Earl of Gold: Lords of Scandal

by Tammy Andresen

  “I see that you’re unlikely to hire a conveyance. So, I’ll take you myself. My carriage has only just returned and is still out in the drive.”

  Penny stopped for a moment. That would be lovely and terrible all in the same moment. She didn’t wish to walk but somehow, she didn’t want to accept a favor from this hard man either. She knew that favors from men could be tricky. Life alone had taught her a great deal. She’d had more than one man suggest that he’d happily make a larger donation in return for a favor or two. “My lord, that’s very gracious but not necessary.”

  He turned abruptly to look at her, his eyes sharp, his mouth set in a straight line. “Again, I insist. I know you’re going to walk if I don’t, aren’t you?”

  The question caught her off guard with its astuteness. His generosity made her stomach tremble and she covered it with her hand. “How did you know?”

  He looked up and down her again. “You didn’t come in a carriage of your own. You don’t spend money on yourself. You’ll save every penny for the little urchins you rescue.”

  Her breath stalled in her chest. “They aren’t urchins.” Anger began to rise like the tide inside her. She hated that word. “They are helpless children who need aid.”

  “Aid you provide. And now I do as well.” And with that, he turned and started for the door. “If you die walking home, we can’t very well help them now, can we?”

  She gave her head a shake. What a strange man. He’d called them urchins and then talked of helping them. In her experience those two feelings rarely existed together. He was an enigma to be certain. “I suppose not.”

  “Now tell me, where do you live?”

  She curled her fingers into fists, hating to admit where she was raising the children. “I live on Adderley Street. It’s near—”

  He’d stopped again. “I know where it is.” His mouth was drawn into a tight line. “We’re wasting time. Let’s go.”

  Oh dear. He really was going to take her himself. With another sigh, she donned her jacket and followed him out the door. She said a silent prayer that his intentions were not untoward as she walked behind his large frame.

  He was a hard man, that was certain, but he was funding her project, which meant he had the right to be around the children. She’d need him to be a good man if she were to allow him into their lives.

  Logan didn’t need to escort Miss Penny Walters home. He could have sent her in his carriage and started on the mountain of work that never seemed to end.

  But she was a pretty mystery that he wished to unravel.

  He shouldn’t.

  He should forget all about her and continue on with his orderly life. What did it matter why Daring put her in his path? He’d already cleared her as an obstacle to his goal.

  And he rarely dallied with women. They wanted things. Expensive things like necklaces and dresses and, apparently, donations for orphans, and then they wished for even pricier items like his heart. He never gave that away. Ever.

  The only person he’d ever loved had left him stranded and ruined without even a whisper of goodbye.

  He’d marry, of course. Logan had worked damned hard to raise his title back up into good standing. He’d marry a debutante from an impeccable family. Use his wealth as the leverage that would gain him the perfect match and once and for all restore his family’s name.

  Earl of Gold was the insult he heard with his own ears. They’d called his father that too but only because the man had spent every single shilling that wasn’t entailed. He’d run them into the poorhouse so that no lord or lady would associate with his family. His father had even attempted to marry a second time to save his financial future. But he’d gotten himself killed in a duel over a gambling debt before he’d been successful.

  Hadn’t done a single thing right, the former Earl of Goldthwaite. Logan straightened in his seat. Just thinking about his father’s failures made him clench with shame.

  But he knew what else the ton whispered about him. The insults he couldn’t hear. Heartless, consumed with the need for money. As single-minded as his father.

  Penny brushed her skirts as she stared determinedly out the window of the carriage. She’d neither looked at him or spoken since they’d entered the dim interior, which did little to quell his curiosity.

  “So tell me, Miss Walters. How many orphans do you currently house?”

  She flexed her hands in her lap. A subtle gesture. What did it mean? Did his question make her nervous? “Four.”

  “That’s it?” He raised a brow, crossing his ankles as he stretched out. “With your tenacity, I thought it would be more.”

  She looked at him then, a cool smile touching her lips. “With a larger donation, more orphans could be possible.”

  His eyes widened just a bit. She was good. Reminded him of himself. “Touché.” He cleared his throat. “So lack of funds is holding you back.”

  She gave a curt nod. “And space. Which, of course, takes more money.”

  “Is this your life’s work? I only ask because you still go by Miss Walters. Normally a school mistress or housekeeper would have changed to Missus even if she wasn’t married, to indicate her position.”

  She shrugged. He liked the shape of her shoulders, delicate yet held in perfectly straight lines. He saw the way her face flinched at the question, her shoulders hunching just a bit. “I fell into this life quite by accident. Clarissa, my first orphan, came to me when I least expected it. I only knew that I couldn’t leave a girl with her spirit where she was. But the more time that passes, the more I realize that children, like myself, need someone to look out for them.”

  “Like yourself?” His ankles came undone and he sat straighter. Had she been an orphan too? The realization almost made him miss the fact that she hadn’t actually answered the question. Why was she still Miss Walters?

  She twisted her hands again. “My parents died when I was twelve.”

  His stomach dropped. How terrible. “Of?” he knew he was prying but curiosity had won out. Daring had sent a beautiful woman right to Logan’s door. Had Daring known she was this pretty? Had he done it on purpose to test Logan in some way? The man was forcing Logan to help this stunning creature and find business partners. Two tasks he’d avoided like the plague up until now. It was almost as though the duke had a hidden agenda.

  Damn the man. He was worse than a meddling woman.

  And Logan had found that understanding what motivated people always meant that he himself was more successful.

  “A disease of the lung. My father was a doctor,” she said, her voice catching.

  He flexed his fingers, noting that her father had also given himself in the service of others. And while he’d like to give her a lecture on the value of providing for oneself, another emotion entirely commanded his tongue. Sympathy. He knew about fending for oneself at an early age. “My father passed when I was thirteen.”

  “You weren’t sent to an orphanage too, were you?” Her voice was rough with emotion as it pulled at the strings of his heart. Barely discernible. But he knew the memory hurt her still. He could feel her pain in his chest. It matched his own.

  “No. I was the new earl of a broken earldom. I was sent to a different sort of hell.” One where young boys of the peerage were allowed to make his life a living nightmare. He still dreamed of a few of them on occasion.

  Her large brown eyes caught his then and she leaned forward. “It’s so hard to be on your own from such a young age.”

  Logan’s breath stalled. Because he knew where she was about to go. She’d tell him this was why she needed to help children, why he should give her more money. No one ever gave sympathy without an agenda. Hadn’t he learned that in life? Usually, he was more guarded with people, but tonight, he’d just foolishly opened himself up.

  And now he’d have to explain to her that he’d built himself back up all on his own and people either helped themselves or didn’t. But the words lay heavy on his tongue. He didn’t want to s
ay them to her.

  She’d hate him for them and that…bothered him.

  “It is,” he said, his jaw taut with tension.

  “I was lucky too,” she whispered. “My parents’ house remained mine and a small income that paid for a nice orphanage until I was eighteen.” She sneered around the word nice. “But some of them are hell on Earth.”

  Over the course of this evening, this woman had met his irritation with complete calm. She’d smiled and patiently explained her cause after waiting for hours. He admired her already. But the way she described the orphanages as hell made him shake inside. A small quiver deep in his gut. She was not a person prone to exaggeration. He knew that even in the short time they’d been acquainted. He made it his business to understand people.

  It was on the tip of his tongue to ask her to show him. He didn’t know why. He already knew how he felt on the subject. His life had purpose, order, and drive. He had a goal and he was closer than ever to completing it.

  He’d not allow one woman to change his direction now. It was ridiculous that he’d even considered it for a single second.

  Penny cursed herself. She’d revealed too much.

  Her father had been a man of infinite patience and control. And love. He’d showed her the type of person she wished to be, and she’d fought through her teen years to hold onto her heart. To him.

  Her nice orphanage was clean, and children were educated. But there had been no love in that place. It had been run on fear and efficiency. It could drain a soul.

  She looked at the statue of a man across from her. Was that what had happened to him? He said he’d been sent to a different sort of hell. What hell had that been? And had it stolen all softness from him?

  She shook her head. She had children to save. She didn’t need to go around trying to rescue the hearts of grown men, if that were even possible. She doubted it was. Adults were often too set in their ways to ever change.

  It wasn’t that she didn’t secretly dream of marriage and children, she did. But to someone warm and kind, and ready to create a family of his own even as he continued to support her foundlings. A man that was a complete fiction, Penny was sure.

  The carriage turned onto Adderley Street and slowed in front of her home. The one she’d grown up in. The paint was peeling now, the fence broken against the overgrown front beds. Her mother would turn over in her grave to see it.

  Penny’s mouth pinched to think of this man seeing it. The Earl of Goldthwaite. Driving her home to the edge of the Docklands. She could already smell the tanneries.

  But she refused to be embarrassed. She didn’t give these children a pretty place to live but they got bunches of love and that was what they needed to survive. To thrive.

  He snapped open the carriage door and held out his hand to help her down when the front door of the house banged open.

  Clarissa came charging out the front door with a fire poker clasped in her hands. Her feet were bare, her dress patched in several places. Her blonde hair pulled back in a tight bun.

  “Did he hurt you?” she demanded, slapping the poker against her palm.

  The earl straightened, his eyebrows rising as he looked over at Penny. “And you wonder why I call them urchins.”

  Penny took his hand, ignoring the shiver that pulsed through her again, as he helped her from the conveyance. “Don’t let Clarissa hear you call her that. It will be your funeral.”

  Clarissa stomped down the steps, oblivious to the cold December wind, her chin stuck out. “You’ve been gone for hours and hours. I was worried that—” The girl stopped, her fear shining in her eyes.

  By way of answer, Penny reached out and touched her arm. “I’m sorry, my sweet Clarissa. It shan’t happen again.”

  Logan cleared his throat.

  Both women ignored him. Clarissa’s face crumbled for just a moment before she lifted her chin again. “Did he hurt you? Make you do…things? I’ll run him through if he did.”

  “No,” Penny answered softly. “He only made me wait an excessively long time.”

  The poker swished through the air. “Next time you need to give me the address that you’re going to. And a name so that I can find you.”

  Penny might have laughed at Clarissa’s concern if she didn’t share some of her fears. Men had offered to help her orphans for a price before and they likely would again. She had to confess she was relieved the Earl of Goldthwaite had not. And she liked him a bit better for it.

  “No one is running me through,” the earl said from his spot next to the door. “I’ve agreed to finance your orphanage, so I’d advise you to put the poker down.”

  Belatedly, she realized that he still held her other hand. Even with their gloves acting as barriers, the touch warmed her.

  Surprise widened Clarissa’s eyes before they narrowed into slits. “He did make you do things, didn’t he?”

  “No.” Penny let go of his hand, disappointment and the cold air making her shiver.

  “What things are we talking about?” Goldthwaite asked, sounding amused rather than irritated. “I want to know about these things.”

  “So do I,” another male voice called from the shadow between their house and the next.

  “Me too,” a second called and then four men stepped out from the shadows.

  Penny gasped, stepping in front of Clarissa without thought.

  But even as she moved, Goldthwaite stepped in front of both of them. His relaxed posture was gone, in its place a man carved from stone, so hard that he might have frightened her, except he didn’t. In this situation she found his hard veneer immeasurably comforting.

  “I’m going to need that poker,” he rumbled out low and deep.

  If he’d blown in like a storm when they’d first met, now he was the picture of icy calm as he reached his hand back. Clarissa set the poker in Penny’s hand and she passed it forward, the metal settling in his large grasp. Goldthwaite took it and swung it in a wide arc in front of him.

  The driver jumped down too and pulled two pistols from his coat.

  But it was the earl who spoke. “Unfortunately for all of you, this was a private conversation.”

  The other men stopped at the sight of the pistols, standing in a line in front of them, fanned out, looking large and intimidating. “Who is this bugger? We’ve all been trying to catch Miss Walters alone for months. And now you get to do things?”

  “How is that fair?” another called.

  “The rich get everything in this city.”

  Penny couldn’t see who spoke, but she didn’t want to either. Her father had purposefully lived close to the docklands to help treat the poor as well as the rich. But as the area grew increasingly packed it also grew less safe.

  “Miss Walters, take your charge inside now. I shall send the carriage to collect you at our appointed time,” Goldthwaite said, his voice still calm but it held an edge that spoke volumes. Do not disobey.

  Her breath caught. “But you could be hurt.”

  “We’ll be just fine.” He didn’t look back. “But when we meet next, we shall discuss your habit of walking.”

  Clarissa began pulling her toward the door. “You know, I think I like him.”

  Penny looked back as he swished the poker through the air once again. Despite herself, she might like him too. He looked like a stone statue, but he’d agreed to help her. That counted for something. And now he was defending her and Clarissa. That meant a great deal.

  “He certainly doesn’t like you,” she said. “You threatened him with a poker.”

  “Well,” Clarissa huffed. “At least, I didn’t heat it first.”

  And behind her, she heard him chuckle. Low and deep. Her stomach flopped but she didn’t look back again as she pushed Clarissa through the door and shut it, sliding the bolt in place.

  Chapter Three

  Back home, Logan worked by the light of several candles. It had to be well past midnight, but he’d managed to clear the pile of papers on his desk
. He’d not be able to sleep anyhow, he mused, as he stared at the last remaining bit of correspondence.

  The evening had been far too…interesting.

  A beautiful woman and band of hooligans. Once Miss Walters had bolted the door and his driver had cocked the pistols, they’d dispersed in short order and he’d left. He’d accomplished his goal of seeing her home and learning more about Penny Walters. Still, she lingered in his thoughts.

  A letter in front of him caught his gaze. It may very well hold some of the answers to questions that had been swirling all night in his head.

  It was from Daring.

  Sliding the letter opener through the wax seal, he unfolded the missive and scanned the contents.

  No answers.

  Just more questions.

  Daring had invited him to a dinner at his home the next evening. He said he had some potential partners for Logan to meet.

  Good news…possibly.

  But he also insisted that Goldthwaite bring Miss Penny Walters to the dinner. He gave no explanation. Logan tossed down the paper.

  He didn’t want Penny at that dinner. He rubbed his face, trying to discern why. She was exceptionally lovely and obviously in need of help. There would be several men there in a position to give her the aid she required, but also men who could take advantage of her beauty and kind nature.

  He thought back to their conversation about doing things. Had men propositioned her to trade favors for donations?

  Of course they had.

  It made his blood boil to think about it. Pulling out an ink and quill, he quickly penned a note to Daring. He’d already financed Miss Walters’ project. She need not attend.

  But then he thought about her words and where she lived. The truth was, she needed far more money than he’d supplied. Still, men of the peerage were ruthless, including him, and she need not suffer any more of his kind.