Spooked, the horse reared on his hind legs.
Julien tightened his grip on the reins as his body tipped precariously in the saddle. His shoulder smacked against the low branch. Pain like nettles prickled his skin. Boreas bolted forward and Julien’s grasp on the reins slipped. He slid and landed in the snow-covered brush adjacent to the path.
As the horse bolted, Julien realized his right foot remained in the stirrup. The animal dragged him down the path, his body bouncing like a rabbit’s. He tried to keep his head up, so it wouldn’t get whacked, while he attempted to dislodge his boot. His head hit a low branch and for a moment everything went black.
When his vision returned, he realized his boot had jerked loose from the stirrup and he lay alone. Boreas was gone.
Snow caked his clothing. Shifting his weight to get onto his knees, he cringed as he stood. His body felt bruised and battered—as though he’d spent a full day engaged in endless rounds of fighting at Clapton’s Boxing Club against an opponent with lead weights in his gloves.
Gritting his teeth, he rubbed at his head. For a minute, between the godawful pain that racked his body and the throbbing in his skull, he thought he might lose consciousness and they’d find him frozen to death in the snow.
He thought of his mother’s indignation. How she’d weep as they dragged her kicking and screaming out of Dartmore House. She’d curse him until her dying day. There’d be no peace for him in heaven or hell.
Damnation.
Julien moved down the snow-covered path. When he reached the clearing, he scanned the horizon for his horse. The animal was nowhere in sight. Neither was much else this far from town. In the distance, he spotted smoke billowing from a single chimney. He moved toward it, hoping he’d make it before his bollocks froze off.
Teeth chattering and body aching, he trekked through the snow. You can make it, a voice in his head repeated over and over with each step he took.
By the time he reached the cottage, uncontrollable shivers raked his body from the wet pantaloons clinging to his skin, and the frigid air burned his lungs as if he breathed in hot ash. He slumped against the hard surface of the door and struck the side of his fisted hand against the wood. Once. Twice. Three times.
Footfalls approached as blackness closed in on his vision.
Chapter Three
As if wishing to wake the dead in St. Michael’s graveyard, someone was pounding against the front door. Heart beating fast, Eve raced out of her bedchamber and down the stairs, pulling her pink velvet robe over her shoulders.
In the entry hall, she grasped the cold metal handle to open the door, then thinking better about it, darted into the parlor. What lunatic would be calling at the crack of dawn? She parted the heavy curtains and peered outside. A bear or something just as hulking stood at her front door.
The idea it could be a bear was a silly thought, since there weren’t any bears in England, and surely not any that knocked. No, it was a man. A very tall man. An unsettling shiver drifted down Eve’s back. Only her daughter, the housekeeper, and herself were home and they were miles from any other cottages. As was her tradition, she’d allowed Mr. Langdon, her jack-of-all-trades, and his wife, her cook, to leave a week before Christmas so they could travel up north to be with their family for the holidays.
For all she knew the man outside could be a villain. Last week, Mr. Granger’s cottage had been robbed while he attended Sunday service. Eve picked up the heavy poker from its stand at the hearth.
Grumbling, the housekeeper, dressed in her nightgown and gray woolen robe, stepped into the entry hall and strode toward the door.
“Wait, Mrs. Campbell.” Grasping the poker tightly in her hand, Eve rushed to stand beside the woman. “I’m not sure who it is.”
“If you ask me, only a madman would be out in this wretched weather.”
“Mrs. Campbell, such a pronouncement doesn’t ease my mind. Now, you open the door slowly, and I’ll hit him if he wishes us any harm.”
The housekeeper nodded and inched the door open, but as though swept inward by an Arctic gust, it flew wide. The man, who now looked even larger close-up, fell inward like a toppling lawn pin.
Without forethought, Eve rushed forward to catch him. The poker fell out of her hand and clattered to the floor as the man’s weight dragged her down.
Thump. She fell flat on her back, the tall man sprawled on top of her like a clumsy lover.
“Crivvens!” Mrs. Campbell exclaimed. “Are you hurt, lass?”
“No. Just help me get out from under him.” Eve squirmed beneath his heavy body. The man had to weigh close to fourteen stone. As she pushed at his shoulder, she saw his face, only inches from hers.
She sucked in a sharp breath.
It had been ten years since she’d seen Julien Caruthers, now the Earl of Dartmore, but she would swear the man on top of her was he.
Perhaps she’d cracked the back of her head when the man fell on her, and she was hallucinating. Or this was all a dream and she’d awaken snuggled in the warmth of her bed. She pinched her eyes closed, then opened them again.
Still here. Not a dream, but she might be mistaken about his identity.
The housekeeper crouched and gave the fellow a forceful shove in the shoulder. “Like moving a sack of coal. I bet the sod is as drunk as Davy’s sow. Probably downed a whole bowl of lamb’s wool at a Christmas gathering and lost his way home.”
As though the devil himself lay between her legs, Eve squirmed out from under the man.
The sound of her own heart pounding in her ears drowned out Mrs. Campbell’s angry chatter. She pulled her gaze away from the man’s face and glanced at the woman.
“Don’t fret, lass, we’ll drag him back outside.”
“We cannot do that. He might freeze to death.” The snow had started again, and if it kept up at its current rate they’d have well over a foot. And one did not toss an earl into the cold. Even a Scrooge-like earl. If indeed it was Julien.
Dash it all, she wished she had seen his eyes before he’d collapsed. Julien had distinctive green eyes. She fought the urge to pry his eyelids up.
Eve crouched next to him. The man’s clothing and hair were wet. “Mrs. Campbell, I don’t think he’s drunk. I believe he is suffering from excessive cold.” Her father, a physician, had treated men who had succumbed to a bone-deep chill. “Help me get him into the house, so we can close the door.” Already snow was blowing onto the wooden entry hall floor, dusting the surface with a thin coat of white.
Though he looked trim, he was broad-shouldered and tall, and it took them nearly ten minutes to get him pulled into the entry hall and rolled onto his back.
Eve swallowed hard as she peered at his face. Ten years could change a man, but she was sure it was Julien. His boyish handsomeness had been replaced by mature, hard angles. Even when out cold, he looked like a man one didn’t cross.
“Do you know him, lass?”
“Mrs. Campbell, have you ever seen the Earl of Dartmore?”
The woman blinked and folded her arms over her sizable bosom. “Aye, why just last week I took tea with him at his London residence.” She snorted. “Did that fall cause you to hit your head? I’m as likely to socialize with the Earl of Dartmore as I am the Queen. I…” The woman’s voice trailed off as her gaze settled on the man. She clutched the front of her robe. “Losh, do you think that’s him?”
“Yes, I believe so.”
Mrs. Campbell made the sign of the cross. “You should never have sent that letter, lass. They say besides being naughty, he’s a mean one. Probably came here to have you arrested, and he slipped in the snow.”
“Pish. A powerful man like the Earl of Dartmore would not come here himself. He’d send a constable or a lackey.” He was an earl for goodness’ sake. Formidable men like him hired scoundrels to handle unpleasant tasks like dealing with disgruntl
ed widows. “And he cannot arrest me for sending him a letter.”
“Mayhap he can for addressing him as a Jack-a-ninny-pea-brain.”
Eve shouldn’t have told Mrs. Campbell about the letter. “I didn’t address him that way.”
The housekeeper let out a relieved sigh.
“I wrote to Lord Jack-a-ninny-pea-brain.”
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!” The housekeeper worried her lower lip.
Eve set her hands to his cheeks, which were red from the bitter-cold wind. His skin felt like ice. “We need to get his body warmed up. Do you think we can carry him up the stairs?”
“He’s a big one. I doubt it.”
“Perhaps we can move him into the parlor. He needs to warm up in front of the fire.” Eve grabbed him under the arms. “Mrs. Campbell, you lift his feet.”
With a great deal of huffing and puffing, they dragged him into the adjacent room. It was nothing short of a miracle that they managed to get him onto the sofa. The length of his body caused his legs to dangle over the arm.
“Should we remove his clothes?” Eve asked.
The housekeeper’s gaze seemed to zero in on the man’s crotch. She stepped back. “I don’t think we should, lass. I heard he had two of his secretaries killed just for misspelling a word when he dictated a letter to them. I ain’t wish to get run over by a carriage for disrobing the man.”
Eve was sure that tale was poppycock. “His teeth are chattering, and I think we must.” Four years ago, Eve’s husband had died from an infection. She would never forget the chills that had made his body shake before he’d drawn in his last breath. “I fear we should at least remove his pantaloons and great coat—they are too wet to remain on him. Get several blankets, Mrs. Campbell.”
Grumbling that they would both end up in jail, the housekeeper stepped out of the room.
Eve tugged at one of his boots. Not an easy task, and every time she pulled, he moaned. By the time the housekeeper returned, she’d only managed to remove one. “Would you help me?”
“Just the boot. I won’t help undress the man.” Mrs. Campbell set the blankets down on a chair.
It took them another couple of minutes to remove the second boot. At this rate, they would be here until nightfall.
Eve walked over to her sewing basket and removed her scissors. Julien’s garments looked bespoke. Costly. He was an earl. Of course, they were tailor made. “I’ll have to cut them off. Mrs. Campbell, can you make a hot poultice?”
The woman nodded, but, as if she awaited the unwrapping of a spectacular Christmas gift, she remained while Eve unfastened the five buttons at the bottom of each leg of his pantaloons.
“Mrs. Campbell, the poultice, please.”
“Yes, lass.” The housekeeper walked out of the parlor, while peering over her shoulder.
With each snip of her scissors, Eve revealed more of Julien’s muscled legs. As her scissors moved up his thigh, she contemplated closing her eyes, but one false move and…
Silly goose. You are not a naïve young girl, and he is wearing drawers.
After cutting off all his garments except his long white shirt and drawers, Eve piled the bedding on top of him.
Mrs. Campbell stepped into the room with the warm poultice. Eve slipped it between the blankets.
The housekeeper frowned at the cut clothing lying beside the sofa. “What will he wear when he wakes up?”
Eve bit her lower lip. She hadn’t thought that far ahead. She didn’t have any of her late husband’s garments. It had taken her years to give them to the Men’s Benevolent Society. She’d kept only a couple of items: a scarf and an embroidered handkerchief.
The housekeeper shook her head and tsked. “Perhaps you wouldn’t mind him walking about in only a shirt and drawers, but there is Mary to think about.”
Eve blinked. “I wouldn’t like to see such a spectacle.”
A slight smile turned up the corners of the woman’s normally sober expression. “Who are you kidding, lass? Even an old woman like me would enjoy the sight. The man’s a fine specimen. From what I could see, his legs look sculpted of stone.”
They did.
Mrs. Campbell sighed. “I have my dear Angus’s uniform from when he was in the army.”
“May his lordship wear it?” Eve grasped the woman’s hand and squeezed. “Please, Mrs. Campbell.”
“Aye. Very well.” The woman strode out of the room.
Eve peered at Julien. His shivering had lessened, which could be both good and bad. She touched his forehead. His skin was warmer. Surely, that was a positive sign.
Mrs. Campbell reentered the room holding a bundle of folded garments: a red coat, some other items, and a green tartan that looked like a…Eve swallowed hard. “Is that a kilt?”
“Of course, lass. My Angus was a member of the Sutherland Highland Rifle Volunteers.”
Goodness. What would Julien say when she gave him a kilt to wear. “Do they wear drawers under their kilts?”
“Angus never did.” The woman handed the clothing to her and strode out of the room chuckling.
* * * *
Julien awoke to see a single massive blue eye staring at him.
Good lord, am I in hell?
It took his hazy mind a few seconds to realized that the eye peered at him through a magnifying glass. The glass lowered, revealing a young child with two wheat-colored braids trailing over her shoulders. He felt like Gulliver being examined by a Lilliputian.
The child leaned closer. “May I see your tongue?”
His tongue? What befuddled the child?
He glanced around the room. It seemed a perfectly ordinary drawing room. He shifted and gnawing pain, like he’d been kicked by a mule, spread across the back of his head and worked its way down his body.
“Bloody hell.” His voice sounded as though someone had scrubbed his vocal cords with sand.
The girl’s eyes grew large. “You cursed. Mama will make you sit in the red chair in the corner for being naughty.”
His gaze shifted to where the child pointed. If he sat in such a little chair it would splinter under his weight.
“Where am I?”
She frowned like he was a ninny. “On the sofa.”
“I’m aware of that. Where is the sofa?”
A line formed between her brow. “In the parlor.”
The ache in his head grew more painful. It appeared children were just as confusing to him as younger sisters. A memory flashed in his mind. The owl. Boreas rearing and dragging him.
She lifted her magnifying glass again. “Do you know you have green eyes?”
“Of course, I know that. They allow me to turn cheeky children into toads.”
Obviously realizing it a falsehood, she laughed. “You’re silly.”
Silly? He was anything but.
“Now say ah, so I can see your tongue.”
“Why?” He frowned.
“Because I want to see if it looks like Mr. Shingles’s tongue?”
“Who the hell is Mr. Shingles?”
“You said another bad word. Mama is surely going to make you sit in the red chair now.”
Ignoring the aches plaguing him, he sat up and gave the child his haughtiest lordly stare. It seemed to have no effect on the imp.
“Once,” the child continued, “Mr. Langdon cursed after he dropped a piece of wood on his toe and Mama threatened to put a bar of soap in his mouth.”
The girl’s mother was a shrew. “Your mother sounds charming.”
She nodded, confirming his sarcasm was lost on her.
“What is your name, child?”
“Mary.”
“Do you know who I am?”
“Um.” She tapped one of her small fingers against her cheek. “Scrooge.”
“Scrooge?” He narrowed
his eyes at the insolent child.
“Will you go and get your mother?” He started to stand and realized under the blankets piled on top of him, he was absent his riding trousers.
“Mary, leave his lordship alone, darling,” a female voice said.
Julien looked up at the blond-haired woman. “Madam, I demand…” As his gaze narrowed in on her attractive face, his breath snagged in his lungs.
It was as though he’d stepped back in time. Her name slipped out of his mouth on a low breath. “Evie.”
Chapter Four
So, he remembered her. That realization shouldn’t have pleased Evangeline as much as it did. She gave a small curtsy. “My lord.”
He peered at her with his green eyes—a shade so rare it caused one to pause and take a second look.
“Evie, what…?” He glanced around the room as though trying to comprehend his surroundings. “Is this your home?”
“It is. My uncle left it to us a year ago.”
As she spoke his gaze slowly skimmed down the length of her body before returning to her face.
A spark exploded in her stomach, sending warmth flooding through her. Ten years ago, Julien had possessed the ability to cause such a reaction within her with nothing more than his appraisal. She’d thought it due to her inexperience with men, but it appeared he was still capable of heating her insides with nothing more than his thorough gaze.
“Mama.” Mary ran over and tugged on the skirt of Eve’s blue dress, pulling her from her thoughts. “The man said two bad words.”
From what she’d heard about him, the Naughty Earl was proficient at such language.
“Does he have to sit in the red chair, Mama?”
“He’s a bit big for that chair, dear.”
“No, he’s not too big.” Mary set her small hands on her hips and shook her head, causing her long braids to sway back and forth.
Eve knew the way her daughter’s mind worked. At the age of five, she was much wiser than her years. Mary probably hoped if Julien sat in it, he’d break it and render it useless. Eve held out her hand for the magnifying glass. “What are you doing with that?”
The Taming of Lord Scrooge Page 3