by Laura Landon
MORE THAN WILLING
by Laura Landon
This is the second publication of MORE THAN WILLING. In 2010 it was released by Wild Rose Press, and was Laura Landon’s very first book to make its way into the hands of eager readers. In the subsequent two years, Laura has published five books with Prairie Muse, selling over 170,000 copies, and in October of 2012 Amazon released three of Laura’s books that vaulted her to the top of the most-read romance and historical authors lists at Amazon for many consecutive weeks. At the time of this release, she remains among the Top 20 Authors of Historical Romance at Amazon.
Chapter One
London, England
August 28, 1856
Grayson Delaney took the steps to his modest town house with a jaunty air and a confident smile that was the reason every protective mama with any sense in their heads kept their innocent young daughters well out of his reach.
He thought of the fiery red-headed actress he’d just left and his smile broadened. Maybe he’d make her his mistress. She had a temper that guaranteed the time he kept her wouldn’t be dull and boring, and if the last week he’d spent in her bed was any indication of how she kissed and made up, she was well worth the trouble she’d most likely cause him.
He walked through the door his butler held open for him and dropped his cloak into the waiting servant’s outstretched arms.
“Good morning, sir,” Briggs said, catching Gray’s hat, gloves and cane with a practiced art.
“Good morning, Briggs. It’s going to be a beautiful day. Shame I’m going to miss it.” Gray headed for the stairs without a backwards glance.
“But, sir—”
He stopped Briggs’s words with a raised hand and continued up the steps. Damn, but he was tired. He must be getting old. Going without sleep for three… or was it four… nights had never bothered him before.
Gray continued toward his bedroom. And his bed. He smiled in anticipation.
“Tell the servants I don’t want to be interrupted until sometime next week.”
“But, sir—”
“And if anyone calls, I’m not home.”
“I’m afraid that’s not possible,” his usually mild-mannered butler said, rushing to get the words out.
Gray stopped and cast a glance over his shoulder. “And that would be because…?”
Briggs cleared his throat. “You have a guest, sir.”
“At this hour?”
The mantel clock chimed the hour and he felt no compunction not to leave whoever dared bother him this early in the morning rotting in the library. He turned around to climb the last two stairs to reach his bedroom. And his bed. “It’s only nine o’clock in the morning. None of my acquaintances even know there is such an hour.”
“But—”
“I don’t care who it is. Get rid of them.”
“It’s your father, sir.”
Gray froze with his foot an inch above the top step. His hand gripped the hard round newel post and he slowly turned to face his butler. “What did you say?”
“Your father has come to call, sir.”
Gray almost laughed. His father, the Earl of Camden, didn’t come to call. He demanded Gray’s presence occasionally – to reprimand him over one indiscretion or another, or to demand an explanation for some of his more extravagant bills, or just to assure himself that the animosity between them still existed. But his father had never stepped foot in his youngest son’s home. Not since the day he’d suggested that his offspring find a different residence, somewhere far from Delaney House.
Gray took one unsteady step after another down the stairs. Damn, he hated how his father made him feel.
“Where did you show him?”
“He’s in your study, sir.”
He clenched his hands at his side and focused on his closed study door. Every muscle across his shoulders and arms knotted as he made his way across the foyer and down the short hall.
“Should I bring fresh tea, sir?”
“I doubt the earl will stay that long.”
Briggs might have said something else but Gray didn’t catch the words. He forced himself to walk toward the door and reach for the knob. An audience with his father wasn’t pleasant on an average day when he’d had plenty of sleep and ample time to put up the barricades. He needed walls to give the impression that whatever his father said, or however intense the pained look of disappointment was on his face, nothing could get through to the part of him that died thirteen years ago.
Today promised to be a disaster.
He braced his shoulders and took a deep breath before he threw open the study door and stepped inside. He opened his mouth to utter his usual flippant greeting, but the sight of his father standing across the room with his hands locked behind his back, his shoulders unyieldingly rigid, and an assessing look in his eyes, halted any words. The door closed behind him with a soft thud that had the definite clang of a prison door closing and he waited for his heart to catch the beat it lost.
“Father. Good morning.”
The Earl of Camden raised his eyebrows in the familiar Delaney expression of disapproval and rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet. “Is it? You rather look like hell.”
Gray fought the urge to shift his gaze from his father’s imposing figure. The Earl of Camden was one of the few men Gray didn’t have to lower his gaze to look in the eyes. One of the few men whose age hadn’t affected the confident manner in which he carried himself. In fact, there were times, like now, when Gray felt as if he looked into a mirror, so much did father and son resemble one another. Except at the moment, Gray doubted his father was pleased this particular son carried his name.
Gray lifted his arms out at his sides and dropped his chin to his chest to stare down at his rumpled suit, unbuttoned waistcoat, and shirt tail hanging from his pants. He looked back up and swiped the loose cravat from around his neck, but rejected the idea of at least buttoning the top button of his shirt. “I wasn’t expecting guests.”
“Or you would have been home?”
Gray smiled. “For you, I would have made an exception.”
The Earl of Camden took a step toward the center of the room. “Who is she?”
“I don’t see that it’s any of your—”
“It isn’t. I just want to be prepared when another one of your paramours arrives on my doorstep demanding restitution for a wrongdoing she considers you committed against her.”
“You don’t have to worry. We’re not involved enough for it to come to that.”
The earl didn’t say anything and Gray felt the same nervous tension he always experienced around his father.
The air tightened in his chest and he struggled to rein in the desire to escape. Instead, he walked to a small table on the other side of the room and poured himself a glass of brandy. “I’m sure you didn’t come here at this ungodly hour to discuss my love life.”
“No, I didn’t. I came to discuss these.”
With a loud slap he dropped a pile of papers on the top of the desk that was mostly used for decoration. Heaven only knew no work was ever done on it.
Gray didn’t need to look to know what the papers probably were – bills that had no doubt been sent to his father when his son failed to cover them. He held his breath for what seemed an eternity and prepared to endure his father’s usual tirade concerning his irresponsibility and spending.
“How much longer do you intend to continue down this road?” His father didn’t disappoint him. “Do you ever intend to assume some responsibility, or will you always be content to spend money you did nothing to earn?”
Gray made a great production of inspecting the liquor in his glass. “Don’t you understand, Father? I’m only living up to what you�
�ve always predicted.”
“I didn’t predict you’d be nothing more than a drunkard and a wastrel.”
“But what did you expect? I’ve always been such a disappointment to you. I’m supposed to live the life of the wastrel.”
“You’re supposed to be a credit to the Delaney name.”
“You have Adrian to be a credit to the Delaney name. Be content with your firstborn and heir, and leave me alone.”
He took an angry swallow of the brandy in his glass then stared at a spot on the wall in front of him without noticing the floral design of the paper.
“What do you want?” he asked, keeping his back to his father while he poured another inch of brandy into his glass. “My promise to try to improve? Very well, you have—”
“You’ve already given me enough of your promises. Now I’ve decided to take matters into my own hands.”
The floor shifted beneath his feet. Something sounded more resolute in the tone of his father’s voice but he’d learned from past encounters that arguing only inflamed the earl’s temper. It was best to allow him to give Gray the dressing down he thought he deserved so they could both return to their normal lifestyles.
Gray turned slowly then propped his hip against the corner of the table. He knew his flippant attitude would only irritate his father more but he also knew his father was far past expecting anything different. He took a sip of his brandy and waited.
The earl said nothing for several minutes and the longer the silence stretched between them the more tension filtered through the room. Their relationship was always this way, and had been since he was fourteen.
With a sense of unease, he pushed himself away from the table and pointed to one of the leather chairs flanking the fireplace. “Would you care for a drink?”
“No. I’d care to get to the reason I’ve come.”
Gray lifted his shoulder in a nonchalant shrug but that didn’t mean he’d let down his guard. Far from it. He was preparing for the bomb his father was undoubtedly here to drop.
“I’ve come to discuss your future.”
The icy chill in his father’s voice sent a shiver down Gray’s spine. “My future,” Gray repeated on a sigh, trying to ignore the racing of his heart. “As in my far future? My near future? Or my immediate future?”
“Your very immediate future,” the earl answered as blandly as if they talked about the weather.
He didn’t know where this led but he knew he wasn’t going to like it. “And what do you see in my very immediate future?”
“A lifestyle completely different from the one you are leading now.”
Gray threw the brandy in his glass to the back of his throat, knowing he’d need every bit of fortification. When he looked up he met his father’s harsh, unyielding expression, the glare in his eyes as cold as a highland winter. Fingers of dread clutched deep in his chest, causing his breath to catch. The two of them were destined for a more fierce row than their meetings usually exhibited.
“Have you given any thought to getting married?”
Gray bolted from the desk and glared at his father. “Bloody hell, is that what this is all about? You want me to marry?”
“I want to know if you have any immediate plans to marry.”
“You know bloody well I don’t, and I hardly need to now that Adrian has provided you with a grandson to pass your title on to when he’s gone, which God willing will be a long time in the future.”
With all the regal dignity Society was used to seeing, the Earl of Camden walked over to the desk and picked up the stack of papers he’d tossed down earlier. “Do you have any idea by how much you’ve exceeded your allowance this quarter?”
“Evidently by more than you think was appropriate,” he replied, knowing the wise thing would have been to hold his tongue. But when had he ever acted wisely when in a conversation with his father.
“Yes.” His father’s short, clipped word seethed with anger. “Far more than I consider appropriate.”
His father dropped the papers back onto the desk and looked at him with an irate glare. “Do you have any idea where the money comes from which you spend with such irresponsible abandon?”
“Is it your intent to make me feel guilty for living my life how I want?”
“It’s my intent to stop you from wasting your life.”
Gray closed his eyes as his father’s heavy sigh echoed in his ears.
“Your mother always said you and I were so much alike we were destined to clash. She didn’t know how true her words would turn out to be.”
He tried to shut out his father’s words but couldn’t. Every syllable stabbed through him like knives puncturing his heart. “I’d appreciate it if you left my mother out of this.”
“Yes, you would.”
He was too sober to bring up the subject of his mother and needed another drink to survive the rest of this conversation. He walked to the crystal decanter and filled his glass again. “Why don’t you just get to the point of your visit.”
His father stepped closer—no mistaking his determination. “Some day your brother will inherit my title along with all the entailed properties, which as you know is everything I own.”
Gray arched his eyebrows with as much hauteur as he could muster. “Do you think I resent that he was born first?”
The earl shook his head. “No, there has never been any rivalry between you. But neither have you considered what you intend to do with your future, which is why I’ve decided to make that decision for you. I don’t want you to be a burden on your brother.”
“A burden! Bloody hell, I have my own income. I manage quite sufficiently on my own.”
His father slammed his fist against the corner of the table between the two chairs. “You manage with the allowance I give you each quarter. Money I’ve allowed you to spend without demanding that you make any effort to earn it. From now on that will change.”
Even as his temper climbed, Gray had no choice but to wait for his father to continue.
“From now on you will learn to exist on whatever you are able to earn.”
“Earn!” Gray reached for the corner of the desk to steady himself. “Just how do you suggest I earn a living when every Camden holding is entailed and will pass to my brother along with the title?”
His father paused, then reached into his pocket and pulled out a folded bundle of papers. He started to hand it over, then pulled the papers back as if he had second thoughts concerning the decision he’d made.
“I never thought I would have to do this,” he said in a whispered tone that contained a regret Gray never heard from his father. The earl breathed in a deep sigh and held his breath, showing an uncharacteristic indecision, then released his breath and pushed the papers toward Gray.
“What is this?” he asked not wanting to take the bundle.
“Your future.”
He stared at the papers for a long moment then grabbed them with a show of defiance he prayed disguised the fear threatening to consume him. He refused to show the slightest hint of unease and unfolded the bundle with a snap.
He scanned the top of the first page and felt the wariness build.
“I don’t understand.”
“Read on,” his father ordered with a severe nod.
Gray lowered his gaze to the papers and read the print on the second and third pages. He stopped short when he scanned the last page. “A brewery?” he said, his eyes opening wide.
A bubble of laughter formed deep inside his chest. He tried to keep it from escaping but couldn’t. After about three seconds a roar exploded into the open that threatened not to stop.
A brewery. His father was gifting him with a brewery.
Gray swiped at the tears running down his cheeks and turned back to his father. The look on his father’s face sobered him with the force of a punch to his gut.
The threatening blackness of his father’s eyes, the severe line of his mouth, the angry lift of his brows—no hint of humor
in any of it.
“Giving me access to a brewery is similar to giving a fox the key to the proverbial henhouse, isn’t it, Father?”
“The Bradford Brewery has been in existence for more than one hundred and fifty years. The ale the brewery produces is some of the finest in England and commands a price only the better establishments can afford. Unfortunately, its former owner didn’t appreciate what his ancestors handed down to him.”
“He sold it to you?”
The earl shook his head. “He lost it to me, in a card game.”
Gray’s mind sifted through every possibility his father might have for showing him the title of his newest acquisition. The knot of wariness inside him tightened in the pit of his stomach.
“Congratulations,” he said, pushing the papers back at his father. “I’ve always dreamed of having a brewery at my disposal.”
Gray watched the glare in his father’s eyes turn more serious while the fists at his sides clenched tighter. Every hint of laughter died when his father leveled him the most threatening look Gray had ever seen.
“I’m glad to hear it. It’s yours.”
The Earl of Camden didn’t soften his expression. If anything, the determined lift of his chin signaled a more dangerous foreboding.
Gray looked down at the papers in his hand. “Surely you don’t expect me to earn my livelihood by running a brewery?”
“Why not? Who better qualified than you?” His father paused. “Do you even remember the last completely sober breath you took?”
Gray’s breath caught. “Why are you doing this?”
The Earl of Camden swung his arm in an angry swipe. “Because you’ve left me no choice! Because I’m tired of watching you live the life of a drunk and a wastrel. And I’m tired of fixing every catastrophe you take pleasure in causing.”
His father took three steps away then reached in his jacket and pulled another set of folded papers from his pocket. They hit the top of the desk with a lethal snap that exploded inside Gray’s head with the same force as a cannon being fired.
He stared at the papers. A chorus of insistent voices warned him not to inquire what they were but when had he ever heeded a warning – from anyone. “Another brewery?”