Read The Pleasure of Bedding a Baroness Online

Authors: Tamara Lejeune

The Pleasure of Bedding a Baroness (27 page)

“Let the
Times
do it for you. And the
Morning Post
. Oh, yes! We must have it in the
Morning Post,
too. And the marriage license. It should bear my mother’s name, and not my father’s, on the license. That will complete the charade. I’ll send for your man of business.”
“What if she marries you anyway?” the duke objected. “A fine mess you’ll be in then!”
“We always said this is what we’d do if I got into trouble with some adventuress,” Max reminded him.
“I’m telling you, she didn’t bat an eye! She says her sister will marry a nameless, penniless bastard.”
Max grinned. “She may believe it. I don’t.”
The duke shook his head. “You should run away, just in case. Join Freddie in St. Petersburg. Meet a nice Russian girl.”
“I think
you
should join Freddie in St. Petersburg, Uncle.”
“There’s no need to be rude!”
“Not at all. When you disown me, Freddie becomes your heir. I hear St. Petersburg is lovely in the springtime.”
“It’s the dead of winter, sir!”
“All right. You needn’t actually go to St. Petersburg. We’ll just put it about that you’ve gone to Russia. You can go someplace sunny. Come to think of it, that’s probably what Freddie’s done.”
The duke sighed. “You know I don’t travel as well as I used to. Besides, you’ll need me if you get into trouble.”
Max thought it over. “You could stay here, I suppose. Have the servants take the knocker off the door and tell everyone you’ve gone. No one will expect you to want company after my disgrace. No one will be surprised to hear you have left London.”
“I don’t like it,” said the duke. “What would your father say? He went to a good deal of trouble, you know, to make sure you were not born a bastard.”
“My father would understand,” Max assured him. “He was a great believer in marrying for love. That’s what I mean to do, Uncle. I’ve found the girl I love. Now all that remains is to find out if I am the man she loves.”
“Do you mean you are in love with the lying little minx?” the duke said incredulously.
“Of course not, you old fool,” said Mrs. Drabble, coming into the room two steps ahead of a very flustered Venable. “He’s in love with the lying minx’s sister!”
“Julia!” the duke cried softly. “You’ve come back!”
She glared at him. “Don’t think for a moment that I’ve forgiven you, old man,” she snapped. “I’m only here because our dear boy is in trouble.”
“How did you hear of it?” Max asked her.
“Miss Prudence made a holy show of killing herself,” Mrs. Drabble answered, huffing with indignation. “Pity she didn’t succeed.”
“My poor Patience,” Max murmured. “Oh, I could murder that girl!”
“So could I! Cheerfully!” Mrs. Drabble declared. “But it wouldn’t do you a bit of good. She won’t hear a word against her sister. As good as bit my head off when I called her a liar. But I’ll try again tomorrow, Max.”
Max shook his head. “I’m afraid that will be too late, Drabble. Tomorrow, I’m getting married. Would you be good enough to give us the wedding breakfast at your house?”
“Do something!” Mrs. Drabble said furiously to the duke. “Don’t just lie there!”
“I lie here because my bones ache,” he told her coldly. “And for your information, I
am
doing something. As soon as my man of business gets here, I’m going to disown my nephew. Then nobody will want to marry him.”
“Don’t say that,” Max said mildly. “I hope someone will want to marry me! You won’t forget gooseberry tarts for the groom, will you, Drabble? And cherry for the bride.”
She looked at him, bewildered. “Cherry for the bride?” she repeated puzzled.
Suddenly her expression changed. Her eyes lit up and her cheeks turned pink.
“Oh!” she said.
Chapter 16
 
Prudence, her hair in curl papers, finally climbed into bed at one o’clock, falling asleep before her head hit the pillow. Patience ordered the exhausted maid to go to bed, then took up the candle and went to her own room.
A figure was bent over the hearth, poking the dying fire. “Leave it,” she said wearily.
The figure straightened up, and she saw at once that it was Max.
“How dare you!” she gasped, the candlestick shaking in her hand.
“Careful! You’ll burn yourself. Better put it down.”
Patience was setting the candlestick on the table just as he suggested she do. She had to fight the childish impulse to pick it up again. “How did you get in here?” she asked coldly.
“Freddie gave me his key,” he answered. “In case his tenants should need anything. I saw no reason to wake the servants. You look very tired,” he added with a gentleness that made her bristle.
“I assume you have seen your uncle, Mr. Purefoy.”
“Max! Please!” he protested. “We are to be brother and sister in just a few short hours.”
“There is no such thing as a short hour,” she snapped.
“What?”
“I have always detested that figure of speech.”
“In that case, I withdraw it, with abject apology,” he said glibly. “Where is the bride?”
Her eyes flew swiftly to his face. “You are here to see Prudence?”
“Of course. My blushing bride.”
“Why? So you can rage against her for exposing you?” Patience snapped. “She is asleep, sir. I won’t permit you to wake her.”
Max clucked his tongue. “Poor little thing! She must be exhausted; she’s been so very busy! Deceiving me, deceiving you, attempting suicide ...”
“Prudence is not the deceiver, sir. You are!”
Max sat down in the chair beside the fire. “Will you at least hear my side of things?” he said, crossing one leg over the other.
“Save your breath. Prudence has already told me what you did to her!”
He stared at her. “You won’t even listen to me?” he said incredulously. “What? Convicted without a trial?”
“Your guilt has been proved,” she said. “There is not a shadow of a doubt.”
“Oh, yes, of course. My uncle mentioned a letter. Obviously a forgery! I never touched Prudence! Even if I had, I would not be stupid enough to ’fess up to it in a letter! Why would I?”
“Because it is all a game to you,” she said angrily. “You trifle with my sister, then you take up with me, then you trifle a bit more with my sister! But your trifling, sir, is at an end.”
“Listen to me!” he said desperately, striding toward her. “She tricked me! She sent me a letter this morning. She asked to meet me alone at Sunderland House. She signed your name to it, then came to Sunderland House in your place.”
“You lie,” said Patience. “I did write to you this morning. But I asked you to stay away.”
He nodded eagerly. “The page was covered in blots.”
“That was my letter. I wrote it in a hurry. I did not ask to meet you anywhere.”
“But there was a postscript,” he insisted. “In the postscript, you wrote that you would come to me at Sunderland House.”
“No,” said Patience, frowning. “There was no postscript!”
“She must have added it when you weren’t looking,” he said.
“Impossible! You are flailing like a drowning man. There was no opportunity for anyone to add a postscript. I sealed the letter myself, and it was still sealed when I wrote the direction and sent it.”
“I don’t know how she did it,” he said. “I tell you, there was a postscript! If I had not burned the letter, I could show it to you now.”
Patience gave a laugh. “You burned it, of course! How convenient, sir. Well, I did not burn
your
letter.” She took his crumpled note from her pocket and showed it to him. “You may call it a forgery until you are blue in the face—”
“It is not a forgery,” he whispered, snatching it from her. “That little bitch! She is more devious than I thought.”
“You admit you wrote it!” Patience exclaimed.
“Yes. But I wrote it to
you,
not your sister.
This,
dear girl, is my apology to you for throwing you over the balcony at my birth-night. I sent you flowers the next day, along with this note. White roses by the score.”
“I have no memory of that,” said Patience.
He scowled. “Well, you were rather ill. Don’t you see?”
He took a step toward her, but Patience stumbled back toward the door.
“Prudence is jealous,” he went on doggedly. “She knows that I love you. She knows that you love me. She wanted me for herself, and now she can’t stand it.”
Patience drew in her breath. “This conversation is futile. For my sister’s sake, I will try to be civil to you. We are going to be brother and sister, after all.”
A muscle twitched in his jaw. “Brother and sister! I don’t think so, madam.”
Dragging her into his arms, he kissed her mouth with desperate passion. Patience did not struggle against his superior strength. Instead, she remained unresponsive and turned her face away as soon as she could. “Fool!” he said, shaking her. “I am not going to marry that—that reeking mantrap you call a sister! I love
you
. I am going to marry
you
. You know me, Patience! I would never betray you. It is all malice. Lies. Don’t let her come between us.”
Patience broke away from him. Going to the bed, she felt under the pillow and pulled out a pistol. “My sister does not lie,” she said, pointing it at him. “And no man shall ever come between us. Least of all you.”
Max lifted his brows. “You sleep with a pistol under your pillow, do you?”
“One cannot be too careful,” she replied. “It’s loaded, by the way. Now get in the closet. Get in the closet, Mr. Purefoy, or I will shoot you.”
“Don’t be a fool,” he said sharply. “I know you would never shoot me.”
Her mouth curved into a smile, but her eyes remained cold. “Of course I wouldn’t,” she said. “Not on purpose. But accidents do happen. I suggest you do as I say; it is the best way to avoid an accident.”
Max held up his hands. “All right. Stop waving it around or it
will
go off.”
Crossing the room, he entered the water closet and closed the door.
He heard the key turn in the lock. With no place else to sit, he closed the wooden lid of the privy seat and sat on top of it. “May I ask why you want me to go in the closet?”
“I am going to keep you locked up overnight so you can’t run away,” she explained.
“It’s very dark in here,” he complained. “May I have a candle, at least?”
“No,” she answered.
“You condemn me to darkness, then?”
“I do.”
“I think it very cruel of you,” he remarked. “I’m sure Prudence will think it very cruel, too. By the way, have you told her that my uncle has disowned me?”
Patience made no reply. He thought, perhaps, she had withdrawn. But then he heard her moving about on the other side of the door.
“You didn’t tell her, did you?”
“It wouldn’t make any difference if I did,” she said. “If she loved you enough to—to—”
“To what? Grant me the jewel of her innocence?” he said mockingly.
“Oh! You’re disgusting.”
“I was trying to be discreet. What I really wanted, of course, was the jewel of
your
innocence.”
“Shut up!”
“Are you going to sit until morning with your pistol on your knee?”
“No,” she said. “I will be going to bed soon. I am building a tower of books outside the closet door. At the very top, I am placing a china cupid. If you try to escape, the cupid will fall and break. The noise will wake me, and then I will accidentally shoot you.”
“You have just given me a viable alternative to marrying your sister.”
“The marriage would still take place,” she said. “I wouldn’t shoot you anywhere important. In the arm or, perhaps, the leg. I daresay the ride to church would be rather uncomfortable for you.”
“And after the wedding?” he went on presently. “Shall we all live together in one house? You and Prudence and me?”
“Certainly not. Try to get some rest, Mr. Purefoy,” she said coldly. “Tomorrow you begin your honeymoon. Where will you go? Paris? Venice?”
“Farnese.”
“Farnese? Where is that?”
“It’s my name,” he told her. “I am Mr. Farnese now, not Mr. Purefoy. Farnese is my mother’s name. Are you so very sure your sister wants to marry the penniless bastard of an Italian opera dancer?”
“There!”
“There?” he repeated, puzzled. “There where?”
“It was rhetorical,” she explained. “I have finished stacking my books and the china cupid is in place. Now I am going to bed. Good night.”
“Good night, Patience. Or should I say Pazienza?”
“Why on earth would you say that?” she asked crossly.
“That is your name in Italian,” he explained.
“So?”
Max sighed. “Good night, Patience.”
“Good night, Mr. Purefoy.”
When Patience opened her eyes, sunlight was streaming into her room from the window. The chubby china face of a cherub looked back at her from the other side of the pillow. With a gasp, she sat up. The books she had stacked so carefully against the door of the water closet were still stacked against the door, but now the door was open. Somehow, he had pushed the door open without knocking them over.
Jumping out of bed, she accidentally sent the china figurine flying. It crashed to the floor and shattered to pieces. Paying it no heed, she ran to her sister’s room.
Prudence was awake already and seated, half dressed, at her dressing table. Her maid was fixing her mistress’s hair while Pru powdered her own bosom. “Good heavens, Pay!” Pru said, as Patience burst into the room. “You look simply awful. Didn’t you get any sleep at all?”
“I fell asleep. I’m sorry, Pru! I lost him.”
Prudence turned. “Who, Pay? Who have you lost?”
“The groom, I’m afraid.”
Pru laughed lightly and turned back to the mirror. “Don’t be silly, Pay. He’s only just arrived. He is in the drawing room now, waiting for us. I’ve decided to wear blue,” she went on, setting down her powder puff. “Married in blue: your love will always be true. Wait! Where are you going?”
“The drawing room,” Patience answered. “I should not let him out of my sight until you are safely married.”
“You are not fit to be seen,” cried Pru. “Patience, I insist that you go to your room and splash a little water on your face. You look like death warmed over. Did you sleep in those clothes?”
Patience had not changed her clothes since dressing for the theater the night before. “Yes,” she said. Closing the door, she walked resolutely to the drawing room.
Max was standing against the fireplace, studying the various
cartes de visite
that Pru had displayed on the mantel like miniature trophies.
“I thought you had run away,” she said.
He spun around at the sound of her voice. “You look awful,” he said.
“How did you get out?” she demanded.
“I went out for the morning papers.”
“I didn’t ask
why
you went out,” she said crossly. “I asked
how
. Oh, never mind! Prudence is almost ready.”
“You’ll be glad to know I reentered the house very properly by the front door. Briggs let me in. I assume you don’t want the servants to know I spent the night locked in your privy?”

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