The Abandoned Bride (9 page)

“And if you are, indeed, a young innocent wrongly accused,” the baron said dryly, “I should like to hear you explain to all of your devoted family just how and why you eloped to France with the naughty Baron Stafford. For one word from me will cause Lilli Save
rn
e to admit to her imposture as a lady and claim that she did it all for the both of us to advance the cause of
l
’amour.
And as I shall not at all mind admitting that I fell prey to the same charms my poor deluded nephew did, how pleased your family will be with you, Miss Hastings, decamping with the nephew once, flying with the uncle a second time.”

Nodding with satisfaction at the stunned reception his speech received, the baron went on lightly, “And
i
f you are, as I suspect, playing a different game, only imagine how pleased the Misses Parkinson will be at your little prank. I don’t know how you dressed the matter up last time, but I assure you, there will be no disguising it now. The recommendation I shall give you will certainly ensure your future employment, but only in a house of ill repute, I think. If you wished to impersonate a decent, hardwor
ki
ng young lady in order to achieve your ends, rather th
an
openly joining the ranks of the fashionably impure, that is your own business. Or rather that was your own business. Now it is mine. And I will not allow the imposture any longer
.
So go, Miss Hastings. My instructions home will depart the moment you do.”

He waved a dismissive hand to her and turned to face the window as though he were bored with the entire matter. Julia sat very still and attempted to order her thoughts. She could go home, of course. She could simply rise and leave in very dignified fashion and go home. Her family would believe her, they would never disbelieve her, she told herself fiercely. But if she could not live peacefully among them with the memory of her flight with Robin for them to help her bear, she knew she could never return to them with this new vile lie to contend with. If they lived upon some remote mountaintop, she could, but no, she realized with a sudden sick feeling, not in England, not anywhere in England, could they hope to surmount this shocking new addendum to her history.

And there was no question that her career, such as it was, as either governess or companion, would be abruptly terminated should such a tale gain currency. No, she had been quite right. It would not have served the baron’s purposes to do her bodily mischief. Not when with one stroke of a pen he could quite coolly and competently murder all her expectations.

“Still here then?” the baron asked with sham surprise as he turned to face her again.

“You leave me no choice,” Julia said in frustration. “It is too much to ask my family to live with. It would be enough to cost my father his position if I were to return to them with such a tale hanging over me. But I do not wish to go with you,
”
she insisted, standing before him now, white-faced and dry-eyed, for it seemed that the matter had gone far beyond tears,
“
and I tell you again, you are misled. Robin wants nothing to do with me. I cannot say why he has written such letters, if he has indeed done so, but I tell you that it was all ended between us years ago. I have no sway with him. I cannot say that I even know him, for clearly, I did not know his mind then and if three years have changed me, why so they must have wrought some change in him as well.”

She looked at the baron beseechingly
,
though it was not her intention to plead with him, but only to in some manner make him understand the enormity of his misapprehension. But she could not read his reaction.

His face was impassive and the expression in his eyes was hidden beneath his long lashes as he said coolly, “Let it be, Miss Hastings. I have no wish to indulge in idle speculation upon your motives at the time. I know only that we must attempt to undo what was done. Three years may well have changed you, but unfortunately, not outwardly. You are yet very comely. I had, I’ll admit, cherished some hopes that you might have become blowsy or bloated, so as to make a true mockery of past illusions. There is nothing,” he went on ruefully, ignoring her
discomfi
t
ure
, “so deflating to a grand passion than to find that the object of one’s youthful
v
ision of exquisite unattainable beauty had become a good bit less spectacular and a great deal more easily obtainable. You would have suited my purposes better, my dear, had you allowed yourself to go to seed. But there are your purposes to consider as well, I suppose,” he concluded in an offhand manner.

Julia did not reply for a moment, then she raised her head and said very carefully, in an attempt to match his coolness, “You leave me no option but to accompany you, but that does not mean that I have to listen to your unpleasant ruminations as well. And I shall not.
Now please tell me where Robin is, when I am to speak with him, and when I can expect to return home. I assume that if I do as you say, I shall receive some blameless commendation from my false employer?
”
she added a bit more anxiously.

“Why yes,” the baron said mildly, “of course you shall.
When
our business is concluded. But I find your other questions less easy to answer. You see, part of the difficulty lies in the fact that I do not know precisely where Robin is to be found just now.”

As Julia gaped at him, he went on to say somewhat crossly. “All of Europe is in upheaval now, borders are being changed with the tides, places forbidden to the English are opened to them again. The expatriot set which took up residence in Greece during the war seem to be pouring into Italy and, France. Robin was snugly ensconced on some little Greek island for months, but now I have some reports that he was seen in Brussels, and yet others state that he is on the move toward Paris. But no matter. That is where we had decided to go in any case,” the baron said with finality.

“We?” Julia asked in confusion.

“Yes,” he answered perfunctorily, “you and I, of course, and my valet.”

“Just the three of us?” Julia asked, widening her eyes.

He observed her closely and then added negligently, “Oh yes, I see. Well, I imagine we can make room for an abigail for you as well. It should be a simple matter to obtain the services of one here.”

“I don’t need a lady’s maid,” Julia said quickly, “for I never had one and don’t need one now. But,” she paused and then plunged on, “I certainly shall not countenance traveling with you without a chaperone. I am surprised that with all the care you’ve taken with your scheme, you didn’t think of that.
”

“A chaperone?” the baron asked in genuine surprise. Then his handsome face lit with real humor. “Here’s a flight! A chaperone for you?” he asked again, before subsiding into peals of laughter. He was laughing much too hard to see the transformation that had come over his audience. Julia’s cheeks showed twin spots of high color and her eyes lightened until they seemed to positively glow in her otherwise pale face.

She waited for him to be done with his amusement and then controlled her voice only by great effort.

“If you consider me as a candidate for wife to your nephew, I should think you would not wish there to be any gossip about me,” she said simply.

“As to that,” the baron replied, sobering, “I doubt you will meet many people who will wonder about you. I’m sorry, my dear, but this is to be no whirl of pleasure for you. I shall not run the risk of funding your merry adventures. I’d be several sorts of a fool if I brought you to balls and routs so that you might find a better protector and then loped off with some wealthy gent in tow. Oh no, my dear, you shall travel quite inconspicuously and I’ll take care to see that there will be no one who will note or care to note your presence.

“Don’t think hard of me,” the baron went on, more kindly, “for it will all be to your own benefit. If it transpires that Robin is willing to forgive and forget, it will be better that no one knows that I brought you to his side. And again, if you wish to make the most of that glowing commendation from Lady Cunningham, it is wiser if no one notes you’ve been traveling about with me instead of her.”

Julia drew in her breath and then said, with all the courage she could muster, “You don’t understand at all. It is that I cannot travel alone, with only a strange gentleman as escort.” He looked at her in surprise. Then it seemed as though he drew himself up and addressed his next words to her as though he spoke from a great height.

“Can you be serious? Do you think I might be tempted to attempt your honor?” he asked icily.

She could only bow her head in confusion at the sneer in both his face and his words.

“Well then, Miss Hastings,” he said, “content yourself. I should sooner think of coupling with a serpent than of having a t
r
y at you. One fool per family is quite enough
,
don’t you think? I’ll admit that you are very lovely, but I’m sorry, you are not in my style at all,” he went on, “for I never cared for secondhand experiences.”

He caught her hand quickly, before it struck his cheek, even before she knew she had swung it at him. She was so astounded that he could have anticipated an action that she had never taken in the whole of her life, that she scarcely took in his next utterance.

“Now, now,” he said with a curious sort of elation, “I did say you were lovely, didn’t I? No need to show your claws simply because I refuse your bed. You must become used to admiration from afar if you aspire to our family.”

“I don’t aspire to your family!” Julia shouted, struggling with him only to regain her hand, which he had taken in a firm and hurtful grip. “I never did.”

“Oh, I believe you once did,” he said though clenched teeth, drawing her so close by pulling upon her captive hand that she could see the knotted muscles in his lean jaw, “at least until you decided that Robin was nothing without his title and legacy. Only then did you decide against allying yourself with us. And what a difficult decision it must have been for you, coming so late, on what
was to have been your very wedding night. Tell me,” he said harshly, releasing her suddenly and flinging her away so that she stumbled before she stood
,
shaking, staring at him, “precisely how did you put it to him? For he never told us that. And I have often wondered. It must have been well said to have influenced him so. Did you say, ‘Oh don’t be a fool, Robin, what is love without money?’ Or were you cruel, saying that only a plentitude of funds could make up for such a paucity of carnal expertise? Perhaps you were more discreet, saying only ‘You are very young, Robin, I shall have you when you have grown in years, and annuities.’ ”

“I never refused him!” Julia cried out, in her extremity speaking of that which she had vowed never to speak. “It was he who rejected me.”

“Yes,” breathed her antagonist, “of course. He carried you halfway across the kingdom with him and simply tossed you away.”

“Yes,” she said quietly.

“How ve
r
y disappointing,” the baron said coolly, although he was breathing raggedly and glaring at her as though she were a fiend incarnate, “I had expected a better story.”

“It is true,” Julia said, shaking her head as she attempted to discover some way to convince him of her honesty.

“And with no reason given?” he said relentlessly.

“He said he loved another,” she said woodenly.

“Ah, the tale gets better. And you believed that?” he asked.

“No,” she admitted softly.

“Then why do you imagine he deserted you, and left you all forlorn?” he asked in a travesty of sympathy, with the air of a man who is leading an idiot on.

“I do not know,” Julia answered. For she had asked herself that question so many times that it now was as if she were speaking to herself again, as she had in so many of the long nights of her
short life.

“Come, come. You can do better than that. You have no idea? You tell me young Lochinvar bore you off on his white horse and then abandoned you, and you have no answer for it? Come, Miss Hastings, I expect more of you. This is poor stuff indeed, coming from such an inventive young woman,” he
persevered
.

But now Julia raised her head. Her white-gold hair had come loose from its pins in the violence of her encounter with the baron and now some of it spilled against her pale cheeks. Her eyes were wild and she spoke with violence. The shocks of the day, the incessant and callous questioning, the very helplessness of her situation now made her speak as she had never done before.

“I do not know,” she cried, her voice so thin and shrill that it was unrecognizable to her own ears.
“
I never knew. Perhaps it is he who is the demented one in your vile family. Perhaps I disgusted him. Per
h
aps he hates those of my sex as much as you do and finds the same perverse pleasures in our pain as you do.”

It was then that he struck her.

₆

An enormous silence filled the small room. It was the sort of shocked, fearful silence which descends after an act of violence. The pale and wide-eyed young woman stood and held her hand against her cheek. The gentleman remained motionless as well, seemingly appalled and stricken as the young woman who faced him. He had not slapped her with much force, but her delicate skin immediately showed a red weal where the blow had fallen. For though she now turned her head from him, he could see that her delicately made hand was too small to hide the flaming stain of his anger.