The Earl Next Door: The Bachelor Lords of London

by Charis Michaels

  “Trying to scare you, was I?” He rounded on her. “My best work? I’ll show you my best work!” She had not moved from the ledge of the fountain and he dropped to one knee in front of her. Reaching up, he cupped her face and pulled her in for a hard kiss. He was bullying her, trying to make her feel vulnerable and cautious.

  He failed at first touch, now as then. How did she manage to diffuse his anger into heat the instant his lips met hers?

  He moaned, and surged up, sitting beside her on the fountain again and gathering her into his arms. She fell against him, and for one precious instant, kissed him in return. The easy familiarity with which they joined lips was another layer of delight; their kisses had a rhythm distinctly their own. She indulged in it a moment more and then let out a whimper. She pulled back, closing off. Her expression became remote, her posture distant. Her eyes were very sad, indeed.

  He swore again and pushed himself away from the fountain. He stalked away.

  Piety’s most urgent point was not that she had stopped the kiss, but why.

  “Did you, or did you not,” she demanded, “just say: ‘Promise me, Piety, that you won’t let them touch you. Not one finger.’ Is that what you said?”

  “I had only just told you to stand up to your mother,” Falcondale said defensively. “What I said about the Limpetts is more of the same. You should stand up to all of them.”

  “Forgive me if I interpreted the bit about my mother as encouragement,” she replied, rising off the bench. “A cry for confidence. But to have you wheeze on about protecting myself from these men?”

  “Mind yourself, Piety. I did not wheeze.”

  “You have no idea of the threat these men pose; furthermore, you don’t want to know. You want me but not enough to do anything about them. So please. Do not try to go it halfway. It’s not enough.” She looked down at her wrinkled dress and gave her bodice a yank. There would be no hiding this interlude from Jocelyn; they’d managed to tear the muslin. She pulled and patted, keeping her hands busy, trying to maintain composure, while he stood there. Saying nothing. Watching her.

  Promise me, he had pleaded. She shook her head. It was enough to make her ill. Physically ill.

  “I warned you against the Limpetts,” he said through clenched jaw, “because I do not wish you unpleasantness. Surely you must know that. I want you to be happy.”

  “Fine. Wish me well. Tell me to be happy. Kiss me to distraction, even. But do not suggest that you care if another man touches me.” She glared at him, and he had the decency to look miserable.

  “I understand.” He gave curt nod. “To kiss you suggests that we—”

  “Forget the kiss. It was never about the kiss. It was your words! Don’t you see, Trevor?” She closed the space between them and rose up, inches from his face. “You wish for me to fend off the Limpett brothers? I will do it. I was always going to do it, even before I met you. But you have made no claim to me. Whatever happens with the Limpetts lives or dies by my own wits and will. I’m not going to keep myself from them as a favor to you.”

  “Not a favor to me. Do it for yourself!”

  “But that’s not what you said.”

  “I’ve explained to you why I cannot be your savior in this, Piety.”

  “I don’t want you to be a savior. But don’t profess to care what the Limpetts do to me while you’re running the other direction. Do not acknowledge that I am in a rough spot and then flippantly bid me good luck sorting it all out!”

  “Running the other way, am I? I have had no solitude for the last fifteen years. No diversions. No interests. No rest, for God’s sake. From the moment I finished university, I was bridled by necessity, by obligation, and yes, by love. My mother was helpless, or at least helpless in her own mind. To her way of thinking, it was me or total despair and certain death. So there I remained—at her bedside, or hovering over her in the privy, or in the kitchens, walking her up and down the street. Dutifully, painfully—and yes, after a while—resentfully. I cleaned soiled linens. I brushed the jam from her hair. I read the same bleeding romantic drivel to her again and again. I relocated to another country on the vain hope that she could simply draw breath.”

  He turned away, and Piety watched him walk the distance of the solarium and then turn back, pacing toward her. He looked at everything and nothing; his expression was trapped misery.

  She said, “I did not know the extent to which you cared for your mother.”

  He stopped beside a tall, ceramic urn and grabbed the top of it. He looked inside. He rested his forehead against it, staring at the floor. “It wasn’t her fault.”

  “You did not suggest that it was her fault.”

  “The next bit? The next bit was entirely my fault.” He left the urn and turned to the foggy glass wall of the solarium, speaking to the garden beyond. “In the name of money and boredom, I allowed myself to be drafted into the service of a man who would kill us both if I made one false move. I was a party to violence, blackmail, threats. I managed enough gold on his behalf to support a flotilla of vices, many of which I watched destroy the lives around me.”

  “The landlord?”

  He scoffed. “Landlord? Slumlord is more accurate. And it was my duty to resolve his cock-ups and keep the lot of us from execution by the Sultan.

  “Summons in the middle of the night: What do we do with the bodies, Tryphon? Summons on Sunday: Parents run off and their children have nowhere to go; what do we do with them, Tryphon? Summons every hour of the day: Broken privy, broken floorboards, broken stairs—yes, it is more common than you think! Not to mention, a hornet’s nest of underworld thugs to keep from strangling each other. It was nothing short of a juggling act in the end. I managed Straka’s empire from the kitchen table of our villa so I could be near my mother. When Straka’s errands called me out, Joseph or our maid sat with her. Between her demands and Straka’s needs, I worked, quite literally, around the clock. I slept when I could.

  “This is but a small picture of my former life, Piety,” he said lowly, turning to face her. “A small picture. When my mother finally died, I stayed on with this man, Janos Straka, because I could not devise a reason for him to let me go. I had no ambition toward the earldom, but thank God it fell to me. The title impressed Straka enough to release me from his service. Freedom, just like that. Finally. It ignited a selfishness in me, a detachment from all humanity that you may never understand. And I clung to it. I am clinging to it now.

  “I don’t want a wife to support. I don’t want children to look after. I don’t even really want any well-meaning friends. I am entirely finished with the life-draining work of feeling charitably toward anyone else.

  “I cannot—I will not—obligate myself. Not even to you.” He took a step toward her. “Regardless of how beautiful you are. Or charming. Or clever. Or how proficient at chess. Regardless of how much I want to toss you over my shoulder and haul you to my bed until the middle of next week.” He looked away. “Or how heartbreaking your situation. I simply cannot.”

  She stared at him, tears filling her eyes. The bitterness of his pain and frustration was palpable in the solarium, a chilling cloud, covering the sunlight. Add to that her own frustration. The futility of her argument. Even now, he did not comprehend why she was angry. He hadn’t understood a word of what she had endeavored to say.

  Slowly, she turned away.

  He was the first to speak again. “Perhaps I should have explained my attitude weeks ago, before it came to this: rattling the walls of your lovely solarium with my resentment. But my detachment was meant to go both ways. I wanted no part of anyone else’s problems or burdens; in return I vowed to keep my own problems to myself. I never wished to trouble you with the sordid details of my lost youth, as it were.”

  “You mistake me for someone who runs from the pain of others. I am happy to share your burdens. I wanted to hear.”

  “But I am not happy to share yours. As has been made painfully apparent today.”

 
“Then let us simply say good-bye.” She quickly swiped away her tears. “At last, what you’ve wanted. I have much larger problems ahead.” She held out her hand to shake, just as she’d done the first time they met.

  He smiled at her hand and took it. With his other hand, he topped his first, holding her hand with both of his own. “You should know that I’ve decided to leave the country, even without selling the house,” he said, solemnly. “I’ll be gone—sailing to Ottoman Syria—by the time you return from Berkshire.”

  She hadn’t thought her heart could sink any lower, but it did, dropping from her aching chest to the pit of her leaden stomach. She nodded and tried to retract her hand. “Good for you. More of what you wanted.”

  He squeezed her hand and then replaced it, gently, to her side. “I’ve hired a house agent to take over the advertisement and sale of the house, but I’ve told him that you and your men should have the freedom to work on or around the premises. I will do as you’ve bade and hire another architect for you. He can take over my work on the stairs.”

  “Thank you.”

  Neither made a move to leave, but Piety gestured to his hat on the counter and his coat on the fountain pike. His footsteps echoed in the glass room and the area of her chest that formerly contained her heart.

  Horrible, she thought as she watched him. The entire afternoon had been horribly contentious. And blameful. And sad. And now to part ways like combatants?

  “My lord,” she called after him.

  “Please call me Trevor,” he said. “I loved—” He stopped and shook his head, starting again. “It was nice when you said it, and what could it possibly matter now?”

  “Trevor.” She tried his name. “I want you to know that I’ve loved every single thing about England since I arrived. Even you. Thank you for . . . well, thank you.” She left it at that.

  He didn’t answer—merely bowed formally and backed away. When he got to the door he raised a hand to wave but did not look back.

  Like a fool, she waved in return, a gesture he would never see.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Berkshire was a storybook setting come to life. Green hills with gently rounded crests bordered wide, fertile valleys, cut by swiftly moving streams, as clear as glass. Tidy stone walls marched across the horizon, hemming in fat sheep. Swathes of wildflowers fringed the roadside, the hillock, the mossy stream bank.

  It caught Piety by surprise—this quiet, pastoral beauty—partly because her companions seemed wholly unmoved by it, and partly because she never expected to love any place more than she loved London. But the orderly bustle and stately gray-and-gold architecture of town was nothing compared to the serene, green dominion of the country.

  When the marchioness’s carriage lurched to a stop in the circular gravel drive of Garnettgate’s magnificent manor house and the doors were pulled wide by nervous staff, the sight of rolling green parkland nearly took Piety’s breath away.

  The very broadness of it captivated in the same moment it dazed. It was no more than a field, really, a pasture—but so vast a field. Up and down it went, like the surface of a churning sea. The green was endless and occurred in every shade, from the paleness of a caterpillar’s belly to the deep emerald of a pine bough.

  “Stunning,” Piety whispered, drifting toward the hedge that separated the garden from the rising landscape.

  “The paddock?” Jocelyn asked, passing with two hand-held traveling cases.

  Piety nodded, not taking her eyes off the landscape.

  “Not half bad, I suppose.” Jocelyn laughed. “I shouldn’t jest. No proper Englishwoman would diminish the beauty of the Berkshire green. It warms me that you are impressed.” She stepped beside Piety and breathed deeply. “Does it remind you of home?”

  “Not at all. America is beautiful, certainly, but the landscape and vegetation is very untamed. Savage in comparison. This looks peaceful. Was it cultivated to sprawl in such an orderly rectangle, or is this the hand of God?”

  “The land was cleared centuries ago, I’m sure, for crops and livestock.”

  Piety nodded. “I’ve never seen so much green.”

  They both laughed, and Jocelyn tucked her hand around Piety’s waist, “What a sweet girl you are. England would be glad to have a flower such as you to liven up our greenness. Ah, but here is the marchioness. She will expect a fuss about the house and certainly the gardens. Let us not forget to carry on.”

  “The house is lovely, too, of course,” Piety said, looking at the stark façade of the imposing building. “I cannot believe she owns all of this and yet she rarely visits. London is delightful, but this rivals even the loveliest park or mansion in town.”

  As country homes went, Jocelyn informed Piety, the manor itself was not overly large. But to Piety, the Palladian-style house was every inch as solid and austere as a gothic castle. Piety’s childhood holidays had been spent at the family’s estate in Rhode Island. The Summer House, as they called it, was known up and down the East Coast for its towers and turrets. It made an impression, certainly, but remembering it, Piety thought how grandiose and almost garish it seemed compared to stately, stoic Garnettgate.

  “How lovely your home is, my lady,” Piety told the marchioness, trailing behind her to the front door. “Like a storybook castle.”

  A footman raced to beat them to the door but failed.

  The marchioness harrumphed. “With useless storybook servants.” She waited impatiently for the darting footman. “Did a groom not ride ahead to alert them of our arrival? And here I stand, knocking on my own front door like a peddler!”

  She squinted at Piety. “Never you worry. I’ll have the lot of them whipped into line by the time the Americans arrive. Livery. A proper receiving line along the carriage drive. Standards flying. It is nuisance to reach the country, but I’ve stayed away too long, and now look at the state of things. I do hope Miss Baker is up to the task of advising me as we set things to rights.”

  “It already appears perfect to me,” said Piety.

  “Yes, but you live in a slum, so how could you possibly . . . Ah, here we are!” she said, as the door creaked open to a herd of wide-eyed, scrambling servants.

  By early afternoon, they had settled into comfortable rooms, and Piety indulged in her first warm bath since she’d sailed from New York. The marchioness housed Jocelyn in a small guest room adjacent to Piety’s, a true generosity, considering there were ample rooms for staff.

  Tiny was given a large suite of rooms near the marchioness, and the two older women were immediately swept up in the business of haranguing the staff, ferreting out oversights in the housekeeping, and revising the proposed menus.

  It was Piety’s plan to explore the courtyard and gardens, and she urged Jocelyn to rest. While she walked, she composed letters in her head, which she would never send. Things she would never say aloud. All of it to Falcondale, a man she would never see again. When had she become such a fool?

  It is lovely here in Berkshire, she would write.

  We made it safely, if not comfortably, in her ladyship’s dim, airless carriage, but the chamber I’ve been given is large and bright.

  The Garnettgate kitchen garden produces all its own vegetables.

  There are rabbits outside my window and fish in the fountain.

  The village is charming. The crofters are welcoming.

  Tiny has been put in charge of the menus.

  Miss Breedlowe is teaching me the names of native birds.

  We are keeping warm, even in the drafty house.

  I miss you.

  And wasn’t that the silliest sentiment of all?

  Miss him? Of course she missed him. She had allowed herself to fall in love with him, what else was there to do? If she hadn’t realized her love over their daily chess, or when he evicted Eddie, or in the solarium . . . well, certainly she knew it now. It seemed as if missing him had always been a part of loving him. Even when they were together, he held himself apart.

  And
now, a lifetime of missing him stretched ahead of her. This trip to Berkshire was only the beginning of day-to-day diversions that they would never share.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Trevor had every intention of handing over Piety’s stairwell to the new man and walking away.

  He’d found an architect quickly enough: an eager young man, fresh out of school, who seemed hard working and bright. Better still, he was available to begin work immediately, which meant Trevor could wash his hands of stairwells and passages and the all-consuming force that was Piety Grey.

  And yet . . .

  Day after day, he found himself drifting from his own library to Piety’s now-vacant house. Sometimes, he went in search of Joseph. Piety had left her housemaid, Marissa, behind to receive deliveries. Judging from the amount of time Joseph had gone missing, she was receiving the boy as well.

  Sometimes, Trevor found himself seeking out Mr. Burr and his crew to share their midday meal.

  Other times, regrettable times that he could not explain, some memory of her would compel him to amble across their two gardens and simply stand in the house she had inhabited for her short but disruptive tenure in the street, to be among her possessions and her half-completed repairs and the trail of tiny footsteps she’d left in the sawdust.

  Two days after she’d gone, he noticed a lathe among the tools on Mr. Burr’s cart, and he’d bade Joseph to drag it into the garden. There it remained, tempting him, for another day and night. At the end of the first week, he found himself seated at the thing, his foot on the pedal, tinkering with designs for the balusters on her stairs. He worked hours shaving sculptural shapes into sticks of wood. The finished form, realized after hours of work, was elegant but unique, progressive, like Piety herself. She would like it, he’d thought—one of a thousand thoughts he had of her on any given day.

  When he’d shown the baluster to Spencer Burr, the carpenter assured him that his crew could replicate his design, but Trevor persisted, returning to the lathe again and again to fashion the balusters himself. Considering the curve and height, Piety’s stairwell would require dozens of them, and he put off his own work to craft another, and another, and another.