The Wild Baron (Baron 1)

At least she hadn’t yelled at Lottie that she wasn’t a ‘my lady.’ “I will see to it,” Rohan said, coming up behind her. He looked at the sobbing Marianne, who was draped over her mother’s shoulder, her fist stuffed in her mouth. “In a moment, little one, you will feel just fine again.”

“Ro-han!”

“I’ll be back soon, Marianne.” And he was gone. Susannah walked the floor, trying to calm her daughter. Suddenly he was back, carrying a glass. Marianne looked at it and whimpered.

He lifted Marianne’s chin with his fingers. “Listen to me, little pumpkin, you will drink this down. Mrs. Beete gave it to me when I was a little boy. It works and it doesn’t taste bad. In but a moment of time, you will want to dance a Scottish reel with me.”

Marianne hiccuped. “I don’t know how.”

“I will teach you, but first you must make your belly happy again.”

To Susannah’s astonishment, Rohan tipped the little girl’s head back and began feeding her the liquid. Marianne, who was a great fighter, docilely drank until the glass was empty.

“Excellent. Now I’m going to carry you downstairs. When you feel like dancing again, then we will be close to the piano so I can teach you.”

Marianne went to him. With no hesitation at all, she went to him. She was still sobbing, hiccuping. She trusted him.

Rohan said nothing at all to Susannah or to Lottie, merely walked away, Marianne sprawled over his shoulder, her fingers in her mouth. Susannah could hear her sucking those fingers from thirty feet away.

“Well,” she said, turning back to Lottie. “I must pack. We will all be leaving in the morning.”

“You are traveling to Oxford with his lordship?”

Doubtless Lottie knew very well every word, every expression, every snippet of speculation about the story the baron had told the three old battle-axes. By now everyone did. Soon, all the south of England would know.

“Perhaps,” she said, not up to any explanations. She went to her bedchamber, only to find Charlotte waiting for her, exquisite in an utterly outrageous confection of cream silk and feathers. Her blond hair was long on her back, smooth and deliciously soft.

“This is quite an occasion,” she announced when Susannah came into the room. “More excitement than I’ve experienced in at least a fortnight. Ah, but that was a very different kind of excitement from this. One must continually adapt.

“My dear son told me only the barest bones of it, but now you are here and you will tell me every small detail. I know only the very barest bones because he wanted to speak to you, to make certain you were all right. Don’t overlook any of those pesky details, Susannah. I don’t believe I’ve ever been so diverted in my life.

“But, you know, it is something of a disappointment. My dearest boy was right about that. I had such hopes for him.”

“Lady Dauntry believed you wanted him to marry either someone just like you or a milksop so he could continue his profligate ways with no wifely interference.”

“How perceptive of dear Regina. Even after all these years, she can still surprise me. Not often, you understand, but very occasionally. Isn’t ‘Regina’ a charming name? Pity she doesn’t live up to it.

“Now, Regina ‘buried you beneath the carpet’—I believe that was the image dear Toby used. Not only Regina but Almeria and Elsa as well. The three of them together are a veritable set of Fates, with Regina urging them on and giving them the proper direction. And here was Rohan, claiming that you were his bride all along. Let me tell you, married five years, you are far from being a bride. I have been wondering whether or not to believe him. Is it true that you never even met poor George?”

Susannah just looked at her helplessly. She was mute.

“You are looking perfectly fagged, Susannah. Come, sit down. That’s right, just sit down. Rohan will take care of Marianne. Isn’t that odd? I saw him take her as if he’d done it for years. But he has, hasn’t he? Was Rohan with you when Marianne was born?”

“No, he wasn’t. There was no time. She came a bit early.”

“What I don’t understand is why Rohan brought you here claiming to be George’s widow. Why not simply arrive as Rohan’s wife, if indeed that is who you are?”

She was sinking fast. Soon her nose would be well under the quicksand. What to do? Tell Charlotte the truth? Tell her that her beloved, prudish George had lied to her, Susannah, and betrayed her, all to get her into his bed? What kind of a man would do that?

A very young man who had no scruples at all. Somehow she knew that Rohan would never do such a despicable thing. She shook her head.

“You are thinking of lies that might suit me, Susannah?”

“No, ma’am, not really. It’s just that I beg you to speak to your son about all of this.”

“Ah, so you’re afraid you won’t tell me the same things in the same way?”

Susannah could only give her another helpless look. She was getting rather proficient at it.