The Pleasure of Bedding a Baroness

by Tamara Lejeune

  Morton bowed to Prudence. “My lady! You may be assured that we are doing all we can to find your sister.”

  Pru stared at him. “You think that I am Patience?” she asked.

  “I understand that you are impatient to have your sister back,” he replied.

  “You think that Prudence was kidnapped?” Max interrupted.

  “Well, of course she was kidnapped!” snapped Isabella. “It happened right before my eyes! We had just gotten back to the house, when, suddenly, he was there! He beat my poor brother and carried off my sweet friend as if she had been a rag doll!”

  Morton cleared his throat. “Perhaps now Your Ladyship will explain how you came to be returning to the house at such an hour? Where had you been? And why was Miss Waverly with you?”

  “How dare you question my sister!” Lord Milford said angrily. “We are the victims!”

  “It’s all right, Ivor,” Isabella told him. “I will answer. Miss Prudence, I’m sorry to say, was running away from her brother-in-law, that man there!” She pointed her finger at Max. “When she told me of his cruelty to her, I could not help but pity her. My brother and I rescued her.”

  Pru’s mouth fell open. “That is a lie!” she cried. “My sister went to meet you in the park to retrieve some letters!”

  “It is you who are lying, Lady Waverly,” Isabella answered. “Your husband has been in your sister’s bed, and the poor child could bear it no more.”

  “What did you say?” Pru gasped.

  “Considering his descent, one could hardly have expected any better. His mother was an Italian opera dancer, you know,” she told Mr. Morton.

  Pru’s face was red. “I am not Lady Waverly! I am Miss Waverly!”

  Isabella’s mouth curved into a cruel smile. “Indeed? I did hear a rumor that Lord Waverly still lived. He only pretended to be dead to escape debtor’s prison. What a family! How could I not take pity on poor little Prudence?”

  “I thought you were my friend,” Pru said bitterly. “But you were part of his plan all along, weren’t you? You only pretended to help me.”

  “I don’t know what you mean, Lady—er, what is your name? Mrs. Fusilli? I’m sorry about your sister, but it is not our fault she was kidnapped. My brother and I were only trying to help her.”

  “Could this be true?” Morton gravely asked Pru. “Could your sister have run away?”

  “No!” Pru said violently. “Everything she just said is a beastly lie! My sister went to the park to meet Isabella! If they brought her here it was against her will!”

  “I don’t believe for an instant she has been kidnapped twice,” Max declared. “I believe she is still in this house. Have you searched it, Mr. Morton?”

  “If we were holding a girl prisoner, we would hardly have summoned Bow Street,” Isabella sneered. “The fact is, my brother was attacked, and Miss Waverly was carried off into the fog by that—that brute!”

  “You know who took her?” Max roared. “Who was it?”

  Lord Milford eyed him resentfully with his one good eye, the other still being hidden behind the raw steak. “I know exactly who it was,” he declared. “It was that boy who was always hanging about Lady Waverly’s house! You know: the American! He’s attacked me before. Lady Waverly can attest to that.”

  “You mean Roger?” cried Pru. “Roger beat you up and kidnapped my sister?”

  Max breathed a sigh of relief. “Oh, that’s all right, then!” he exclaimed. “I was terrified something awful had happened! Well, Mr. Morton!” he went on, actually smiling. “You can call off the search. Wherever she is, I know she’s perfectly safe.”

  Morton stared. “You know the young man who attacked his lordship?” he said slowly. “You would trust him with your wife’s sister?”

  Max gave a laugh. “No, indeed,” he said. “But I believe I can trust him with my wife! You kidnapped the wrong girl, my lord,” he added, growing cold as he gazed at Lord Milford. “You thought you were taking Prudence, but you were wrong. The lady who went to the park to meet your sister, the lady whom you brought here against her will, was, in fact, my wife!”

  The raw steak fell from Lord Milford’s eye and slapped the floor.

  “What are you talking about?” Isabella demanded, white faced. “There is your wife!”

  Pru stuck out her chin. “No, I am Prudence. Patience went in my place because she is a good and loyal sister. I would never run away from her. She would never hurt me, and—and neither would Max! What you said about him was quite disgusting!”

  “Not to mention slanderous,” said Max.

  Morton frowned. “So the missing woman is not Miss Prudence Waverly? She is Mrs... ?”

  “Purefoy,” Max told him. “She is Mrs. Maximilian Purefoy.”

  “You are not a Purefoy,” Isabella spat, “however much you would like to pretend. Your uncle has disowned you! You are nothing!” She turned to Mr. Morton. “You will not take their word over ours, surely? He is nothing but a by-blow, and she—she is an American!”

  “But this young lady is Miss Prudence Waverly?” said Morton.

  “I suppose so, yes,” said Isabella. “Yes! Miss Prudence wears curls on her brow. Her sister does not.”

  “Then it was Mrs. Purefoy in your carriage this morning,” Morton said. “Why? Was she running away from her husband?”

  Isabella stared at him, unable to think of any plausible lie.

  “My lady?”

  “It was his idea!” she cried, pointing her finger at her brother. “I only went along with it because he—he bullied me! He was going to take her to Milford and make her marry him. He’s desperate to get his hands on her fortune!”

  “Why, you—!” Lord Milford flung his raw steak at her before Morton could get him under control. The patrolman was summoned to haul his lordship from the room.

  “And you as well, my lady,” Morton told Isabella.

  “I?” she cried. “What did I do?”

  “Kidnapping, blackmail,” Morton began.

  “No! No!” She protested. “It was my brother who kidnapped her! He doused his handkerchief in ether and he grabbed her from behind! I was just the decoy or the bait or whatever. I did nothing! As for the blackmail ... I never blackmailed anyone! I was going to give those letters back! Honestly, I was!”

  “Perhaps Your Ladyship would be good enough to retrieve them now,” Morton said gently.

  Isabella did so eagerly. Taking the packet from her cloak, she handed it to Morton.

  Morton glanced at the direction. “These are addressed to you, sir,” he said to Max. “Allow me to return your property to you.”

  “Thank you,” said Max, pocketing them without looking at them.

  “There is still the matter of your missing wife, of course,” said Morton. “Bow Street is at your disposal, sir. We’ll find the young man.”

  “He said something,” Isabella said quickly, suddenly eager to be helpful. “The American. He said he was taking her back to America!”

  “America?” Morton said doubtfully.

  Max laughed aloud. “It’s closer than you think, Mr. Morton!” he said. “In fact, it’s just up the street.”

  “Of course!” said Pru. “Mr. Adams’s house!”

  As Morton led Isabella out to the hackney coach where her brother was waiting, Sir Charles drove up. “What the devil is going on?” he demanded. “Who are you, sir? Where are you taking my fiancée?”

  “She’s being arrested for kidnapping my sister,” Pru told him. “Her and her brother. They’re going to prison for a very long time!”

  “Sir Charles!” Isabella cried. “Help me!”

  Without another word, the baronet drove away.

  Max and Pru continued on to Mr. Adams’s house. Mrs. Adams did not keep them waiting long. Conducting them upstairs, she led them into a cheerful little room. Roger Molyneux was bent over the bed, taking his patient’s pulse. Nodding curtly to Pru, he spoke to Max.

  “You got my note, I see? The
instant we got her bonnet off, I knew, of course, who it was. I sent for you at once.”

  Max sank down to his knees at the side of the bed, and took Patience’s cold hand in his. “I must have gone already to find her,” he murmured, his eyes on Patience’s face. “Can we not wake her up?”

  “My guess is the bastard etherized her,” Roger answered, stepping back from the bed. “But all her vital signs are good. She’ll be back with us soon.”

  “What a good thing you were there, Molyneux,” said Max. “I’m truly grateful to you.”

  Pru slipped to her knees on the other side of the bed and smoothed Patience’s hair back from her brow. “Why were you there, Roger Molyneux?” she asked.

  “I was in the neighborhood,” he replied.

  “Oh?”

  He frowned. “I heard you were engaged to the big lord,” he said sullenly. “I wanted to congratulate you.”

  Her eyes gleamed. “You thought it was me, didn’t you?” she said softly. “You came to rescue me!”

  “No,” he retorted. “I was going to kidnap you.”

  Pru jumped to her feet and ran to him. “Oh, Roger! You do care! I wish it had been me,” she went on, snuggling in his arms. “But Patience said I wasn’t well enough to get out of bed, let alone—”

  “Why? What’s the matter with you?” Roger said sharply.

  “Nothing! Just a trifling little cold,” she assured him.

  “There’s no such thing as a trifling little cold,” he said sternly. “You could have pneumonia! I shall have to examine you.”

  “Yes, doctor,” Pru said meekly. “I think you should.”

  When Patience opened her eyes some time later, there was no one else in the room but Max. “Hello,” he murmured, looking down at her tenderly.

  “Where am I?” she murmured in confusion.

  “You’re at the American embassy,” he told her. “You’re safe now. How do you feel?”

  “A slight headache,” she replied, sitting up. “The embassy?” she repeated.

  “Yes. What’s the last thing you remember?”

  Patience had to think. “I was going to meet Isabella,” she said, concentrating. “I saw her on the bridge. But, just as I was going to meet her, someone pounced on me!”

  She frowned at him. “Max! Max, how could you?”

  He blinked at her. “What?”

  “You kidnapped me!” she accused him.

  “Kidnapped you! I?”

  “You,” she said softly. Taking his face in her hands, she kissed him gently. “How romantic! Though not at all necessary,” she added. “I didn’t mean what I said. Of course, I was going to marry you again. I would not have missed our wedding for anything.”

  “But we have missed it,” he pointed out. “It’s afternoon. But we can try again tomorrow.”

  “Try again tomorrow!” she mocked him. “As though I could wait another day!”

  “What would you have me do? I can’t turn back the clock.”

  “This is America, Max. We don’t have all your silly rules. We are a free people. We can get married any time we like, day or night. Ask Mrs. Adams if we can borrow the chaplain.”

  “But I don’t have the license,” he said. “I left it at Sunderland House.”

  “In America, we don’t need a license,” she told him. “But you know that, of course. It’s why you brought me here, isn’t it? We don’t even need my uncle’s permission!”

  Her eyes clouded suddenly. “I just wish my sister could be here,” she said sadly. “Then everything would be perfect.”

  “Then everything is perfect,” he told her. “Prudence is waiting outside.”

  “Truly?”

  He smiled. “Truly.”

  Patience flung her arms around his neck. “Thank you, Max,” she said simply.

  Epilogue

  By the time his nephew returned to the house that afternoon, the Duke of Sunderland had given up on the marriage entirely. The archbishop had left hours ago, the other guests had been dismissed. The cake had been given to an orphanage, and the servants had eaten the breakfast. His grace’s gout was troubling him, and he was in the drawing room soaking his feet in a bath of Epsom salts.

  “So you decided to come, after all?” he said irritably as Max led Patience to him. “That is very good of you, madam.”

  Patience was too happy to take umbrage at his less than welcoming tone. Bending at the waist, she kissed his cheek. “How do you do, Uncle?”

  “Uncle, is it?” he said gruffly. “Well, it’s too late for you to be married today.”

  “But I am presenting my wife to you, sir,” Max told him. “We were married at the embassy.”

  “Embassy? What embassy?”

  “My embassy, sir,” Patience told him, smiling. “I am married to your nephew. I am very glad to see you again. It was not very pleasant the last time we met. I am sorry for that.”

  “So you should be,” he rasped. “But, Max, I don’t like this embassy business. You should be married by the archbishop, as we planned. I’ll ask him to come again tomorrow.”

  Patience laughed. “I’ll marry your nephew as many times as you like, sir.”

  “Very generous of you, madam, I’m sure,” the duke said sourly. “But you needn’t look so pleased with yourself! I’m not as frail as I look. If I were, I’d have died years ago. You will have to wait a good long while to be a duchess.”

  “Oh, I hope so, sir,” Patience replied. “And, you know, I might never be a duchess. It is possible that, in the years to come, England will do the sensible thing, and abolish the aristocracy. Wouldn’t that be wonderful, sir?”

  The duke glared at her. “I trust, madam,” he said frostily, “I shall never live to see that day!”

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  Copyright © 2011 by Tamara Lejeune

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  ISBN: 978-1-4201-2555-9