And, to his surprise, it was true. It wasn’t that Lady Susan’s body was unattractive. It wasn’t. It had all the requisite parts. They were even nicely shaped. But it wasn’t Pen’s body.
He looked down to confirm that his body agreed with that assessment.
It did. His cock was as small and limp as if he’d just got out of ice water.
Good God, if Pen doesn’t marry me, I’ll have to join a monastery.
If he’d worried for even an instant that he’d wounded Lady Susan’s feelings, he needn’t have. She apparently had no feelings.
She put her hands on her naked hips, arms akimbo. “What’s the matter with you? I thought men were driven wild by the sight of a naked woman.”
He scowled at her, insulted on behalf of his gender. “Men are not mindless beasts, madam.”
She looked at him skeptically and then shrugged. “Well, that’s good, then. You won’t be bothering me once I’ve done my duty.” Her lips pulled into a very unpleasant smile. “And if you do have any of those needs”—she looked down at his cock which was now shielded from her inspection by the chair—“you can take care of them with your whore.”
Fury at her using that horrid word to describe Pen threatened to blind him, but he beat it back. He had to focus on his goal—getting the obnoxious woman into her clothes and out of the cottage as quickly as possible.
And to cure her of her daft notion they were going to wed.
“Madam, you seem to be laboring under a misconception. I. Am. Not. Marrying. You.” He said each word slowly and distinctly so she could not miss his meaning.
“Oh, yes, you are.”
Was the woman insane? He’d thought her boring, annoying, and rude, but he hadn’t added Bedlamite to that list . . . yet.
“No, I’m not.”
“Yes, you are.”
“No. I. Am. Not.” This was ridiculous. He felt like he was back at Eton, arguing with another child. “Now please get your clothing on and go back to the inn.”
She crossed her arms defiantly. “You have to marry me. You’ve compromised me.”
“No, I haven’t.” Perhaps the woman was worried she’d gone too far to draw back. He would set her fears to rest. “If you will just get dressed and leave now, no one need know any of this occurred.”
He should have saved his breath.
The witch grinned at him. “You have compromised me—or it will look like you have, which is all that matters. There’s a nice red spot on the sheet upstairs where you took my virginity—I got some pig’s blood from the butcher in the village—and I left a note for Letitia to come find me here if I wasn’t back in half an hour.”
She smirked. “As you can tell, I don’t have my watch with me at the moment, but I think we probably have less than ten minutes until she arrives.”
Hot panic flooded him, speeding up his heart and breathing. How was he to save himself?
And then years of experience at getting out of difficult situations took over. He pushed aside the anxious, fearful thoughts to focus solely on the problem at hand.
Yes, he was in a bad position—he could see that. Ha! A blind man could see that. But he must remember: he was innocent. No one could force him to marry this woman. Not marrying her might cause a huge scandal—of course it would cause a huge scandal—but a scandal was far better than being condemned to a life sentence with this harpy. That was what he must keep in mind. Focusing on that truth would see him through this mess.
It might help if he could discover what was driving Lady Susan’s behavior.
“Why are you doing this? Why would you want to marry a man who doesn’t want you?”
She flinched a little at that, but her voice was steady and determined when she answered.
“Because I need a husband. My father told me if I did not find one this Season, he was shipping me off to my aunt in the wilds of Northumberland.” Her expression hardened. “I refuse to go up there. It’s cold and dark and there are more sheep than people. And I’d never see London again.”
“Ah. I’m sorry.” And he was. It was too bad that women didn’t have more control over their destinies.
But then he thought of Pen. She’d been in a terrible position—one far worse than Lady Susan’s—and yet she’d managed to chart her own course.
Still, he’d admit his indecisiveness was somewhat to blame for Lady Susan’s situation. If he’d nipped things in the bud immediately, she might be betrothed to Arronder or Whatenly or Neardorn now.
“Would it help if I had a word with your father?”
“Only if the word is to request my hand in marriage.”
The blasted woman was not going to give up.
“Madam, for the last time: I am not going to marry you.”
“Yes, you are. The scandal will be enormous if you don’t.”
“For you. Think. If word of this”—he gestured at her nakedness and then toward the stairs and around the room—“gets out, you’ll never find a husband.”
She jabbed her finger at him. “I’ll never find one if I’m shuttled off to Northumberland, either. And the scandal will be enormous for you, too. Earls are not supposed to ruin other earl’s daughters.” She sniffed derisively. “I am not a farmer’s brat.”
His anger flared again. “Careful. That ‘farmer’s brat’ is going to be the next Countess of Darrow.” I hope. “I can’t imagine you wish to alienate her—and me.” Though if Lady Susan was indeed relegated to Northumberland, he supposed it wouldn’t matter.
“If word gets out you’ve ruined me, you won’t be able to show your face in London with or without your commoner bride.”
“Then I’ll stay in the country. And I haven’t ruined you. How many times do I have to say it? If any ruining’s been done, you’ve done it to yourself.”
They glared at each other in silence—a silence suddenly broken by a loud knock.
They both jumped.
Bloody hell. Harry’s eyes flew to the door and then back to his towel, lying in a heap too close to Lady Susan and too far from him to reach.
Lady Susan’s face lit with excitement. “Come in!” she said, and then she darted toward him.
Reflexes, honed from years of living by his wits, took over. He vaulted over the table just as the door opened.
“Letiti . . .” he said.
It wasn’t Letitia. It was Pen.
* * *
Pen stood gaping on the threshold. She’d done what Harry’s mother had told her to do. She’d come down to the cottage so Harry could propose. But Harry was naked and chasing a naked Lady Susan around . . .
No. That is, yes, Harry was naked and Lady Susan was naked, but it looked as if Harry was the one being chased.
“Harriet isn’t with you, is she?” Harry asked, leaping behind a chair to shield his male-est bit from view.
“No.” Pen closed the door behind her. The fewer people who saw this . . . whatever it was, the better.
“What are you doing here?” Lady Susan asked in an oddly accusatory tone for a woman standing in a man’s quarters without a stitch of clothing on.
“Er.” What was she doing there? She couldn’t very well say she’d come down in the hope Harry would propose, especially given the attire—or lack thereof—of the other people in the room. Had she interrupted a tryst?
From Harry’s expression, she thought not. So, what in the world was going on?
“Thank God you’re here.” Harry dashed over, putting his hands on her shoulders and holding her in front of him, literally hiding behind her skirts. “This woman is trying to make it look like I compromised her.”
“He did compromise me! He took me in the room upstairs. You can see my blood upon his sheets!”
“It’s pig’s blood,” Harry said by her ear. “Or at least, that’s what she told me. She said she got it from the butcher.”
“Oh.” Pen tried to focus on Lady Susan’s face rather than the vast expanse of skin below it. “Did you tell Mr. Sanders w
hat you needed the pig’s blood for?”
“Of course, I didn’t. I—” Lady Susan’s face froze as she realized she was confirming Harry’s story.
Harry’s hands tightened on Pen’s shoulders in a quick, surreptitious hug.
Lady Susan’s brows slammed down. “That is, I never spoke to any butcher. The blood is my own.” She pointed at Harry. “Lord Darrow took my virginity, and now he must marry me.”
Pen felt Harry stiffen and inhale as if to defend himself, so she spoke first.
“Ah. Well, that’s good then. If you had got some pig’s blood from Mr. Sanders, the story would be all over the village by now. Mr. Sanders does like to talk. And, of course, he’d wonder what in the world a fancy London lady like you would need pig’s blood for. It would become quite the topic of speculation, as I’m sure you can imagine.”
Pen would wager Lady Susan was imagining it all too well. Her face had turned a rather interesting shade of greenish white.
“When one of the women at the Home was getting ready to marry the haberdasher in the next village over,” Pen said, “she found herself in a similar predicament. She had somehow neglected to tell her husband-to-be that she wasn’t a virgin, and felt it too, er, complicated to mention the matter at such a late date. So, she needed some blood, as well. Only, she knew better than to get it from Mr. Sanders.”
Pen smiled and said in what she tried to make sound like a helpful tone, “I believe she ended up just pricking her finger and smearing it on the sheets. You might consider that the next time you try to trap a man into marriage.”
She heard Harry chuckle—well, felt him chuckle, since he’d now wrapped his arms around her and pulled her tightly back against him.
“Zeus, I love you, Pen,” he murmured, stirring her hair and tickling her ear.
She grinned. Perhaps his mother was right. Perhaps he was going to propose—as soon as she could get rid of the annoying Lady Susan.
The woman was scowling now, her mouth opening and closing like a fish’s.
“You should get dressed, you know,” Pen said. “It’s really not the thing to stand around naked like that.”
“Oh!” Lady Susan was almost spitting. “You . . . you . . .”
Heavens! Was she going to suffer an apoplexy right before Pen’s eyes?
Evil satisfaction tinged with genuine alarm filled her chest—followed by a touch of guilt.
I should be better than this—
“You worm!”
Or perhaps not.
“You baseborn whore.” Spittle did indeed fly from Lady Susan’s lips. “You aren’t fit to empty my chamber pot.”
Pen heard—and felt—Harry make a low growling sound.
She rubbed her hands up and down his bare arms to soothe and distract him. To her surprise, she wasn’t the slightest bit wounded by Lady Susan’s words—likely because she had Harry’s naked body pressed against her back.
If this was some sort of contest, Pen had already won the prize.
“No one in London will accept you. The ton will turn its back on you. They’ll slam their doors in your face. You’ll be a laughingstock.”
“Pen,” Harry said in a tight voice, “you don’t have to listen to this woman’s vile words.”
“I know,” she said quietly, “but as long as she’s just shouting, I think we should let her blather on.” She patted one of his naked forearms. “The only alternative is to leave, and you aren’t precisely dressed to go out.”
She felt him chuckle. “True.”
Lady Susan was full-out shrieking now. “Even Lord Darrow’s mother and sister-in-law will shun you. They want me to marry him. Me, do you hear?”
“I expect they can hear you all the way in the village,” said another voice.
“Letitia?” Pen and Harry said in unison.
Harry shuffled around so Pen shielded him from his sister-in-law as well as Lady Susan.
Letitia stepped inside, shutting the door carefully behind her and addressing it instead of turning to face the people in the room.
“Sorry,” she said. “I tried knocking but no one seemed to hear me. Do you suppose you could get dressed, Harry? And you, too, Lady Susan?”
“Letitia, thank God you are here,” Lady Susan said, ignoring her request. “Your brother-in-law raped me—”
Pen felt Harry stiffen.
“I did not!”
“—and is now refusing to marry me.”
“Because I didn’t rape you,” Harry said heatedly. “I didn’t touch you.”
“So why are you naked, Harry?” Letitia asked the door.
Pen would like to hear the answer to that question as well. She wished she could see Harry’s expression, but he was still using her as a shield.
“He’s naked because he was having his wicked way with me!” Lady Susan said dramatically.
“I’m naked because I’d just come back from bathing in the pond when I discovered Lady Susan sitting on my bed. My towel’s over there on the floor. It was around my waist until she grabbed it away from me.”
Pen hadn’t noticed the towel before.
Lady Susan stepped forward, putting her body in the way as if to block Pen’s view. If she’d been wearing a dress, she’d have been successful. As it was, she just gave Pen a closer look at her hairy shins and thick ankles.
“He came down to get some”—Lady Susan glanced around and saw the decanter on the mantel—“brandy to ply me with alcohol.”
“It’s empty,” Harry said.
Lady Susan ignored him. “His clothes are upstairs—” “Where I was going to get clean ones.”
“—by the bed where he dropped them.”
“By the door where I hit my head when you ambushed me. Pen knows how low that ceiling is.”
Pen nodded. “Yes. It’s a very, very small room with a very low ceiling.”
“I was just stepping over the threshold when I discovered Lady Susan lying—er, well, sitting—in wait. She startled me, and I whacked my head. As soon as I recovered my senses—and saw her flop back on the bed—I fled.” Pen felt Harry’s body move as if he was shrugging. “Though to be honest, I’m not certain where I would have fled to, dressed only in a towel. I was very happy when Pen arrived.”
Lady Susan had her hands on her hips. Now she jabbed a finger in their direction. Pen had to marvel at how she could stand there naked and carry on as if she were dressed for tea.
Perhaps she’s clothed in desperation.
“Do not believe him, Letitia. My blood is on his sheets.”
“It’s pig’s blood,” Harry said. “She admitted as much to me.”
“It will be easy enough to find out about the blood,” Pen offered. “Just ask the butcher.”
Letitia finally turned away from the door, but directed her gaze at the ceiling to avoid all the nakedness.
“No need. When I got your note, Lady Susan, I asked Bess if she’d seen you—I thought you might have come back and I’d missed you. She said she hadn’t and then asked what you wanted the vial of pig’s blood for.” Letitia sighed. “Well, actually, she’d guessed what you wanted it for. She was just interested in whether I thought you’d be successful in trapping the earl into marriage.”
That surprised a laugh out of Pen. Trust Bess to get to the heart of the matter. “Bess lived up at the Home before she took over at the inn. She knows all the tricks.”
Lady Susan’s face—well, her entire body—flushed with anger. She stomped her foot on the floor, but since it was as naked as the rest of her, it didn’t make much sound.
“Get dressed, madam,” Harry said. “It’s past time for you to leave.”
“Yes.” Letitia nodded. “Please. You are embarrassing—and not just because you insist on displaying every inch of skin God gave you.”
Lady Susan glared at Letitia, and then she glared at Pen and Harry, and then she finally—finally—turned and went upstairs.
Letitia walked over to pick the towel off the floor and
bring it to Harry, all the while keeping her eyes averted.
“I’m sorry, Letitia.” Harry let go of Pen to wrap the towel around his middle—and Pen immediately missed the warmth of his body. “I assume you and Mama will have to share the traveling coach with that shrew all the way back to London.”
“Yes.” Letitia grimaced. “She was a terrible companion on the way here. Now . . .” She shrugged. “I can only hope she’ll sulk in a corner for the entire journey. If she doesn’t, I suppose I shall offer it up as penance for having been daft enough to think she’d make you a suitable wife.”
And then Letitia smiled at Pen. “Lord Muddlegate was with Bess in the tavern. He’s become quite a fan of your Widow’s Brew.”
Pen nodded. “So Lady Darrow told me.”
Harry’s brows rose. “You were talking to my mother?”
“Yes. She came up to the Home to meet Harriet.” She was not going to say more about that visit until she and Harry were alone.
“How did she know you were there?”
“Lady Susan told her.”
Harry’s brows rose higher.
“While you and I were talking,” Letitia said, “Lady Susan went back to the inn. Muddles told me he and your mother were sitting in the tavern when she confronted them.”
Letitia turned to Pen. “He also said Lady Darrow was very excited to discover you were here, Pen. She’d known you’d had a child—”
“Wait.” Harry’s voice suddenly was tight with anger. “Mama knew Pen was increasing and never told me?”
“She thought the child was Walter’s,” Pen said.
“Oh.” Harry frowned. “Why?”
“Because Walter was the one who was notorious for sowing wild oats.” Letitia’s voice was dry and bitter.
“But Pen and Walter?” Harry asked. “How could Mama have thought that? Pen would never—”
Harry stopped abruptly, his mouth still open, perhaps finally realizing that he was wading into dangerous waters.
He cleared his throat. “That is, I would have thought Mama would have noticed that Pen and I, er . . .”
Pen touched Harry’s arm. “Remember? Your mother spent that summer at Darrow House.”
“When I was pregnant with Bianca,” Letitia said, “and right after she was born.”
What Ales the Earl Page 26
