Taking the Earl (Heiress Games Book 3)

by Sara Ramsey

  “No, of course not.”

  “No, you would rather I not offer to help you? Or no, you would like for me to offer?”

  The dryness was gone, replaced with a smile that was meant only for her. He was teasing her. Part of her instinctively wanted to relax into him. She could tease him back. It could all stay light and easy — the way that it was supposed to stay.

  But she was still on edge. Suddenly, it was all too much. How could anyone expect her to visit her grandfather’s grave that night, in front of a boisterous crowd, when she hadn’t gone even once on her own? How could she go there with Max — a man who wasn’t a Briarley, but who would be the next earl anyway if she succeeded in her scheme? How could she flirt with him, and laugh with him, and pretend to enjoy the evening as all of her guests would, when she wanted to bury her head in her pillows and cry?

  Just when she felt herself start to crack open, she looked up into his eyes again.

  There was so much she didn’t know about him. There were so many reasons why she shouldn’t trust him — why this should be a transaction to win Maidenstone, not anything deeper than that.

  But the concern in his eyes was real. The help he’d offered was genuine.

  If she wanted to get through the next few hours, she should probably take all the help she could get.

  “I appreciate the offer, Mr. Vale,” she said. “I’m not sure there’s anything to be done, but will you walk with me?”

  She couldn’t keep the vulnerable note out of her voice. When was the last time someone had walked with her because she needed them, and not the other way around?

  Had that ever happened to her?

  His smile turned softer, taking on a wistful air. “We’re often forced to walk alone, Miss Briarley. I’ve discovered that it’s important to savor the moments when we don’t have to.”

  Later, she would remember this moment. She would try to recreate the quality of his voice, and the way his hazel eyes mirrored everything she felt — grief for the past, tempered by hope for the future, as though he really understood her. As though he was the only one who understood her.

  But in the moment, all she felt was relief that she wouldn’t have to visit her grandfather’s grave alone.

  Cressida touched her brother’s arm. “If you wish to escort Miss Briarley, shall I walk with someone else? Lord Anthony, perhaps?”

  His sister didn’t have the same wistfulness as Max did. She was bright and cheerful — whatever Max had suffered as a youth, it hadn’t touched Cressida in the same way. Lucy had tried to ask her about their childhood while they were with the modiste, but the one trait Cressida definitely shared with Max was evasiveness — she gracefully avoided all talk of the past.

  Still, Lucy was reasonably confident that the girl had never suffered anything particularly bad — or, if she had, she was better than anyone Lucy had ever met at pretending that her life was perfect. There were plenty of people in the ton who liked to pretend that their lives were better than they were, but Lucy thought Cressida was exactly who she seemed to be — a girl excited by her first house party and inexperienced with the probability of heartbreak.

  Max frowned. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea. I wouldn’t want you to form the wrong attachments.”

  Lord Anthony was Thorington’s brother. He was only nineteen, but he was titled, wealthy, and relatively well-behaved — exactly the sort of young man that most matchmaking mamas would approve of. Cressida gave her brother a mock frown. “Who is the right attachment, then? A duke, perhaps?”

  If he knew she was teasing him, he wasn’t amused. “I don’t think you should reach above your station until our claim is settled,” he said. “Too much risk that you’ll get hurt if you reach too high.”

  Cressida shrugged. “Not much risk here compared to what I’ve seen in London, is there?”

  “The risks are different, but it doesn’t mean they don’t exist,” he said.

  “I’m sure I can manage them,” she said, tilting her chin up like every girl who dealt with an overprotective brother.

  Max seemed at a loss. Emma intervened. “I can walk with Miss Vale, if you’d like. And if we happen to walk next to Lord Anthony, all the better,” she added, winking at Cressida. “But I can help Miss Vale to navigate the dangers, if you allow me to chaperone.”

  Trust Emma to solve the problem with little drama. Emma had been flirting with Lord Anthony throughout the party, but she showed no jealousy over Cressida’s interest. Lucy had already suspected that Emma flirted with Anthony to gain practice with men her own age, not because she had a tendre for him.

  Max nodded. “Thank you for your offer, Lady Maidenstone. I fear we’re ill-equipped to deal with the marriage mart.”

  “I can’t say it has much to recommend it,” Emma said cheerfully. “I’m not looking forward to reentering it myself.”

  Lucy had been too distracted by her own grief to think of Emma’s — and Emma was too calm to draw attention to herself. But she took a closer look at Emma’s face. The girl was as serene as always, but there was the barest trace of red around her eyelids. She wore white — an appropriate color for half-mourning. But today, for the first time since the earl’s death, she wore the bright sapphire necklace and earrings that he had given her on their wedding day, rather than the black jet beads she’d often worn as a widow.

  “You have my sympathies, Lady Maidenstone,” Max said. “If you’ll excuse us for a moment, I’ll give Cressida my lecture in private before I turn her loose with you.”

  He took his sister off to an alcove on the side of the hall, whispering something to her that no one could catch. Cressida didn’t sulk or pout the way that most sisters would at such peremptory treatment — she laughed instead, swatting his arm for good measure when he said something that must have struck her as particularly ridiculous.

  “I’m still not sure I approve of your plan,” Emma said quietly.

  Lucy had kept her appraised of the situation over the past two days — it was also in Emma’s best interests if Lucy married Max and kept Maidenstone, since Emma could stay with them as long as she wanted. “It’s too late to second guess it,” Lucy said. “And no one else here seems interested in competing with him for my hand.”

  Emma sighed. “You’re selling yourself short if you marry a stranger whom you barely know and can’t possibly love yet. But you could do worse than a man who treats his sister so well.”

  Lucy suddenly pictured Max with Julia — teasing her, playing games with her, chasing her around the gardens. He treated Cressida with so much kindness. Would he give the same affection to Lucy’s daughter?

  Even though Lucy’s daughter was a bastard, fathered by another man?

  She tamped down the little flare of anxiety. “I hope you find the same, you know.”

  Emma touched the necklace around her throat. “I already had a man who treated me well. But it’s time to move on from that. Do you mind?”

  “Mind what?” Lucy asked.

  “Mind that I’m ready to stop mourning,” Emma said. “You don’t seem ready, but I am.”

  Lucy shrugged. “I’m sure Grandfather didn’t expect you to mourn even this long.”

  The countess smiled, a little sadly. “His last instructions were for me to go off and have adventures — and if I ever came back to Devonshire, to have a drink at the mausoleum and tell him all about them.”

  Lucy laughed. For the first time in a long time, the thought of one of her grandfather’s unusual proclamations only brought her joy, not grief. “That sounds like Grandfather. Promise you’ll have a drink with me when you come back too. If I’m still at Maidenstone, that is.”

  Emma gestured at Max. He and Cressida looked a little more sober now, angled so that they could watch the crowd as he gave her whatever instructions he felt were necessary for her survival with the men of the ton. Lucy found it odd that he would do that now — but, like so many other things she found odd about him, she chose to ignore it. />
  “You’ll be at Maidenstone,” Emma said confidently. “If you prove he’s the heir, he’ll make a good earl. And a good husband and father.”

  “Only if he agrees to marry me.”

  “He’ll agree.”

  Lucy wasn’t so sure. He seemed to want her. He enjoyed her company. That kiss couldn’t have been feigned — even if he was entirely too good at it. And he was kind — not just to her, but to his sister and the servants in equal measure, as though it came from his personality rather than from learned manners. He surely wouldn’t mislead her into thinking that he wanted to marry her if he had no intention of following through with his commitment.

  But there was just enough doubt — about him, about his intentions, about her own heart — to keep her on edge. She’d been so sure of Chapman too. What if she was making the same mistake?

  What if her destiny was to keep repeating the same patterns with different men?

  Emma shook her shoulder. “Stop panicking,” she said firmly. “Have a little faith.”

  Max looked over at Lucy. He winked at her. The gesture should have relaxed her.

  But Chapman used to wink at her across a ballroom.

  “Stop,” Emma said again. “And if faith doesn’t work, try this.”

  She slipped a flask of something out of her basket of flowers and into Lucy’s. “What’s that?” Lucy asked.

  “Whisky. Your grandfather’s suggestion sounded like a jest, but I’ve found a lot of peace by visiting his grave and telling him about my days while sharing a drink with him. If you need a little faith tonight, maybe you could try it yourself.”

  Lucy eyed the flask. Then she looked at Max again.

  Tonight she would see whether he was ready to commit to this life. And if he wasn’t — she would have to consider whether supporting his claim was too big of a risk to take.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Max had thought that the hardest part of their job would be entering Maidenstone Abbey.

  Now it seemed that the hardest part might be finding a way to leave.

  From a purely practical standpoint, he needed to stay as close to Lucy as possible. She was the key to everything — literally, since her chatelaine was dangling from her waist again. If he had any hope of finding the most valuable objects at Maidenstone, it would be through her.

  But emotionally, morally, ethically — Max was in trouble.

  It only took ten minutes to walk to the Briarley graveyard. It sat on a small rise overlooking the gardens, with a stone mausoleum as its main feature. Around the mausoleum were scores of graves. Some were recent, while others were barely recognizable beyond their cracked, sinking stones. No one stood among the graves, but over three hundred people waited outside the cemetery for Lucy’s arrival.

  “The earls are all interred in the mausoleum,” Lucy said as they approached the cemetery. “Except for the first earl — he’s buried in the corner of the cemetery with the brother he killed. The tradition of decorating the graves and performing penance started with him. This is the anniversary of the day he executed his brother and the other monks after they refused to leave the abbey.”

  “Does the village always participate like this?” he asked.

  She nodded. The villagers and estate tenants lined the path to the cemetery, allowing the guests from the abbey to pass through the crowd like water channeled down a riverbed. He and Lucy walked at the head of the long column of houseguests. Lady Maidenstone and Cressida walked behind them, with Lord Anthony and his sisters. Ferguson was behind them, with his wife and sisters, along with Lord and Lady Salford. The rest of the guests trailed in their wake, still boisterous — but even the most clueless of them must have started to understand that this ritual had more significance than a mere party.

  Twenty yards from the cemetery, the villagers on either side of the path started throwing white roses in front of Lucy’s feet.

  It was one of the most beautiful, extravagant, wasteful, wonderful things Max had ever seen.

  Everything fell silent as the flowers rained down. Dusk was approaching. Shadows spread over the fallen petals. The tenants bowed and curtsied as Max and Lucy passed, entirely somber. The unmistakable scent of roses wafted up as he and Lucy trod the blooms underfoot.

  “Briars for the Briarleys,” she whispered to him.

  It felt like a mystical rite. Every previous earl had taken this same path, on nights exactly like this one.

  If he stayed here, with Lucy, they might do it again. He would be the earl, and she would be his countess.

  And their children, someday, would throw roses on their graves.

  It was too much to think about — the idea of little ones, with her dark Briarley eyes and his light brown hair. Those children would never have to worry about being tossed out on the streets if something happened to him. They would grow up here, safe and easy, with the world spread out in front of them for the taking.

  And Lucy….

  He glanced at her. She wasn’t wearing a hat like she usually did out of doors; her hair was pulled back from her face, but most of it fell free, like she was a maiden attending a pagan ritual. Which was, after all, what this resembled. In the failing light, he saw grief etched across her face.

  But when she looked up and caught him watching her, her smile was wistful but real. “Thank you for walking with me,” she murmured, as flowers continued to fall in front of them. “I don’t know that I could have done this alone.”

  He nodded. He had the strangest urge to pull her into his arms and kiss her until she forgot her grief. He could blame it on the flowers, and the setting sun, and the sudden surge of protectiveness he felt for her — this woman who had grown up with everything, and yet seemed so alone.

  But their destination was a graveyard, not a chapel. And the role he was playing would betray her — could very well break her heart in the end.

  And for the first time he wondered if he was going to break his own heart in the bargain.

  They reached the gate. The cemetery had long outgrown its original space, and the far side of the fence had been knocked down to allow for more burials. Anyone could enter the graveyard as they pleased. But the ornate gate remained, with wrought iron vines swirling around the Briarley family crest. It was locked. Lucy fumbled with her chatelaine until she found the right key.

  “When you’re the earl, you’ll keep the key,” she said. “It’s traditional for you to walk through the gate when you visit the graveyard. Would you like to do the honors?”

  She held it out to him. It was still attached to her chatelaine by a delicate length of chain. He should have looked at the other keys while he had the chance — should have examined the chains for their strength, and tried to guess which were most likely to open safes and jewelry boxes instead of tea caddies and cemeteries.

  But she was seducing him, without even realizing it. This woman, this life, this security — he could have it all.

  His hand shook as he slipped the key into the lock. The villagers were unnaturally silent, but he heard whispers from the houseguests. He felt a familiar prickle along his spine.

  Everyone was watching too closely. A job could go wrong in an instant if the victims were given the chance to realize that a fox was in their midst. He had to sell his role hard again — to convince them all that he was there for the earldom, and not for the jewels he would steal instead.

  So he pushed the gate open, letting the key drop back to Lucy’s side without testing the chain. He ushered her through and took his place beside her. He listened attentively as she whispered to him what a new earl should do on the first decoration day after the last earl’s death. He laid the wreath that the gardeners had prepared for him, saying the Lord’s Prayer for a man whom he’d never known — but whom he’d seen, once, on that day when Lord Maidenstone had refused to pay his debts.

  Max’s father was in a pauper’s grave. He didn’t know where to lay flowers for him even if he wanted to.

  He tried
to remember that as Lucy placed her own flowers at the base of the mausoleum. He tried to remember his old grief and what that loss had done to him. If his father had lived, he and his siblings never would have been separated. Max could have pursued his studies. Antonia never would have learned to carry a knife strapped to her thigh.

  Lucy would be fine. She was beautiful, confident, and rich. She would marry someone else and live the life she was accustomed to. And she would forget the thief who had spent a few days deceiving her.

  But after a long moment with her head bowed over the flowers she’d laid, she turned back to face him. Her face was a stoic mask, but her cheeks were wet.

  Her tears were a punch in the gut. He could lie to himself about a lot of things if he had to. But he couldn’t pretend that Lucy would forgive him in the end.

  It was too late for regret, though. She was going to hate him in any case — whether he took the rubies or not, she wouldn’t forgive him for leaving now.

  So he might as well follow through with his plan. There would be plenty of time on the way to America to indulge in regret.

  “Do you want me to take you back to the house?” he asked when she returned to his side.

  “Yes. But we can’t.”

  “It’s your party. You can leave if you want.”

  Lucy frowned. “Don’t tempt me. Someday there won’t be any Briarleys left to do this. But as long as I’m above the ground instead of below it, it’s my duty to remember my ancestors. Your duty, too, if you want to follow through with your claim.”

  She brushed past him, striding purposefully toward the gate. Lady Maidenstone had held everyone else back from entering the cemetery. Lucy ushered her and Cressida through the gate to join Max, leaving Lord Anthony and his sisters behind.

  The guests had started talking, although the villagers who lined the path were still silent. When Ferguson moved toward the open gate, Lucy held up her hand.

  “Enough,” she said, in a voice Max guessed none of the guests had heard from her.