Page 18 of Mending the Baron's Sins
“How is it at Baron De Rees’ house?” Joseph asked. “Is he as foul as the factories say?”
“What? They say he is foul?” Orla flinched in surprise.
“It’s just the gossip.” Joseph shrugged, noncommittally. “They say he’s ungrateful. A real arrogant example of the upper classes.”
“He’s not ungrateful.” She took another sip of her tea. She wasn’t sure why she was defending a man she had set herself against, but she could remember him thanking her. He could not be all bad if he had been gracious toward her.
“Ooh, ooh,” Sarah suddenly cooed like a pigeon and ran back to the table. “We have a customer.”
The door to the shop opened and two people walking into the shop.
“Ah, Miss Baker,” Sarah fussed over the young woman. “I’m delighted to you again.”
“And you, Mrs. Byrne,” the finely dressed woman said. “I have a new request for a hat I’d like to discuss with you.” As Sarah and Joseph followed the woman across the shop toward the hats,Orla only had eyes for the gentleman who had accompanied the young woman.
Not him. Anyone but him.
Mr. Frederick Baker removed his top hat, his gaze fixed on Orla. There had been a time when Mr. Baker had pursued her most assiduously. The proposal had followed what she could only call an infatuation, not his love at all, but his obsession. It was a proposal she had turned down in favor of a position as an apprentice to a midwife in London. Sadly, it was a position that never quite happened.
“Orla.” He hastened toward her, placing his mole-skinned top hat down on the table between them. She put down her teacup on the table too. “It has been too long.” He smiled, the somewhat slim and handsome face softening. “Please, let us talk.” He tried to reach for her hand, but she snatched it away before he could touch her. She couldn’t bear his company, not now. Not when she had so much to resent and regret in their association.
Wordlessly, she curtsied, showing due respect she did not feel, but knowing to do so would avoid an argument with her parents. Then she left the shop first, grabbing her reticule before she went.
A new determination spread through her as she walked down the street. If it meant avoiding Mr. Frederick Baker, she wouldhappily put up with the arrogant company and handsomeness of Baron De Rees.
Chapter 6
Horace threw off the covers. This was madness. He couldn’t sleep, and why? Because he could not stop thinking of Orla and the brother she had spoken of the day before. He kept seeing her in his mind’s eye, the anger flashing in those large eyes, the fury palpable, strong, and duly deserved.
“Why haven’t I put a stop to it?” He had no answer to his own question. He moved to sit on the edge of the bed and put his head in his hands. The dizziness was worse than ever. Even in the darkness, he could feel himself struggling to stay straight on the bed.
He saw Orla’s eyes again, the anger there, and it made him stand to his feet. He stumbled, reaching out for the bedpost, in danger of falling flat on his face. She shouted at him again, her words impossible to ignore.
“You send workers poorer than yourself…men who have no choice…into those conditions?”
“I’m a fool,” he muttered, steadying himself once more against the bedpost. He rubbed his eyes, his head pounding in pain.
How he wished he could call Orla to him and beg her to understand that it wasn’t selfishness that he left the factories as they were. It was…
“What is it?” he asked, blinking into the darkness. He had no answer. No, it was selfish, even ignorance, and unwillingness to see how responsible he was for others.
He stood away from the bedpost again, his anxiousness and fury making his mind muddled. He saw Orla before him, outraged, challenging him, those beautiful eyes flashing. Then he saw her again, steering him back to the bed, no longer angry, but with a different kind of passion in her eyes. She was drawing him down with her now, introducing him to a world of pleasure he had not known for five years, a world he thought was impossible to ever touch again.
He felt the thrill, the tightening in his lower gut. He saw her smile, heard her moan in his ear as he reached down beneath that gown, exploring her, showing her exactly what he could do for her. Her back arched on the bed; the moans greater than before.
“I’m going mad,” he muttered, stepping away from the bed and crossing the room.
His head was pounding in pain now. It almost felt like someone had taken a letter opener knife to his left temple and waspressing down hard. He clambered for the bell pull beside his fireplace and rang it, but one pull was not enough. He rang it again and again, before he lost sense of himself and drifted down to the floor, his back slumped against the wall and his feet fallen out in front of him.
What he could see in the darkness and shadows of his bare feet started to blur. Were those tears? No, he never let himself cry. It was the dizziness, growing even worse, to a state he only ever felt in the depths of night.
He’d rang for Colm only a few times before at night, but he knew now he had no choice. He needed help, tonight of all nights.
His feet blurred and were no longer plagued with darkness. Instead, an orangey light fell upon them. Was that from a candle? He blinked, fighting the dizziness, and lifted his head a little.
There was a face before him, slowly swimming into focus, as a candle bobbed beside her head. Those large, dark eyes were hypnotic.
How is she entering my dreams even when I am awake?
