The Baron's Marriage Gamble by Theresa Romain

Author:Theresa Romain [Romain, Theresa]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Theresa Romain
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

The first of December was always an odd day for Edmund. When he was a boy, his mother told him that she’d named him for a long-ago martyred priest, Edmund Campion, who had lost his life in a horrible way on this date. Why the baroness had named her son for a man whose secret ministry led to his execution for treason, Edmund had no idea.

Well, once his mother’s relationship with Turner became more clear, Edmund had a little idea. Still, the association with betrayal was hardly the sort of comfort he sought when inquiring after the history of his name.

He had often wondered what it would be like to live a life free of secrets and shame. But such musings were idle, like wondering what it would be like to be Russian. Or to breathe underwater. Unimaginable, such realities.

Edmund was glad for the distraction of tonight’s masquerade, a lavish wintry affair to be held at the mansion of Lord Weatherwax. The cheerful inebriate was sure to provide ciders and ports and mulled wine aplenty, and after a long week of Parliamentary debate, London’s lords were ready to escape into other selves beneath the silver of a full moon.

He dressed with the help of his manservant, Withey, in a costume chosen to appeal to Jane. A makeshift uniform aping that of a naval officer, it was a see-the-world costume. A man dressed in such a way—cream-colored knee breeches and white stockings; polished black shoes and a deep blue cutaway tailcoat—ordered his life around exploration. Curiosity. Knowledge.

A man like this could capture the notice of Lady Kirkpatrick.

It wasn’t a perfect simulacrum. The buckram hat was a too-plain cousin to the great cockaded semicircles worn by England’s naval heroes. But then, Edmund was no hero. He was just a man in a costume, hoping to make his wife smile when she saw him.

When she twirled into the entry hall of their house, he caught sight of her costume for the first time. And he was the one who smiled.

And looked, and looked, and looked.

Under his gaze, she grinned back. “I look a right jade, don’t I?”

She had dressed as the sort of serving wench one might have found at a wayside taproom in a bygone era. Over a full-sleeved chemise, she wore a kirtle, tight beneath her breasts and, oh, so low and loose over them. Her skirts nipped at her ankles, shorter than fashion decreed today. What did fashion know?

Her kirtle and skirts were a respectable brown, yet just the burnished shade to brighten her hair: a study in gold and copper and wood-dark brown, all rag-bagged together. Yet she was no precious metal, to be hammered into a delicate form. She was vivid and strong, like earth itself, and her mouth had been painted the red of sin.

He had a sudden, vivid urge to tip her over a table, tumble up those skirts, and drive into her from behind.

He shut his eyes. When he opened them again, she was looking at him with much curiosity.

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