The Earl Who Played With Fire

by Sara Ramsey

  He looked up from his buttons. “It didn’t feel different. In fact, it felt like you didn’t love me very much at all.”

  She hadn’t realized that she’d hurt him then, just as he didn’t seem to realize how much he’d hurt her now. “I was trying to be pragmatic. It isn’t easy to give up everything for a dream, Alex.”

  “Perhaps that’s why I didn’t feel the curse break,” he said quietly. “Are we just a dream?”

  He hadn’t said it, but she guessed, then, where his doubt came from. His life had been easy with the curse. Yes, he had to deal with the guilt of his father’s death…but otherwise, his estates were profitable and his days were as he ordered them.

  Could he give up all of that for her? Could she expect him to, when she had almost traded him for her own freedom?

  She pulled her chemise over her head. As it fell down to cover her, she felt like she was donning armor — but whether it was to fight for him or to protect herself, she no longer knew.

  “We aren’t a dream. But we can’t break the curse until you know that.”

  His eyes were haunted. “I don’t know how I could love you more than I already do.”

  They were words that should have made her heart sing. They turned it to stone instead. He loved her, as much as he was capable of — but it wasn’t enough.

  She straightened her shoulders. “I will wait for you, Alex. But I cannot wait here. I must leave London by dawn. Ellie will know where to find me — come to me when you are ready.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  He had failed her. It was a litany in his head, matching the drumbeat of his heart. He had failed her, and he would lose her.

  He walked down Ellie’s staircase like a man going to the gallows. There was nowhere he wanted to go. Perhaps killing Thorington would help his mood, but it wasn’t the duke’s fault that Alex had failed to break the curse. The fault lay in Alex’s heart, buried so deep that he hadn’t sensed the danger it presented.

  What if he could never love her enough? He had been so sure that he did — so sure that she was all that mattered to him. Oddly, he was still sure. But the cure rested on his heart, not the strength of his intellect or his will. Perhaps he’d ignored his heart for so long that it had atrophied, no longer able to perform as it should.

  He wanted to smash his fist into Ellie’s perfectly plastered walls. But he kept walking, staring straight ahead, leashing the temper that threatened to overwhelm him. If this was an enemy he could fight with swords or guns, he would go in for the kill. If this was a rumored menace that he could stave off with clever words, he would give the performance of his life.

  The heart was another matter. How could he fight for something he couldn’t see, with only his love for her as a weapon?

  Alex was so focused on reaching the door that he nearly ran headlong into Nick. “Easy, Salford,” Nick said, avoiding the collision. “Didn’t know you were visiting tonight.”

  “I’m not,” Alex said, his voice clipped.

  He tried to step around Nick, but Nick clapped him on the shoulder. “You seem to be in a mood. Come out with me — I could use your temper as a buffer between me and Ferguson.”

  “If you don’t like the man, why do you associate with him?”

  “Who said I don’t like him?” Nick asked. “He’s a bit of an acquired taste, but I find him entertaining when he isn’t antagonizing me.”

  Alex suspected he would feel the same if he had the chance to spend more than a few minutes at a time with the duke, but it wasn’t meant to be. He had failed Prudence. But he had also failed himself, failed the life he might have had, the one in which he could socialize with someone other than a set of dead historians in his moth-eaten books.

  “I thank you for the invitation, but I must return to my house,” Alex said, stepping around Nick.

  But just as he reached the front door, the footman opened it — not to let him exit, but to admit Ferguson and Malcolm. “Ah, my second-least-favorite Staunton,” Ferguson exclaimed, as though delighted. “What a pleasant surprise.”

  “Come to give us a second chance to drink you under the table?” Malcolm asked.

  “Shouldn’t you be home with your wives?” Alex retorted.

  Ferguson nodded. “But the ladies ousted us — said they had to prepare for Miss Etchingham’s wedding.” The look he gave Alex was slyly observant. “I would think you would want a drink tonight of all nights.”

  He did. He wanted a vat of the stuff, if only it could make a difference for him.

  It wouldn’t. But suddenly he didn’t want to go home. He couldn’t go back upstairs — couldn’t face Prudence’s eyes again as he wondered why all his love wasn’t enough. Still, what was waiting for him at home? Sitting alone in his study, staring at dead languages he no longer cared for, reading texts that ultimately gave him no pleasure?

  “One drink,” he said.

  * * *

  As it happened, Prudence didn’t cry as many tears as she thought she would after Alex left.

  Instead, she opened her traveling writing desk, retrieved a sheet of paper and a bottle of ink, and considered her choices. She had choices, after all. Alex’s departure a few minutes earlier wasn’t the end of her life, just an unwelcome event.

  She had thought to make a list of what she could do next. But as she sat there, she realized she was asking the wrong question.

  The real question was whether Alex loved her enough to break the curse.

  She didn’t have to write down the evidence. Her heart knew the answer, with more certainty than she had ever dreamed she would have with him. Alex loved her, as much as she loved him. It had been unfair of her to say that his love was in doubt. His love had come to be the only thing she didn’t doubt.

  But was it enough?

  They had made love only a half hour previously, and while the feel of him had faded from her skin, his scent hadn’t. It was as though a bit of him had remained behind, comforting her when he could not.

  And then, she realized a final choice that she had never considered making. It was possible that Alex had broken the curse without realizing it. Ostringer hadn’t said how they would know if he had succeeded, only what he needed to do to make it so.

  But if he hadn’t succeeded yet, she didn’t have to give him up. She just had to accept that his love for her, and her love for him, might kill her.

  It was ludicrous to even think it. She’d read her tragic romances. She had always thought that Juliet was too stupid for words. But she understood now. She didn’t want to die, had to trust that it wouldn’t happen. But if this was her destiny, if this was the choice in front of her…she would rather die with him than live without him.

  She pushed her desk aside and grabbed her pelisse from the floor. She’d already dressed, although her hair was likely still a mess, so she found her largest hat and shoved it on her head. Then she went downstairs, summoned a footman, and commandeered one of Ellie’s carriages.

  Alex loved her enough to break the curse. She was sure of it. She just had to convince him to stop worrying about her safety and embrace their destiny.

  * * *

  It wasn’t until his second drink that Alex noticed something odd.

  Ferguson had made him laugh. More than once. And Alex didn’t even have to be polite and remember to laugh — it had happened on its own, drawn out by the conversation.

  Alex frowned into his glass. He felt warm, warmer than he should have in a room with no fire. Nick’s study didn’t have anything burning in the fireplace. It was a warm enough night to do without one. Alex would have liked a fire. The crackle of burning wood was often the only thing he’d found comfort in in his own study, on all those endless winter nights when he’d dreamed of Prudence and tried to lose himself in a book instead.

  He couldn’t let himself think of her.

  He drained his brandy. Nick had good taste in spirits. This one was expensive enough that even his curse hadn’t been able to turn it to swi
ll. He wanted a fire to savor his next glass with. He should make one despite the heat…

  But when he tried to stand, he fell back into his chair.

  Ferguson, Malcolm, and Nick all paused to stare at him. “How are you in your cups already?” Malcolm asked. “We’ve barely begun.”

  “Impossible,” Alex said.

  He had been about to do something. He couldn’t remember what it was. He was suddenly bone tired, though. He dropped his head against the chair. The back was too low to support him, so he slouched into the cushions, letting his body slide as though this were his own study, not his host’s.

  “Unsporting of you not to tell us of your weakness for brandy the other night,” Ferguson said, reaching over to refill Alex’s glass. “I think I still have a headache from all that claret.”

  Alex shook his head, but it made everything spin a bit, so he stopped. “I cannot get foxed,” he said. “Constitutionally incapable.”

  “I thought you were constitutionally incapable of lying before this week, but you keep surprising me,” his cousin-in-law said. “First you say you cannot marry Miss Etchingham, when it seems to be all you want to do. And then you say you cannot get foxed, when you are clearly near to unconsciousness after only two glasses.”

  What they were saying finally lined up opposite what he was feeling. Alex realized, then, that they were a perfect match. “Good God,” he whispered. “I’m drunk.”

  Nick laughed. “Malcolm and Ferguson warned me your intellect was too prodigious to trifle with.”

  He tried to stand again. This time he made it to his feet, with only a bit of weaving. “I must find Prudence.”

  Malcolm stood up and put a hand on his shoulder. “I don’t think this is a good time to seek her out,” he warned. “Her wedding is tomorrow…”

  Alex shrugged off his hand and his words. “She wants me. I want her. I have to tell her.”

  Ferguson sighed. “Must you have waited until now to realize this? Malcolm and I tried to help you with her earlier and you didn’t take it. Thorington won’t like this.”

  “Thorington can go to the devil,” Alex said succinctly.

  He made it to the door without tripping, which he was quite proud of. He hadn’t been drunk in a decade, but he wondered if it was like sea legs. Being able to walk whilst unsteady seemed to come back to him easily enough.

  Nick caught up to him. “Can I help you up the stairs? Wouldn’t want you to break your neck in my house.”

  “I thought you didn’t like that we involve ourselves in each other’s dramas,” Alex said.

  Nick looked chagrined — or, at least, Alex thought he did. Mostly he just looked blurry.

  “Better to involve myself in your dramas than to explain to the magistrate how an earl broke his neck on my staircase after only two brandies,” the marquess said.

  Ferguson and Malcolm came along as well, letting Alex lead them up the stairs. He had the dim thought that Prudence might not appreciate an audience — particularly this audience — but the need to find her, tell her, was too great. He was drunk, which meant the curse was over.

  Which meant his love for her was great enough to earn them both a better life.

  He knocked on her door. She didn’t answer. He thought for one moment about leaving her be, but that thought was beaten to death by the mob of thoughts that told him to tell her immediately.

  But when he opened the door, there was no one there to tell. Prudence was gone.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Prudence expected to find Alex in his study at Salford House. But when she pushed the door open, she found something entirely different.

  “Why are you here?” Ellie asked. “Shouldn’t you be on your way out of London?”

  Ellie sat behind Alex’s desk like she belonged there. She appeared to be drawing something with his pencil and drinking his whiskey like she was a man, not a lady. Amelia lounged on the settee, a book balanced on her still-growing belly. Madeleine sat next to her in one of the chairs, also holding a book. There was a half-eaten tray of sandwiches sitting between them, as though they had brought provisions for a siege and already exhausted most of them.

  “Why are you here?” Prudence retorted. “Where is Alex?”

  “Why are you wearing that hat with that dress?” Madeleine asked.

  Amelia looked her over. “Did you run here in a wind storm?”

  Prudence looked down at her dress. She’d done up the buttons wrong. The dress was blue muslin, but the hat was yellow straw with red cherries on the brim. Enough hair stuck out from underneath it to look completely wild.

  It didn’t matter. “I was in a rush. Shall you tell me where Alex is, or must I find him myself?”

  Ellie put her pencil aside. “We haven’t seen him.”

  “He must be at his club, then.”

  She turned to go, but Madeleine rushed up to catch her before she made it more than three steps down the hall. “You cannot go to White’s,” she hissed.

  Prudence turned around. “I know that. But I have to find him. Tonight. Before everything goes wrong.”

  Madeleine pulled her back into the study and shut the door against any servants who might overhear them. “What changed?” she asked. “I thought you were leaving town tonight, but we’ve heard nothing to say the wedding has been called off. You aren’t going to jilt Thorington at the altar, are you?”

  “Please say you aren’t,” Amelia added. “Because I would dearly love to see it, and I shan’t be able to attend in my condition.”

  Prudence would have laughed, but there wasn’t time. “I cannot tell Thorington in advance that I won’t marry him. The dreadful man would likely abduct me and force the issue if I tried to turn him down. He will have to find out at the altar when I don’t arrive.”

  “You cannot stay in London another minute,” Ellie warned. “Thorington will kill you if you embarrass him like that. You should have left when we discussed this days ago.”

  Prudence hadn’t told them why she had waited — it was too absurd, to say she was waiting to see if Alex could break an ancient curse. “I want to leave tonight. But I must find Alex first.”

  “Why must you find Alex?” Amelia asked.

  Madeleine and Ellie exchanged a look.

  Amelia narrowed her eyes at them. “What was that look for?”

  Prudence tried to stave off the revelation. “Salford merely offered me the use of a carriage. I must find him so that I can leave London.”

  “Don’t lie,” Amelia said cheerfully. Then she frowned at Ellie and Madeleine. “I’m not completely addle-brained by my pregnancy. I’ve known for months that Prudence is in love with my brother. But the two of you should have told me if you thought so too.”

  “You didn’t tell me,” Madeleine complained. “I had to realize it myself.”

  Prudence wanted to scream. “This discussion is neither here nor there. I need a carriage. Which means I must find Alex.”

  “Why don’t you wait here with us?” Amelia suggested, returning to the current scheme. “We can send footmen to canvas White’s, the Society of Antiquaries, and anywhere else he might be hiding. You may as well wait here in comfort.”

  Prudence considered her options. Her friends were right. She couldn’t search London for him herself. She could either stay with them or return to Ellie’s. Alex would have to come home eventually, though. He never stayed out beyond the midnight hour, and that was only an hour away. Going to Ellie’s meant she might miss him.

  She couldn’t afford to miss him. She was sure he had broken the curse. But if she didn’t find him by dawn, she would have to leave London and hope he someday found her. At that point, her fear of Thorington would overrule whatever tender sentiments she wanted to share with Alex.

  There would be time enough for tender sentiments later, as long as she didn’t find herself married to Thorington first.

  “I shall wait with you,” she said, taking off her ridiculous hat. “Let’s send out t
he footmen.”

  * * *

  Alex never came home. It was as though he had gone to ground when he had left her at Ellie’s earlier. The footmen searched the entire city for him, from the highest reaches of White’s to the lowest gaming hell they’d ever known of him to go to.

  They didn’t find a trace of him. Prudence was just the slightest bit annoyed.

  That wasn’t true. She was just the slightest bit furious.

  Ellie yawned. “This has grown tedious. Why did Salford pick tonight, of all nights, to be unpredictable?”

  Amelia jerked awake when Ellie spoke. “Is he here?” she asked.

  “No,” Madeleine and Ellie said in unison.

  Amelia scowled. “I shall kill him. Send someone to the docks with a message for the next ship for Bermuda — Sebastian must return so that he can inherit.”

  Prudence stood up. “I must go back to Folkestone House. The wedding is in seven hours.”

  “Are you leaving London?” Ellie asked.

  “As soon as I retrieve my valise. Alex told me I could use one of his carriages, but I shall have to find another way to leave if I cannot find him.”

  “You should take his carriage anyway,” Amelia said. “I shall tell the coachman to take you wherever you wish to go.”

  Amelia was considering practicalities, but Madeleine was still examining Prudence’s face in the firelight. “Tell me — why would Alex discuss how you would escape from Thorington?” she asked.

  Prudence tried to keep her face unreadable. “He merely wished to help me. I’m sure he guessed that I wasn’t happy to marry the duke.”

  Ellie toyed with her pencil, drawing spirals around the edge of the paper. “Now, why would Salford interfere if he didn’t intend to marry you himself?”

  Prudence shrugged.

  “And why are you so intent on finding him, rather than just taking his carriage and leaving?” Madeleine asked.

  “To thank him for his hospitality?”