The Earl’s Wicked Seduction (Historical Regency Romance)

by Ella Edon

  Thomas walked over, stopping a few feet in front of her. "I’m glad to see you, Miss Miller," he said, and made her a small bow. "Might I sit with you?"

  He found that Earl Worthington was slipping back in and had to keep reminding himself to keep up the disguise. Fortunately, he would not have to do so much longer.

  "Sit. If you wish."

  The voice was a whisper. Thomas sat down on the bench, a little distance away from her. "Thank you for allowing me to see you at your home."

  She seemed not to have heard him. "I should be doing my chores," she said faintly. "My tasks. My work. I have done nothing of any use all day, except for a brief errand in town – and only because my mother made me do that. I cannot think. I cannot eat. I cannot do anything at all, except sit here and weep."

  "I’m sorry to see you so distressed. But I feel it is important to clear the air between us while we still can."

  "I suppose so."

  Thomas leaned forward and clasped his hands on his knees. The dusk hid his bruised knuckles well enough. "Very well, then. Since I am here now, I hope that you will tell me the entire truth. And perhaps – after what Tanner said to everyone in Birdwell, out in the streets – persuade me as to why I should believe anything you have to say."

  Slowly, she raised her head to look directly at him. Her eyes were huge in the darkness, but she seemed steady enough. "I suppose I have nothing to lose now," whispered Grace, in the voice of someone being led to the gallows. "Things can hardly be worse than they already are."

  "Good. Then you have nothing to fear. Please. I would like to think I deserve the truth."

  She gazed out into the twilight, and nodded. "Then here is the truth, Adam. You heard what that man said – what Elam Tanner said. It's true. Everything he said, everything he shouted in front of every person in town. It's all true."

  Thomas sat quietly. He had hoped she would deny it – that she would say the man was mad, that she did not know him or understand why he had singled her out for attack.

  But she was very bluntly saying that all of it was true.

  Grace got to her feet and walked a few slow steps beneath the tree. "Tanner is right. My father is not dead. It’s a lie that my family tells, because it’s easier to be a widow than to be the wife of a man who is lost to drink."

  Thomas closed his eyes.

  "It’s easier to have no father than one who lost a good position not only for himself, but for his wife and his daughter as well . . . and who left his young sons to steal apples from trees and meat scraps from dogs because there was no other food for them."

  In a strange way, Thomas felt a bit better. At least things were falling into place. "You need not be ashamed. Many men lose their lives to drink and take their families down with them. But that’s not the fault of the wives or the children."

  He paused for a moment, and then went on. "So, your father was not – is not – a tradesman. A wheelwright, I think you said? The truth is that he was a coachman, up at Northcliffe?"

  "He was, yes."

  "And your mother worked there in the kitchens? You yourself were a maid-of-all-work?"

  "That is right. My mother and I were both at the bottom of the servant's order – she a kitchen help, and I doing nothing more than the lowliest of random tasks in the house."

  "Honest work is never to be looked down upon, Grace. The best positions are not just for the asking. Someone has to do the simpler tasks as well."

  "I’m not afraid of work. I’m not too proud to do what needs to be done. To do what I can be paid to do, if it means a little money for my family."

  Then, Thomas thought of something else, and he asked the question even though he was sure he already knew the answer.

  "If you did not – or could not – stay at Northcliffe, then why did you and your mother not seek new positions here around Birdwell? There are always places for cooks and maids at Worthington and Feathering Park. A few of the larger farmhouses along the river have need of them, too. And your brothers could have earned a few shillings and learned a trade in the barns or in the fields."

  Even as darkness fell, Thomas thought he could see her smile. "Oh, Adam . . . surely you know why none of us could seek a position elsewhere."

  "I do know why," he answered. "It was because, as Tanner said, Northcliffe would give you no letters of reference. And because if anyone had written there to ask about you, those at Northcliffe would have nothing good to say."

  "Exactly so. It’s near impossible to hire oneself out without someone to recommend you. I've learned that it’s the same as being introduced at a ball: You must have someone who knows both of you to go between and make the introduction . . . or the recommendation, or else you stand alone."

  Thomas sat up a little straighter on the bench. "Tanner called you an imposter," he said quietly. "An imposter is someone who claims to be someone she is not. Tell me, Grace Miller: Is that truly what you are?"

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  King George Comes To Call At Applewood

  Grace seemed to consider his words. "In some ways, yes, I am an imposter. My name is my own; it’s probably the one thing about me that is not false. But the rest of it, yes. I've been masquerading all this time as the daughter of a respected tradesman . . . as a girl who never did any work harder than looking after her young brothers."

  "I see."

  Grace turned to face him, and he could see her very white face in the soft lanternlight from the house. "No, you do not see, Adam. That’s not the worst of it. My family did not simply mean for me to marry a man of better means than myself – a tradesman, or a farmer.

  "No, they have been insisting – demanding – all this time that I set my cap for Earl Worthington himself. Nothing less would do for them. And so, while I have kept company with you and found that I had great affection growing for you, I knew all the time that I was meant to try for the earl. Or, at the very least, a friend of his who had far more per year than the small earnings a coachman could ever hope for."

  Well, there it was. And it was just as bad, if not worse, than everything Thomas had feared.

  Grace Miller had been misrepresenting herself the entire time he had known her. This simple servant girl had set her cap for a wealthy, titled man just as coldly as the most determined fortune hunter would ever do.

  "So, your real target has been Earl Worthington all along. I suppose you were just practicing on poor old Adam the coachman."

  She raised one hand as though to silence him. "I was only doing as my family insisted I must, in order to help all of us. Even if the earl had wanted to marry me – " Grace shook her head, and tried to laugh. "Even if he had, I would have done all I could to be a good wife to him."

  "But the fact remains that you do not even know him. You could not possibly have had any amount of affection or care for the man. The only fact you had concerning him was that he had wealth, and that was enough for you."

  She looked at him very coldly. "I don't know how to convince you that my love was for my family, not – not whoever I may have to marry. When I thought of a wedding, I did not see the face of a man waiting for me in a church. I saw my brothers and my mother, who would be cared for at last and never again have to worry about having food to eat or a place to sleep out of the rain and cold."

  He cocked his head and studied her. "I see that you didn’t want to falsely elevate your status just for its own sake. You did it solely in hopes of catching Earl Worthington. But the earl seems to be a very fast-flying target to hit. Wouldn't a successful tradesman, or a well-to-do farmer's son, have been enough for you?"

  She took a deep breath, clearly trying to control her irritation and embarrassment. "Such a man, if he were still a good man, would have suited me – but not my family. There are five of us, including two growing boys who eat more than a pair of draught colts – when they can get it.

  "And there is my aunt and uncle to consider. This very good cottage is actually theirs, as was the orchard. They had to
sell the orchard to get money for us to live. They allow us to stay here, free of rent, while they make do with a cramped room over their shop."

  She raised her head and her voice became a little stronger. "Does that not mean that I owe them? All of them? If I am able to make the best marriage possible – the man with the biggest fortune, the most property, the one best able to provide – why shouldn't I do so? It is the best way – really the only way – that I have of helping my family. The meager wages I could earn as a housemaid would be next to nothing compared to that."

  Grace continued pacing slowly beneath the tree. "But now I’m suffering the sort of punishment that may help to ease your mind. Once I met the coachman, I found it near impossible to think of any other man . . . not even the earl."

  Thomas paused, torn between controlling his temper and feeling pity – and some understanding – for what Grace had done. "I feared that what Tanner said was true – that it was not just drunken insult. He had a good position at Feathering Park and no reason to lie. No reason to confront a respectable young woman in the streets in such a terrible way."

  She turned and faced the darkness, keeping her silence.

  "But that worthless man does not matter," said Thomas. "He is long gone now, back to London and the docks where he belongs."

  He watched her in the darkness, keeping his temper in check. "I just want to know one thing: Why did you go on misrepresenting yourself to me, when you could see that I was beginning to care for you? Did you plan to simply cut me loose, should the earl – or any other man with enough of a fortune to make him attractive – make you a better offer?"

  Grace shook her head. "You seem to understand nothing. If I had presented myself as a penniless servant girl, I would never have been at that first assembly ball in the first place. No one would have allowed me in, if they had known what I really am – what my family really is. Mrs. Robbins would never have agreed to vouch for me and sign my ticket to get me inside for the first ball."

  Finally, she turned and stared at him. "I would never have been near the Robbins Inn that night, especially in a pretty yellow gown. I would never have met a handsome coachman named Adam Wheeler. And none of us would be suffering this torment now. I am sorry, Adam. Truly sorry that you were deceived. But I can offer you nothing except an apology."

  "I see." He got up from the bench and started to walk towards her, beneath the tree in the darkness, but thought better of it. "Tell me, Grace . . . how much of your disguising yourself is because you are trying to hide your father? It seems to me that that is truly the worst of it.

  "I can only imagine how . . . embarrassed all of you must be. Even fearful. Some men become very dangerous when lost to drink. If there was anything that makes your actions understandable, it’s this. I suppose anyone would have to hide such a man were they to have one in their family, if they wished to be part of polite society at all."

  She fell silent again, for such a long time that Thomas thought that perhaps she simply had nothing else to say about her father. But then she walked over to Thomas, took him by the hand, and led him around to the side of the cottage.

  The back of the little home had a fairly large walled garden attached to it. Grace took Thomas all the way to the backside of the wall, walking along the edges of the apple orchard.

  The bright moon, just a day past full, was rising in the open sky beyond the orchard. Grace knocked on the high solid gate in the center of the wall and called out. "Mother. Please open the gate. There is someone here who – who wishes to meet you. And who wishes to meet Father."

  * * *

  Slowly, the heavy gate swung open. "Why, Grace, dear! Whatever are ye talking about? I know you met Mr. Wheeler out in the front, under the oak tree. Why are you here?"

  Grace drew a deep breath. "Mother, this is Mr. Adam Wheeler. I met him in Birdwell, not long after we arrived here. No, we were not introduced. We met on a common walkway. He is a coachman at Worthington, though it seems he is returning to London very soon. And Mr. Wheeler, this is my mother, Mrs. Miller."

  Adam bowed very formally. "Mrs. Miller." Her mother giggled just a bit and remembered to make a curtsey. "Mr. Wheeler. Welcome to our home."

  "You have already met John and Noah," said Grace, nodding towards the two boys who stood near the rear door of the house."

  "I have. I am pleased to see you again," he said, turning to face them.

  The two boys made quick little bows to their guest. "Mr. Wheeler," they said together, and Grace found that she could almost smile. "Go inside now," she said to them. "Get your rest. We will all be right here."

  With only small objections, John and Noah opened the back door of the house and went inside, closing the door after them. Grace turned her attention to the small chair and table at the far end of the walled garden, near the rows of vegetables. A small glowing light occasionally moved in the blackness above the table.

  "My father is over there," Grace said quietly, nodding towards the small light. "Before you – before you go away, I would like for you to meet him."

  Patience Miller said nothing. No doubt, she had been listening in to every word that Grace and Adam had exchanged out front. But Grace was long past worrying about such small things now.

  A strange calm had come over her. It was, as she had said, that she had little left to lose and there was no longer any reason for secrets. I may as well tell him all of it . . . all that we know.

  "What you heard in the streets last night was true," Grace said quietly. "My father was a coachman. And yes, he ruined himself with drink. But he was not always lost in such a way. I well remember a very good man who was devoted to his family. My brothers are too young to recall this, but I do. I recall it very well."

  "He started out as a good man," insisted Patience. "He became ill, as some men do. That's all. An illness. We don't abandon those that are ill, now, do we?"

  Thomas ventured to ask a question. "Are all of you safe from him?" He kept his voice as gentle, as though trying to be understanding. "Sometimes this – illness – can cause men to greatly change and be a threat, even towards those they say they love."

  Patience pulled herself up very straight. "Mr. Miller was never violent or cruel to anyone," she told him, rather indignantly. "He just drowns himself in his cups each day, trying to escape those things that stay with him no matter how he tries to forget them. He worked day and night to provide for his family until he simply could not work any longer."

  She walked over and stood with her hands on her husband's shoulders, even though he hardly seemed aware of her. "I will not abandon him now that he is ill. He never abandoned any of us. He still has not. He does what he can, even if it is very little. All of us know that."

  Grace stepped forward beside Thomas. "My father had been getting forgetful even before – even before taking to drink," she said. "He was not so young even when I was born. We are not entirely sure that it’s only the drink that has damaged him so. But in any case, it hardly matters now."

  Thomas continued looking into the dark corner of the high-walled yard, where Grace's father sat in the deep shadows with only the light from his pipe to show where he was. "You make it sound as though he was quite well and a good man until – until when?" he asked. "Did something happen? Something that changed him?"

  Both women were silent.

  "He likes to watch the moon rise when it's full," said Patience, as if she had not heard Thomas speak. "We always bring him out here then, if the sky is clear enough. He insists on it. Never wants to miss the sight."

  Grace glanced up at Thomas, and then walked to the far corner of the walled yard where her father sat with his pipe. Thomas followed her, as did her mother. "Hello, Father," she said, placing her hand on his shoulder.

  * * *

  Apparently, a bit startled, Cecil Miller turned abruptly to see who his visitors were. "Oh, hello, hello, Grace," he said, and then sat back in his chair again. "Is your mother about?"

  Patience stood ri
ght behind Grace, but Grace only smiled and did not try to persuade him otherwise. "She’s always here, Father. I’m sure she'll be out directly."

  "Good, good. Ah, do ye see that moon rising? I must always see it. Sets everything alight in silver, it does. That's the time for driving, when there's darkness."

  "Indeed. It certainly is pretty. I like to see it, too." Grace placed a hand on Thomas's arm and drew him forward a few steps. "Father – there is someone here who would like to meet you."

  At last, Cecil looked up at Thomas, standing in the moonlight – and the man seemed to freeze in sheer terror. He dropped the pipe and it fell to the ground, still glowing. Thomas quickly reached down and placed it back on the table.