The Baron’s Betrothal: An On-Again, Off-Again, On-Again Regency Romance (The Horsemen of the Apocalypse Series) Read Online Free PDF

men snigger like schoolboys. Clun blushed, too, a sensation almost wholly unfamiliar except in the company of his childhood ally and buttress, Cook.
    “Will you and your baroness live at The Graces, my lord?” Roddy asked.  
    “Haven’t worked out the details. In fact, there’s a minor issue I would discuss with you now, Roddy.”
    “You must be hungry. Shall I warm you something to eat?” Cook asked.
    Clun had eaten his fill at the cottage with his betrothed but rather than disappoint Cook, he said, “If it wouldn’t be too much trouble. We’ll only be a moment.”
    Cook banged pots and pans onto the stove and stoked the fire within, whistling merrily as she flew back and forth gathering the makings of a hot meal.
    The two men left the ground floor kitchen through a passageway to the servants’ staircase that led up to the double-height main hallway and after walking a distance entered the first floor bookroom. From a tinderbox on the mantle, Roddy took a flint and steel to light the coal with kindling in the hearth. He used a punk to light beeswax tapers around the room. In the bright, flickering candlelight, touches of gold leaf on the leather bindings of books glowed, the polished brass banisters around the balcony shone.  
    Clun sighed with pleasure. Nothing was shrouded; no maids scurried to and fro doing last-minute cleaning. Mrs. Wirt had kept this room dusted and in perfect order year after year, as if the baron might return any minute from war and want to sit at his desk. She knew his library was, beside his bed, his favorite place on earth.  
    Its sixteen-foot ceiling notwithstanding, this room had a warmth and intimacy Clun loved. The rest of the saloons on the first floor felt more like grand concourses meant for crowds of strangers. This was his lair, his private sanctuary.
    Roddy sat in a comfortable chair before the wide desk; Clun sat behind it, feeling the smooth leather inlay and the silken surface of well-polished wood. The steward waited for the baron to speak.
    “I stopped in at The Sundew,” Clun began. “You didn’t by any chance hear of a female in the vacant cottage near there, by the home wood?”
    “Just this week, I heard rumors of someone thereabouts and was going to check on it,” Roddy said.  
    “It happens to be true, but I won’t have her disturbed. Even if you catch her red-handed with a fourteen-point stag, you mustn’t detain her for poaching. Or run her off.”
    “No?”
    “No, she’s harmless. Merely having an adventure before settling down.” Clun rubbed his cheek stubble, unsure how to explain what he must. “With me.”  
    “She’s your—” Roddy said, eyes wide.
    “So it would seem. Lady Elizabeth Damogan, the earl’s daughter.” Clun shifted uncomfortably in the chair and in a sepulchral tone added, “My betrothed.”
    “As you wish, my lord.”  
    “I’m concerned for her safety,” Clun said.  
    “Not to worry. Folks give her a wide berth. They say she’s…That is, I thought, well…No matter. Congratulations.”
    “What did you think, Roddy?”
    The steward looked across the desk’s expanse at the baron and glanced away. “Not for me to say, my lord.”  
    “I won’t be angry, hardly know her myself.”
    “I thought perhaps she was,” Roddy tapped his temple, “touched. They say she sings and dances like a fairy around the cows…An earl’s daughter, you say.”  
    “So I did.” Roddy’s elliptical comments amused Clun. They also confirmed his impression. Lady Elizabeth Damogan made a strong if strange first impression. “Touched, you say. Wouldn’t she have to be to marry me?”  
    “Now that won’t do, your lordship.” The steward’s tone slipped momentarily into that of a scolding older brother. “The lady’s damned fortunate. You’re a good man. You do your duty. You know what you’re about.”
    “I appreciate your confidence. And I’ll need your discretion. I’d rather no one else knows we aren’t