Meet the Earl at Midnight

by Gina Conkle

  “Go ahead,” he said, tossing the knife aside. “Open it.”

  She unbuckled the flimsy leather straps and lifted the flat lid an inch or two. Lydia rose on tiptoe for a peek through the rectangular opening. In the dimness, squared edges and leather mixed with a dry, dusty smell.

  “They’re books.”

  She flipped the lid back and pulled out a well-worn volume. “Systema Naturae”—she grimaced and handed over the volume—“riveting, I’m sure.”

  “Linnaeus’s taxonomy of the plant and animal kingdom.” He slanted her smile. “Excellent reading material.”

  She scrunched her nose as a strong whiff of dust accompanied the next book. “I’ll have to trust you on that.”

  “I exchange books with King George on a regular basis. He’s not an intellectual, per se, but plans an extensive library and seeks my opinion. And quite frankly, he needs it,” he said without a trace of humility as he retrieved the remaining books, at least a dozen, stacking them in a messy array. “A few years ago, the king purchased six thousand volumes from Joseph Banks, but it’s my insight and advice he seeks to refine the collection.”

  A smile crept across her mouth. His patrician nose and scarred profile, trimmed with a dose of strong male pride, made for an interesting juxtaposition. To suggest modesty about his intellect would be a waste of breath, yet he wasn’t overly impressed with his connection to royalty. To his lordship’s mind, King George was simply another fellow seeking his opinion, as evidenced by the mound of correspondence people sent him.

  Some letters requested the sale of exotic plant cuttings, while others presented complex scientific questions on various floras. Lord Greenwich, she had learned, was a well-connected recluse who responded to the scientific minds of the outside world on his timetable.

  Lydia kept up her careful review of one tome after another as they passed books to each other. Their fingers touched often, quick grazings of skin to skin.

  “Let me guess: when it comes to Sir Joseph, you may be smarter, but he’s nicer.” She opened the only volume she recognized, flipping through the pages. “You’ve got quite a rivalry with him, don’t you?”

  He dusted off another volume with a Latin title and raised it for quick inspection. “I have my reasons.”

  Out of her side vision, he made a show of examining each book, but Lord Greenwich also watched her from his peripheral view, the awareness was mutual. His hip and thigh touched her, lingering, as he reached to check the chest, now empty. Her stays pinched her chest. A constricting grip made her breathing become heavier. Lydia fidgeted, adjusting the stays wrapped around her torso.

  “And those reasons would be?” she asked, keeping her eyes on the table.

  He replaced a pair of books inside the chest, his forearm brushing hers. Gold and brown masculine arm hairs tickled her wrist. Lydia missed how she came to stand so close to Lord Greenwich, but his body heat mixed with whiffs of his clean, earthy smell coiled around her. His shirtsleeve rubbed her shoulder, and her shawl slipped lower. Their closeness, so companionable, must’ve struck him as well. When she turned to him, his lordship’s face creased in a genuine smile, and both the scarred and unscarred planes took her breath away. The tiny white scar on his temple disappeared into the crinkled corner of his eye.

  “You want nothing hidden, do you?” His voice dropped to an intimate low. “And yet, I seem ready to open up my secrets to the most singular woman of my acquaintance.”

  Lydia swallowed, trying to rid herself of the lump in her throat. He gave her another of his unusual, elevating compliments. Praise, she long ago surmised, did not fall easily from Lord Greenwich’s lips.

  “I, I’m not sure what you mean,” she said, stumbling over her words. “But I’m willing to listen and keep secrets.”

  His gaze swept across her eyes, down to her lips. “I’m sure those lips of yours do many things, including keep secrets.”

  Her heart pounded at his blatant innuendo. Gone was the brave woman making bold insinuations of her own in his study. That magnetic smile of his, if he chose to use it more often, would win the meanest shrew, turning her to melted wax.

  “What? No saucy return from Miss Montgomery?” he jested softly. “I’ve rendered you speechless. I’ll have to remember that: flagrant flirtation silences Wickersham’s hoyden artist.”

  “You’re a bit free with your word choices, my lord, and short on delivery.” She held the open book against her chest. “What’s this secret you’re talking about?”

  His smile froze. Dark-eyed flirtation shifted as the glow in his topaz eyes hardened.

  “I have strong reason to believe Joseph copied my findings at university and gave them to Lord Blevins, current president of the Royal Society. Some years ago, Blevins published my work under his name, taking full credit”—more gold-brown hair worked loose from his queue, falling about his face—“because the old man wouldn’t know an original thought if it knocked him on his arse.”

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered, touching his sleeve, yet the sentiment seemed woefully inadequate.

  Life had dealt the Earl of Greenwich agonizing disappointments and unfair trials. If this latest bit proved to be true, then someone who was supposed to be a close, trusted friend betrayed him, all amidst very public gossip and speculation about other areas of his life. That he bore the burdens like a true nobleman made her heart swell with admiration, for she wasn’t ready to credit any other emotion at this time. Something flashed behind Lord Greenwich’s dark eyes, and conciliatory softness replaced stony sharpness.

  “I hope you aren’t offended by my boldness. I find I like our blunt speech. It’s direct, refreshing.”

  His frank nature appealed to her, drawing her out in new, curious ways. Direct speech could be so honest and desirable even in its bluntest forms.

  “I don’t mind,” she said, her voice a husky alto.

  The air between them roiled with warmth and more awareness in a way she couldn’t slow down or moderate. Even the simplest exchange with the earl seemed to twist her about. If she didn’t look him in the eye, she’d be safe, safe from being drawn into this maddening attraction. Lydia turned to the table and set down the volume she held, closing it.

  “Aristotle’s Poetics. The only book in this pile I’m familiar with.”

  “You’ve read it?” he asked with mild surprise.

  “Parts.” Her fingertips skimmed gold foil on the spine, and she willed her heart and breathing into calmness. “He said people are higher and lower types, divided by moral decisions and social class.” She returned the book to the chest, sensing that she, not he, was the one revealing a hidden place. Lydia swiped her palms free of fine dust. “A change of fortune can knock you out of the higher social class, but moral decisions keep you there no matter your fortunes.”

  She looked up into sparkling topaz eyes, opened wider as he regarded her.

  Lydia pulled her shawl up around her shoulders and shrugged. “I’m no intellectual, but he caught my interest. A few things he said about people and art.”

  Lord Greenwich reached up and touched the edge of her shawl, skimming her neck. He brushed back loose strands of hair, tickling her cheek, her ear. The move, really a simple touch, was both intimate and caring, and she drank it up like a parched woman long deprived. They were supposed to be discussing books, but her eyelids fluttered low as her body quivered from his slight touch. Lydia stepped closer to his warmth.

  “An interesting facet worth exploring.” His fingers curved around her nape, but his thumb slowly stroked her earlobe.

  Did he mean people or art?

  Her languid gaze met his. She was the facet he wished to explore. The blackness of his wide pupils told her as much as did the full masculine mouth looking ready to plant hot kisses somewhere, anywhere on her skin. Yet her teasing nature played along with the sensual.

  “What would you like to explore?”

  “You’re offering personal tutoring lessons?”

 
Their faces were a hand’s breadth apart. His long, gold-tipped eyelashes dropped lower over his darkened eyes. His warm breath caressed her skin.

  From somewhere within the mass of greenery, Huxtable’s cheery whistle careened off the glass walls. His black wool cap bobbed up and down on a far pathway as he approached. Lydia lowered her head and took a careful step back, but not before Lord Greenwich’s warm hand covered her shoulder and slid down to her elbow. His smoldering brown eyes promised something.

  Later.

  “There she is,” Huxtable called over a row of potted, juvenile sprouts. He chewed his ivory pipe into the corner of his mouth, talking around the stem. “Lady E.’s a callin’ for ye, miss. Wants to see ye in the Blue Drawin’ Room right quick like, she does.”

  Fifteen

  A beautiful thing never gives so much pain as does

  failing to hear it and see it.

  —Michelangelo

  Irritation nagged him with all the persistence of a buzzing fly about his head; a sure sign that all was not right in the world. He dealt in constant logic and fact, methodically moving from one premise to another, proving or disproving suppositions. People, however, never quite stayed within those neat parameters. And when messy emotions dared intervene—and he solidly categorized irritation as emotion—Edward turned testy. Wasn’t he made of firmer stuff than to be bothered by, of all things, feelings?

  That word made him cringe. He wobbled, nearly losing his footing, but balance and nimble feet prevailed.

  “Fifty-one, fifty-two, fifty-three…” Edward puffed his steady count, jumping rope in the ballroom’s massive, cave-like confines.

  This was his sixth, no seventh, attempt to reach one hundred without faltering, and normally he’d not miss a beat the first time through, moving onto the next exercise. But even this sanctum had been invaded. Again. By Miss Montgomery.

  How could he forget her instructions days ago to deposit all her art supplies in the ballroom? Probably because that brain-muddling embrace outside the gallery scrambled clear thinking. He recalled the distraction of burying his face in the softness of her hair. Her presence seeped into him the same way her simple lemongrass scent invaded his senses. Right now, breathing heavily from exertion, he’d swear her scent surrounded him.

  “Fifty-eight, fifty-nine, sixty…” He exhaled the count with each steady slap of thick hemp on parquet as the rope’s staccato noise bounced off the walls.

  Of all the rooms in Greenwich Park, she’d chosen this one for her art studio. Yes, the light was good, even on this cloudy afternoon, thanks to a glazier’s dream of high-paned windows and doors, now ringed with frost. On sunny days the light would be ideal. Yes, he had given her free rein to choose any room that pleased her. Yes, he would be absent from Greenwich Park—from England—in seventy-five days. Thus, her use of this space should not matter. But it did.

  Sweat dripped from his forehead, and thin rivulets sluiced his chest.

  “Sixty-three, sixty-four, sixty-five…”

  His goal, not to be thwarted, remained: reach one hundred consecutive jumps without error before moving on to the next training exercise. That discipline came in handy during the confines of his first voyage, however shortened that one was. This time, though, he’d planned a healthy dose of swordplay for better defense. For that he needed Jonas. Where was his friend?

  “Seventy-three, seventy-four, seventy-five…” he counted aloud as he maneuvered across the ballroom floor, closer to Miss Montgomery’s paintings all wrapped in burlap, lining the opposite wall.

  Nearby, a table with powders in bulbous glass flasks, mortars and pestles, flagons of oil, linseed by the puttylike smell, and chunks of plain beeswax made a neat row. Four tripods, soldiers defending the perimeter of her makeshift studio, stood with their spines facing him in their section of the ballroom. Three tripods were bare, save the one supporting a painting, and that square beckoned him.

  Come see.

  Edward sped up his jumps, inching closer to that curious square and the unknown on the other side.

  “Ninety-four, ninety-five, ninety-six…”

  Suddenly, the ballroom doors cracked open wide. Light spilled a long rectangle across the dance floor, illuminating his quest to look at Miss Montgomery’s art.

  “Ninety-eight, ninety—” Caught in the act of almost peeking, Edward stumbled. His stocking foot snagged on the rope. He gave an exasperated roar that bounced and echoed.

  This would not be his day to reach one hundred.

  Miss Montgomery cast a long shadow up the middle of the rectangular light splashing the ballroom. He squinted at the brightness and, chest pumping like a blacksmith’s bellows, Edward leaned his hands on his thighs, pressing a damp outline on his breeches. All of him was hot from exertion and frustration.

  “What are you doing?” Miss Montgomery called into the distance, raising a candelabrum high. Her determined footsteps clicked across the ballroom.

  Edward raised himself to full height, holding the rope, a limp instrument at his side. When she came closer, her mouth opened to an O. Miss Montgomery’s green eyes went saucer-round as her gaze swept from his head, lingering on his bare chest, and moving down his legs to his stocking feet.

  “You’re nearly naked, my lord. Quite sweaty, too.” Her eyebrows slammed together in two dark slashes. “And for goodness sake, what are you doing with that rope?”

  He wiped excess sweat from his forehead and gave her a marginal bow. “And may I say how nice to be in your company again.”

  Her pretty lips frowned at his subtle chastisement before looking over at an array of swords and equipment on the far side of the room.

  “Next, I suppose you’ll tell me I’m invading another of your domains,” she said, setting a hand at her hip.

  “No, by all means, invade them all,” he said, breathing heavily as he coiled the rope. “I’m preparing for my voyage. Where you paint shouldn’t matter.” But it does.

  That sounded reasonable enough, yet his words rang as testy to his ears. Miss Montgomery wasn’t fazed by his irritation. Her bottle-green eyes followed the slow, rhythmic motion of the rope as if he were a mesmerizing snake charmer and she his victim. Edward felt his smirk grow. She’d blatantly ogled his bare chest and arms as if she’d never seen the like before. And, well he knew she had likely seen a male chest or two. Her reaction pleased him and made up for the intrusion.

  But did he detect some irritation on her part?

  “And what has you in such a state?” he asked, moving to a nearby pile that was his shirt, coat, and boots. He dropped the coiled rope there.

  Her frown deepened. “Your mother and her idea of countess lessons. She was very vocal to me and the servants about my inadequacy for that post. In her opinion, of course.” Her brows slammed together as she finished, “And say what you will, to her it’s a job.”

  She looked away in a fit, but her green jeweled gaze went right back to him. Edward picked up a drying cloth and wiped sweat from his face, chest, and arms, aware of his spellbound audience. Interesting. At least the scars across his chest didn’t repulse her. He drank long from a pitcher of water, noticing the way her full lips dropped open and she scrutinized every inch of him.

  With shirt and coat in hand, he walked back to the easel where Miss Montgomery stood. He tugged on his shirt not bothering to tuck it in, since the fabric clung uncomfortably in several spots. The way she viewed those spots, he could very well have been a feast she was about to devour. Edward wasn’t shy, but her lack of composure in the face of his lack of decorum made the air spark anew between them. He shrugged into his brown broadcloth coat.

  “Miss Montgomery,” he said softly. “You’re staring.”

  Her bottle-green stare jerked from his chest to his face. “Oh.”

  Her cheeks tinged pink. She set the candelabrum on the floor, removing one flickering candle. She faced the opposite wall and moved about, all business. Smiling to himself, he decided to let her collect herself. She f
litted from one mirrored sconce to another, until their end of the dim ballroom flickered alive with brighter light.

  “How was the meeting in the blue drawing room?” he asked, retying his queue. “That’s where you’ve been all day, isn’t it?”

  “A disaster. And yes, that’s where I’ve been all day. Your mother insulted me at every turn as we practiced pouring tea.” Miss Montgomery jammed the candle back into the silver candelabrum, and her green eyes pierced him as she rose to full height. “It was tea, mind you, tea. But your mother acted like I ruined a state dinner.”

  “She takes that kind of thing seriously,” he said, moving around on quiet feet to see what was on the other side of the canvas.

  Flashing green eyes held him at bay on the easel’s perimeter, denying him a view.

  “That’s all you have to say?” She glared at him then moved in a flurry of skirts to her artist’s workbench. She pinched a dash of colorful powder into a stone mortar, then scooped another into the bowl, her tiny spoon clinking stone. “You as good as fed me to the lion’s den. Your mother’s so concerned about family lineage? Ha!” she huffed, hugging the stone bowl to her body while grinding her pestle in the mix. The more she pounded and stirred, the more her ire built. “Maybe she ought to be nice to the current candidate. And you, my lord, could at least tell her to curb her tongue. She shoots daggers with every syllable.”

  “You held your own with her the first day she arrived.” He swiped his coat sleeve across his forehead. “Why wouldn’t I think your meeting in the blue drawing room would be any different?”

  Her dark head snapped up at that, but she was in the act of dribbling oil into the mortar, which pulled her back into the work of mixing pigment. She paused, distracted by the process of bringing color to life. At least the tension in her face eased as she examined the particular shade created. Funny how finding the right shade diminished her temper; his Miss Montgomery was a bit of a magician, one he wanted to appease.