Page 9 of The Mad Baron's Bride
He could not be here. He couldnot. For if he were alive and recognized her, her freedom was at an end.
In a shaking voice, Leda required pen and ink of the agent coordinating the mail, and for an excessive sum, he rendered them. Her hands shaking just as badly, Leda opened her package and scrawled a quick note inside, a desperate question, a plea. The two people who could help her were in as much danger as Leda if their secret were discovered.
Her ears rang with the buzz of wasps as she stepped into the Pump Room. Light falling through the far windows blinded her momentarily. The high ceilings dwarfed the occupants of the room, the noise of conversation a gentle susurration no stronger,or more important, than the lapping of the baths next door in their concrete basin.
Gentlemen clustered around papers, discussing news of riots and sailing ships and war, while ladies promenaded, striving to engage the attention of the gentlemen. Someone’s dog rushed past, yipping, while a small tiger in livery and a riding whip tried to clear a path for a servant pushing a Bath chair containing a master whose affliction, one would guess at the sight of him, was gout. From his alcove high in the wall the statue of Beau Nash smiled down upon what he had wrought, and his marble smile said he found it good.
The man, the black shadow, could step inside any moment. Everyone came here, the newly arrived to make themselves known, those settled for the season to survey the new arrivals. He would come and he would see Leda and he would—what?
What power could a dead man have over her?
He would know that Caledonia Toplady had not died as they’d been told.
He would ask what else she had lied about.
He would ask where the child was.
“Mrs. Wroth. Are you quite well?”
The words filtered through her fog but didn’t register as belonging to her. A form loomed in the corner of her eye, and out of instinct she shrank away.
“Leda,” a voice said quietly, and she turned toward it.
Brancaster, so splendidly solid, like a wall that could keep back the dark. She blinked and focused on his steady eyes, his concerned frown.
“Forgive me. You seemed very far away.”
He held out an arm to her, and she took it.
That was a mistake, for once she had him, a steady support, she did not want to let him go.
“What has upset you?”
She forced her lips to move. “Did you write your name in the book?”
“Yes, I?—”
“I want to see.” Leda fairly dragged him toward the register on its small table. The newest signers moved away, slow as treacle, and she peered at the list of names. Ink danced before her eyes.
“The Duchess of Gordon is in town.” Lady Plume gave Leda a start, showing up at her shoulder. “It’s been an age since I saw Jane. I do hope she’s not ill—that would be such a shame. She was looking forward to leisure once she had all her daughters married.”
“Be advised that is your one duty as a parent, milord,” Leda said, her voice hollow in her ears. “Raise the girl to be married.”
He raised his brows. There was something wicked in the gesture, and her stomach curled in on itself. Perhaps she ought to have eaten that second slice of toast.
“The philosophy of your parents, I take it?”
“And your wife’s parents also, I am sure.”
“So it was.” His jaw set, and he looked out over the small crowd assembled in the Pump Room, but his gaze was distant. “Yet I suspect that was not her goal for herself.”
It was not here, the name she dreaded to see. But that did not mean he was not in town. It could mean he had only just arrived and had not yet signed the register.
It could mean he might enter the room at any moment. Would he recognize her, after all this time?
What man would not recognize the woman convicted of his murder?
She pulled Brancaster away from the ledger, her fingers digging into his arm with unnecessary tension. “Tell me more about the qualities you desire in a wife. The next to hold that privilege may well be in this room.”
