“But why is he allowed to hit you, Mama?”
Annabelle felt the tiny pats atop her head as her mother’s tears dripped onto her hair. “Because he owns me. I am his wife.”
Chapter One
London, April 1815
David Ellsworth had been the Earl of Elmwood for a handful of months, and he was already doing a splendid job of making a fool of himself. In the span of the last hour at the Harrisons’ dinner party, he’d already tried to serve himself from the soup tureen one of the footmen had been carrying around the gigantic table; he’d incorrectly addressed Lord Mayfeather’s daughter, who apparently was a Miss and not a Lady; and he’d obviously taken up an inappropriate subject with Lady Cranberry, who looked at him aghast when he began recounting a story about his time fighting in the Army on the Continent. Apparently, the content was too graphic for her ears.
As a result, David had excused himself from the table and quickly made his way down the corridor in search of a place to hide…and to have a cigar. He hurried past a variety of doors and out onto the verandah behind the house. It was freezing outside, but he enjoyed the sharp air after being in the overly crowded dining room for the past two hours. He pulled a cigar from his inner coat pocket and lit it using the candle that flickered atop a table near the door. This was one of the last cigars he had left. They had been a gift from a Spanish officer on the Continent. He had every intention of savoring it.
David’s younger sister, Marianne, had asked him to give up smoking cigars, and he would. But not tonight. Tonight, he sucked in the familiar smoke and closed his eyes, trying to forget all the foolish things he’d done in the dining room.
Marianne was right. He needed someone to teach him how to be an earl. After all, he, his sister and their brother, Frederick, who had died a hero in the war, had grown up in a small cottage in Brighton, none of them having any idea their father was the only son of the Earl of Elmwood. They thought Father was a woodworker, for Christ’s sake. Not a bloody earl.
Marianne had served as a lady’s maid until she’d met the Marquess of Bellingham, who’d asked her to marry him after two cases of mistaken identity and a trip to France. And now, here they were, two siblings who knew little about the infamous ton, both thrust into the roles of earl and soon-to-be marchioness. David would think it all ridiculous if it didn’t happen to be true. Such was his life at the age of nine and twenty. Far, far different from the way he’d imagined it.
At first, David had assumed taking a seat in the House of Lords would be nothing but welcome. He’d use his newfound power to get bills passed that would help military men and their families. David still looked forward to that part of his new role. It was the other part he dreaded—the endless round of social calls and ridiculous amounts of etiquette that he continued to breach—that was driving him mad.
He sucked in and expelled a large puff of smoke as he leaned back against the cold brick wall behind him, closing his eyes. No. He wasn’t about to give up his cigars quite yet. A good smoke was sometimes a soldier’s only friend on a freezing, lonely battlefield that smelled like gunpowder and death.
Delicate feminine coughing met his ears and his eyes shot open to see a stunning blond woman step onto the verandah waving smoke away from her face.
“Pardon me,” she said in a tight, unhappy voice as she continued to cough.
David pushed himself away from the wall and waved his arm in the air, trying to dispel the smoke. “I’m terribly sorry.” Excellent. Knowing his luck, he probably just blew smoke into the face of one of the royal princesses.
The blond woman gave him a narrow-eyed stare. “You should be,” she shot back, pulling an obviously expensive fur-lined pelisse more tightly around her shoulders.
“I didn’t realize anyone else was out here.” His gaze took in her lovely and equally expensive-looking pink evening gown that was partially covered by the pelisse. Diamonds wound around her throat and were entwined in her light hair. She had the most heavenly ice-blue eyes, illuminated by the candles on either side of the nearby doorway. He glanced around. She was young and lovely and appeared to be…alone. That was unusual.
“My apologies, my lady…er, you are a lady, aren’t you?” Damn. He was a fool. He didn’t know much about Society rules, but he was fairly certain asking a lady if she was a lady was a breach.
She arched a blond brow at him and laughed. “What do you think? Do I look like a lady?”
“Yes, well, er, uh, you look beautiful,” he managed to choke out, wanting to kick himself for his inanity. What exactly was one supposed to say when one encountered a heavenly creature alone in a dark, cold garden? Nothing in his army career had prepared him for such an event. If she were a French solider, he would have shot her. Tried to, at least. If she were an English soldier, he would have offered her a cigar. Instead, he stood blinking at her like an idiot waiting for her to say something else.
“Allow me to save you trouble, Mr. …” She paused, waiting for him to supply his last name.
“Ellsworth,” he spat out. Damn again. He wasn’t supposed to tell anyone his name was Mr. Ellsworth. Not any longer. Not since he’d become the bloody Earl of Elmwood. But how could he correct himself to this vision of loveliness? He’d already proven himself to be an idiot, he didn’t dare add more proof.
But wait. What had she said? Save him trouble? He frowned. What could she possibly mean? He was about to drop the cigar to the ground and crush it beneath his boot when she reached out and took the thing from him in her gloved fingers. He watched in awe as she brought it to her lips and took a drag, blowing the smoke up into the cold air above his head. Who was this young woman? Had he met her earlier when the company had been gathered in the sitting room? He doubted it very much. He would have remembered her. She wasn’t someone you’d easily forget.
He narrowed his eyes on her. “Have you been here all evening?” he asked, uncommonly curious how he might have overlooked her presence.
She laughed and it was a harsh sound. “Not all evening, no. I’m afraid I’m often late to such gatherings. I slipped in halfway through dinner. On purpose. Makes the evening less of a chore.”
“A chore?” he echoed, somewhat surprised that a woman who so obviously belonged here would be so clearly unhappy at a dinner party.
She eyed him up and down as if assessing every stitch of his clothing. He was suddenly glad his soon-to-be brother-in-law, the Marquess of Bellingham, had helped him purchase a new wardrobe suitable for an earl. “You can save the pleasantries, Mr. Ellsworth. I know your game.”
“Game?” He blinked at her. What the devil did she mean by that?
She sighed and rolled her eyes, taking another drag from the cigar. “Yes, I’ve seen it before, a hundred times. You saw me leave the table and you followed me out here. Only you’re pretending you didn’t follow me. You’re pretending you didn’t even know I was here. That’s what I’m to believe, is it not?” She blinked at him aggressively.
David scrunched up his nose and crossed his arms over his chest, regarding her as thoroughly as she’d regarded him moments earlier. Did this young woman truly think he had come out here in search of her? “You may believe whatever you like, Miss…”
She rolled her eyes and laughed a haughty laugh. “Oh, and now you’re going to pretend as if you don’t know my name, either.” She shook her head and pulled her fur more tightly over her shoulders. “Really, you men must begin coming up with more original schemes. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen this one. It’s grown quite stale, I assure you.”
David made a noise that fell somewhere between a huff and a groan. Who did this young woman think she was? She couldn’t possibly be one of the royal princesses. He highly doubted any of King George’s many daughters would be traipsing about smoking cigars in a garden and being rude. “My apologies if my ‘scheme’ is ‘stale’, Miss. I’m afraid I didn’t have much time to come up with something more original.” He gave her a tight smile.
; “I’d say you didn’t,” she scoffed. “Now, don’t tell me. You’re going to offer to escort me back to the dining room, and then you’ll ask me if you may pay me a call tomorrow. Allow me to save you time. You may escort me back to the dining room, but no, you may not pay me a call tomorrow, or any day.” She finished her little speech with a prim nod.
David pulled the cigar from her fingers and took another drag on it himself. If she was going to be rude, he’d show her rude. “That’s quite all right,” he replied with a false smile pinned to his face. “Because the truth is that not only do I have no intention of escorting you back to the dining room, but I wouldn’t pay you a call if you were the last lady left in London.”
With that, he dropped the cigar, crushed it beneath his boot, turned on his heel, opened the door, and strode inside. He didn’t so much as give her a backward glance. As he marched toward the dining room, alone, he had a self-satisfied grin on his face. He would not soon forget the look of pure shock and outrage that had appeared on the young woman’s face at his words.
Priceless. Simply priceless.
That had been perhaps the most fun he’d had since stepping foot in London. Telling off one of the ton’s obviously pampered aristocrats. Really, these people needed to take themselves far less seriously. How in the world would he ever fit into this brash world full of self-important people and their tedious rules?
David shook his head. Whoever the chit was, she was clearly used to being the rude one, not having people return the favor. But he knew one thing for certain, it would be a day too soon if he ever had the misfortune of running into that arrogant miss again.
Chapter Two
Mouth agape, Annabelle stared at the door the man had just disappeared through. Who in the world was he? In all her twenty-three years she’d never had a gentleman be so rude to her. Was he even a gentleman? The fact that he’d been invited to Lady Harrison’s party made her guess that he must be, but she’d never seen him before, and she’d met all the gentlemen of the ton. Every one of their boring, predictable souls. She might have guessed he was foreign, but he’d spoken in perfect English without the trace of an accent. She didn’t know many foreigners who spoke English so well. However, the funny cheroot she’d shared with him was wholly unfamiliar. Nothing like the ones she’d secretly smoked after pilfering them from the humidor in her brother’s study. Perhaps the man was foreign, after all.
To make the entire situation worse, the man was handsome, blast him. He looked to be about thirty years of age, tall, with dark-brown hair and dark-blue eyes, a combination she’d always found intriguing. He had wide, square shoulders, a narrow waist, and a jawline you could strike a flint against. Half of his face had been covered in darkness when she’d first seen him, but when he’d stepped into the candlelight, the breath had nearly been knocked from her lungs. And not because he’d been smoking in front of her, of all impertinent things.
Normally, when men followed her outside and tried to compromise her, they did an awful job at pretending they didn’t know she was there. This man had gone a step further and begun smoking in front of her. That was new. She’d admired his ingenuity. She’d taken a couple of puffs just to shock him. Sometimes behaving outlandishly worked to scare them off, causing them to decide immediately she wasn’t wife material after all. Some of the prigs were downright horrified by her actions. Predictable. Boring. At times, funny. This man, however, appeared entirely nonplussed by her behavior. He seemed more affronted by the fact that she’d accused him of pretending to not know she was outside already. That was new, too. She did give him credit for being more original than the others. Plus, his rudeness at the end, saying he wouldn’t pay a call on her if she were the last lady left in London… While slightly dramatic, it had been unexpected, to be certain. She narrowed her eyes and crossed her arms over her chest, drumming her fingers against the opposite elbows. Hmm. Perhaps she was mistaken. Perhaps this particular man hadn’t known she was outside. Perhaps he truly didn’t know who she was. Difficult to believe, but admittedly possible.
Annabelle sighed and opened the door to enter the house. Mama would have a conniption if she knew half of the things Annabelle had done to discourage suitors. But Mama didn’t know. None of the men would tell her. They didn’t dare risk drawing the ire of the dowager Marchioness of Bellingham, nor the ire of her brother, Beau, the Marquess, for that matter. Besides, no matter how outlandish her behavior, Annabelle was trapped as one of the most eligible ladies on the marriage mart. And it wasn’t just because she had an indecently large dowry and was from an impeccable family. No. The real reason she was a such a prize to the men of London’s Beau Monde was because she’d had the grave misfortune to have been born beautiful. Uncommonly beautiful. According to nearly anyone she’d come in contact with for the last five years, she had a striking figure and an incomparable face. Blasted inconvenient, if you asked her. But apparently true.
Her beauty seemed to turn nearly every eligible male in the country into a raving lunatic when they were in her presence. She’d long ago stopped being flattered by the attention and now she was simply tired of it. She’d already turned down over a score of marriage proposals. Well, to be precise, Beau had turned them down on her behalf. But she hadn’t been interested in any of them. Not a one. To her suitors, she was merely a prize to be won, and none of the men cared about her wit or her cleverness, not to mention her needs, wants, and dreams. Half the male population of the ton had attempted to court her and not one of them had ever asked her about her thoughts. She was sick of it. And even though Beau and her mother were despairing of her ever marrying, Annabelle refused to wed some puffed-up shirt who only wanted her on his arm because of her looks and her dowry. More importantly, she refused to belong to any man.
Thankfully, Beau hadn’t pressed the matter and on the eve of her sixth Season, Annabelle had no more intention of picking a husband this time than she ever had. Though she didn’t tell Beau as much. What her beloved older brother didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him. Besides, Beau had recently announced his own betrothal to lovely, red-haired Marianne. The wedding was soon, but it would surely keep everyone occupied for the first few weeks of the Season, at least.
Annabelle stepped into the house and shook off the chill from having been outside so long. She took a mint from a small tin in her reticule to hide the smell of smoke on her breath. Mustn’t worry Mama.
Using a looking glass set above a table near the door, Annabelle poked at her coiffure. She turned her head from side to side. There was no help for it. She looked precisely as she always did. Perfectly put together on the outside, perfectly miserable inside. Though no looking glass could capture that. She would pray for looks to fade sooner than later, but she’d long ago given up the useless act of praying. It accomplished nothing.
Oh, what did it matter? Tonight’s party was just like any of the other dozens of parties she’d been to over the years. With one exception. Tonight, she would go back to the dinner table and do her best to ignore that quite rude, albeit quite handsome, man. Whoever he was.
Chapter Three
“I don’t belong here,” David said beneath his breath to his soon-to-be brother-in-law, the Marquess of Bellingham, as they strode through the door to White’s the next day.
“Nonsense,” Bell replied, turning and clapping David on the back. “You’re the Earl of Elmwood now, and I am sponsoring your membership into the club. It’s all but done.”
David rubbed the back of his neck and winced. “It might be ‘all but done,’” he allowed, “but I still don’t belong here.” He glanced around at the mahogany-lined walls, the plush carpets, the rich, leather chairs. He could nearly smell the money in the air in here. It was that obvious. After spending the last twelve years in His Majesty’s army, living mostly in tents for the past five of them, such lavishness made David uncomfortable. He wanted to run from the building all the way back to the cottage in Brighton where he’d been raised. No. Regardless of what Bell said
, David certainly didn’t belong here.
“Come now,” Bell said after he’d handed his coat to one of the footmen hovering near the door. Wherever they went, there was always a footman hovering near the door. David quickly handed over his coat, as well. He intended to mimic Bell’s every move in here. How did one act at an exclusive gentlemen’s club? David hadn’t the first idea. The closest he’d come to such an establishment was the officer’s tents in the Peninsular War. And they were a far cry from the marble, gold, and frescoed opulence they stood in now.
“Allow me to introduce you to some of the chaps,” Bell continued, striding through the club as if it were his second home.
David took a deep breath and mentally prepared himself to meet ‘some of the chaps.’ Around here that could mean a duke or another marquess like Bell. Despite his wealth and obviously privileged upbringing, Bell was a good man. He was betrothed to David’s sister, Marianne, but the two had met before David had any inkling that he was, in fact, the heir to the Earl of Elmwood, which made his sister a lady. David still couldn’t believe it. After Bell, Marianne, and David had returned from France last autumn, he’d learned that his deceased father had been the only son of the Earl of Elmwood. But the last several months had done little to allow the reality to sink in.
Now, David was a nobleman, a toff, an aristocrat. It was all too much. In Brighton, they were raised if not in poverty, then certainly not in luxury. They lived in a simple cottage with three bedchambers. One for their parents, one for Marianne, and one for David and Frederick to share. They’d done chores and scrubbed floors and cut down trees for their father’s work. They’d fished, and hunted, and gone to country dances, and when they’d come of age, David and Frederick had joined the army and Marianne had become Lady Courtney’s maid.
Earl Lessons: The Footmen’s Club Series Page 2