Free Fran Baker by Miss Roseand the Rakehell Page B

the following morning were met with the edifying prospect of Lord Stratford bowling along in his curricle seated between two small boys. Jem nearly fell from his perch when his lordship placed the Masters Lawrence on the seat of his vehicle. In fact, he was moved enough to later forcibly remark to the stable boy at Adderbury that he’d never seen nothing like it, no, nor thought to see again!
    Daniel Baldwin had been let down at the front step of Appleton Cottage where he stood with Miss Rose Lawrence watching the curricle pass out of sight. He much admired the modest neatness of her plain attire as he had no liking for the extremes of fashion and was, indeed, much shocked by the practice of the more on-the-go women to damp the petticoats of their sheer gowns. His eyes had more than once wandered to her tall, trim figure during church serves that morning, and they now focused warmly upon her.
    “I wish I might know the secret of your success, Miss Lawrence,” he said with a kind smile as they moved inside.
    “My success?” she repeated quizzically.
    “My family and I have been trying for years to do what took you only a bare moment—to get Stratford to follow one of our suggestions,” he explained in a teasing tone.
    “But I assure you, Mr. Baldwin, I did not ‘get’ his lordship to do anything. This was an arrangement between my nephews and him. Indeed, his behavior toward the boys has been such that I fear I’ve been doing him an injustice, she said frankly.
    As Rose was in the act of seating herself upon the settee in the deserted parlor, she did not see the puzzlement cross Baldwin’s face. “What sort of injustice could you be doing to Stratford?”
    “Oh, well . . . I cannot say I am pleased about this match, Mr. Baldwin. In fact I must confess to having conceived a misliking for it from the moment I first learned of it. But I knew his lordship by repute—”
    “Lord, who does not?” he said on a laugh.
    She answered him with her own warm laughter. “Yes, but I must now own to having prejudged his lordship. I’m determined not to do so again.”
    “I still long for your secret, Miss Lawrence, for at the risk of destroying my cousin’s good name with you once again, I must tell you that Stratford would never be spending his morning driving children in his curricle solely for their pleasure. He generally obliges only himself and to the devil with all else. Although,” he added thoughtfully, “he does occasionally allow himself to be ruled by one other.”
    “May I ask whom?”
    “Our grandfather, the Earl of Hallbrook. He more or less raised my cousin and he can still bring Colin in line. But Miss Lawrence,” he said, smiling once more, “tell me why you were not at supper with us last night? I did wonder, when we sat down and you had not appeared, if you were perhaps feeling unwell?”
    “No, it was nothing of that nature. I quite often take my supper in the schoolroom with my nephews. I did so last night,” she said a trifle self-consciously.
    In truth, she had not been able to compose herself for another encounter with Stratford last night. She recalled vividly how her pulse had raced yesterday when he stared at her with his brows raised in that odd fashion, and she was grateful when Baldwin turned the conversation to more neutral topics.
    The viscount’s curricle returned some twenty minutes later and they went out to greet it.
    As Stratford lifted Freddy down, the young boy exclaimed, “Auntie, you will never guess! He let me hold the reins a bit, he really did! And he said I had good hands!”
    Baldwin received this pronouncement with all the astonishment it deserved and could only believe his cousin’s action to stem from the fact that the horses were local cattle and not his lordship’s prized grays.
    Miss Lawrence, however, was unaware of the magnitude of Stratford’s gesture and the look she bestowed upon him was not one of surprise, but one of friendly gratitude. Looking at her