Rivals and Revels (A Regency Romance)

29. The Württemberg Romantics (1 of 2)

Baden Baden in Württemberg met her visitors with an atmosphere so cheerful; filled their lungs with air so pristine and provided accommodations so neat, that Mabel could only see this resort rivaling more fashionable mineral springs in the future.

For now, the city's fame was modest outside of Prussia, yet the community of the afflicted guests, mostly from neighbouring France, was sizable.

Since the sufferers, save for the poor souls afflicted by consumption in their youth, entered the age of wisdom and their breeding was similarly excellent, they diplomatically kept recent political quarrels out of the hotels' dining rooms and verandas. Everyone hurried to put the exhausting war behind them. She wouldn't have found a more pleasant society in England, and the variety of tongues spoken in her hearing added to the charm.

The silver-mustached Colonel, the rare Brit in the mix, displayed so little surprise and so much delight at the sight of Lady Catherine; and Mabel couldn't detect anything remotely wrong with his countenance to point to an obvious affliction; that she had to conclude the meeting to be pre-arranged for amorous reasons.

While she found it peculiar that Lady Catherine would travel abroad for an entirely appropriate courtship, and hide it from Radcliffe... who, in turn, insisted that she went with a vehemence that made her suspicious... O, it was too complicated!

Perhaps she was confounding herself again, caught in her hopeless fantasies of Radcliffe and love.

She didn't expect him to make good on his promise to write her, but despite the best efforts of the postal services in three countries, his letter was already waiting for her at the hotel when they had arrived at Baden Baden. He must have dictated to his secretary from the day on which he'd promised to write to her. It would be so in character for him!

As the days went, the letters switched to the familiar handwriting. The dry lines, with health details so fussy that she could only imagine him doing it to shock the dour man who had to write it, gave way to the humorous observations of an idle summer in London.

Radcliffe had obviously recovered, but even with her worries assuaged, she lived from letter to letter, hiding them under her pillow, as if it could make him whisper into her ear or walk into her dreams.

She must have missed him so much that she picked in the crowd—no, not Radcliffe, there was nobody like him—but a well-turned figure with the similar raven hair. The stranger very well could have been Everett.

Everett is in Italy, she calmed herself after one such sighting, settling Lady Catherine to rest before dinner. They planned a nature walk afterward under the pine boughs, a measure much recommended by the physician.

But when she returned to her room, the man who separated himself from the wall, bidding her not to scream, was none other but Everett Chesterton.

Mabel rushed to the window that looked out on the garden. It was left unlocked by a peculiar oversight, providing an agile man like him with easy access.

"I couldn't stay away," he said.

"Well, obviously." Her knees buckled, and she dropped into a chair. "What... what do you want?"

Everett knelt by her feet.

"I must save you," he said solemnly. "I warned you against Radcliffe, but from what Mother writes, you didn't heed it."

"You've broken into my room to save me from your brother, who is the noblest man I've met, and is currently in England?" She would have laughed, if blood wasn't rushing in her ears.

"Oh, he seems noble, particularly when you do exactly what he wants of you."

"And what, pray tell, would that be, Mr. Chesterton?"