In the Baron’s Debt by Roselyn Francis
Chapter Four
Augusta locked her chamber door behind her as the blush grew in her cheeks. Seeing Loftus again had brought back all the good memories between them, no matter how many times she had told herself not to think of them. She tapped her head back on the door, listening to the soft thud, as though she could will away the memories from her mind, but it did little use.
Their first meeting had been at an assembly. Loftus had approached to speak to her father, at which point he had introduced the two of them. She closed her eyes, feeling as though she were back there again.
“Ah, Baron Bardolf.” Her portly father turned around, gesturing to the young man that was approaching them with his reddening hands. He grew larger in the years leading up to his death, displaying symptoms of gout.
She was instantly intrigued by the stranger, tall with brown hair and piercing green eyes, but it was the smile he offered her father that had so taken her.
“How are you, my friend?”
“I am well, Viscount Campten. How are you?” The Baron bowed deeply, displaying his respect for the older man.
“I am tired of dancing,” her father had chuckled. “I have grown too old and large for such animation, though my daughter does insist upon it. My Lord, may I present my daughter, Miss Augusta Creassey. Augusta, this is Baron Bardolf, the Lord Loftus Storey.”
“How do you do.” She had bobbed a curtsy, though she had found it difficult to lower her eyes from his face.
“It is a pleasure,” he bowed, keeping his eyes fixed to her too. “Well, if you are tired of dancing, Sir, perhaps I could offer to be a dance partner to your daughter?”
“Are you a good dancer, my Lord?” She had asked with mischief, enjoying the surprise in his face and the curving of a smirk to his lips.
“Oh, shockingly poor,” he shook his head. “You may have to instruct me what to do, but I am eager to learn.”
“I am glad to hear it,” she smiled too, enjoying the warmth and charm of his manner.
“You do not mind a poor dance partner then?”
“On the contrary, who would not like to be the superior dance partner?” She asked with raised eyebrows. “It means any poor skill I have of my own will automatically look better when placed next to an even poorer dancer.” He had laughed warmly, startled by her humor.
Her father had waved them away, eager for them to dance. They had both quickly discovered that neither one of them was in fact a poor dancer, leading to them sharing three dances that evening.
Between them all evening there had been tension, it was not just enjoying each other’s company, but attraction – the kind that was all encompassing and could leave people breathless. When they had parted at the end of the assembly, the Baron had held tightly to her hand, far longer than the social custom dictated. She had thought her heart would beat so hard it would leap out of her chest at that moment.
She opened her eyes, seeing her bedchamber around her once again.
Do not remember the happy times.
She scolded herself yet again, though her feet still betrayed her. They walked across the room towards the dressing table, allowing her to delve into her trinket box and search a secret compartment. Inside was a gift Loftus had given her.
Despite the heartbreak, she had never been able to part from it. The gift meant too much to her for that. He meant too much to her for that.
She felt the anger boil inside her. She visualized it as a kettle of water, boiling on the fire, bubbling and steaming. She could not forgive him for what he had done all those years ago, and still she could not understand it. One moment their relationship had been so idyllic, the next destroyed, shredded into pieces.
Hehad turned his attention to another. That feeling of being cheated of their future together turned her stomach. It made her fingers clench tightly around the gift he had given her.
It was a necklace, but a simple gold chain, with a pendant encrusted in jewels shaped into a horse with a rider. They had often taken rides together during their courtship and he knew her love of horses.
She laid the necklace on the mahogany surface of the dressing table, staring at it for a moment. The reason she had kept it all these years was the same reason that she could never entertain another man’s courtship. There had been a couple of gentlemen in the early days who had declared an interest in courtship, but she had spurned each one of them.
She kept the necklace because despite the fact Loftus broke her heart, she still had feelings for him to this day.
* * *
Loftus threw off the bed covers from his body, abandoning his attempt to sleep entirely. His whole body was heated thinking of Augusta. Since she had left, his mind had kept circling back to her, never far away from her.
He had not expected the sight of her to raise the passions within him, but they had.
Why do I still desire her?
He jumped from the bed and reached for a nearby candle, hurrying to light it from a tinderbox. With the fresh orange flame, he moved across the room to his writing desk and pulled out a small folder that he kept at the back of the drawer, away from prying eyes.
It was a folder he had hidden from his wife when she was alive. A folder that kept his secret desire concealed.
Maria, his wife, had never been able to ignite his passions. He originally felt ashamed for such feelings, but that shame had soon vanished. Maria’s virtues were few and far between.
No, the only woman I have ever wanted was Augusta.
That thought made him angry again. It was resentment of her, resentment that she was the only woman who could stir such passions in him. Yet still she had thrown that all away, she had destroyed his life, throwing him into a life that he had not wanted, just because she had broken off their engagement without a word to explain the reason.
Bringing the candle flame closer to the leather-bound folder, he untied the leather strap that held it together and turned the first page. The parchment lit by the orange orb did not abate his desires, they only grew more.
The folder was full of the admiring drawings he had once made of Augusta. Either committed from memory or from when they had sat together in the garden, he had carefully traced her profile on multiple occasions. Each drawing of her had been a declaration of how much he loved her. He followed his pencil lines, marking the curve of her eyes and the length of her neck. She was more youthful in the pictures, they had been drawn eight years ago, but just as beautiful as when she had stood in his drawing room that day.
The more he turned through the folder, the more intimate his drawings had become and the angrier he grew as he looked at them, feeling the same passion for her stir once more yet knowing it was an impossibility for him to ever be with her in such a way. Far from sticking to the beauty of her face, he had indulged in drawing her figure too, marking out her curves through the contours of her empire gowns. There was the hint of a bosom seen in many of his drawings.
Loftus sat back in his chair and covered his face, hiding the sketches from his eyes. Augusta was his siren. She drew him to her. He was incapable of resisting the passion he felt for her.
As he had tried to sleep, he had imagined all sorts of ways their meeting that afternoon could have passed, without the past haunting them and without the chaperone nearby. All his imaginings ended in the same way. With the two of them tumbled to the rug, their bare legs entwined together, with Augusta moaning his name and clutching at his back.
He dropped his hands from his eyes and looked back down to the sketches.
Of all the women in the world Markus could have shown a comfortableness with, it had to be Augusta.
Why Augusta? Am I to be tormented by her forever?
The thoughts came with such forceful anger that his movements became sharp, he pushed the leather folder away from him, watching it slide across the desktop. He tried to calm himself, for Markus’ sake, he could not allow his fury to rule his life.
At least there was hope in something here. Augusta had destroyed his life once, perhaps by helping Markus it could be atoning for the pain of the past. He would just have to be business like. That is what he told himself as he hid the drawings away again, binding them in the leather folder and pushing them to the back of the draw.
She is my best chance for helping Markus.
He would just have to ignore his desire for her.
* * *
The shock Augusta felt when a note arrived for her from the Baron was unrivalled. She felt she was reliving the past, when love notes would be delivered to her door, but this note did not speak of affection. It was simple and bland, with merely polite language, explaining he was sending a carriage for her to bring her to the house.
The carriage had pulled up outside of his house within a short time. She had spent the journey nervous, fidgeting in her seat and thinking of what to say to the Baron when she saw him. The footman opened the door, assisting her down from the carriage towards Holmes who greeted her in the doorway.
As with the day before, she was shown to the drawing room where she was to wait for the Baron. As the time passed, she grew impatient and started wandering around the room, admiring the ornaments and the furnishings. When she reached the window, she spent many a minute gazing beyond the glass at the garden, admiring how it had grown and blossomed in the last eight years.
“Good afternoon,” the Baron’s voice startled her, urging her to look away from the window to find him bowing towards her.
“And to you,” she bobbed a curtsy in reply, just as an awkward silence descended. She had been determined to keep her anger under control that day, no matter how much she wanted to rail at him and demand an answer for his behavior eight years ago. She was there to help Markus and no good could come from growing angry. In the corner of the room, the housekeeper was present once again, with her head turned down to a book in her lap.
Augusta glanced back at the garden through the window, determined to find something to talk of with the Baron. If she were to help his son, she and Loftus would be seeing more of each other. They would have to find a way to talk to each other that was neither tense nor filled with cold animosity.
“It has changed very much.” She pointed to the garden.
His green eyes followed her gesture beyond the glass.
“Yes, it needed updating. It has had a complete redesign.”
“Completely?” She looked back out to the window. “The topiary bushes?”
“Removed.”
“The summer house?” She had meant to ask her question in a nonchalant way, but the mention of the house made the Baron hesitate in his reply.
She looked back, realizing her mistake, and feeling the heat of a blush crawl up her cheeks. The summer house was where they had escaped to one day in their courtship, hiding from their chaperone. It was perhaps the most elicit afternoon they had ever spent together. Far from just chaste kisses, they had laid on the chaise longue together with wandering hands. They had not crossed a line, but it was one of Augusta’s most exciting memories of him, with his hands around her waist.
She had often dreamed of that moment, imagining what else could have happened between them.
“That too has gone.” His face was full of fury, his lips pursed into a tight light. She knew she had to change the topic quickly if they were going to avoid exchanging cold words with barely restrained anger.
“Well,” she looked to the garden, biting her lip in thought and wondering if he had rid himself of anything that reminded him of their courtship. “The garden does look beautiful. I was thinking perhaps Markus and I could explore it together.”
“Yes,” he nodded, looking away from her. “I am sure he would like that. It is my hope that if Markus can be comfortable with you, the more he grows used to your company, then perhaps he can be comfortable with others too.”
“I think it is a good plan,” she nodded, smiling slightly. It was an admirable thing he was doing. His evident wish to help his son only softened her feelings towards him. She tried to harden them again, to protect herself from him, but it did little use. “I was wondering, is there anything that has happened to Markus that could possibly explain his mutism?”
The Baron walked across the room, coming nearer to her. He kept his gaze out of the window, moving to stand beside her. She felt a little terse at him closing the distance between them, it was as though he was taunting her. She tried to step to the side very slightly, putting a little more air between them.
“It is just an unusual thing to develop overnight,” she tried to explain her question as she kept her eyes on him. “I thought perhaps there could be some pain there that may be causing his fears?”
“That would be because of his mother.” The Baron flicked his green eyes to her briefly before returning them to the garden. “Since her death, he has not spoken to another woman.” He opened his mouth to say something else but stopped.
“There is something else?” She asked with intrigue.
“It is of no matter,” he shook his head. He had been about to tell her something, it was clear to see, but had thought better of it. Whatever window he was about to show her into his world had been firmly closed again.
The idea of the trauma for the poor boy made her return her gaze to the garden too. She had heard of the Baroness’ death, though she had tried not to think too heavily on the matter. Her uncomfortableness grew as they stood together looking out at the garden. She needed to move the topic onto a new conversation.
“Tell me more of Markus.” She turned her head to the Baron, seeing the rise of his eyebrows in surprise as he too turned his head to her. They both kept their bodies towards the garden. “If I am to help him, I would like to know him better. What does he like to eat? Does he have favorite games? Anything of the sort.”
“Gingerbread is his favorite thing to eat, without a doubt,” the Baron betrayed a small smile. The crack in the hard countenance he had been wearing made her too smile. “Though he also has a weakness for custard pudding. As for games, he is fond of Spillikins, blind man’s bluff, and a few card games, such as Fish.”
“What of shuttlecock?”
“Oh yes, but be warned, if you play that with him, you will probably never get him indoors again.”
“He loves it that much?”
“It is not so much that as when he loses the shuttlecock. He is always determined to find it again even if I tell him it hardly matters. He will spend hours at a time searching,” the Baron folded his arms, a genuine smile playing around his lips. “I found him recently with his hand in the fishpond trying to pull out what he thought was the shuttlecock, but it was in fact one of the fish.”
“They must have been rather startled,” Augusta laughed.
“They were so upset, I thought they were all about to leap free from the pond and attempt to swim across the grass instead. One of them even tried it and I had to rescue it from a nearby flower bush,” he laughed too.
“Well, if we play shuttlecock, I will be sure not to let Markus anywhere near the fishpond.”
“Thank you.”
“What of horses? Does he like to ride? I hope he does not scare them the way he does the fish,” Augusta smirked at the idea. She had such a love for horses, she quite liked the idea of showing Markus how to ride.
“He is a little nervous of riding, but there is a Shetland pony in the stable here he does know how to ride, but he does it rarely. That perhaps should be an adventure for another day. With his recent mischief, if he is to continue in the same vain, I do not want to run after the frightened pony as I did the fish scurrying across the grass.”
“I think the Shetland pony would be harder to capture.”
“Quite so.”
At their shared jest, they both looked at each with a smile. As quickly as Augusta realized the ease with which they had fallen into speaking, she saw the same surprise appear in the Baron’s face. They both looked away again through the window to the garden.
She cleared her throat, startled by how nice it had felt to talk with him as of old. She turned angry for allowing herself to enjoy his company. She needed a polite restraint between them. She had worked hard to remove the cold anger, but she could not allow this warm exchange either.
“I would truly like to help Markus,” she said after a moment, her voice just above a whisper as she tried to stop herself from sounding angry. “With that in mind, perhaps you and I should continue to talk as we did just now?” The Baron looked towards her with a suspicious glare.
“Do you think that is even possible?” The green eyes were laced with disbelief. She tried to hold onto his gaze.
“I would like to try, wouldn’t you?”
He looked away from her again, out to the garden, leaving her free to admire the handsomeness of his profile. He seemed to be summoning an answer when the sound of footsteps disturbed them.
“Ah, Markus,” the Baron turned away to the door where the little boy stood. He walked towards his son with a bounce in his step and opened his arms. “Come here you.” The boy rushed forward into his father’s embrace, allowing his father to pick him up. He carried Markus back over to the window to face Augusta.
Only when they were back in front of her did Augusta realize how much she had smiled at the sight.
I always knew Loftus would make a good father.
“Do you remember your new friend from yesterday?” The Baron asked as the boy looked up at her with bashful eyes. “Well, Miss Creassey has come back to see you today.”
“What do you say to playing in the garden, Markus?” She kept her manner buoyant, determined not to let any difficulties between her and Loftus affect Markus, the poor boy had suffered enough hardship. “I hear you know how to play shuttlecock and it has been a long time since I played. What do you think to giving me a game?”
The boy smiled at the idea.