An Earl For Hire

by Bethany M. Sefchick

  Her sister in law shrugged, though she, too, was clearly attempting to keep her opinions and her temper in check. "You must admit that it does seem more than a little outrageous. And suspicious. I also suggested to your brother that you that you might be playing a game of some sort, trying to convince us that you were involved with the earl so we would not force you to wed someone else in order to quell the rumors about Mrs. Witherson's. Such as Randall Witherson himself. Rayne dismissed my concerns, but I am not so convinced."

  Those words hit close to the mark, increasing Miri's anger, though Sarah could never know the real reason for it. "And you likely also heard rumors that Will was desperate for funds and was possibly going to sell his body to the highest bidder. Tell me a story I do not know, Sarah, for believe me, I have just about heard them all from the moment I danced with him." She was unable to keep the disgust from her voice.

  "You two do make an unlikely pair, you must admit," Sarah conceded, somewhat embarrassed by the discussion, though refusing to give in on the point. "Your brother was also a rake once. He knows much of these things. He can plot and scheme with the best of them and something like this would not have been beyond him when we wed. He was known as the Earl of Heartbreak, after all. He may yet come to the same conclusion that I already have."

  "If he truly believes that clap, then my brother is an idiot who cannot accept the fact that his strange, odd and deformed sister might truly have found someone to care for her as she is without attempting to change her!" The conflicting emotions Miri had been wrestling with the last two days finally boiled over and - even though she knew it was not right - Miri loosed her tongue on Sarah.

  The other woman drew back, aghast, sensing she had crossed the line this time. "Miri! No! Your brother loves you as you are! But even you must admit that this sudden infatuation with a man whom you have never spoken more than a handful of words to before is suspicious! A man who is so desperate for funds that he is rumored to be selling his body like a common whore! Brook and I are simply worried about you!"

  "Well you, and he if he truly is, need not be!" Miri snapped angrily. "Will knows nothing of my fortune!" She left out any mention of not paying him for his attentions, for that would be a lie and at the moment, she felt a little queasy at that idea. Despite everything, she did not wish to lie to Sarah. "He likes me for who I am! Yes, this is sudden, but only to you who took nearly a decade to sort out her feelings." Miri clenched her fist and brought it to the area over her heart. "He makes me feel, Sarah! For the first time in my life, I can feel emotions as other people do." Her eyes were filling with tears and she hated herself for it.

  "That is no reason to wed the man," Sarah insisted, though she was backing away from her earlier, angry words, once more understanding that she had gone too far. "For all we know, this may be a game to him."

  "Who is talking about weddings?" Miri was aware that she was almost shouting now. "No one! It has barely been a fortnight since Will and I have been courting. If you can even call it that since he has no funds, as you so correctly point out, and I doubt that you or my fool of a brother are taking his attentions seriously, even if he were to offer for me! However, this is no game to him, nor to me! He cares for me!"

  Sarah all but stamped her foot with impatience. "Miri, you need to wed soon, so believe me when I say that Brook and I, as well as your mother, are taking this seriously. Very seriously. I know that you think you are in love with Lord Blackstone, but he is not the man for you. He has awakened something in you, true, and we have all allowed this courtship, such as it is, to continue because we believe he has been good for you."

  "And he has made me more attractive to other men. Men like Randall Witherson, a man you know I detest and a man that Rayne knows very well attempted to maul me! That is what you truly mean, is it not?" Miri all but spat the words. "I don't want other men. I want Will. This is no game for us and while we are far from marriage, there is something between us that is real! It is not because he desires my money because I can assure you, he does not even know if I have any! And if you, my mother, and my dunderheaded brother cannot grasp that fact, then I will remove myself from this household." Miri drew in a deep breath before she delivered her final blow. "There is always Aunt Beanie."

  "Wait, Miri. Please. Do not be rash. There is no reason to leave your home and Brook would be furious with me if I allowed that. It would look bad for all of us if you fled to her home. And to be clear, your brother does not know that I have been championing Randall Witherson, either. He would probably not like it if he did, but he does not know the whole of the situation." There was a sadness and something much like fear in Sarah's eyes.

  "Neither do you," Miri snapped.

  Sarah nodded, something Miri had not expected. "No, I don't. And while I do not agree with your choice of Lord Blackthorne, however noble and proper he might be, I also do not want to see you essentially living alone with only an elderly companion while this courtship, such as it is, continues until it reaches its natural end. We might as well just hand you off to the altar, consign you to poverty, and be done with it."

  Miri snorted, well aware that if Sarah knew about the multiple bank accounts full of funds in Miri's name, she would be locking her away this instant in order to keep her away from Will. "And that is really what this is all about, isn't it? Appearances. Reputation. It has been from the beginning. Ever since I struck Mrs. Witherson's son and was expelled. You want me to wed the man to make some imagined scandal go away. You also wish me to be the proper and perfect wife to him - the sort that you know I cannot be - even though I will be forced to wed so very far beneath my station. This isn't like you, Sarah. What has gotten into you? Will accepts me as I am, and that includes what I can never be. Why can't you?"

  "This family's reputation is only now being repaired," Sarah insisted, ignoring Miri's question. "Another scandal? Or even two if you wed Will and end up in shabby, genteel poverty? Those sorts of scandals will haunt us for generations. Is that what you want? There is more than just us to think of now! There is another generation to come. Do you not want what is best for them? Because I certainly do."

  "It seems as if what I want matters very little to anyone." Miri's heart, the one that had been so full of love and wonder and Will earlier, now ached terribly. "It never has." She did her best not to cry, for she did understand her sister in law's concern, at least to a point. Sarah and Brook were planning on having children, likely a nursery full of them. Any scandal Miri created would haunt those children, especially the girls. But wouldn't marrying a man like Randall Witherson be worse in the end? Miri believed so.

  "That is not true," Sarah insisted again. "I am simply trying to save this family from yet more scandal. I am trying to put the Earl of Heartbreak and all of that nonsense behind us."

  "Scandal that my brother first created by bedding every woman he saw," Miri snapped, tired of this lecture and tired of the fact that her brother had been able to stick his cock wherever he pleased on his path towards Sarah while Miri, who wanted one man in the whole of England, was likely going to be denied the man she thought she might be coming to love.

  "That's not fair!" Sarah protested weakly. "We simply cannot add a fallen women to the ranks of this family. Not if my children are to have decent futures."

  At that, Miri's heart broke for she knew there was no reasoning with Sarah. Something had turned her head completely on this matter, changing her from a lovely and rational woman to a furious harridan. And if there was no reasoning with Sarah, in time, there would be no reasoning with Brook either. Miri loved her brother dearly but he could be just as stubborn as she when he made up his mind about something and Sarah was likely pestering him over the issue both day and night, trying to bring him around to her way of thinking.

  "How do you know I'm not fallen already?" Miri asked before she turned and ran from the room to the sound of her sister in law's shocked gasp.

  At first, Miri didn't know where to go, but then her mind s
ettled long enough and she knew that she could go to the one place where no one would dare to trespass again - especially Sarah. So gathering her skirts and thankful that she had donned a simple dress that morning, Miri escaped to the roof as quickly as she could.

  Among her telescopes, she found solace and peace, just as she always had, but there was now an emptiness here as well, one that had never existed before. While Miri was away from Sarah, she was also away from every other living being as well. Before? That had suited her, but now? It no longer did.

  Sitting down on a chair that a servant had left behind, Miri ran a hand over the smooth wooden surface of the Euler telescope, indicating that nothing had been put away properly up here in days. Once, she would have made certain that everything here was in proper order, and she would have made doubly sure that her beloved Euler was safely tucked away.

  But that was before Will. Before he had fundamentally changed both her world and who she was. Now? She still loved her stars, but they were no longer the most important thing in her life. He was. And that realization made her put her face in her hands and sob.

  Chapter Fourteen

  That was how Will found her nearly a quarter hour later when he came to call upon her for their drive.

  "Claxton let me in," he began by way of greeting, referring to the rather imposing butler that had been in the family's service for years, doing his best to ignore the fact that Miri had been crying, though he prayed that he was not the source of her tears. If she regretted what they had done in his bed, he would never forgive himself. "I was told Lady Raynecourt was indisposed. I think he had been instructed to turn me away, but after a little hesitation, he allowed me inside and directed me to the roof. He asked that I make certain you are well. I take it that there have been some...complications?"

  Instead of replying, Miri simply turned and launched herself into Will's arms as quickly as her leg would allow, catching him so off guard that he nearly stumbled backward with the force of her. "Sarah does not trust you because you are poor," she all but sobbed into his chest, clinging to him tightly. "She thinks you are toying with me and that you do not truly care for me. I am afraid that in time, Rayne will come to see the situation as she does, and I will no longer be allowed to see you."

  Will felt something hollow open up in the vicinity of his chest. This was it then. He had known this moment would come, of course, the moment when he would have to let Miri go. He had simply hoped that it would not be quite so soon. There were still so many more things he wished to do with her, so many more places they could go and time they could spend together. He wasn't ready for this thing between them to be over quite yet. "So you told them about our arrangement." It would, of course, have been the logical thing for her to do.

  Miri shook her head before looking up at him through tear-filled eyes. "No. I did not. I could not. For if I did, that would break your trust. I would never do that. Never."

  "And you would rather your family berate you and question your choices than betray me?" Will was incredulous. No young woman in their right mind, not even one as independent as Miri, would turn on her family in favor a man who had just debauched her and had no plans to wed her.

  "I would." Miri swallowed hard. "For as much as I love my family, you mean just as much to me, Will." She bit her lip and squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, the fist sign of true unease she had ever shown him. "Without you, I no longer feel like myself. I am empty. These telescopes and those stars?" She gestured heavenward. "They mean little to me any longer if you are not with me as well."

  Will didn't even realize he was shaking at first. All he could hear was her sweet words ringing in his ears. She cared for him. Even though she should not care, she did, and that knowledge freed something inside of him. Something he hadn't even known was bound up so tightly that it had been paining him.

  "Miri," he whispered, taking her head in his hands and cupping her face softly. "I should have said this the other night because I very much wished to, but I say it now instead. And I pray that I am not too late. I love you. I think I have from that first moment in your brother's library. But I was not worthy of you then, and while I am still not worthy of you, I can no longer deny that at some point in this convoluted relationship of ours that I fell in love with you. Deeply in love. And I cannot change that."

  Miri's eyes sparkled, and she laughed slightly, the first signs of a smile lighting her lovely face. "Well, that is excellent news, Lord Blackthorne, for early today I came to the conclusion that I love you as well. I tried not to. I did not want to, but I fell in love anyway. And, like you, I cannot change that either. I don't want to."

  Will pulled Miri to him and kissed the top of her head. "What a pair of fools we are, love. Thinking we could play this dangerous of a game with no consequences."

  "There is more." Once again, Miri pulled back. "Though I cannot claim to know where we go from here, there is something that I need to tell you before we go any further."

  "Are you about to inform me that you are a twin like Viscount Underhill and his brother Stephen," Will asked only half-jokingly, "and that there are actually two of you?"

  Miri shook her head. "Worse. I am wealthy. Filthy and obscenely rich. Richer than most peers and well able to hold my own with just about any duke other than perhaps Lord Candlewood."

  In front of her, Will stilled. "How?"

  "Aunt Beanie, as well as my other three aunts, Aunt Wren, Aunt Daisy, and Aunt Megs." She shrugged and her eyes were wide likely afraid that he would walk away from her. He never would.

  "I was unaware that you had that many aunts." Will's head was swimming but he knew that he had to let Miri finish her tale.

  "My Aunt Beanie had three sisters and when she married the Duke of Barnstable, he was so obscenely wealthy that he provided for them in addition to whatever funds their husbands had already left them. My aunts all wed the loves of their lives, but the men they chose were all extremely short-lived. My mother and my sisters could not fathom why my aunts had made such foolish choices in love, so they stayed away, even though they were family."

  Will nodded in understanding, hope still blooming in his chest. Funds of lack of, it changed nothing between them. Not for him anyway. "But you did not. You attend to them, visited them and what not, because you cared for them." He shook his head. "You claim to be frigid and unfeeling, Miri my love, but yet you possess one of the most romantic and generous hearts that I know.

  "My Aunts? They understood me, at least to a degree, in a way that my close family did not." Miri wiped at her eyes with the handkerchief Will offered her. "And when they passed, they left their remaining funds to me." She shrugged and he wished to pull her to him, but not yet. Now was not the time. "I managed to find a bank that was not adverse to taking the money of a wealthy but unwed Society female and invested not only much but wisely as well. Over time, the funds grew. When I took over The Letter from Aunt Beanie, I received a generous stipend in addition to the monies I already had." She gestured to the telescopes that surrounded them. "I lied earlier when I said that my brother replaced the telescope that Sarah broke. He meant to but he could never quite find the time to order it so I replaced it myself."

  Will took the handkerchief from Miri's hand and dabbed at the last remaining tears in her eyes. He hated to see her cry. "You should not have had to do that, you know."

  Miri shrugged again. "Understand that my brother has been in love with Sarah since they were children, but the timing was never right for them. He chased her for over a decade and once he finally caught her? There was nothing else in his life that was more important. She is his world and he is hers. At the moment, they can see no one else beyond themselves. And in time, he will listen to whatever she has to say, whether she is right on wrong on the matter."

  "That I understand," Will replied, gathering Miri close, relishing the feel of her in his arms. "For at this moment, there is nothing I would not do or give to make you happy, love. Nothing."

  "The
n please understand why I did not tell you about my wealth," she replied quietly, her tears fading and her emotions settling. "I have never been comfortable in Society. You see how people, especially gentlemen, treat me and those are their true feelings. But if they knew that I was wealthy? They would fall all over themselves to court me if only to discover just how deep my pockets really are."

  Will was quiet for a moment. "And me? How do you know that I care for you and am not using you for the same reason they would?"

  "Because you already know I have some money or at least access to a great deal of funds." Miri sighed and rested her head on his board chest. He liked her there. It felt right. "You also were going to refuse me had I offered the same amount as Lady Colchester had. I could see it in your eyes that night. So I offered more than she, and yet still you hesitated. Even though you would have accepted the lower amount from Lady Colchester. Between us, even though we joke about the money and this wretched agreement, it has never truly been about either of those things. Because with me, I think the money was never important to you. Not really."

  "No, not for me," he admitted as he stroked her hair. "I cannot deny that I need the funds, Miri. I do. But...I could have given you what you asked for without my heart becoming involved. Had it only been about the money, I would have bedded you the other night with the French Letter in place. No amount of your begging would have changed my mind. But it wasn't about the funds. It really never was. It was about you. It has been from the beginning, though I would never allow myself to admit as much." He sighed. "I didn't expect you, Miri. Truly. I had watched you from afar over the last Season or so, but I never imagined you would welcome my suit. Therefore, I never pressed one. So when you discovered me in the library, it seemed as if I had been handed a gift I could not refuse. I thought that teaching you would be pleasurable, certainly, but I never expected..."