The Earl Next Door: The Bachelor Lords of London

by Charis Michaels

  “I am the soul of practicality,” she told him, eyeing him over the top of the ring.

  “Piety.” He said her name as he leaned in. “This cannot be said enough. We must be in agreement. So that no one gets hurt. So that the scheme bloody well works.”

  “We agree,” she whispered. But the way she looked at him was an open invitation, daring him to reach out and gather her up. He shoved his twitching hands into his pockets.

  “I won’t hold you back, Trevor,” she said softly. “Letting you go is the very least I can do.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Piety elected to host an evening wedding and dance like those she had attended in America, rather than the traditional English breakfast affair.

  She envisioned a garden ceremony, mottled in late-afternoon sunlight, staged beneath Garnettgate’s densely blooming rose trellis. There would be musicians on the terrace and a raised dais for the marchioness. Bedecked tables would offer an abundance of hearty food and drink. Someone would erect a Maypole. Happy guests would arrive in the late afternoon and celebrate until well after dark. Neighboring farmers, local gentry, shopkeepers from the village, elderly grandmamas and children of every age—she would invite them all.

  The grand scheme, when fully realized, occupied two weeks of planning and then a mad scramble of provisioning, cooking, and decorating. Piety was grateful for the distraction. What else was she to do while Trevor’s detachment slowly broke her heart and her mother filled the crevices with criticism and doubt?

  “I feel like I’m on holiday, despite the wedding preparations,” Jocelyn told Piety five days before the ceremony. They were in the village for another round of shopping and invitations. The villagers of Hare Hatch had thrilled to the notion of a posh wedding to which they all would be invited. Today a trail of eager children skipped happily behind them as they made their way from shop to shop.

  The Limpett brothers had wisely removed themselves from Garnettgate after the attack, taking rooms at the inn in town. Only Idelle remained as a guest of the marchioness. The women felt confident the brothers would keep their distance, but they were ever mindful of their menacing presence when they were in the village. They did not wish to come upon them alone.

  Piety made no comment, and Jocelyn tried again, “Will the earl not consider even five minutes alone with you, Piety? Or to ride to the village and back? I will feel horrible, taking a salary when there is no amorous couple to oversee.”

  “Don’t be silly, Jocelyn. I would be lost without you.”

  “I am forever here, Piety, as I hope you know. But I am worried about this new rapport with him. The change is like night and day. Even in London, when the two of you competed at chess, Falcondale was friendly and forthcoming. He teased and goaded and flirted. But now . . . ”

  “Flirting is absolutely out, isn’t it?” Piety said sadly. “The offer of marriage was such a departure for him, I think he has nothing left to give.”

  Jocelyn shook her head. “I understand the expectations have changed, but he cannot force detachment, not on you, of all people. It will hardly put the annulment in danger to speak to each other with some measure of warmth or familiarity. You are to be married, for goodness sakes.”

  They ducked into the grassy lane behind the shops on High Street to escape the children.

  “I think he believes that anything we have to say, may be said over dinner,” Piety said with a sigh, “while everyone listens in. He doesn’t trust himself to be alone with me, I suppose. Or he doesn’t trust me.”

  “Well, you cannot be expected to marry a man and not even know the date he intends to desert you for God knows where.”

  “Syria.” Even the word sounded lonesome to Piety.

  “Wherever that may be. The details of his travel would be fair game, and you can hardly ask this over dinner. The whole business of him sailing away is very vague, indeed. Unfair, certainly. It would not be crazy to think he could be persuaded to take you with him if he must go.” She ventured a look at her friend.

  “He’s going.” Piety reminded her—reminded them both. “Alone. This was the agreement from the start. No amount of private conversations or rides alone will change this. Nothing I do will change it.” She sighed and switched her basket from right hand to left. It was an excruciating conversation. Piety put on a brave face; it wasn’t Jocelyn’s fault that the silence and distance from Trevor was slowly eating her alive.

  “Whether he goes or does not go remains to be seen,” said Jocelyn, shaking dust from her hem. “It’s as if the pretend courtship was authentic, and the real engagement is pretend. Forcing himself to resist you? Please. I am a mediocre chaperone at best, but I can assure you that the man wants you desperately. Even Lady Frinfrock can see this. There is no hiding his desire. Even over dinner.”

  “It’s complicated,” Piety said simply. Jocelyn was kind to rally for her side, but it did no good to point out that Trevor wanted her. Yes, he wanted her; he simply wanted his freedom more. The reality of his priorities resounded in her head every day. Especially at dinner, when he bade her goodnight and walked away.

  “Trust me, he has made it very clear that he is determined to follow the plan. We will annul the marriage at some point in the future. This cannot happen if we have—” She took a deep breath. “If we are intimate. And he sees no other way to avoid falling into bed with me than to keep as much distance as possible. He goes to great pains to ensure we never even touch, as you have obviously seen.”

  “Not even for a turn around the terrace before luncheon?”

  Tears filled Piety’s eyes. She shook her head.

  They reached the end of the lane and looked right and left.

  “Piety, I’m sorry,” Jocelyn said softly. “I have distressed you.” She extended a handkerchief, but Piety declined it. “Is it awful, to miss him so?”

  Piety’s voice broke. “It’s as if he’s already gone.”

  “You must know he suffers, too.”

  “Falcondale has a renewed sadness about him.” She nodded. “I’ll give him that. If I thought his eyes were lonely when we first met, now they are positively hollow. If I did not know better, I would think he harbored some regret—that he felt he had been trapped into rescuing me. But he insisted upon the wedding. I tried to change his mind. He wanted this. But he wants it on his terms. A marriage entirely ‘in-name-only.’ ”

  Jocelyn nodded grimly and peered around the corner at the tidy shops of High Street. The cheese-maker’s was on the corner, and she gestured to it with her umbrella.

  “I hope you don’t think me too bold in asking this,” Jocelyn began as they made their way down the street, “but what of the wedding night? Your mother will stand for nothing less than a traditional bridal suite. What of this forced detachment then?”

  “Who can say? At the moment, I am following his lead. If I had to guess, I’d say his strategy is that the two of us will pass our wedding night playing chess. Or sleeping. On separate pieces of furniture.”

  “And your strategy?”

  Piety’s cheeks grew warm, and she tried to hide a smile and turn her head away.

  The cheese shop was shuttered, and they peered through a slit in the window. “You treat him as if he might shatter, Piety,” said Jocelyn, “while his behavior toward you is the real abuse. I don’t mind saying that I find him to be ruder now—crueler, perhaps—than when he was in London, shouting at you about the house or the passage. At least then he regarded you, no?”

  “How can we paint him rude or cruel when he is marrying me to save me from my own family?”

  “Well, I refuse to consider you to be a burden. You are a victim.”

  “Not much better, I’m afraid, in his eyes. He has played the savior for far too long. If I am a victim, he is, too.”

  “Yes, poor Falcondale. Forced to take a young, beautiful, rich wife, who is obviously in love with him. What a pitiful lot. How will he ever survive?”

  “It’s not what he wants.�
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  “If you ask me,” said Jocelyn, spotting the shopkeeper through the window. She waved, and he rushed from the back to open the door. “That man has no idea what he wants.”

  Five days later, on the afternoon of his wedding, Trevor stood at his window and watched droves of expectantly dressed strangers flood Lady Frinfrock’s garden: villagers, farmers, country squires. They assembled with what appeared to be their collected families and more than a few hounds, not to mention a battalion of servants he’d never seen before and a ten-piece band. A gypsy camp would have been less chaotic and certainly less public.

  Why, he wondered, had he not been consulted about the guest list for this affair? Or the scope and scale? The amount of fuss? His inattention had been careless, and this was the result.

  He thought he’d been doing them both a favor to detach. Why torture either of them by hovering, conspiring over the plans for a wedding that was, in all reality, a complete sham?

  To prevent this, that is why.

  “She does it on purpose, Joe,” Trevor said, turning away from the window. The boy had ridden from London to attend the wedding, and Trevor was glad to have him.

  “Does what, my lord?” Joseph held out his coat.

  “Makes any given situation ten-times more complicated than it needs to be. She’s invited half of Berkshire to this wedding, possibly just to spite me.”

  “Oh, it couldn’t be that, my lord. She is very generous!”

  “Generous to everyone but me. What of our quiet, discreet wedding? The wedding we will eventually swear to a judge was a horrible, hasty mistake? Now it is to be witnessed by a crowd of well-wishers, all desperate to make this the happiest day of our lives.”

  “Perhaps it will be the happiest day.”

  “It makes no difference how the day goes,” he said, shouldering into his coat. “My only concern is that we successfully annul the thing later.”

  “Or,” said the boy importantly, “you could not.”

  “Could not what?”

  “Not annul the marriage. You could marry her and remain married forever. You could be a proper husband and wife.”

  “Joseph, do not start.” He rolled his shoulders, fighting against the constraint of the formal coat.

  “Have you thought of it?”

  Irritation flared and he reeled around. “Of course I’ve thought of it. It has been the only thing to think except how much I desire her but, at the moment, cannot have her.”

  “You could have her if you made the marriage real.”

  “I am well aware of the myriad of ways I might have her, thank you very much. I am a roiling vessel of need when it comes to her. But being with Piety has never been the problem, Joseph—it’s staying with her that scares me.”

  “Oh, she is not frightening, Trevor, not even a little.”

  Trevor sighed. “I am not afraid of her, I am afraid of my ability to provide for her.

  “What if I resent her because I had plans—vivid, detailed, highly prized plans—and being a husband, even to her, interrupts them? What then? She needs me now, and I am here, but I cannot make the hasty decision to promise myself to her until-death-us-do-part. Not now. Not without the danger of looking over my shoulder and wallowing in regret. I’ve wanted freedom for far longer than I have wanted her.

  “If I eventually regret the marriage, I would be a pathetic husband to her. No, worse than pathetic; I’d be bitter and callous and cruel. This is what I am afraid of. I respect her enough to protect her from that very likely eventuality.” He stared at the boy, willing him to understand, willing his own self to fully conceive of a future where his restlessness might hurt her.

  The boy stared back, slowly shaking his head.

  “Fine,” Trevor went on, turning away, “think of this: Think of Janos Straka, then. What of him? Straka let us leave Athens, but he could always change his mind. Every day that we linger in England, we are in danger of him turning up here, seeking to recover me. I have no choice but to stay ahead of him—very far ahead. Would it be fair to drag a new wife along?

  “She’s just bought a house, for God’s sake, and she’s building a new life. Who will be bitter then if I take her from this? She never asked to sail around the world; that is my dream.” His voice was louder now, and he said the last words tapping his fist against his chest. He was angry—angrier than he should have been—and going over it again only made it worse. As if he had not thought about it, nearly without ceasing, every bloody day. As if it did not kill him to think of leaving her, despite his good intentions. As if his heart were not hardening a little more, one calloused layer at a time.

  The wedding ceremony revealed itself to be just as overwrought as the guest list, and every moment was a heartrending exercise in restraint.

  Trevor restrained himself from getting lost in the forest-green eyes of a woman very much deluded about his value as a husband, even for a time. He restrained himself from becoming caught up in each vow. He restrained the smile that threatened when she beamed at him with her heart in her eyes.

  All the while, Piety was openness and light; her eyes were bright with unshed tears, more dazzling than ever he had seen. Occasionally, she gazed adoringly at the glittering ring on her hand. Sometimes she nodded agreeably to the vicar, encouraging him; she also shared knowing glances with Miss Breedlowe, who stood to attend her. It was almost like watching a play. A play with a lovely and talented lead who assumed the role, heart and soul, of a radiant, blissful bride, deeply in love.

  Only, it did not seem as if she play-acted.

  He had wondered how she would handle the vows, as he knew her to be a spiritual girl, and to take the oaths would, in many ways, be like making a false promise to God. Trevor himself could barely stomach it, but he saw no other way. He lied to protect her. Surely God would understand the necessity of the thing. He wasn’t sure why she lied, beyond the obvious reason that it saved her from her family. But when the time came, despite the charade, she spoke the timeless words loud and clear.

  Near the end, he was finally forced to look away. Inside his chest, he felt a swelling, a filling. The sensation would not diminish, no matter where he looked. It was warm and fortifying, and it seemed to permeate outward, causing his skin to redden and his eyes to mist. He hated it. He hated it and loved it.

  Why, he marveled, swallowing hard, must she insist on making it appear so genuine?

  Perhaps she was putting on the best show possible for her enthusiastic and grateful guests. Perhaps she wished to really convince her mother. Or maybe she simply wished to throw caution to the wind and, God help them, pretend that her feelings were real and their union really was heaven-blessed. It was impossible to tell, but Trevor could hardly make her enthusiasm look foolish by appearing flat and unaffected now. He saw no other course than to follow suit, at least in his own way.

  Finally, after what seemed like an eternity of song and scripture and prayer-book recitation, he took her hands and held them firmly. He repeated the sacred words in a low, clear voice. It seemed like a sacrilege to overdo, to pretend he was giddy with young love when what he really felt was humbled and fiercely protective. He hadn’t meant to be quite so solemn, but the words would come out no other way.

  Finally, the vicar made the flamboyant call for a kiss. The man knew his audience and aimed to please. The congregation let out a cheer of encouragement and joy, clapping and whistling and waving their hats. Never had he been given such a clear directive. Trevor sighed and looked at Piety. She looked back, her smile a little wary, her eyes unsure.

  What? he thought, allowing himself to smile back. As if we could leave this bit out? After everything else?

  He grabbed her around the waist and pulled her to him. The audience let fly with hoots and whistles.

  As if . . . he thought again, looking down at her startled, upturned face.

  The undeniable truth was that he had been waiting—burning—to kiss any part of her, all of her, for days. And now he had no c
hoice. Well, thank God for that. It was one thing to desire her and to fight it; it was quite another to stand two feet from her, hold her hands, look deeply into her eyes, and to hear her vow eternal love. To him. As if she meant it.

  Of course he would kiss his bride. He should like to see someone try to stop him.

  He leaned in, his lips the merest breath away from hers, and stared down, determined to do it, but not overdo. Behind him, the whistles in the crowd turn to cheers. She smiled fully then, her old smile, just for him, and he dropped a kiss onto that smile. One firm kiss, square on her lips. Oh, but that would never do, and he descended again for a second kiss, a third.

  The fourth kiss felt more necessary somehow than the first, and he closed in again and slowed down, softening his mouth. He breathed in. His head swam with the smell of flowers and sunshine and her: the feel of her body beneath his hands; the close-up sight of her, head back, eyes closed, clinging to him; the taste of her on his tongue. He was lost: lost in the kiss and lost in her. The world slowed down, time shifted, the background of humanity melted away.

  Mine. All mine. For today and a little bit longer. Mine.

  He meant the kiss to be affectionate, thorough, and rewarding for them both. Also, in the spirit of their copious witnesses, he meant it to be a satisfying show. Piety played her part by drinking it in, kissing him back. When she sighed, ever so slightly, and followed his retreating mouth with her own, demanding one more taste, he nearly lost it. He departed “affectionate and rewarding,” and veered into something more akin to “urgent and hot.” The whole business went on thirty-seconds longer than prudent, but he didn’t care. The cheers in the congregation turned to whoops, and Miss Breedlowe giggled. Beside them, the vicar cleared his throat.