“I will not!”
“Oh no?” (Thunk!)
“I’ll spare him the fatal vexation of me entirely because I shan’t marry him.”
Clun stopped chopping and leaned an elbow on the axe handle. “Though you’re well intentioned, somehow I can’t imagine he’ll escape his fate. For I wager your father is anxious to be rid of you.”
“You’re probably right,” she chuckled. “But you’re cruel to point it out, sir. I vow I won’t go home to the earl unless he ends this farce of a betrothal and promises not to attempt such a travesty again on my behalf. He thinks what I need is a strong hand to guide me! He regrets, he’s often told me, having been lax with me. Lax! His parenting never involved indulgence, just benign neglect. And having let me do as I wish for two decades, it seems a mean trick to impose discipline on me now through marriage to a relic.”
“Perhaps.”
“Perhaps! Who’s to say the poor, old baron is up to the task of disciplining me! You say I’ll give him fatal spasms. How could such a man hope to bring me to heel? No. If I must marry, I would liefer marry a strong, practical man.”
“A woodsman perhaps?” Clun mocked. “Wouldn’t you miss your comforts? Hot water magically appearing in your room for your bath and disappearing again just as magically when you’re through and it’s gone tepid.”
“I am content to bathe in the stream and do so frequently.” She was only too happy to leave him dumbfounded, or scandalized, or whatever it was that left his eyes bulging and his firm, kissable lips loose as a carp’s.
Served him right, she sniffed.
• • •
Clun could only stare agape at her in the autumn twilight. His mouth went dry. She flippantly mentioned bathing in the nearby stream and he blanked for an instant. First, came to mind his recollection as a young man of taking a brief dip. His frozen balls had retracted far into his lower body somewhere and refused to descend for a day. Next flashed a series of heated, pleasantly stirring imaginings: the glowing colors of her creamy skin touched with blushes all over, her long chestnut hair fanning out around her siren’s face, her rosy nipples gathered into tight little buds in the chill water. He forcibly recalled himself to his senses. Much as he feared, her proximity, the wood chopping and the bathing-siren fantasy she incited tweaked his manhood to attention. He took up a large log and held it before him.
To distract her, he teased: “You would have me believe you’ll bathe in a frigid stream and kill your own meat through the winter?”
“I’m a dead aim with a gun. The venison in the stew, that’s mine.”
“You mean Lord Clun’s.”
“Well, if you want to be a stickler. But I shot it.”
“I’m impressed.” And he was impressed. She was nothing if not surprising. And dangerously stimulating.
“I just realized we’ve not been introduced. I am Lady Elizabeth Chapin Damogan.” She pronounced her last name with care, slightly exaggerating the second syllable, ‘da-MUG-en.’ “Those who have only read the name mistakenly say ‘DAM-o-gan,’ which I cannot abide.”
“And you’re too polite to correct their pronunciation? I’m astonished.” Of course, he knew her blasted name. He was about to marry the chit! Should he instruct her to pronounce de Sayre 5 in some ridiculous way, perhaps ‘dee SAY’ or funnier still ‘de-SIRE’?
“I’m William Tyler…That’s all, just Tyler.” He bowed elegantly to cover his hesitation. Clun wasn’t sure what his intentions were at that moment, only that he wished to have a bit of fun with Lady Elizabeth ‘da-MUG-en.’
The Baron’s Betrothal,
Book Two in the Horsemen of the Apocalypse series,
may be available winter of 2012/3, we’ll just see.
Endnotes
(Click on the number or hit “Back” to return to your place in the text.)
1 A stone, for U.S. readers like me who always wonder, equals 14 lbs. At 14 stone. Thus, Attila weighed 196 lbs, or the size of a large male bull mastiff, if only Attila were a purebreed.
2 Bath’s public assembly rooms on Bennett Street east of the Circus were known as the “Upper Rooms” by residents to distinguish the newer, larger ballroom, Tea Room, Octagon Room and Card Room from the older assembly rooms — the “Lower Rooms” — south of the new location on Terrace Walk near the South Parade along the Avon River.
3 In 1811, a Lady of Distinction published The Mirror of Graces in which she writes, “we shall next speak of the stays, or corsets. They must be light and flexible, yielding to the shape, while they support it.” (pg. 78) Since a Lady of Distinction makes none between the terms stays and corsets in the period, this author chooses not to as well. A divorce is a triangular, padded ‘breastplate’ placed between the breasts to separate them, as described on pg. 101, in the same book.
4 Algernon was typical of the large, muscular gray horses bred from Percherons and Arabians. Not so large as a pure Percheron, still Algernon favored his Percheron sire, and stood at 18 hands, a strapping, huge horse. He was, in other words, in perfect proportion to his monumentally muscular master, Lord Clun. No doubt descended from destriers, Algernon was the finest, strongest war horse on the field of battle, at least, as far as Lord Clun was concerned.
5 De Sayre, pronounced “de-SAY-er.”
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Epilogue
Misc. Historical Notes
About the Author
Excerpt from The Baron’s Betrothal
Endnotes
The Duke's Tattoo: A Regency Romance of Love and Revenge, Though Not in That Order Page 27
