How to Train Your Baron (What Happens in the Ballroom) Read online

  Jumping at the sound of a knock upon the door, the frame slid from her hand and clattered to the floor. “Who is it?” she called out, frantically shoving Quin’s things back into his case.

  “’Tis me, milady. Goldie.”

  “One moment, please.” She pushed everything back in the case, forgetting in which order they’d come out. You’d make a lousy spy, she told herself. Standing and brushing the dust from her knees, she quickly put herself back to rights. “You may enter.”

  Goldie poked her head in the door. “Yer gent sent me up to see to your morning toilette, milady.”

  “How thoughtful,” Elsinore replied, feeling as guilty as a sneak thief and hoping it didn’t show.

  “Looks like yer already up and about, but I didn’t figure you for a layabout, milady. I can help with your hair and get you down to break your fast in the wag of a lamb’s tail. Billy serves a fine morning meal, he does. You won’t want to miss it.”

  “Thank you, Goldie. Your assistance is most appreciated.” Elsinore dug around her red valise until she found her brush and hairpins and handed them to Goldie as she sat in the chair. True to her word, Goldie had Elsinore’s hair done in a sturdy but attractive style in less time than it had taken Elsinore to brush it out that morning.

  “It’s lovely,” she said, as Goldie helped her pin her hat into place. “But I’m afraid I haven’t any coin. If you come with me down to the common room, I’m sure my husband will be able to reward your skill and kindness.”

  “No worries in that regard, milady. Your good husband has already greased my palm, and a generous man he is, too. Should you ever come by this way again, make sure you stop and ask for old Goldie. I’d be more than pleased to look after a fine, lively lady such as yourself.”

  “I caused quite the tangle, if you recall.” Elsinore laughed.

  “You’s got spirit, milady. Makes you worth a dozen of them trussed-up, prune-faced harpies that come through here thinking they is too good for the rest of us, if you know what I mean.”

  “I believe I do.” A vision of her mother and sisters came to mind, and Elsinore stifled another laugh. “Thank you for your kindness, and you can be sure should I find myself traveling this way again, I’ll stop and ask for you.”

  Elsinore found Quin eating his breakfast with the coachman and footman along with the other guests in the common room. While he rose, bowed respectfully, and ordered her a plate of fried ham and coddled eggs, she didn’t miss that he failed to meet her eyes. It was as if she had once again slept through something important, for his demeanor was much changed since yesterday afternoon. There was a determined coldness about him, and it was directed toward her.

  He was treating her like unwanted baggage, and all the old hurts of suffering the same treatment by her family bubbled up to the surface while she ate, leaving her angry and raw. Elsinore quickly forgot her recent trespass into his privacy and the pity it had aroused. She would rather be railed and cursed at than have him ignore her so pointedly yet politely. She would add a third step to her plan. Root out his secrets, make him love me, and now, thirdly, never be ignored again.

  …

  The coach lurched into motion for the long trek to the next posting inn. Coward. Quin urged his horse forward with a flick of his heels. Archie, his bay gelding, took up a position at the lead. With fair roads ahead, Quin gave him his head and Archie’s hooves pounded a staccato against the hardened dirt until the coach and his wife were but a small dot in the distance.

  Quin reined Archie into an ambling gait, best to keep his eye on things. Just in case. He’d not received any threatening notes on his journey to London, yet he’d received two during his few days there. It was prudent to assume they were being followed.

  She’d proven beyond doubt with her little adventure with the stallion that she could not be contained. Despite all his efforts, she would not take well to a life lived in seclusion.

  He didn’t deserve her love even if he could earn it. And yet he craved it. She provided rare glimpses of normalcy. A few seconds here and there of just being alive and carefree with a beautiful exciting woman at his side. Elsinore represented everything he’d ever wanted but now could never have.

  He was damaged goods. Sorcha had seen to that. The grief would never leave him, the betrayal would forever hang over his head like a dark cloud, and the shame he wore as a yoke would always weigh him down, bringing him closer to hell. He should have left Elsinore at the inn. Archie tossed his head as if in agreement.

  “Quite right, old friend.” Quin leaned over and ruffled Archie’s dark mane. The letter he’d sent last night would insure Elsinore’s eventual safety. In the meantime, he’d watch over her. He’d ask Angus to stand guard. Until the letter served its purpose or his tormentor was captured, Elsinore was safer within his sight.

  You could keep her. The thought popped up like an English rose in a field of gorse. Quin tried to shake it from his head. She would learn of all he’d done and know him for what he was…a failure. He’d failed the family name, his parents, his son, and even the woman he vowed to comfort and keep. After all was settled and the full tragedy exposed to light, she would choose the diversions of London over shame in Scotland. Keeping her would not be an option. His best hope was a civil and amicable separation.

  If they should be blessed with a child, the law was clear. Boy or girl, a child would be his to raise as he saw fit. Oh, he’d allow for trips to London for a little town polish as his own father had done. Unless, of course, the tormentor was never found. In which case a child would never be allowed out of his sight.

  Chapter Fourteen

  “A hound knows not a good day from a bad one. Cautious, thoughtful repetition is the master’s best tool.” Oglethorpe’s Treatise on the Obedient Canine

  “Stay down!” Awoken only a second ago by the loud shouts outside, Quin grabbed his sleeping wife and rolled with her to the floor of the coach. Reaching under the seat for the pistol he kept hidden there, he got to his knees and dared to use the barrel to nudge aside the shade so he could peer out.

  There were men outside, small clusters of them here and there in an otherwise open field alongside the road. The coach slowed to a crawl, and he made out a knot of highlanders not ten yards away. Defiant in their kilts, they chanted and yelled and waved clubs in the air above their heads. What the— He laughed out a sigh of relief.

  “What is it?” Elsinore had drawn her knees up to her chin, into a tight ball of fear on the floor. She reached out for his coat and tugged him away from the window. “Highwaymen?”

  “No, camanachd.” Her expression grew more confused. “I believe the English call it shinty. ’Tis only a game. Sorry I frightened you. I awoke to the shouting and I thought…” But she was already crawling to the window to have a look for herself.

  “Doesn’t look like a very friendly game.” There was a loud thud as something, or someone, banged against the outside of the coach.

  “It is. It’s just…spirited.” Quin knocked on the wall and called out for the coachman to pull up. “Come.” He held out his hand to her. “We’ll stop and stretch our legs, and I’ll explain the game. No doubt there is someone nearby who will sell us some food and drink.” He tucked the pistol back under the seat. “I’ll show you,” he said, opening the door.

  “Problem, milord?” The coachman jumped down and walked to the side of the coach.

  “Just wanted to stretch our legs and watch a bit of the game, John.”

  “Good to be back on good Scottish soil again, milord.” This from the also heavily armed Angus, who dropped down from his perch to stand alongside them.

  “We’re in Scotland now?” Elsinore looked around as if trying to find a physical boundary between her homeland and his. “How much farther to your estate?”

  “We should make Edinburgh by tomorrow night. With any luck, we’ll be able to book passage up the Forth all the way to Stirling. From there, it’s only another day’s journey.”

&
nbsp; “Are we in the Highlands?” she asked, as one of the kilted men ran by.

  “We’re not that far north.” Quin laughed and shook his head. “Menteith is considered the gateway to the Highlands. We can travel there sometime if you are keen to see it.”

  “I’ve never been this far north. The family has no Scottish holdings and my father seems disinclined to acquire any. Mother says she can tolerate the damp of Wales but refuses to endure the frigid fog that is Scotland. She says it reminds her of the icy hand of death.”

  “It doesn’t sound like your parents were very impressed with my homeland.”

  “I shouldn’t worry over it. My parents both enjoy the diversions of a large city over country living. They’re keen on the theater, the opera, and other such entertainments. Did you not wonder why my siblings and I are all named from Mr. Shakespeare’s plays?”

  “You’re named after a Danish castle in Hamlet?”

  “Fortress,” she corrected. “My parents thought it a strong name.”

  “Let me recollect my Shakespeare… So your sister, Miranda, that’s from The Tempest, is it not? Emilia must be from Othello, and Verona is easy enough—that’s the Italian village from Taming of the Shrew. Now, Imogen, is from…” He frowned and shook his head.

  “Cymbeline,” she offered. “A virtuous princess of Britain.”

  “Ah, yes. That leaves your brother, Viscount Ainsley.”

  “I’ll give you a big hint; his Christian name is from a tragic romance.”

  “With Shakespeare that doesn’t narrow it down much, does it? Your parents could never be as cruel as to have named him Romeo?”

  “Romeo Oberon William James Cosgrove.”

  “Oh, that poor fellow. I’ve never thought of Romeo and Juliet as a romantic theatrical piece myself. More the cautionary tale of a spoiled thirteen-year-old girl and her ill-tempered seventeen-year-old lover.”

  “What of your name?” She asked. “Quintilian was a wise Roman philosopher, I presume?”

  “More of a rhetorician.”

  “Rhetorician?”

  “A grandiose pompous speaker.”

  She raised her eyebrows but said nothing, and after a few moments, he turned his attention back to the field. So here they stood, the fortress and the grand speaker, only it seemed to him that the tables were turned—he must remain the impenetrable fortress, while she tried to talk her way into his life. And into his heart.

  Angus procured lunch—slices of cold mutton, cheese, and bread—and even managed to find a decent bottle of mead for them to share. They were greeted warmly by their fellow spectators, and Quin found it easy to ease back into his native tongue. Conversations were a mishmash of English, Scots, and Gaelic, peppered with the occasional curse uttered in French so as not to offend the ladies.

  It wasn’t until the highlanders took a rest nearby and started passing a bottle that he heard the dreaded word. Sassenach. With her comely face, fine traveling clothes, and aristocratic English accent, Elsinore stood out as an outsider. His English-born mother would be most amused that he was bringing home an English rose for a bride. If only she were around to teach Elsinore how to ignore the unkind things that would be whispered just for English ears.

  The mood on the field was festive and friendly. But men like the highlanders, men with nothing left to lose, had few qualms about starting a scuffle when the whisky ran out. If a mob formed, their small group was vastly outnumbered, and it would be too easy to become separated and lose Elsinore in the crowd. The thought sent a chill down his spine.

  The first few drops of rain fell before the sun forgot to shine. Using it as an excuse, Quin escorted his wife back to the coach and the safety of his hidden firearm. They were bumping down the road once again when gray clouds finally blotted out the sun and the wind swirled and whirled patterns into the tall grass.

  The Greenock Inn, where they stopped for the night, wasn’t much different than any of the others, except that it was on Scottish soil. The ease and comfort of being back in his homeland evaded Quin. There was no relaxing now, no letting down his guard. Elsinore must be protected.

  Quin cleared away the supper dishes as Elsinore ducked behind the dressing screen to ready herself for bed. It was not such a hardship traveling without servants, at least not for him. Hindsight being acute, he should have thought to let her bring a maid to help her with hair and dress. But poison was nothing to be trifled with, and he’d terrified her maid when confronting her. The girl begged to be released back to the Wallingford household. There was no way of explaining it all to Elsinore without revealing secrets left unspoken.

  “What shall you tell them?” Elsinore called out the question from behind the brocade-paneled screen.

  “Tell who about what?”

  “The servants to begin with, and then your friends and neighbors, of course.” She stepped out from behind the screen, a vision of sleepy virtue in a white sleeping gown trimmed with ruffles and lace.

  “And upon what subject am I to enlighten them?”

  She walked to the bed, standing for a moment in front of the fire, the bright flames revealing the sheerness of the fabric. Wicked thoughts curled his lips into a smile, which she apparently took as encouragement to continue.

  “About us. I mean, how we met and came to be married so quickly.” She ran her hands through her hair, found a stay pin, plucked it out, and frowned at it.

  “It’s nobody’s business but ours. I don’t see why I should need to say anything at all.” She rolled her eyes at his response. He grabbed a brush and comb out of his open valise and motioned her over.

  “Surely they will wonder.” She pushed a chair over so that she could sit while he tended her hair. “You didn’t come to London just for a wife, did you?”

  She was fishing again. It was clever of her to always choose an innocent moment of distraction. The sheer gown was no more an accident than this line of questioning. Both her curiosity and her cleverness, however, hardened his resolve to keep her safe from his secrets. His resolve wasn’t likely the only thing to grow hard this evening.

  “I employ good and loyal staff. Our bargain is safe with me.” Avoiding the question was the best he could do at the moment. Even he wasn’t foolish enough to think it would appease her forever.

  “I made no bargain.” Elsinore turned and snatched the brush from his hand. “People talk. Servants deal in gossip the way rich men deal in ancient coins or rare books.”

  “My servants mind their duties and keep their mouths shut.” Except, well, one or two. Or more. With all the family deaths, every member of the household was on edge, looking at each other with side-glances, whispering behind hats and closed doors. A new wife was not as easily hidden as a bottle of poison and a secret. “You have an idea of what should be said I suppose?”

  “Having a story we both agree upon will cause less of a fuss.” She handed back the brush so he could resume his attention to her hair. “Perhaps we could agree that we met in the ballroom and were properly introduced by an acquaintance.”

  “Lord Byron?” he teased, curious as to her reply.

  “Don’t be daft; no one would believe you know Lord Byron.”

  “Actually—no, never mind. Lord Guillotine, then?” Her dismissal chafed. As a lowly Scottish baron, was he assumed to be devoid of culture?

  “All good lies are simple in construct and contain a kernel of truth. It was the Winchcombes’ ball, we need only say it was Lady Winchcombe.”

  “I never realized lying was such an art form. Tell me, did you have a governess, a dance master, and a deception instructor?” She lied easily, but not well. A true expert of fabrication, like a gambler, would never admit their system.

  “I’m the youngest of six children, I learned deception as a matter of survival.”

  “That admission makes me nervous.” He smiled. It was a rare woman who told the truth about her own falsehoods.

  “Stop trying to change the subject. What happened after we met?”r />
  “We were at a ball. One might suppose we danced.” Or had a proper introduction.

  “A waltz?”

  “It’s your lie; it can be any sort of dance you want.”

  She frowned at him. “It’s our lie and our stories better match unless you want people to gossip.”

  “Fine. We waltzed. I’m a wonderful dancer, and you were quite taken with me.”

  “You’re an adequate dancer, and I found you mildly interesting.”

  One eyebrow rose. “And I found you passably good-looking.”

  “And I found your accent only slightly annoying.” She rose and paced about the small room while plaiting her hair. “I allowed you to escort me into the dining room for midnight supper.” She declared after some consideration. “Then I captured your heart with my clever and insightful dinner conversation.”

  “Balderdash,” he protested. “We should attempt some believability.” She was a romantic and wanted a romantic tale. He should let her have one.

  “It’s our story. They’ll believe whatever we tell them as long as we’re consistent.” There was logic in her argument. Perhaps it was best to have a ready-made tale.

  “Did I petition your father for your hand right then, or did I at least wait until a more reasonable hour?”

  “You came calling the very next afternoon, and I invited you to take tea.”

  “How very civil of you. Considering my accent and all.”

  “You decided then and there that you couldn’t return to Scotland without me as your bride.”

  “That must have been some tea.”

  “There were biscuits as well.”

  “Make them lavender-honey biscuits and suddenly the tale will be much more believable to those that know me.”

  “Fine. You proclaimed your love over a tray of lavender-honey biscuits and begged my permission to petition my father for his consent.”

  “Begged?”

  “Begged. On bended knee.”

  “Och. This tale grows as thick as the honey on those biscuits. So, your father consented and here we are.”