The Earl Is Mine

by Kieran Kramer

  It was more impatient than threatening, this voice.

  And it was male.

  Male.

  There shouldn’t be a man in her room!

  Her eyes flew open to see a man with no chin and large teeth anxiously biting his lower lip and leaning over her. He was dressed in traveling coat, trousers, and boots. She gave a little cry and sat up, the bedclothes clutched to her chest. “I’ll kill you if you try to hurt me. I’ve got a pistol under my pillow, and I know how to use it.” She reached behind her back, pretended to retrieve the weapon, and pointed her finger at him beneath the sheets.

  “That’s your finger,” he said matter-of-factly. “You can put it away. I won’t hurt you. I’m Broderick Hawthorne, here to marry you.”

  “What?” she choked out. “How did you get in? Is there a fire?”

  “Of course not.” He chuckled. “I used a key.” He held up a small brass one, the spare one.

  “Mr. Trickle must have given you that!”

  “Indeed, he did.” He sat next to her, and Pippa scrambled to the far side of the bed and stood. “Think of me as a dream come true, my lady, the best dream you’ve ever had.”

  She narrowed her eyes at him. “Not only are you extremely vain, you’re the furthest thing I can imagine from a dream come true. This is entirely inappropriate, sir.” She felt anger in every limb, making them tremble. “How dare you enter my room uninvited? Please leave immediately.” She threw a glance at the door only to see that her key was not in the lock.

  Hawthorne raised a second key and waved it lazily over the coverlet. “You’ll have to kiss me to get this, sweet damsel.”

  “I said leave.” Her stomach lurched, and she couldn’t help but think that Gregory and Uncle Bertie would be furious if they knew what was happening. She should scream right now—Uncle Bertie’s hearing was excellent—and she would if she had to. But if she could resolve this dilemma without involving anyone else, she’d prefer that. Uncle Bertie wasn’t getting any younger, and his heart didn’t need the jolt it would surely get if she cried for help.

  Mr. Hawthorne stood. “Hurry, now. I’ve got a coach waiting for us at the end of the drive. I’ve already got a special license. We can marry anywhere, not be forced to journey all the way to Gretna.”

  She pointed a shaky left index finger to her door. “Get out of here. I’m not going to marry you. I’m going to Paris. And neither you nor any male shall interfere with that plan.”

  “Don’t be unreasonable, my lady. What’s done is done. Your stepfather and I—”

  “I’ll scream if you come any closer,” she interrupted him. And she would. She’d scream bloody murder, and she’d have to hope Uncle Bertie’s constitution could endure the ensuing mayhem that was sure to result.

  Mr. Hawthorne looked down at her gown and then back at her face, his expression distinctly admiring. “The only plan you need, dear lady,” he said, “is to wed the right man. And I am he. You’ll forget all about going to Paris once you share my bed.”

  “Don’t you dare mention the word bed again.” Anger and fear made her voice shrill. “I’m losing patience with you. Go now. Or I will scream. I promise you that.”

  “Go ahead and call the guards, or whomever it is you want to come rescue you.” He pulled off a boot and let it fall to the floor with a thunk.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Getting undressed.” He pulled off another boot. “What does it look like?” That boot dropped to the floor, too.

  “Be quiet, you vile man, or you’ll wake the house.”

  He tittered and shrugged off his coat, throwing it on the bed. “If you won’t come with me, I’ll stay here. You’re already in your nightgown. You’ll have to marry me.”

  “No I won’t. I’ll tell Uncle Bertie you entrapped me.”

  He emitted another obnoxious laugh. “Trickle warned me you might not be cooperative.” He’d unraveled his cravat and was fumbling with the ties of his shirt.

  She’d have to convince this awful man to see reason. “Why do you want to marry me? I have only a modest dowry to offer you. This is going a bit far, don’t you think?”

  “You’re a lady, and a beautiful one. I don’t need your money. I only want you in my bed. I have a difficult time meeting women, you see. I seem to intimidate them. Trickle understands.” When he pulled off his shirt, his torso was so thin and white she was reminded of a flounder skeleton left on a platter for a cat to lick clean.

  He flexed his scrawny arms over his head. She grimaced and looked away, not in the least interested in seeing any more of him.

  “Why question your good fortune?” he said. “You’ve landed a virile and wealthy husband. You’ll never get a better offer.”

  She gave a little cry of frustration and spun around to face him. “Is there any way I can bribe you to give me that key and let me go?”

  “No.” His hand was on the placket of his trousers.

  “Don’t touch those trousers,” she said, “and put your shirt back on. I’m warning you.” She picked the linen garment up off the bedcover and tossed it at him.

  He pursed his lips and gave her what he obviously thought was a come-hither look. “You might as well give in. There’s no escape. Trickle and I saw to that before I got here.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  He put his hands on his hips and thrust his scrawny chest out. “There’s someone in the village who’s seen us together and has all the lovely details.” His yellowed smile was complacent.

  “I don’t believe you.” Her heart thumped in her ears. “No one in the village would ever speak against me, no matter how much money Mr. Trickle offered them. They’ve known me since I was a child!”

  “You are a naïve girl, aren’t you?” Once again his hands reached for the placket of his trousers.

  “You won’t get away with this,” she said. “Uncle Bertie trusts me implicitly. And Lord Westdale will call you out. He’ll see you and Mr. Trickle for the liars you are. If I were you, I’d ride away as soon as possible before trouble really hits.”

  She strode to her clothes press and picked up her ivory satin evening gown from the night before, crushing it to her chest. “Stay here if you must. I’m leaving.”

  She walked purposefully to the window, unlatched it, and threw it open. There was a trellis there. It was old and she’d not tested it—at least not in the last few years. Without another thought, she tossed her gown out and quickly straddled the sill.

  She was almost over it when he quashed her plan, grabbing her wrist. “Oh, no you don’t.”

  She tried to pull away, but he tugged her closer. Despite his skin-and-bones appearance, he was surprisingly strong.

  “No!” She tried to pull away again, but he cupped his hand around the back of her head and tried to kiss her.

  Ugh! He was awful and rude, and his foul breath was unbearable.

  She hit him in the ear with the side of her fist. She’d no idea how she’d learned to be so savage, and he yowled and let go of her. She immediately ran for the candlestick by her bed, and when she turned around, he was already upon her. She’d time for only one blow, so she struck him as hard as she could on the crown of his head.

  His eyes rolled up to the ceiling, and he fell to the rug.

  Thank God.

  Pippa took in a deep breath and let it out just as the first cock crowed. In the faint beam of dawn light that came through the side window and burnished away some of the darkness, she saw that he was still breathing.

  She wrapped her arms around herself to stop the trembling. She must go. She couldn’t stay. She could explain what happened to Uncle Bertie, but there was the Toad. He was too dangerous now. She didn’t believe for a second that he’d succeeded in bribing villagers to speak against her. But perhaps he’d tried, which was bad enough.

  A pang at the thought of leaving Uncle Bertie and Mother assailed her, but surely Uncle Bertie would look after Mother.

  She crept ove
r to her bed and opened Mr. Hawthorne’s coat while she prayed he wouldn’t awaken. Then she palmed the key to her room and opened the bedchamber door.

  Without looking back, she pulled it shut behind her, and headed downstairs. She could comply with what the world expected of her, or she could fight. It was time to seek out her happiness. When would she ever get another chance?

  She’d little time. Any second Hawthorne could wake.

  Downstairs she entered the sewing room and spied the trunk in the corner. When she was finished there, she wrote a hasty note in Uncle Bertie’s library and left it in the dining room, next to the remainder of her castle standing in its glittery but imperfect glory on the center of the table. It was still splendid, despite both the accidental and intentional assaults upon it last night.

  A sense of rightness filled her—big enough to swallow her fear of the unknown—and she left the room with purpose in her step. Sensual daydreams about swarthy, infuriating earls—and marriage to any man—were for women who had nothing better to do.

  Pippa was going to Paris.

  Chapter Three

  Something wasn’t right. Gregory had stayed up far too late in his bedchamber staring at the faded royal-blue velvet drapes of the canopy bed and wishing for sleep. But he couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that Pippa was three doors down on the other side of the corridor and that all he had to do was go to her—

  And he’d be happy. He knew he would be. Maybe for an hour, which was about the time it would take him to gird himself to return to common sense again. But it would be a good hour. A memorable one.

  That was the thing, he realized in the middle of the night. Why had he even bothered to go to America? It hadn’t changed anything. He still felt trapped in a dark, locked room. But he spent one night at Bertie’s—one night—and he was reminded that Pippa, of all people, could make him feel light again.

  He was shocked and aghast. It made no sense. She was a lady. And she was Pippa, a real nuisance. But something about her made him question his plan to marry for duty and play with a mistress.

  I’d love to play with Pippa. The thought came to him when he was naked and spread-eagled beneath soft, clean sheets. That ivory dress and the winking locket at the cleft of her breasts had driven him mad all evening. And she didn’t want to marry him, either, so it wasn’t as if he’d be breaking her heart if they did have a dalliance.

  But there was Bertie. And duty. Gregory had promised to marry Pippa off properly. Only a selfish bastard would do anything else.

  “Then I want to be a selfish bastard,” he whispered aloud before he blew out the candle.

  At about four in the morning, he finally fell into a deep sleep, and in his dreams he heard thumps and even a shouted, “No!” But he never woke until someone pushed at his door. Even then he opened only one eye. Someone was in the room. He could hear him snuffling about. A servant with a cold? Bending over the grate to add coal?

  But then there were more snorts and snuffles and clickety-clacks all about the floor. He forced himself to roll over and face the door.

  It was an invasion of corgis, and he remembered he was at Bertie’s and that he mustn’t have shut the door hard enough last night. The corgis had nudged their way in.

  What did Pippa look like while she slept? He wished he could peek in her bedchamber to see—and to say good-bye one last time.

  “Good thing you woke me,” he said to the furry mass of bodies on the floor, and then stole a glance at the window. The day was overcast. With a sigh—because tonight he’d be late, damned late, to the house party—he reached for Uncle Bertie’s timepiece on the bedside table. He’d given it to him last night, as a gift for taking care of Pippa.

  “What do I need to look at the time for anyway?” Bertie had said. “Wear it on grand occasions. It’s my lucky watch. I wore it when I first met your mother as a baby, and then years later, you and Pippa.”

  “Thank you.” Gregory had clutched the orb of burnished gold in his fist.

  Bertie got a wicked gleam in his eye. “I also suggest wearing it when Pippa gives you trouble.”

  “Then I suspect I shall don it frequently when she comes to Town,” Gregory said dryly, and left to the sound of Bertie’s laughter behind him.

  Now he saw that it was ten-thirty. He cursed loudly enough to send the herd of corgis leaping in a frenzy of longing to climb the vast mountain that was his bed and become masters of it—and him.

  But there were no bed steps, thank God.

  He sat up, threw his legs over the side, and stretched his bare arms above his head, which reminded him of how Pippa had put her arms around his back and neck in Eliza’s garden a year before and held on to him as if he were a runaway horse she wouldn’t let go. He’d only remembered that later, when he was in his cabin of the ship sailing to America. Every night he was away from England, he’d thought about that kiss.

  He’d have to stop thinking about it now—and of Pippa in her bed. Otherwise, he’d not be able to don his trousers.

  But wet noses on his calves and his feet brought him back to perfectly sober thoughts. “I’m late,” he told the gathered company, who were all ears and wagging tails.

  He readied himself in a few minutes. His driver, Oscar, would be waiting impatiently, no doubt, Gregory’s trunk strapped behind the carriage.

  Nobody was in the breakfast room, and he stole out of the house quickly.

  Once on the road, rain began to fall lightly—and then harder—and he was glad for his dry seat. He wasn’t worried about Oscar, either. They’d been on enough trips together that Gregory knew the man welcomed harsh weather as a challenge to his driving skills. He made sure Oscar’s flask was always filled with the Marquess of Brady’s finest Irish whiskey and that his driver’s coat was of the best material available, with the large, flat gold buttons featuring the crest of Brady that Oscar loved to flaunt in every inn yard they entered. He couldn’t boast any other way—the Sherwood family all traveled in unmarked coaches.

  Gregory closed his eyes and hoped the horses were feeling spritely, that the road was smooth, and that the rain didn’t uncover many rocks and form lakes instead of small puddles.

  He rested in a gentle haze of napping—he’d lost sleep, after all, thinking of Pippa—until the rain beat so fiercely on the coach roof that he opened his eyes to look out the window. In the distance, trudging along the edge of a field, he saw a solitary figure, a boy or a young man with a large sack held over his shoulder, his top hat squashed flat by his hand as he held it on to his head, and shockingly without a greatcoat to protect him. He was bent, gusts of wind and rain pummeling him, and a more miserable creature Gregory had never seen.

  He lowered the window and was promptly hit with slashing needles of rain.

  “Oscar!” he bellowed. “Pick up that fellow, will you?”

  “Right, my lord!” Oscar called back to him. “I’ll sit ’im up here with me. I got a spare blanket under the seat!”

  “Very well,” Gregory yelled back. “But if he’s too far gone, he can come in with me.” He shut the window, glad to return to his cozy shelter.

  The coach came to a halt, and Gregory knew that Oscar was standing up and waving his arms at the traveler.

  The fellow lifted his head, pulled out a pair of spectacles, and shoved them on his nose. They appeared too large on his face and were surely useless, as he couldn’t possibly see through them in the torrent.

  “Get over here,” Oscar cried. “Ride up here with me! We’ll take you to the nearest town!”

  The figure hesitated, then slowly began to plod in their direction. His shoulders drooped. He was exhausted, Gregory could see. His spectacles fell off, and he bent to pick them up. This time, he didn’t bother to put them back on but held them in his fist.

  “Hurry up—we don’t have all day!” Oscar yelled to him. “I’ve got good, strong drink to warm you!”

  The traveler tried his best to speed up, the bag on his back bouncing agains
t his shoulders. Nothing like the promise of a drink to warm you, thought Gregory. He’s glad for the ride—and perhaps the company.

  How long had he been walking? And where was he headed?

  Oscar jumped down from his seat onto the road and waited for the man to crawl over a stone wall. He limped the rest of the way to the coach, his face pale, his lips a bit blue. The lad couldn’t have been more than eighteen or nineteen, and he had delicate features: an upturned nose, large eyes, and an expressive mouth. Gregory had no doubt he’d been teased about his looks by other boys. But his expression, especially about his eyes, was fierce enough.

  “I’ll help you,” Oscar shouted to him through the deluge, and took his elbow.

  The stranger stumbled.

  Gregory slid over on the seat so he’d have a better view of the side of the coach. Oscar gave the fellow a boost to the box—or tried to. The stranger fell right back down, obviously too weak to pull himself up.

  That was enough to convince Gregory to open the window. “Come in here!” he cried. “In the coach with me!”

  The fellow pushed his hat lower and shook his head no.

  Oscar gave him a little shove. “Do what the earl tells you!” he yelled.

  The man stupidly put his spectacles back on in the pouring rain.

  “For the love of God, don’t stand on ceremony!” Gregory threw open the door and waved with his hand. “Get in!”

  With a strong push and a “Harrumph!” from Oscar, the young man half fell into the coach, streams of water running down his tailcoat, boots, hat, and even off his ears and onto the floor. Gregory was more than somewhat wet now himself, but it was still better to be inside than out in the elements. Oscar shoved his flask at him and Gregory pushed it back. “Save that for yourself, thanks. He can drink from mine.” And then he pulled the door shut.

  The traveler slumped into his seat, and his eyes rolled up in his head.

  “Wait!” Gregory blindly reached under his seat for his flask.