance. Hands that had raised wildfires of lust across her skin the night before.
“Lord Brancaster.” Lady Sydney cooed as if she had not nearly accused him of murder moments before, when his back was turned. “You are bringing us the fashions of London, I think.”
“I wear what my tailor makes me, madame.” Brancaster made the ladies a brief bow. His suit lacked much embroidery or ornamentation, the dark blue cloth of his tailcoat cut away to show a gold-striped waistcoat and pantaloons of a muted buff color tucked into tall black boots. Beside the heavy embroidered silks and bright patterns of the other gentleman in the room, he looked severe and commanding, a watchful kestrel among a flock of bright warblers.
Dangerous. A warning rippled across Leda’s neck. She could not throw herself on his mercy.
“Which of the Misses Warren is making her bid to be your bride?” Leda asked.
“Fanny, my dear, I believe you might be permitted to make the acquaintance of our interesting new arrival,” Lady Sydney said. “If that is the gentleman staring so fixedly in this direction.”
Leda looked toward the counter where the cups of mineral water were dispensed and felt she stepped out of her world into a pantomime. The figures around her grew blurred and misshapen, mere blobs of bright color with leering faces, paper-thin mockeries that might be shredded away. From across the room, his dark eyes sank into her like claws.
He was large, a brown suit with a high collar and ruffled cravat cradling his round face with its heavy jowls, the insolent set of his rosebud mouth. He looked a man who demanded to be given his due.
She knew she must be seeing the nephew, and yet he was so much his uncle come to life that she was certain she faced a ghost. Cold trails of fear raked down her spine.
He’d found her, after all this time. He’d come for justice at last. Or revenge.
“Brancaster.” Her throat was tight, her voice high with panic. “I would like to leave.”
“Where to?” He offered his elbow, and she took it before her knees collapsed. He was firm and solid.
“The—King’s Bath. You have not seen it yet. And the Abbey. You must visit the Abbey.” She tugged futilely. He was too large to push.
He searched the room for the focus of her stare, and found him. Toplady’s beady glare moved briefly to Brancaster.
No. No, no.She must not make Brancaster a target. And she must not allowhimto come anywhere near her.
“The Baths,” she said desperately. If he pursued her, she could push him in. It would make her a murderer twice over, but he must not,must notbe allowed to speak to her.
“What has upset you?” Finally, to her great relief, Brancaster steered her toward the pillared doorway and the promise of light and air beyond.
“Upset? Not at all. I have made a decision.” She hauled him out the door. “We will not find your governess here, or a wife. I am coming with you to Norfolk.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
He didn’t know what led her to change her mind. He didn’t trust she was being honest with him about her motives.
But Leda was with him, and while Jack reminded himself to be on his guard, he couldn’t find it in him to regret that he was now forced to spend several days on the road with her.
Alone, he’d taken the stagecoach along the main roads down to London and through to Bath. It was a slow, clumsy way to travel, and it was also the cheapest and least dangerous means available, when a man alone on horseback, traversing the entire width of southern England, was simply asking to be robbed, beaten, and left for dead. But he couldn’t ask Leda Wroth, a gently bred woman, to hack alone with him on some shambling hired nag across fields and country lanes, subject to who knew what weather or other threats.
Lady Plume expressed her doubts about the stagecoach option, but she did not address her remarks to Leda’s delicacy. It was clear to anyone who knew her that Mrs. Wroth was not in the least delicate, in constitution or sensibility. The woman had steel in her backbone.
“But in a coach, you’ll be subject to anyone who can pay the fare inside,” Lady Plume said when Jack outlined his plansover breakfast. “Not to mention those who pay the outside fare and overcrowd the roof. Pirates. Ex-prisoners. Someone inside your coach will undoubtedly smell of onions, and someone atop will almost certainly be drunk. Then there will be the cub who imagines himself quite the whip and badgers the coachman to let him take the ribbons, and will no doubt overturn the coach.”
“If Mrs. Wroth minds the discomfort, I will accommodate her and hire a post-chaise,” Jack said, calculating in his head the cost of hiring horses for the miles from Bath to Hunstanton, the tips for the ostlers, the tips for the postboys, the meals in public inns, and how to find coaching inns that could accommodate a lady. The cost would strain his budget until the next quarter rents came due, that was certain.
A baron, nearly broke. What a laughable situation. It was why he couldn’t show his face in London for a regular Season, or take his seat in Lords. It was why he couldn’t persuade a governess to put aside her reservations about the remote aspect or condition of Holme Hall, nor the difficulty presented by her charge. Not for the first time, Jack cursed the profligate life the former baron had led without a thought for the unknown nephew who would inherit a ramshackle house and the tumbledown farms that remained of the estate after the previous Brancaster had sold off everything he could to live a life of riotous comfort.
But Jack could not, in good conscience, treat Leda like a servant, even if she had hired herself as his interim governess, with the scope of her salary to be settled once they reached Norfolk and she could properly assess the situation.
He had not yet told her fully what she would find. He dreaded the confession, and what it said about him. The light it cast over them all.
