Chapter One: Lady Maitland
England, 1793
The Earl of Warren let his mind drift as his younger sister rambled on in a cheerful voice. Wilhelmina—or Minette, as everyone called her—could carry on a conversation for hours, no matter if the other person participated in the exchange. He had the questionable fortune to be sharing a carriage with her on a day-long journey to a friend’s home in Hertfordshire.
“Will we be there soon?” Minette perched on the edge of her seat, craning to look out the window.
“It’s at least two more hours, love. Perhaps you should rest.”
Minette was as likely to rest as an overstimulated puppy. The nineteen-year-old woman was as tiny as he was large, and possessed of boundless energy. They shared the same riotous blond curls, courtesy of their late mother, although such hair suited his vivacious sister far better than him.
“I can’t rest,” she said. “I am far too excited to see my friends again. Calliope will be there, and Lucy, and Helena, and Prudence, and Melinda and Belinda…”
She went on to name about a thousand girls her age, while Warren thought what a torment this house party would be. It was already early spring, so social duties loomed on the horizon. After a week in St. Albans as the Earl of Baxter’s guests, everyone would swarm to London for the start of the season, to plan their balls and dinners, and match up their young Melindas and Belindas with husbands.
Warren himself was a prime matrimonial prospect. He was an earl, for one, and excessively rich, for another. He was also considered handsome, with well-formed features and unusually vivid blue eyes. He was so eligible, in fact, that mamas and papas tended to overlook his rather sketchy bachelor activities and his association with a group of gentlemen known for lascivious pursuits.
“I’m sure your friends will be happy to see you again,” he said when she’d finished listing their names off. “And which gentlemen will be there? Any you are sweet on?”
“Warren! I’m not sweet on anyone, and if I was, I wouldn’t tell you.”
“Just behave yourself, all right? I won’t hover over you, but I expect you to stay out of trouble. No going off alone with any gentleman. No flirting or sending correspondence.”
“I wouldn’t,” she said, looking shocked. “I shall spend my time with my companions. We’ve made a pact to stick together and watch out for one another’s interests.”
Funny, but he had made the same pact with his friends several years ago. As only sons, the four of them had long been hounded by expectations of marriage and duty, but so far, only the Marquess of Townsend had fallen. The Earl of Augustine, the Duke of Arlington, and Warren continued to enjoy their bachelorhoods, and their “interests” were nothing at all like those of Minette and her friends.
“What are you going to do at the party?” she asked him. “Will there be any ladies you are sweet on?”
“I sincerely hope not, since I plan to stay in the card room and drink.”
Minette shot him a scandalized stare, but he meant what he said. One hadn’t much opportunity for sensuous pursuits at a quality function, unless one wanted to try one’s hand at seducing innocents, any number of whom would be at the party. But that had never been his style.
“I hope you’re joking about cards and drinking,” said Minette. “How horrified I would be if you were so rude. Lady Baxter had matched the number of ladies and gentlemen perfectly until your friends decided not to come, and so you must socialize and make conversation, and dance at the evening entertainments, and be a charming person for the sake of your hosts. In particular you must be kind to Lady Maitland, since she is the Earl of Baxter’s ward.”
“Baxter has a ward?” Warren asked, interrupting her mid-prattle.
“Yes, her name is Lady Maitland, and all of us think she is ever so mysterious and sad.”
Warren could sense a long story unfolding, and braced himself to endure a quarter-hour’s worth of details. “Why sad?” he asked when she looked at him expectantly. “Please tell me all about this Lady Maitland. Don’t leave anything out.”
Minette leaned forward, clasping her hands. “Oh, where do I begin? She has been to places all over the world, for a start, because her father was an avid traveler in addition to being a baron. She only came back to England a short while ago. She made her curtsy to the queen the same day I did, but she was all in black, can you imagine it?”
He tipped his hat forward over his eyes. “No, I can’t.”
“It was because both her parents died suddenly. I don’t know how, and of course no one would talk about it. Perhaps they were bitten by poisonous vipers in some jungle, or murdered by Cossacks. Or set upon by cannibals.”
“My goodness, Minette.” He was fairly sure this was all made up.
“But her mourning dress was the finest thing,” his sister went on. “With just a touch of ribbon, and elegant puffed sleeves. She was the most pale and tragic young woman and she had the smallest sort of hands, and gloves with a black pearl at each side. All of us wanted to be as pretty and dignified as her. During the audience, the queen said she must set about to be married, and soon, for she’s inherited her father’s barony.”
He pushed his hat up a smidge. “Who are we talking about?”
“Lady Maitland! Her given name is Josephine, which I suppose I am permitted to call her, since she is mostly my friend.”
“Mostly?”
“We exchanged a few words while we waited to see the queen, and she told me her name was Josephine, so that means we are friends, doesn’t it?”
“All the world is your frie
nd, my dear. Including this Josephine, I’m sure.”
“But her official name is The Right Honorable Lady Maitland and she is a poor orphaned baroness who is all alone, without a mother or father or husband or anyone at all to look after her except for Lord Baxter who is some distant, distant, distant cousin. Isn’t it the saddest story you ever heard?”
“She can’t be a baroness with no husband,” he said, sinking back beneath his hat’s brim. “Only men have titles, and those titles are passed along to male issue when they die.”
“She’s got a title,” Minette insisted. “I suppose there was no one else to have it.” She placed a finger aside her gently pointed chin. “It doesn’t seem fair, though. None of the rest of us young ladies have titles.”
“You’ll get a title if you marry the right sort of chap. Why didn’t you accept Lord Bancroft when he offered? Or Lord Everett? Both were perfectly adequate prospects.”
“Perfectly adequate,” she said glumly. “And perfectly boring.”
“You say boring. I say steady.”
Minette pulled one of her thunderous pouts. “Why are you so eager to marry me off? Do you want to get rid of me?”
“Not at all, but you know how the marriage market goes. The longer you’re on it, the less appealing you are.”
“I had more suitors than Bancroft and Everett. Many more.”
“I know.” And she had rejected all of them for the most buffle-headed reasons. Too short. Crooked nose. An excessive fondness for chamber music. “I have every hope you shall eventually make an excellent match,” he said. “In the best case, you’ll choose someone we both esteem.”
“I don’t know how that will be possible, when you hate all the gentlemen I like, and I hate all the gentlemen you like. What’s worse, all the gentlemen whom I least admire seem to want me the most, while the ones I admire most don’t want me at all.”
“Because you chatter too much,” he said sotto voce.
“What did you say?”
“Nothing. Listen, I was up quite late. How about letting your brother get some sleep?”
“But who shall I speak with to pass the time? Why didn’t you let Mrs. Everly ride with us? Then we could have conversed while you rested.”
Just what Warren needed, the stodgy Mrs. Everly droning in his ears. “There was more room in the baggage coach,” he said. “Now hush.”
The truth was, his aged valet and Minette’s hired companion were fond of each other, and had precious little time alone, and so he had suggested they ride together in the other coach. Warren was sensitive to such things, to longing and hope and attraction, though he was not a particularly romantic man. He’d been ten when he became the Earl of Warren, and had learned to go about life in a very particular way.
And that particular way did not involve fawning over women.
He was more concerned with getting Minette happily married. His sister had never known their parents, who had died in a carriage accident soon after she was born. He wanted Minette to have a family and a sense of belonging beyond what he could give her—which, despite his best efforts, was not very much. He brought her to parties like this to increase her chances of finding a compatible partner. His friends Lord Augustine and the Duke of Arlington had been supposed to come too, but absconded at the last moment to Bath, to chase after some actress’s skirts.
“Warren,” she said, stifling a yawn. “Will you sit over here so I can lean on your shoulder?”
“Ready to rest now, are you?”
“Don’t tease!” she whined. “Will you?”
“Of course, mopsy.”
She scooted over and he switched to the front-facing bench, slouching down and propping his feet on the opposite cushion. When he’d slouched enough for her head to reach his shoulder, she settled against him in the same fashion she had since she was two or three years old. As a child, Minette had often wandered about in the throes of slumber—sleepwalking, they called it. During those night-roaming years, she had slept beside him a lot.
“All right?” he asked.
“Yes.” A brief pause. “I feel nervous about this party.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. I suppose I’m always worried when I’m out among company. I’m afraid I’ll say the wrong things and everyone will come to hate me, and issue me the cut direct next time I’m around.”
He chuckled. “Everyone loves you, silly. And even if everyone hated you, I would still love you and let you live at Warren Manor for the rest of your days.”
“Would you?”
“Well, in your own secluded wing.”
Minette batted him on the arm. “I hope you’re sweeter to your lady friends than you are to your sister.”
“I’m not, unfortunately. I’m only ever sweet to you.”
She thought he was joking, but he wasn’t.
Unfortunately.
“Go to sleep, will you?” he said, patting her curls. “I’ll wake you when we’re there.”
*** *** ***
The Baxters’ house party was even grander and more crowded than Warren expected. With sixty guests, he understood why they’d only been invited for a week, as opposed to the typical fortnight. There was the usual mix of married couples and single guests looking for prospects. Since the latter outweighed the former, the party took on an air of flirtation from the start.
Of course, his sister was in heaven. Since she was beautiful, sweet, and naturally cheerful, men flocked to her and competed for the smallest scrap of her attention. And because she attracted so many men, swarms of young misses also surrounded her to benefit from her social success.
Warren watched all of this with a jaded eye. He was eight years older than his sister but he felt two decades older most days. As for the other young ladies, they seemed to grow sillier every year.
The second evening, the Baxters set up a great revelry in their ballroom which he attended out of social obligation more than anything else. He danced with three of the unattached women, again, out of social obligation. The first chattered on nearly as effortlessly as Minette. The second two he chose for their wallflower qualities, so they were much quieter.
At the end of the third dance he considered his social duties discharged and headed to the card room where the gentlemen—and some of the older ladies—gathered to play, drink, and smoke. He’d just settled into a hazy corner with a glass of port when he heard his name.
“Warren? Why, it is you. What have you been up to, you filthy beast?”
Warren frowned at the Earl of Stafford. “Do you mind piping down? I have a reputation to preserve.”
“We know your reputation, Wild Warren,” the man replied, arching a dark brow. Someone had long ago joined Warren’s hated first name and his title to create the moniker. He forgot how much it irritated him until now.
Stafford, who loved to irritate people, sat beside him without waiting for a by-your-leave. The earl was an Oxford classmate who had long run in the same debauched circles as Warren and his friends, but none of them liked the man. He was unpleasant at his best, and downright degenerate at his worst. He waved a be-ringed hand toward the ballroom doors. “Why aren’t you out there putting a sparkle in the eyes of the unmarried guests?”
“There’s enough sparkle on your fingers already, old chap.”
Now Stafford was the one whose lips twisted in irritation. “Ha, you’re a funny fellow. How is your sister? What’s her name? Winnie? Minnie?”
“Minette,” Warren said, looking about for some avenue of departure.
“Pretty thing. Such a smile, and those curls. She’s got to be marrying age now, yes?” The man’s handsome features twisted into a leer. “I wouldn’t mind courting her, young as she is. She’s got the famous Bernard breasts.”
With that outrageous remark, Stafford managed to insult both Warren’s sister and his late mother. It wouldn’t do to brawl in his host’s home, but if Stafford didn’t move along soon, Warren might lose his composure and plant
a fist in the man’s face. “If you so much as look at my sister, I’ll kill you,” he said in a low voice. “I’ll kill you slowly and painfully, with great amounts of torture. That is a promise, Stafford, not a threat.”
The earl threw back his head and laughed. “I’m only joking, dear boy. Deliver me from overprotective brothers. No, I’ve got my eye on someone else. Only reason I’m here at this damned boring party, you know.”
“Damned boring? You’re happy enough to drink Baxter’s wine, though, aren’t you?” Warren liked Baxter, and thought Stafford a preening, self-concerned arse.
“Oh, Baxter’s a grand sort,” the man said with another wave of his rings. “At least, I’ll let him believe so while I’m paying my addresses to that daft chit he wants to marry off.”
“I’ve no idea what you’re talking about,” Warren said. “Are you drunk?”
“I’m speaking of Baxter’s ward, man. The Baroness Maitland. She’s looking for a husband, and I’d be as happy as anyone else to get my hands on her fortune.”
Ah, the pale and tragic Lady Maitland. Even more tragic, to be courted by Stafford. “I’m sure you’re not even in the running.”
“Oh, I am,” Stafford said with a smirk. “I can be charming enough when I need to be. Even charming as you, Lord Warren, and I’ve not much competition in this case, since the girl is so strange.”
“If she’s strange, why do you want to marry her?”
“Money, of course. And she’s titled too, a baroness in her own right. Her father passed down everything—fortune and title, and a parcel of property not so far from yours.”
“Maybe he thought her too homely to find a husband.”
“Homely? No one could call her that. She’s got beautiful auburn hair, a slim little waist, and great, big, bountiful—”
Warren pushed down the man’s hands as he sketched curves in the air. “Be that as it may, do you really want a daft woman having your children?” The Stafford line was already mentally thin, though Warren didn’t say so aloud.