Beauty and the Baron. Deborah Hale

was foremost in her mind, but today she’d consciously turned her thoughts in other directions. It did no good to fret about her brother’s future when she had no means to help him.

      Lord Daventry shook his head. “It is you I’ve come to see, Miss Lacewood.”

      “Me? Whatever for?” Too late Angela tried to bottle up her unmannerly question by pressing her fingers to her lips. Really, though, she’d asked the man his business twice, already. And twice he had failed to enlighten her.

      Nor did he this time.

      “May we sit?” he asked, instead.

      “Of course.” As Angela sank onto her aunt’s favorite chair, her tardy manners caught up with her. “Would you care for some refreshment, my lord? You must excuse me for being such a poor hostess. I’ve never had company of my own to entertain before.”

      “Nothing, thank you.” His lordship chose a seat some distance from her, and more deeply in shadow. “This is not exactly a social call.”

      The man was beginning to vex her. First interrupting her jolly afternoon in the garden, then giving her a fright, and finally stirring up all kinds of bewildering feelings she had no desire to experience.

      “If not a social call, then, what exactly is it, sir?”

      Aunt Hester would have had a fit of the vapors to hear her addressing a gentleman of wealth and title in such a tone, but Lord Daventry did not lose his cool aplomb.

      Angela wondered if he ever did.

      “All in good time, Miss Lacewood, if you will be so patient as to indulge me. For my grandfather’s sake,” he added, in a tone that betrayed more emotion than he had shown since ordering her to keep the curtains closed.

      “Your grandfather?” Angela surged up from her seat. “Is something the matter with the earl?”

      Her guest motioned for her to resume her seat. “The two of you have become great friends these past few years, have you not?”

      Did the man ever answer a direct question when one was put to him? Angela wondered. Perhaps she should demonstrate how to accomplish such a feat.

      “I cannot answer for your grandfather, but I am fonder of him than of anyone…except my brother.”

      The dear Earl of Welland had a knack for making her feel clever and graceful and capable—all the things Angela had given up hoping she would ever be.

      “Be assured, Miss Lacewood, my grandfather also holds you in the highest regard. It was good of you to visit him so often while I was…absent.”

      On the Continent, serving under the revered Duke of Wellington. Was Lord Daventry aware how much she knew of his service in the cavalry? All his letters she’d read aloud to the earl, marveling at the adventures of which he’d made light with wry, self-deprecating wit.

      “I did hate the thought of him over there in that big house,” she said, “with no company but the servants.”

      “My grandfather is rather a pet project of yours, is he not? I gather you have a number of other such persons in the parish.”

      Though her caller did not raise his ripe, resonant voice or sharpen his tone, Angela felt a subtle sting in his remark. Did he imagine she’d implied some criticism of him for putting his service to king and country ahead of filial duty to the grandfather who had raised him?

      “There are others besides your grandfather in need of a little cheer, sir, which I do my best to provide since I have not the means to dispense more practical comforts.” How often Angela had regretted that lack. “Loneliness takes no account of rank or wealth.” Against her inclination, her tone sharpened. “But if by project you mean to suggest I condescend to my friends or think well of myself for what little service I do them, I hope you are mistaken.”

      Why was she bothering to justify her motives to this arrogant man? Her penchant for nurturing what Aunt Hester called “Angela’s strays” had long been considered a joke by the family. Even she did not fully understand what compelled her to care about people for whom no one else spared a thought.

      Could it be because so few thoughts had ever been spared for her that she felt such kinship with the neglected?

      His lordship’s fine wide mouth lifted for an instant in the ghost of a smile. “Come, Miss Lacewood. I vow, you’re as prickly as a hedgehog. I meant no slight on your kindness, truly. You have far better right to think well of yourself on that account than others who pride themselves upon the happy accident of birth or beauty, which they’ve done nothing to merit.”

      It was a bald sort of compliment, neither lavish nor lyrical. Angela thought she detected within it a backhanded rebuke of himself. Yet, the very frugal nature of his praise pleased her, somehow. If it had been a whit more extravagant, she might have supposed he meant to mock her.

      “If I seem prickly, sir, it is because I find myself quite out of my depth.” She fumbled to untie the ribbons of her bonnet. “You have arrived out of the blue to call on me, who never receives guests. You say this is no social visit, yet rather than reveal its purpose, you question my friendship with your grandfather. I feel as though I’m engaged in a game of blindman’s bluff.”

      Lord Daventry clasped his large, long-fingered hands together and rested his chin upon them. “Some consider blindman’s bluff a diverting pastime, Miss Lacewood.”

      “Not those who must always play the blindman.” She had good reason to know.

      To her astonishment, his lordship laughed.

      Once, Angela had run her hand over a sable collar her cousin Clemmie had received as a Christmas gift. She’d never forgotten the lush texture of it. His lordship’s laughter reminded her of that fur—rich and deep, with a provocative whisper of darkness lurking beneath.

      “Touché, Miss Lacewood! I begin to see why Grandfather cherishes your acquaintance so.”

      Cherish. Surely she’d heard that word before. Angela knew what it meant…in an abstract fashion. Hearing it spoken by Lucius Daventry, caressed by his tongue and lips, was to hear it for the first time as Nature had intended it to be uttered.

      A chill, part dread, part reluctant anticipation, quivered through her, for suddenly she glimpsed the reason behind Lord Lucifer’s visit. Like his namesake had to other mortals throughout the ages, he had come to make her a bargain.

      And to steal her soul.

      He was making a botch of it.

      The knowledge put Lucius Daventry in a vile temper, though he flattered himself that he hid the fact from Miss Lacewood, the way he hid most of his emotions. Few things vexed him worse than performing poorly at any task he set himself. This one more than most, for so much depended upon his success.

      The young lady wanted to know why he’d come. The longer he delayed telling her, the less likely she would be to oblige his request. And he must win her cooperation.

      If only he could secure his own!

      Lucius Daventry was not accustomed to being of two minds about anything. He’d always prided himself on setting high goals, then committing all his energies to achieving them…until today.

      Miss Lacewood was the problem. He had come to Netherstowe expecting to find the poor little pudding of a child he remembered, grown into stout, dowdy womanhood. Such a creature would surely have been eager to accept his offer without placing his heart in jeopardy.

      Instead he’d found the dumpy little caterpillar transformed into an exquisite Regency butterfly. When she’d fallen into his arms, Miss Lacewood had reminded him of how long it had been since he’d held anything so soft and fragrant. Her tantalizing beauty and her charitable nature posed a grave threat to his lordship’s hard-won peace. Though it shamed Lucius to admit it, even to himself, the lady frightened him worse than a unit of French cavalry at full charge.

      For