Deceiving an Earl

by Sharon Cullen

  They both sat, he in a straight back, padded chair, she on a couch that sat two people. She made a production of spreading her skirts out, not meeting his gaze. Finally she looked up at him, but her eyes wandered to a point over his left shoulder.

  “How are you, Ellen?”

  “I’m well, thank you.”

  “That’s not what I mean.”

  She finally met his gaze. “I know what you mean. It’s not appropriate to talk about…that.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it’s not. It just isn’t. It’s not gentlemanly of you.”

  “It’s not gentlemanly of me to care? To wonder if you are feeling well? I think it would be far more ungentlemanly of me to ignore what happened.”

  “I wish you would.” She raised her chin, and he was quite surprised to find that she had hurt him.

  “I’ll never forget that night,” he said softly.

  “I’m asking you not to talk about it.”

  “I can’t comply with that request.”

  She huffed out a breath.

  “The other night meant something to me,” he said. “And I know it meant something to you, too. I know you too well, Ellen. Even after all this time, I still know you.”

  “You don’t understand,” she said. “It can’t mean anything.”

  “Why? Like I said before, there are no more obstacles in our path. No parents to satisfy. No Arthur. And the passion is still there. You can’t deny that.”

  “Please, stop,” she whispered.

  Oliver scooted to the edge of his chair and leaned forward. “Whatever is between us isn’t over. I won’t let it end like last time. This time will be different.”

  Her eyes were so large and luminous and dark when she looked at him. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”

  “I know exactly what I’m saying. We’ve waited our whole lives for this.”

  “No. You don’t know.”

  “I do know.”

  She swallowed and looked away. “Is that why you are here? To bully me?”

  “Is that what you think of me, Ellen? I’m a bully? That hurts, because I think you know I would never intentionally hurt you.”

  She looked away. “I know. I’m sorry.”

  They were talking in circles, and he was upsetting her.

  “I came to see you, but I also came to see Philip.”

  Her head jerked back to him. “Why do you want to see Philip?”

  “Because I promised the headmaster that I would turn the boy around, and I plan to keep my promise.”

  “This isn’t such a good idea anymore. I will think of another way.”

  “Are you going to convince the headmaster that your son has changed his ways and is ready to conform to Eton standards? Can you promise that there will be no more fighting? No more…linen closet escapades?”

  She paled. “I’ll find another way.”

  He stood and stepped closer to her, touching her cheek with his finger. “Where is the Ellen from last night? The Ellen who fell apart in my arms?”

  She put her palm over his hand. “She’s gone, Oliver. That was the Ellen of our past. This Ellen knows that what we had then can’t be repeated now. You need to understand and accept it.”

  He let his hand drop, angry that she didn’t believe in them—in him. “Never. I’ll never accept it because I know what last night meant to both of us. I’m a patient man, Ellen. I won’t give up so easily. Now, I made a promise to the headmaster, and I plan to keep it. Where is the boy?”

  She looked like she wanted to say more but instead she said, “He’s sleeping.”

  “Then get him up. We have work to do.”

  And still she hesitated. “He was out late last night.”

  Oliver stepped toward the door.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I will wake him.” What in the hell was wrong with that boy? Making his mother worry all night long. That was the weariness he saw on her face, and he didn’t like it one bit.

  He headed out of the parlor and toward the stairs that led to the private rooms. Ellen hurried after him.

  “Oliver, no. Wait. You can’t go up there.”

  But he was taking the steps two at a time and she was trying to catch up to him. When he reached the top he waited for her.

  “Which room is his?” He couldn’t remember from the night he’d brought Philip home from Scotland Yard.

  He opened the door she pointed to and stepped in, slamming the door shut behind him and leaving Ellen out in the hall.

  Philip jerked awake. He was still in his trousers from the night before, his shirt untucked and unbuttoned. His shoes lay haphazardly in a pile at the foot of the bed.

  “Wha—” Philip rubbed his eyes and peered into the murky shadows as Oliver whipped open the curtains and let the sunlight flood in.

  “We have lessons to learn,” he said.

  Philip sat up. His hair stuck out at odd angles. There was a crease in his cheek from the pillow, and he smelled of alcohol.

  “Lessons? But I’m not in school.” He rubbed his eyes.

  “Get up and for God’s sake, you stink.”

  “I went out last night with m’ mates.”

  “Your mates, eh?”

  “Yes.”

  “Get out of bed, boy. You have things to learn, and I haven’t all day.”

  “No one asked you to teach me anything.” His chin went up, and he so reminded Oliver of Ellen.

  “Your mother and the headmaster asked me, so we’re stuck with each other.”

  “Just tell her that you taught me some things and that will be it.”

  Oliver stood in the middle of the room with his hands on his hips, looking at Ellen’s son and wondering when he’d become such a bastard.

  “You want me to lie to your mother?”

  Philip looked away.

  “That’s what I thought. You have five minutes to get out of bed, get dressed, and cleaned up. If you’re not in that hall in five minutes I will come in and do it for you. And by God, you had better smell better, boy.”

  Oliver marched out, leaving a stunned Philip to stare after him.

  Ellen was in the hallway pacing a path in the carpet. She stopped when he came out. Oliver leaned against the opposite wall and crossed his arms.

  “He’s getting dressed.”

  “What did you say to him?”

  “I said he had lessons to learn and I didn’t have all the time in the world, so he’d better move fast.”

  “And he obeyed?”

  “I didn’t give him a choice. I also told him I would dress him myself if I had to.”

  “He’s a good lad, Oliver. He really is.”

  “Sounds like you’re trying to convince yourself.”

  “He just…” Her hands fluttered in the air. “He lost his way when Arthur died.”

  “Understandable.”

  “I tried with him. I thought I could raise him on my own, but he got more and more wild and then he just stopped listening to me.” Tears pooled in her eyes, and Oliver’s heart went out to her. He didn’t know the pain a child could cause a parent, although his mother lamented about it often enough. But he could see it in Ellen’s eyes.

  “He’s not a lost cause,” Oliver said.

  She blinked the tears away and nodded. “Thank you. I needed to hear that.”

  “But he does need a firm hand. Some boys just do.”

  The door opened and Philip came out. His hair was wet, his cheeks pink from scrubbing. He wasn’t wearing the same trousers and shirt and thankfully he didn’t stink.

  Oliver pushed away from the wall. “Let’s go.”

  “Can I at least get a cup of coffee?” Philip asked.

  Oliver stopped and looked him up and down, letting the silence stretch until Philip shifted from one foot to the other and he could see Ellen physically holding her breath.

  Oliver turned to Ellen. “Did Arthur have a study he used?”

  She no
dded. “This way.”

  Oliver motioned for Philip to follow, and the three made their way to Arthur’s study. It was dusted and there were fresh flowers in there, but he could tell that no one used the room. It had an empty feel to it.

  “My footman should have delivered some ledgers.”

  Ellen nodded. “I will have them brought in.”

  When she left, Oliver motioned for Philip to sit behind the desk. The overlarge leather chair and massive mahogany desk dwarfed him, and he appeared uncomfortable.

  “You don’t like being back there?” Oliver asked as he took a seat on the other side of the desk.

  Philip ran his hands over the smooth, empty surface. “It reminds me of him. I remember playing on the rug while he moved papers around.”

  Oliver raised a brow. “Moved papers around?”

  Philip grinned and for the first time he looked like the young lad that he really was. “That’s what it appeared from my vantage point. He would move papers from one pile to the next.”

  “It’s quite a bit more complicated than that,” Oliver said.

  “I realize that now. I wish…” Philip looked down on the desk that Oliver could see had been polished and maintained since Arthur’s death.

  “You wish?”

  “I wish he had lived long enough to teach me all I needed to know.”

  Ah. The vulnerability came out. Oliver had sensed that Philip’s blasé attitude had been a ruse to mask the pain of losing his father.

  “I’m sure he wishes the same. But that’s what I am here to do.”

  A footman entered with an arm full of ledgers and put them on the desk. Philip eyed the stack.

  “What are these?”

  “These,” Oliver tapped the top ledger. “Are your bibles. In here is everything you need to know about the Fieldhurst fortune and what you need to do to not only keep it going but make it succeed. I hope you like arithmetic.”

  “I did all right in my classes.”

  “Good. Because you will need it. Now let’s get started.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Ellen could barely sleep after returning from the ball. Oliver’s words of love swirled around her brain until she was dizzy with it. Her heart thundered with excitement and she so wished she had someone she could tell her secret to. But there was no one she could trust with this. Her friends were flighty and giddy and would surely not be able to keep the news to themselves.

  She wished she had the type of relationship with her mother that allowed for confidences, but her mother was cold and had never been approachable with things such as this. So she hugged her knowledge of her impending betrothal to herself and fell asleep smiling.

  Soon she would have a home of her own and Oliver as her husband. And life would be so very wonderful.

  Oliver would allow her to be herself. He had not scoffed at her desire to learn, to expand her life beyond Society. He had thought her desire to meet different people was wonderful.

  She woke early, dressed carefully, barely ate breakfast. Her mother frowned at her meager plate of toast and cup of coffee. Ellen was so excited she almost felt sick with it.

  The morning dragged on and Oliver did not arrive. Maybe he was delayed by his father. She knew that the earl liked to have Oliver with him as he conducted business, to teach Oliver all he needed to know about being an earl.

  She was going to be a countess someday! Surely, that would bring a smile to her mother’s usually unsmiling face. Her mother was a baroness, but it had never been enough for her. She’d wanted more and, since Ellen was an only child, it had always been her mother’s wish for Ellen to marry well. And an earl was very well, indeed. Oliver was a viscount now, but someday he would be an earl.

  She was sitting in the front parlor, trying to concentrate on her stitching and not stare out the window looking for Oliver, when her maid motioned to her from the doorway.

  Ellen hurried to her, and Hazel pulled her aside and handed her a folded note. It was from Oliver, and her heart sank. He’d been unexpectedly sent out of town with his father and wasn’t returning for…four days?

  She couldn’t live with this anticipation for one more moment, let alone four days.

  She felt she would surely expire, but no, if she was adult enough to have a husband, then she was adult enough to wait four days for Oliver. After all, what was four days compared to a lifetime together?

  She went to her bedroom and lay down on her bed, dreaming of a small house on the ocean, a place they could escape to, with a passel of children that looked like a combination of them both.

  Two interminable days later Ellen was wandering through the house when she saw a man she’d never seen before leaving her father’s study. She didn’t think much of it and continued her bored wanderings. She missed Oliver terribly and silently cursed his father for taking him away at such a crucial time. By now she had expected to be planning her wedding. That she wasn’t was frustrating. Plus, she just missed Oliver. She wanted to see him, talk to him, kiss him. Discuss their future. But she told herself to be patient. They had a lifetime together.

  That afternoon she was summonsed to her father’s study. She was rarely allowed in this room where her father sat behind a large, imposing desk. She wasn’t sure what he did in here.

  “Yes, Father?” She stopped in front of his desk, her hands folded in front of her, and waited while he read some correspondence. She was only vaguely curious as to why she’d been called in.

  “I just met with the Earl of Fieldhurst’s solicitor and signed a marriage contract with him.”

  She furrowed her brow. “A marriage contract for whom, Father?”

  He looked at her just as confused as she probably appeared to be. “For you. You will wed Fieldhurst.”

  The room began to spin, and her knees went weak. Surely she was hearing this wrong. “But…I can’t marry him.”

  “Don’t be a foolish girl. It’s a remarkable match. He is an earl, well established, his line long. You will be a countess, and you will produce heirs for the Fieldhurst name. The marriage is set for three weeks from today.”

  He pulled another paper toward him and started reading it, while Ellen’s vision blurred. She couldn’t marry this Fieldhurst. She was marrying Oliver. It was all planned.

  Except it wasn’t planned.

  Oliver had not spoken to her father and now other plans had been made for her.

  Ellen paced the parlor. Periodically, she would enter the hall and press her ear to the study door where she could hear Oliver and Philip talking, but not what they were talking about.

  Lunch was served, but she barely ate, and the men didn’t come out to join her. She assumed that the books Oliver had brought were the ledgers from the estate and that he was teaching Philip everything that Arthur had not had time to teach their son.

  She should be grateful that Oliver was willing to do this. She was grateful. But she was also frightened.

  Frightened of her carefully held secret and frightened of Oliver, because she still loved him. As much as she wanted to deny it, she couldn’t anymore.

  She’d loved Arthur, too, in time.

  But, oh, the guilt she had felt on her wedding day, knowing she loved another man, had made love to another man less than a week before her nuptials. And when Arthur had taken her to bed on their wedding night she had naively assumed that it would be the same as it had been with Oliver.

  How wrong she had been.

  How very, very wrong.

  Oliver and Arthur were nothing alike.

  Arthur had not hurt her, but he had not paid attention to her, either. He had done his duty and left. There had been little kissing, no hugging, and no whispered words in the dark.

  She’d been left cold and alone in her own bed and that had set the course for the rest of her marriage.

  A few months later she’d realized she was with child and she’d hoped and prayed it was Arthur’s son. The following months had been torturous, not knowing who the fa
ther of her child was.

  Ellen could pinpoint the exact moment she knew that Philip was Oliver’s. He’d been a year and a half, and he was on the floor playing with his toys when the sun hit him just right, and in his profile Ellen saw a younger version of Oliver. The tilt of his chin was reminiscent of his real father. His hair was darker, but it curled above his ears just like Oliver’s did when he’d worn it longer.

  And that had started a new, deeper, desperate fear that others would see what she had. But as time went on and Oliver had kept his distance and it became clear to her that her secret was not written on her forehead or her son’s, she’d relaxed.

  Arthur had doted on Philip and had worshipped the boy to no end. Philip had been the sun and the moon to Arthur, and the guilt had returned for the deception she’d been living. The lie that would have killed Arthur if he’d known.

  And that’s how Ellen learned to live in constant, silent fear.

  “My lady.”

  Ellen’s head popped up. She’d been so deep in reminiscing that she hadn’t heard the butler enter.

  “Sir William Needham to see you, my lady.”

  Ellen’s breath caught in her throat, and a need to flee overtook her. William had said he would give her time, but he was here already? Surely he didn’t want an answer now.

  “Send him in,” she said.

  She stood to smooth her skirts and pat her hair to make sure it was all in place while her heart hammered.

  William entered and smiled at her as he took her hand and kissed it. “I know I said I would give you time, but I couldn’t wait any longer. I just had to see you.”

  She hoped her smile didn’t tremble as much as her insides did. “Tea, please,” she said to the hovering maid.

  William led her to the couch and waited for her to sit before he did.

  “I trust you slept well last night.”

  “I did.”

  “I was between patients this morning and knew that I had to see you.”

  “William, I…” She’d thought about his proposal all night. His words had kept her awake but not in excitement or joy. She’d thought of his attitude during the dinner and the cutting words he had spoken to her, and then she’d thought of his bizarre marriage proposal where he’d not spoken one word of his feelings toward her but rather how she would benefit him if they wed.