Does The Earl Love Me

by Jasmine Ashford

  “...and we should clear the bushes at the brake, before hunting season is done...”

  “Very good, milord.”

  The voices rose and fell on the edge of her hearing, and Ada strained to catch the words.

  “...should be going back, now...”

  At least it was not brigands. She realized she must have strayed onto the neighboring estate – Northfell. It had been empty for nearly a decade, and she had not heard someone had moved in.

  Ada held her breath. She was not sure what to do. The two men had ridden into her path and blocked her chance of a quiet exit. She did not want to be seen lurking in the bushes, eavesdropping on strangers!

  “Blanche,” she whispered to her horse urgently and nudged her with her knee. If they turned back sharply, they could move onto the path, and perhaps they would not be seen.

  Blanche breathed out huffily, and, completely uncharacteristically, went in the opposite direction. Toward the strangers.

  “Blanche, no!” Ada whispered. But it was too late for turning back. They were out in the open and one of the men was looking straight at her.

  Ada swallowed, feeling her cheeks redden with embarrassment.

  He was a tall man, and thin, with dark gold hair and dark eyes. His cheeks were hollow, and he regarded her the way a hawk does – aloofness and interest mixed.

  “My lord, I—”

  “No need for explanations,” he cut across her. He was still staring at her, though he lowered his riding crop, resting his hands on the pommel of his saddle. “You are out alone?” he asked more gently.

  “Yes,” Ada stammered.

  “Who were you talking to?” He seemed intrigued, which took any rudeness from the question.

  “I...” Ada blushed. “I was talking to my horse. She listens, usually.”

  She expected him to laugh, but he did not. He simply regarded her with those hawk's eyes. He had ridden forward. His eyes were tawny brown, his mouth sensitive. He licked his lips, dryly, as if he would say something.

  “I am glad to hear it,” he said thinly. “I, too, talk to my horse. Though he does not usually carry me out and reveal me to people when I wish to be concealed.”

  Ada laughed, despite her fears, and he smiled back.

  “Neither does Blanche, usually,” she admitted, grinning. She looked down at her hands, suddenly shy. When she looked back up, under her lashes, the man was still staring at her.

  The two regarded each other closely.

  He cannot be much older than myself. He was too far away to see for sure, but she could discern no wrinkles on his face, and his hair was all golden.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked.

  “I was riding, and I got lost,” Ada explained. She looked down, shyly.

  “These woods are easy to be lost in,” he agreed. “You should have seen me the first day I was here!” He laughed, easily, and she found herself laughing, too.

  “You live here?”

  “Yes, just here, in fact, on this estate. These trees border my park.” He was still smiling at her, teasing her, it seemed. The smile played across Ada's senses, tugging at her stomach as if butterflies were loose there. She swallowed hard.

  “I live near here,” she explained, inclining her head toward the lands that were attached to Newgate Park.

  “What is your name?” he asked, gently.

  “Ada Drosty,” Ada said forthrightly. She held out a hand, the way she had seen her brother do. “Pleased to meet you.”

  He rode forward, to take her hand. He lifted it to his lips. His eyes, however, did not leave hers. Ada shivered.

  “I am pleased to meet you, too. Liam, Lord Donnelly, Earl of Westmeath.”

  Ada smiled. That would explain the slight lilt in his accent – he was an Irish Earl.

  “What brings you here to Yorkshire, my lord?” Ada asked enquiringly.

  “My business,” he said airily. His horse stepped a little off the path, and he reined it in sharply. He seemed to be sitting fixedly, as if he wished to remain in profile, and Ada wondered at it for a moment, and at his reluctance to divulge his reasons for being in England. It probably is his business, she decided forthrightly.

  “You have been here long?” Ada asked. “It is a miserable winter, so I hope you saw the last of summer here, at least?”

  “I find winter to my liking,” the young earl said in that lilting voice. “It is my favorite season, actually.”

  “Mine is springtime,” Ada said feelingly. “I love the new life, the blossoms, the scent of the flowers...” she sighed rapturously. “Winter is so...still.”

  “I am not surprised you love the spring,” he commented quietly. “It seems to suit you.”

  Ada looked over at him, wondering if he teased her. His mouth lifted in a smile – the side she could see did, anyhow – but his eyes held a look of tenderness which surprised her and made her heart beat faster.

  “Thank you, my lord,” she smiled. “I shall take that as a compliment.” He coughed, and looked up shyly. Ada felt slightly guilty – she did not mean to make him feel awkward. “I mean,” she continued, “that was a kind thing to say. Winter suits you too, I think. You seem an observant, contemplative sort.”

  “Thank you,” he said, mouth quirked. “I shall take that as a compliment as well.”

  Ada laughed. “Good.”

  “May I say, my lady, that you are unusual?” he said quietly.

  Ada blinked. “Why yes, you may,” she said quickly. “Though I am surprised to hear it. I have always been somewhat of a wallflower,” she added, looking down. It was a moniker which always caused her pain, as did the sense that she was always overlooked.

  “Wallflowers are my favorite,” he said gently. “They may not dazzle the eye, but their scent bathes the whole garden in delight.

  As he said it, he looked at her, that peculiar tenderness in his eyes again. Ada felt her heart thud slowly in her chest. She said nothing, but the look in her eyes must have communicated something to the young earl, for he rode closer to her. Ada caught her breath, seeing him this close. He was definitely only a few years older than herself, and his eyes were indeed copper-brown. He was just close enough, when the last light of the sunset caught his face, for her to see the scar. When she saw it, she understood why he had kept himself in profile.

  A deep gash, it ran from the corner of his left eye to the edge of his lip, narrowly missing his nose. If he had faced her in profile from the right, she would not have even known of its existence, but it wove its way, serpentine, across the left side of his face. A sword-cut or a knife.

  “I...” Ada cleared her throat, wanting to say something to break the intensity of his gaze. He noticed, then, where she was looking. He blinked.

  “Come, Henley!” he called to his servant.

  “Milord?”

  “We need to leave,” he said curtly, and turned the horse away.

  “But...” Ada called out, shocked.

  “I am a busy man, Miss Drosty,” he called over his shoulder. “My responsibilities call me.”

  He and his manservant rode off together into the gathering twilight, leaving Ada behind, looking after them.

  She blinked and shook her head.

  “What just happened?” she asked Blanche, but she huffed and turned, leading them back into the forest.

  “I don't understand,” Ada said sadly as they rode back below the trees.

  She had not done anything, had not said anything distressing, she was sure of it. He must be ashamed of the scar.

  Ada shook her head. It seemed silly to her. He had clearly earned the scar in overcoming some foe – why would he be ashamed to have survived such a battle?

  “I don't understand,” she said again to Blanche, who continued to walk steadily homeward through the falling dark.

  As they rode back, Ada thought over the meeting. That feeling she had in the pit of her stomach as he looked at her was still there – that sense of butterflies, beating
against the walls of her ribcage.

  “I have never met anyone like you, Lord Liam,” she said to herself under her breath. Just saying his name made her smile.

  When she reached home, she was just as confused as she had been before. Her feelings – delight, elation, sadness, mystification – all mixed together in her mind, so that she did not know how she felt.

  As she dismounted in the stables, she realized there was one thing she was sure of. She would not forget Lord Liam Donnelly. And she would probably dream of him that night.

  * * *

  CHAPTER TWO

  A DARK PAST

  The drawing room was dark, the fire casting shadows on the silken wallpaper.

  “Liam, come on,” Toby said. “You really should stop hiding up here alone.”

  Liam sat crouched by the fire, hunched over in the single leather chair. The room was dark, the only light that which shone from the blazing hearth. Liam slitted his eyes and looked across the room to where his friend stood in the doorway.

  “I'm not hiding, Toby, really.”

  Toby, a chestnut-haired youth with an easy smile, the young heir to the Duke of Abermale, blinked, and leaned back against the wall.

  “I know you're not exactly hiding,” Toby agreed, “but you will make yourself miserable up here all alone. You need to see people, and have fun.”

  “I'm not alone,” Liam pointed out. “You're a person. That's all the company I need. And,” he added, “I'm not miserable either. I'm just thinking.”

  Toby sighed again and looked up at the ceiling. The firelight played across his face. With a square jaw and soft, long-lashed eyes, Toby had an open, strong and easygoing face. He and Liam had been friends since they attended Cambridge together, some five years before. Both handsome, the friends could not have been in sharper contrast to each other: Toby's sunny, boyish warmth was entirely different from Liam's coolness. Toby's sense of fun was teamed with a sensitivity that made him aware at once that something occupying Liam's mind.

  “You're quiet,” he observed. “Deep thoughts?”

  “I met someone, in the woods,” Liam began slowly.

  “Really?” Toby asked brightly. “Who?”

  “A woman,” Liam said stiffly. .

  “Oh. That sort of person.” Toby grinned teasingly.

  “What do you mean?” Liam asked suspiciously.

  “Nothing,” Toby said lightly. “I did not mean to interrupt. Pray continue?”

  “I met a woman in the woods,” Liam said carefully. “She was lost, and I helped her to find her way back. Her name is Ada Drosty, and she lives on the neighboring estate.”

  “Relative of Roderick? The young duke?”

  “She is his sister.”

  “Difficult to imagine the duke's sister. Has she the same heavy features as him?” Toby asked lightly.

  “Lady Ada is beautiful,” Liam said with feeling.

  Toby chuckled. “I assumed so,” he said quietly, as if to himself.

  “I beg your pardon?” Liam asked dangerously quietly.

  “Nothing,” Toby said, biting back the smile.

  “No, tell me. You were insinuating something. Do you think I'm in love with her? I only saw her once!”

  “Well, it does happen, my friend. I'm not ruling it out,” Toby said easily.

  Liam gave a dry huff of a laugh. “And wouldn't it be terrible if I was! A scarred monster, in love with a beautiful girl I only just met?”

  Toby straightened. “Liam,” he said, low-voiced. “That's silly. You are not scarred, or monstrous. You have an injury, gained honorably.”

  “Honorably? By killing innocent people?”

  “We had orders, Liam. We didn't know any better at the time.”

  “So?” Liam said hotly. “Neither did the Pharisees.”

  Toby shook his head.

  Liam sighed. As much as he loved Toby like a brother, he sometimes wished he would simply leave him alone: the man knew him too well. He and Liam had served together in the army, seeing action in India with the King's Horse Guard. That was where Liam had been scarred. Liam had changed after he’d received the scar. Toby had seen him turn from a brilliant, sardonic mind, a leader in their fun at Cambridge and a favorite among the troops to the quiet, withdrawn shell of a man he was now. Toby was the only one who was privy to the demons that haunted Liam's mind, and that made him both a best friend and a repository of all Liam wished to forget

  “Liam,” Toby said sadly. “Please, stop torturing yourself. It was a year ago now. ago. We were younger. We were in the army, and we had to do what we were commanded by our colonel.” He leaned back and looked out of the window, the scene outside dark above the shadows of trees.

  In his mind's eye, Liam was in another woodland, in distant India, waiting with the army. Their orders had been to ride against the opposing force and kill them. It was only after the first clash of blades that Liam had discovered, to his horror, that they faced not soldiers, but civilians. He did not remember most of that battle, only that it was a slaughter. He had woken, scarred and broken, with innocent blood on his hands. He had been following orders, and protecting his own men. But did that make him less of a killer? Liam did not know. And now he was forever branded by this twisting scar, unable to forget, or to forgive himself.

  The two men were silent for a long time. Liam walked to the window and looked down at the forest, then turned back. Liam's thoughts turned from the forests of India to this estate, and the girl he had seen there, two days ago, when all these doubts had been reawoken. He recalled the way she had tossed her head, tucking a strand of red-brown hair behind one ear. The way her eyes had shone as she laughed. The gentle upturn of those full-pouted lips in a smile.

  “Toby...”

  “Mm?”

  “How bad is it, really?”

  “It's not bad,” Toby said slowly, understanding at once that Liam was asking about the scar. He leaned in closer to look at it. “I mean, you can see it, but I don't think it detracts from you, frankly. Fine,” he added, at Liam's raised brow, “I'm not a girl, but it wouldn't scare me away.”

  Liam smiled and could not help a laugh. “Toby?”

  “Yes?”

  “Remind me why I am lucky enough to have met you?”

  Toby laughed. “Lucky? I'd say you were cursed, rather!”

  “Maybe.” Liam grinned. “Only when you keep on at me about attending your parties.”

  They both laughed. The firelight changed from orange to red, and Toby stood, footsteps creaking in the dark as he went to add more fuel. The evening was silent beyond the windows, the wind still. Up here, they could barely hear anything besides the crackling of the fire.

  “Toby?”

  “Yes?”

  Toby looked up with the firelight flickering over his face.

  “I mean it. Do you think anyone could ever – love me?”

  Liam bent down to sit beside the fire, stretching out his cold hands to the blaze. His hands were narrow and tapered, the fingers long. They were an artist's hands, his mother had said. They had done so much more of butchery than art.

  “Yes,” Toby said simply. “How can you doubt that? I love you, after all. And my heart is not easily won.” He came to sit beside his friend at the warm hearth.

  Liam grinned at him, the orange light reflected in his dark eyes.

  “Thank you, Toby. I love you, too.” He put an arm around his shoulder and ruffled his hair.

  Toby laughed.

  “You are loveable, though, Liam. Truly. The mere fact that you cannot lay down this burden is because of what a fine man you are. Anyone would be pleased to love you.”

  Liam swallowed. He turned away, hoping his friend would not notice his tears. He did not want to believe that. Could not.

  “It's late,” Liam said, and stood. Toby followed him.

  The ruddy light showed the clock on the wall across from the fireplace. It said eleven o' clock.

  “We should retire,” Liam said qu
ietly. “I need to be at a meeting with my solicitor tomorrow morning.”

  “It's late enough,” Toby agreed mildly. “I should sleep, too. I promised Ratherstone I'd go riding with him tomorrow, and I want to be awake for that.”

  Liam laughed. “Or old Rathers'll make you race, and you'll jump a fence again.”

  “Yes, and end up making a furrow in the mud.”

  They chuckled, and Liam cuffed his friend playfully around the head. Toby thumped his arm.

  “See you tomorrow, then.” Liam smiled.

  “Tomorrow,” Toby agreed. He walked through the door, hand raised in salutation. Liam heard his boots clopping heavily on wood as he made his way up the corridor to the guest suites.

  When he had gone, Liam leaned against the mantel. He looked through the window. His mind was filled with thoughts of her.

  Ada Drosty. She was the loveliest woman he had ever seen.

  “I wonder,” he said, afraid to finish that thought. He wondered so many things. Had she noticed the scar? Had he scared her? Had she been afraid of him?

  He had left before he had time to find out. On purpose. Why would he wish to stay to see the friendly smile turn into revulsion?

  He had seen it so often – his uncle, Lord Harrington, Earl of Cork, had tried to bring him into society, introduce him to women – but each time the girls had either stiffened at once, or laughed in shock. They had never been unconcerned, never failed to notice and become afraid. Whether they felt pity, or horror, or shock, they all hurried from him. He could not bear it, and eventually his uncle had stopped.y.

  She had looked at him as no other ever had, since the wounding. Her eyes had been alive with innocence, engaged with what he was saying, interested. He was fairly sure she had not seen the scarring, but he did not know. If she had seen it, she might ask about it. And what could he tell her? That he murdered innocents? He sighed.

  “I am marked, now, as a killer,” Liam whispered

  He at least had the memory, now, of that girl in the woods. He would never know whether she could have loved him, but the memory of her eyes, so full of trust, would sustain him through all the aloneness of his life to come. And he was almost sure his path would be forged alone.