The Wild Baron (Baron 1)

“Ah, so you are. You were still snoring when I left you. Did you wash?”

The boy looked down at his toes. “Well, not exactly.”

“Go back upstairs with Rory. He will help you. He wants to become a valet. He can practice on you. Now, Fitz, Mrs. Beete, let’s go to the breakfast room and you can recount all the happenings of the night.”

Ben had found a swatch of dark blue wool snagged on a low tree branch near the stables. “So you believe that a man was riding too close to the tree and ripped this material off his coat?”

Ben nodded. “It looked that way, my lord.”

“It also looks fresh,”

Rohan said, turning the wool over in his hand. It was finely woven. No common scoundrel had worn this. This was a gentleman’s quality wool. He slipped the piece of fabric into his pocket.

“Now, Mrs. Beete, what did you hear?”

“As you know, my lord, my suite of rooms is at the far end of the house. I woke up toward the middle of the night. I realized that I must have heard something. I went to my window and looked down. There was a man there, my lord, tucked away in the shadows just beyond the second garden terrace.”

“Why didn’t you raise the house?”

“Well, my lord, I couldn’t believe my eyes at first, not after all the excitement, and so I shook my head a minute before I looked again. When I looked the second time, the man was no longer there. It’s possible that I imagined him, what with all those flowers of your lordship’s weaving about in even a slight breeze and the shadows cast by the forest trees.”

“And Elsie?”

“Oh, that silly girl,” Mrs. Beete said. “She is new to Mountvale, my lord, and doesn’t yet realize that she cannot indulge in Drama. She is known in Braisley as a flighty girl given to exaggeration and tomfoolery. She enjoys attention, my lord.”

“She’s very young,” Rohan said, remembering the skinny little redheaded girl peeking at him from behind a god-awful statue in the corridor on the second floor. “Let her be a bit flighty, Mrs. Beete.”

“Yes, my lord. That was my intention. Actually, my lord, I thought your mama would enjoy the girl, and that is why I have overlooked her lapses.”

“That is kind of you, Mrs. Beete. Now, Fitz, what did Elsie say about all this?”

Fitz cleared his throat. He looked plainly embarrassed. “She said, my lord, that she saw a man in the gardens. This man wasn’t alone. There was a female with him, a female with abundant yellow hair. They appeared to be in the throes of intimacy, my lord.”

“Ah. And what else did they do to arouse Elsie’s suspicions?”

“Well, it appears that Elsie decided to confront them. She wanted to know who they were, but when she got to the gardens, they were gone. That is her story, my lord.”

“So we have some amorous neighbors or servants.”

Fitz looked clearly shocked.

Mrs. Beete turned red. “Nonsense, my lord. Our neighbors or servants are never amorous, particularly in your lordship’s gardens.”

Rohan wondered what his fond mama would have to say to that. He would have to remember to tell her when she returned from Italy. He hoped she would come to Mountvale. She preferred London, truth be told, although she occasionally yielded to the call of a handsome country footman. Ro-han looked at the footmen in their crimson and ivory uniforms. Ah, that man—Augustus, from Wales—he just might bring his mama on a visit to Mountvale. He was dark as a sinner, his eyes a wicked dark brown. He looked strong, muscular, and was certainly not over thirty. Rohan could only shake his head. No blaming her. He was her son, as she had reminded him often enough, giving him one of her brilliant smiles. His papa had reminded him often enough too, slapping him on the back from the time he’d been only fourteen years old and nearly sending him into the wainscoting.

Rohan needed Pulver. He also needed his valet. He penned a quick letter to his secretary and sent Augustus off to London to fetch both of them. He was chewing on the nib of his quill pen when he remembered his Aunt Miranda, who lived in Brighton. An answer to prayer. Of course she would be delighted to come to Mountvale and play chaperon. After all, he supported her. He only hoped she was still alive.

She was leaning over a plot of primroses, red, pink, blue, gold, and white flowers all spilling over each other. He saw her lightly touch one of the crinkly light green leaves. He himself was particularly fond of primroses, not of course that he had ever remarked on it when with his friends in London. But, truth be told, their vivid colors warmed him to his toes.

On either side of her were two of his gardeners, Ozzie and Tom Harker, brothers who had been in his family’s service for more years than Rohan had been on the earth. They were both very tall, very thin, and nearly bald. All three of them were talking with a good deal of animation. If he wasn’t mistaken, Ozzie looked rather pained. As for Tom, he was grinning from ear to ear. He wondered what was going on.

“Good morning,” Rohan called out.

The men straightened, but she didn’t. He heard her begin to whistle. He nodded to Ozzie and Tom and watched them take their rakes and trowels off to a distant plot of stocks.

“Did you know,” Rohan said not one foot from her ear, “that fairies take shelter under primrose leaves during rainstorms?”

“Oh, yes,” she said, not turning to look at him. “Did you know that when Saint Peter dropped the keys to heaven they became primroses wherever they landed on earth?”