Page 30 of The Mad Baron's Bride
The path turned a corner and Jack saw the boy, white shirt flapping half out of his breeches, trying to milk a nanny goat that did not wish to cooperate. The yard was tidy, with various implements scattered about: a trough for the goat, a butter churn, a washtub turned on its side to dry, a basket sitting beside the front step as if the owner had been interrupted in an errand. A hen scuttled away from Jack’s feet as they approached.
Leda clutched the paper packet to her middle as if she expected the boy to throw stones and she might use it for a shield.
The lad spotted them and straightened, pushing back his cap. “Hi, here’s strangers at the gate! Gander-flanking, are ye?”
“No, we are not wandering or lost.” Leda swallowed hard. Her smile was forced and bright. “We have come to visit. You must be Ives. I am Mrs. Leda Wroth.”
“Mrs. Wroth?” The boy blinked.
Then his face broke into a delighted smile that revealed several missing teeth. “Mum!” he bellowed at the house without turning. “Me other mum is here! The fancy one.”
Setting down the milk bucket, he placed his feet and executed a perfectly courtly little bow, his speech turning formal. “I am delighted to finally meet you, Mother.”
CHAPTER NINE
From the corner of her eye, Leda saw Brancaster startle at the termmother.She hadn’t known how to prepare him. She could only pray he would not make a fuss.
If he would accede to her wish that he not ask questions, it would mark the first time in her life a man had done so.
Two women bustled out of the cottage, and Leda felt the strangest sense of stepping back in time, of crossing a border that had once seemed unbreachable. She was exposing, to a stranger she barely knew, the three people in the world she had built her entire new identity around protecting.
She shied a glance at Brancaster as she gathered her skirts to step over a muddy spot that Nanny had left by kicking over her milk. He wore the expression she’d seen him wear in the Pump Room when greeting strangers: cordial, correct, reserved.
She held out her free hand. “Will you shake my hand, Ives? I have been eager to meet you for a long time now.”
He glanced at the women behind him, seeking permission. “Very well, if it’s thedonething.” His speech was stilted, and Leda held back a laugh.
His hand was strong, his body well-formed. He looked a boy fed with all the proper food, air, and exercise a boy his ageneeded to grow. His dark hair was roughly cut, a thick thatch standing out every which way, and Leda wondered if he would develop his father’s hawk-like nose. He certainly had his father’s eyes, so dark as to appear black, but on Ives, they twinkled with merriment and life.
Forgoing the etiquette that said she should introduce Brancaster first, Leda extended her hand to the other women. The elder, shorter and plump, shook it in both of hers, but the younger, Leda’s age, held her palms to her cheeks, shaking her head as her eyes filled with tears.
“Mum—we didn’t think—we never knowed—and you’re here now, aren’t you?”
“I’m sorry I didn’t send word. It was quite by accident that we came to Chippenham at all, but once we were here…I hope it is all right to see you?”
“Of course it is!” The elder wiped her hands on her apron and beamed at both of them. “Come in, you and your sprawny.”
“We are not courting.” Leda’s cheeks grew hot. “Milord Brancaster, may I introduce you to my friends? This is Mrs. Blake,” she indicated the elder, “and this is Betsey Cowper—Mrs. Cowper, that is.” Betsey, gaping at Brancaster, wobbled her head in assent.
“And this is Ives. Or rather, Master Ives…Toplady. My dears, this is the Baron Brancaster of Holme Hall, Norfolk.”
The boy executed another bow, his eyes round as eggs. “Gor! A real British lord? In our yard?”
“Heavens, and us with naught but tatties on the table for nuncheon,” Mrs. Blake cried. “Well, it’s all a huckmuck, but you’d best come in anyway, aye? There’s tea, at least, some of the bohea you last sent us. Quite tasty.”
Betsey, awed, made her curtsey, and then, as if fearing it was not deep enough for a lord, made another, deeper obeisance. Her head was clearly turned by him, and Leda could not blameher. In his striped coat with its broad lapels and cutaway tails, a pair of buff breeches, and his tall traveling boots, Brancaster cut a fine figure.
For the life of her, Leda could not move to answer Mrs. Blake’s invitation.
She had felt that figure curved against her body for the hours of the coach ride that morning.
Then again pressed against her when he carried her in his arms through the water seeping over the causeway.
That figure was burned into her arms, into her skin. When she inhaled, he invaded her nose, citrus and cedar and some rich earthy tone that whisperedman.
She had never had a sweetheart, as Mrs. Blake had jokingly called him, but Brancaster was the one man she’d ever met who could overset her, sending her pulse aflutter and her nerves alight.
And he was the only person she had ever let in on her secret. Blood thrummed in her head at her madness. She had led him here blithely, thinking only it would be lovely to see her friends in person, not thinking ahead to the consequences. Not thinking that he could as easily lead someone else here as well, now that he knew.
