The Dragon Earl

by Jade Lee

  He nodded. "Marie used to play. Badly, I thought. Mama tried to teach me but I wouldn't sit still long enough. In fact, I tried to bribe Marie to practice for me, but she was too little." His gaze centered on his bride-to-be's blue eyes. "Evelyn would know that story. She heard it the day before we were betrothed. We sat in that room over there, and I ate all the tarts. Well, almost all of them."

  "You tried to get me to sit on one, but I was too fast."

  "For that trick, yes."

  Her face abruptly tightened as she recalled. "Jacob was a horrible boy." He did not argue.

  She bit her lip, looking at him with an expression he couldn't read. Then she stepped closer and leaned against the edge of the harpsichord close enough that he could see the flecks of gold in her blue eyes. "What happened?" she asked.

  He blinked, startled into stillness. "When?" In truth, he knew exactly what she asked, but he hoped to delay the in­evitable questions.

  "I heard almost nothing, all those years ago. My mother came into the nursery and told me that I was to wed a differ­ent boy. That was it. Christopher told me later that you had died."

  He frowned. "You didn't ask your mother for the details?" She shook her head. "Mama would not know them, and Papa did not care." She grimaced. "He did not like you very much."

  Jie Ke frowned and tried to remember, but his mind was blank. "Why?"

  "I believe you tortured one of his dogs."

  Jie Ke's eyes widened as a memory whispered back. "A spaniel. We were playing in the parlor, and he bit me."

  "Papa said you tried to kill it."

  "I did not!" The response was automatic, but he wasn't so sure. His memory was sketchy. "I held his mouth closed, I think. He whimpered. That was all I did. I held his mouth shut. That is how you teach dogs."

  Evelyn shook her head. "That is not what my father said."

  He had no answer, so he kept silent. If anything, this was the one thing the abbot had taught him: when to keep his mouth shut. It had taken him nearly a decade to learn.

  "So if you know what a harpsichord is," she pressed, "why do you sit on top of it?"

  He straightened his spine and assumed his most knowl­edgeable tone. "To meditate requires a loftiness of mind and body."

  Her eyes sparkled as she scanned the room. "Somehow I doubt that was meant literally. Otherwise you would have monks climbing tables, ladders, even stone pillars just to sit and . . . and . .. What exactly do you do?"

  We try not to fall asleep. "We quiet our minds for the diffi­cult climb to Heaven and immortality. And to inform you of the truth, the temple monks are often found on top of pillars or tables."

  His bride-to-be's head tilted sideways. "I cannot tell if you are making a joke at my expense or if you truly believe that." She leaned forward. "Do you even know what monks do?"

  "You are back to thinking I am a liar." The idea depressed him much more than it should.

  "I merely wish to understand."

  "Why?" The word was startled out of him. He could hardly credit that any woman wanted to understand his reli­gion. It was unusual enough in China, where monks were revered. He couldn't imagine it in a Christian English­woman.

  "If you really are Jacob, then you will know why." She frowned. "Or perhaps not. Jacob was such a thoughtless boy."

  Was I? "I am not Jacob. I am Jie Ke, and I... I don't re­member a great deal from our first meeting. I was a boy and you were .. ." He looked to his hands trying to sort through his thoughts. "You were a girl who was too proper to be fun."

  She laughed, but the sound had no humor. "Jacob called me stupid—too stupid to be a countess."

  He stared, the memory not settling well in his spirit. "I do not recall that."

  She looked at him for a long moment, then finally sighed as she pushed away from the harpsichord. "You are right. You are definitely not Jacob." And with that, she turned and walked away. But just before she left the room, she paused and looked over her shoulder. "You will have your money in the morning. Good-bye, Jie Ke."

  He watched her disappear, watched the sway of her skirt as she moved and the proud tilt of her head. Then he closed his eyes and resolutely wiped her from his thoughts. Next he wiped the memory of her smile from his mind. He erased her sparkling eyes and the curve of her Lips. He even pushed aside her trim waist and pleasant height. He spent the next twenty minutes repeatedly suppressing all thought of her, but it was like trying to suppress a landslide. He could not climb a mountain when the image of her beauty stole the ground right out from beneath his feet.

  And so he gave up. Sometimes the body over-whelmed the mind and had to be indulged. Unfor-tunately, he was not alone—neither here nor in his bedroom, which he shared with Zhi Min and Mei Li. This meant there was nothing he could do to alleviate his body's lustful condition. He had to sit and hope the folds of his robe covered his ailment.

  He sighed. A dispossessed English earl in saffron monk's robes sitting on top of a harpsichord trying to hide an erec­tion? This was not the homecoming he had imagined.

  Chapter Three

  "What are you doing?!"

  Evelyn hunched her shoulders over the lockbox, but she didn't jump. She had every right to be in here. Besides, Christopher wasn't her husband yet. It nonetheless took everything she had to straighten her spine and slowly turn to face her fiancé.

  "Christopher," she said calmly. "I thought you had gone to London with all the other men."

  "I had," he said as he shut the doors to her father's library. They now had total privacy, since everyone else in the house had gone to bed. The room abruptly felt intimate and a little confining, especially since Christopher was glaring at her as if she were stealing the family silver. Except she was in her home and it would be her silver.

  Christopher crossed his arms over his chest. "I decided my father could adequately handle the legal side. I was not com­fortable leaving you—or anyone—alone with that imposter."

  She nodded slowly. "Sensible, I suppose, but I really don't feel in any danger from them. Foreign or not, they're still monks."

  "They pretend to be monks," he said as he crossed the room to her side. "We have no idea what they really are."

  True enough. She looked up as he joined her at her father's desk. This close, he towered over her. She had to tilt her head to look up—into his nose, which, frankly, wasn't an awe-inspiring sight. "Christopher, do you think you could sit down—"

  "What are you doing with your father's strongbox?" He twisted and pushed at the metal lid. She hadn't had time to open it, so it didn't move.

  She bristled inside at his presumption. How dare he in­trude upon her family's financial affairs! But she swallowed the response. He was to be her husband, and this concerned him. So she put on a congenial smile and gestured to the box. "I intend to pay our Chinese monks to leave."

  His head jerked back to look at her. Fortunately, he had just eased himself down on the desk, so she could now look him directly in the eye. "You believe he's a charlatan, then?"

  She shrugged. "I don't know what to believe, but I have made a bargain with him. Fifty pounds, and he will leave for­ever."

  "Fifty pounds!"

  She tightened her grip around the key in her hand. "It is worth that much to be rid of him."

  "But my father will handle this. I doubt it will even reach the courts."

  "That will take time and money." She stepped forward, more at ease with him now that she could see his eyes with­out putting a crick in her neck. "It's much better to pay the monk off now and be done with it. We might even be able to get married before all the guests leave. We could still have a proper wedding." She couldn't disguise the note of longing in her voice. It galled her that Jacob or Jie Ke or whoever he was had already robbed her of a proper English wedding suitable to a future countess. Her mother-in-law would be tsk-tsking at her for the rest of their lives!

  Christopher's eyes narrowed on the lockbox. "I don't like the idea of giving in to such tactics. Allow
one charlatan to take advantage of us and a dozen more will appear in Chinese hats claiming something else."

  She arched her eyebrow just as his mother had taught. "I hardly think that likely. Besides, we can tell everyone that things were settled in the proper fashion. Or that you fright­ened him away. Whatever you like, so long as he leaves."

  He sighed, his back's rigidity slowly easing as he lowered his head toward her. "What if he returns for more?"

  She shrugged and lifted her face to his. Would he kiss her? He frowned instead. Chris didn't like her to be so easy with him, so familiar. A countess had to be wooed, he said. "I have told him that this is it. If he returns, we will lock him in gaol. Besides, by that time we will be properly married."

  Christopher nodded, his smile back in place. They were do­ing this dance a lot lately: his press to touch—not because he wanted her, but because he was testing her. The minute she tried to accept his advance, she failed as a future countess. It was infuriating. She knew that this was what happened be­tween many men and women—that men should always want, and women should always resist—but it galled her nonetheless. Why was she always the one who had to maintain propriety? When did she get to escape from the constant vigilance of a countess-to-be?

  Meanwhile, Christopher's expression became severe. "The tide is tricky business. There can be no doubt. We wouldn't want our son to be in constant threat of being disinherited."

  She actually giggled at that thought—a nervous whinny of anxiety which she abruptly cut off. They were having a diffi­cult enough time getting through a wedding ceremony. The thought of having a son who worried about a tide he wouldn't inherit for decades was just too much to contemplate. "You are looking a long way off, Christopher."

  "That," he said soberly, "is a prospective earl's job. Some­thing, I might add, that Uncle Reggie was woe-fully unable to do. Whoever heard of an earl wandering off to China, for God's sake? What a harebrained, irresponsible—"

  "Yes, yes," Evelyn interrupted before Christopher got too deeply into his rant. It was usually the earl, his father, that ram­bled on—and with a great deal of choler—about his brother's irresponsible, un-English pastimes. But Chris was known to follow his father's example on occasion, so she needed to dis­tract him now. "Do you have any money? I would rather not dip into Mama's kitchen money, but if I need to—"

  "Hmm?" He took hold of her hands, entwining her fin­gers with his. "Oh, the fifty pounds. Are you sure you need to give him that much?"

  She nodded. "It is the amount we agreed upon."

  "And you can be sure he knows how to count English money," he groused.

  "Er, yes. Though he did ask if that was a large amount."

  Christopher released a quick bark of laughter. "Playing dumb, no doubt. As if he were fooling anyone." He quieted, his gaze steady on her face as he tightened his grip, pulling her inevitably closer. "How much do you need?"

  She swallowed. "I believe my pin money plus father's strongbox will leave me five short." She didn't know for sure because she hadn't opened it yet.

  Christopher remained silent for a long moment. In the end, he dropped his forehead to hers. "Leave your pin money alone. And your father's strongbox. I will pay."

  "But—"

  He pressed a finger to her lips. "Didn't men once pay a price for their brides?"

  She lifted her chin such that his finger slipped away. "It was called a bride price, and that's a Jewish custom, I believe."

  He shifted his touch so that he could lift her face even higher. "Whatever it is called, I shall pay it and be grateful if it means we can finally be wed." And with that he kissed her.

  Christopher's mother had made it clear that once they were affianced, Evelyn could allow him the occasional pressing of Ups. But no more than that, and no more than once a week. Since they did not get their wedding kiss, Evelyn thought this ought to be allowable. Besides, she was tired of measuring out kisses like they were alms for the poor. She lifted her face to his and allowed a gentle meeting of mouths. But soon the pressure became harder, and his tongue teased at the seam of her lips.

  A thrill of excitement slipped down her spine. They had kissed like this twice before, once on the ballroom terrace the evening their wedding date had been announced—after the party guests had departed, of course—and once again a few nights ago when he had arrived for the prewedding activities. Just as now, the pair had found themselves unexpectedly in private, and just as now, Chris had slowly pulled her into his embrace and possessed himself of her mouth.

  She opened herself to him—clearly not what his mother had in mind—and she felt a quickening in her heartbeat, a secret thrill at this tiny bit of sexual daring. He thrust his tongue inside her mouth and wrapped a hand around her waist, drawing her even tighter to him. Her back arched, her head fell back, and her eyes fluttered closed. But she couldn't stop her gasping choke at the awkward position of her neck, and she pushed against his shoulders as she tried to straighten up.

  "Chris—"

  "Evie," he murmured against her lips, then kissed her again.

  He sounded so passionate in his breathless exclamation that she almost smiled. He brought his free hand up to cradle the back of her head, so the gagging problem was eliminated and her neck muscles relaxed. Her own hands rolled across his shoulders, delineating their breadth from collarbone to the outside of his arms.

  Her heartbeat was speeding up. Evelyn's own mother had warned her this might happen. There were no tingles like the ones Maddie whispered about, but there was a kind of warmth from where his hands touched her. Actually, it felt like a sweaty warmth in her hair. Christopher did have large hands, so he was covering a lot of her scalp; a certain warmth would stand to reason.

  His mouth broke from hers and he seemed to hover for a moment over her lips. She felt him exhale, a slight huff that breezed across her lips before he touched his forehead to hers. "Are you afraid of passion, Evie? Afraid of our wedding night?"

  Afraid? She almost laughed. The idea of finally allowing herself the freedom to explore her passions as a married woman was the secret dream of her heart. It was her night­time fantasy as she counted out the days to her wedding. But Christopher was a childhood friend. They had spent so much time together, he felt like a brother. The idea of becoming passionate with him seemed . . . improper. But she could hardly tell him that, especially since she longed for intimacy. It was much easier to focus on the difficult arch in her back and the way her neck strained in this position. "Christopher," she said. "Let me stand, please."

  "Hmm? Oh yes." He pulled back and helped her attain her full height. Then they stood face-to-face while the silence stretched between them. He seemed to expect her to say something, but Evelyn had little idea what he wanted. What would a proper wife say?

  "I have known you forever, Chris," she finally stated. "You were—are—the man I'm going to marry. The . . . um . . . details of our marriage weren't very . . . um . . ."

  "Real?"

  She nodded. "Yes, they weren't real until now. I just... I mean . . . It's all been so unsettling with Jacob returning and all."

  His gaze abruptly sharpened. "You can't possibly believe that he's Jacob! I thought you said—"

  "No, no," she cut in quickly, though in her heart she won­dered why she'd said that. "It doesn't matter anyway. He's taking the money and disappearing." She frowned and shifted her stance so that there was another inch of separation be­tween them. "Is that something Jacob would do, you think? Come here to get money, then leave?"

  Christopher frowned. "Of course not. He was a wild boy, to be certain. Always moving, always with some plan about something. But he was honorable enough. Honest about. . . well, about the big things." A fond smile flitted across his fea­tures. "There were those cherry tarts we stole from Mrs. Littleton. And the cows we pushed over—you know, when they were sleeping. Boyish pranks, but certainly nothing like this. And he wouldn't take money to throw over his tide." His gaze abruptly focused back on h
er. "Certainly not for a paltry fifty pounds. He was much smarter than that."

  She smiled, her breath easing in her chest. "See? That proves it then. He can't be Jacob." Then she impulsively reached for Chris's hands, holding him so that they touched palm to palm. "But how do you think he knows all those de­tails? Thomas said he remembered a great many details of their time together. And the things he said to us. . . Could Jacob really have survived an attack and then, injured or dy­ing, told everything to his man?"

  Christopher grimaced. "Well, that's an ugly thought. Quite depressing, really, that Jacob would have spent his last days with a charlatan."

  "But that is what we're saying, isn't it? How else could this man know so much?"

  Christopher locked eyes with her, and she could see his discomfort. In the end, he looked down at his lap. "I don't know how to find out the truth, Evie," he confessed in a muted whisper. "My father claims he will handle everything, and I'm sure the tide is secure, so you needn't worry on that matter. It's just that.. ." He raised his eyes to her. "Ask me about sheep husbandry, about wheat crops and the repair of thatched roofs. I have answers galore. But how to make a man confess to a crime? How to make a Chinaman tell us what re­ally happened to Jacob? Short of beating him to a bloody pulp, I haven't the foggiest."

  "That is a task for a Bow Street Runner, not a future earl," she agreed.

  He nodded. "I suggested as much to my father, but. . ." He shrugged. "You know my father. He has no interest in details, just results. The tide will be secure, and this mad En­glish Chinaman will be gone." He abruptly pressed a quick kiss to her lips. "You and my fifty pounds will see to that." Soberly he added, "I will give him the money, you know. I won't have you meeting that man alone. It's not safe."

  She straightened and her tone hardened, but she kept her eyes soft. This at least was familiar ground between them. Just like his father, he could easily turn pompous and dictatorial. But Evelyn had spent a good deal of time watching the countess manage the earl. She knew just what to do. She smiled sweetly but did not waver in her stance. "This con­cerns me as much as you, Christopher."