Joan Smith - The Barefoot Baroness

"I thought you were enjoying yourself."

"I was, but that mention of a cleft foot jolted me."

"You darling, foolish girl! Satan is a long way from getting you in his clutches," he said, and he gave her a ruthless kiss, right in the middle of the ballroom.

Caught off guard, Laura was stunned into momentary immobility. This could not be happening! Even Livvie had never done anything as outre as this. She pulled away, looking all around for signs of outrage and finding none. "Hyatt!" she squealed. "What are you doing?"

"I am succumbing to temptation. Let us get out of here."

He drew her out of the ballroom, through the lobby, and into his waiting carriage, all at breakneck speed. "If anyone recognized me, I am sunk!" she wailed.

"And unfortunately, Lady Jersey, that unstoppable old gossip, did see you."

"Lady Jersey would never attend the Pantheon."

"She did tonight. Lady Emily Cowper as well, and Queen Charlotte. She spilled her snuff in shock when she saw you."

"Oh, you are too ridiculous," she laughed. "Why did you try to frighten me?"

"I was just setting myself up as your rescuer. A ruined lady requires a gentleman to do the right thing by her. Nothing short of marriage can save you now, Miss Harwood."

He removed first his own mask, then lowered hers. In the dim shadows, she saw that his playful mood had altered subtly. He was still smiling, but it was a different smile-softer, intimate. Before she could assess its component parts, the carriage gave a lurch, throwing her against him. Hyatt's arms closed around her, and his lips found hers.

In her mind, she was back in the Pantheon, reeling helplessly to the insidious strains of the waltz. Then his lips firmed, and she was wafted off to some loftier plain, above mere earthbound mortals. She soared into the ether, her halo perilously askew as she responded to Hyatt's embrace.

It was much later when she said, from the comfort of his shoulder, "Are you sure we would suit, Hyatt? I am really not the dashing sort of lady you take me for."

"I have a very good idea who and what you are, darling. I did mistake you for an experienced lady at first, but then I also mistook the baroness for a country charmer. It was not long before I realized your true nature: a conciliator. A lady of good sound sense, who realized her charge was a pain in society's collective neck, and with a kind enough heart to try to alleviate the situation."

"And is that my great attraction-that I will pour oil on the waters you have disturbed? Smooth ruffled feathers-"

"You have been through enough. I shall behave with such monumental propriety that you will never have to conciliate again. How I am to explain a wife who goes jauntering off to the Pantheon without even the decency to put on a mask first is another matter."

"I would not want you to be too proper, Hyatt. I do like a little abandonment in my gentlemen."

"Gentleman!" he objected, and obliged her with a delightful show of abandonment.

They did not return to Peckford's, but drove through the streets of London for half an hour instead, planning their wedding. They would marry at Whitchurch, "To show you off to all my friends," she said. "We cannot do it until after Olivia's ball. She has still not found a husband."

"Meadows is awake on all suits. She'll be engaged this very night."

"He will have to speak to Mrs. Traemore first. And you will have to convince Mama."

"Has she taken me in aversion?"

"She knows a rake when she sees one," she lied shamelessly.

"No matter, a man likes to have to struggle to win his prize. I'll offer to do her portrait."

"No! You always fall in love with ladies when you do their portraits. I refuse to have you seduce my mother!"

"Then you must chaperone us," he said, and tried his wiles on Mrs. Harwood's daughter instead, with very good luck.

The other ladies were already assembled when Laura floated down to breakfast the next morning. Hettie Traemore wore a satisfied smile, the baroness a smug one, and Mrs. Harwood a strained one. Laura wore her best sprigged muslin.

"You'll never guess what, Laura," Mrs. Traemore announced. "Our little Livvie has had an offer! Pretty fast work, eh?"

"How very nice," Laura said, and went to bestow a congratulatory kiss on the baroness. "There is no need to inquire for the gentleman's name, I think. Mr. Meadows has come up to scratch."

"Yes, it is Robert," Livvie said, with a more natural smile than she had worn for several weeks. Her veneer of pride had dissolved in the heat of Robert's love. He had never seemed so strong and dashing as when he had read that lecture to Yarrow. All his past kindnesses had been reviewed over the intervening hours: his getting a carriage and mount for her, his frequent gifts of bonbons, his unswerving devotion to her least whim. But really it was last night's ferocity that had tilted the scales in his favor. A gentleman can be too kind and loyal for his own good.

"I would draw your cork if it weren't drawn already," he had said fiercely to Yarrow when he rescued her from the Pantheon. His eyes had blazed, and his hands clenched into fists. "How dare you take advantage of this innocent girl! You are not fit to touch the hem of her skirt. If I ever see you oiling around her again, I'll put a bullet through you."

That easily the baroness was restored to her former state of pristine vulnerability, and Mr. Meadows was exalted to hero-dom. Before they were halfway home, he had released the flood of his pent-up love. He wanted to cherish her and fight off all the other gentlemen. He worked himself up to such a fit of passion that his embrace sent the same shivers up Olivia's spine as Mr. Yarrow's had done a week before. Mrs. Traemore's approval was a mere formality. He knew he had won his baroness, her dowry and her tin mine, till death should them part. And to do the man justice, it was the baroness herself who was considered the greatest prize.

Laura was bursting to make her own announcement, but this morning belonged to Olivia, and she praised her cousin's ingenuity and Mr. Meadows's eligibility, and even allowed that she had always thought him very handsome indeed. All the ladies in Whitchurch thought so. If the baroness deduced from this that she had snatched him from under her cousin's nose, no one seemed to mind, except Mrs. Harwood.

Mr. Meadows duly appeared at ten o'clock and was closeted with Hettie Traemore for five minutes, three of which were spent arranging the recliner for her back. At five after ten, they both emerged, wreathed in smiles. Within a half hour, the engaged couple were on their way to insert the announcement in the journals. Hettie went to the study to write the glad tidings to her cronies in Cornwall.

Mrs. Harwood drew a deep sigh as she gazed at her own mateless daughter. What did the girl find to smile about? She would go home, having lost out on even that boring Meadows.

"You are looking pretty pleased at Livvie's catch," Mrs. Harwood said through thin lips.

"No, Mama. I am pleased with my own. Hyatt will be coming to speak to you at eleven."

Mrs. Harwood's mouth fell open. "You never mean it! Lord Hyatt! Laura, my dear. I could not be happier for you. Why, this quite puts cousin Olivia's catch in the shade."

"There is no shade when you are in love, Mama," Laura said, with a mooning smile. But then Mrs. Harwood could not even mentally criticize her daughter when she had executed this stunning coup. Lord Hyatt! She could scarcely believe it.

"Maybe he'll do your portrait," she said inanely, as though that took precedence over marrying her.

"He spoke of doing yours, Mama," Laura said, and laughed.

Really, the girl was acting like a simpleton. "You'd best go upstairs and get ready to meet him." She noticed then that Laura was already wearing her best day frock. "So had I," Mrs. Harwood added, and ran off to put on her lace cap with the blue ribbons. There was something in Hyatt that brought out the coquette in ladies of all ages. How her poor Laura would ever cope with the rascal was enough to send chills up her spine, but not enough to prod her into any words of discouragement. Lord Hyatt! She could not be more shocked or delighted if Laura had got an offer from the Prince Regent himself.

In the saloon, Laura sighed luxuriously. She rose to touch her curls and make a few faces in the mirror. Then she quietly closed the door and did a little waltz of joy, humming to accompany herself, for she was much too happy to sit still.

Copyright © 1992 by Joan Smith

Originally published by Fawcett Crest [044950X496]

Electronically published in 2010 by Belgrave House/Regency Reads 148

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This is a work of fiction. All names in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to any person living or dead is coincidental.