Earl's Ward (9781460320594)

by Scheidies, Carolyn R.

  When Angella hesitated, the cook added, “She is safe here with me. Be a good mouser by-and-by.”

  “You’re right,” Angella said as she forced a smile. Cuddling the animal close a moment, she carefully set her back in her box. “Goodbye,” she whispered.

  “I’ll leave her in your care then. Thank you.” With a single backward look, she left the fairy-tale world behind. ’Twas but a dream after all.

  At the bridge, she turned again. Rain had begun to fall and she pulled the cape more closely about her shoulders. Though old, it was thick, but not thick enough to keep out the biting cold that inched in from every opening. Hunching her shoulders, she walked down the road, trusting the Lord to keep her safe.

  The moon peeped out now and again from behind the clouds as the rain continued to fall. Before long, Angella shivered with cold. She tried not to think about a future without the overwhelming earl. Phooey, what nonsense! The man was the most odious personage, other than the vicar, she had ever met. “I guess men are very much alike,” she muttered.

  She was distracted by her thoughts, and ’twas by instinct only she moved to the side of the road to avoid being run over by a gig coming down the road at a fast clip. Pulling her cape more closely about her shoulders, she turned away from the driver.

  “Foolish woman,” complained the driver, seeing her walking alone along the roadside.

  Angella stumbled along until she all but fell to her knees in exhaustion. The warmth and light of the distant hall tantalized her. Her aching body begged her to return. Her set-to with the earl seemed as foolish as her temper.

  For a moment she stood, then turned around. Even took a step. Her thin shoes splashed water onto the already damp hem of her gown. Tears mingled with the rain pouring down her cheeks. “He was wrong!” she declared to no one in particular.

  A clap of thunder drowned out her cry. The thunder cut her like heavenly judgment. Her temper again. Would she ever learn to control it? Still and all, she could not return to a man who would force her to do things she felt were wrong, could she? If she gave in this time, what would he demand of her next? At the thought, Angella straightened her shoulders and turned back to the road, away from Lucashire Hall.

  Not that it mattered. Her feet slipped and she fell into the mud. With effort, she managed to leverage herself upright. She must find shelter, and quickly. Edging carefully off the road, she stumbled into a stand of trees. Slumping against a trunk, she slid to the wet ground.

  Cold and miserable, she tried to pray, but her mind felt as frozen as her limbs. Shaking, she ducked her head as rain dripped down on her through the branches. Even the cold and her shivering frame could not keep her awake.

  As she drifted off, she thought wearily, Mayhap I’ll not wake up. Where are You, Lord? Would He take her home to be with Mama and Papa? A weak smile spread on her blue lips as she thought of their bright faces and heard their laughter.

  * * *

  In the library, Benson announced the secretary. Trowbridge strode into the room, a smile of satisfaction on his lips. “I got the information you requested.”

  The earl eyed him wearily. Carefully he sat the cold cup of coffee on the table next to him. His unease had grown steadily as time passed and the girl did not return. Still, he was unwilling to admit defeat. “What have you found?” He stood facing away from the hearth. The heat seared his back.

  Standing beside the earl, Trowbridge spread out his hands to the fire. “Seems the girl is Reverend Denning’s daughter. She had indeed made inquiries about you, without much success. No one seemed too eager to be of assistance to me, and, I gathered, to her, either.”

  “That new vicar?”

  Trowbridge rolled his eyes. “A more sanctimonious pompous man you’ve yet to find. He had a good bit to say about the girl.” He shook his head. “To hear him tell it, the girl was out for the main chance.”

  “He said he was trying to be kind to the girl, but that wasn’t enough for her.” Trowbridge grinned. “He sent a warning to you, Lordship. He claims Miss Denning is a, in his words, a scheming hussy.” Trowbridge cleared his throat as the earl frowned. “His words, not mine, m’lord.

  “He also mentioned she was wanton and that cat of hers was pure evil.”

  The earl studied the man, facing him. He’d learned to trust Trowbridge’s instincts. “What do you think?”

  Trowbridge hesitated. “He made a good case against Miss Denning, but I had the distinct feeling he was selling me a bill of goods. As I left the vicarage, his young son pulled me aside. Making certain his father did not see us, he gave me another story entirely. I could tell he was scared to death of his father, but he must have been listening to the vicar’s accusations.”

  The earl leaned forward slightly. “What did the boy have to say?”

  “He asked me if the nice lady was safe. He told me she had always been kind to him. He said, as much as he would have liked her to be his mother, he was glad she was gone.”

  Trowbridge pursed his lips. “The lad told me ‘I was afraid Father would hurt her as he did my mother.’ He did not say in so many words, m’lord, but I got the feeling the man beat the boy. Besides, I also spoke to another old woman who had adored the girl’s mother.

  “She told me the whole of it was a setup and she believed not a word of what the vicar or the other villagers said about the young woman. If she had not been old and ill, she herself would have taken the girl in. Said the girl is as sweet and caring as her lady mother. I believed her.”

  Turning, the earl stared into the fire. It still boiled down to believing or not believing the girl herself. Stuff it all! Why didn’t she return? He realized suddenly that Trowbridge had not left.

  “Is there something else?”

  The secretary pushed his damp hair from his eyes. “Just a bit worrying, m’lord. On the road I passed what I thought was a woman walking along the road. She was all alone. The more I think of it, the odder it seems.”

  The earl tensed. “You didn’t recognize her?”

  “’Twas raining and I was in a hurry to return. She turned away when I passed. The more I think of it, the more I think there was something furtive about her.”

  Striding to the door, the earl yelled for a footman. “Has Miss Angella returned?”

  The butler reappeared with the answer. “No, m’lord. No one has seen her since she left.”

  Straightening, the earl called for a carriage. “Trowbridge, come on. I want you to show me exactly where you passed that woman.”

  Not long thereafter, Trowbridge sat beside the earl in a curricle as the earl hurried the black horses along the road. The earl’s eyes darkened in anger and concern. Through the rain, he peered from side to side. Beside him, his secretary did the same until Trowbridge called out. “Here. This is where I saw her. At least...I’m pretty sure it was here.”

  Slowing, the earl tooled along that section of road. “Where is she?” growled the earl through gritted teeth.

  “She might have fallen, I suppose.”

  Trowbridge understood only that the girl had gone of her own accord.

  Other thoughts paraded through the earl’s mind and he cursed himself for not stopping the chit. “Should have locked her in her room,” he grunted to himself.

  To his surprise a prayer leaped to his lips. “Help me find her, Lord.” It wasn’t much, but certainly more than he had spoken to the Almighty in many a year.

  Ahead was a stand of trees. Mayhap she sought shelter. ’Twas a good place to hide from searchers along the road. Then again, she had no reason to suspect he’d come after her. Mayhap she didn’t wish to be seen by anyone heading toward the hall.

  Pulling up the team, he handed the reins into the secretary’s keeping. Hopping down, the earl sent up a prayer of gratitude that the rain had become a mere drizzle and the clo
uds parted, allowing the light of the moon to reveal his way. His second petition of the night, he thought wryly, gingerly treading through the brush—and all due to an irritating young woman. Anger vied with anxiety as the earl moved farther down the gentle slope into the shelter of the trees.

  “Where is she, Lord? Where?” A third petition, he thought with a part of his cynical mind.

  A shaft of moonlight beamed down. He stopped and stared as he saw her huddled against the trunk of a tree, her face lit in the light. A hasty thank-you dropped from his lips as he squatted beside her. Was it truly an answer to his prayer?

  As he touched her forehead, he felt her chill through his gloves. She groaned as he gently lifted her in his arms. Fluttering softly, she snuggled closer to him for warmth as he carried her to the curricle. With a start, she awoke as he handed her up to Trowbridge.

  “Let me go,” she cried out in alarm.

  “Move over, Trowbridge. You drive. I’ll hold the girl.” Swinging Angella more firmly into his arms, he growled, “Hush up, girl. Be still.”

  Angella stiffened as she recognized the voice. “Leave me be.”

  He did not answer as he opened his heavy coat. Holding her close, he wrapped it around them both. She shivered violently against him. “Now, relax. I’m not going to hurt you. I am taking you home. We’ll settle our differences later. All right?” He felt her nod against him and smiled. It felt good to hold her, even wet and soggy as she was, in his arms. Then he frowned. Botheration! What was he to do with her?

  * * *

  Twas two days before Mrs. Karry permitted her to be up and about. By then Trowbridge had returned from London with the first of his purchases for Miss Denning.

  As the earl suspected, Angella was delighted, at least at first, with the clothes Trowbridge brought home with him. But he had not expected her hesitance at accepting anything from him she had not earned.

  He learned, rather quickly, she was indeed serious about earning her way, and no amount of argument would make her wear a stitch of the new clothing until he agreed, out of pure frustration, to let her help the curator catalog the books of the library. The overworked curator told him that he found her a delight to be around, as well as an efficient worker.

  With that particular crisis averted, the earl foolishly believed things would settle down, until today, that is, when the rest of her clothes arrived and he picked out the red gown for her to wear to dinner.

  As he stood outside her bedchamber now, he recalled she had won that first round, but he was determined that she would not win every one. “Come out here, Angella.”

  “I will not come out!” Angella yelled through the locked door as the earl ineffectually pounded on the door of her bedchamber.

  The earl, who had been standing at the door for several minutes trying to persuade his annoying guest to open the door and join him for dinner, was rapidly coming to a boil. “Angella Denning, come out of that room this minute.”

  “No!”

  Grinding his teeth, he clenched his fist to keep from slamming it against the door. “Get out here right now, young lady. If you don’t, I’ll...I’ll break down the door.”

  Was that a stifled giggle he’d heard from the other side? “I’d like to see you try.”

  Stuff! Why had he made such a ridiculous threat? The heavily ornamented door would probably withstand an army. “Angella, please. Listen to me. You have to come out sooner or later.”

  “Later, then. Much later.”

  Hanging on to his self-control with some difficulty, the earl sucked in a deep breath. Any other woman would have jumped at the chance to wear fashionable gowns from Bond Street, but not Miss Denning. Of course not. Why should she behave in a normal fashion now, when she had done nothing but wrangle with him since he first picked her up? He should have left her and that ball of fur to the tender mercies of the village.

  No, he backed up. No, not that. “Angella, I’ll give you another minute and then I’m calling Mrs. Karry for the key.”

  “Do that, but I’ll not come out.”

  “You will or....”

  “Or what? You’ll throw me out? Well, go right ahead. But be sure I’ll change out of this piece of fluff that parades as an evening gown first. I’d rather show myself in a nightgown. It covers more.” Stung by her assessment, as well as her ingratitude, the earl raised his voice. “I’ll have you know that gown is in the first style of elegance.”

  “For whom...your latest flirt? This gown is indecent and you knew it when you picked it out for me to wear this evening.”

  “Come now, Angella,” growled the earl, wanting to wring the girl’s neck. He wasn’t used to having his good taste questioned. “That gown is all the rage.”

  “My father would be horrified to see me in this...dreadful thing.”

  “Your father was a backcountry preacher.”

  The long pause discomfited him. He had no call to set down her father.

  Was that a sob? “My father was a kind, compassionate, godly man.”

  “Angella, I’m sorry... I shouldn’t have said that about your father. Now, will you come out?”

  “Go away.”

  The earl clenched his teeth in frustration. His dustups with Angella had not ceased over the week she had resided at Lucashire. Had he thought to find peace and quiet in leaving London!

  Hanging on to his rage with difficulty, he went in search of Mrs. Karry. He grabbed the key from the housekeeper’s hand, then marched back to the door. After jamming the key into the lock, the earl wrenched open the door. Angry enough to throttle Angella, he strode into the room fully intending to have done with the stubborn miss under his care.

  His anger died at the scene before him. Slumped on the rug in front of the hearth, Angella stared up at him through large, swollen, defeated eyes. Tears streamed down her pale cheeks.

  The difference scared him. Kneeling beside her, he took her hands in his. “Angella, what’s wrong? What happened? Are you all right?”

  Hiccuping, she shook her head as sobs tore from deep inside. Confused, the earl drew her into his arms. “Angella. Angella, tell me what’s wrong. Please?”

  “Why do you want to hurt and humiliate me? Why do men want to hurt women like me? What have I done to make you think I am that kind of woman? I try to be good. Truly I do. I’m sorry if I have in some fashion, led you to believe... I mean...” She bit her lip to keep it from quivering.

  “Fustian, child. What are you saying?”

  Trying to control her sobs, Angella brushed her hand across her wet cheeks. “I finally understood why you wished me to wear this...this gown.”

  He saw the horror in her face as she looked down at the now-rumpled dress. He had to admit it showed off far more than any young chit ought to show. He had not considered such when he picked it out. Most likely, many of the latest fashions from France would shock the innocent pastor’s daughter.

  His arms tightened around her as he felt her heart beat against his chest. “Why do you think I wanted you to wear this gown?”

  “You think I am... I would...” She stared up at him, not knowing how utterly enchanting she was with her face lovely in its very vulnerability. “I’m not... I won’t.”

  At once the earl did understand all too clearly and he cursed himself for being so dull-witted. Guilt swept over him—for, though he had not considered making her his mistress since that first day, the thought had, at least, crossed his mind.

  Looking down at Angella in her sweet innocence, he kicked himself for his arrogance. How could he ever have considered her as anything but pure and innocent or have treated her like some doxy?

  “Angella, dear Angella, I think nothing of the kind. I am sorry about the gown. I did not realize it was, well, so revealing. I vow I was not attempting to seduce you, shame or hurt you in any fa
shion whatsoever. I have never forced myself on anyone, and I am certainly not going to begin with a young innocent under my protection.”

  He let her search his eyes. A tremulous smile started around her mouth. “Then I fear I rather made a cake of myself over my assumptions.”

  He smiled back. “We do seem to be at swords’ point most of the time.” Gently he pulled her to her feet. “Tell you what. I’ll have Cook hold dinner while you change. Will that do?”

  She smiled a radiant smile that ripped right into his cynical heart. “M’lord. Thank you.”

  Leaving to change out of his damp dinner jacket, the earl found himself humming as he headed toward his chamber.

  Chapter 5

  After their dustup about her gown, things began to change between them. From then on, he permitted her to choose her own gowns. More than one of the fashionable gowns sent out from London, were, with the able assistance of Mrs. Karry and the maid she assigned to take care of his charge, altered before Angella wore them.

  He had to admit she used good taste and whatever she did to the gowns enhanced her special beauty. She looked so innocent until that mischievous twinkle sparkled out at him. Then he knew he was lost. Much easier to rail at her when she matched him rage for rage.

  That happened often enough. They disagreed with each other over the latest farming techniques, which Angella insisted would increase production. He left in a towering rage—for, what could a woman know of such things? When he read up on the subject, he found her insights helpful and unusually perceptive. Apologizing had been lowering. She took it in good grace and, though she tried not to smile, he’d seen that sparkle in her eye.

  They fought over the issue of slavery, though that had not been quite the same thing. The earl smiled. After a particularly delicious dinner, they sat before the roaring fire in the library, where they both felt most comfortable and in harmony with one another.

  Firelight flickered over the bas-relief of the fireplace and bounced off the high ceiling. Candles dipped and rose in rhythm to the slight breeze seeping through the window and ruffling the drawn curtains.