The Earl's Mistress

by Liz Carlyle

  “Oh, not nearly,” he murmured, his voice hoarse. “Oh, Isabella, were I to have my way with you . . . no, it doesn’t bear thinking about. Not here. Not now. But tonight, in my empty bed? Oh, love, then you will truly make me suffer.”

  “You have never suffered a day in your life,” she retorted. “Not for the want of a woman in your bed, at any rate.”

  He drew away on a dark laugh, his eyes somnolent, his mouth turned up in that odd half smile that was at once bitter and inscrutable. “You seem not to grasp your own power, my dear,” he said. “I should be thankful—and I should apologize, I daresay.”

  “Are you apologizing?” she asked darkly. “Because somehow, it doesn’t feel like it.”

  He laughed low in his throat and gave her another hard kiss before drawing a little away. “I am not,” he admitted. “I want you, Isabella, and I mean to have you. But in the meantime, you may slap me again if you wish.”

  But Isabella well remembered where that had gotten her—over his knee with his hand to her arse. Suddenly, raw lust went shivering through her, and Isabella knew better than to remain another moment alone with the arrogant devil.

  She cast a glance up at the turn of the stairs. “We should go up,” she said, setting the heels of her hands to his shoulders, still awkwardly clutching the asters, the stems now nearly crushed.

  “Should,” he repeated, his lips skating down her throat. “Oh, Isabella. I should do so many things. I should bind you to my bed and to my heart and make love to you for days on end. I should carry you away from this life here and now.”

  “Anthony,” she whispered, “this is my life. Not yours.”

  “I know,” he said, and for the first time she heard the faintest hint of regret in his words. “Yes, I do know. I don’t mean to be cruel, Isabella. And I don’t mean to add to your burdens, but . . .”

  “But what—?”

  The half smile vanished. “Just don’t ever imagine I’ve stopped wanting you,” he said. “I won’t. Ever. Fair warning, that’s all.”

  Then, as swiftly as he’d caught her against the wall, he lifted his weight away, seized her hand, and led her up the remaining steps. Her knees were still shaking, her wrist and her mouth still burning. And yet, her every nerve ending had come suddenly alive.

  Inside the sitting room, however, the world seemed almost normal, and all was at peace. Lady Felicity had already plopped down onto the shabby carpet beside Georgina, having cast the racquets aside. They were peering at the pile of wooden blocks, turning them this way and that.

  Jemima stood by the settle, looking a little flustered, her hands clutched politely in front of her.

  Hepplewood bowed. “How do you do, Miss Goodrich?” he said upon being introduced.

  Isabella was proud of the girl’s deep and graceful curtsy. “Very well, my lord,” Jemima said. “Thank you.”

  “Papa, look,” said Lissie from the floor, “Georgie’s blocks make arithmetics!”

  Hepplewood knelt between the girls. “How very clever,” he said, turning one over.

  “They are mathematical blocks,” Isabella explained, her voice surprisingly normal. “One turns them around to show the various numbers and then moves them about to make examples of addition and subtraction.”

  “Quite educational,” he said, ruffling his daughter’s hair. “We must remember those at Christmastime, Lissie.”

  “We are thinking of stocking them in the shop,” said Isabella. “Jemima thinks they might do well. She has had good instincts so far.”

  Jemima blushed and excused herself to go and read.

  “I wish you would not,” Lord Hepplewood replied as he rose and smiled at the girl. “I know you’re a little old to play with a pair of six-year-olds—well, Lissie will be six in a few weeks—but we have brought three racquets.” He turned to look at Isabella. “You’ve a little garden of some sort round back, I suppose?”

  “Well, to call it that is a kindness,” Isabella admitted, “but we’ve a bench, and something that purports to be a pear tree.”

  A few minutes later, Lissie’s asters placed safely in a jar of water and the blocks put away, Lord Hepplewood was pushing open the back door, holding his daughter’s hand.

  “Take a turn about with me,” he murmured when Lissie tore from his grasp, “whilst the girls play.”

  “A turn?” Isabella gave a sharp laugh. “This is no Mayfair garden, sir. It is a yard—with a clothesline, a shed, and a privy.”

  He shot her a dry look. “Indulge me.”

  As the girls ran laughing into the sunlight, Hepplewood turned and, as he had done earlier, examined the door.

  “She looks happy,” Isabella mused, watching Lissie swishing her racquet wildly about.

  “I think she is,” he said, sounding almost mystified. “I hope she is. I am trying, Isabella.”

  “Are you?” she said, still watching the children. “I’m very glad.”

  “A wise woman once reminded me that I’m all Lissie has now,” he admitted, turning around with a faint smile, “so however insufficient to the task I may be, I must try.”

  Apparently satisfied with his examination of the door, he offered Isabella his arm, and together they walked around the perimeter, their feet crunching softly in the gravel.

  “You do not share this space?” he said, making an expansive gesture.

  “No, we have the whole of the building, though it’s very narrow.”

  Suddenly, one of Jemima’s swings went a little wild and the shuttlecock struck Lord Hepplewood in the head. Quick as a wink, he caught it, laughed, and tossed it back to her.

  Isabella watched, mulling it over. He seemed in many ways a very different man from the one she’d first met in Northumbria. And yet his kiss today—so heated, so demanding . . .

  No, he was little changed, she thought. He was still full of his own arrogance and intent upon having his way. But it was clear he had a deep affection for his daughter, and that sort of love redeemed much sin in Isabella’s eyes.

  “You have high brick walls to either side,” he said, casting an eye along the top, “but nothing that couldn’t be scaled.”

  “I appreciate your concern,” she said, “but really, what do you imagine is apt to happen? London’s petty thieves can have little interest in a shop full of children’s books.”

  “Probably not,” he said evenly, “but I wish to see your access onto the alley from this side, if you please.”

  She showed him the tall, narrow gate, set securely into the brickwork. “You keep this locked at all times, do you not?” he asked, examining it.

  “Yes, if anyone needs let in from the alley, either Mrs. Barbour or I come out.”

  “An inconvenience, to be sure, but a wise one.” He turned and set his hand over hers where it rested on his coat sleeve. “The girls seem happily engaged. Why do we not watch them from that little bench?”

  The bench he spoke of was scarcely big enough for two, but Isabella acquiesced.

  “Again, I appreciate your concern,” she said when they were seated, “but I’m afraid I must insist you tell me why you’re here.”

  He cut her a dark, sidelong look. “Other than to kiss you breathless?” he murmured. “Perhaps I’m here, Isabella, because I cannot stay away from you.”

  “Rubbish,” she said. “You’ve stayed away these last six weeks or better with no trouble.”

  He looked at her from beneath hooded eyes. “Ah, is that pique I hear in your voice, my love?” he said, his voice dropping suggestively. “How deeply gratifying.”

  “You will not tease your way out of this one,” she said grimly. “Why are you studying my door locks and measuring the height of my garden walls?”

  The teasing left his voice. “You are a hard woman, Isabella,” he said.

  She merely sat, staring at him.

  He exhaled audibly. “Very well,” he said. “As I believe I’ve made plain, I don’t much care for your cousin, Lord Tafford—and the deeper I
dig, the less I find to like. Tell me, what hold does he have over your sisters?”

  “Over Jemima, vey little,” she said. “Her only relation is a bachelor uncle who is Thornhill’s nearest neighbor. But Sir Charlton cares nothing for either girl and would gladly cede their care to Everett. As to Georgina, as Papa left things, Everett is her legal guardian.”

  Hepplewood shook his head. “An unfortunate choice,” he said grimly. “No disrespect, Isabella, but what was your father thinking?”

  Isabella threw her hands up. “Well, men ever expect to die, do they?” she said. “I suppose it seemed a mere formality, and the best way to ensure Georgina and her mother might remain at Thornhill should something happen to him. Everett was his heir, and our only male relation.”

  “More’s the pity,” muttered Hepplewood.

  “Indeed,” Isabella agreed. “I’m sure Papa never dreamt a fever would take both him and my stepmother before Georgina’s second birthday. But if the worst did happen, Papa probably assumed Everett would welcome Jemima and me, too. That’s what true gentlemen do, isn’t it? Look after their female relations? Papa just had this naive tendency to believe the best of people.”

  Hepplewood snorted. “A few simple enquiries could have disabused him of that notion,” he said. “And from what I’ve learnt, it seems common knowledge that Tafford is no gentleman.”

  Isabella considered it. “You know, I don’t think Papa really knew Everett once he went away to school,” she mused, “and Papa certainly never traveled in London circles. Aunt Meredith and Mamma were friends, I suppose, after a fashion, both being wed for a time to brothers.”

  “But your mother died young,” he said.

  “Yes, when Everett and I were just children,” she said. “I think it was Aunt Meredith who, early on, put the notion of our marrying into everyone’s heads. She can be very charming when she wishes. She’s had four husbands, you may recall.”

  Lord Hepplewood fell silent a long while, simply staring across the sunlit space at the three girls, who were still shrieking and swinging their racquets wildly in the air. Time and again, Jemima would gently loft the shuttlecock in the direction of the younger girls, but more often than not, they still missed, often falling into peals of laughter and surrendering nothing by way of enthusiasm.

  Very discreetly, Hepplewood’s hand crept over Isabella’s. “You would never willingly leave Tafford alone with the girls, would you?” he said quietly. “You . . . you understand, Isabella, what he is?”

  “Yes,” she whispered. “I understand. But until a few weeks ago, he had never threatened to actually take—”

  Her voice broke, and Isabella was unable to continue.

  Hepplewood gave her hand a hard squeeze. “I don’t think he will try to seize them by legal means,” he said, “no matter what he threatens. Moving a case through Chancery might take months, and he won’t wish to answer any hard questions. Unfortunately, in his case, possession is nine-tenths of the law.”

  Suddenly, Isabella understood his concern. “Dear God, you think he might simply take them?”

  “If he does,” said Hepplewood grimly, “he will not get far.”

  “Oh, Anthony,” she whispered, “why would he want these children, when, tragically, young girls can be had for tuppence all over London? Is it just his pride? I can’t imagine it. He has never seemed that enamored of me.”

  “I can understand a man might be obsessed with you to the point of madness,” he said without a hint of teasing, “but if you insist Tafford is not, I believe you. So he must mean to use the girls as some sort of leverage. But again, my dear, he will not get far. That I promise you.”

  “You promise me?” She turned on the bench to look at him. His face was set in stern, hard lines. “But why has it fallen to you, sir, to deal with my problems?”

  “Because it has,” he said gruffly, “and that is the end of it.”

  “My God.” Isabella lifted a hand to push back a loose strand of hair. “Oh, Anthony, I am not ungrateful, but people will say that I’m your mistress—whether it’s true or not.”

  “It is remotely possible,” he conceded, “that it could come down to the lesser of two evils. And regrettably, Tafford knows we’ve some sort of acquaintance. That might even be driving his desperation in some measure. I can’t make it out. Not yet.”

  “Dear heaven,” she murmured. “Perhaps he knows you’re here this very minute? Perhaps he will . . . he will drag me into Chancery and say I’m unfit, and that I’m just your wh—”

  “Stop,” commanded Hepplewood sternly. “Do not take the counsel of your fears, Isabella. And do not ever use that word in my hearing. Not in regard to yourself, do you hear me? Moreover, Tafford knows nothing of my whereabouts.”

  “You cannot know that,” she said, her tone so sharp that Jemima stopped her swing and cut Isabella an odd glance.

  “I can, and I do,” he said more soothingly. “Tafford went down to Thornhill yesterday morning with his mother. Otherwise, I would not be here.”

  “But how can you know—”

  “I know because I’ve made it my business to know,” he replied. “Will you please just trust me?”

  “I . . . yes, I do.” She set the back of her hand to her forehead for an instant. “I do trust you, Anthony. But I’m just so scared.”

  He turned a little and slipped an arm discreetly around her waist, settling his hand at the small of her spine. “Look, Isabella, there isn’t much a man can’t accomplish with money and ruthlessness,” he said. “I’ve plenty of both, but Tafford has only the latter. Or, more likely, his mother is the ruthless one. And they’ve gone down, by the way, to ready Thornhill for a house party to be given in a fortnight’s time.”

  “They will be staying in Sussex, then?” she said hopefully.

  “No, they are expected back in London on Tuesday,” he said, “or so I’m informed.”

  Isabella paused to consider it, but all she could think of was the warm, comforting weight of Hepplewood’s hand on her back and the flood of relief from knowing that, for all of forty-eight hours, Everett would be far from Jemima and Georgina.

  “To be on the safe side,” he continued, “I shall have someone watching the girls as they go to and from school,” he said. “At least until Mr. Jervis discovers Everett’s motivations. But I also want to ask you to do something for me.”

  “If I can, of course,” she said reflexively.

  “Oh, you can,” he said, “but you will not wish to.”

  “What?” She turned on the bench to fully look at him.

  “On Tuesday morning, I wish you to come up to Greenwood Farm—”

  “No,” she interjected.

  “—with the girls. And Lissie. And—hell, my cousin Anne and her brood, too, if it will make you feel any safer in my presence.”

  Her heart caught then. “Anthony,” she said intently, “I do not fear you. I do not. I fear myself, and . . . what you do to me. What you make of me. And of how very weak I am when I’m with you.”

  He took both her hands in his, his grip no longer tender. “Is that what you feel in my bed, Isabella?” he said, his voice low and grim. “Weak?”

  “Yes,” she whispered, “and without a will of my own.”

  “Well, you are far from either, I do assure you.” His glittering eyes drilled into her, into her very soul, it seemed. “But if you feel weak, Isabella, is that wrong? Is it? Or mightn’t it be, in fact, the very thing you need?”

  She shook her head and felt her brow furrow. “How can anyone need that?” she whispered. “What would it say about them?”

  “Perhaps it would say that you’ve had to be strong for so long that you’re worn down with it,” he suggested, his tone unyielding. “Perhaps it would say, Isabella, that now and again a woman needs to surrender her control. That perhaps it goes against her very nature when her life has become so hard for so long that she cannot let down her reserve. Not to anyone. Not even for her own needs. Did you eve
r think of that, Isabella? It sounds a hard and miserable existence to me.”

  “You . . . You are just trying to persuade me,” she murmured—and felt herself melting, almost sliding into the warm, sweet abyss his words seemed to offer up. A surrendering—to something stronger than herself.

  “I am trying to persuade you, yes, that I am what you need,” he said, his voice low with emotion. “I have never lied to you, Isabella. I want you. I want you in my bed, under my control, and under my protection. But if that is not what you want, say so, and I will not lay a hand on you without being explicitly asked. Do you imagine I haven’t the resolve to keep my word?”

  “No.” She shook her head. “No, you have a will of iron.”

  “If I have, I earned it, dear,” he said grimly. “But at least we understand one another—and far better, Isabella, than you might think. Bring the girls to the farm. Let us both let down our guard a little. Let it be a family visit. Anne will come if I ask her to.”

  Isabella felt she was drowning in uncertainty, swayed by his determination and his strength. “But they have school and I have the shop,” she murmured. “I have shipments coming Monday, and accounts to catch up after that, and customers, and . . . oh, all manner of things. I have to earn a living, Anthony. This is my life.”

  “I understand that, Isabella, but tomorrow is Monday,” he said logically. “Your account books and the girls’ schoolwork you may bring to Greenwood. The village does have mail service, you know. And surely your Mrs. Barbour is capable of waiting on customers whilst you’re away?”

  “Yes,” Isabella admitted. “She often does.”

  “Then please, Isabella,” he urged her. “Just let me keep the three of you away from London for a time. I am . . . uneasy in a way I cannot explain. I will not touch you if that is what you wish.”

  Isabella swallowed hard and knew that once again Lord Hepplewood would have his way.

  Worse, she wanted to lean on him. Her unease over Everett was growing by leaps and bounds, and she did not for one moment imagine that Hepplewood had come here to frighten her or overstate matters.