West End Earl

by Bethany Bennett

  “May you what?”

  Kingston cleared his throat. “Would you like assistance styling your hair once you’ve changed gowns, miss?”

  She bit into her bottom lip to stave off more tears at the kindness. “I would appreciate that. I’m afraid I don’t know what to do with it as it grows longer. Give me a few minutes to change?”

  He nodded in a shallow bow. “I’ll gather supplies and meet you in the hall outside your door. Which chamber is yours?”

  “Just there.” She pointed. “I’ll see you momentarily, then.”

  Thankfully, the copper gown was freshly washed and pressed. It had become her favorite and always made her feel sensual and beautiful. The deep scooped neckline showcased her collarbones and creamy skin, and the skirt swished when she walked.

  Washing her face and hands in the small porcelain basin took only a moment, then changing gowns took a few more. When a lady’s maid would have been required, she and Emma helped each other, but Phee had deliberately chosen a wardrobe she could don without assistance. They were living quietly here, with minimal staff. The lower a profile they kept, the better, until the timeline of their arrival and the baby’s age blurred in the memories of the locals and their acquaintances in London.

  She opened the door to find Kingston waiting in the hall, as promised.

  “May I, miss? We can leave the door open to observe the proprieties.”

  She did just that, touched that he would think of her comfort and reputation. The man had adapted to the news with remarkable grace. Unless it wasn’t news at all.

  Phee took a seat at the vanity table, and he set to work combing her curls. “Kingston, how long have you known?”

  He met her eyes in the mirror. “Awhile, miss. His lordship swore me to secrecy when I discovered, and you can trust I’ll hold my tongue now. Lord Carlyle would hate me saying so, but he’s been grieving the loss of you something awful. Did you get the letter?”

  “You’re the one who posted it?”

  “I know I overstepped, but I thought you should have it. Now, as to your hair. Until it gets longer and has some weight to it, you’ll need a product like this.” In the mirror, he held up a small jar of pomade. “Whereas men use enough to slick the hair down, you only need a little on your fingers. Then you either shape the curls like this,” he instructed, working some kind of magic that turned her fluff into an honest-to-God curl, “or you can form waves with your fingers instead of individual ringlet curls. With your bone structure, you’ll wear either style well, but it depends on how much time you have to devote to your toilette. For today’s purposes, we shall keep it simple.”

  “I’ll be damned,” she muttered, staring at the result. The valet’s wizardry distracted her from the flurry of nerves tickling her stomach at the thought of seeing Cal again.

  Kingston laughed under his breath.

  “You’re a miracle worker.” Gone was the baby-duck fluff. No, she didn’t miraculously have a pile of thick hair, but she had a style instead of puffy ginger chaos. Finger waves, with a side part, and small curls framed her features.

  “Do you have any rouge, or kohl for your lashes? You’re a trifle pale. And there’s only one chance to make a first impression. We want you to feel your best when his lordship begs to get you back, after all. That is the point, yes?”

  If he was here to beg, then yes. Phee placed a hand over her racing heart. Cal was here. In the house. Without Violet bloody Cuthbert. The ire over that last letter battled with her nerves and won. Phee firmed her jaw. If he was going to beg, then she’d look like a queen while he did it. “I have a pot of rouge Emma gave me, but I rarely use it.” She opened a drawer. Like the others in the vanity table, it was nearly empty of fripperies. The memory of slipping her carved bird into Cal’s bedroom table surfaced. Had he found it yet? Had he connected what it meant—that she’d chosen freedom and hoped he would too?

  The little black ceramic pot with gilt lettering rolled when she tried to grab it. “Here.”

  As if he did this every day, Kingston dabbed a bit of the cream on her cheeks and lips, gently blending it until she looked healthy and not like someone who could believably lie about nearly dying from a fever within the last few months.

  The one time she’d played with the stuff, her outcome had been nowhere near as attractive. The valet surveyed her from head to toe.

  “There. You’ll do nicely.” He handed her the pot of rouge. “If I may be so bold, miss? His lordship is a good man. But a bit of groveling wouldn’t be amiss, I think.” With that, he left for the guest room where Polly would have directed him to put Cal’s things.

  Phee smiled at the now-empty doorway, then tucked the rouge pot into its drawer. The mirror reflected an image that had her raising her chin and smoothing a hand over the front of her gown. Kingston seemed to think Cal had come here to reconcile. If Cal was still engaged to be married, surely his valet would have said as much.

  Downstairs, Phee paused outside the parlor. The low rumble of Cal’s and Emma’s voices reached through the closed door. Goose bumps rose on her skin at the sound of him. Even though she couldn’t make out the words, he refreshed a part of her that had withered in his absence, like a flower without rain or sun.

  She closed her eyes and tried to steady her breathing. Damned red hair meant every emotion showed on her complexion, in blushes and blotchy skin. She might as well share her feelings on a sign around her neck. Fear. Anxiety. Anger. Desire.

  Lordy, the desire surprised her. The way it unfurled within Phee at the sound of his voice, like a lazy cat stretching in a windowsill sunbeam. It would take every ounce of her self-control to not throw herself into his arms the minute he apologized.

  Please, God, let him apologize.

  “Let the groveling commence,” she murmured.

  * * *

  Since Cal had rolled through Olread Cove and found the correct house, ghastly nerves about seeing Phee again had tied him in knots, along with an undeniable desperation to finally be in the same room with her.

  Standing in the parlor of the snug cottage was surreal, but he still hadn’t seen Phee. For one heart-stopping moment, he thought he heard her voice from somewhere in the house. A few seconds later, Emma entered the parlor and walked right into his arms.

  “You came. I’m so glad,” she said.

  The hug restored a piece of his calm. Cal rested his cheek on the top of her head. “How’s little Mortimer Hildegard?”

  Emma stepped away, rolling her eyes. “He wants pie. A lot of pie.” Her expression turned serious as she studied him. Not as a sister but as an adult and equal. It hit him all at once that his baby sister was growing up. “You’ll need to beg her, you know. She’s alive, despite what you may have read in the Times. I’m assuming that’s why you’re here.”

  He smiled, but it felt like a twisted thing on his face instead of an expression of joy. “Don’t misunderstand. I love seeing you happy and healthy. But yes, I’m here for Phee.”

  And then in she walked, so utterly lovely that she stole all the air left in his lungs.

  “See, brother mine? I told you—alive and well,” Emma said.

  “Phee.” He breathed her name like a prayer. The way he used to say it in bed. Intimate, and with a touch of reverence. As if there could be any other way to speak to her after weeks without the warmth from her flame-red hair and joyful laughter.

  By God, she made his knees weak. The gown she wore exposed delicious skin, showcasing elegant arms and the curving lines of delicate collarbones. Phee told him once in bed that she liked them, and the bones had fascinated him ever since. He wanted to simultaneously worship her and do filthy, earthy, sexual things with her until neither of them possessed any doubt who he belonged to.

  The features he’d traced over and over in his mind were composed and distant, while the mere sight of Phee threatened to undo him.

  “Hello, Cal. We weren’t expecting you. Don’t you have a wedding to plan? Or is your role to
simply do what they say?” The words cut, but he was glad for it. Mad meant she cared. He could handle anger and hurt and anything else Phee threw at him—as long as it wasn’t apathy.

  “I deserve that.” Clearing his throat, he fidgeted with the brim of his hat so he wouldn’t reach for her. “I’m not marrying Violet Cuthbert.” The carefully prepared speech he’d memorized over the days of travel disintegrated in his brain as he stared at her. “You look amazing, Phee. Beautiful as ever.”

  “And I look like an egg. Spherical and wobbly,” Emma said beside him. He glanced her way to see her rolling her eyes good-naturedly. “No, Brother. Don’t attempt to compliment me. I’ll leave you two to catch up.” She winked at Cal, then closed the door behind her.

  Silence fell in the snug parlor.

  Phee wrapped her arms around herself and gave him a wide berth, stopping in front of the window. Beyond her shoulder, Cal couldn’t see anything worth watching. The packed-dirt lane in front of the house was empty except for a dusty traveling carriage rattling down the street slowly, taking its time over the rutted roadway. Olread Cove was a peaceful village.

  She turned to face him. “You look like hell.”

  He rubbed a palm over the short beard Kingston claimed made him appear unkempt. Cal thought it lent him a vaguely piratical look. “You don’t like it?”

  There was no hiding the dark circles under his eyes and a new gauntness to his cheeks, though. These past few weeks had held little sleep and even less appetite.

  A frown knit her brows together. “I’m not talking about the beard. You really look awful. Are you sick? Is that why the sudden change of heart about Miss Cuthbert? If you’ve come all this way to drop dead on my floor, I will pitch your corpse off the nearest cliff. Don’t think I won’t.”

  Cal’s laugh grated roughly as if rusty from disuse. “Aw, Phee, you care.” He covered his heart and winked.

  She rolled her eyes, but a quirk at the corner of her mouth made him hope. “Why are you here, Calvin?”

  Like a snuffed candle, the lightness in his chest died, and he remembered how it had felt to read that newspaper announcement. “I needed to see for myself that you were alive and well. I knew logically that if you’d d-died…” He stuttered over the word, then gulped and tried again. “If you’d died, Emma would tell me. But I had to see you.” There was no reason to prevaricate, not after coming all this way. “I had to tell you in person that I love you. I’m miserable without you. I don’t want to have a life apart from you. And whatever that looks like—wherever you want to live, under whatever name you choose—I want to be part of it. I came to beg, Ophelia.”

  She blinked. “My name is Fiona now. Fiona Hardwick.”

  “Still Phee, then. Just a different spelling.”

  “It’s the closest I could come to living under my own name.” Her bittersweet smile made him itch to hold her. It didn’t escape him that she offered no comment or reply to his declaration of love. He’d have loved if she’d fallen into his arms and forgiven all, but that wasn’t realistic.

  Phee had been through hell and back, and he hadn’t been here for it. In the grand scheme of things, Cal’s feelings weren’t bigger than the task she’d undertaken to change her name and claim her future.

  Stepping toward her, Cal held out a hand. “Nice to meet you, Fiona. I remember reading somewhere that Fiona means fair. The perfect name for a beautiful woman.”

  He didn’t sense a softening in her posture until she finally shook his hand. That battered flicker of hope in his soul grew ever so slightly. Touching Phee again sent every nerve in his arm tingling.

  The grip of her handshake was tight enough to hurt when she said, “If all you want is a mistress, you can climb into that fancy carriage and drive right into hell.”

  “I don’t want a mistress, Phee. Where did you get that idea?”

  She released his hand and spun away, hugging herself. After pacing a few feet, she whirled on him and flung her hands in the air. “You spoke of a future with me but never marriage, then talked of marrying someone else, you bacon-brained princock!”

  God, he’d missed her. Daring her wrath, he crossed to where she stood, and traced a finger over one curl resting against her cheek. “You will never have to doubt my love and commitment to you. Not a mistress, my love. You don’t ever need to hide again.”

  Those eyes he’d dreamed of for the past weeks studied him. “Let’s go for a walk. During which you will tell me everything, beginning with your intentions. Perhaps then we can see where we stand.”

  Cal donned his hat and reached for the caped cloak he’d draped over a nearby chair. Phee opened the cupboard and removed a wool wrap.

  Offering his arm to her, he said, “Miss Hardwick, would you care to show me your favorite place to ramble?”

  “My favorite walking path follows the cliff edge. I suggest you choose your words carefully, or I’ll push you over.”

  Cal snagged one of her hands before she could cover it with a leather glove. Raising her hand to his lips, he pressed a firm kiss to her skin, then breathed her in. Warm sandalwood, with a trace of sugar. He could eat her up—for hours. Days, if she’d let him. “I’ve missed you, Phee.”

  “I missed you too.” Her voice shook. For the moment, that vulnerability was enough. It was a promising start, at least. No matter how long it took to win her back, he’d be here for it—but they could start with a walk and occasional death threats.

  Outside, they picked their way along the gravel path through a garden and past a wooden gate toward the green expanse of land that cut off abruptly at the cliff. A cool breeze ruffled the curls on her uncovered head. Cal tucked her hand between his arm and body and angled himself to block most of the wind whipping off the water.

  “Winter here will be brutal, I imagine,” he said.

  “I expect so. But the house is sturdy and seems to hold the heat well. We have enough firewood to carry us through till spring. This will do nicely until Emma decides where she wants to live with the baby.”

  “I’ll get used to it,” Cal said.

  She raised a brow at him in query.

  He shrugged, hugging her hand tighter to his body. “Where you go, I go. Unless you tell me you don’t love me or want me, I will stay wherever you are.”

  “Your life is in London and at Lakeview.”

  He stopped, pulling her to a halt with him. “The only life I want is with you. Everything else is negotiable. Besides, I think we can both agree that I handle my life better with you by my side helping me.”

  “Then why did you tell your father you wouldn’t marry a woman with scandal in her past? Why did you woo me while everyone thought you were promised to Violet?”

  The hurt in her voice tore a hole in him, but it was a valid question. “When did I tell Eastly I wouldn’t marry—wait, was that in the drawing room when he arrived at Lakeview?” Things clicked together in his memory, and he thought he’d be sick. Phee let go of him and continued down the path, but her silence was answer enough.

  “I wish I had a justifiable answer,” he called, following her toward the cliff. “I was stalling for time and grasping at reasons to put him off. God, what you must have thought.” Cal reached where she’d stopped at the edge. “Love, I’m so sorry. I was prevaricating—like I always do, because my entire life, I’ve juggled my parents’ scandals and handled the fallout.”

  “Why didn’t you tell Eastly no? Tell the baron no. Hell, tell everyone no.”

  He rolled his shoulders. Not a shrug so much as a physical release of the truth. “I thought I’d handle it, like I handled dozens of problems before this. Not only were the stakes higher this time but my priority should have been to you. Instead of bringing you in like I would have before, I tried to shelter you from the ugliness of it all. You deserve more than that, Phee. You deserve a partner. I should have told Eastly to go to hell. I have now, not that it helps anything with us.”

  He grasped one of her hands and urged Phee to
turn, needing to see her face. While he’d hoped to see forgiveness softening the hard line of her jaw, her eyes still sparked with anger.

  “And the decision to marry Miss Cuthbert anyway? We received your letter today.”

  Cal winced. If he’d been one day earlier, he could have spared her the hurt of reading what he’d written while in the throes of a hopeless depression. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t in a good place. After word of the losses with the Wilhelmina, my last hope for Eastly’s finances died. I pored over the estate books, and the only way he can pay this debt is to sell everything unentailed, then live on a budget for a few years.”

  She snorted, then covered the sound with her hand.

  He shot her a knowing look. “Exactly. We both know that’s unlikely. You were gone and hated me. So I thought I’d be useful if not happy.”

  Phee tugged her hand free, then walked to a narrow path at the cliff edge. “What changed?”

  The question was nearly lost to the wind as she descended a rocky trail toward what Cal assumed would be a beach below. She hadn’t shoved him over the edge yet, so a legitimate trail was a good sign.

  “Lottie barged in and called me a damsel in distress.” He caught the lilting song of her laugh on the breeze, and it made him smile. “Sometimes I think when someone is in a pit, they forget there’s a world beyond their view. They stop trying to get out of that hole and tell themselves the dark is normal.” Cal clambered down the path to join her at the bottom. “I was deep in the pit, Phee. Stopped sleeping. Moped about, barking at people like some misanthrope. Lottie did everything short of throwing a bucket of water on me to snap me out of it.”

  “What happens the next time Eastly has a problem? Because you know there will be a next time.” She tightened the heavy wrap around her shoulders and crossed her arms. Offering one hand, Cal held his breath until she reached her hand out. Their fingers intertwined, knowing exactly where to fall to knit together, as he closed the distance between them.