The conversation had taken an unwieldy turn. “Forgive me,” said Warren. “You’ve misunderstood. I haven’t come to ask for your blessing to court her. Or…marry her.” He could barely get out the dreaded word.
“Then what have we to discuss?” asked Baxter in a curt tone. “If you’ve come to tell me she’s been rude, or unsocial, well, that is simply her way. She was not raised in society, you see. She showed up on some boat after a months-long journey from God knows where. The very day I received the letter from the solicitors, the woman was on my doorstep with a trunk of black clothing and a sun-faded bonnet. We had to scramble to take her in, being the only family she had.”
“You didn’t know her parents?”
“I wish I had. A fascinating chap, the late Baron Maitland, and the baroness too, following him all over Christendom with their only child. Unfortunately they had the poor luck to get killed during their travels. Murdered by robbers in some uncivilized corner of India.”
“Goodness. How did your ward survive the attack?”
“By some stroke of good fortune, Lady Maitland was not at home when it occurred.”
Warren digested this rather alarming information. “It appears the lady has had a difficult life.”
“Indeed she has. So if she does not seem the thing to you, not gracious or polished as you would like, then—”
“Baxter.” His reproachful tone silenced the man. “Do you truly think I’ve come to complain?”
The earl blinked at him a moment, then unruffled and took another drink. “Pardon me. I’m rather sensitive on the subject of Josephine. Er, Lady Maitland. My wife and I have come to care for her like a daughter. We’re very protective of her.”
“Of course you are. I’m here because I don’t wish her life to become any more difficult than it already has been. She has this suitor—the Earl of Stafford. I know the man more than a little, not that I would call us friends. I want to tell you, with great and purposeful emphasis, that he is not an acceptable marriage candidate. He’s a drunk and gambler of the worst order. He’s heartless and self-absorbed, and notorious for his fortune-hunting exploits.”
Baxter held up a hand. “Do you think I don’t understand what manner of man Stafford is? Believe me, I do.”
“So you will not allow the match to proceed?”
“I wish I could prevent it, but Josephine refuses to be reasonable and give any decent chap her attention. She insists she doesn’t want to marry at all.” The older man gave him a harried look. “Meanwhile, the king’s breathing down my neck. His Majesty has taken an interest in the lady’s well-being, and wants her joined to someone steady and respectable by summer. He is troubled by her current state of vulnerability.”
The king was probably more troubled that this rich, titled young lady thumbed her nose at his orders to wed. Warren could see the strain around Baxter’s eyes and mouth, and felt true sympathy for the man.
“Have you explained all this to your ward?” he asked quietly. “Have you explained what’s at stake?”
“How am I to explain such things to a woman with so little knowledge of English ways? To a woman who does not care? She was raised in a jungle, for God’s sake. Literally, in a jungle.”
Warren reached to pour his host a bit more port. He feared the man would succumb to an apoplexy if he did not calm down. “So what is there to do?”
“You can marry her,” he said gruffly. “I wish you would. You’ve no prospects or promises to anyone, have you?”
“No,” he admitted.
“You’re quite free to wed Lady Maitland—and such a fortuitous match. The king would approve, I’m sure.”
Warren shifted uncomfortably. “You said he wished her wed to someone steady and respectable. I’m afraid that puts me out.”
“You know what I mean. It must be someone of appropriate rank and wealth.”
“It cannot be me,” he said, a bit more firmly. “I’m sorry, but I’m of no mind to wed.”
“And I’m of no mind to see Josephine joined to a jackal like Stafford,” Baxter pleaded. “The man has waged a most impassioned campaign for her hand, even gone to the queen to make his case. You see how things are lining up for my unfortunate charge. If I was a single man I would marry her myself.”
Warren believed he would. Their Majesties clearly didn’t know what Warren and Baxter knew, that the Earl of Stafford was an all-around scoundrel.
“She’s not going to marry Stafford,” Warren said. “You can’t allow that to happen.”
“How am I to stay the man’s hand when he wants her, and has the influence to take her? You’re an earl too,” Baxter persisted. “With more land, money, and friends than Stafford, and an ancestral seat in close proximity to hers. The king could not protest if Lady Maitland passed him over for you.”
“I want to help, but I’m in no position to marry. Nor would I make a model husband, as you well know.”
“You’d make a better husband than Stafford.”
Warren stared down into his glass. Did he wish to play the hero? This was his moment to do so. Unfortunately, the heroic impulses were no longer there. “There must be someone else.”
“There’s no one else,” Baxter said grimly. “She refuses to be courted, and has dressed in mourning long past the time she should. She says she wishes to wear black forever, though Queen Charlotte herself tried to coax her out of it. I believe she is trying to disappear.”
“Disappear? Why?”
“I don’t know. She doesn’t wish to be noticed, or admired. She’s been away from civilized people all nineteen years of her life, to the point where she’s terrified to go about in society. Of course, people note her lack of social graces. There are some who already cut her, title or no. I don’t know what to do. If Stafford ends up with her—”
“No.” The word came out with rough emphasis, without conscious thought. But how was Warren to prevent it happening, without acquiring a leg-shackle himself?
*** *** ***
“There you are!” Minette ambushed him outside his room. He could see she was still bright and animated from dinner. She preceded him through his door and settled herself on the end of his bed.
“Minette,” he sighed. “Aren’t you getting a bit old to hang about in a bachelor’s room?”
“You’re not a bachelor,” she said, removing her gloves. “You’re my brother, and there’s talk that you won’t be a bachelor much longer. Is it true you’re sweet on Lady Maitland?”
He collapsed into the bed pillows and gave her a look. “How do these rumors start?”
“They start when you ask to speak to Lord Baxter privately. Everyone noticed you were in his study for ever so long a time. Did you ask his permission to court her?” Her eyes widened and she put her hands to her cheeks. “Oh my goodness, did you ask his permission to marry her?”
“Minette, darling, it’s late.”
“Lady Fairchild says you took away Lady Maitland’s fan at the ball so you might gaze into her eyes. She says you very much intended to kiss her, and her in mourning. Really, Warren.” But Minette’s eyes shone with excitement. She grasped the counterpane and hugged it to her chest. “Do you love her? I must be the first to know. She’s ever so pretty, isn’t she? Just as I told you! What a lovely wife she would make, and you could help her smile again. It’s so romantic. What did you talk about back there in the corner? I shouldn’t have interrupted you, should I? The two of you might already be betrothed.”
“We’re not getting betrothed,” he said in a definitive tone. “Are you the one who started all this gossip, young lady? I certainly hope not.”
“I told you, it was Lady Fairchild. She said you were having a very serious conversation with the baroness at the ball, and that Lady Maitland seemed emotional. What did you talk about, Warren? Please tell me. Did you talk about lovely things? Did you try to comfort her, and then find yourself ever so incrementally coming to admire her, until you had to declare what you felt in your heart?”
Blast, he had to get Minette married before her silliness rendered her an impossible match. “Lady Maitland and I exchanged nothing but the most proper conversation. You may tell your flock of gossiping ladies that there is no romance between us in the slightest.”
“But how poignant it would be, you and Lady Maitland falling in love after one emotional encounter,” Minette said rapturously. “Everyone said Lord Stafford was to marry her but I couldn’t believe it. You two are so much more perfect together. If you marry her, we shall be sisters-in-law.”
“Do not dare say a word to anyone about me and Lady Maitland, or suggest to anyone that we have tender feelings for one another. She is not going to marry Stafford either, if you’d care to be useful and put that about.” He nudged her off his bed and toward the door. “Where is your chaperone? You shouldn’t be wandering the hallways alone.”
Warren walked her to her room and left her there to plague Mrs. Everly. He thought of heading to the flagellation parlor, despite Stafford’s presence there, but the only one he felt like punishing was himself. And Stafford, of course. He wondered if the man could be bought off his aims with enough money. At the very least, Warren might buy Josephine some time.
Josephine.
Why did he think of her in familiar terms? They’d barely exchanged a quarter-hours’ worth of words. He fell into bed early, feeling unusually cross and tired, and punched his pillow in frustration. He would think of likely chaps to court her as he drifted off to sleep. There had to be someone out there who didn’t mind frowns and black dresses, and an unwilling bride.
Josephine had the same dream in countless variations. Night after night, the tiger chased her, paws pounding ever closer until its hot breath tickled her neck. Every night she ran, sometimes in forests or meadows, sometimes in fallow fields or crowded London streets. One time she had found herself trapped on a ship with the tireless creature, running around and around the deck from stern to bow to try to evade him. In her dream she had jumped over the side to escape, and woken with a start before she hit the water.
The night before last, the tiger had stalked her through the Baxters’ ballroom, weaving around waltzing couples to pin her with its gaze. It stilled and then crouched down on its haunches, preparing to spring. She ran from the ballroom and into the hall, down gilded and carpeted corridors, seeking shelter from the predator. As always, any escape routes were blocked. She ran until she was breathless, until her own rasping exhales were indistinguishable from those of the pursuing beast. She’d turned a corner and discovered Lord Warren and Lord Stafford arguing in her dream, in furious voices.
“I shall marry Lady Maitland,” said Lord Stafford, waving an arm about.
“You will not,” Lord Warren growled, “for
I
am going to marry her.”
Neither one of them was going to marry her, not if she had her way. She wasn’t some shrinking English miss, waiting around to be sacrificed to fate. She had packed a satchel with water and food, and a little money in case she needed it, and headed out in her sturdiest boots to take control of her life. If she followed this path through Lord Baxter’s woods, she would come out along the main road, and then she could follow the church spire into Chapley. Once there, she would find a solicitor or banker to help her sort out her affairs. She had money and a title—she only had to figure out how to use those things to get what she really wanted: a small cottage somewhere, on the edge of a village, with a lady to cook and clean for her and chase visitors away.
She adored Lord Baxter, but he was rather too stuck on the idea that she must marry. Goodness, she hadn’t come all the way from India on a stinking, pitching boat to be bullied into an unnecessary match. So what if she was an aristocrat? She didn’t feel like one, and more to the point, she hadn’t been raised like one, so she didn’t feel disposed to marry. Aside from the obvious problem of men and their wild humors, she was sure to make a peculiar wife. She was regarded as an oddity by most of the Baxters’ friends. People stared at her and whispered, and gossiped that she had grown up swinging from jungle vines.
She had never swung from vines, but she could navigate her way through a silly English forest to a village a couple miles away. And if she could find no help in Chapley, then she would have a note delivered to her solicitor in London, the one who had settled her inheritance when she’d first returned from India. She remembered him as a kind man, and he had spoken to her as a person, as the Baroness Maitland, not some English rose to be patted on the head. She’d written to the man once before, but Lord Baxter had refused to send the letter, offering to write on her behalf instead. He meant to be helpful, but he drove her mad. How vexing to have no access to her fortune, and no ability to steer her own fate.
Josephine paused to sit on a fallen tree and drink some water. That was one thing she knew from her travels, that one must take adequate refreshment along the way. How long had she been walking now? Strange, how a mile or two could feel so much longer on these winding paths. It was still early, gray and bleak and misty-cool beneath the forest trees.
With any luck, she could conclude her business in Chapley by mid-morning, and come home before there was any fuss. The maid never came tapping until noon or later, if she thought Josephine was still asleep. Lord Baxter would be unhappy, of course, that she’d taken these matters into her own hands, but her entire life was at stake. She felt the little cottage inside her like a burning flame, a desire so strong she could hardly bear it. Privacy, comfort, and protection from society’s judging eyes.
If only it was not so still in these woods. After plodding along another half hour, she stopped and had a bit of bread. She hadn’t brought very much to eat and was nearly out of water. Now and again, a quiet rustling made the hair rise on the back of her neck.
They’re English woods, Josephine. No tigers here.
But she ought to have come to the main road by now. Determination warred with anxiety, so her knees gave a little shake before she got them moving again.
She was on the widest path, she’d made sure of it. It must be the path to the main road, although it twisted and turned more than she expected. What a fuss it would be if she didn’t get home before her absence was discovered. Well, if Lord Baxter would only
listen
to her, rather than make her trod to Chapley on her own. When she arrived there—if she ever arrived there—she must be strong and assertive, the way her parents had been when they dealt with the natives abroad. She must pursue the matter of her portion and her barony, and how she might arrange things to make a marriage unnecessary. She would ask about her rights as a baroness, a title which, until now, had been a vague and indeterminate concept.