To Wed a Wicked Earl

by Olivia Parker

  “Wait,” she said. And he froze.

  Slowly, she sat up more fully, swinging her legs down. Which put her knees between his planted fists.

  He couldn’t help but give a low chuckle. “Charlotte, if I didn’t know you better, I would venture to say that you are deliberately tempting me.”

  “Tempting you to what?” she asked, her tone utterly oblivious.

  He had had enough. “Remember that little problem I forewarned you about? The one about a man and a woman never being able to become friends because lust gets in the way? That eventually, one or both of us would end up wanting something very intimate from the other?”

  She nodded jerkily.

  “Well, I’m there. I’ve been there. For years.”

  And with that wicked declaration hanging between them, he arose, then strode out the door.

  Chapter 15

  A Gentleman never underestimates a Lady, no matter her age.

  After breakfast the following day, they all piled into the carriage and headed for the haunted forest. Rothbury led the way on his glossy black stallion, Petruchio. He had spoken not a single word to her since last night in the library, hadn’t even looked at her. Conversely, Charlotte couldn’t seem to stop looking at him, studying him as if he were some new species of animal.

  She had believed for so long that he had no interest in her, that he had thought of her only as a friend. Her world tilted.

  They travelled for almost an hour, passing a broken section of an ancient crumbling wall. Finally, they stopped near a break in the veritable sea of pines. A path sliced between the trees, looking like it led deeply into the woods.

  Alighting from the carriage, Louisette pointed to a stone bench situated next to a tumbledown building of some sort. After Charlotte helped her over to it, she shooed her away.

  Stepping back, she took in the breathtaking scenery. They were in an emerald glen surrounded by a forest of tall pines. The path ahead must open to the “haunted” forest everyone kept speaking of. She thought nothing of it when Miss Drake linked arms with her mother, both of them atwitter as they clambered toward the path. She supposed if she wanted to, she could have followed behind. Perhaps she was supposed to do so, but she wasn’t in the mood for scaring herself needlessly.

  With nothing to do but wait for them to return, Charlotte thought to go for a little walk herself. She needed to think.

  Rothbury desired her. And had for years? Somehow she couldn’t quite believe it. And it seemed to make him angry. But why? And if he desired her so terribly, and had for so long, why had he not acted upon it? Why had he refrained from a seduction? It just didn’t make sense.

  Grabbing her skirts to keep the hem from dragging in the mud as she rounded a puddle, she wondered, why her, of all the women he had pursued, conquered, rejected? Why did he hold himself back from her?

  It wasn’t long before she heard footfalls. She turned to find Rothbury coming up behind her. Her heartbeat increased twofold. Wordlessly, they strolled through a field dotted with the long sprigs of cowslip and foxglove.

  Rothbury was quiet, his mood contemplative. She looked at him a couple of times, but he never returned her gaze. Instead, he stared out at the flower-rich meadows toward a river that zigzagged through the grassland like a crack across a frozen pond.

  “Did you fish there when you were a boy?” she asked.

  He smiled tightly and nodded once. “Trout. Salmon too.”

  “Really?”

  He nodded curtly once again.

  “Did your father teach you?”

  He stiffened, ever so slightly. “No. My mother. She loved to fish. Well, she didn’t like baiting the hook, which is why I think she started taking me along with her in the first place, but she loved to be out here. We always had fun.”

  “And did your father come along as well?” she asked tentatively, hoping she’d be able to keep prying him open, at least for a little while.

  “Never. I never did those sorts of things with my father.”

  “What did you do with you father?”

  They came to a rocky outcrop, and he took her hand to help her around it.

  “Oh, the usual. He took me to my first pub and got me drunk when I was a lad of nine, stole my allowance from me under the guise of showing me how to play cards, whipped me when I tried stealing it back, tried to drown me in a thinly disguised attempt to teach me to swim, introduced me to the concept of whor—”

  “Are you jesting?”

  “Not at all,” he said, a sad note in his voice.

  Climbing the gently sloping hill now, he guided her along, her hand tucked within his.

  “It sounds as if your mother was the only light in your days.”

  “She was,” he said quietly.

  “What happened?”

  “She left. I was eight.”

  Was that who Louisette was referring to when she asked if I would leave him?

  Charlotte wanted to ask more questions, she wanted to know more, she wanted to grab him to her and squeeze him tight. His voice had sounded so desolate. But she held her tongue, resisting the urge to pry further.

  Suddenly he turned to her, his whiskey eyes warming her from the inside out. He might desire her and she may desire him, and that should frighten her, she knew. But what scared her more was the fact that she could feel herself slipping.

  It was colder up here and Charlotte trembled.

  “You’re shivering,” Rothbury said, grabbing both of her hands now. Cupping his large hands around hers, he brought them to his mouth and blew air, hot and welcoming, into them. “Let’s return to the carriage. Your mother and Miss Drake will be returning soon, I imagine.”

  “Just a little longer,” Charlotte murmured, casting her gaze along the wide, open, velvety expanse surrounding them. Here the grasslands seemed to go on for miles in either direction, except for the bit of dense forest behind them. It was a place she imagined one might go to clear their mind, be alone with their thoughts. Alone…

  She spun around, looking down the hill to the stone bench where Louisette had been sitting. But she was gone.

  “Rothbury! Your grandmother! Where has she gone?”

  Together they raced down the hill. While Charlotte questioned the driver of the carriage, Rothbury mounted his horse in one swift motion.

  “Stay here,” he ordered her, pulling on the reins as the beast snorted and pranced, feeling the impatience and agitation of its rider.

  And then Rothbury was off, searching for Louisette.

  Charlotte went off to look for her as well. After only a short while she found her, talking to an older gentleman with a Scottish accent standing by a small footbridge. They seemed to know each other and it wasn’t until Rothbury happened by that she realized that the older man was a priest. His name was Robert Armstrong and he lived in a small cottage just down the lane from the footbridge.

  Rothbury was thankful that Louisette was found, but he gently admonished her about wandering away.

  And then the afternoon turned for the worst.

  Louisette started talking so fast, so angrily, Charlotte could not understand her, despite her knowledge of the language. Her wrinkled hands in tight fists at her sides, Louisette stamped her foot like a child, her eyes taking on a wildness that bespoke of the battle against senility Rothbury kept warning was going on in her mind.

  Rothbury’s patience clearly at its end, he still managed to speak quietly, gently, but his words were spoken quickly as well, rolling off his tongue. Charlotte could only pick up bits and pieces.

  From what she could discern, Louisette was adamant that Charlotte and Rothbury marry. Right now. Right there.

  He tried reasoning with her. He was so gentle and patient, but nothing would soothe her. In the end, Charlotte had placed her hand upon his sleeve and quietly asked him if she could speak with him privately.

  “Where are we?” she asked once they had stepped away.

  Rothbury worked his jaw. “I don’t
see how that is of any significance. I apologize for inviting you and your mother here. I should never have dragged you—”

  “You did not drag me. Where are we?”

  “We are near Berwick, I imagine.”

  “And Berwick is…”

  “A border town,” he stated, running an impatient hand through his tawny, windswept locks.

  “And it’s an English town?”

  He blinked several times, obviously trying to drag long-forgotten information to the forefront of his mind. “Yes, it is. Though it’s changed hands with the Scots some thirteen times.”

  “But it’s English now?”

  “Quite. Since the fifteenth century, if I remember my history correctly.”

  “Good,” she said. “Let’s do it.”

  Clearly, she had lost her senses, but in that very moment all she wanted to do was help him. Besides, as long as they were on English soil, the marriage would not be legitimate. As it so happened in England, one needed either a special license (expensive and given by the Archbishop of Canterbury by his discretion), or the banns would have to have been read for three successive weeks in their parishes in which they belonged.

  He froze. “Do what, Charlotte?”

  “Get married.”

  “What?”

  “It’s not going to be legitimate, Rothbury, so you can stop looking at me like I just told you I sleep on the moon when the inclination strikes me.”

  “But Charlotte…”

  “It’ll be fine. No one will know. And it will not be real. Now go tell her. But not before you ask the priest if he’ll play along.”

  Dragging a hand over his jaw, Rothbury hesitated, making Charlotte think he would refuse. But in the end he strode back to his grandmother and gave her the news.

  She instantly sobered. Looking down at her hand, she pulled a ring off her finger, and thrust it at her grandson. “Take it,” she said. “I do not want it back. It’s hers now.”

  Rothbury looked down at the ring, studying it. “I’ve never seen this ring before,” he muttered, holding it up to examine it further. “Is it new?”

  Louisette beamed, saying nothing.

  Tilting his head to the side, he cast his gaze on Charlotte and held out his hand. Smiling, she went to him.

  Louisette beamed throughout the quick ceremony, her temper only flaring when the priest insisted they speak English, and then once again when she insisted Charlotte and Rothbury cross the footbridge to say their vows. It was a small request and they did so to mollify her, though the reason for doing so perplexed Charlotte.

  At the look of confusion marring Charlotte’s brow, Louisette chirped in her native tongue, “Adam’s grandfather and I were married at that exact spot. I am a superstitious woman, ma belle. We had a blessed union and many happy years. I wish the same for you.” Rothbury shook his head at her explanation; Charlotte pretended not to understand.

  Not more than two minutes later, Charlotte and Rothbury were married.

  Well, not precisely, she supposed. But vows were spoken, troths were pledged, and the ring was placed on her finger.

  It all seemed so fast. And, strangely, genuine.

  There had been a priest, two witnesses (Louisette and a sweet young lad who was cutting through the field with his collie) and when it was all over, she had been kissed. First by Rothbury (a quick, warm press of his lips on the apple of her cheek) and then by Louisette (roughly, and on both sides of her face).

  It felt real, but empty somehow. She supposed it shouldn’t matter. Officially, they were not married.

  None of that seemed to matter to Louisette, who clasped Charlotte to her bosom afterward and proclaimed her to be the most beautiful bride she had ever seen.

  It was all so very, very odd.

  After it was done, they returned to the carriage to find her mother and Miss Drake already ensconced inside. The dowager chattered happily, telling Hyacinth of the joyous news all the way back to the manor. Her mother nodded and smiled politely, even though she didn’t understand a word. They returned without further incident.

  Thankfully, the damage to the Greene’s carriage from the previous day had been minimal, and they could soon head back to London.

  Looking down at her hand, Charlotte twisted the tiny gold ring on her littlest finger—the only finger the ring would fit—and read the inscription: VOUS ET NUL AUTRE. You and no other.

  Rothbury insisted she keep it, then briefly pressed the back of her hand to his slightly bristled cheek. “You are a dear friend,” he said. “And so kind to my grandmother. Thank you.”

  “I like her. I do.”

  “And she likes you.”

  But what about you? she wanted to scream. What is going on in that austerely handsome head of yours? Would she ever find out?

  “Are you coming to London for the Season?” she asked, leaning forward from inside the carriage in order to talk to him. “You did say you would help me find a husband.”

  “Didn’t I?” he joked, meaning himself.

  She grinned. “A real one.”

  “Good-bye my wife,” he said, one side of his mouth lifting, a roguish gleam in his eye.

  “You are coming?” she persisted. “You promised to help me.” She felt suddenly desperate. Not for finding a suitor before she found herself shackled to Witherby, but for Rothbury. Desperate to know what he was thinking.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I was thinking of coming to Town for a slightly different reason.”

  “And that is…”

  “To seduce my wife.” And with that he knocked on the side of the carriage, signaling the driver to go, leaving Charlotte with a curious feeling deep in her belly, a flicker of heat.

  It wasn’t fear, however. It was anticipation.

  Chapter 16

  Riding, fencing, or say, throwing oneself off a jagged cliff, are healthy ways for a Gentleman to deal with burgeoning frustration.

  Two days later

  “It wasn’t I who needed to speak to you, dear,” Lady Rosalind was saying, pacifying Charlotte’s bemused expression with a soft smile. “My brother claimed the need to impart some sort of information. He couldn’t call upon you next door without raising suspicion, so he asked that I send a note, requesting your presence in our drawing room instead.”

  “I see,” Charlotte murmured, sitting straighter as Tristan turned his azure gaze upon her.

  Grabbing her embroidery, Lady Rosalind lifted her chin. “So now I shall turn my attention to my needlework and pretend not to listen to a word either of you say.”

  “Thank you, sister,” Tristan bit out, not sounding appreciative at all.

  “No need to thank me. That’s what sisters are for.”

  His eyes narrowed. “To henpeck and annoy…”

  Lady Rosalind clucked her tongue. “We have a guest. A lovely guest, I might add. I heard you were recently at Aubry Hall, Miss Greene. Did you enjoy your stay?”

  “Very much,” Charlotte said, noting that Tristan was now grasping the arms of the leather chair he sat in as if growing vastly impatient at his sister’s attempt at conversation. “We’ve only just returned yesterday,” she added.

  “Really? How were the roads—”

  Tristan cleared his throat loudly, gesturing to the clock on the mantel with his chin.

  Ignoring him, Rosalind continued, “Miss Greene, I hope you do not mind my saying so, but you seem to grow more pretty each Season.”

  “Me? Tha—”

  “May I get to my point?” Tristan interrupted.

  Lady Rosalind narrowed her eyes on her younger brother, sticking her needle in the tightly bound fabric quite like she envisioned she stabbed him with it. “And you get more obstinate and rude each Season.”

  “I wouldn’t want to disappoint you.”

  Returning her attention back to her embroidery, Lady Rosalind harrumphed, a dimple creasing in her cheek as she tried to hide a sisterly smirk with a grin.

  Tristan sat forward. “M
iss Greene, you are no doubt wondering why I needed to speak with you.”

  She nodded, casting a look at the doorway leading into the hall. She was eager to find out why she was here—so she could leave. Rothbury was to accompany her and her mother on a shopping trip this afternoon.

  “You seem anxious, Miss Greene,” Tristan asked. “I hope I’m not keeping you from something. Or someone.”

  “Not at all,” she assured him, as she didn’t want to be rude. “It’s just that…Roth…I mean Lord Rothbury is calling today and I—”

  “Lord Rothbury? Calling at your home?”

  “Yes.”

  “Interesting. Well, I should get on with my point, then. I wanted to ask you, are you attending the Langley Ball this evening?”

  Why in the world did he care? “Why, yes. Yes, I am.”

  “Good. Good.” He cleared his throat again, throwing his sister a beseeching glance, which she ignored. “May I request a dance. Now.”

  “Right now?”

  “For the ball.”

  Her brow quirked. “I suppose.”

  “Good,” he replied. “I shall anticipate it until then.” He glanced pointedly at the porcelain clock on the mantel again.

  Was that her hint to leave? “Well…if that is all?” This was all so strange.

  “Yes, indeed,” he nearly shouted, sounding overly glad. “That’s all.”

  Charlotte stood, as did Lady Rosalind.

  Tristan just sat there. His sister widened her eyes meaningfully.

  “Oh, right! Yes.” He practically jumped up. “Well, may I walk you out? I mean, I’ll walk you out.”

  She shook her head. “There is no need, I assure you.”

  “I insist.” He motioned for the women to precede him out of the room.

  Their butler opened the door, revealing a bustling street scene. Ladies walking in pairs, parasols clutched in their hands, shiny carriages rumbling down the lane…and Lord Rothbury standing at the edge of the Devine’s walk.

  Before Charlotte could utter a syllable, Tristan picked up her gloved hand and kissed her lightly on the knuckles.