The Wild Baron

by Catherine Coulter

  Now she was facing George’s older brother. There was no George to aid her. She had never planned to see the baron at all, to meet him or speak to him. She had certainly never wanted him to know about her.

  Rohan slipped the folded letter back into the pocket of his greatcoat. “I was more surprised than I can say when I received this impudent letter. So this Hawlworth fellow is your father?”

  “Yes, he’s my father. He isn’t here.”

  “And he is the master of this magnificent house?” He was staring right at the chimney stack that had lost a load of bricks.

  “He is the master. I’m the daughter, but George didn’t ruin me. I’ve already told you that. I mean it. You may leave with a clear conscience. I neither want nor need anything from you. I’m sorry my father did this. You may be certain that I will burn his ears for his attempt to do you harm.”

  This was unexpected. Rohan didn’t like unexpected situations. And this one had been nothing but unexpected from the beginning. What stunned him still was that it had been George the scholar, the budding cartographer, the studious young man, who hadn’t ever appeared to grasp the reality that there was a fair sex. George had managed to rouse enough lust to make love to this lovely young lady? And she was a lady, dirt and all. It was in her bearing, in the way she spoke so clearly and precisely. “Why are you so dirty?”

  She raised her head and smiled, a lovely smile really, not that he cared. “Look around you. I am the gardener here. I am very good. Flowers and plants love me. Shall I show you my lilies and iris and candytuft? My roses are the most beautiful in the area.”

  A gardener, was she? Now that was something, but he wasn’t about to let her sidetrack him. “What do you mean, George didn’t ruin you?”

  “Just what I said. You may leave now, sir. Let me go fetch Jamie for you. I’m sorry I had him take away your horse and curricle in the first place.”

  “No, wait.” He lightly grasped her sleeve. “Listen, you’re not what I expected—at least at first glance you’re not. I want to talk to you. My brother has been dead nearly a year now. If you knew him, then I want to hear you talk about him. It appears that George had interests I wasn’t aware of, namely you.”

  She said very quietly, “George had many interests in the time I knew him.”

  “Then why didn’t you come to his funeral? Why didn’t he come to me and tell me about you?”

  “He was trying to find the perfect moment, he told me several times. I guess he didn’t ever find even close to a perfect moment.” She shrugged. “Then it was too late. As for his funeral, I couldn’t come.”

  “Why?”

  “I was needed here. I couldn’t leave.”

  There was more here than met the eye. So George had been trying to find the perfect moment to tell him? Tell him what, exactly? That he wanted to marry this girl whose face was smudged with dirt and was really quite fine-looking and was a gardener? “Look, can we go inside? I’m hot and thirsty.”

  “If you are so hot, then remove that greatcoat.”

  He frowned down at her. He wasn’t used to a woman carping at him—well, a bit of carping, and that was usually amusing. His mother did it brilliantly, always following it with a smile to curl a man’s toes. He shrugged off the greatcoat. “I’m still hot and thirsty. Are my britches to be next?”

  She didn’t look remotely interested or remotely shocked at his improper words. Actually, she didn’t want to take him inside, but she probably had no choice. She couldn’t see him leaving until he was satisfied, until, in short, he was good and ready. But she had to get rid of him. She wasn’t about to take any chances.

  She stilled a moment and listened very carefully. She heard nothing. Finally she shrugged and said, “Very well. I will be glad to give you something to drink, perhaps even a small cake, but then you must leave.”

  “You don’t want money from me?”

  “No. Come inside,” she said, her hands fisted at her sides. Of course that was what he expected. She probably would have expected the same thing if she’d been in his boots. She shuddered at what her father had written. She didn’t know yet what she would say to him once he returned to Mulberry House, but it wouldn’t be at all filial.

  He followed her into the dim entry hall of Mulberry House. It was very cool inside, simply because the windows in the hallway were covered, not letting the sunlight in. He followed her into a nearby smallish room that was nonetheless filled with light, no draperies on these windows, and very little furniture. There was a single sofa covered with an ancient yellow brocade and set on fairly new Egyptian feet, two chairs that looked vastly uncomfortable, and a single carpet that was clean and looked quite cheap. The oak floor was well waxed, and there was no dust that he could see in the corners.

  This place could certainly use some money. He looked around him and curled his lip. Why the devil didn’t she want any of his groats? What was going on here?

  She pointed to a chair and walked out of the room without a word or a backward glance.

  He remained alone for a good ten minutes. He had stared at those Egyptian feet for at least eight minutes of the ten. Then she returned carrying a tray. “I have brought some tea and lemon cakes. They’re only a day old and still fresh enough.”

  “You’re also the cook?”

  “Usually Mrs. Timmons comes in from Upper Slaughter, but this week her daughter had twins and she has to see to the rest of the children.”

  “Oh.” He eyed her as he picked up a lemon cake. He took a bite. It was sour and dry. He swallowed, barely. It actually tasted no worse than the near-moldy slices of bread served at Almack’s.

  “My father doesn’t like my cooking either. He says that I look at a loin of pork and it turns into a boot, fit only for Lolah the goat. As for these poor cakes, I’ve never been able to figure out just how much lemon juice to squeeze into the mixture. Also, I was very low on sugar and the cakes surely need more of it.”

  “I cannot help you.”

  “No, I imagine that you have never done anything for yourself in your life.”

  That was a low shot a man couldn’t tolerate. “If I tried to make the lemon cakes, I wouldn’t muck it up. That is because I can read a recipe, I have a brain, and I know how to use measures. This is drier than the wheels on my curricle. It’s stuck in my throat.”

  “If it’s stuck in that throat of yours, then how are you able to talk so much?”

  He grunted at that and drank some tea, expecting warm swamp water. Instead, it was delicious, India tea, his favorite. He nodded. “Now,” he said, sitting back on the old yellow brocade, “tell me how you came to know George and how he didn’t ruin you, or did ruin you, according to your father.”

  “No,” she said. “The only reason you’re here is because of my father’s accusation. You will not hear again from him, I swear it. Thus there is nothing you need to know. You may leave in good conscience.” She rose. “Good day, my lord. Have a safe journey back to London.”

  He waved his hand at her, a finely shaped hand with clean, buffed nails, a strong hand. “You claim you knew my brother well. Tell me how you met him.”

  She sighed, as if much put upon. “I really wish you would just leave and go back to London.”

  “How do you know I’m going back to London?”

  “You’re the Wild Baron, are you not? Surely that is where most gentlemen of your ilk reside?”

  He was occasionally called the Wild Baron, a sobriquet that usually amused him and that certainly pleased his proud mama, but from this young lady’s mouth it sounded like a rank insult. He drew up stiffer than the fireplace poker that stood at an odd angle in the corner. “I am not notorious. And I wish to God that whoever pinned that silly nickname on me would fall off the face of the earth. Did George tell you that?”

  “Whenever he called you the Wild Baron, it was with much affection. He said it was in the blood, tainted blood evidently. He said that his other brother, Tibolt, was a very serious, very hol
y young man, a vicar, who hadn’t inherited the tainted blood. George said your parents were renowned for their lechery, beloved for their vices. Any antic they pulled was eulogized. George said that your father rubbed his hands together whenever he heard of one of your exploits and said you were as wicked as the devil himself, that you were his proud first fruit.”

  “Don’t forget my mother’s blood in this rhapsody of yours.” Damn, he hadn’t meant to say that. He sat forward, his hands clasped between his knees. “Listen, I have no knowledge that my father ever said such things. He died two years ago. My mother, however, is still very capable of carrying on her own wild escapades. She is herself, nothing more. Still, you’re just parroting foolish tales. It is no more than gossip.”

  “I do occasionally read the London Times and the Gazette. You appear with great regularity in both papers. You indulge in exploits that appear to titillate everyone in society. You must be a very busy man, since I have read that you have enjoyed liaisons with most ladies in London, that you have made outrageous wagers with the Prince Regent and have won, that you have been known to fill a lady’s bathing tub with champagne and, well, what followed is better left unsaid.”

  “It wasn’t all that expensive a champagne. As to the ladies, you actually believe all that drivel? I do not cozy up to married ladies. Scarcely do I get all that close to them, despite what they wish. No, what you’ve read is preposterous, gross overstatements—well, most of it must be.”

  He stopped cold. He sounded ridiculous and he wanted to kick himself. Why was he trying to convince her that he wasn’t a satyr? He was quite pleased, all in all, with his reputation. He would have to think about this. She’d made him say things he would never normally say. She had raised a smooth brow and was giving him the look of a tolerant mother superior to an errant novice.

  “It’s none of your business,” he said, set the teacup in its saucer with a snap, and rose. “Your father wrote specifically that George had ruined you. What did he mean? Did George seduce you? Relieve you of your precious virginity? Did he leave you in a ditch? What exactly did the poor boy do to you? You are not exactly a toothsome young maiden of seventeen.” Irritated, he slashed his hand through the air, then said, “At least you’re cleaner than you were when I first saw you. But there is still some dirt beneath your fingernails.”

  “I know. I couldn’t find my gloves. I thought you wanted to know how I came to be acquainted with your brother. Well, no matter. We met and that was that. George didn’t do anything that I didn’t want him to. My father is mistaken. You may leave now, my lord.”

  He said abruptly, “How old are you, Miss Hawlworth?”

  “I am nearly twenty-one.”

  “George was twenty-three when he died. I had thought you would be much older, an experienced woman to take advantage of a green young man.”

  “George, green? Yes, I suppose he was. He was very shy, quiet, and he loved to read maps, any maps.” She paused a moment, frowning down at the lemon cake.

  Rohan said, sitting forward on the settee, “It wasn’t that George was a prig, but he was a rather solitary young man, loved his studies, particularly maps, and I would have wagered that he was a virgin when he died even though I knew he wasn’t.”

  “No, George was no prig. Nor was he a virgin. At least he told me he wasn’t. There is no way I would be able to tell is there?”

  “No. Now, how old were you when you met George?”

  “I don’t recall exactly.”

  “You are being evasive. Tell me the bloody truth.”

  “There is little enough to tell. And it makes no difference to anything.” She had the gall to shrug.

  He was furious, but he wasn’t about to show her how very angry he really was. She believed that bedding more women than resided in an English village was his mission in life? A Carrington family tradition? In his damned blood? Damnation, it was supposed to be and at this moment, he hated it. He wanted to pick up the sofa with its ridiculous Egyptian feet and hurl it through the windows, except it wouldn’t fit. He drew a nice deep breath. “Then tell me more about George.”

  “He was too handsome for his own good, just as you are,” she said in a matter-of-fact voice that robbed her words of any compliment “He was smart. But he sometimes seemed lost to me, as if he wanted to do something or be someone different from what he was, and he just didn’t know where to go or what to do. That sounds strange, I know, but it was often the impression he gave me. He was loyal, in his way.”

  This was the George he knew. Quiet, studious George. “Loyal in his own way? What do you mean by that?”

  “He did not abandon those whom he had taken in affection, those to whom he had made commitments.”

  “Of course he wouldn’t. Would you care to be more specific?”

  “No. I will also tell you that he drank too much. It worried me a great deal.”

  “I never saw George take a drink of anything in his entire life. The George you described is my George, all right, except for this drinking. Are you certain it was George and not someone who used his name, someone who just happened to have looked a bit like him, a bit like me?”

  She rose quickly. “Just a moment. I cannot believe that I actually understand what you mean.”

  She left the drawing room. He heard her light footsteps on the stairs. When she returned just a few moments later, she was carrying a sketch pad. She rifled through the pages, then handed the pad to him. He saw a startling likeness of George. She was an excellent artist. The figure in the drawing looked shy and wistful, yet there was something yearning in that expression she’d captured. What was it? It was puzzling, but perhaps it was just that the artist had rendered that yearning look he didn’t recognize. He handed her back the sketch pad before he realized he wanted to look through the rest of the drawings.

  “That is George.”

  “Of course it is.”

  “You do know how he died?”

  “I know that he drowned. The Gazette gave no details. There was no way for me to find out more.”

  “Of course there was. All you had to do was to write to me, but you didn’t. Very well, you’ve pursed your lips together so tightly your mouth has nearly disappeared. He and some of his friends were in small yachts, racing from Ventnor to Lucy Point. None of them knew that a freak storm was blowing up. It hit them hard, driving George’s yacht into the cliff just above Lucy Point. The boat splintered. The young man with George survived. George didn’t. His body was never recovered. If he had been drunk at the time I would have killed him if he hadn’t died. But of course he wasn’t drunk. George didn’t drink, I told you that.”

  “Yes, you did,” she said, and nothing more. She didn’t cry, but she was remarkably pale. He held his peace and sipped more of his tea. Finally, after she’d eaten the last bite of a lemon cake, she said, “You’re right, they do taste quite sour. I must work on that recipe.”

  “Ask Mrs. Timmons to teach you.”

  “Yes, perhaps I will. Now, surely you have to leave, my lord.”

  He shrugged. Why not? There was nothing for him here. Perhaps a bit of George he hadn’t known, but George was dead, and what did it matter now? The chit wasn’t going to say anything more about George and he couldn’t very well force her to. But the father—he really wanted to know what her damned father had to say. “Where is your father?”

  She stiffened straight as an oak sapling. “He is not here.”

  “I can see that he is not. Where can I find him? He’s hiding from me, isn’t he? He left you here to face me.”

  He was so close to the truth that it rattled her for a moment. How could he possibly know that? Then she managed to say, “I won’t tell you. You might challenge him to a duel. You might knock out some of his teeth. He needs all the teeth he has. He can’t afford to lose any more.”

  “I won’t knock out any of his bloody teeth, even though he likely deserves it. Where is he?”

  She shook her head. Her lips were a thin
line again. She had felt pain at George’s death; he didn’t doubt that now. He saw a smudge of dirt at her hairline that she had missed when she’d washed her face. It blended right in with the dark brown of her hair. A warm, dark brown that looked rich and soft. Ah, but her eyes were cold and distant. Those eyes of hers, they were a bright blue gray—not dark and mysterious, but rather light and mysterious, like the oddly faceted sapphire he’d bought some three years ago and kept. His mother had selected it from Rundle and Bridge. She didn’t know he hadn’t given it to a mistress.

  He said nothing more. He merely picked up his greatcoat and strode out of the house, with her dogging his heels. Why? Did she believe he wasn’t going to leave? Did she think he was going to steal that settee with the ridiculous Egyptian feet? Did she think he was going to hide in the stable? The curricle was standing there in the front drive, but there was no Gulliver. When he rounded the side of the house he saw Jamie brushing Gulliver, singing at the top of his lungs to the huge gray gelding. It was not an edifying song, but it was catchy.

  “There was a young fellow from Lyme

  Who lived with three wives at a time.

  When asked, ‘Why the third?’

  He said, ‘One’s absurd!

  And bigamy, sir, is a crime.’ ”

  Rohan boomed out laughter. The stable lad had used the best King’s English and had sung the limerick in a rich baritone fit for a lady’s musical soiree.