Beauty and the Baron. Deborah Hale

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СКАЧАТЬ guest parted his lips to speak, but Angela cut him off. “I bid you good-day, my lord. Remember me warmly to your grandfather.”

      She pivoted on the toe of her slipper to dash off. Before she could stir a step, his lordship caught her hand to detain her. A curious sensation rippled up her arm—hot and cold at the same time. Rather like her bewildering reaction to the baron himself.

      Before she had a chance to withdraw her hand from his, Lucius Daventry blurted out the words she had prevented him from speaking a moment before. “Please, Miss Lacewood, stay and hear me out. I need your help. My grandfather is dying.”

      His words struck Angela a harsh backhand blow. She flinched from it at the same instant her knees grew weak. If his lordship had not held her hand in such a tight grip, she might have wilted to the floor.

      “Dying?” She raised her free hand to her brow in a vain effort to stem the chaotic whirl of thoughts in her mind. “That can’t be. When I visited Helmhurst yesterday he looked better than I’ve seen him in some time.”

      But the earl was not a young man. And he’d been mildly ailing for as long as Angela could remember. “I must go to him at once!”

      Another notion reared up from the tempest of her thoughts.

      “Why did you not tell me straight away?” Wrenching her hand back from Lord Daventry’s, she was surprised to find the warm air of the sitting room chilly against her skin where he had touched. “It was most unfeeling of you, subjecting me to a litany of paradoxes while keeping me in ignorance of your grandfather’s condition!”

      The baron clenched his jaw tight, but some subtle shift of his brow betrayed the injury her reproach had inflicted upon him.

      Stifling a qualm of guilt that squirmed in her belly, Angela turned away from him. She must get to Helmhurst, and her dear friend the earl, as soon as possible.

      She had scarcely taken a step toward the door before Lord Daventry loomed in front of her. “I cannot let you go, Miss Lacewood.”

      “You had better.” she tried to duck around him, but he caught her in his arms.

      “Let go of me this instant!” she cried, ignoring her ridiculous desire to linger in his hold, which felt oddly like an embrace.

      “I cannot let you go,” he repeated, “until you have calmed down. My grandfather is in no immediate danger, and I do not want him to guess what his doctors have told me.”

      Angela eased her token struggle to free herself, yet her breath came fast and shallow, as though she had wrestled against him with all her might. “How can you say the earl is dying one minute, then claim he is in no danger the next?”

      “No immediate danger,” Lord Daventry corrected her. His respiration seemed to have picked up tempo, too. “You should pay more careful heed to my words, Miss Lacewood. Though my grandfather does not appear in any worse health than usual, his doctors assure me he has, at most, three months to live.”

      A bank of dark, tearful clouds suddenly shadowed the coming summer that had stretched ahead of Angela with such promise only moments ago.

      Lord Daventry relaxed his grip on her.

      “I do not want that time blighted for him in any way by the knowledge of how grave his condition is. If you wish to see him again, I must have your word that you will honor my wishes.”

      She wanted to feel some sympathy for the baron, but he made it impossible. Planting her hands against the breast of his well-tailored coat, Angela pushed herself out of his grasp, despising the passing flicker of disappointment she felt when he let her go with so little resistance.

      “If the earl knows nothing of this, you may rest assured I would not speak of it to him, even without your bidding.”

      “You need not say a word to betray everything, Miss Lacewood. Your face is an open book for anyone curious enough to read it, your eyes even more so.”

      A cold wave of dismay washed over Angela.

      Was Lord Daventry telling the truth or only baiting her again? And if the former, might he decipher the contrary, far too intense feelings he provoked in her?

      Lucius Daventry’s emotions had been a seething stew bubbling in a tightly lidded pot. Angela Lacewood had jarred that lid more than once during their interview—each time venting a scalding blast of steam. For all Lucius hated anyone unsettling his composure, he had to admit those momentary discharges of pressure had probably kept him from exploding.

      Now if only the searing imprint of Miss Lacewood in his arms did not make his body burst into flames!

      She lowered her gaze, perhaps to protect herself from his searching scrutiny. “I am able to put on a cheerful face when I wish, sir, and your grandfather’s sight is not what it once was. I would never do anything to cause him distress.”

      “I believe that, my dear.”

      The last word slipped past Lord Daventry’s censor. He hastened on, hoping she would not pay it any heed. If he succeeded in convincing her to help him, which seemed unlikely at present, he would have to accustom himself to uttering such endearments.

      A spasm of alarm gripped his heart at that thought.

      “What I need to know is how far you would be willing to dissemble in order to make my grandfather happy in his last months?”

      The words stung his throat as he expelled them. It had taken him several long nights staring into the cold, dark beauty of the starry sky to cultivate his present stoic acceptance of the situation. Perhaps his ruse with Miss Lacewood would provide a welcome distraction for him in the weeks to come.

      If only he could convince her to help him.

      Her eyes widened and her gaze flew back to meet his. A flicker of triumph in their golden brown depths told Lucius she had finally reconciled all the contradictions of his strange proposal.

      “You want to pretend we’re getting married, to please the earl?”

      “Just so. Grandfather has been remarkably unsubtle in his quest to bring us together.”

      The glimmer of a smile bewitched her lips for an instant. Evidently the earl had been making a nuisance of himself matchmaking with Miss Lacewood, too.

      “There is nothing else he wants so much in this life,” Lucius continued. “Until now I have turned a deaf ear to his constant litany of your virtues, for I have no intention of marrying. Not even for my grandfather’s sake.”

      The young lady could not disguise her relief. “But you would become engaged to me?”

      Lucius nodded. “With the understanding that you will break the engagement once…it has served its purpose. In exchange for your cooperation, I will assist your brother in gaining the commission he desires.”

      She stared at him in silence for a moment. Despite his earlier protestations, Lucius could not divine what she was thinking or how she might respond.

      “I require no such inducement from you, my lord,” she said at last. “If I choose to do what you ask, it will be because I also wish to make the earl СКАЧАТЬ