Mistaken Kiss: A Humorous Traditional Regency Romance (My Notorious Aunt Book 2)

by Kathleen Baldwin

  “Happy to oblige you, except she isn’t here.” She popped the remainder of the muffin into her mouth and chewed happily.

  All four men looked at her as if a skunk had just crept into the room.

  “Not here?” Alex narrowed his gaze on the conniving Countess. What was she up to?

  She shook her head and smiled serenely, all the while looking like a young child caught stealing sweets.

  Jerome paced impatiently. “Very well. When do you expect her?”

  Lady Alameda licked the butter from her lips before answering. “A day. Two. Or perhaps three. Certainly, no more than a fortnight, I should think. She’s visiting friends.”

  “Might’ve told me,” Jerome protested weakly.

  Lady Alameda shrugged. “She left rather suddenly.”

  Harry sniffed, a wounded sort of sniff. “Won’t even know about the duel, will she? Perhaps we ought to wait till she comes back.”

  She straightened to her full height, shook out her skirts, and beamed at Harry just as if they were discussing an upcoming dinner party. “Oh no, if you think her honor needs defending what good would it do to wait? Sunrise tomorrow suits me perfectly. I have nothing else on my schedule at that hour.”

  Harry looked at her, alarmed. “Can’t mean to watch, can you? Not the thing for a lady. What with the blood and horror of it all.” He shuddered.

  “Fiddle faddle! I wouldn’t dream of missing it. I’m not the squeamish sort. A little blood never hurt anyone.”

  “No,” Harry muttered softly. “It’s the losing of it what worries me.”

  “Good. I’m glad that’s settled.” Lady Alameda clapped her hands together. “You gentlemen may as well help yourself to some sustenance while you are here. Now, if you will all excuse me, I have several pressing business matters to attend to.”

  “But we haven’t settled anything.” Jerome held out the special license, and it went limp as she walked past him. She strode briskly out, leaving them all standing uncomfortably in her breakfast room.

  Daniel picked up a plate and selected a half-dozen sausages, a kipper, and two eggs. When he turned to discover they were all staring at him, he explained without the slightest chagrin, “A pity to allow it to go to waste.”

  “Come along, Harry.” Alex patted his stout friend on the shoulder. “Who have you named as your second?”

  “Don’t know. Tournsby is still convalescing. Can’t very well ask him.”

  “What say we retire to the club and see who we might conscript into service?”

  With any luck, Alex surmised, before the night was out, he would have Harry so foxed the fellow wouldn’t remember his own name, let alone this ridiculous duel.

  Chapter 20

  The Sticking Point

  Adieu the clang of war’s alarms!

  To other deeds my soul is strung,

  And sweeter notes shall now be sung;

  My harp shall all its powers reveal,

  To tell the tale my heart must feel;

  Love, Love alone, my lyre shall claim,

  In songs of bliss and sighs of flame.

  Excerpt from Anacreon

  By Lord Byron

  ALEX SQUINTED with considerable irritation at the sun just beginning to breach the horizon. “I cannot fathom why you got out of bed.”

  “Matter of honor. Had to.” Harry was wearing the same soiled garments he had slogged around in the night before. His chin could use a good scraping, but as for his brain, Alex doubted there was anything that could be done.

  “There’s no one here, Harry. It isn’t legal without our seconds. Come to think of it, it isn’t legal in either case.”

  Harry crossed his arms defensively. “Well, I don’t see your man on the field. Thought Davies was good for it.”

  Alex pinched the bridge of his nose. “He was. Given the advanced state of your inebriation last night, I told him not to trouble himself. This is an inhumane hour to ask a friend to rise unnecessarily.”

  “As it turns out, it was necessary.” Harry cocked his chin up, looking rather too pleased with himself.

  Alex, on the other hand, was not pleased. Harry ought to be snoring in the comfort of his feather bed, completely unaware of the hour. “And your man, Harry? Where do you suppose he got off to?”

  Harry scratched at his morning’s growth of whiskers. “Can’t for the life of me remember who I asked.”

  “Hhmm. Evidently, neither can he.” Alex flexed his foil and tested it in the air next to Harry’s shoulder. “Where’s the surgeon? Who did you expect would sew you up afterward?”

  “Dunno.” Oblivious of the phft phft of Alex’s sword whipping near his ear, Harry bent over and adjusted one of his sagging stockings. “Didn’t get that far in m’thinking. Doesn’t one’s second attend to that?”

  “Apparently.” Alex frowned at the empty field. “See here, Harry, I have no desire to injure you. Why don’t you deal me a scratch on the arm? You’ll have drawn first blood. Willa’s honor will be defended. And we can both go home to bed.”

  Harry brightened considerably. He cradled his foil as he mulled it over. But then his features sagged unhappily. “Not sure it’s quite the thing, Alex. Will the lady believe I did my utmost to settle the score if you merely have a nick on the arm?”

  Alex was beginning to lose patience. “Based upon my knowledge of the young lady’s character, if Willa knew we were planning a duel she would be standing in this very field shaking her finger in our faces.”

  Harry chuckled. “You may be right there. A fiery maid if ever there was one. Have you ever seen a gel so forthright and honest?” He waxed all barmy and soft eyed, resting his sword point on the ground in the vain attempt to lean on it.

  “No. Never met a woman like her.” Alex exhaled loudly. “And now that we’ve established that—Harry, kindly do not abuse the sword. It’s not a shovel nor a cane. You’ll dull the point. I imagine you want to keep it sharp. How else do you expect to run me through?”

  Harry tipped up the blade, flicked the dirt off, and wiped the point on his shirtsleeve. “It’ll do.”

  Alex had a sudden desire to skewer something rather than stand idle in this field all morning with mosquitoes biting his ankles. He eyed Harry and inhaled slowly, deliberately. “I seriously doubt she’ll be pleased with either one of us if we do any significant damage to each other.”

  “See your point.” Harry’s red nose bobbed up and down as he agreed. “Don’t want to put her off me by wounding you too badly.”

  Harry? Wound him? He glowered at the sun rising over the hills, burning through the low clouds. Alex’s skill with the sword was well known in the clubs of London. Why was Harry gammoning himself?

  Ah, the delusions a woman ignites in the mind of a man.

  Alex need only look at the foolishness brewing in his own head. Could he truly cope with the responsibilities of being a husband? A month ago, he would have laid odds against it. Yet now, the thought failed to send him galloping off in the other direction. Instead, a pleasant sense of contentment settled on him.

  He smiled and shrugged out of his coat. Time to get down to business. “Your choice, Harry, old boy. I’m offering you my arm.” He rolled up his sleeve. “If you refuse, I’ll be happy to oblige you in any manner you choose. Perhaps you would prefer some scoring on your cheek? A dramatic zigzag? You might wear it as a badge of honor the rest of your days. Or, as the bloodthirsty Countess suggested, I can send you up to discuss it with St. Peter. Your move.”

  Alex shoved his sleeve up as high as it would go and leaned his arm sideways within easy reach of Harry’s foil.

  Harry glanced away. In the distance, a carriage rattled wildly up the road, kicking up a dust even in the morning mist.

  There was no direct sun. Nevertheless, Harry shaded his bleary eyes. “Halloo, what’s this? I don’t believe it. The countess is coming to see for herself.”

  Alex sighed. “Precisely what it needs. A meddling matriarch.”

  Al
ex and Harry stood about a furlong away from the road, watching the coach approach. It hadn’t even come to a complete stop when the door flew open and an occupant frantically spilled out, tumbling to her hands and knees from the last step. The woman inelegantly scrambled to her feet and started to scream.

  Alex shook his head, confused. It was not the demented Lady Alameda. Unless he missed his guess, the old woman running erratically toward them, mobcap askew, was Willa’s housekeeper from the vicarage.

  “What in heaven’s name is that?” Harry asked.

  But Alex had already dashed off to meet the frantic maid.

  She stumbled, weaving crazily as she ran, waving both arms at him. “Stop! Mr. Braeburn, stop! Don’t kill him, sir. You’ve got to help me first. It’s my Willa. She’s in trouble.”

  By the time Alex reached her, she was doubled over, out of breath and shaking. Yet she rattled on like a hundred-year-old coach and six. “I warned her. But would she listen to her old Aggie? No. Headstrong little mite. Never will pay proper heed.” She coughed. Her thin body quaked violently with the effort.

  Alex offered her the support of his arm. “Take a deep breath. That’s right. Now you must tell me what’s happened to Willa?”

  “Oh, sir.” She grabbed his arm with both hands and gripped him as if clinging to him for dear life. “I told her we shouldn’t trust the likes o’ that Lady Alameda. Aunt or no, she’s a wicked woman, that one. Fie!” She made a pretense at spitting. “Should be hung at Tyburn, if anyone was to ask me. As it is, I’m probably the one what’ll hang. Bribed her coachman to bring me here, I did. Abstracting her ladyship’s coach is bound to be a hanging crime, ’en it?”

  He frowned, trying to sort through her gibberish. “Absconding?”

  She put a hand protectively up to her neck. “I had to do it. Had to get help for my Willa. She won’t know how to fight off the likes of that womanizing lord. That’s why I had to take her ladyship’s carriage.”

  “Yes. Yes. Of course you did. No one will fault you for that. Now, please! Tell me the rest.”

  Harry bounded up beside them, huffing and puffing. “What’s to do?”

  Aggie glanced at him cursorily and turned back to Alex. “Wasn’t enough time to send for the vicar. I overheard the servants say you was comin’ here, to Battersea, to kill someone, and you’d have to ship off to Australia or be hanged, and the plump fellow would be dead, and then that awful—”

  “Here now!” Harry objected to her forecast of the duel. “I might’ve prevailed.”

  “Harry!” Alex shot him a warning glance. “Let her speak, man. Willa is in trouble.”

  “Oh! Yes. Right ho.” He patted the frail woman on her shoulder. “Then what?” Harry urged Aggie onward. “Then that awful...what?”

  Aggie nodded vigorously. “Yes, awful! Oh, I wish we’d stayed in St. Cleves. Nothing bad ever happens there.”

  She was about to break into a bawl. Alex had to find out what was happening to Willa. He dropped his sword to the ground and grasped Aggie by the shoulders. “Where is Willa? What happened?”

  “They were talking in the hall. Her, the countess an’ that bleedin’ Scottish witch. Sayin’ as how he was a fortune hunter—with naught but lint in his pockets. And now my Willa, she’s there—where he is. Seeing as how he wants her money he’ll try to compromise our Willa. That’s what they said, laughin’ like it was all a grand lark.” Aggie howled. “When he discovers she has naught but a pittance, he’ll cast her off. I just know he will. I marched straight into the hall, I did. They turned up as mum as two dead cats. Wicked, unnatural—”

  Alex gave up hoping for a rational explanation and shook her. “Who? Who’s going to compromise Willa?”

  Aggie looked at him, startled by his sharp tone. “That horrid Lord Turnipsby, that’s who.”

  “Tournsby?” He mouthed the name.

  She nodded, mute for the first moment in fifteen.

  He should have guessed. Willa had gone to stay at Lady Tricot’s with Alfreda. Tournsby, the wretch, would have ample opportunity to devise a situation that compromised her.

  “Mr. Braeburn?” Aggie jostled his arm. “I beg you, sir. I don’t know who else to ask. Please, won’t you save our little Wilhemina? She hasn’t never done a wrong thing in her whole life.” Her mouth twisted in a grimace. “Mayhaps, that isn’t exactly true. But she’s a good girl! A good girl, Mr. Braeburn, and she needs protecting.”

  “Yes. Yes.” Alex raked his hand through his hair, trying to think.

  Harry slapped him on the back. “I say, Alex, we’ve got to do something. Can’t just stand about—”

  “Right. Hold steady.” Alex tipped up Harry’s foil so that the point was aimed directly at his arm. He grasped the end of it and pressed it into his bicep. Harry paid no attention to Alex, but nattered on about which road would carry them most speedily to Lady Tricot’s estate.

  Alex pulled the point across the skin of his upper arm, drawing a line of blood across his bunched muscles.

  “What’s this? You’re bleeding, Alex!” Harry fumbled with his sword while digging for his handkerchief.

  “Yes. Now, you’ve met your obligation. The lady’s honor is satisfied.” Alex grabbed up his weapon from the grass and marched toward his horse, leaving Harry standing behind him, mouth hanging open like a coal bin.

  “Wait a bit!” Harry shouted, “I’m coming too.”

  “And me!” Aggie added.

  If they intended to come, they’d jolly well better start running because he wasn’t about to wait for either of them. He climbed on his horse.

  Harry ran after him, handkerchief waving in the wind. “Can’t go without me. Don’t forget, I’m to be the bridegroom.”

  Alex shoved his sword into a sheath on his saddle. “Don’t be a fool, Harry. You can’t marry Willa. She loves me.”

  Harry thundered up to Alex’s horse. “Don’t matter. Gels change their feelings like the tide. She’ll come round—” He wheezed, trying to catch up his wind. “Once she sees you’re not the marrying sort.”

  Alex wheeled his horse toward the road. “That’s where you’re wrong, Harry.”

  “Well, I’ll take my chances anyway. Deuced tired, but I’m coming with you. See if I don’t.” Harry bent over, breathing heavily, hands on his knees. “What about Tournsby?”

  Alex dug his heels in and directed his horse down the road toward the bridge. “I may have to run him through.” A shame. But then, this seemed to be a day destined for killing his best friends.

  Chapter 21

  Ring Around The Roses

  Oh! Cease to affirm that man, since his birth,

  From Adam till now, has with wretchedness strove;

  Some portion of paradise still is on earth

  And Eden revives in the first kiss of love.

  Excerpt from The First Kiss of Love,

  by Lord Byron,

  Poems On Various Occasions, published 1807

  ALEX HAD LEFT his blasted coat hanging over a tree branch back in Battersea fields. Lady Tricot’s white-wigged butler stared with distaste at the sizeable pool of drying blood on Alex’s linen shirtsleeve.

  “You heard me, man. Where is Miss Linnet? I’m not in a mood to be toyed with.”

  Indeed, if the blood didn’t frighten the prim old goat, the sword Alex held tautly in his other hand ought to indicate his mood. He was furious and impatient. Gad, any fool could see it. He probably looked like an avenging angel that had flown out of the pit with Beelzebub. “Speak up! She’s in danger.”

  “Not at the moment,” the old man answered archly.

  “Not danger from me, you idiot. I’m a friend.” Alex pushed open the door and stomped into the foyer, using his height to cower the stubborn gatekeeper. “Where is she?”

  The butler held up his hands as if he might bar Alex’s entry with a mere gesture. “I assure you, sir. I saw her myself not more than half an hour ago. She was in perfectly good health. Now, if you will kindly—”

>   Alex thrust his sword point under the fellow’s chin. “Do you see these muddy boots I’m wearing?”

  The man squeaked affirmation without nodding his head.

  “Yes, well, I’ve been slogging about a filth-infested field since before dawn. Riding like the hounds of hell were after me for the rest of the morning. I’m tired. I’m hungry. And if I must tramp these soiled boots through every room in this house until I find Miss Linnet, I will. I’m that worried about her. Now, you may give me her direction. Or produce the young woman. Or summon Lady Tricot. She’s bound to be more reasonable than her obstinate servant. Now, which will it be?”

  Poor fellow. Without moving his head one whit, he glanced down at Alex’s disgustingly grimy boots and paled. “The garden,” he whispered, squeezing his eyes shut. “The young lady is in the garden. Please sir, around back.”

  “No tricks?” Alex inhaled deeply and pulled back his foil.

  “No, sir.” The butler shook his head, color returning to his cheeks. “But if you would, kindly take the path around the outside of the house.”

  The fragrant roses meant nothing to him as Alex marched directly around back to the gardens. Butterflies and birds were mere nuisances. He was a man ready for battle. A knight-errant on a quest.

  He glimpsed his quarry in the gazebo. Although he didn’t have a clear view of the natty rogue. The opening faced away from him, providing its occupants with a tranquil view of the Thames as it flowed peacefully toward the sea.

  He felt anything but tranquil.

  A warrior does not like to spy his enemy down on one knee, orating flamboyantly to an unseen audience, in a gazebo covered in flowering vines, vines that must surely smell like honeysuckle. It was especially unsettling when the soldier glimpsed skirts. Particularly vexing when he was fairly certain those delicate flounces belong to the woman he loved.

  Naturally, he charged. Sword in hand. Intent on rendering the conniving lord speechless for the rest of his misbegotten existence.

  Alex grabbed Lord Tournsby by the throat and yanked him to his feet. “If you’ve so much as laid one finger on her, I’ll spit you like a Sunday goose.”