How to Wed a Baron

“Your servant, my lady,” he said, his eyes still mocking her. “On behalf of His Royal Highness, the Prince Regent, I, Baron Justin Wilde, your delighted betrothed, welcome you to the homeland of your mother. Her passing was England’s loss, yet her daughter is clearly England’s gain.”

Very prettily said, she supposed. It was only as she opened her mouth to parrot the words she had learned by rote that must be spoken on this occasion, that she realized the baron had addressed her in flawless German, now the official language of Austria.

Alina supposed he’d wish to be complimented on his expertise.

She’d rather poke hot sticks under her fingernails. Although how silly of him to let her know she could not speak German in front of him and think he would not understand. Should she thank him for forewarning her? No, probably not.

Instead, she answered him in English as flawless as his German, putting her hand in his open palm and then watching rather intently as he bent his dark head to within a whisper of placing a kiss on her bare skin.

She ignored the tingle that ran up her arm, all the way to her shoulder.

“You’ve met my secretary, Major Prochazka?”

The baron had not released her hand, but had deftly drawn her arm through his, leading her back to where Luka and an odd-looking periwigged creature stood waiting, the latter beaming at her as if personally responsible for some wonderful occurrence. Then they both bowed—the little man with much more élan than poor Luka, who had to contend with his sword—turned and began leading the way off the crowded dock.

“Your secretary, my lady? Ah, yes, of course he is. And, in turn, I am the King of Siam.”

Alina stopped in her tracks, which made the baron do likewise. “What are you suggesting, my lord?”

“Suggesting? I? Nothing more, my dear, than that we begin as we plan to go on. All that faradiddle you spouted about improving trade relations? Very nicely said, but we both know the truth. Or do you wish that we go on with you pretending that you’re a pretty yet brainless twit, and that I…well, dear me, didn’t I just paint myself into a corner with my tongue? Very well, that I also continue pretending that I am a pretty yet brainless twit.”

Alina looked him up and down, amazed to hear a man call himself pretty; besides, he was much too much the male to be termed pretty, even in his fashionable clothes. But what did he mean? Pretending. Pretending what? Had she been betrothed to a lunatic?

“You’re saying that you’re not a brainless twit? Are you quite certain of that?”

“At this precise moment? No.” His smile reached all the way to his eyes, but then stopped, as if something barred the way. “Very well, then. We shall for the moment allow the definition of secretary to stand.”

“I don’t recall granting it permission to sit down,” Alina said, with just the sort of offhand sarcasm that had landed her in trouble so often, had called her to the king’s attention in ways that probably had hastened her banishment to an English marriage. She behaves as if she’s queen, her aunt had told anyone who would listen. Queen of the Romany, I suppose, for all her thin Englisher blood.

Alina walked forward once more, her gaze on the major’s militarily straight spine. “He’d die for me, you know.”

“Commendable of the major, I suppose. Allow me, please, to point out Brutus, my, um, secretary, lumbering along just ahead of yours. He’d kill for me. Of the two choices, I much prefer the latter. The major is fearful for your safety. But you’re aware of that, of course.”

Alina had been so busy trying to keep up with this verbal sparring that it took her a moment to understand what the baron was implying. “My safety? No, that can’t be correct. You’ve misunderstood his mission, one for which he volunteered. Luka is concerned for my welfare. He was my father’s aide-de-camp, and therefore feels responsible for me. Unless you’re telling me that England is an unsafe place?”

The baron looked at her for a long moment, and then smiled, another smile that did not quite reach those unsettling green eyes. “Forgive me, my lady, clearly I mistook his purpose. And I assure you, England for you is as safe as houses. Indeed, you will have the entire kingdom at your feet the moment you first appear in Society.”

“That is my intention, yes,” she told him, not understanding why she dared this impertinence, but enjoying herself all the same. He seemed to like teasing her, surprising her, for what reason she didn’t know. Why not return the favor?

Begin as you plan to go on. That’s what he’d said. As a good wife, she shouldn’t disappoint him. And what a shame that they must marry, be bound to each other by duty. He would be so much more fun to flirt with, wouldn’t he? As a husband, however, he might be more trouble than even his handsome face and enticing smile could overcome.

The baron cocked an eyebrow. “You’re quite the honest little thing, aren’t you? Some would consider that a failing.”

“Would you be one of those people?”

“Ah, and inquisitive, as well.”

“Inquisitive enough to have noticed that you have carefully sidestepped my question, my lord,” Alina said, her heart beating faster yet again. Goodness, but the man made her feel delightfully alive! “I shall have to be exceedingly careful around you, won’t I?”

He looked down into her face, his expression suddenly too intense, so that she looked away. “On the contrary. I believe it is I who will have to be exceptionally careful around you. I hadn’t expected to like you.”

She kept her eyes on the street at her feet, pretending polite indifference even as she felt ridiculously pleased that he’d said—admitted, really, as if it was some sort of failing of his own—that he liked her. “Oh. And…and is that so terrible?”

“It could be, yes,” he said, the teasing note back in his voice. “A good wife would have had the decency to be staid and boring and completely ignorable.”

“And I’m—”

“Hardly ignorable,” he said, patting the hand that rested on his forearm.

Alina swallowed around the sudden lump in her throat. “I see. And…and is that a compliment?”

“Possibly,” he answered in that already familiar, maddeningly light tone as they mounted the steps to an ancient inn. “That, or a warning…”

“YOU SUMMONED ME?” The clipped tone of voice revealed that Major Luka Prochazka was not at all pleased to be in the position of taking orders from an Englishman.

Which wasn’t Justin’s problem, was it? No. He had problems enough of his own, thank you.

The baron had spent the past several hours reading and rereading the contents of the packet he’d been handed by the Prince Regent’s secretary, this time reading as much between the lines as he had the actual words. And it was those words not written that told him he’d been a fool to sign the agreement. The marriage, and “his silence on matters known to the Prince Regent and himself concerning a private arrangement,” in exchange for the termination of his indebtedness to the Prince Regent.

It had all been too easy, even with the added responsibility of keeping his unwanted bride safe until Francis had dealt with the man who wished her harm. Justin should have known nothing with the Prince Regent, or any royalty for that matter, was ever that simple, or that straightforward.

He looked toward the door to the private dining room of the inn and the man standing there, no longer clad in his uniform, but in a rather drab brown jacket and tan buckskins, his cravat a pure horror that would have crumpled Wigglesworth to his knees at the abomination of the thing.

“She doesn’t know,” he said now, flatly, looking Luka full in the eye.

Luka Prochazka merely blinked, and did not answer.

“Cat got your tongue? Very well, Major, we have the whole evening ahead of us. You wouldn’t care for a small side wager as to which one of us outlasts the other?”

“I…that is, you…your statement took me by surprise, and was not a question at all. To what exactly was I supposed to respond?”

“Ah, now you wish to play the fool? Too late for that, Major. Yet, much as such exercises pain me, I’ll repeat myself. She doesn’t know. She’s dancing about somewhere above our heads, delighted in her performance on the dock earlier, happy in her ignorance, and with absolutely no idea her life is at stake at the moment,” Justin said, even as he motioned Luka to take up a chair and avail himself of the bottle of wine that sat on the table between them. “No, don’t look at me as if you still don’t understand what I’m saying. She thinks this is all some political union we’re going to be entering into, an advance of trade between our countries, or some showpiece of how Francis and our George have cried friends and allies yet again. She recited an entire speech on the thing while we were at the docks, just like a good little idiot. But she’s not an idiot, is she, which is why you haven’t told her the truth.”

“But it is all of that,” Luka said, pouring himself a glass of finest burgundy, as Justin never traveled without his own wines any more than he would see it as civilized to travel without his own bed linens.

“Continue to evade my questions, Major, and you and I will go to war. It’s enough that the rain delays our departure to London until the morning and a man of my sensibilities must pass another night beneath this probably leaky roof. The girl is having herself a determined lark, even as it’s clear she loathes the idea of a marriage between us. Ermine tips, enough baggage coming off that ship this afternoon to raise it a two full inches above its previous waterline, a baldly stated intention to take London by storm. She’s beautiful, magnificently so, and she is clearly aware of that fact. As long as she must bow to the king’s wishes, she has come to conquer England, and she very well might. God knows I’d wager on it. If she isn’t put to bed with a shovel within days of her first conquest.”

“She doesn’t need to know that.”

Justin slammed the side of his fist on the tabletop, rocking the bottle of wine. “Bloody hell, she doesn’t!” He sat back, amazed at his outburst—he, who was always so cool, so controlled, so in charge of his emotions. He didn’t much care for the notion he could be concerned with someone else’s welfare, especially some impudent chit who seemed to have taken up instant residence in his head. He’d never been so attracted to a female, and he didn’t much care for the feeling.

His eyes closed, he rubbed at his forehead, willing himself back to his usual composure. “Why? Why hasn’t she been told?”

“It…it was decided that she might…balk at any strictures put on her movements if she were to know our concerns. The Lady Alina is young and…somewhat headstrong. If she can be made to believe that English customs are to be much more strict with the comings and goings of its females, more protective as it were, she would accept that as fact and not chafe at the restrictions quite so much. But if she were to learn that she is being guarded, that she is in fact more a prisoner within invisible walls than she is a young woman on an adventure, a young bride out to make her way in Society…”

Luka sighed and took a long drink from his glass. “A rather superior vintage for a simple inn, even to my admittedly unsophisticated palate. Clearly your economy is not so lowered as ours by the recent war.”

Justin’s mouth lifted in a rueful, one-sided smile. “Yes. And the streets of London are paved in golden cobblestones.” He leaned forward once more, his elbows on the tabletop. “You’re telling me that my soon-to-be wife is completely unaware that her life is in danger. That you or some other idiot has decided it is best she not know—because she might otherwise chafe at her restrictions? My God, man, you speak as if you and your countrymen are afraid of the chit.”