The Earl of London

by Louise Bay

  I groaned as she squeezed, preparing myself for the feel of her tongue when the familiar ring of my phone sounded from my jacket pocket. Shit.

  “Tell me you’re not going to answer that,” she said, her lips poised at my crown.

  In most similar situations I would ignore it. Silence it and refocus on what was happening to my dick, but the article had me on edge.

  “I have to get this. Stay where you are, on your knees—it suits you. I won’t be long,” I said, sitting up straighter as I saw it was the number of my real estate agent. Why the hell was he calling me?

  “You’re an arsehole,” she said, releasing my erection and leaning back on her knees.

  I grinned as I answered the phone. Well, I hadn’t promised her romance.

  “Howard?”

  “You know way back when we first worked together you asked me to track that house in Woolton Village and to let you know if it ever came up for sale?”

  I shifted, zipping up my trousers. Howard had my full attention. “I remember.” How could I forget? It was the whole reason behind my success. My ambition and drive came from needing to get to a point in my career where I could afford to buy that house. I’d long had enough money, but the current owners had always turned down my generous offers over the years.

  “Well, I just got word that it’s going on the market tomorrow morning.”

  “Badsley House?” I wanted to be sure we were talking about the same place.

  I held my breath waiting for his reply.

  “Yeah, that’s the one. You want me to find out how much it’s listing for?”

  My hand clenched the phone tighter. “No. I want you to buy it.” I’d bought and sold millions of pounds worth of property, built an empire worth billions, but I wouldn’t ever feel successful until I owned Badsley.

  “Right. Okay. Do you have a ceiling price?” Howard asked.

  There was no price I wouldn’t pay for that place. It was my opportunity to right the wrongs of the past, to make the only person in the world who I cared about happy. To prove once and for all that I wasn’t my father. “No. Just get the deal done. I’ll expect to sign paperwork tomorrow.”

  “You don’t want a survey or—”

  “No. I want to own that house by the end of tomorrow.”

  Howard paused before he answered. “I’ll make it happen.”

  I ended the call, wanting to digest what had just happened. Badsley House was finally going to be mine and I couldn’t wipe the grin from my face.

  I was about to fulfil a lifetime’s ambition.

  I was about to buy my grandmother’s childhood home back.

  Three

  Darcy

  After my ride had been cut short, it was still early when I got back from the stables. The edges of the Woolton Estate faded in and out beneath a layer of shifting mist. Even so, I knew what the sun would reveal when it burned away the fog. The lawns, all neatly mowed. The trees, perfectly pruned in autumn, were now bursting to life. The roof of the stables had been replaced and the flooding driveway fixed.

  I might be covered in mud, but things on the estate were under control. And I had unexpected news about my morning. I couldn’t wait to tell Aurora whose car was in the drive.

  “Hi there,” I called as I kicked shut the oak door of the boot room and negotiated the expanse of coats hanging on the wall on the left. Given I was the only one who lived at Woolton full time, I was pretty sure there should be fewer than three thousand coats hanging on the wall. I’d forgotten the members of the Women’s Institute were over, using the kitchen today. I think they said they were jam-making.

  I grinned at the rumble of excited voices the other side of the door. I loved the sound of the house full. Since my grandfather died, the house felt ten times as big and I missed my brother even more, even though he visited from the U.S. just as often. I felt the loss of family sharply, as if memories of those days after my mother abandoned Ryder and I were made yesterday, not a lifetime ago.

  “Darcy,” someone called.

  “Coming,” I said as I struggled getting my riding boots off. I was just about to win the one-legged battle to rid myself of my footwear when I lost my balance to a roar of thunder, fell against the wall of coats and then slipped completely over on my bottom. How was it possible to fall over twice in one day? At least Logan Steele wasn’t here to witness my clumsiness this time.

  What the hell was that noise?

  “Darcy?”

  I looked up and found Aurora, my best friend since I was four years old, shaking her head at me as if I were purposefully floundering around on the ground beneath a mountain of wool and tweed.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Oh, just playing hide and seek. Help me up?” At least in the kerfuffle my boot had released my leg.

  “What’s all the commotion?” Mrs. Lonsdale asked. The five ladies from the village bustling about the kitchen were like family to me. They’d known me since I was still in nappies and I’d watched them bake, sew and share their lives with each other for as long as I could remember.

  “Darcy fell over,” Aurora replied for me. “And she’s covered in mud.”

  “You need to be more careful.” Mrs. Lonsdale wiped her hands on her apron as she regarded me, shaking her head.

  “It wasn’t my fault. Did no one else hear that noise? It sounded like a passenger jet flying about fifty feet off the ground.”

  “More like a helicopter,” Aurora said.

  “Whatever it was, it was loud,” I replied, washing my hands at the sink, muddy water trickling into the drain. Most of it had dried, but I still must look a fright.

  “It might be your new neighbor,” Daphne said as she continued to chop the rhubarb that Glenis had washed at the sink, then transferred to the table.

  Were they talking about the man I’d just met? It was difficult to be sure as we didn’t really have neighbors in the usual sense. On a clear day, Woolton Hall owned the land as far as the eye could see.

  “Yes, from Badsley House,” Freida announced. “It sold already. Didn’t you know?”

  I felt a little smug that not only did I know Badsley House had been sold, but I’d also met the new owner. But I was a little surprised Freida knew as she was always the last to hear about village gossip.

  I shrugged and poured myself a glass of orange juice from the fridge—I wasn’t about to confess that I’d met Logan Steele because then the tables would turn and I’d be the one who was questioned. No, I wanted to hear what people already knew about my handsome neighbor. Did he have a girlfriend? Was I blinded by mud or did everyone think he was as good-looking as I did? And I wanted to know why they thought he’d be flying a helicopter over the estate.

  “Some city people bought it, apparently.”

  “City people moved to the country?” I asked hopefully as I collapsed into one of the free kitchen chairs, watching the women of the Woolton W.I. and their makeshift assembly line of strawberry and rhubarb jam-making.

  Mrs. Lonsdale snorted. “If you count being here on a Saturday and Sunday moving.”

  My shoulders dropped and the excitement I’d felt on my walk home faded as quickly as birds chased away by the bark of a dog. So Logan Steele wasn’t really moving in at all. I knew he didn’t look like he was the country type. “Weekenders?” The last people I wanted in Badsley House were those who had more money than sense, took no part in village life and went back to their penthouses on Sunday evening. People like that sucked the life out of a village. Badsley House needed someone who was going to spend money in the shops, come to the village fête, and carry on the local traditions. Weekenders got upset by the smell of cow dung and thought owning a Barbour jacket and a Land Rover made them country people.

  I knew Logan Steele had been too good to be true.

  “He might be persuaded to stay for longer than the weekend if he has reason to. I’ve heard he’s handsome,” Freida said.

  Whoever he was, someone needed to tell
him he couldn’t fly over Woolton Hall.

  “And single,” Freida offered, casting me a look.

  “And in his early thirties,” Aurora said with a wink as she added an endless stream of sugar into one of the large saucepans.

  “You knew about this and didn’t tell me?” I asked her. Aurora and I told each other everything.

  “I just found out,” she replied.

  “I heard that they’ve kept Mr. Fawsley on, so hopefully they’ll maintain the garden.” Freida knocked her wooden spoon on the side of the pan.

  Despite being irritated that I didn’t have the scoop on Badsley House having been bought—by weekenders no less—I took some solace that Logan hadn’t fired the gardener. Mr. Fawsley’d devoted his life to the place. His daughter had been married in the grounds.

  “It was such a shame that place had to be sold,” I sighed. Mrs. Brookely had died just a few months ago, and her family had been forced to sell the place in order to pay the inheritance tax. The place was beautiful. Smaller than Woolton Hall, obviously, but still substantial, with some surrounding woods that I loved riding through.

  “But new life in a village can be a good thing. Especially for a young family,” Mrs. Lonsdale said.

  “He’ll have to find a wife first,” Freida said.

  So, he was single at least. But that didn’t help the fact that he wouldn’t be at the house full-time. And he was happy to disturb our peaceful existence with his helicopter.

  “Okay, out with it,” Mrs. Lonsdale said before I had to. “How are you the source of all this information? I’m usually the one telling you everything.”

  Freida shrugged, keeping her eyes fixed on the chopping board as she tried, unsuccessfully, to stop the corners of her mouth from twitching. “This knife is blunting,” she said.

  “Freida,” I said, taking the knife from her and heading toward the sink to wash it. “Tell us your source.”

  She let out an exasperated sigh and plonked down her rhubarb. “If you must know, my daughter’s best friend’s grandmother’s best friend’s grandson is the new owner.”

  I frowned, trying to follow that tangled thread. “Who?” I mouthed at Aurora, but she just shook her head. I pulled out the knife sharpener from the second drawer down and set about my task.

  “So, what do we know about him? What does he do for a living? New money, no doubt,” Mrs. Lonsdale said.

  “He was profiled in The Times this week,” Freida said. “I might have a copy in my bag.” There was no might about it. She’d just been waiting for the right moment.

  “He’s very good-looking.” Freida pulled out the paper and handed it to me, casting me a pointed look. There were disadvantages to having known these women my whole life—they all felt as if they had a stake in my love life. “Handsome. Charming. And very successful in business.”

  I abandoned the knife sharpening and took a seat, unfolding the paper.

  “Page eighteen,” Freida said.

  I turned the pages and saw the sharp jaw and twinkling eyes of Logan Steele staring out at me. He had the kind of face that was difficult to turn away from. As I began to read, I glanced up at Freida. The article set out how Logan was the most successful of a number of corporate titans who, the journalist reported, made their money by destroying businesses. I’d expected it to be a super-flattering puff piece, but it was anything but. The article argued that Logan’s approach to business was stifling innovation, that he only cared about profit and that his methods would eventually lead to a shrinking economy if people followed his lead. “This says that he’s destroying British industry. Closing down businesses and putting people out of jobs,” I said. “It paints him as quite the villain.”

  “Yes, yes, but you know what these papers are like. You can’t believe everything you read,” Freida said. “And he’s very good-looking in the photograph. And the article says how rich he is.”

  Why did Freida think I could be interested in a man, even if he was wealthy and handsome, if his whole focus in business was destruction? A man’s values were more important to me than a pretty face.

  “And I did hear that in person he’s incredibly charming.”

  “Not that charming, if he’s flying so low that if I’d been outside my hair would be several centimeters shorter,” I replied, placing the paper on the side and picking up the knife again to sharpen it.

  “You’ve got to get with the times,” Freida said. “This is how rich people travel these days.”

  I winced at the sound of steel against steel. “My brother is both rich and occasionally lacking in charm, but he wouldn’t dare turn up to Woolton in a helicopter.”

  I fixed Aurora with a glare that said that she’d be wearing the saucepan of rhubarb and sugar if she told the room that Ryder had once suggested he take a helicopter from the airfield to Woolton. Luckily for me, our grandfather had said no and Ryder hadn’t reopened the debate since my grandfather’s death. I might worship my brother and there was little he could do that would irritate me, but that was a line in the sand for me.

  “Hopefully, the helicopter is an occasional thing,” Mrs. Lonsdale said. “It would be very disruptive if that’s how he travels regularly.”

  “I hope he doesn’t turn out to be like the last people who bought a weekend place in Woolton.” I paused, not wanting to be drowned out by the collective groan that followed. “Exactly,” I said. “The Thompsons’ extension took three years of scaffolding, drilling, skips and builders swearing like sailors. For what? So they could turn around and sell the place at a profit.”

  Alice Thompson had charmed us all at first. She’d joined the W.I. and explained how the extension to her newly acquired village cottage was needed to accommodate her growing family. Then as soon as her planning application had been granted, we’d been dropped like proverbial hot bricks and she’d headed back to her London home, leaving us to put up with building works, clogging up the high street and disturbing the neighbors for three long years. For the Thompsons, buying a property in Woolton had been a financial investment. For me, the investment in Woolton was all emotional.

  “Not everyone is going to be like the Thompsons,” Mrs. Lonsdale said, lugging over another huge pan and placing it onto the table.

  “What about that couple who bought the old rectory for weekends? The Foleys,” I said. Surely they couldn’t have forgotten the police cars in the middle of the night and Mr. Foley being arrested for beating the crap out of his wife when he was drunk as a skunk?

  “That was years ago,” Daphne said. “Not everyone who grew up somewhere other than Woolton is bad, Darcy. And you’ll have nothing left of that knife if you keep sharpening it.”

  “I know, but that doesn’t mean we should trust them right away either.” For a few minutes, I’d been charmed by the new owner. Taken in by his handsome face and warm smile. And now I felt like an idiot.

  “Do you suppose the new owner will allow us to see the garden?” Daphne asked. “That would be a good gauge of how well our handsome new neighbor will settle in.” Mrs. Brookely used to let any local in to visit. In fact, the rose garden that sat behind Woolton Hall beyond the croquet field had been planted after my grandmother had seen the rose garden at Badsley House. I hoped it would continue to provide inspiration to the village.

  “Perhaps you could ask him when you visit, Darcy,” Freida said.

  “Visit?” I asked, rinsing the knife under the hot water before drying and passing it back over.

  “To welcome him to the village, of course. You could take some of this jam if you like,” Mrs. Lonsdale said.

  After this morning’s debacle and embarrassment, and the article I just read, the last thing I wanted to do was turn up on Logan Steele’s doorstep. Apart from anything else, he might think that I was…interested in him. Romantically. He probably had every woman he met eating out of the palm of his hand. But not me. I’d been briefly taken in by him this morning, but I was over it. The article had ensured that. “There is no w
ay I’d impose on him like that. And given he’s used to city life, I’m sure he’d find it quite odd.”

  “It’s what your grandparents always did for any newcomers,” Mrs. Lonsdale said.

  I sighed. She knew my weak spots. I loved to uphold the traditions and history of the village—keep the place as special as it always had been—and honor the memory of my grandparents. But there was no way I was turning up on Logan Steele’s doorstep with a pot of jam.

  “It would be a perfect match, you know. A rich, handsome earl and a duke’s granddaughter,” Freida said, clearly having given up on not-so-subtle hints. “This house needs more life in it.”

  “An earl?” Mrs. Lonsdale said. “It doesn’t mention it in the article.”

  “No, he doesn’t use the title anymore, for some reason. But if you ask me it seems like fate, Darcy. An earl moves in next door to you—that can’t be coincidence,” Freida said.

  “Titles don’t mean anything these days,” I said, ignoring the six pairs of eyes on me as I stood and tipped a large pan toward Freida’s board. She slid in the chopped rhubarb. “It’s the person not the position that’s important.” I carried the saucepan to the sink. “Can’t we talk about Aurora’s love life?” Every W.I. meeting I held at Woolton seemed to end in a discussion about my love life. Now that my ever-single brother had finally married, it seemed the grandfather clock in the hallway got louder with every passing day, chanting sin-gle, sin-gle, sin-gle.

  “I’ve decided I need someone foreign. Greek maybe. Or American,” Aurora sighed.

  “Since when?” I asked.

  Like some Tennyson character, she stared wistfully into space, and I decided not to question her.

  “That reminds me,” I said. “When Ryder, Scarlett and their little rascals come next month, we’re going to start planning the summer garden party. So, any ideas, let me know.”

  “And you’ll go to Badsley this week?” Freida asked.

  I sighed. “No, why would I?”