Mistaken Kiss
Book 2 My Notorious Aunt
by
Kathleen Baldwin
Table of Contents
Copyright
Chapter 1
Three Blind Men Stumbled Upon a Maiden
WILHEMINA SAT in Sir Daniel Braeburn’s carriage, an object of study for the two men seated across from her.
She glanced out of the window in a vain attempt to ignore them. The landscape outside jounced past in a blur of green and gray. Soon, very soon, she would convince her brother to take her to London for new spectacles. What a grand adventure they would have. If she planned very carefully, she might even persuade him to take her to Madame Tussaud’s, or perhaps even the Royal Opera House. Willa sighed.
She mapped a strategy, plotted a persuasive argument, and mentally calculated the cost of such a trip, all the while paying no heed to her brother’s hushed conversation until his consternation reached a crescendo.
“You see what I mean?” Jerome’s voice bore tragic undertones.
Sir Daniel peered at Wilhemina suspiciously. The coach went over a bump, and her traitorous bosom bounced in response. His eyes widened in alarm. “Oh dear. I see what you mean.”
Jerome slapped his hand against the leather seat like a judge pronouncing sentence. “She’s a full-grown female, isn’t she?”
Wilhemina wanted to chide her brother for behaving like a dolt, but that wouldn’t do, because Sir Daniel wore the same absurd expression of anxiety. She squinted, trying to bring into clear focus his mouth rounded into an alarmed O between his lamb chop side whiskers.
“I’m afraid so.” Sir Daniel nodded. “What are you going to do with her now?”
Jerome shook his head mournfully.
Good grief, one would think she had the plague.
She smiled at them as genially as she could manage. “Perhaps you ought to consider auctioning me off to the nearest traveling carnival. Judging by your conversation, I must be the only female in England to have reached maturity. Surely, that should fetch a sovereign or two?”
The two bachelors looked at each other, their mutual fear of the female alarming their dour features.
Jerome sighed and bowed his head. “I suppose there is nothing else for it, but what I must take her to London for a season. Though how I will stand the expense of a townhouse, I don’t know.”
Daniel clucked his tongue. “The townhouse is just the beginning, my good man.” He ticked off expenditures on his fingers. “You must pay the earth for gowns and a party. Then, there is a chaperone to hire. I dare say your pockets will be let before the first month is out.” He took a deep breath. “And then, after your tremendous outlay there is the unhappy possibility that Willa won’t take. She’s a well-enough-looking young woman, no doubt. However, I’m not at all certain spectacles and red hair are in vogue.”
Jerome moaned and leaned back in the seat. His wide-brimmed hat flipped up as it knocked against the back of the carriage. He whisked it off, slapped it on the seat, and glared at the offending female across from him.
Wilhemina’s head began to hurt. She loved her brother and Sir Daniel dearly, but this entire discussion was complete and utter twaddle. “Really, you two, it’s bad enough you discuss me as if I’m not here. Now, you must spout nonsense? After the education you’ve both given me, forcing Greek philosophers down my throat from the time I was old enough to read, history lessons, mathematics, and the classics—now you plan on puffing me off like any ordinary female? What an absurd notion.”
Sir Daniel sat up and nudged Jerome. “I have it! My dear fellow, she’s right. The solution is obvious. Why, nothing could be simpler.”
Her brother perked up. “Speak man. What is it?”
“Haven’t we brought her up to be nearly as engaging company as we are?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t you see? That’s our answer. I shall marry her.” He handed up this conclusion like a cook presenting them with a perfectly baked trout. No amorous notions. No undercurrent of desire. He offered them a simple well-reasoned solution.
Willa sighed, earnestly wishing she’d chosen a different frock that morning.
Jerome closed his gaping jaw and blinked at his friend. “Marriage? You can’t be serious?”
“Why not? If Willa marries me, you are spared the expense of a season, and the three of us are free to go on just as we always have.”
“You would do such a thing?”
“Of course. Haven’t I known her since she was in leading strings? Nothing could be more natural. I daresay she’s the only female in all of Christendom with which I am entirely comfortable. She’ll make an admirable wife. Able to hold her own in any discussion. What possible objection can there be?”
What indeed?
Slowly, both men turned to Willa and grimaced. She glared at them as if they had completely lost their senses. In the ensuing silence, at the exact moment when she needed to feel at her most imperious, the coach hit a bump and her old-fashioned sausage curls began springing ridiculously.
Jerome cleared his throat. “Willa, my poppet, did you hear? Sir Daniel has just offered for you.”
Each creak and rattle of the carriage exaggerated the uncomfortable silence. Willa opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out. She snapped it shut, tilted her head, and reevaluated the situation. Folding her hands squarely in her lap, she refused to give rise to their preposterous suggestion. Instead, she took another tack.
“I am not your poppet. A poppet is a small child, or a little girl. You have concluded this very day that I am no longer either one; ergo, you cannot call me your poppet.”
“Wilhemina, be sensible. We are not debating terminology. We’re discussing your future. Sir Daniel has just made a most magnanimous offer. What is your answer?”
Daniel cleared his throat. He removed his hat and peeked sheepishly at Willa, but his words were for her brother. “I suppose, regardless of everything we’ve taught her, Willa is still a romantical sort of female. Perhaps we, er, I should’ve asked her on bended knee with some sort of posy in my hand.” He scratched at his curly side-whiskers. “A thousand pardons, my dear. Perhaps you will allow me to pay my addresses at a later date?”
The kindness in his voice never failed to soften Willa’s heart. His brown eyes wavered with uncertainty, and he looked, for all the world, like a forlorn puppy.
“Think carefully, Willa,” chimed Jerome. “Consider all sides of the matter before you make an answer.” It was his clerical voice, a voice she had obeyed since before she could remember.
The pressure on her temples tightened. It had been a long day. Jerome’s sermon had droned on for longer than usual. She’d envied those who had the luxury of nodding off to sleep in church. Willa would not dream of wounding her brother by failing to pay attention. So she had pinched herself and sat bolt upright on the hard pew to maintain her concentration.
Now she was bouncing toward Sir Daniel’s house for their customary Sunday dinner while they stared at her, waiting anxiously for an answer that would alter her future forever whilst maintaining theirs in perfect equilibrium.
She rubbed her throbbing forehead. “Very well. I will consider discussing this at another time.”
“Excellent. That’s settled.” Jerome clapped his hands together and smiled. “Now then, Daniel, what do you say to this morning’s sermon?”
Sir Daniel steepled his fingers into a perfect arch and launched into a debate over this morning’s precepts. It was their favorite game, verb
al chess. Willa ignored them and watched the colors gallop past the window.
Their coach rolled to a stop in front of Sir Daniel’s manor. Willa stepped out of the carriage, missed the bottom step, and would have tumbled to the ground had not her brother caught her with one hand and set her to rights. He accomplished this without so much as a pause in his conversation.
The butler held open the front doors as the gentlemen entered the house, still deeply engaged in verbal combat.
“Ahem.” The man attempted to attract his master’s attention. “Sir Daniel, if I might have a word, a matter of some importance. We have an unexpected—”
Sir Daniel, too engrossed in his argument with Jerome, waved him off.
Wilhemina trailed behind them completely forgotten. She stopped at the stairs and spoke loudly to their backs. “I would like to have a lie down. I’m afraid I have the megrims.”
Reminded of her presence, the gentlemen turned.
“Yes. Of course.” Sir Daniel tapped his forehead lightly as if trying to remember what was called for in this situation. Finally, he motioned to his butler. “See to Miss Linnet’s comfort.” Daniel smiled uneasily at Willa. “Perhaps, we might have our little discussion later, when you are feeling more the thing.”
She nodded and started up the stairs, running her hand along the banister. These stairs, which she had run up and down since childhood, now looked different to her. They might, one day, be her stairs. Willa had never realized what a narrow hallway the house possessed. It really was a gloomy old box. The ancient house had never bothered her before. Before, it was merely Sir Daniel’s house. Now, it might be hers forever, a dark, crumbling dungeon.
Jerome and Daniel resumed their debate and disappeared into the study, shutting the door in the butler’s face. The servant sighed and turned to follow Miss Linnet up the stairs.
* * *
Willa lay down on a massive old Elizabethan bed with a cool cloth on her forehead. She stared at the walls, covered with a blue-and-white pattern she knew from memory but could not distinguish at this distance, and tried to envision herself as his wife. Would Sir Daniel do husbandly things to her here on this bed? The thought made her stomach lurch uncomfortably.
She could foresee the future. Nothing would change. Marriage would simply be an extension of the past eighteen years. Sir Daniel was right. If she married him, the three of them would continue on just as before. There would be no romance, no adventure, no excitement, just antiquity and books and years and years of tired old arguments between her brother and her husband. She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t.
“What choice do I have?” Willa asked the musty room.
She imagined herself standing next to the beautiful debutantes who undoubtedly floated gracefully through every London season. Her image of all the frilly white princesses turned sour as she thought of how they would surely snub her, sneer at her unruly red hair, and laugh at her severe nearsightedness. With scarcely a groat to her name, no gentleman of the ton would stoop to marry an ill-favored miss who was nothing more than a vicar’s younger sister. True, her father had been the third son of a viscount, but what was that to anything? The facts were obvious. Her chances on the marriage mart were nil.
Willa sat up and threw the cloth to the floor. “Blast it all!” She glanced defiantly at the blue walls, daring them to cave in on her for her expletive. She pulled on her kid slippers and paced up and down the ancient wooden floor.
There must be options. She could become a governess. Although, she’d spent her entire life in the schoolroom. Another twenty years might suffocate her entirely. She might become a housekeeper, but who would hire a nearly blind servant? Her shoulders slumped.
She bent to pick up the wet cloth from the floor and caught a glimpse of herself in the oval mirror on the dressing table. She sighed and moved closer, so that her nose almost touched the glass. All she could see were her blue eyes made garishly large by the thick lenses in her spectacles. She took them off and whispered, “At least the freckles are fading.”
Willa ran a finger over her lips. “Perhaps Sir Daniel has a secret passionate nature.” It must be well hidden, she thought, because she had never seen it.
Marriage might be bearable if he harbored unspoken yearnings for her. She’d read of such things, unrequited passions, long-held desires. If he did, indeed, feel genuine warmth toward her, life with him might not be so wretchedly dull after all. She leaned away from the mirror and speculated on exactly how one goes about uncovering a hidden passion.
What if I were to kiss him? Surely then I would find out if he concealed any such feelings. I might also discover whether such an activity would ignite any enthusiasm within me.
A perfectly logical plan, she congratulated herself, and bent to have a word with the face in the mirror. “It’s settled then. You must kiss Sir Daniel.”
Her image shook her head in refusal.
“Yes. You must do it, no matter how awkward or uncomfortable it may seem.”
She grimaced at the thought and put her glasses back on. If he responds warmly, I suppose I ought to agree to this absurdly convenient marriage.
Suddenly the room felt very small. “And if he doesn’t—I vow I’d rather die a spinster and lead the apes into hell.” Willa spun around and headed for the door.
* * *
She left the house through the back hall and tromped out into the Braeburn gardens. A bracing walk would bolster her courage. She set a brisk pace for herself.
Sir Daniel’s gardens were a study in efficiency. Willa marched past eel ponds, past feeder streams stocked with trout, past three rows of experimental sugar beets, seven varieties of leeks, and twelve strains of peas and headed for the orchard.
The orchard was Willa’s favorite haunt on Sir Daniel’s grounds. The huge old nut trees grew in cheerful disarray, and there was a small Greek folly hidden in their midst. Here and there Daniel’s grandfather had placed wooden benches around the tree trunks. No matter how much Daniel tried to groom the natural appearance out of it, the grove remained an inviting and comfortable refuge.
Willa slowed her steps and squinted up at the canopy of branches overhead. She could not see details, but the trees formed a ceiling of shifting colors and muted light, wonderful flickering patterns—light against dark, dark against light.
She lowered her gaze and connected with a shape that was foreign to the grove. Straining to make sense of it, Willa moved ahead slowly.
It appeared to be a man slouched on a bench, relaxing against a tree trunk with his long legs unceremoniously sprawled out. She squinted and then caught her breath as she recognized Daniel.
This was beyond good fortune. No sooner had she decided what course of action must be taken than God had delivered the opportunity into her hands.
Willa straightened her shoulders and flexed her hands at her sides. Courage, she commanded herself. Your entire future is at stake. It must be done. Kiss him.
She charged forward. Halfway there she stopped, remembering the garishly big eyes staring back at her from the mirror, and removed her glasses. She meant to make this moment as perfect as possible. With that thought, she stuffed the spectacles into her pocket and proceeded on with her campaign.
Willa tripped on a fallen branch lying on the ground in front of him. Recovering her composure, she faced her quarry squarely. He did not look up. She cleared her throat and waited for the blurry face to respond. He remained motionless.
“Ahem. Pardon me for intruding on you in this manner. But this is most fortuitous meeting. I have a request of a delicate nature to ask of you. Before I make a decision regarding your generous offer of marriage, I wish for you to kiss me.”
There was no answer. “To see if we will suit, of course. Perfectly logical.”
When he still did not respond, she moved closer, so close she could smell the faint scent of shaving soap and brandy. “Please, sir. I know it is highly irregular, but would you please kiss me?” Willa put one tentative h
and on his shoulder, leaned her face toward his, and closed her eyes.
Alexander Braeburn stirred in his slumber. Exhausted from having ridden the entire night, he was having a particularly effective dream. A shapely young maiden was demanding to be kissed.
She thrust her face toward his, and he could almost feel her warm breath. Her hair was the color of spice and her skin soft and inviting with just enough freckles to convince one of her innocence. A dream like this must not be denied. He caught the face in his hands and kissed it with enthusiasm.
When the curvaceous dream whispered, “Oh my,” Alex laughed, a drowsy, husky chuckle. He pulled the dream across his lap and kissed her again. The noise from his own throat propelled Alexander to complete consciousness, that, and the superb reality of the mouth he was kissing.
This was no dream, no matter how exhausted he might be. Her lips were full and sensuous, and they yielded to his in a way that sent currents of heat through his loins. He looked down into the young woman’s wide blue eyes.
Willa’s mind turned to thick jelly. Kissing was tenfold better than she had imagined. Joy flooded through her veins. Life with him was going to be wonderful.
She blinked up at his face and squinted. She raised her hand to his cheek and stroked the clean-shaven skin. “You have no side whiskers.”
“No.” It was half spoken, half whispered, but Willa instantly knew the voice was not Sir Daniel’s.
“You’re not Daniel.”
“No.”
She did not leap out of his lap. He did not remove his hand from curving around her waist.
“Oh. Then, it would seem, I’ve kissed you by mistake.” She spoke slowly, trying to keep the mournful tenor she felt out of her speech.
“So it would seem.” His voice gathered more fullness, a soothing baritone with undertones that made her think he was suppressing laughter.
She forced a casual smile, acting as if it were a trifle. “It was most enjoyable.”
“Thank you.”
“Is kissing always so pleasant?” She squinted up at him, wanting to read his expression, but falling prey to the seductive lines of his jaw and the mouth that had so effectively kissed hers.
Mistaken Kiss: A Humorous Traditional Regency Romance (My Notorious Aunt Book 2) Page 1
