The Wild Baron (Baron 1)

What was Lady Dauntry talking about? Susannah said only, “Yes, I had to catch my breath when the dance stopped. Why is Peter Briar a poor boy?”

“As I said, you were on the fast side.”

Susannah knew when a double entendre had hit her in the nose. She wanted to leave now, but the two other ladies were effectively blocking the door.

Mrs. Hackles, obviously a crony of Lady Dauntry’s, seemed intent on pushing the point in case it had been lost on Susannah: “But this wasn’t the first time you were too fast, was it? No, there you were, naked in the baron’s arms. His hand was against your naked leg. All of us saw you. Mrs. Goodgame was quite distressed, as were Lady Dauntry and I. Yes, the dear baron was carrying you—in his arms. He had dressed you in his shirt and coat. He had obviously seen you naked.”

“But I had been kidnapped,” Susannah said, raising her hands in protest, perhaps even to ward them off, then dropping her hands again because she realized it would be useless. “Truly I was kidnapped. The man who kidnapped me is just down the hall. Ask any of the footmen. Ask Charlotte. Ask the baron.”

“It isn’t that, dear,” said Mrs. Goodgame, obviously another fine markswoman. “It’s that the baron even brought you up here and put you in your bed. How do we know that? We know everything. He probably even reclaimed his shirt and jacket; it would be in his nature to do so. He has known you, my poor Mrs. Carrington. Known you.”

“Yes,” said Lady Dauntry, her slick politeness long gone. “We all know that a young woman newly widowed is not all that careful with her reputation.”

“But I have been widowed for a year.”

“A year is nothing to a woman of your stamp. Indeed, in the presence of your very dashing brother-in-law, you have lost any morals you might have laid claim to. Have you seduced the poor baron? It doesn’t matter, you know.”

“No,” said Mrs. Hackles, the first of Lady Dauntry’s Greek chorus, “you cannot trick him into marrying you as you probably did poor George Carrington, who had never looked at a girl in his young life—such a pity for his parents. No, a brother cannot marry his brother’s wife. That is the law. You obviously didn’t know that, but now you do. It is best that you take your child and leave the poor baron and his sweet mother alone. You have intruded, and it is vulgar.”

Susannah could only gawk at them. Her head, which hadn’t ached in two days, had begun to throb with a vengeance. Her eyes hurt just from looking at the three women who were marshaling themselves around her, eyeing her with the enthusiasm of a hanging judge facing a room full of thieves. She wanted out of here, but she knew she would have to knock them down to get to the door.

She would try reason. She looked at each of them, splaying her hands. “But what did I do?”

“You took off your clothes and tried to seduce the poor baron, pretending that the man had hurt you,” said Lady Dauntry—no hesitation at all. “We have all discussed it. You are not welcome here. Indeed, we wonder if you were even married to poor, stuffy George. The dear baron will find out all about you and then he will kick you out, the little boy and that little bastard with you.”

Susannah was ready to crash herself into all three ladies. She hoped she would break an arm, a leg, mayhap even a head. How dare they call Marianne a bastard! She was an instant away from attack when she heard a man’s voice.

“Ladies, I hope I’m not disturbing you.” It was Rohan, gracefully skirting her attackers, coming into the ladies’ withdrawing room, a room no gentleman was supposed to acknowledge even existed. Susannah drew up short, staring at him. How long had he been there? How much had he heard? Oh, dear, what would he do?

He continued in that easy voice of his, “It is pleasant to have such caring neighbors, isn’t it, Susannah? You’re looking just a bit peaked. I tried to keep you in bed, but you couldn’t bear lying there, growing mold, you told me. Now look what’s happened. I will have my mother come see to you shortly.

“Ladies, I’m glad you are all here, for if Susannah had become faint, then you would have seen to her. I thank you all for your concern, your generosity.”

“My lord,” said Lady Dauntry, “surely Mrs. Carrington is still too unwell to be dancing with such verve. We have already told her that.”

“Yes, I believe I heard you say that,” said Rohan. “You know, after listening to you, I have begun to wonder. Do you suppose that since her face still looks like a battlefield, she planned for it to look like that? Do you believe it is cosmetics that make her look so awful? I ask myself, is all this a ruse?”

Mrs. Hackles said, in a very loud, carrying voice that could have deafened a horse at fifty feet, “We will assume that you are jesting, my lord. There is too much sarcasm in it to be an excellent jest, but we will accept it as an attempt at a jest nonetheless. She was quite naked just three days ago—”

“And you were carrying her,” Lady Dauntry said. “My dearest husband remarked that your hand was on her leg—the top of her leg. Her naked leg. He was naturally upset.”

“Jealous, was he?”

“My lord!”

“You are purposely avoiding the point,” said Lady Dauntry.

All three of the ladies were well prepared to explore that exact point ad infinitum. It was at that moment that Rohan realized it wouldn’t end. Susannah would be ostracized. He’d been dreaming when he’d thought that everything would be all right, that his neighbors would fall into line. He supposed he should just give her the twenty thousand pounds and send her on her way. Yes, that would be the right thing to do. It was the only honorable thing to do. She deserved it, no matter what George had done. It would free him of her presence, it would solve all the attendant problems that she carried with her. Yes, that was what he would do.

He said, “Actually, ladies, you are perfectly right. I heard you questioning whether or not she was even married to my brother George, questioning whether her child is a bastard. Let me be frank with you all, for you have known me since I was just a lad and have always had my best interests at heart.” He drew a deep breath and spit it out, not looking back. “You are perfectly correct. Mrs. Carrington was never married to my brother George.”

Susannah had been watching Rohan with the admiration that she would feel for a great orator who was demolishing other pretenders. But not now. She couldn’t have heard him right. She could only stare at him, as were those three wretched besoms. Her head was pounding now, nausea roiling in her stomach. She managed to ease down onto a chair. She closed her eyes. Perhaps if she kept them closed, all of this would disappear.

“It’s all right, my love,” Rohan said, smiling at her, his voice sweet and soothing. She managed to cock her eye open at that. His love? What was he up to? Oh, God, she knew she wasn’t going to like it, whatever it was.

“Yes. You see, my dear ladies, it was never George she was married to. I am the Carrington she married. Susannah has been my wife for four and a half years. Yes, indeed. Marianne is our legitimate child.”

The three ladies looked as if they’d just swallowed raw herring.