Fran Baker (8 page)

His feelings were echoed precisely by Stratford, who notwithstanding, proceeded to charm the majority of the family with his easy good manners. Griffen was most favorably impressed and began to believe Nell had been, as usual, right to set his lordship’s reputation down to vile tale-bearers who jealously embellished his every youthful peccadillo. He was equally pleased with Mr. Baldwin and was gratified to see Rose speaking quietly with the gentleman, though it was a pity she had worn her cap today.

The elder Mrs. Lawrence, having drawn on every reserve of her spare strength, sat in the center of the room, much like a queen holding her court, and it was she who dominated the conversation.

“My dear Lord Stratford, I am sure I need not tell you how pleased and honored we are by your visit to our little home,” she said regally as soon as he was seated. “Though, of course, this is not the manner in which the Lawrences have always lived. No, indeed. I quite remember the gay times we had in London when Mr. Lawrence and I were first married. General Sir Ewan Lawrence is my brother-in-law, you know, but poor George! You know how it is with  younger sons.”

“I am pleased to be here, ma’am,” Stratford said when she paused to take a breath.

“My dear late husband always used to say, before he met with his fatal accident, that his luck would come about, and I feel quite certain that were Mr. Lawrence here today, he would be telling us that it had, at last!” Susanna rattled on brightly. “But I always knew something wonderful would come about with our little Helen. She is the dearest child, so sweet, so good-natured. She’ll make you a lovely viscountess, mark my words.”

“Indeed, ma’am, I shall mark them immediately,” the viscount murmured rather dryly.

“Please, Mama,” Helen interjected softly, a delightful rose caressing her cheeks.

“It is only the simple truth, love! You are all that this lordship could wish for in a wife.”

“Mother,” said her eldest son as a purple flush climbed up his neck, “may I remind you that the matter is not yet settled. Lord Stratford has not yet applied to me.”

“Oh, pooh, Griffen! It’s as good as settled. Is it not, my lord?” she inquired with an arch wave of her hand.

“I’ve no doubt that you’ve indeed settled it, ma’am,” Stratford said, a sardonic smile playing on his full lips.

The hands laying folded upon Miss Rose Lawrence’s woolen lap suddenly clenched and the fire of her anger blazed into her eyes. She could scarcely repress her rage over his lordship’s arrogant mockery, her fury over her family’s willing acceptance of his barely concealed insults.

Stratford was endeavoring not to yawn when he chanced to glance her way. Black eyes met gray and held. His attention was firmly caught by the fierce glare being focused upon him. He looked her up and down. Miss Lawrence sat quietly, her long hands clasped in her lap and her face expressionless, but those overlarge gray eyes were clearly filled with hostility. The viscount found himself wondering what was going on behind the impassive face with the smoldering eyes and how he should discover it.

He was recalled by Susanna, who inquired sharply if he meant to make a formal announcement immediately. He answered that it was his intention to do so and the conversation proceeded as before. When he rose some few minutes later to take his leave, he discovered that the sister with the angry eyes had slipped from the room. Shrugging off his unaccountable disappointment, he agreed to return later for a private interview with Griffen and followed his cousin outside.

Baldwin mounted the curricle and Stratford was about to climb in beside him when his name rang out. He turned to see Miss Rose Lawrence standing on the front step with a small boy attached to each of her hands. He looked at the two children, then at the tall young woman between them. A challenge shone clear in her expressive eyes.

“Lord Stratford, I should like to make you known to my nephews, Master Frederick and Master George Lawrence,” she said directly.

The two little boys bowed solemnly, each with eyes rounded in awe of the man who had driven the magnificent curricle.

“How do you do?” asked the viscount, just as seriously, as he extended his hand.

Freddy shook it gravely, but the younger boy took his aunt’s skirt in his grubby hand and his shyly behind it. With a lift of one black brow, his lordship noted that she seemed neither to mind nor even to notice the damage being done to her gown.

The elder boy tugged at her gown, too, and Rose bent while he stood on tiptoe to place his lips against her cap. Of a sudden, Roses’s laughter filled the air. Colin’s raised brow was joined by its mate, for it was not a tinkling society titter, but a warm, throaty laugh that was as enchanting as it was infectious.

“I think, my dears,” she said with a tilt of her linen mobcap, “that you must ask him yourselves.”

The boys’ brilliant blue eyes widened even further. Freddy’s mouth opened soundlessly.

“May I perhaps be of some help?” his lordship prompted.

“I—if you please, sir!—me and George would like to ride in your curricle. It’s a bang-up rig, sir!” Freddy looked for approval to his aunt.

She nodded her head with such a twinkle in her gray eyes as they came up to meet the viscount’s that Stratford found himself saying, “It could be arranged. Perhaps tomorrow after church, if your mother is agreeable.”

He did not stay to share in the boys’ ecstasy, and when he and Daniel were finally away in his curricle, he wondered again what it had been about those gray eyes that had caused him to assent to taking two young brats into his most prized vehicle.

“I must be getting old,” he remarked aloud.

To which mystifying comment his cousin had no reply.

Chapter 6

The few persons who chanced to travel along the high road in the countryside beyond Willowley the following morning were met with the edifying prospect of Lord Stratford bowling along in his curricle seated between two small boys. Jem nearly fell from his perch when his lordship placed the Masters Lawrence on the seat of his vehicle. In fact, he was moved enough to later forcibly remark to the stable boy at Adderbury that he’d never seen nothing like it, no, nor thought to see again!

Daniel Baldwin had been let down at the front step of Appleton Cottage where he stood with Miss Rose Lawrence watching the curricle pass out of sight. He much admired the modest neatness of her plain attire as he had no liking for the extremes of fashion and was, indeed, much shocked by the practice of the more on-the-go women to damp the petticoats of their sheer gowns. His eyes had more than once wandered to her tall, trim figure during church serves that morning, and they now focused warmly upon her.

“I wish I might know the secret of your success, Miss Lawrence,” he said with a kind smile as they moved inside.

“My success?” she repeated quizzically.

“My family and I have been trying for years to do what took you only a bare moment—to get Stratford to follow one of our suggestions,” he explained in a teasing tone.

“But I assure you, Mr. Baldwin, I did not ‘get’ his lordship to do anything. This was an arrangement between my nephews and him. Indeed, his behavior toward the boys has been such that I fear I’ve been doing him an injustice, she said frankly.

As Rose was in the act of seating herself upon the settee in the deserted parlor, she did not see the puzzlement cross Baldwin’s face. “What sort of injustice could you be doing to Stratford?”

“Oh, well . . . I cannot say I am pleased about this match, Mr. Baldwin. In fact I must confess to having conceived a misliking for it from the moment I first learned of it. But I knew his lordship by repute—”

“Lord, who does not?” he said on a laugh.

She answered him with her own warm laughter. “Yes, but I must now own to having prejudged his lordship. I’m determined not to do so again.”

“I still long for your secret, Miss Lawrence, for at the risk of destroying my cousin’s good name with you once again, I must tell you that Stratford would never be spending his morning driving children in his curricle solely for their pleasure. He generally obliges only himself and to the devil with all else. Although,” he added thoughtfully, “he does occasionally allow himself to be ruled by one other.”

“May I ask whom?”

“Our grandfather, the Earl of Hallbrook. He more or less raised my cousin and he can still bring Colin in line. But Miss Lawrence,” he said, smiling once more, “tell me why you were not at supper with us last night? I did wonder, when we sat down and you had not appeared, if you were perhaps feeling unwell?”

“No, it was nothing of that nature. I quite often take my supper in the schoolroom with my nephews. I did so last night,” she said a trifle self-consciously.

In truth, she had not been able to compose herself for another encounter with Stratford last night. She recalled vividly how her pulse had raced yesterday when he stared at her with his brows raised in that odd fashion, and she was grateful when Baldwin turned the conversation to more neutral topics.

The viscount’s curricle returned some twenty minutes later and they went out to greet it.

As Stratford lifted Freddy down, the young boy exclaimed, “Auntie, you will never guess! He let me hold the reins a bit, he really did!
And
he said I had good hands!”

Baldwin received this pronouncement with all the astonishment it deserved and could only believe his cousin’s action to stem from the fact that the horses were local cattle and not his lordship’s prized grays.

Miss Lawrence, however, was unaware of the magnitude of Stratford’s gesture and the look she bestowed upon him was not one of surprise, but one of friendly gratitude. Looking at her in turn, all thought of informing her of the impossibility of his repeating the excursion died stillborn on the viscount’s lips.

George joined Freddy on the ground and the pair rushed into the house, eager to tell everyone of their splendid adventure.

Rose watched them dash out of sight, then turned to the viscount. “Thank you, Lord Stratford. You’ve been very kind.”

“You mistake, Miss Lawrence,” he drawled with just a hint of a smile. “I am almost never kind. Just ask my worthy cousin!”

“There is no need. He has already informed me that you generally oblige no one but yourself,” she said, shooting a twinkling look at the unfortunate Daniel. “I understand that your feeling is ‘to the devil with all else.’ Have I that correct, Mr. Baldwin?”

Stratford’s smile gave way as he tilted his head back to laugh. Daniel was unable to reply, but send her a humorously reproachful glance before leaving them to enter the cottage.

“You are an unusual woman, Miss Lawrence,” the viscount said as he put out his arm. As she laid her hand lightly upon it, he asked, “Tell me, why were you so angry with me yesterday?”
The hand upon his sleeve nervously jerked. It stilled on the instant, but Stratford had noted it and stopped to look directly at her. “Come, can you not bring yourself to tell me what grave solecism I committed to put you so out of sorts with me?”

His black eyes were quite free of the cold haughtiness Rose could not bear. Disconcerted by his unwonted warmth, she removed her gaze to her fingers. “You must forgive me, my lord. I rather thought, you see, that you were enjoying some private fun at my family’s expense.”

When he did not respond, she looked up to find the distant chill once more in his eyes. “I am sorry—”

“Do not apologize,” he cut in curtly. “You were quite right, and I ask your pardon.”

She was bereft of speech.

He thought she was angry and with a swift step he left her side.

Rose stood bemazed, considering this surprising depth in the man she had once dismissed as arrogantly shallow. When she at last entered the house after him, he had already joined his cousin and her brother in the parlor. She hesitated at the door, then with a firm shake of her head, continued to the back of the house.

In the parlor, Griffen was discoursing cheerfully, the usual stern set of his lips for once relaxed, upon the new pups his best hunter had sired, even offering his lordship one. Conversation continued on like topics until Nell interrupted the gentlemen. She positively beamed upon the viscount as she said with an arch look that he might prefer the company in the back morning room. She continued to beam as he left, for all that was needed for the betrothal of Miss Helen and Lord Stratford to be completed was the formality of his addressing the young lady.

The greater portion of the afternoon and evening of the previous day had seen Griffen closeted with the viscount. Though she had been in an agony of fear that Griffen would be taken advantage of, even Nell had to admit that the settlements were more than fair. They would finally be pulled out of the River Tick into which the late Mr. Lawrence had plunged them, Griffen had explained to the family that morning, and with a substantial amount to spare. Helen had accepted the news with a sinking heart, for she now realized she must do nothing to annoy the man who was to save the family. She was again telling herself this as she sat where Nell had left her, artfully promising to deliver her suitor as soon as may be.

Like every other apartment in Appleton Cottage, the back morning room was small, shabby and sparsely furnished. Thus, when Stratford entered to find Helen seated upon a faded sofa in a picturesque pose, the lovely lady far outshone her setting. She wore an aqua muslin gown cut low across the bodice, affording his lordship a teasing view of soft, creamy breasts. The sleeves were short and squared and she wore no gloves, exposing her slender arms to his inspection. He lingered only an instant on the threshold, then strolled forward to place himself beside her.

“I’ve come bearing gifts, my love, so you had best beware,” he said with a sensual smile. He held out his closed fist, gradually unfurling it to reveal a brilliant ring composed of small diamonds clustered around an enormous sapphire so deeply blue as to seem black. The gems winked at Helen as the sunlight danced over the ring’s surface. She stared at it, dumb-struck.

The viscount swept up her unresisting right hand and gently slid the ring onto her finger. “There,” he said lightly. “That seals our bargain.”