The Earl's American Heiress (HQR Historical)

by Carol Arens

  There was visiting to be done and there were callers to be received, but his bride had made it clear that such pursuits would make her miserable. The very last thing he wanted was for her to be miserable.

  She must have noticed him staring at her, because she turned her smile upon him—at least, he thought it was a smile.

  In trying to decide if the turn of her lips was genuine or a gesture to hide her thoughts, he missed his mouth and stabbed the fork into his lip.

  Whichever it was, it was beautiful. In fact he had been seeing it all day long.

  If the lords had somehow managed to pass a bill in Parliament this afternoon, he’d failed to notice the event. He could keep his focus on nothing but Clementine.

  How could he avoid it when fellow after fellow clapped him on the shoulder asking what he was doing here when he ought to be home entertaining his bride?

  And now, here he was with only moments left before they would finish the meal and retire upstairs.

  He’d told her that he wanted to wait to bed her in order to give her time to adjust to the idea, but it wasn’t true. If his situation was different, he would do his best to convince her that waiting was foolish. As her husband, he had a right and a duty to teach her the ways of—

  Macooish stood up, nodding to the footman. “Please extend my gratitude to everyone in the kitchen, sir. Dinner was most excellent.”

  “Give them mine, as well,” Clementine added.

  Macooish patted his trim belly and announced, “I’m off on a short trip to Scotland in the morning. Lord Guthrie and I have business in Inverness.”

  Clementine arched her brows, one slightly higher than the other. He was coming to understand that this gesture meant that she was questioning—challenging. For some reason it pleased him to know this little thing about her.

  He also noticed that in the instant before she schooled her expression, her eyes blinked in dismay.

  An understandable reaction, he thought, given that her grandfather was the only person she really knew in London.

  She ought to be able to find companionship with her husband, but at this point, they were still so new to each other.

  Only a scoundrel—a knave of the worst sort—would erect an emotional wall between them now. Which, until this moment, had been his plan. He detested what he was doing, and yet it was a necessary course of action.

  * * *

  A trip to Scotland! Of all the low-down—

  Clementine stood up. In the silence following Grandfather’s statement, the screech of the chair legs on the floor was pronounced.

  “Inverness is a wonderful place this time of year,” Olivia declared in a clear attempt to ease the tension.

  “I’ll walk you to the door, Grandfather.”

  “There’s no need.”

  He took a stride away from the table, which she matched.

  “Oh, indeed there is.” A very great need.

  Once outside in the garden, she rushed ahead of him, spun about and blocked his way.

  “You cannot go to Scotland! Not now!”

  “And why not?”

  “Because you cannot leave me alone among people I barely know.”

  “Ah.” He placed a hand on her shoulder, his grip firm. She was certain the squeeze was meant to be reassuring. “But you’ve a husband now. You aren’t alone at all.”

  “A husband who is all but a stranger.”

  “My sweet Clemmie, that is exactly why I must go.” He bent down to kiss her cheek. “This is a time for the two of you to forge a bond. It will be easier to do if I’m not here for you to turn to. You’re his now. It’s for him to see to your needs.”

  “And just how long have you been planning this treachery?”

  “No matter what it feels like, this is for your benefit. Besides, it’s not treachery, it’s business. You know I’ve been in negotiations for some time.”

  He hugged her quick and tight and then set her away. With long strides he walked briskly across the garden toward the apartment.

  “You, Grandfather,” she called across the way, “are—” A rogue? A trickster? A hoodwinker? There was not a word to describe him. Except the one she did not care to accept in the moment because that word was “—correct.”

  She did need to form a bond with the man she’d married and it would be harder to do with Grandfather living just across the garden.

  Given the choice, she would turn to Grandfather for company, go to him with a problem. He had been her anchor the whole of her life, after all.

  Passing the fountain, he turned about with a grin and a wave. “I’ll be back before you miss me. And perhaps you’ll have some happy news to gladden this old heart.”

  “Canny heart, more like it. And do not hold your breath for that news!”

  The echo of his laughter only quit once he closed the apartment door.

  Oh, drat him. Without question he’d go to bed dreaming of bouncing baby earls on his knee.

  * * *

  At about midnight a great wind swept across Mayfair, rattling windowpanes and allowing cold air to seep in around the frames.

  Sadly, no mere bluster would keep Grandfather from leaving. His mind was set on this new business venture, and when Grandfather’s mind was set, there was nothing anyone could do to change it.

  Well, here she was under the covers of the Countess of Fencroft’s bed, living proof that when he decided he wanted something, he got it more often than he did not.

  Ah, but he might not get everything. No matter how he schemed, some things were beyond his control.

  For instance, even though her husband shared her bedroom, he did it crunched into a pretzel shape on the chair beside the window.

  This situation would be a great disappointment to Grandfather.

  Whether it was a disappointment to her or not remained to be seen.

  Or, that was what she wanted to think. Clementine would have liked to believe that she was in control of what she was beginning to feel for her groom. That she could determine the course her heart would follow.

  She liked him. There had been a draw between them from the very first.

  It was her sense that he had a good heart. But she could not help wondering if it already belonged to someone else.

  Olivia had hinted that it did—in the past or in the present. How was she to know? Who was this Wilhelmina?

  One could hardly fault Heath for having a life before he married her, a life that had been ripped from him by the death of his brother.

  She’d had a life, as well, even though it did not involve a man.

  Chilled, Clementine drew her knees to her chest under the comforter. The tame fire in the hearth was no match for the encroaching cold. The melancholy voice of the wind whooshing under the eaves made her shiver.

  Peeking over the comforter, she watched Heath twitch. The blanket slipped off his shoulder and slid onto the floor.

  She thought she heard him curse but perhaps it was only another groan. He’d made several within the last hour.

  For pity’s sake! This sleeping situation was as ridiculous as it was unnecessary.

  Tossing the covers off, she eased off the high bed and padded barefoot to the chair.

  Even the floorboards were chilled. She curled her toes against the nip, but it didn’t help.

  Heath must not have heard her approach, because when she touched his shoulder he lurched and nearly fell off the chair.

  “You must be half-frozen,” she muttered.

  “I’ll do.” He was looking at her bare feet when he lied.

  “This is absurd, you know.” He resembled an owl blinking up at her. “You, shivering in the chair, and me in the bed unable to sleep because of it.”

  “I did say I would not force my attentions on you. Get some sleep, Clementine, you needn’t worr
y.”

  “We are married. It is perfectly acceptable for you to join me under the covers.”

  “I don’t think that would be—”

  “If you do not get up and into the bed, I’ll ring for someone to remove the chairs from the room.”

  She looked down her nose at him. He ought to have cringed, or at least frowned. Drat the man for smiling.

  She had a feeling—an unwelcome one—that in times of contest between them his smile would be her undoing.

  “What if I can’t keep myself from—?” Heat curled curiously through her because while he spoke, his eyes grazed her, from the hair hanging loose over her shoulders to her half-numb toes.

  Moments ago she had wondered if it would be a disappointment if he did not come to her bed. She no longer wondered. In fact disappointed was rather a mild term for what she would feel if he remained in that chair.

  “You needn’t worry. I’ve enough restraint for the both of us.” Even though she spoke the words she was not confident they were altogether the truth. “Frankly, I see no reason we cannot keep warm. The mattress is big enough for two.”

  “All right, then.” He stood up and walked ahead of her toward the bed.

  As she watched him approach the bed, the breath hitched in her lungs. What had she done?

  Oh, dear, his pace was bold, manly, confident and possessive. For all that she bragged about being able to resist his charms, there was a chance she could not.

  He lifted the covers for her to climb in and then hopped in after her.

  He lay beside her, arrow straight and rigid. His long, hard, muscled body was as frigid as an icicle.

  “Thank you, Clementine. I was coming to hate that chair.” Hearing his breathing, feeling the rise and fall of his lungs shifting the blankets, was an intensely intimate thing.

  It felt deliciously wrong to be so close to him, even though nothing could be further from the truth. Man and wife were intended to be this close—closer even.

  But before they grew closer, there were things they needed to discover about each other. A deep friendship to be forged before anything else.

  “Your feet feel like ice cubes,” he said.

  “The whole length of you is an iceberg.”

  “I think—” He turned toward her, slipped his arm under her shoulders. With the other he crossed her middle, touched her back and drew her closer.

  She thought they had been close before, but now—well—just well.

  When she’d thought to share warmth under the covers she’d supposed it would be like when she and Madeline were little and shared the heat of a bed.

  How naive she had been to expect a husband’s heat would be anything like a cousin’s.

  There was nothing for it now but to go along, accept that it might have been wiser to leave him to suffer on the chair.

  Oh, but all of a sudden he no longer seemed like a block of ice. Heat thrummed from his body, and even his breath brushing across the top of her hair felt delightful and toasty.

  Wiser? Possibly, but then again he was her lawfully wedded husband.

  “Do you like it?” he asked.

  “Very much.” The comforting sense of security in lying beside a man was not something she’d given a great deal of thought to in the past. But security was only part of it because at the same time her nerves skittered with an intimate awareness of him.

  “It’s a grand house, to be sure.”

  House?

  What a lucky thing she did not prattle on about how lovely it was to be so close to him, how good he smelled and how she felt the rumble of his voice all through her.

  “Your home is lovely.”

  “It is your home, as well, now.” He nuzzled his chin against her hair.

  “It’s all so very different from what I’m used to.”

  “Tell me, Lady Fencroft, what is it you are used to?”

  “Warm sunny mornings, for one. Although I do enjoy the rain. Being able to walk about on my own without it causing a stir. Even though Los Angeles is growing, there are not nearly as many people bustling about.”

  “You don’t enjoy the crowds?”

  “I might if they were not staring at me. I’m used to going about my business mostly unnoticed. It’s Madeline who caught everyone’s attention.”

  “You caught mine.” He was twirling a strand of her hair around his thumb. She wondered if he even noticed he did it.

  “I would have had to, wouldn’t I?”

  “Even wet as a duck, I thought you were uncommonly beautiful.”

  Was that what he had been thinking? As she recalled the event he had a look confused more than anything else.

  “What can I do to make all this better for you? What thing can I give you to make you feel at home here?”

  “Are there schools in need of instructors?”

  “Teaching is that important to you.” His sigh sounded resigned.

  “Until my cousin ran away it was my purpose for getting up in the morning.”

  She pushed against his chest, putting a scant distance between them in order to better see his expression. “Everyone has something constructive to do. I have no idea what I will do tomorrow morning. What exactly does a countess do? If you tell me to pay social calls I’ll go mad. In any case I doubt anyone would receive me—the foreigner who robbed them of the chance to lie here beside you.”

  She clapped her hand over her mouth. What was it about Heath Cavill that made her feel so free to speak her mind?

  But here she was and those women were not.

  “I’ll do what I can to keep you entertained.”

  His fingers swirled slowly down her arm. She felt her skin tingle even through her cotton sleeve.

  All of a sudden he clenched his fist. She felt the thump on the mattress when he let it fall.

  She was the one to have thought it would not be wise to become intimate without becoming friends first, and yet, it troubled her in some odd way that he would want to keep his distance, as well.

  How could she not wonder if he was feeling unfaithful to someone else, even though it was Clementine who was his wife?

  Perhaps the woman Olivia had half mentioned—Wilhelmina?

  The idea of that should not bother her. She had gone into the marriage knowing it was not a love match. She had recited vows in the full knowledge it was not a love match for him, either.

  Which did not make her feel any better about there being someone else he would rather have warming his bed.

  “I just want you to know, Heath,” she said, thinking he might be wondering the same of her, “until we nearly kissed in the Lady Guthrie’s garden, I’d never nearly kissed anyone else. I did not leave anyone brokenhearted when we wed—just in case you were curious. I would not want the doubt to come between our friendship.”

  “Are the men in Los Angeles fools, then? That’s the only way I can account for it.”

  “Not fools so much as fortune hunters. I knew what they wanted of me and I was not willing to give it.”

  “And yet you gave it to me?” And there was his hand on her arm again, his fingers gently plucking at the fabric of her sleeve.

  She sighed, because the heat of his hand on her arm seemed to be seeping deeper than flesh and bone. She was certain she felt it simmering in her heart.

  “I did, yes. In part for Grandfather’s sake, although I would not have done it for that alone. And of course, we did get caught in a compromising situation... But no, it was because the reason you wanted my wealth was not out of greed. I had been assured it was for the very good cause of keeping people from being turned out of their homes and losing their employment. If you had your druthers, I suppose you would rather be walking your bucolic fields in Derbyshire.”

  “And do you regret it yet?”

  “How could I? Not
without feeling the worst sort of human?”

  “What I mean is, do you regret me?”

  “Well, you are very warm.” She resisted snuggling farther into him even though a gust nearly shook the window from its frame. “And handsome. And to be completely honest I do enjoy looking at you. You have the most compelling eyes—so no, I think I do not regret you.”

  “I don’t regret you, either. And I also enjoy looking at you. You have the most—”

  “No more, Heath.” He really should not say anything else, nor should she, not if there was another woman to whom those words belonged.

  “May I not return the sentiment?”

  “I told you that I broke no hearts when we wed. I was free to speak my mind. But perhaps the same is not true for you? For all I know there might be a woman longing to hear the words you are saying to me.”

  “You have the most exquisite nose and the loveliest hair, and those words belong to no one else.”

  “But your sister—”

  “She told you I have a mistress?”

  “Some gentlemen find it acceptable.”

  He was silent for a very long time. She had a dreadful feeling that he was deciding whether or not to be truthful with her.

  “I am not among them. If you trust me even a little bit, know that I do not, nor will I have, a mistress.”

  “I would hate it if you did.” Even a woman in her situation wanted to be her husband’s only attachment.

  Perhaps the mysterious Wilhelmina was no one important to him after all.

  “I like you, Clementine Cavill.”

  “I like you, too, Heath Cavill.” The plain truth was, moment by moment she liked him more.

  “Did you know that you have the most fascinating hairline? It’s very attractive the way it dips just so right there.” She could scarce believe that she had the boldness to reach up and touch the spot.

  “Your eyebrows arch in the most becoming way when you challenge someone. Has anyone ever mentioned it to you?”

  “Why would they?” She had to laugh. “No one likes being confronted.”