The Abandoned Bride by Edith Layton Page A

Julia thought as she herself fell down into a soft gray well of sleep, and however much it pained her now, she consoled herself by remembering that the present would soon become the past. And she had become an expert at living with the past.
    The gentleman entered the room as he was bade, and walked to the older gentleman seated at the huge satinwood desk; At least, he thought it was the satinwood desk, but there were so many books laid out upon it that the exact nature of its surface was difficult to ascertain. He smiled as he watched the other man carefully place a bookmark, or what he had decided would do for a bookmark but was rather a jay’s feather that he extracted from his pocket, in the center of one particularly large tome.
    “Nick, my boy,” the older gentleman then said, rising and coming forward from behind the desk with every evidence of delight large upon his thin, patrician features. “I had not looked to see you here. I thought you were off to the Continent, about the King’s business, or the family business.”
    “And so I thought too, sir,” Baron Stafford replied, taking the preferred hand in his, “but I’ve had to change my plans.”
    “I’m not a bit sorry,” the older gentleman said, gesturing to his visitor to take a chair by the window, as he himself now did." “I should think any friend of the enemy knows your face as well as Bonaparte’s by now, and Robin is quite old enough to be accountable for himself.”
    “Actually, the home office quite agrees with you on the former, and I very much doubt your infinite wisdom on the latter, but in any case my hands are tied and I must wait a while before I leave, it seems,” the baron replied with barely concealed annoyance.
    “Petulance does not sit well upon you, Nick,” the older gentleman chided.
    “Bad as that?” The baron laughed, relaxing and stretching out his long legs. “Then I apologize, sir, for it wasn’t my intention to sulk. But I had hoped to have this business with Robin resolved and I’ve met up with an unexpected impediment.” He frowned as he left off speaking.
    At the questioning look upon the other gentleman’s face, he said with some irritation, “The young woman in question refuses to cooperate.”
    “She must be a ve r y strong-minded female to resist your blandishments,” the older man said, smiling, but then his face grew serious and he reached out to tap the baron’s knee, as though to reinforce the importance of his next words. “Nick, my boy, let it be. Robin is his own master now. He’s of an age.”
    “Marlowe’s sinking, sir,” the baron replied, just as seriously. “Even the King’s physician don’t give him more than a month. My aunt is weeping all over everyone in sight, including the gardeners if they come close enough, and it isn’t for Marlowe’s sake, as you might think, it’s all for Robin. ‘Ah where’s my boy,’ she cries, and looks accusingly at me as though I could produce him from a hat. And that isn’t so bizarre, sir, for I used to have some sway over him, far more than anyone in the family, you know, even more than you had, sir, and I can’t convince him to return. But his light lady might, if she would, but she won’t.”
    “Then there’s no more to be done, my boy,” the older gentleman said gently, seeing how his visitor had fallen into a brown study.
    “But there is, and I shall,” the baron swore, his face growing closed and hard.
    “Robin is no green youth any longer,” the older gentleman mused, “and I’m not at all sure you shouldn’t just let him be. He may know best.”
    “As he knew best when he ran off with that bit of muslin? Come, sir, it was good luck, not good sense, that saved him when she decided to sheer off. No, it’s clear that he stands in need of some counsel now.”
    “He is your nephew, Nick, not your son,” the older gentleman said softly.
    “But he hasn’t a father, or at least Marlowe might have sired him but he never did