The Untouchable Earl

by Amy Sandas

  She remembered being in the carriage with Portia and Angelique. They had just gotten home from the Sherbrooke dinner party. Emma was—

  Anxiety laced through her as she recalled Emma’s plan to attend the masked celebration at Bentley’s club in an effort to win the money they owed Mason Hale.

  At the thought of the moneylender, another stab of recollection shot through her. Her body tightened with the fear delayed by the muddle of her brain.

  Hale had snatched her off the street.

  And then there was the woman in black. What had been her name?

  Lily went painfully still. She remembered talking with the elegant woman, but she could not pull up the details of their conversation. She opened her eyes again and tried to sit up. Her overwhelming physical weakness made the effort it took to resist the weight of the lush bedcoverings nearly enough to exhaust her.

  With a burst of fearful determination, she pushed herself to a seated position. A wave of dizziness made her stomach roil as she looked around the room. She was alone.

  The bedchamber was large and luxurious. It was easily thrice the size of her room at Angelique’s. Wood paneling gleamed with polish, a plush carpet in the same dark blue as the bedcoverings spanned the floors, and a gentle fire lit the room from a marble fireplace carved with neoclassical accents.

  Lily noted a set of large windows stretching from floor to ceiling and saw they had been left uncovered. The haze of London streetlights against a black sky indicated it was still night.

  Fear and confusion pulsed through her veins, making her hands tremble with more than weakness. Her head ached from the effort of trying to remember and understand how she had come to be in such a place, but immovable shadows remained in her mind, concealing too much of the recent past.

  Accepting the futility of reaching for lost memory—and refusing to acknowledge the very disturbing fact that she was in the residence of someone as yet unknown—Lily focused instead on what she needed to do.

  She needed to get home.

  She needed to assure Portia and Angelique she was all right and find out if Emma had safely returned from the gambling hell. It seemed likely she had been gone at least a few hours. Her family would be frantic.

  She was very nearly frantic herself.

  But releasing the chaotic emotions swirling in her center and allowing them to take over would not help her. Scooting through the cool bedsheets, Lily made her way to the edge of the expansive mattress. She pushed the coverings aside and swung her legs to the floor.

  Lily gasped as she realized she had been stripped down to nothing more than her thin muslin shift. The sight of her near nakedness filled her with an intense vulnerability.

  Starting to panic, she looked around for her clothes and saw them laid out tidily on an armchair nearby. Keeping a litany of frightened questions from coming to the fore, Lily retained a firm grip on herself. Pushing her palms against the mattress on either side of her hips, she tried to rise to her feet but collapsed back to the bed with a whimper. Her legs felt as though they were made of water.

  Lily took long, steadying breaths and stared at her neatly folded clothes set significantly out of reach. After several minutes, she tried again to stand. Another wave of dizziness assailed her, and her knees wobbled uncontrollably. Biting her lips to fight off tears, she stumbled forward, then pitched herself against one of the bedposts. Wrapping her arms around the smooth wood column, she used it to stabilize her balance while she fought to dispel her unnatural vertigo and shore up more strength.

  Then she heard the sharp click of a door latch being released. In her weakness, she could do nothing but stare wide-eyed at the bedroom door as it opened.

  Avenell Slade, the Earl of Harte, walked in.

  At the sight of the ominously handsome lord, Lily’s first thought was not a thought at all, but an intense flare of tingling awareness. It started in her belly and rushed down to her toes before bouncing up again through her chest and out to her fingertips.

  Her second thought was that she had been rescued.

  But her relief was painfully brief as she noticed his expression in the flickering light of the fire. The same dark emotions she had seen before seemed intensified now as he stopped in the doorway to stare hard across the room at her.

  Lily fought against the impulse to cover herself. If she released the bedpost, she would crumple to the floor. An instinct for self-preservation urged her not to reveal the full extent of her vulnerability. Not now. Not with him glaring at her so harshly.

  Tears burned behind her eyelids and clogged her throat.

  She wanted to believe she was caught in a nightmare, but there was no denying that whatever was happening was frighteningly real. The appearance of Lord Harte made it all the more confusing. What connection could he possibly have to her abduction?

  Oh, how she wished she could remember more of what had happened after Hale had left her with the lady in black.

  She stared back at the earl’s hard, forbidding features and gathered all of her strength to push her fear aside long enough to speak. “Where am I?”

  He did not answer immediately.

  Since entering the room, he had kept his focus locked on her face. But Lily watched as the direction of his gaze slid down her body. His perusal was slow and comprehensive, sliding over her breasts and continuing past the curve of her hips and down her bare legs beyond the short hem of her shift.

  Though he revealed nothing in his stony expression, there was something in the gleam of his blue-black eyes that brought a delicate quiver to Lily’s belly.

  She glanced at his hands where they fell at his sides. He held them tensely extended, his long fingers spreading wide, before he clenched them into tight fists as he finished his slow review of her body. By the time the path of his perusal made its way back to her face, Lily was breathless and hot with a different kind of fear and…something else.

  “You are in my bedroom.”

  The intimate depth of his voice struck Lily with an acute force. Her head spun, and her legs collapsed. As she tensed for a collision with the floor, she was swept up in strong arms.

  The fire raging beneath her skin flared with bright intensity as Lord Harte scooped his arms beneath her legs and around her back to lift her high against his chest. It took only a few short moments for him to set her back on the bed.

  He released her abruptly to flip the bedcovers over her, then turned and strode away.

  Lily was left with the striking impressions of his body’s warmth, the strength of his arms around her, the woodsy scent of his skin, the brush of his embroidered waistcoat felt through the muslin of her shift, and then the sight of his broad back as he walked away, putting the entire distance of the room between them.

  Before she could figure out what to say or think or do, Lord Harte returned to her side, a glass of water extended in his hand.

  “Drink this. I had hoped you would sleep off the worst effects of the laudanum, but it seems to be lingering in your system.”

  Lily stared at the water, refusing to raise her gaze to his face, not wanting him to see the frustration and uncertainty filling her eyes.

  “Drink it,” he said again, more sternly.

  Lily still did not move. As if understanding the reason for her resistance, he lifted the glass and took a drink before offering the water to her again. This time she took it in a tenuous grip.

  Something about knowing his mouth had touched the rim of the same glass made her belly tremble, but the clean water was heavenly on her parched tongue and slipped gracefully down her throat. She took a long drink and then another before lowering the glass.

  She thought she heard him give a sound of approval before he turned and claimed a seat in one of the chairs. Her courage strengthened, Lily lifted her chin to look at him only a few feet away and swallowed hard past the knot of doubt lod
ged in her throat.

  Dressed in elegant evening wear, he sat with his back stiff and straight despite the plush cushion of the chair. His knees were spread and his feet braced squarely on the floor. His hands, with his long masculine fingers, splayed on the surface of strong thighs. He was the epitome of masculine sophistication and mystery.

  Dark, enigmatic, handsome, and intense.

  Her heart raced as he stared back at her, and she fell headlong into the deep draw of his gaze.

  She could not crumble with weakness again. Her pride, if nothing else, would not allow it. Drawing her uncertainty inward, she straightened the muscles along her spine.

  “Why am I here?”

  “What do you remember?” His voice rolled through her, smooth and penetrating.

  Lily sifted through the vague images swirling in her brain. Some of the fog had lifted, and various impressions were becoming clearer. She remembered again the lady in black…what was her name? There had been a glass of heady wine…the sense of growing numbness through her limbs…a strange softness invading her mind…

  There were so many shadows. She closed her eyes, and more images floated past. More women, talking in soft voices but holding her arms with relentless grips. The lady in black again. A room of men with wicked grins and blatant lust.

  And then him. The Earl of Harte. Standing beyond the farthest reaches of the light, staring at her as though she belonged to him.

  She remembered surrendering to his gaze. Falling into it as though it were a dark and secret corner where she could hide.

  Opening her eyes, she drew in long, deep breaths. A chaotic whirl of unsettling emotions and physical sensations fought for purchase. She gathered enough strength to meet his penetrating focus.

  “Tell me,” she said.

  His expression seemed to harden even more, and his eyes darkened. When he spoke, it was in a low, even tone.

  “You were auctioned off in a pleasure house. Your virtue, a prize for the highest bidder.”

  Though his words rang true and fit with everything she was slowly coming to remember, she still rejected the statement. Such things simply did not happen. It was too fantastic. Too horrible.

  More than that, she wanted to believe the earl’s role in the night’s events were that of savior, but it was difficult to hold on to that hope when he stared at her like he did now, with that deep, unfathomable focus.

  “Were you the highest bidder?” she asked in a whisper.

  He gave a shallow nod. “I was.”

  Heat spread out to her fingertips. A strange breathlessness claimed her. It was a sensation completely unlike her earlier fear.

  “Why?”

  His frown was fierce as he stared at her. She saw the small tick in his jaw as he clenched his teeth. Then he tipped his head just the slightest amount to the side as he asked, “Do you think me a beast, Miss Chadwick, to leave an innocent girl at the mercy of lustful men?”

  Lily met his gaze, doing her best to show him she was not afraid of him.

  “You were one of those men.”

  “I was,” he agreed darkly without elaborating further.

  He implied that his purpose in claiming her had been to save her from a ruinous fate, but something in his manner had her wondering if there was some other motivation behind his actions.

  From the moment Lord Harte had entered the bedroom, she had begun to experience everything differently. Her thoughts, feelings, and reactions originated from a deeper source. Her fear and confusion had made way for other, more urgent sensations. The longer she sat under the earl’s harsh and heady regard, the further she slipped into a state of expectancy.

  She felt on the verge of something, but she had no idea what.

  As the weakness in her mind and limbs continued to dissipate, she acknowledged that she could not blame her odd reactions on the aftereffects of the drug.

  He was the cause of her heightened responses.

  It was more than the wealth of secrets and mystery contained behind his midnight eyes. It was how he made her feel. Intrinsically. Viscerally. When he looked at her with his hooded gaze, she experienced something in the marrow of her bones, in the blood flowing through her veins, in the ether of her mind.

  Lily lowered her chin to stare at the glass of water cradled in her hands. She struggled to organize her thoughts. Something he had just said repeated through her mind until she was able to acknowledge its full meaning.

  …at the mercy of lustful men.

  Oh no.

  “The others,” she said, lifting her gaze again though her hands had begun to tremble, “did they recognize me as you did?”

  “One gentleman aside from myself was likely aware of your identity.”

  Lily’s hands began to shake in earnest.

  No young lady’s reputation could survive her having been in a brothel, let alone on an auction block for the sale of her virtue. If word got out, her entire family would be affected by the scandal. The Chadwicks’ position in society would be forfeit. Her sisters would drown in the scandal alongside her.

  “Who?”

  “Lord Fallbrook.”

  Lily’s heart stumbled and fell. Her eyes remained locked with his as all she could manage was a low, whispered reply. “I am ruined.”

  “Not necessarily,” he replied in a quiet undertone.

  “Of course I am,” Lily countered, forcing the words through her tight throat. “Fallbrook has already proven himself to be severely lacking in honor. Tales of my presence in that…place are likely already spreading across town.”

  “Pendragon’s establishment runs under very strict rules of confidentiality,” he replied confidently. “No man would dare speak of what happened without facing dire consequences.”

  She so badly wished she could rely on such an assurance, but she knew better.

  Even if Fallbrook did not spread tales, what was to stop him from furthering his ignoble pursuit of her now that he knew of her disgrace? And the other men who were there tonight? There was no certainty she hadn’t been recognized by more of them. And if not tonight, who was to say they might not see her at some point in the future and realize she was the girl who had been up on that auction block?

  In the eyes of those gentlemen, she would no longer be a lady deserving of protection and esteem. Even if she retained her innocence after this night, she would still be labeled damaged goods.

  “But there is no guarantee,” she stated quietly.

  He lowered his chin. “There is not.”

  She paused, gathering all of the dignity she still possessed to stiffen the length of her spine and meet his shadowed gaze directly. She could not afford to be passive in the face of this wretched disaster.

  He had brought her here to his home. He had said he was no beast, but would he do what was necessary to safeguard her future?

  “What is your intention, my lord?”

  There was a long pause before he answered, during which his manner appeared to harden even further, proving he understood the nature of her inquiry. She had thought him forbidding before, but this went beyond angry scowls and terse glances.

  Lily held her breath.

  “I cannot marry you.”

  Such a simple phrase, but when spoken with the quiet control the earl displayed, it cut straight through Lily’s center. Hurt pride and more forced a lift of her chin. “Cannot, or will not?”

  He did not answer, just stared back at her. There was not a drop of empathy in his expression, not a hint of concern.

  Lily experienced an uncharacteristic burst of temper. It was not like Lily to speak in anger, but she suddenly couldn’t bring herself to care what he might think of her. His opinion of her was obviously quite low already. She stared at him with her manner unwavering, finding courage when she hadn’t expected it.

  “Of cour
se,” she muttered with a rough laugh that was far from humorous, “how foolish of me to consider such a thing when I have seen the evidence of your loathing myself.”

  “Loathing? Oh yes, I despise you,” Avenell murmured darkly. The sarcasm dripping from his harsh words sent a shiver down her spine. He lowered his chin but did not break eye contact. “I would love to show you in a thousand ways just how much I loathe you, Miss Chadwick.”

  As he spoke, his expression slowly shifted. It felt as though he allowed his facade to fall away, giving her a glimpse of the truth beneath before he shuttered his features again. For a brief moment, she again detected that hunger she had first seen the night they had collided outside the Mawbrys’ town house.

  It left her breathless. In a blast of heat and trembling awareness, she understood that what she had been seeing in him all along had never been anger or revulsion.

  It was desire, possibly as deep and complex as her own.

  The revelation stunned her.

  The harsh mask was back in place, but he continued to stare at her across the shadowed room, holding her gaze with silent command.

  Lily could only stare back. Her fingers encircled the crystal glass so tightly that her knuckles began to ache.

  “I shall never take a wife,” he stated quietly in the lengthening silence.

  She could not resist asking, “Why not?”

  There was a long pause before he replied. “Marriage to me would bring only disappointment.”

  Her chest squeezed tight, and though she wished to urge him for more of an explanation, she could not force anything more from her throat. She could not believe his words, but it was clear that he believed them, and for some reason, that made her terribly sad.

  Lily tried to tell herself not to pity him. Though he had taken her from the brothel to save her from a wretched fate at the hands of another man, he would not save her from ruination.

  Yet he had brought her here to his home, his bed.

  What, then, did he want?

  Warmth spread out to her toes and fingertips. There was an unfurling inside her. The boldness and daring she had long since given up on possessing suddenly seemed within reach. She forced herself to speak plainly. “What do you intend to do with me, my lord?”