Free The Baron’s Betrothal: An On-Again, Off-Again, On-Again Regency Romance (The Horsemen of the Apocalypse Series) by Miranda Davis

watched the strapping, black-haired man walk briskly along a narrow path through the forest on the opposite side of the stream not a stone’s throw away. His attire was more distinctly rural than he’d worn previously. She stood with a pail of water in hand. When he finally looked up, she smiled tentatively, then squinted and shaded her eyes.  
    “Good day, Lady Elizabeth,” he bowed when he saw her. His voice sounded strange.
    “Mr. Tyler, is that you?”  
    “Ur, no-oo.” The man looked over his shoulder as if she might be addressing someone else. He resembled Mr. Tyler and yet she felt certain he was not.
    “Do I know you, sir?” She pursued, growing uneasy.  
    “Not as yet, my lady. I am Rodwell, the baron’s steward, at your service. His lordship’ll be along in a moment,” he said with a smile.  
    She set down her pail. She couldn’t possibly escape meeting Lord Clun now. She was trapped. Even if she gathered her things and took off on foot, she had nowhere else to hide except the cottage. His cottage.  
    The affable, irksome Mr. Tyler had mentioned having a half-brother and, of all the wretched luck, his sibling was Lord Clun’s steward. Mr. Tyler must’ve mentioned her — and her connection to the baron — because the steward addressed her by name and assumed she wished to see Lord Clun, which she most certainly did not.
    Elizabeth stood poised to run, heart racing, bucket forgotten, waiting for his lordship to limp into view, coughing up phlegm and complaining of gout or chilblains. (She shuddered.) Instead, Mr. Tyler ambled up with head down, switching the brush at his feet with a stick.  
    “Your lordship—” the steward warned.  
    That’s odd.
    Mr. Tyler glanced up. “Yes?” His gaze swung from Rodwell to her. “Oh,” he said slowly. “Hello, Lady Elizabeth. Are you well?”  
    Odder than the steward addressing Mr. Tyler as “your lordship” was the fact that he responded to it just as naturally. It took no time to solve the puzzle. She went rigid with outrage.  
    “I am quite well, Lord Clun,” Elizabeth spat out the last two syllables. She spun on her heels, hoisting her bucket, frock and petticoat with one hand and scrambled up the muddy embankment with the other.
    “Oh! I should’ve known!” She mimicked, “‘The baron’s coming! Up against a tree! Down in the dirt!’ Of all the odious, infantile…” She flounced off sputtering, shaking her fist in the air.  

    * * *

    Lord Clun realized immediately this was an unfortunate turn of events. Nevertheless, he enjoyed watching her slip and churn mud as she clawed her way up the opposite bank.
    “Well-turned ankles, my lord.” Roddy noted under his breath.
    “Mmm, yes.” Clun made his way to the water’s edge to judge the stream’s depth. “Forgot to mention she didn’t know who I was precisely.”
    “So I gathered, Mr. Tyler.” Roddy deadpanned and accepted his lordship’s coat and waistcoat as he shed them. “The ford’s not a quarter mile downstream.”
    “I’ll ruin my boots but I think it best to strike while the lady’s hot.”  
    He stepped in resolutely.  
    Argh!  
    Just as cold as he remembered.  
    The water reached his upper thighs — and shrank his man parts — as he waded across the stream hissing and cussing aloud at the God-awful cold. Once on the other side, he called back, “Will you have hot bath water waiting? Give me a half hour’s grace.”
    “I will, my lord,” Roddy said.
    Chilled to the bone, the baron struggled up the slick embankment after his furious fiancée . His mud-clotted boots squelched with every footfall. His buckskins clung wet and cold. He swore a blue streak all the way to the cottage and pounded on the door.  
    She swung it open and curtseyed, “Your lordship, what an honor!” She held a hand behind her back and he hoped it wasn’t a gun.
    “Please, Bess.”
    She brandished a long, two-tined fork in his face. “I have never given you leave to use my