Entranced by the Earl

by Eaton, Jillian

  Weston’s short, rough side-whiskers scraped against her sensitive skin as he began to trace a fiery path along the slender line of her throat. On a keening sigh, her head rolled back, liquid heat spilling into the secretive garden of curls nestled between her thighs as he nipped her earlobe and then soothed the bite with his tongue, suckling for what felt like an eternity of sweet anguish before his mouth resumed its wicked path across her flesh.

  She gasped when he drew her nipple into the hot, slick cavern of his mouth. The layered texture of the damp fabric of her bodice rubbing against the swollen nub was almost too much to bear. Her knees wobbled, and she might have collapsed in a pool of passionate disbelief if not for the hand splayed across the middle of her back. Weston held her securely as he continued to lavish attention on her breasts, his seduction as slow and unhurried as waves lapping against the shoreline.

  Any more, and Evie feared being dragged under the water. But it was a good type of fear. A delicious type of fear. The kind that pushed people to do any manner of impossible feats. Like being the first to race across the Arabian desert on horseback. Or bravely setting sail for a new world. Or being ravished senseless on the side of a road by a devilish rogue in earl’s clothing.

  True, one of those things wasn’t quite like the others.

  But what was abandoning all inhibitions, if not stepping off a cliff into the unknown?

  Evie had never given much consideration to being ravished before. She’d assumed she would be, of course. Most likely on the night of her wedding, as she wasn’t about to endanger her chances of marrying up by being caught down with some nameless ne’er-do-well who promised her gold and gave her cheap brass instead. But while Weston was undoubtedly a rogue–the things he was doing to her body!–he was also a nobleman. A nobleman she still had every plan to marry.

  Surely there was no harm in sampling the goods before buying the product.

  In fact, some might call it a sound business decision.

  Evie’s lashes stirred, her gaze unfocused as she opened her eyes. She saw the top of Weston’s head as he bent over her breasts, and she started to thread her fingers through all that thick, luxurious hair before something darted across her peripheral vision.

  Something white and fluffy.

  Something that appeared suspiciously like a–

  “Posy!” she cried, wrenching free of the earl’s embrace as the lamb went bounding off across a field of late blooming yarrow. “Oh, you have to get her before she goes too far. I don’t want her to become lost!”

  Weston cursed. Yanking off his coat, he threw it on the ground at Evie’s feet before he took after Posy, stomping through the sea of pink and yellow flowers with all the finesse of a bull in the proverbial china shop. At first, Posy seemed to think it was a game, and she ran two circles around him before he managed to grab hold of the lamb and tuck her under his arm.

  Hands clasped beneath her chin, Evie anxiously awaited their return.

  “At least I know what we’ll be eating at the house party,” Weston grumbled as he emerged from the field and set Posy on the road. Picking up his jacket, he gave it a good shake, releasing a plume of dust into the air.

  “What’s that?” Evie asked absently, crouching down to receive the lamb as she bounced happily over, pleased to once again be the center of attention.

  Weston glared at Posy. “Mutton.”

  Chapter Six

  Before darkness could wrap them in her obsidian embrace, Weston and Evie finally stumbled upon a tavern.

  It sat directly on the edge of the road, a jumbled pile of stone and wood with a slate roof that sagged in the middle and front steps that creaked ominously beneath Evie’s feet as she followed Weston inside.

  “Are you certain it’s clean?” she asked, her nose wrinkling as she took in a dimly lit interior that smelled of stale meat and sweat. All of the rooms for rent must have been on the second floor. For down below, a narrow hallway led directly into a rectangular pub with a bar on one wall, a stairwell on the other, and tables in the middle, of which more than half were occupied.

  “No one is troubled by the fact that you’re holding a farm animal,” Weston replied. “So I am confident in saying it is anything but clean. You’re welcome to keep walking if you think you can find something better.”

  As she watched a grizzle-faced patron shovel stew into his mouth with his fingers, Evie suppressed a shudder. This place made Lady Privet’s Boarding House look like Kensington Palace, but she wasn’t about to separate herself from Weston. Like it or not (and after their knee-wobbling kiss, she was leaning heavily towards the “like it” category), they were in this together.

  Whatever “this” entailed.

  “I’m sure the lodgings will be adequate for one night.” Tightening her grip on Posy, she clung to the earl’s coattails as he navigated his way through the tables to the end of the bar where an older man, his stringy white hair tied in a tail at the nape of his neck and a damp rag slung over his shoulder, greeted them with a shuttered expression.

  “How can I help ye?” he asked, swinging the rag off his shoulder and onto the bar with enough force that Evie jumped.

  Reaching blindly behind him, Weston caught her around the waist and pulled her snug against his side. “My wife and I would like a room for the night.”

  Her lips parting, she stared at him in amazement, only to clamp her mouth closed when he gave her a meaningful jab with his elbow.

  “Is that right?” the barman said, gazing directly at her.

  “That’s–that’s right,” she stammered, for once finding herself at a complete loss of words.

  “Second floor, all the way to the end, last door on the left. Pay before ye leave. It’ll be an extra shilling for the sheep.”

  Weston gave a clipped nod, and then ushered Evie up the stairs, his grip tightening protectively when a catcall pierced the noisy din.

  “Keep walking,” he snarled in her ear, and she hastened to obey, lifting the hem of her skirts and taking the narrow steps two at a time until they’d reached the landing.

  Logically, she knew that if the riffraff in the tavern were to overwhelm them, there was little Weston could do to keep her safe. But she knew, somehow she just knew, that he’d sacrifice his own life before he allowed anything despicable to happen to her.

  Weston Weston was a man who protected what belonged him.

  Savagely, if necessary.

  And whether he liked it or not, she was in his care until they reached Hawkridge Manor…and far beyond, if Evie had her way.

  “Your wife?” she said, coquettishly fluttering her lashes at him once they were in their room. If the box with a straw-stuffed mattress on the floor and a single window could be described as a room. A candle flickered feebly on the sill, casting a dull circle of light. There wasn’t a washbasin or even a chest of drawers, not that Evie had anything to be packed away. All of her belongings remained in a trunk sitting on top of Weston’s carriage.

  “Would you have preferred I called you my mistress?” With a loud click, he shut the door.

  As her eyes struggled to adjust to the murky lighting, Evie found herself grateful for the curtain of shadows that separated her and Weston, as it disguised the hot blush that filled her cheeks and trickled down the front of her chest until it pooled in her breasts, causing her nipples to swell into aching buds of secret longing.

  Weston’s mistress.

  There were worse things to be, she supposed, than an earl’s lover.

  Especially an earl that looked as this one did.

  Leaning against the door with his thighs spread slightly apart and his arms loosely draped behind his back, he was the very picture of rakish nonchalance. As if he’d just strolled out of a billiards room after taking the game in eight instead of a hundred-mile walk through the desert.

  Well, maybe not a hundred miles.

  And the green fields hadn’t contained a speck of sand.

  Still, it might as well have been
a trek through the Sahara for all that she’d wilted in the heat. Whereas Weston could not have been more relaxed or at ease. Only his piercing stare betrayed the tension that constantly simmered just beneath the surface. That, and the solemn set of his mouth.

  Heavens, but did the man ever smile?

  She wanted him to, Evie realized.

  More than that, she wanted to be the reason he did.

  And that…that wasn’t part of her plan.

  “As I am neither your wife nor your mistress, you might have just told the truth.” Setting Posy down to explore their meager accommodations, she lowered herself onto the edge of the bed and began to remove her shoes, needing something to focus her attention on other than the potent allure of Weston’s wolfish gaze.

  Desire was all well and good, but she wouldn’t let it distract her. Her goal was marriage. Not kisses on the side of the road. And she wasn’t going to let anything, or anyone, keep her from achieving her raison d’être.

  Especially not Lord Hawkridge.

  Lust and love had their place. Her sister, Claire, was quite taken with the local butcher’s son and was blissfully happy about it. But Evie didn’t want to fall in love. She wanted to be a countess. And she had only to look to her mother’s affair with Lord Dorchester to see that love was a detriment when it came to marriage, not an advantage.

  Anne Thorncroft could have stayed in England and been a marchioness. Maybe one day even a duchess. Instead, she’d fled back to America and married Evie’s father while pregnant with the marquess’ child. She had given up everything for the sake of love. And Evie couldn’t even ask her mother why she’d done such a ridiculous thing, because she had died when her middle daughter was barely old enough to remember the smell of her perfume.

  Evie did not begrudge her mother her choice to return to Somerville and marry her childhood beau. Had she not done that, Evie would never have been born. But try as she might, she couldn’t make sense of her mother’s decision. Given the same choice, Evie would pick being a lady over being in love every time.

  It wasn’t even a question.

  “Wife was simpler than the truth,” Weston drawled as he shrugged out of jacket and waistcoat, then tossed the wrinkled garments into the corner for lack of a chair. “It should also ensure our privacy, and make us no less memorable than any other wedded couple passing through.” His brow arched. “Unless you’d like to tell the barman that you’re really the insufferably annoying sibling of my illegitimate half-sister who has imposed herself on my good graces.”

  Having removed her ankle boots, Evie leaned back on her hands and lifted a brow of her own. “From what I’ve witnessed, you do not possess any good graces. And you did not find me ‘insufferably annoying’ when you had your tongue between my–”

  “That was a mistake,” he interrupted.

  Ignoring the twinge of hurt his words invoked, she made herself nod. Weston was right. Ultimately, their kiss had been a mistake.

  But not in the way he meant.

  Any passion between them had to be carefully supervised and meticulously controlled, or else it posed a serious threat to how she wanted Weston to perceive her. Which was not as a potential mistress, but a wife. His wife. For real, not pretend. Because it was common knowledge that men bedded the women who tempted them, and wedded the woman who did not.

  “For once, we concur,” she said.

  “Furthermore, I do not want to–we what?” he said blankly.

  “We concur,” she repeated. “Our…encounter was a mistake. A combination of impulsivity and sun-induced madness, if I had to guess. It shall not happen again.”

  “Then…we’re in agreement.”

  “Indeed. Should we find a bowl of water or some milk for–”

  “But to be clear,” he cut in, “I am choosing not to have any further…encounters with you.”

  The mattress rustled as Evie stood. Nudging her shoes aside so as not to trip on them in the dark, she bit back an impatient sigh when her stomach, completely empty save for the dregs of brandy she’d foolishly imbibed, gave a pitiful grumble. “I am hungry. I’m sure Posy is thirsty. Does it really make a difference who is choosing to end encounters with whom?”

  “Yes.” In the shifting shadows, his eyes gleamed like polished granite. “It does.”

  Obstinate rogue. Was there any battle, large or small, he wasn’t determined to win? The sensible side of her acknowledged that it would have been better, and most likely wiser, to simply allow him this minute victory. But Evie heralded from a family of strong women. Strong women who did not understand the meaning of surrender. Which meant even if she wanted to, she had no white flags at her disposal.

  “Does it bring you pleasure?” she asked, moving away from the bed.

  A floorboard creaked beneath the weight of his boot as he took a step towards her. Once again, they found themselves within inches of each other, trapped in a room that had shrunk to the approximate size of a teacup.

  “Does what bring me pleasure?” he asked.

  “Arguing.” Thick lashes skimmed across the top of her cheekbones as she lowered her gaze, then lifted it to regard him with a bemused smile even as her heart slammed against her ribcage. “I’ve never met a man who argues as much as you do.”

  “And I’ve never met a woman who–” He stopped short.

  “Yes?” she prompted.

  Another creak. A slow inhale of breath. Gray eyes burning into hers. Fingers trailing down her arms to encircle her wrists.

  “Who entices me as much as you do, Evelyn.” Weston’s voice was velvet wrapped around the edge of a knife. He gave a tug, and despite her better judgment, despite her all-important plan, she fell into his embrace without resistance. Because there was a part of her that had always been falling. Ever since she first saw him in that crowded ballroom. Her avenging knight charging in to rescue her from mayhem…only to drag her straight into madness.

  “We just agreed to no more encounters,” he rasped, his angular countenance a tortured blend of temptation and torment.

  “I won’t tell if you won’t.” Slipping her arms free, she wound them around his neck, rose up on her bare toes, and pressed her mouth to his.

  He was kissing her.

  Again.

  After he’d just vowed–after they’d just vowed–that they weren’t going to. His idea, by the way. Which made both of them liars. But if Weston was going to the devil, at least he’d be in good company.

  Weston had dined on the nectar of Evie’s lips less than an hour ago. How was it that he already craved more? That he already needed more? He felt as if he’d been staggering about in the sweltering heat for days, months, years. His entire life, really. And she was his only source of cold, fresh water.

  Except there was nothing cold about Evelyn Thorncroft.

  Fire licked across his skin as his fingers dove into her coiffure and his tongue plunged between her lips. Their first kiss that started gently had been slowly building to a promising crescendo before the damned lamb had ruined everything. This one began right where they’d left off, pitching them straight into a passionate inferno.

  His hands swept down across her body, seeking out her luscious curves through her traveling habit. He touched her breasts, enjoying the weight of them in his palms, their delightful feminine fullness, before his thumbs strummed across her nipples and the muscles in his abdomen clenched to already find them hot and erect and pushing against the confines of her chemise.

  Weston understood ardor in all its many intricacies. He had a healthy appetite for carnal pleasures, and had sated that hunger with any number of mistresses, chosen as much for their discretionary nature as their abundance of skills in the bedchamber. But there had always been something…deliberate about the act. Something shrewd in all that sin. Something he’d held back.

  With Evie, he felt no such inhibitions.

  Their kiss deepened, pulling them both into a place that defied reason or explanation. A place neither of them wan
ted to leave. Not yet. Not until they’d explored a little further. Tasted a little more. Danced a little closer to that perilous edge from which there would be no easy return.

  He felt the sharp prick of her nails digging into his shoulders as she pressed herself wantonly against him, her soft, rounded edges providing a delicious juxtaposition to all his hard, lean angles. He nipped her bottom lip and rolled her swollen nipples between his fingers, a deep, possessive snarl emanating from the depths of his throat when she arched her spine in response.

  Her head fell back as he kissed his way down her neck and across her shoulder, pulling her bodice as he went so as to expose all that creamy satin skin to his ravenous mouth. With a tearing sound, the stitching finally gave way, and with the unparalleled eagerness of a young man about to see his first pair of breasts, Weston yanked the dress off her arms and it fell to the floor in a crumpled pile of cotton and crinoline.

  “Let me look at you,” he rasped. “I have to look at you.”

  It was like gazing at a priceless painting. In the glow of the candlelight, Evie was nothing less than a work of art. In varying shades of white and the palest yellow, her undergarments accentuated the sumptuous body of a goddess while her ebony curls framed the face of a siren. He had never seen her equal, and he knew he never would again, for lightning never struck the same place twice. And surely some sort of divine power had been at work to place such splendid beauty on earth.

  Heavy lidded with desire, her blue eyes boldly met his stunned stare, a coy smile flirting with the corner of her mouth as his tongue threatened to follow her gown all the way to the ground. With a stern mental shake, Weston reminded himself that he wasn’t some green lad flummoxed by the sight of tits, but an experienced lover who knew all the wicked ways a man could bring a woman to ecstasy.