The Earl's Bargain (Historical Regency Romance)

by Cheryl Bolen

  The sun was high in the sky when they strolled up to the gate to Garwick Castle, which did have a moat, but which looked to have dried up centuries earlier.

  They weren't sure where to go once they were within the castle yard, then they saw an old aproned woman with a throng of girls around her.

  "Must be a school trip," Harry muttered.

  They walked across the yard and stood waiting with the group of girls, whom Harry judged to be somewhere between ten and twelve years of age.

  They only had to wait a few moments before the housekeeper opened the huge timber door and welcomed them into the castle, gratefully accepting their shillings.

  She led them to the great hall first and gave accounts of the days when oxen were roasted in the massive fireplace. Despite his childhood fascination with castles, Harry found snippets about the inside of the castle exceedingly dull. When would they get to the interesting things like armor and buttresses? he found himself wondering.

  He was rather amazed at Louisa's interest in the building, but he supposed women liked that sort of thing. He was a bit embarrassed at being the only man in the group.

  Partly out of boredom, partly because he had not forgotten their reason for coming, he was careful to glance down every hallway and into every room, looking for signs of the lord of the castle.

  Nearly an hour elapsed, and no luck yet. If only there were a painting of Lord Tremaine. That should be enough for Louisa to make her identification.

  When they made their way to the second storey, his interest perked. Surely this was the floor where Tremaine resided. Harry continued to eagerly look down each hall and into each room, even if they were not on the tour. He sincerely hoped the housekeeper did not think he was scoping out the place with an eye to burglarizing it.

  Then he realized the foolishness of his idea. The place practically crawled with big, bulky liveried servants. Why would a man need to keep so many strong men in his employ?

  At eleven o'clock in the morning, it was far enough removed from mealtime to give the housekeeper liberty to show the group the castle's massive dining room.

  "The table seats sixty," she said with pride as she led her group into the rose-colored room. She rather reminded Harry of a mother duck leading the way for a trail of ducklings. The room was carpeted, and the smooth walls had been covered with silk damask. Everything was the same soft shade of red. The housekeeper had called it rose. He called it red. Mindful to stand behind the girls so as not to obstruct their view when the housekeeper began her recitation, Harry strolled into the room and stood behind the students. Then he looked up at three huge crystal chandeliers suspended from the ceiling.

  Next, his glance swung to a portrait that hung above the marble fireplace, and a chill sliced into him. His heart began to drum, and he swallowed hard. He began to break out in a sweat. He almost questioned his sanity. Was he actually standing in Garwick Castle, or was he standing in the dining room of Wycliff House in Grosvenor Square a decade earlier?

  For the portrait was the missing portrait of his mother.

  He felt as if her emerald eyes looked down on him. He loosened his cravat. He could almost hear her reassuring voice. Louisa guessed that something was wrong with him. She moved to his side and lay a gentle hand on his arm. "Are you unwell, Harry?"

  He shook his head. "The bloody bastard has stolen my mother's portrait."

  Louisa gasped, her glance shooting to the painting that dominated the room. "She's. . .beautiful," Louisa whispered.

  * * *

  That afternoon and evening, Harry drank with a vengeance. So much that Louisa worried about him.

  She watched him as he sat beside her on the upholstered bench not five feet from the blazing hearth that lighted their parlor. His face took on a gold cast from the light of the fire. His brow was moist with perspiration, and his dark hair was tousled.

  "It was almost like seeing her again," Harry said.

  He wasn't really carrying on a conversation with her, Louisa knew. He was merely thinking aloud.

  "You were very close to your mother," Louisa soothed.

  "Everyone who knew her counted her a friend. She had that way about her. Everyone loved her."

  "With such a disposition as well as beauty, I think she must have had an army of suitors – before she married your father, of course."

  "Her suitors all came before my father. You can be assured once she wed him, she never looked at another man. She was completely devoted to him." His tone sobered. "You know she died but one month after my father died."

  Louisa nodded sympathetically as he continued.

  "She defended him when I berated him for losing everything."

  "At the time I thought perhaps she would have been better off wedding the first man she had been engaged to."

  Louisa's brows lowered.

  Harry gave a little chuckle. "She actually ran off with my father. She had become engaged to a wealthy suitor – she called him George – but had not really been in love with him. Then she met my father and knew she belonged with him, not George."

  Louisa asked, "Is there a possibility Lord Tremaine could be George?"

  He shook his head. "They would have referred to him as Lord Tremaine."

  "Perhaps he had not succeeded to the title until after your parents were married."

  He thought on Louisa's comment for a moment, then hurled his glass into the fire.

  The fire surged and sputtered, then died down to normal.

  Harry turned to her. "You must be right."

  They sat there in silence, Louisa watching light from the fire dance along the strong planes of his face.

  His face grew solemn. "Killing him would give me great pleasure."

  She curled her hand around his arm. "Don't talk like that. There are other ways of reaping vengeance upon him."

  "Such as?"

  "You could expose him for ruining your father."

  "My dear Louisa, there are no laws against taking a man's money and possessions at a gentleman's club."

  She thought some more. "We can steal back your mother's portrait."

  He searched her face from beneath hooded brows. "You would do that for me?"

  "It wouldn't really be stealing," she defended. "The painting belongs to you. Besides, he is a vile man. We don't want Lady Wycliff's portrait in his possession."

  He lifted both of Louisa's hands and kissed them.

  It was all she could do not to throw her arms about his neck.

  She was drinking nothing stronger than warm milk tonight. No more morning-after headaches for her. She watched with worry as Harry continued to drink hour after hour. At midnight she finally persuaded him to come to bed. With one arm around him, she helped him climb the stairs to their room.

  On his own, he staggered the short distance from the room's door to their bed and fell upon it. His eyes were shut and his breathing was deep but steady.

  Louisa closed the door and walked to the bed where she pulled off his boots, then placed a single blanket over him.

  A moment later, wearing her woolen night shift, she slid under the covers beside Harry. As she lay there, a feeling of comfort swept over her. Why couldn't she have been pledged to a man like Harry? How different her life would have been.

  Her hand possessively stroked over the hardened planes of Harry's manly shoulders. She could see herself happily lying beside him for the rest of her nights, but such thoughts – such torturing pleasure – must not be invited. For Harry Blassingame, the Earl of Wycliff, was as far removed from her touch as the stars in the heavens.

  With the Cornish winds howling outside their casement, the smell of salt air flooding their chamber from the half-open window, and the warmth of Harry beside her, she fell into a contented sleep.

  * * *

  It was Louisa who brought tea and elixir to Harry the next morning. Harry was in the same position he had been in when he sprawled on the bed the night before.

  "Can you not close th
e curtain?" he asked, refusing to lift his head from the bed. "The blasted sun's far too strong."

  "As well it should be," Louisa answered. "It is almost noon."

  "Our daylight grows short," he exclaimed, moving to sit up and force down the elixir Louisa offered. Then he laughed at himself. "I was thinking we were still on the road to finding our mysterious lord." He finished drinking and sat the glass on the table beside the bed. "Now, there's no longer a need to make tracks during daylight."

  Louisa stood beside the bed and looked down at him. "Now, I think, we will need night, rather than day, to accomplish our mission."

  He looked puzzled. "What mission would that be?"

  "We're going to reclaim your mother's portrait."

  His lips curved into a smile. "You are a positive vixen."

  She laughed. "I know that's what all you aristocrats say about me."

  He made room for her to come and sit beside him on the bed while he finished his tea.

  It felt perfectly natural for her to be sitting here with a barefooted lord, on a bed, in the village of Falwell, carrying on a conversation about stealing a painting. Everything she did with Harry seemed perfectly natural. As if they were meant to be together. Which, of course, could never really be. Harry was an aristocrat, and she was a bluestocking, and the two did not get on. Add to that the fact Harry didn't really like her. He had made that perfectly clear when he had recovered from his grave illness.

  "How would you propose to gain entrance into the castle at night? I expect the drawbridge will be up."

  She bit at her lip. "I hadn't actually thought of that."

  He looked down at his feet. "Pray, where are my boots?"

  "At the foot of the bed."

  "And who, may I ask, took them off?"

  "I did."

  He looked down at her with a devilish glint in his eyes. "Why did you not remove the rest of my garments while you were at it?"

  "I had no desire to see you without clothes, my lord," Louisa said haughtily.

  A cockiness swept across his face. "I don't believe you."

  "Shall we continue our discussion on how we are to gain entrance to Garwick Castle if the drawbridge is drawn at night?" she asked, standing up and walking to the window, then turning back to face him. "I have determined the reclaiming must take place at night because of the immense size of the portrait. We could hardly escape detection in the light of day."

  "That's true," he said, nodding. "Yet I believe we shall have to devise a way to get into the castle during the day and wait until after the Tremaine fiend has taken dinner, then we'll – I mean I – will have to, ah, reclaim the portrait."

  "Why did you amend your statement, my lord?"

  "I can't possibly let you be a party to the reclamation."

  "Why, pray tell?" she demanded, her eyes narrowing, her voice hard.

  "Because you're a female and because it may be dangerous."

  She would see about that! "Tell me, my lord, how do you propose to get in? Public Day won't come again until next Thursday."

  "I shall have to think on it."

  Chapter 22

  Once Harry had dressed and shaved, he met Louisa downstairs at the Speckled Goose Inn. This morning he declined breakfast but asked for rather strong tea. Since Louisa had already finished her meal, they just sat and talked in the privacy of their parlor.

  "I have decided," Harry began, "not to steal into the castle at night but to go there in broad daylight and demand to talk with this Tremaine."

  "He won't see you if you give him your real name."

  "I have never been thwarted by resistance."

  "But, Harry, you can't draw your sword and go barreling in there. Castle Garwick is not a ship and you have no fellow cutthroats to back you."

  "Neither my men nor me were cutthroats."

  "That is beside the point. You saw for yourself all those brutes he obviously keeps for protection. As large as you are, I daresay, they are larger."

  Harry lowered his brows and took another sip from his mug of strong tea. "You have not changed my mind, you know."

  "Promise me you won't do anything drastic until we talk it over."

  "And what do you term drastic?"

  "Forcing yourself into Lord Tremaine's chambers when he has refused to see you."

  Harry looked into his cup, his eyes inscrutable. "He'll see me."

  She moved to get up. "Let's go."

  With a firm hand on her arm, he held her back. "Forgive me if I don't take you this once, Louisa."

  She sat back down and patted his arm. "I understand. It's a matter that truly doesn't concern me."

  He stood.

  "If you're not back in ninety minutes, I shall have the castle stormed," she warned.

  He drank the remaining tea, kissed the top of her head and left.

  For the first time since their journey had begun, Louisa picked up her pen and began to compose one of Mr. Lewis's essays.

  * * *

  It was surprisingly easy for Harry to get in to see Lord Tremaine. He merely presented his card – his real card – to the butler and said he needed to see Lord Tremaine on a matter of a personal nature.

  Less than half an hour later he was face to face with the man he blamed for his parents' deaths.

  Wearing a silken robe though the afternoon sun squinted in the room's small arch-shaped windows, Tremaine sat on a silk brocade sofa in the library. He looked much as Louisa had described him except that Harry had difficulty calling a man distinguished who lounged on sofas in silk robes. Harry could see that he was tall, even if he had not risen when Harry entered the chamber.

  Tremaine looked up at Harry, a bland expression on his aging face. "I see that you have found me."

  Harry refused to sit where Tremaine indicated. Planting his booted feet in front of Tremaine, he said, "You thought to get away with your cheating schemes?"

  "But it wasn't I who cheated."

  "It was you who bankrolled your pawn, Godwin Phillips, may he burn in hell."

  Tremaine laughed. "It does me good to see so much hatred in you. Now you know how I felt toward your father when he stole Isobel from me."

  "My father never did a hateful thing in his life. All he did was love my mother – as she loved him."

  "She loved me once," Tremaine said.

  Harry shook his head. "Never, George. She told me so."

  Tremaine smashed the crystal goblet he was holding into the stone floor. "You lie."

  "Had she loved you, she would have married you."

  "She loved me until Robert--"

  "She never loved you." The words gave Harry a perverse satisfaction.

  Tremaine thrust his head into profile. "Believe what you like." Then he turned back to face Harry, devilment in his gray eyes. "While you're simmering in hatred for Godwin Phillips."

  "I hate Phillips more for what he did to his young wife than for what he did to my father." He fisted his hands and walked closer to Tremaine. "It is you I hate for what happened to my father."

  Tremaine laughed. "I have no fight with you. After all, you have much of Isobel in you."

  "Then if you have no fight with me, allow me to buy the Grosvenor Square House back."

  Tremaine thought for a moment. "How much are you willing to pay for it?"

  "Twenty-five thousand pounds is more than a fair price."

  Tremaine laughed. "Double that, and it's yours."

  "The house and everything that was in it?"

  "For fifty thousand pounds, yes."

  "Good," Harry said. "You will have the money within the month." Then he did something that was repugnant to him. He bent forward and offered the vile man his hand.

  They shook hands. A gentleman's agreement.

  Then Harry said, "I'll just fetch my mother's portrait now," as he began to move from the room.

  Tremaine rose. He was as tall as Harry. "You'll do no such thing."

  Harry turned. "But we shook on it. The house and all
that was in it."

  "I. ..I," Tremaine stammered, "I meant all that is in it."

  "You know the portrait rightfully belongs to me."

  "My young man, I have never done things in my life because they were right."

  That was the last straw. Harry's fist flew into Tremaine's jaw.

  Then Harry, with fists at the ready, was poised for the man. Instead, Tremaine's hands flew to his jaw, and he saw blood on his hand and screamed like a woman.

  Footmen, who obviously were hired as sentries, scurried into the room with swords drawn.

  Harry held up his arms. "I am unarmed, and I shall leave peacefully."

  Tremaine made sure his footmen saw Harry all the way to the drawbridge.

  * * *

  Louisa was still sitting in the parlor writing by the light of a candle when Harry returned. When she saw him, her face alighted and she put down her pen. "Oh, Harry, thank goodness you're back! I was getting worried."

  He cocked his head and peered at her with those glowering eyes of his. "No Harry Dearest?"

  She could feel the blush climb up her cheeks like smoke rising in a chimney. He had heard her the day of his recovery.

  "Why you. . .you utterly wretched, wicked, vile aristocrat!"

  "Calm yourself, Louisa."

  "Don't you dare call me Louisa!"

  He placed both hands upon her shoulders and butted his forehead to hers. "I told you I refuse to call you by that man's name."

  She brushed aside some of her anger. "You didn't get the painting, did you?"

  He shook his head and lowered himself onto the padded bench nearest the fire. "He did agree to sell me back Wycliff House -- for twice what it's worth."

  "But not the portrait?"

  "Not the portrait," he said.

  "Then we will just have to reclaim it."

  "I – not we – Louisa. The man's quite deranged. I don't want you anywhere near that castle."

  "You should know me well enough by now to know that you cannot dictate to me."

  "If you want your money, you will do as I say."

  "That's not fair. We found your man. You cannot renege on my money."