Page 36 of The Mad Baron's Bride
Ives scrunched his face in thought, then nodded, lighting on the image.
“Much that size.”
Ives regarded their visitor with new respect. “That’s big.”
“Now, imagine that house not on the gentle River Avon, but on a hill, with steep cliffs dropping down to the North Sea.”
Ives’ expression said he was trying and failed. He had no conception of the sea. “Can you see where the Norsemen came from?”
“On a clear day? No. But if you stare long enough, you can imagine. Did you know I live in the one place in England where you can watch the sun rise over the water and set in the water on the same day?”
Ives narrowed his eyes. Brancaster laid his right hand on the table. “Norfolk sticks out in the sea, like this. And I live here.” He pointed to the outside of his index finger. “So from Hunstanton, we look west to what we call The Wash, and east to the North Sea.”
Ives shook his head. “I’d fancy that. Living with the sea all around you, and big cliffs, and boats with Norsemen. I’ve never been beyond Wick Hill.”
“Perhaps you can visit someday and meet my daughter. Muriel.”
Leda said the name softly to herself. Brancaster was opening up with Ives the way he had not with her, or his aunt.
He seemed easier here in the country, in the open air. In town he’d been stiff and wary as a cat. Here his shoulders relaxed, and his jaw unclenched. She’d spotted him emerging from the garden in just his waistcoat with his shirtsleeves rolled up, and the sight of his bare forearms, with their line of muscle, momentarily robbed her of breath. He was a powerfully built man, but the taming veneer of civilization returned when he slid on and buttoned his coat.
She’d caught his conversation to Ives, explaining that a gentleman never let a lady see him undressed, unless she was his wife. She’d been only marginally composed when he and Ives came inside, Ives carrying the basket of gooseberries as his prize. Even now when Leda looked at him she saw his arms in his shirt, the way the waistcoat drew tight across his shoulders and hugged his lean waist and broad chest.
She looked back at her plate.
“So you grew up there, on the cliffs.” Ives sat back with the men while the women cleared the table.
“We’ve a second course today, like fine folk.” Mrs. Blake laid out an array of smoked herring and homemade cheese, then set down a tray of sliced pink meat. “And his lordship’s to try the Bath chaps, since Norfolk won’t have such things.”
“After smelling pork from our companion in the coach from Bath to here,” Brancaster said, “I am not sure how much more of it I will want in the next days. But I will try a slice to please Mrs. Wroth.”
“Pig cheeks, pickled in brine, then boiled and cooled,” Leda told him. “Mrs. Blake adores them, so it’s quite fortunate for you she’s willing to share.”
“It cannot be worse than the raw gooseberry Ives dared me to eat,” Brancaster said, accepting the slices the cook heaped on his plate.
Ives giggled. “His lordship’s face! Shoulda seen it,” he told Leda.
She smiled, warmed by their exchange. So many men of her station didn’t have time for those beneath them, children, servants, tradesmen. Brancaster was a different creature, like a lynx of old loosed among British shorthairs.
“I didn’t grow up as a baron’s heir,” Brancaster said to Ives, giving the boy one of his chaps. “Lady Plume had three brothers, and the eldest inherited. The second son had only a daughter, my Aunt Dinah. The baron’s son, my uncle, never married, though his sisters all made high matches.
“But the estate is entailed to heirs of the male line, so my many cousins were passed over when the estate came to my grandfather’s line. With my father passed away, the title fell upon me. If I die without a son, it will go to the Crown, the male line having died out. I think that is the only reason one of my cousins hasn’t seen me tumble off a cliff.”
He winced as he said this, as if the words pained, and Leda flashed back to Lady Sydney’s revelation about his wife’s death.
Fallen…or pushed?
Ives patiently waited for his lordship to try the chaps before he ate his own slice. “Your cousins ain’t happy for you? I always thought it’d be jolly to have family.”
Leda studied the table. Poor Ives, the lone child. She hoped there were at least other boys living nearby. She herself knew what it was to grow up feeling alone and apart, though she’d had a sister.
“Ah, but I’m a disgrace, you see. My grandfather entered the military, but my father did not. He wanted to support a familyproperly, so he became a shoemaker. Quite a good one, I might add. The finest folk in Norwich sought him out.”
Ives made no attempt to disguise his astonishment. “A shoemaker’s son a baron!”
“You see why my cousins despise me and never visit. I fear one or two of my acquaintance in the Smithdon Hundred likewise do not wish to entertain a shoemaker’s son in their gracious homes.”
Leda’s throat pinched.The Mad Baron.He was born a gentleman, but his father had sullied the family name with building a business instead of amusing himself, and living in debt, with gentleman’s pursuits. He held the title, but Jack would never be found worthy of it. He could never redeem himself from that pit.
