Mad About The Baron (Matchmaking for Wallflowers Book 4) Read online

  “Finally!” The ladies scuttled down the steep screeching steps of the carriage, swishing their pelisses over his boots, their faces still grinning, as if they desired to tell everyone that they’d come close to touching.

  Miss Haskett extended a gloved hand in his direction, and Miles’s stomach constricted as her fingers tightened around his.

  He helped her to her feet, and her eyelashes batted with a rapidity warranted for confronting a dust storm.

  “Thank you, Lord Worthing.”

  “Er—yes.” He scrambled from the carriage, and his spine stiffened as the carriage steps squeaked behind him.

  “Shall we…dine?” Miss Haskett’s voice seemed to have dropped an octave. Ever since a certain Matchmaking for Wallflowers article, all the ladies had taken to lowering their voices in an effort at seduction.

  Miles did not want to be seduced.

  Not now. Not ever.

  He was cold and wet and hungry.

  The Scottish gales swirled with an unrelenting gusto, as if desiring praise for their blustering puissance. Patches of snow melted over the soggy mud, and the posting inn, hunched over a steep slope, scarcely inspired confidence.

  Miles trudged toward the half-timbered structure, noting how the thatched roof sagged under some not yet melting snow. Hopefully they’d managed to learn how to pour ale into a tankard and make a decent meat pie. The inn looked like it had had sufficient centuries to practice.

  Miss Haskett entered the inn before him, joining her charges. His nose pinched in the cold, and a cloud of gray smoke spurted with every breath, perhaps to assure him he’d not frozen yet.

  They disappeared around a corner after ordering, and Miles approached the barmaid. Her lips seemed to curl.

  “This way, sir. There’s a fire in the room. You’ll be warm in no time.” The words seemed to make her eyes sparkle. Clearly Scots had very little to amuse themselves, or perhaps she’d simply never seen a person so clearly in need of warmth before.

  He frowned. Perhaps he hadn’t needed to arrive at Gerard’s in a tweed coat, even though his tailor had insisted it was the very latest in fashion.

  Perhaps he might even have selected a cravat fabric that better protected his neck against the cold. But still. Surely that alone shouldn’t be cause for merriment. Was the woman able to tell from his mere stride that he did not belong in this vile country?

  He sighed.

  Perhaps.

  After all he was very English.

  His ancestors may have settled in Kent, but they’d made the move from Sussex. His ancestors had married some Norman aristocrats, ones who, when not occupying themselves with invading, used a modicum of manners learned from their time on the continent.

  “Shouldn’t I order?”

  She laughed. “There’s only one meal ’ere, Lord Worthing.”

  Evidently Scotland received broadsheets too. He’d been a bloody good correspondent.

  “This way,” she said briskly. “I know just where to seat you.”

  He followed her past some tables, noting the driver mingling with some locals.

  The barmaid’s gait did not waver, and she opened a door

  He ducked under the low wooden beam and took a seat. “I’ll bring you yer grub now.”

  “Thank you—”

  The door clicked behind him as she exited, and he frowned. And then shrugged.

  Some people were taken aback to be so near in the presence of a person so important. Miles had never been asked for directions so much since becoming famous, and he was accustomed to young women approaching and giggling as they inquired about the location of Westminster Abbey or St. Paul’s Cathedral, when any fool could spot the spires soaring above the other city buildings.

  He glanced around the dimly lit room. He had the strange sensation that he was being observed, even though the barmaid had just left.

  “We are alone,” a feminine voice sounded behind him, and his heart sank.

  He turned around and braced himself.

  *

  Miss Haskett stood before him.

  His eyebrows rose. He’d always assumed governesses to value rules, given their proclivity to occupy the greater portion of their time in trying to impart order to others.

  “I told my charges to give us privacy.” Miss Haskett flung her hair, and her straight locks tumbled inelegantly downward. She strode toward him, and for a horrible second he wondered whether she might plop herself on his lap to better be available for admiration.

  The woman seemed to have found time to change: she’d replaced her somber gray frock for a slightly more vivacious dark blue. Two rows of pearls dangled from her neck. The jewels were of such a grandiose size that he wondered if she’d taken the necklace from one of her charges.

  A gasp seemed to sound inside the room.

  He scrutinized the shadowed sections of the room, the places that the single tallow candle did not reach. Was it possible someone was hiding behind one of the centuries-old pillars?

  “Baron,” Miss Haskett said quickly.

  “You shouldn’t be here,” Miles said.

  “How pleasant to find you worry about me.”

  He swallowed hard. “If anyone found you here—”

  Marriage.

  That was the sort of thing that might happen.

  He’d had sufficient chits place themselves in his paths and start undressing. They tended to have scheming mamas or financially desperate papas.

  He knew friends who’d been felled by these manipulations. His old friend Toppy was never at his London club, tasked with producing sufficient heirs and spares to give his new wife, whom he’d found undressed behind a balcony curtain shortly before her loud-mouth mama happened upon them.

  Lord Markham, a man who’d never expressed much interest in women and had a rumored preference for certain Soho molly houses, had been caught with a woman in a maze at a house party. Lord Markham did not seem to be the type to succumb to such passions, and the poor man must be miserable ensconced with his new wife and parents-in-law in a dilapidating manor house in Cornwall.

  Lord Worthing directed his attention to Miss Haskett. “Please leave.”

  Uncertainty flickered over her face, but she inhaled. “And waste this opportunity?”

  She seemed to be striving to lower a capped sleeve down her shoulder, and she frowned as her hands yanked the fabric.

  “In truth,” Lord Worthing said, forcing his tone to sound apologetic and gentlemanly, “I just want to eat.”

  “Me?” Her face flushed, but she managed to retain eye contact with him. He had to admire her for that.

  And then he heard something that sounded like shuffling.

  Something that sounded very much like shuffling.

  Blast.

  He had to leave. At any moment somebody might pop from behind a column. He sprinted from the door.

  “I see you,” a high-pitched voice, perhaps Amaryllis, shouted behind him, but she was too late. He would not allow anyone to compromise him.

  He enjoyed his life.

  He enjoyed his bachelor ways, and refused to be saddled with a wife, no matter her cleverness at concocting compromising situations.

  He rushed through the pub and grabbed a piece of bread some guest had left behind.

  “Don’t bother with the meal,” he gasped to the barmaid as he gobbled the too stale roll.

  He pushed open the door and rushed over the damp grass and patches of snow toward the coach.

  A groom was supervising the switching of horses.

  “Will be a while before you can go,” the man said.

  “I want to ride the rest of the way myself.”

  The coach driver narrowed his eyes. “On these roads?”

  “What are a few holes?” Miles attempted to smile brightly.

  He was a good rider. He would certainly be able to do anything that a Scottish farmer had to do on occasion.

  Even if the drizzle didn’t seem exactly pleasant, and even
if the heaps of melting snow and sludge did not seem enticing.

  “I rather fancy the quiet,” Miles said.

  “Aye.” The coach driver nodded. “You’ll find that ’ere. Reckon you can’t find much quiet in London with all those society parties.” He winked. “Don’t think I don’t recognize you.”

  “Does everyone?” Miles asked faintly.

  Normally he would be proud of his carefully cultivated reputation, but now the path to his brother’s castle seemed of the unpleasant variety.

  “One moment.” The coachman scrambled to his seat and found a spare sheet of paper amongst more official looking documents and maps. He picked up a quill and quickly dipped it into ink, so it dripped onto the paper. “Care to make an autograph? For my…son?”

  “Naturally.” Miles asked him his son’s name and addressed it.

  The door to the public house swung open, and Miss Haskett stepped outside. She strode directly toward him, her two charges in tow.

  Miles scribbled his signature hastily. “I really must go.” He took one of the horses that was being lined up. “How much to borrow this one?”

  “But that’s something you should arrange with the groomsman ’ere,” the coach driver shouted.

  “No time,” Miles said hastily and threw some notes at the coachman. “You arrange it!”

  The man glanced at the money. “But that’s more than enough to buy the horse.”

  Miles grinned. “Good.”

  He swung onto the startled horse and urged it to a gallop. It was unfortunate he hadn’t had time to have a proper saddle put on the horse, but it didn’t matter. Miles excelled at horse riding, even if riding through Scotland on the type of frigid day that should be devoted purely to hot chocolate drinking was suboptimal.

  He inhaled the crisp air and guided the horse through the smattering of thatched-roofed homes that made up the village.

  The horse’s hooves clopped a happy rhythm over the path, and Miles guided it in the direction of the castle.

  Soon he would see his family, but now he could enjoy freedom from the carriage and its occupants, even if the rain had turned into the freezing variety.

  Lord Worthing urged his horse forward, and it galloped over the ever-rockier terrain. Rain drops scattered over him, obscuring the tall brown slopes the Scots tended to extol.

  Chapter Three

  The rain increased, and Miles almost regretted his athletic urge to arrive on horseback. Coaches had their advantages, even if they did have a propensity to be filled with the more scheming of the other sex.

  Blast.

  He’d rather expected to appear in more style than sweeping his muddied boots and water-soaked cloak about Gerard’s castle.

  Rain tumbled down on him as he neared Diomhair Caisteal, and Miles sympathized with the sour expressions that graced his Scottish counterparts with the regularity of smiles on the English.

  One likely wouldn’t take an optimistic outlook on the world after tramping about in soggy clothes one’s whole life.

  Diomhair Caisteal adorned a steep cliff that towered over the ocean. Perhaps the castle’s location had been selected to ward off invaders, but whichever long-dead laird had forced his subjects to construct the unsymmetrical compilation of turrets and towers had not needed to bother.

  Miles was certain that no one, no matter how desperate, would want anything to do with this region. Even Vikings, who had the misfortune of being born in Denmark, or worse yet, Norway, had preferred to pillage the area in the summer, and row the long journey back, than to attempt to live here.

  Miles guided his horse into the hamlet, thankful he recalled the way. One would think that after existing for so many centuries, it would have occurred to someone to make a good sign. Then again, visitors were likely an abstract concept for the inhabitants.

  Stone cottages were scattered over hills so steep he wondered how anyone managed to walk here, much less live with any degree of permanency. The homes seemed to mirror the crumbling Hadrian’s Wall he’d crossed on the way to this blasted country.

  Narrow windows, the small size chosen perhaps to lessen the incessant chill, or simply out of exasperation of ever seeing anything resembling proper sunlight shine through them, dotted the buildings at wide intervals.

  If Miles were his older brother, he would live anywhere else. Apartments in Paris were more advantageous, and Miles possessed sufficient pride of his English heritage, and outrage over the French conduct during the Napoleonic Wars, to not mull such alternatives lightly.

  A few locals peered at him with suspicion. He wondered whether they could sense his Englishness. Likely he needed to scowl more vigorously to blend in.

  A figure rushed down the hill. Mud clung to her hem, and her cheeks were pink. She looked around frantically, but then smiled when she spotted him.

  She cupped her hands to her mouth, and hollered, “Beggin’ your pardon, sir. Are you the baron?”

  She must work for the castle.

  Good old Gerard, sending servants out despite the inclement weather, just on the off chance that he might be arriving. “I am!”

  And she’d called him a baron too. His brother must be proud of Miles’s new title, bestowed for his articles composed from war ravaged regions. Normally people reserved the title of baron for letters written on glossy parchment and bound with ornate wax seals.

  The maid beamed and then dipped into a quick curtsy that seemed out of place on the craggy cliff.

  “Ah, you needn’t do that—” He started to say, as she said, “You need to come with me—”

  His eyebrows soared upwards. His experience of maids was mostly confined to hearing the sound of rapidly scurrying feet when he entered a room or woke as they finished lighting a fire.

  The maid’s cheeks flushed, but she looked at him defiantly. “You are already late, I’m afraid.”

  Late?

  He’d left the guest house inn early.

  His horse’s speed might not be able to equal that of four strong horses, but at least his horse wasn’t carrying a two-storied coach.

  “I’m to inform you that you’re wanted in the chapel,” the maid continued, oblivious to her blatant insult at his tardiness-avoidance abilities.

  “Everyone is there?”

  “Everyone who should be there.” She smiled. “My mistress looks very pretty.”

  “I’m not surprised.” He shook his head. He still wasn’t accustomed to the fact that his very rugged, adamantly roguish brother had married the woman most skilled at following the teachings of the ton. His sister-in-law always appeared splendid, but there was a reason everyone had once called her Ice Queen.

  Fortunately Lady Rockport now seemed less stringent, but he had to confess, he’d expected to see Gerard end up with some equally wild Scotswoman, if he deigned to marry at all.

  How the great are felled.

  No matter.

  He would visit his brother, use the castle as a base to find this anonymous authoress, and then he’d be back reporting decent stories. He followed the maid up the slope, leading his horse on the narrow path.

  Perhaps his brother had taken the other guests on a walk, and they’d stopped to admire the stained-glass windows. Heavens knew there wasn’t anything else to do in this region. No gentlemen’s clubs, and certainly no cricket grounds.

  The chapel was closer than the castle. This was good news. “I’ll follow you.”

  “My mistress will be so happy.”

  His sister-in-law’s perfectionist tendencies were renowned. No wonder she struggled with not knowing his precise arrival time.

  He smirked. “I like to make an entrance.”

  The maid’s lips twitched. “Then pardon if I say so, but I think you’ll be quite well-suited.”

  He blinked. Was she still speaking about Gerard’s wife?

  Before he could question the maid, she pressed her hand against the heavy wooden door of the chapel, and he followed her into the dimly lit space. He’d expec
ted a bevy of voices. Gerard had invited their brother Marcus, who’d hauled his whole extended family on the visit.

  Miles’s lips twitched. He could only surmise that Marcus had led his wife’s sister’s family here in order to curtail their visit. Marcus had always been clever, and the Scottish Highlands must contain all manner of wolf-dwelling caves and sharp drop-offs with which to scare one’s American relations.

  The chapel smelled of candle wax and dust, and he followed the maid through the dark room.

  He bumped his foot against a wall and swore.

  *

  “Bloody hell.” A deep, appealing baritone uttered the curse, and it echoed through the chapel.

  The words themselves were unpleasant. In fact, few utterances could be less appropriate, but joy still cascaded through Veronique.

  He’s here.

  She stepped toward the masculine figure struggling through the shadows.

  Personally she would have selected a more laudatory word when entering a chapel. Something about the elaborate carvings, or even some compliment on the stained glass, though they were likely more striking when the weather lacked this magnitude of grimness.

  But then, it could be no real surprise that the baron might make use of a wide vocabulary.

  Veronique knew. She’d been corresponding with the man for the past two years. He might be Austrian, but the man was intelligent.

  Her heart pattered, nervous despite the fact she knew him well.

  Anyway. His appearance didn’t matter. They had a greater, spiritual connection, one that couldn’t be swayed by unsymmetrical faces or unduly bushy brows.

  Love was the greatest force in the world, and after years of waiting, longing, imagining a love of her own, she’d found him.

  She smoothed her hair, conscious of the slight tremble of her hands. Would he find her appealing?

  She’d told him of her heritage in her last letter to him. For a few horrible minutes she’d worried he’d had second thoughts. European aristocrats did not tend to marry mulattos.

  Most people assumed her to be of Southern European ancestry or thought her to be of the habit of forgoing bonnets and parasols. They didn’t inspect her for signs of wide noses and overly thick, overly curly hair, but if the ton resembled any strata of American society, they would not be welcoming were they to discover her mother had descended from Barbadosian sugar pickers.