Beneath Spring's Rain (Ashton Brides Book 1)

by Rebecca J. Greenwood

  “There are things I value much more than false treasures. Things you cannot give, because they are not in you. Honor and integrity. Lord Daniel has them abundantly.”

  “Ah, your Lord Daniel. So determined to meet me.” His lip curled in a mocking sneer.

  “Yes, he is.” She glared, anger rising in her. “In fact, haven’t you been staying away from your club specifically in efforts to avoid my husband and his friends?”

  “Yes, my lord,” Pauline interrupted with eagerness in her voice, “you know you’re still favoring the wound you got in your last duel! Another one might damage your handsome body even worse!” She turned to Eliza. “Lord Crewkerne’s very brave, of course. He’s fought in several duels.” Her voice was fawning.

  Crewkerne’s expression darkened through Pauline’s chatter. “Thank you, Pauline, that is enough,” he said through a tight jaw.

  She spoke rapidly to Eliza. “He’s been living here with me. We’re a right happy couple.”

  “Pauline!” he snapped. “Go upstairs immediately.”

  Pauline’s face flushed, her mouth snapped shut, and her expression darkened. “Yes, my lord.” She turned stiffly and began to walk up the stairs.

  Eliza moved around Crewkerne, went to the side of the stairs, and looked up at Pauline above her through the railing.

  “Pauline. Please come with me. Be free of this. Be an honest woman, clean and free again. Here is not security. Here is not love.”

  “Ah. Pauline knows what’s in her best interests, does she not?” Crewkerne’s voice was hard and chill. “Upstairs, my girl.”

  An expression of tight anger crossed Pauline’s face.

  “Pauline.” Eliza’s concern colored her voice.

  “No, Eliza. This is my life now.” Her friend hurried up the final steps and disappeared into the gloom above. The sound of a door slamming followed soon after.

  A chill went through Eliza. Two witnesses remained. She must make sure that number did not become less.

  She turned and studied the manservant who stood in front of the door. He didn’t look at her, his chin tilted up and posture correct. Eliza narrowed her eyes but moved back into the sitting room, where Crewkerne stood with a light in his eye that disturbed her.

  Her gaze caught her maid’s. Betsey’s face was pale, but her expression was determined. Eliza let her lungs fill with air. She was not alone in this.

  The earl laughed. “This little visit is most unexpected. I planned to wait a few years before renewing my pursuit of you.”

  Exasperation filled her, almost overpowering her fear. This single-minded fool! “Renewing? How can you even think I would ever—?” she cut off in outrage.

  He went to a sideboard and poured a drink of amber liquid into a cut glass, and then poured another. The smell of brandy roiled Eliza’s already tense stomach. He approached her with the two glasses, an ugly, amused smile stretching the creases on either side of his face.

  “Oh, don’t cut up stiff, Eliza,” the earl said. “Have a drink.” He held a glass to her.

  If she took it, she would throw the alcohol into his face. She stayed immobile, her hands tight-fisted at her sides, her gaze narrow and sharp on him.

  He raised an unconcerned brow and tossed one of the drinks down his throat. He swallowed, studying her. “How do I think you’ll ever welcome my attentions?” He smirked and set the drained glass down on a side table. “Why, long experience, of course. Married women are much easier than maidens, you see.” He swirled the liquid in the second glass. “All it takes is patience and careful attention with a married woman. They’ve tasted the marriage bed, but they wish to know the lover’s bed. Most men are not possessed of the knowledge that I have. I am a very patient, attentive lover.”

  Eliza stared him down, not letting herself react to the lust in his eyes.

  “When the husband is away, say, in the army, or on business, leaving his wife unfulfilled and lonely . . . Easy prey.”

  Her shoulders tensed. Her stomach threatened to disgorge.

  “And in your case . . . How has marriage been for you, dear Eliza? Your husband is besotted, but I know your heart is not easily touched, my cold beauty. Has he even approached you yet?” He looked her over, the lecherous weight of his appraisal causing her skin to itch.

  Eliza would not taint what she had with Daniel by answering anything to this vile man. She would not allow him to profane what Daniel and she had together.

  But despite her determination to give no reaction, he said, “Ah, I do believe he has. How has your husband found his bed? And how has it been for you, my dear Eliza? Dutiful, I imagine.”

  Her heart beat rapidly against her chest, alarm ran through her veins. She couldn’t look at him any longer.

  He held out his hand. “Come, don’t you want to experience the lover’s bed?”

  She shrank back from him. This man repulsed her in every way.

  Daniel loved her. She knew he did. With each action he took, every interaction they had together in private and in public, he proved his devotion. No matter what, they would weather this storm.

  A wave of peace and confidence flowed over her, grounded her.

  She snapped her gaze back to the earl. “It is not the lover’s bed you offer, Lord Crewkerne. It is the bed of an adulterer. No love. Just lust. Never satisfied, never at peace.”

  “Peace! Who wants peace?”

  “I do.” She craved the peace and stability Daniel gave her. How she wished for him now. She must escape from this villain and get back to Daniel.

  Crewkerne snorted and took a sip from his glass.

  She raised her chin. “Lord Crewkerne, why would you think I would ever welcome the attentions of the man who arranged my ruin?” She waited for his reaction, but his lips only narrowed. “Lord Daniel uncovered your tricks. He had a full confession from Mr. Mowbray.”

  Crewkerne’s eye twitched. He turned from her and paced away, walking along the wall hung with his lewd paintings. “Mowbray would have said anything to get that great tall fellow out of his face. I wouldn’t put too much stock in what he said.”

  Eliza narrowed her eyes. Crewkerne also would likely say or do anything to keep Daniel away. Yes, the earl was hiding here.

  Crewkerne was afraid of her husband.

  She scanned the room while his back was to her, looking for a weapon of some kind, any kind.

  A fire poker rested in a stand next to the empty grate. She moved to the mantelpiece, and stood with her back to her chosen weapon, hoping to hide it from view.

  If Crewkerne touched her, she would grab it and use it against him.

  The manservant standing before the front entrance was just viewable through the open sitting room doors from where Eliza now stood. He was still studiously looking at nothing.

  Betsey caught her eye, her brows raised in a question. Eliza gestured for her to stay where she was, a few feet away now.

  Crewkerne picked up a snuffbox from a side table, took a pinch of snuff, and his shoulders relaxed. He took on an appearance of ease once again.

  “My lord earl.” She waited for him to turn toward her again. He raised an inquiring brow. “Did you conspire with my cousins? Was their intent to ruin me in order to prevent my marriage?”

  His eyes flicked away from hers. “Foolish girl, no one conspired against you. That’s absurd.” He let out a practiced-sounding laugh and set down the snuffbox.

  “My cousins lived in Kent near Canterbury before they inherited my father’s estate. You have an estate near there as well, do you not? Perhaps you keep one of your mistresses there? How better to avoid your wife. Have you spent enough time there to know the families in the area?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Your ruin was pure mishap. Merely a misfortune I was happy to alleviate by offering a warm home.”

  “You were waiting outside the door. My cousins informed you I was to be turned out that day.”

  “I may have had an informant. Servants
gossip, my dear.” He flicked a hand, his eyes turned away from her.

  “And the night of the Ashtons’ ball, you had not received an invitation, yet there you were, in time to draw Lord Daniel away, while four unscrupulous fellows tried to run off with me. At least one was a man I’ve seen in your company before. Were they not your friends and acting on your instructions?”

  “I may run with some rough fellows on occasion, but I had nothing to do with that. They were merely hotheaded young men acting on the overblown rumors that surrounded you.”

  “So you say.“ She tilted her head. “And now I am a married woman, with a powerful protector—”

  “Powerful!” He snorted.

  “And my true inheritance is discovered. The Broughtons can’t be happy about that. Has that caused you any inconvenience, I wonder? What was it that they held over your head in order to compel you to pursue me far beyond honor? Even past the point of reason?”

  “Compel me! No one compels me!”

  Eliza lifted her brows. “Oh, you’re just that besotted with me? That you risk going into the Magdalen House in pursuit of me? I heard that Lord Radnor and the Duke of Northumberland gave you the cut direct after that escapade.”

  “Who cares about sanctimonious old fools.”

  “I’d call acting against your self-interest to pursue me a compulsion. What was it that drove you?”

  “Could I not merely desire the most beautiful woman in London?”

  Eliza scoffed. She grew tired of his evasions. “You claim to not want a peaceful existence, Lord Crewkerne, and your actions today prove that, because keeping me here is the very thing that will make your life decidedly unpeaceful. You know my husband wishes to fight you in a duel. His brother the Marquess of Kentworth is prepared to use the courts of law against you. But what you may not realize is how very, very willing I am to throw everything I have against you. If you do not allow me to leave immediately, I will not be silent. I will not be hushed. I will stand before the House of Lords and testify of all that you have done against me.”

  The earl grew still and stiff, his jaw clenched. “Who will believe you? You willingly came into this house.”

  “They will believe me.”

  He sneered. “I say it’s more likely that your saintly husband will kick you out after he hears of this adventure of yours, my dear. When he does, you can come to me. My home will always be open to you.” He waved a hand to the room around them. “Any of my homes.”

  “The one in the country where your wife is?”

  “If you went to that one, I would endeavor to move you to your own establishment in the neighboring town.”

  “How many women are you keeping in little establishments right now?” Her tone was mocking.

  “My appetites are not so rapacious.”

  “All evidence is to the contrary.”

  The earl’s mouth twisted.

  This was neither here nor there. She hated to bring Daniel’s dreadful desire for a duel into this further, but Crewkerne’s fear was one of her only weapons against him.

  She faced the earl, folding her hands in front of her, striving to appear calm and confident. “If you truly do not want peace, then continue to hold me against my will. But I say you do wish for peace. You don’t want to fight my husband, else you would not be staying here, but at your Mayfair townhouse. You would not be avoiding your clubs.”

  “Yes, well. The last duel almost killed me,” he said with an unexpected level of candor. He drained his glass of brandy. “Forgive me if I’ve been trying to avoid yet another one.” He rubbed his side with a grimace.

  She noted the location. A second weak point.

  Betsey watched them both, her wide eyes darting back and forth between them.

  “Lord Crewkerne. You will allow me and my maid to leave in peace, else I will tell my husband where you are, and he will come to fight the duel you so far have evaded. You will not be able to escape him further.”

  His jaw tightened, but he walked toward her, taking on a sauntering gait. He raised a brow. “Then I’ll be forced to kill him.”

  Her heart clenched at those words, but she studied him. He was too tense; a vein under his eye twitched. His nonchalant attitude was feigned.

  Eliza narrowed her eyes, looked him up and down, and forced her fear back with contempt. He was only an inch taller than she. Daniel’s physical presence would dwarf him. “Daniel is a soldier. Do not be so sure it would not be him that killed you.”

  “Say I am killed. Then where would you be?”

  “I’d fly to the Continent with him, of course. And see you bleeding and be glad.”

  “Oh, my vicious Eliza.”

  Anger flared in her. “I am becoming vicious. Why do you think that is, my lord? What could be driving me to become blood-thirsty?”

  “You want revenge on me?”

  “I want to be free of you. I want all women to be free of men like you.”

  “Am I so bad? Pauline is not mistreated. She’s gowned exquisitely. Fed on fine foods and wine. Jewels and servants. The lap of luxury.”

  “And what will happen to her when you tire of her?”

  “She will find another protector. And have the jewels to keep her until she does.”

  “From man to man to man. No security. Always having to scrape, and pander, and debase herself. And the children? The sons and daughters she will have? What becomes of them?”

  “Children.” His lip curled into a scornful expression.

  “Your children.”

  “Yes, there are several benefits of affairs with married women. No need to claim or support the children.” He gave a twisted smile. “Usually,” he added with bitterness in his tone.

  Rage, hot and burning, kindled in her gut. “Disgusting.”

  “Disgusting!” His eyes widened, his nostrils flared, and he advanced on her, a snarl on his once-handsome face. “Disgusting?”

  She held onto her rage, not letting the fear that battered her heart enter and take hold. She curled her lip in a sneer of defiance. “Do not delude yourself, Lord Crewkerne, that I will ever accept you. I find you vile and repugnant.” Her lips peeled back from her teeth, her heart pounded in her chest. She groped for the poker behind her. “And a fool.”

  Lord Crewkerne advanced on her, put his face so close to hers she could smell the snuff clinging to his upper lip and the alcohol on his rank breath. “Vile? Repugnant?” He snarled. “You—”

  Her hand tightened over the poker. The metal scraped against the stand. The sound interrupted his outburst.

  He looked down sharply. “A poker?” He looked at her, his eyebrows lifted and he leaned back, an expression so incredulous on his face that it was insulting. “You would use a fire poker against me?”

  “You touch me, I will.” She bared her teeth at him.

  He stepped back, let out a bark of a laugh. “This becomes farcical. Do you not know how easy it would be for me to disarm you?”

  She could not let fear rule her. “Then I’ll claw your eyes out.”

  “Must we always resort to violence?” Crewkerne’s eyes narrowed.

  “You make it necessary. If you wish to avoid violence to your person, you will tell your manservant to move. Now.”

  “But I like you here. It’s exhilarating to have so unleashed you. I want to see you in a full passion.”

  The ball of fear in her gut flared into a blaze of fury. She tightened her grip on the poker and widened her stance.

  “I will leave here today, one way or another, Lord Crewkerne,” she said through a tight jaw. “If I go now, unharmed and unhindered, with my maid, I will leave and stay silent. I will not tell my husband where you are located. I will not call for your arrest for kidnapping.”

  Crewkerne sneered.

  “But if you lay a hand on me, I will defend myself. And when I leave this house, I will not be silent. I will not be easy. I’ll call for your arrest. I will stand before the House of Lords and decry your crimes to a
ll your peers.”

  The earl didn’t come closer.

  She straightened, tilted up her chin. “And yes, you may escape those charges.” She threw her voice the furthest it would go. “But your servants who assist you? The Marquess of Kentworth will see them strung up or deported.” She stared at the manservant guarding the front door, visible through the open sitting room doors. The man’s eyes widened and looked to his master with alarm over his face.

  The earl’s expression darkened, and his semblance of ease dissolved into malevolence. “I have never beat a woman in my life. But you make me want to throttle you.” His hands fisted.

  She readied herself to draw the cast iron fire poker from its stand. “Your choice, my lord. What will be the consequences of this day?”

  His mouth opened. She jerked as he gave a bellow of rage, and kicked a spindly chair. It crashed into the settee and onto the floor. He stared at her with malevolence.

  Then he ran his hands through his disheveled hair, straightened his collar, and settled his sleeves.

  He lifted his chin. “There is no triumph in taking an unwilling woman. I am a lover, and my pride is in the drawing to me of any woman I want.” He narrowed his eyes. “I want you to come to me.” He straightened his posture, sucked in the beginnings of a gut he was sporting under his loose shirt. He wasn’t wearing the stays that customarily shaped his thickening figure.

  He had once been a handsome man. He knew how to be charming, she knew. But his looks and his patience were decaying with age.

  “And you will come to me. Not this year, but someday.”

  Eliza bit back the retorts that crowded her throat and pressed against her teeth. “I will never.”

  He narrowed his eyes. “Fine. Leave,” Crewkerne spit out. He waved his hand. “Let her go, Russell. She’s not worth the effort I’ve given her.” He sneered at Eliza. “I’ll not give any more.”

  She unwrapped her death grip on the poker behind her. She caught Betsey’s eye, and they moved toward the door in unison.

  “But we will see, my dear, what future years bring.” Crewkerne stopped her with his sinister words. He sat down on the settee, arranging himself with casual elegance, taking an appearance of ease, and looked her over with his eyes half-lidded.