The Theory of Earls (The Beautiful Barringtons Book 1)

by Kathleen Ayers

  Margaret halted halfway across the lawn, spying a familiar indigo coat and set of broad shoulders. She nearly turned around but pressed on. She thought of Winthrop taking her hand the last time he had called, recalling the squeeze of his sweaty fingers against hers. The memory steeled her resolve. Margaret strode forward, confident she looked her best, and with a mountain of determination. It would have to be Carstairs

  Time was running out, and she’d no time to find a better candidate.

  10

  Tony saw Miss Lainscott’s approach far before she faltered in her steps after catching sight of him. He’d been watching her, albeit discreetly, since he’d left the side of his stepmother and sister. Her small, determined form, costumed so fetchingly as an iris, filled him with intense longing. Desire was an emotion Tony was well-acquainted with, but his feelings for Miss Lainscott were bordering on obsession.

  The idea that Miss Lainscott, a woman of unique, untapped sensuality and above-average intelligence, would waste herself on someone of Carstairs’s limited abilities was nothing short of shameful. It bothered him far more than it should have.

  Carstairs was speaking, but Tony didn’t hear him; all his attention was focused on the delicate woman dressed as an iris who rapidly approached the group, her dark eyes full of purpose. Carstairs didn’t stand a chance against Miss Lainscott.

  “Don’t you think so, Welles?” Carstairs clapped him on the back, nearly putting out one of Tony’s eyes with the antlers strapped atop his head.

  “In complete agreement,” Tony replied, having no idea what Carstairs was talking about. Probably something to do with a gun. Or hunting. Maybe the bass he’d caught on his last fishing trip.

  Regardless of his friend’s lack of brilliance, Carstairs was a good man. An honorable man—far more so than Tony. He wasn’t especially close to Carstairs and they had little in common outside of shooting or hunting, but Carstairs was uncomplicated and so bloody nice you couldn’t help but like him.

  But that didn’t mean Tony wanted to just hand over Miss Lainscott.

  Miss Rebecca Turnbull batted her eyelashes at Carstairs while Tony took in her coiffure. He assumed the young lady was attempting to be a tree or a giant bird’s nest, Tony wasn’t certain. Miss Turnbull’s hair was a mass of golden ringlets woven through with twigs, leaves, and small blue ovals which he took to be robin’s eggs.

  He felt the brush of Miss Lainscott’s skirts against his legs as she wedged herself next to him. “Miss Lainscott, I wondered where you’d gotten off to.”

  “Did you?” She smiled prettily, mostly for the benefit of Carstairs and the others in the group.

  Carstairs turned sharply at Miss Lainscott’s arrival, neatly snagging Miss Turnbull’s hair in one of the antlers and pulling free a large portion of the young woman’s coiffure. “Oh, dear.” He gamely attempted to unravel her hair while the young lady struggled at his side.

  “Dear God,” Miss Lainscott uttered under her breath. She gamely stepped forward to assist in sorting out the melee of Miss Turnbull’s hair. Her lips remained tight. Tony was fairly certain she was trying not to laugh out loud at the absurdity of the moment.

  Carstairs swung his head back to Miss Lainscott, who deftly sidestepped the threat of his antlers. “Many thanks for your assistance.” He looked at her with a wrinkled brow as if trying to place her. Carstairs looked at everyone that way. God bless him.

  “Carstairs,” Tony said. “You recall Miss Lainscott, do you not? We made her acquaintance at Gray Covington last year.”

  His friend’s face remained devoid of any recognition.

  Tony often wondered what went on behind those vacant eyes. Nothing, probably. “While we were on our way back from your hunting lodge,” he gently reminded Carstairs. “The trip in which you shot that enormous grouse. Don’t you recall?”

  Carstairs’s eyes lit up. He only ever recalled a person or a place if it related to his outdoor pursuits. The man never forgot any small animal or fowl he’d dispatched. “Yes, of course. Miss Lainscott.” He took her hand. “Lovely to see you again.”

  Miss Turnbull frowned. Her hair was a mess. One of the pretend robin eggs fell from her hair, bounced off one cheek, and landed in the valley between her breasts. Worse, Carstairs didn’t seem to notice.

  Miss Lainscott stepped closer, risking life and limb with Carstairs whipping his antlers about.

  Brave girl.

  She seemed determined to ignore Tony, not even bothering to acknowledge his help in reintroducing her to Carstairs. He discreetly studied the slender lines of her arms and the way the sunlight glinted off the warm brown of her hair turning some of the strands to amber. He had the strangest urge to pull her to him and ask her to cease this folly.

  “How large was the grouse you managed to snag, if you don’t mind me asking?” Miss Lainscott gave Carstairs a pretty smile. She listened in rapt attention as Carstairs regaled her with a description of the bird in question much to the dismay of Miss Turnbull, who was forced to retreat and make extensive repairs to her coiffure.

  Miss Lainscott, clever little thing she was, followed up Carstairs’s tale of grouse hunting with one of her own. Apparently, she’d begged her father to take her grouse hunting on the moors and, much to his surprise, had snagged her own bird.

  Carstairs was enraptured.

  Tony nearly burst into laughter. If Miss Lainscott had ever toted about a rifle in the early morning hours to shoot a grouse, Tony would eat his boots. The fact that her tale was peppered with references to her unknown excellent shooting ability only made the entire story more absurd. She was a very convincing liar.

  Just as she was about to launch into what he assumed was an equally fabricated tale concerning trout fishing, Miss Turnbull returned to stake her claim on Carstairs. She cooed in his ear, carefully this time, as her hair could not survive another swipe of the antlers. Her gloved hand floated over his forearm as she entertained them all with a story of a fox hunt, laying claim to Carstairs while her eyes surveyed the rival for his affections.

  A furrow appeared between Miss Lainscott’s eyes. She hadn’t been expecting anyone to challenge her over Carstairs.

  Miss Turnbull, after her lengthy story of the fox hunt, declared herself to be parched. She dragged Carstairs off in the direction of the refreshment table, pausing only to throw Miss Lainscott a look of challenge. Guests and servants alike scattered at Carstairs’s approach to the tent, giving him a wide berth, horrified at the possibility of being stabbed while drinking—or serving—lemonade.

  Tony watched his friend and Miss Turnbull disappear into the tent before bending down until his nose brushed the top of Miss Lainscott’s head.

  “Round one to Miss Turnbull.”

  “Not at all.” She took a step back and gave him a defiant look, but he already saw her mind working behind her dark eyes to solve the problem of Miss Turnbull. “I think our first meeting went rather well.”

  “Not from where I stood.”

  “He liked my story of the grouse hunt,” she snapped back and started to walk away from him in the direction of Lady Masterson’s folly. “We’ve much in common.”

  Tony snorted in disbelief and followed at a slower pace behind her, enjoying the way her hips twitched in agitation as she walked. “Poor little iris.”

  Lady Masterson’s folly, an octagonal white-washed structure, was set against the beauty of a man-made pond surrounded by cattails and tall grass. Several large lily pads floated as a chorus of frogs croaked at their approach.

  Miss Lainscott steadfastly ignored him and picked up her pace.

  In two steps, Tony caught up to her before slowing to match his larger strides to her smaller ones. He studied the graceful slope of her neck, thinking of how sweet her skin would taste beneath his tongue. She was worrying her bottom lip, something that made him want to kiss her and offer her comfort. “I think you’re put out because now you know you need my help. Miss Turnbull is a worthy adversary, don’t you think?”r />
  “Not in the least.” Miss Lainscott gave him a blinding and insincere smile as she wandered to the edge of the pond, absently pausing to flick a plump cattail with her fingers. The lavender sleeves fluttered prettily along her upper arms as the skirts of her gown blended in with the tall grass surrounding the lake. Her profile was firm. Undeterred. So bloody earnest and determined to marry the dim-witted Carstairs, all so she could have control over her future. He was surprised by the ache he felt as he looked at her, not between his legs, but somewhere in the region of his heart.

  “I didn’t realize you also possessed a talent for storytelling,” Tony finally said. A stray bit of hair fell from the perfect nest of pins and peonies atop her head. “I quite liked the dogs in your story.”

  “The dogs were real,” she said, turning to face him. “My father’s.” A sad smile touched her lips. “Andy and Jake were sold at auction when he died, along with everything else that belonged to him.” A resigned shrug lifted her shoulders. “Which, I suppose included me, in a way.”

  Another contraction in his chest followed her words. He’d never cared for Lady Dobson and found he was liking her less as time went on.

  “And my mother’s piano,” she continued in a quiet voice. “The one my father gave her. He sent all the way to Austria for it. I feel certain it would have challenged even the Broadwood.”

  A fierce sense of protectiveness came over Tony at the sadness lighting Miss Lainscott’s eyes. He wished to pull her into his arms and assure her all would be well, a wholly foreign emotion, and one usually only reserved for one of his sisters when they were distressed. But his feelings toward this small woman were anything but brotherly.

  “My mother played the piano as well,” he said before he could stop himself. “She taught me to play. Then my father insisted I receive proper instruction.”

  “You became too skilled for her to teach you more?” Miss Lainscott’s eyes were soft as they took him in. Like a pot of hot chocolate on a cold winter’s day, silky and dark. “I think you’ve downplayed your musical abilities, my lord.”

  “No,” Tony said. The pain when he thought of his mother had dimmed over time, but it had never gone away. He used to dream of her, of how she’d tucked him close to her side while she taught him his scales. Mother had always smelled of lavender. “She died.”

  Miss Lainscott turned to him, sympathy written across the small oval of her face. “My mother perished of fever—a sickness sweeping the mines that my father unwittingly brought home with him. He and I didn’t get sick. Not even so much as a sniffle. I was barely twelve.”

  “Her name was Katherine.” Tony heard the longing in his own voice. “She fell down the stairs while heavy with child.” There had been so much blood. On the stairs. All over her dress. It had covered Tony from head to toe when he’d tried to pick her up. His mother had been on her way to confront her lecherous prick of a husband over his audacity in thinking it within his rights to fuck both Tony’s mother and her lady’s maid. She’d seen the duke and Molly together in the gardens from her bedroom window. Careless of them. But his mother had been virtually bed-ridden and rarely left her rooms. “She died very soon after.” His mother had whispered the truth of what she’d seen in his ear even as Tony had screamed for help. “The child was stillborn.” The doctor had been summoned, but far too late.

  Tony had adored his mother. He still did. She’d been brilliant and educated, well-bred, and musical. She’d refused to hand him over to a nursemaid as his father had wished and insisted on raising Tony herself. He’d promised his mother, as the life ebbed from her body, that he would make sure the Duke of Averell was punished.

  Miss Lainscott’s hand fell against the sleeve of his coat, plucking at the material with her fingers. “I am so very sorry, my lord. I, too, still miss my mother, no matter the years that have passed.”

  Tony looked down at those slender fingers gently squeezing his arm, and he found himself wishing to bury his head against the nape of her neck. There was no guile or pity in her gaze. No artifice. Miss Lainscott regarded him as if Tony was worthy of her concern. He’d spent so many years living without a care for anyone, taking women as he pleased, doing as he wished. Running a club barely a step above a bordello. He’d promised himself he’d never marry. Never have a child.

  “Is that why you don’t play the Broadwood?”

  A tremor went through him as her arrow hit its mark with remarkably little effort. “Who told you that? Let me guess,” he said before she could answer. “Phaedra?”

  She said nothing, her eyes like brushed velvet, shrewd and knowing.

  Miss Lainscott bloody terrified him.

  “I choose not to play the Broadwood. I’ve no reason to.” Why had he told her about his mother? He never spoke of Katherine, the late Duchess of Averell. It was awful and tragic, not at all appropriate for a discussion during a garden party, especially with the woman he was trying to seduce.

  “The Broadwood was a gift from my father,” he said. “And I want nothing from the Duke of Averell.”

  11

  Margaret inhaled sharply at the rage tingeing his words. Had she not been certain before, she was now. Welles hated his father. This was no mere disagreement, but an estrangement born of something terrible between Welles and the Duke of Averell.

  His brilliant eyes grew shadowed, closing as Welles turned his head. The humid day had brought out the waves in his thick hair, giving the strands a more tousled look than usual, as if he’d been standing at the prow of a ship at sea. His anguish over his mother’s death was obvious. Margaret longed to smooth the heavy waves from his temples and hold him. She reminded herself, in the strictest of admonishments, that Welles was an unprincipled rogue. But that wasn’t all he was.

  “Is that why you haven’t married?”

  The blue eyes turned to chips of ice and Margaret could almost see the wall he raised around himself as protection.

  There are ways to breach walls.

  Heir to a duke, Welles should have been married years ago, but he remained unwed in complete defiance of his duty. Every gentleman, especially a superbly titled one like Welles, had a responsibility to produce an heir. She looked up into his handsome features, now glacial and remote. There was nothing playful or sensual about him now. If anything, the dangerous look on Welles’s face should have given her pause.

  Margaret reached out and gently clasped his larger hand in hers.

  Welles inhaled sharply at her touch but did not pull away.

  Her heart, the organ which she guarded so selfishly, beat loudly, drowning out even the sound of the frogs in Lady Masterson’s pond. It was a terribly bold, forward thing to do to take his hand. The pieces of Welles, more complicated than Margaret had ever imagined, all fit together seamlessly in an instant.

  He didn’t speak again, though his features softened, and he squeezed her fingers.

  Margaret squeezed back.

  They stood silently, save for the frogs, hands joined, while the rest of the party continued below on the lawn. After a few minutes, Margaret felt the tension in his body ease and Welles released her hand. He turned to her, the breeze batting the waves of his hair against his jaw. Lifting his hand, Welles tucked a loose strand of her hair behind her ear. His touch lingered for a heartbeat before one finger gently caressed the delicate skin of her cheek.

  Margaret’s entire body arched in his direction, pulled by some unseen force.

  “Welles.” His name broke from her lips in a dark whisper. She should be down on the lawn, chasing Carstairs about, avoiding being stabbed by his ridiculous antlers. Possibly she should consider pushing Miss Turnbull into the pond. “I should go.”

  “Shh.” The finger ran along the side of her face to the corner of her mouth.

  Margaret’s eyes fluttered closed, unable to meet his eyes as he carefully traced her lower lip before the lightest touch of his mouth on hers took the breath from her body. She stayed in place, her eyes shut, listening to t
he frogs until his lips left hers.

  She took a deep breath wanting to ask him why he’d done such a thing but when she opened her eyes, Welles was gone.

  12

  “Oh, Mama, did you see what Miss Howard was wearing? The fabric was so thin and sheer.” Romy sighed wistfully.

  “I believe she was an orchid.” The duchess bestowed an indulgent smile on her eldest daughter as the coach pulled away from Lady Masterson’s estate.

  “I didn’t have a chance to ask where she purchased it or the modiste responsible for the cut of her gown. I should like to see the design.”

  “I believe her mother uses Madame Fontaine. I ran into her on Bond Street the other day while shopping with Olivia. You could start there.”

  Romy took out her notebook and started writing something down.

  The duchess shook her head at her daughter’s obsession. “Did you enjoy yourself, Miss Lainscott? Were there any gowns that caught your eye?”

  “It was a wonderful party, Your Grace. I found some of the costumes to be quite…unusual,” she said, thinking of Miss Turnbull’s hair. “I was introduced to Miss Turnbull—”

  “Speaking of pea-wits,” Romy interjected, not looking up. “I’m wondering what induced her to put a nest of robin eggs in her hair, though I was relieved to find the eggs were fake.”

  “Do not be unkind, Romy,” the duchess cautioned, “though I’m in agreement. Miss Turnbull has set her cap for Lord Carstairs, and her father favors him as well.”

  The thought of Miss Turnbull securing Carstairs should have bothered Margaret more, but just now, with the rain pattering against the top of the coach, all she could think of was Welles. It had only been a brush of his lips, but he’d kissed her. Margaret could still feel the featherlight touch against her mouth and the warmth of his hand in hers. She looked out the window in the direction of the folly, feeling a relentless pull in Welles’s direction.