I Kissed an Earl (and I Liked It) (That Wicked O'Shea Family Book 1)

by Merry Farmer

  He had to speak with someone. That truth hit him square in the gut. He might have been an earl and a proud man, but he wasn’t so proud that he couldn’t seek advice when he needed it. But who was there left to seek advice from? His father was gone. His cousin John was in England. Few other family members remained, and none of them were nearby.

  The answer didn’t come to him until late that night, as he was crawling, exhausted, into bed. His family was either dead now or scattered to the four winds, but Marie’s family was still on hand. Specifically, Marie’s brother, Fergus. And while Christian didn’t know Fergus O’Shea as well as all that, he trusted the man. Anyone who had endured what Fergus had and came out stronger for it was exactly the sort of person Christian wanted to consult with.

  He had to wait until morning, wait until the hour was reasonable to pay a visit to a neighbor. As soon as he could the next day, he washed, dressed, shaved, donned his hat, and made himself presentable enough to pay a call.

  It was still embarrassingly early when he showed up on Dunegard Castle’s doorstep. It was a good sign that Fergus accepted his call all the same. The man even looked happy to see Christian when a footman showed him into the richly-decorated office deep into the family potion of the house.

  “Kilrea,” Fergus propelled his chair forward, extending a hand to Christian once he entered the room. “How are you, man?”

  “I’ve been better,” Christian said, removing his hat and gripping Fergus’s hand. He was more grateful than he would have expected for the strength Fergus showed.

  “Understandable.” Fergus gestured for Christian to have a seat in one of the leather armchairs in the center of the room. Christian sat, feeling more comfortable once he was on Fergus’s level. “I take it there’s something I can help you with?” Fergus said, raising the eyebrow over his one eye.

  Christian sighed, writhing with second thoughts about letting on that he was anything but prepared for his new life. “I need advice,” he said before he could change his mind. “About how to be an earl.”

  Fergus blinked, inching back in his chair slightly. “That wasn’t what I assumed you’d come here for.”

  Christian had the good sense to look guilty. “You thought I had come to ask about your sister,” he said. He wasn’t stupid, and he didn’t think Fergus was either.

  Fergus grinned wistfully. “She hasn’t given me a moment’s peace about mucking things up with all that engagement nonsense. I’m just so deeply sorry that she had to get her way and get out of the engagement to your brother in the manner she did.”

  Christian winced. “She didn’t get her way entirely,” he said, staring at his hat in his hands.

  There was a pause before Fergus said, “So you’re going to go through with marrying Lady Aoife? Even though you’re a daft fool who is in love with my sister?”

  Christian snapped his eyes up to meet Fergus’s. “Is it that obvious?”

  “Yes, man, it is,” Fergus laughed. “The two of you have been shameless since the engagements were announced.”

  Christian averted his gaze from Fergus. The man had no idea how shameless they’d been. Still, as hard as he’d tried in the last few days, Christian couldn’t regret bedding Marie. And he couldn’t reconcile the war within him that said he owed more to Marie for ruining her, as was their intent, than he did to Lady Aoife. His heart knew what he should be doing, but his head was still so hopelessly clouded with his father’s voice and with guilt. The confusion of the whole thing was maddening. And that was without taking his part in the wreck into consideration. Every which way he turned, every avenue of thought he pursued, was fraught with complications and guilt.

  “I don’t know what to do,” he confessed at last, shrugging helplessly. “I owe so much to so many people so suddenly. I want one thing, but I know I have to accept another. No one prepares you for your entire life being turned upside down in a moment.”

  “Don’t I know it,” Fergus laughed, writhing uncomfortably in his chair.

  “That’s why I’ve come to you for advice,” Christian rushed on. “You’re the only person I can think of who has experienced a reversal of fortune like this.”

  “I am,” Fergus admitted with a grave nod.

  “How did you handle it?” Christian leaned forward, setting his hat aside and resting his arms on his knees to stare intently at Fergus. “How did you juggle your responsibilities and your desires? How did you choose between duty and yourself? How could you ever let yourself be happy again?”

  The last question tumbled out of him before Christian could stop himself. For Fergus, there probably hadn’t been any question of whether he could or should be happy. The attack that had changed his life hadn’t been his fault. He hadn’t been the one wielding the club. Not like Christian had.

  Fergus studied him with a brotherly look and let out a sigh. “There’s no way to go on but to take one step at a time. Proverbial steps, mind you,” he added with a wry grin, patting one of his legs.

  “I’m sorry,” Christian said, not entirely sure why. It was the only thing he could say that seemed appropriate these days. He was sorry for the pain of others and sorry for the destruction he’d caused through his own carelessness.

  Fergus shrugged. “Part of my life ended,” he said. “Another part began. I was lucky to have a good woman standing by my side. Mind you, I tried to run her off. Henrietta wouldn’t have it, though. She was far smarter than I was in the end.”

  A long pause followed. Christian had been staring at his knees as Fergus spoke. When he looked up, he found Fergus staring pointedly at him.

  “You have a good woman who’s willing to stand by your side too, you know,” he said. “And I’m not talking about Lady Aoife.”

  Shame hit Christian fast and hard. “I don’t deserve Marie,” he said, aching on the inside. “I don’t deserve to be happy, after what I’ve done.”

  “Come off it, man,” Fergus scoffed. “I understand you’re still in shock and you’ve a great deal more grieving left to do, but only a dolt denies himself—”

  Fergus didn’t have a chance to finish his scolding. Peals of laughter sounded from the hall outside of the office. A moment later, Marie passed by the doorway with one of her sisters. The two of them were laughing over something. A bolt of joy hit Christian square in the heart, filling him with a burst of longing so acute it squeezed his throat, making any speech impossible. Marie was and always would be the most beautiful, amazing thing he’d ever seen.

  But hard on the heels of that moment of light, darkness caved in on him. What right did he have to be happy when his father and brother were dead? What right did Marie have to laugh when the tragedy would swallow up her life too?

  Irrational anger lifted him to his feet, and he shot out of Fergus’s office, chasing after Marie. Part of him screamed to think twice about what he was doing, but the gaping chasm of sorrow inside of him suddenly seemed to encompass everything. It dragged him under into impulsive desolation before he could stop himself.

  “How dare you?” he snapped, grabbing Marie’s arm and stopping her in her tracks. She gasped and spun to face him, her eyes wide, but the dam of bitterness that he’d so carefully managed to maintain since the accident burst. “How dare you smile and laugh and pretend as if the world is nothing but a joke when everything has been completely and utterly ruined?”

  Chapter 9

  Marie had never been so shocked in her life. Not only was it a surprise to find Christian in her house too early in the morning for calls, she was startled into silence by the uncharacteristic anger rippling off of him. Everything about him seemed red, from the flush that painted his face to the embroidered accents in his otherwise drab, black waistcoat.

  She glanced him up and down, wondering if he was aware of the hint of inappropriate color in the way he was dressed. And he had the nerve to demand why she was smiling?

  “There is nothing wrong with me being in a merry mood,” she hissed, shaking his hands off of he
r.

  “There is when your fiancé is dead and the man you profess to love is to blame,” Christian snapped in return.

  He seemed to suddenly notice Colleen a few steps farther down the hall, watching the entire exchange with wide, interested eyes. Marie spotted Fergus wheeling into the doorway of his study.

  “What in blazes is going on out here?” Fergus demanded with a frown.

  “Nothing,” Marie told him. She grabbed Christian’s hand and tugged him down the hall. “I need to have a word with Mr. Darrow in private.”

  “It’s Lord Kilrea now, and it is highly inappropriate for the two of us to be given any sort of privacy whatsoever,” Christian grumbled, letting Marie lead him down the hall to a drab parlor that was rarely used all the same.

  “Do you see my brother trying to stop us?” Marie asked over her shoulder, one eyebrow arched. “Or my sister for that matter?” She immediately answered her own question with. “No. And they won’t. Because they can see as clearly as I can that you, Christian Darrow, need a stern talking to.”

  She pulled him all the way into the stuffy parlor then turned to face him, arms crossed. Christian’s mouth fell open, and he gaped at her as though she’d grown another head. “My entire world has fallen apart, and you’re treating me like a disobedient child?”

  “Your entire world has fallen apart,” Marie repeated. “That is why I didn’t slap you on the spot and run you out of the house while poking you in your backside with a fire iron.”

  She couldn’t maintain her irritation or continue on with sharp words. Not when Christian’s shoulders fell as though he carried the weight of the Matterhorn. He let out a heavy breath and scrubbed a hand across his face. With the initial bout of emotion between them over, she could see how exhausted Christian was. Dark circles still rimmed his eyes. His dark, curly hair was more unruly than usual. His eyes still held little more than pain and regret. It was as though Marie were looking at a badly-drawn image of him instead of the real Christian.

  She took a cautious step toward him, resting a hand on his back, then rubbing it. “How is your mother today?” she asked, hoping it was a topic that would defuse his obviously raw emotions.

  “The same,” Christian admitted in a small voice. “She has yet to awaken, but she appears to be resting comfortably. She is able to swallow the broth that the nurse feeds her, even though she isn’t conscious of it.”

  “That’s something,” Marie said. She shifted to stand facing him fully, risking a slight smile. “Do you want to know why I was smiling and laughing just now?” she asked.

  Christian’s brow darkened, which wasn’t at all the reaction Marie was hoping for. “Have you pulled some sort of jolly prank on one of your sisters? Did you find another naked man on the beach, and did you convince the locals he was a merman this time?”

  Marie pursed her lips. “You’re an arse when you’re upset,” she said. “But I tell you, to me, that only proves that you’re not as crushed by everything that happened as you say you are.”

  “I am devastated,” he croaked. For a moment, Marie thought he would burst into tears, as shocking and unmanly as that would have been.

  “Devastated, but not defeated,” she told him, keeping her back straight and her chin up. If Christian didn’t have strength of his own at the moment, she would need to be strong for both of them. “You wouldn’t be snapping about like a Nile crocodile or shouting at me if you didn’t have life left within you.”

  He gaped at her. “Of all the cruel things to say when my father and brother have had their lives dashed out of them due to my fecklessness.”

  Marie took a deep breath before going on. Christian’s pain and guilt were raw, and she had the feeling it would take a monumental effort to bring him out of both.

  “The carriage accident was not your fault,” she said, pulse racing with the information Colleen had discovered late the day before.

  “Please, Marie, don’t.” Christian rubbed a hand over his face again. “I need to come to terms with—”

  “The bolts on the carriage’s axel were as tight as could be,” Marie interrupted him.

  Christian’s mouth continued to hang open for a minute as he stared at her. “How do you know?”

  “Lord Boleran told Colleen as much yesterday,” Marie said, breaking into a smile. “That’s why I was smiling and laughing. Colleen hates the man, but she called on him to ask about his impressions of the wreck. We both saw that he was the first one on the scene, and he took charge of disposing of the wreckage afterwards. He told Colleen that there was nothing at all wrong with the bolts.”

  “Why did that cause you to laugh?” he asked.

  “I wasn’t laughing at the accident, I was laughing at the way Colleen was making a complete ninny of herself by grousing about Lord Boleran.”

  For a moment, Christian continued to stare at her. Hope lit his expression. He shook it away far too soon, turning from Marie. “He must not have looked carefully enough. What else could cause a wreck so destructive? He must have looked at the axel wrong.”

  “Would you rather believe that? Do you want yourself to be at fault somehow?” Marie crossed her arms again. “Or will you see the truth of things and accept that accidents happen?”

  “I should have been a better son,” Christian whipped back toward her. “I should have obeyed my father without question and without hesitation.”

  “By marrying a woman you don’t love and living the rest of your life in misery?” Marie challenged him.

  “You don’t understand.” He turned away again. “Sons have a duty toward their fathers.”

  “Yes, and now your duty is to manage his estate to the best of your ability and to live a life full of joy, since he and your brother cannot live that life anymore.”

  “I can’t just be happy,” he started, turning back to her. His mouth worked to finish the thought, but no further words came out. “I can’t just be happy,” he repeated, making the words a single thought.

  “You can,” Marie told him. “Death is a horrible thing, especially when it comes unexpectedly. But the only way to fight against death and to win is to live to the fullest in every moment you are given. You cannot bring your father and brother back, but you can honor them by enjoying every second you are given.”

  “No.” He shook his head, then swallowed hard and started toward the hall. “I don’t deserve to be happy ever again.”

  “Christian.” Marie chased after him, but the moment he reached the hallway, he strode swiftly toward the door. Fergus’s butler was ready and waiting for him and held the door so that Christian could escape out into the rainy morning.

  Marie let out a breath and shook her head. Grief was never an easy thing. She’d experienced it twice before, when each of her parents died. Time was the only thing that cured grief, but she was afraid time was something Christian wasn’t willing to wait for. Not with his engagement to Lady Aoife still in place, nor with the shock of responsibility now heaped on him.

  “My lady.” Marie was startled out of her thoughts as the butler left the door after closing it behind Christian and strode down the long hall toward her. He glanced into the formal parlor as he passed it, then met Marie’s eyes as he continued on. “My lady, you have guests in the formal parlor.”

  Marie blinked, wariness prickling its way down her back. “Guests? So early?”

  “Lord Boleran and his sister, my lady,” the butler reported.

  Marie’s brow rose even higher. It seemed as though her thoughts of Lady Aoife had summoned the woman. “Thank you, Mr. Connelly,” she said stepping past him and heading toward the parlor.

  A conversation was already underway between Lord Boleran and Shannon, but Marie caught the last of it as Shannon said, “He came to call on my brother, no doubt for advice about the running of his estate.”

  A strange twist filled Marie’s stomach as she nodded politely to Lady Aoife and headed for one of the empty chairs. Halfway across the room, she change
d her mind and went to sit on the sofa beside Lady Aoife instead.

  “He could have come to me for advice,” Lord Boleran told Shannon with a slight frown. “He’s to be my brother-in-law soon.”

  “And why would anyone in their right mind ask your advice about anything?” Colleen snapped. She was glaring daggers at Lord Boleran, which made Marie wonder what sort of exchange they’d already had.

  Lord Boleran appeared to be exercising extreme patience as he turned to Colleen and fixed her with a stern scowl. “I happen to have rescued my father’s estate from the edge of ruin when I inherited it five years ago, my lady,” he said through a clenched jaw.

  “Rescued it, you say?” Colleen huffed as though that were impossible. “Was the estate stuck up a tree, like a cat?”

  “Colleen,” Shannon warned her with a frown.

  Chloe had a hand to her mouth in order to hide her giggling.

  Colleen didn’t seem to notice either. “Do you fancy yourself a hero, Lord Boleran?”

  Lord Boleran’s back was stiff as he replied, “I fancy myself a man of vision who takes his responsibilities seriously.”

  “Very seriously, I’m sure,” Colleen said in a scathing voice.

  Marie shifted her gaze back and forth between the two of them, increasingly baffled. She knew that Colleen had unusually strong feelings for the marquess. She was aware that the two of them had encountered each other on more than one occasion, at balls and local fetes and the like. But she’d had no idea that whatever connection existed between them could elicit the sort of sparks that flew between them now. Whether Colleen was aware of it or not, those sparks weren’t entirely adversarial.

  “Please let me express my condolences for your loss yet again, Lady Marie,” Lady Aoife spoke softly at Marie’s side, almost as though she intended to start a side conversation while the others talked about their own business. No other conversation began, though, so Lady Aoife was forced to speak with everyone listening to her. “If you are in need of proper mourning attire, I could give you the name of my seamstress in Ballymena.”