The Wild Baron (Baron 1)

“Good, my dear, you’re awake. You will have a bit to eat, then we will talk.”

At that moment Susannah’s stomach growled. Rohan grinned, then laughed at the flush on her swollen cheek. It added a fourth color.

“You see,” Charlotte said easily, “it’s time. You’re hungry, aren’t you? Oh, your poor little face. My dear, is the pain dreadful?”

“No, ma’am. Truly, it’s not bad. I would appreciate it if you wouldn’t tell me how bad I look. I don’t want to be cast into severe melancholy. But the food, goodness, I could eat a boot, I think, if it were well boiled, with perhaps a dash of salt for flavoring.”

“Here you are,” Charlotte said as she placed the tray on Susannah’s lap. “Now, you are to call me Lady Mountvale or Charlotte. My preference is for Charlotte. ‘Ma’am’ makes me feel dreadfully frail. ‘Ma’am’ makes my teeth feel loose.”

“Yes, Charlotte.”

Rohan gave his mother a brooding look. She looked exquisite, her thick blond hair hanging free down her back, tied loosely with a pale blue satin ribbon that matched the outrageously frothy confection she undoubtedly called a dressing gown. She looked delicious. She did not look like his mother. Of course, she had never looked like his mother—anybody’s mother, for that matter. She had birthed four babes, yet it hadn’t made any difference. He sighed. He wished she would go away, but he knew she wouldn’t. There was no hope for it. He rose and fetched another chair.

He said without preamble, as he watched Susannah take a spoonful of chicken broth, “Susannah said the man is after a map. Presumably it is the same man who broke into Mulberry House three times and once before here at Mountvale House. All this effort, for a map?”

“A map?” Charlotte repeated, as she examined her perfect fingernails. “Now surely that is odd. You’re absolutely right, dearest, to be incredulous. Why all this bother for a map?”

Susannah said nothing, merely spooned the chicken broth into her mouth. Rohan said, “It’s not really all that strange. George has loved maps of all sorts since he was a boy, you know that, Mother. As I recall, when he was only nine years old you gave him a map that was supposedly a sultan’s harem quarters with secret passages. You prayed at the time that it would prove beneficial.”

“Yes, but it didn’t, more’s the pity. Well, perhaps it did, given Susannah and Marianne. But, dearest, no one ever tried to steal one before. It must be a very special map. Do you think it could be a treasure map? Now, wouldn’t that be exciting. Could George, my darling staid and proper and boring George—who just might not be all that staid and proper—possibly have come across a treasure map?”

Susannah choked on her broth. “Oh, that would be ever so exciting, but I don’t think so, Charlotte. If it were some sort of treasure map, then surely George would have said something to me about it. Well, maybe not. I swore to the man that I had only a few of George’s belongings and that I had looked. I told him honestly that there was no map.”

“Naturally he didn’t believe you,” Rohan said. He was standing in front of the fireplace, leaning easily against the mantelpiece. “What things of George’s do you have?”

The door burst open and Fitz nearly fell through. He managed to straighten. “My lord! Quickly!”

“Oh, dear, what now?” Charlotte said and bounded after the two of them.

“Wait! I will not be left out,” Susannah yelled and staggered after them, dizziness nearly sending her to her knees. Rohan turned back, saw her weaving toward them, cursed loudly and fluently, ran back, picked her up in his arms, then raced after Fitz.

“You deserve any headache you get from this,” he said. “I will not wring out a damp cloth and lay it across your sweaty brow.”

“I never asked you to do that in the first place. Surely it is my right to see what is happening.”

They came to an abrupt halt at the top of the wide staircase. At the bottom stood the man, a thick white bandage around his head, his arm in a sling. He was waving a gun wildly and screaming, “Go away, all of you mealy little bastards, go away!” He waved the gun toward two of the footmen who were trying to sneak up on him. They backed off.

“I want the bloody map. It’s mine!” He looked up to see the baron holding the woman in his arms, George’s woman, the damned woman who was beautiful, the damned woman who had lied to him, who had slammed a hay fork into his gut. He wanted to shoot her, but it wouldn’t gain him much at all.

“Damn you!” he yelled. “Give me the damned map! Tell me where it is or I will begin shooting all these mangy little bastards.”

Carefully, Rohan eased her to the floor. He leaned her against Fitz so she wouldn’t fall. Then he began to walk slowly down the stairs.

“What map do you want?” he called out, all calm and conversational. “You must be specific or I can’t get it for you. She has told me everything. She is confused. But I’m not confused. I can help you. Is this map you want the one George had of that craggy cave in the northern part of Cornwall, near to St. Agnes?”

“No, the one in Scot—no, no, you won’t make me spill my innards! You bloody sod! I don’t need you, just her!” He pointed the gun at Rohan and fired. Susannah tried to jerk free of Fitz, but he held her tight. She watched all of it in horror. An eternity passed, but it must have been only the tiniest of moments. Even as the man aimed the gun, Rohan crouched down and lurched sideways. The bullet struck

a portrait of a sixteenth-century Carrington, a very handsome gentleman with a wicked look in his dark green eyes, like every other Carrington in the history of the family. The portrait hung there, swinging back and forth, banging heavily against the white wall, until its weight brought it crashing down. But the heavy gold frame didn’t crack and break. Instead it hit the stairs and bounced downward until it skidded across the Italian marble tile entrance hall. The man stared at it as it came sliding toward him, as if it were alive, as if it were coming for him. He shot at it, but there had been only one bullet in the gun.

He screamed, trying to run away, but two footmen grabbed him.

Rohan walked to the man, now being held between his two men. The man looked dreadful—wild-eyed and white as death. His mouth worked, but no sound came out. The baron said very gently, “What is your name? If you will but tell me, perhaps I can help you.”

The man spit on him full in the face.

Slowly Rohan wiped the spittle on his sleeve. “Perhaps I can guess your name. Are you Theodore Micah?”

The man’s face turned even whiter, if that was possible. “How do you know of him?” His eyes—cold gray eyes—rolled in his head. There was an odd gurgling sound. Without warning, he slumped to the floor, catching the footmen off guard.