The Earl's Irresistible Challenge

by Lara Temple

  ‘If you tell me where Lucas is, you may ask me for anything you wish.’

  He sighed and bent to stroke Inky in a gesture that was all too familiar for Olivia’s bruised heart.

  ‘You are taking all the pleasure out of the process, Miss Silverdale. Very well. Give and take. Tell me why you wish to find my brother and I shall consider my response.’

  ‘Because I love him and I hurt him and I must speak to him.’ The words came out of her a little too loudly and in the silence that followed she could hear the blood thumping in her ears. She felt cold and hot and when he took her hand and led her towards the sofa she realised she was shaking.

  ‘Lucas told me you keep a decent brandy. It is freezing out there.’

  ‘I do at Spinner Street, but Pottle keeps some for guests in that cupboard there. Kindly pour me a measure as well.’

  ‘Here.’ He returned, handing her a glass with a finger’s width of brandy, and she took it in both hands. ‘Drink. It will either clear your head or muddle it. Either option is an improvement on making decisions while driven by emotion.’

  ‘Lucas does that, too.’ She sniffed and sipped the brandy.

  ‘What, talk sense?’

  ‘No, try to calm me with brandy. I am thinking very clearly!’

  ‘He is in the region of Dover right now.’

  She met his eyes. ‘Dover! Is he leaving England? Where is he travelling to? To Russia? You must tell me!’

  ‘Why? You could hardly go after him...’ He trailed off, his mouth curving in a surprisingly warm smile. ‘I’m curious. How would you go after him?’

  ‘I would take poor Lady Phelps and commandeer my brother Ralph. He has travelled extensively and he would know how to make the arrangements.’

  ‘I see. And he would lend himself to such an exploit?’

  ‘If I told him it was important to me. The Silverdales never ask anything of each other unless it is important. We pride ourselves on our self-sufficiency.’

  ‘Well, not being a Silverdale, I am afraid you shall have to elaborate. What precisely did you do to send my brother off in such a fury? It is very out of character. He rarely allows his temper to rule his actions. He’s certainly had enough practice keeping it under his thumb.’

  She flushed in memory of that evening. ‘He saw something I wrote about him. I write lists, you see.’

  ‘Lists.’

  ‘It is a foolish habit, but it helps me keep my world in order. I was packing away the papers relating to our enquiries and the lists I had written about Lucas were on the desk. I don’t know how much he saw, but I think he saw the worst of it. He certainly cannot have seen all of it, because... Well, it hardly matters. He was furious, as you said.’

  ‘What was the worst of it?’

  She rolled her shoulders. Lord Chase Sinclair was demanding his pound of flesh.

  ‘I wrote that I thought him arrogant, opinionated, uncompromising and vain. And a few other things. We had just met and I was rather annoyed with him at the time.’

  ‘Understandable. Well, at the very least this is quite promising.’

  ‘Promising?’

  ‘I believe it is best you have a fair understanding of my brother’s faults before you wed. That way you will more likely be able to identify his finer points. He does have a few, you know.’

  ‘I do. The other pages were mostly an itemisation of those. It is rather embarrassing, but I wish he had read them through before his conscience intervened. Though then he might have run away for very different reasons. He told me once the last thing he cares for is a clinging, overly emotional female.’

  ‘Are you a clinging, overly emotional female?’

  ‘I never thought I was in the past. I certainly don’t think I cling. Perhaps sometimes I would like to, though. Sometimes I definitely am overly emotional; sometimes not at all. I do not know any more. Just tell me what I must do so that you will disclose his direction.’

  ‘I already did. Dover.’

  ‘Yes, but where is he continuing from there?’

  ‘I am almost tempted to send you after him to Dover, but since he will be engaged on some rather sensitive business and since he will soon be returning, that would be rather redundant and possibly damaging. To the best of my knowledge he is due back in London in a few days, so I suggest you allow him to conclude his business and wait patiently for his return.’

  She was already seated, which was lucky, because her stomach rose and fell, her nape turning cold and clammy. She wouldn’t cry, but she wanted to. She wanted Lucas there, with her. She shook off the queasiness and straightened.

  ‘I could always travel to Dover and make enquiries.’

  His smile flashed wide and warm. ‘I would wish you good luck, my dear, if I wanted to see you run into some serious trouble. First, I did not say he is in Dover, but in the region of Dover, and second, should you by some miracle uncover his direction, he is meeting with some rather unsavoury individuals who would not in the least appreciate being interrupted by a proper young woman and might vent their frustrations on my brother. Since I cannot allow that to happen, that would require me...ah, putting my foot down. I would rather not have to take such steps with my future sister-in-law.’

  She tried to unfist her hands and failed. ‘I need to see him.’

  ‘And so you shall. Whatever my brother’s failings, he takes his responsibilities very seriously. He might be angry, but he will not run so you need not be concerned he will try to weasel out of the betrothal. I prescribe patience. I will inform you the moment he is back in London, I promise. Then you can and should descend on him in all your fury.’

  She breathed in. It would be all right. What mattered was that Lucas had not fled to the Russian Steppes. He was returning to London. He might not know it, but he needed her. She certainly needed him. He thought her relentless—well, she would prove just how relentless she could be. She put down her brandy.

  ‘Thank you, Mr Sinclair.’

  ‘Chase.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘My family and friends call me Chase.’

  She smiled. ‘Thank you, Chase.’

  ‘You are welcome, Miss Silverdale. Now I will exact my recompense.’

  ‘Anything.’

  ‘You really shouldn’t say that to an accredited rake, my dear.’

  Olivia smiled. ‘Please don’t trot out that Sinful Sinclair nonsense. Just tell me what it is you want from me.’

  ‘I want you to do your utmost to make a friend of our sister Samantha. She has had a difficult time and might not be open to overtures, but you strike me as a determined young woman. Well, you would have to be to have so thoroughly routed Lucas, so I am asking you to apply some of that determination to winning her over. Will you make that effort?’

  ‘I will do whatever is necessary to make Lucas happy.’

  He nodded and headed to the door. ‘That will do, then. He is very protective of her. Well, I shall be on my way for now, but I shall certainly be seeing you again before the bridals.’

  ‘If there are any,’ she murmured.

  He stopped at the door and glanced back over his shoulder. ‘I, for one, shall be very disappointed if they fall through, Olivia Silverdale.’

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Lucas reached across the bed, his fingers hovering above the lush curve of her thigh. He could feel the heat from here, and his hand was preparing to gather her towards him, his gaze feasting on the sight of her rose-tipped breasts and then rising to meet the slumberous green and gold eyes.

  ‘Do you want me?’ His voice hung between them and her lashes rose and she smiled.

  ‘Don’t you know?’

  A bolt of triumph sheared through him and he finally allowed his hand to pull her to him—and grunted with pain as it connected with the wooden wall.

 
Damn it. Damn her.

  He dragged himself into a sitting position on the uncomfortable bed of the inconspicuous house leased for the meetings, leaning his elbows on his knees as he rubbed his face. His head felt as if a door-knocker was being plied with vigour inside it. He was getting too old for the lethal combination of three days and nights of tense negotiations and too much vodka.

  No, that wasn’t the problem. Peach-scented and far too lifelike erotic dreams were the problem. Being dragged through a wringer by the most intense and confused emotions since his childhood was the problem.

  For three days he had focused on the negotiations with Nesselrode’s men with the tenacity of a bull terrier, but underneath this façade he was a roiling mess—swinging between wounded anger at her manipulative insensitivity, fury at himself for being so gullible and bouts of corrosive self-pity that he would have derided in anyone else.

  And every night he dreamed of her entering his study, coming to him and...

  He groaned, pushing his hands deeper into his disordered hair.

  The fire had gone out and the floor was freezing beneath his bare feet. He could use a foot-warmer himself. No, he didn’t need a foot-warmer. He needed an infuriating, demanding, wary young woman who was half fear and half fierce. Sometimes much more fear than fierce...

  The memory returned—of her leaning against his study door—but this time instead of setting his body ablaze it showed him only her shy, uncertain smile as she leaned against the door, determined to go forward but prepared to be rebuffed.

  What the devil had he expected of her?

  Had he really expected that the same miracle that had stripped away his protective layers and laid him open to this mawkish thing called love would occur to her just because he so desperately wanted it to?

  The girl was as mistrustful as he, and just as scared of feeling. She would not love easily, but when she did...

  Instead of thanking the powers-that-be that she desired him and wanted to be with him, and recognising that this was an excellent foundation upon which to coax that resistant but resilient plant to the surface, he had thrown a tantrum and run off like a callow youth at the peak of his first infatuation.

  Right here, right now, he could not explain it.

  It was just that he had not been prepared for that brand of pain. It had wrapped itself around the whole of his world and echoed back into a bellow that had followed him for the last three days like the ringing in his ears after a burst of cannon fire.

  You should love me, just as I love you.

  A bellow followed by a whimper.

  Why don’t you?

  Perhaps she never will. Not the way you need. And you will have to live with that because she is still enough. More than enough. Being with her is being alive in a wholly different way. So go back to London, apologise and then make her as happy as you can.

  He stood and went to tug on the bell-pull.

  With any luck his relentless little field marshal was as confused as he about the whole thing—which was why he should be with her and not hiding in his work, feeling sorry for himself and missing her like the greenest of green youths.

  It was time to go home.

  * * *

  The noise struck him the moment he entered the Mausoleum and he groaned at the sight of the stacks of timber and carpeting in the hallway. He had forgotten about his instructions to Tubbs to begin the refurbishment of the Mausoleum.

  There might not be a point if there was to be no wedding.

  Stop it.

  There would definitely be a wedding. He would change and go immediately to Brook Street and make very certain of that.

  ‘Good afternoon, my lord.’ Tubbs came up from the nether regions and helped Lucas with his coat. ‘Mr Chase heard from Sir Oswald you were due back in Town and said to expect you presently. There are fires in your room and the study and water almost ready for a bath. Mrs Tubbs has a light repast ready when you wish. There is some correspondence for you in the study. I believe Mr Chase said it was important. He said you are to wait for him here as he has something important to discuss with you.’

  Lucas rubbed his face. He had no patience for business now. He had no patience for anything but Olivia.

  ‘Very well, Tubbs. Have the food and bath ready and then I am going out. If Chase arrives before I leave, fine. If not, tell him I have gone to Brook Street.’

  His study was blessedly warm and he went to his desk as he tugged off his cravat, expecting a stack of documents from Oswald. But there was only one item on the desk. His heart and lungs tried to rearrange themselves in his chest and he pressed his palm over his sternum as he approached the thick cream rectangle. There was no direction, only his name: Lucas.

  He felt a little ill, but he picked it up. His mind rushed forward, telling him that whatever was written there it would make no difference, he would not let her go, she was his and he would keep her and make her happy and nothing she could say, or write, could stop that from happening. It was a babbling, high-pitched chatter as his mind marshalled its defences, but underneath was an aching sludge of fear, like the great ice floes of the North Sea as they shoved towards the shores—heavy, grey, inexorably destructive.

  His fingers were shaking as he unsealed it. Even her handwriting hurt. Perhaps he should not read it—reading what she wrote when she was not there had landed him in hell once already. He could not bear it a second time. He should put the letter down and find her. Once they were in the same room he would be able to see her, touch her, make her remember why she liked him after all.

  Oh, God, please.

  He almost succeeded in putting it down, but the soft, creamy paper clung to his fingers. He had bought her this paper. Had spent some time choosing it just as he had the pencils. He had wanted to buy the whole stationer’s store, but pride and embarrassment had held him back each time. And fear, again.

  He breathed deeply and forced himself to read.

  Dear Lucas,

  This whole affair began because of notes and letters and this one might mark the end of it unless you can find it in you to forgive me and also accept that I love you.

  You have called me relentless and believe me when I say that is precisely what I intend to be. I am writing this letter in the event that you somehow succeed in evading me upon your return to London and to give you fair warning that I will not be fobbed off and I will not stand by as you disappear. So you had best resign yourself.

  I told Chase that I would follow you to Russia if need be and that is precisely what I shall do. I will employ every tactic and strategy at my disposal, because I love you and, though I do not know if you reciprocate that particular, peculiar emotion, I know I am good for you. Sometimes.

  You refused to listen to what I wrote on those lists and I shan’t bore you with everything, but you should at least know what I wrote at the end of my lists about you. This is what I wrote after our visit to Mrs Eldritch, verbatim:

  Lucas is so much more generous than I—for a man who claims to be so selfish he is forever aware of others—their needs and wishes—from foot-warmers and compassion for me to a helping hand for Nora and apparently for all the Tubbs clan if what Jem lets slip is true.

  I can see he sometimes wants to walk away and cannot. I could bind him merely by needing him, but I would never wish to.

  I want to do the same for him as he has done for me. Be his champion in everything that seems small and mundane, but in the end that is the fabric of loving. I want to be the one who holds his hand when he is lost and sad.

  That was my last entry. There is more before that, some of it even more embarrassing, but I will spare you.

  This is a rather poor attempt at what is my first love letter, but it is hard to shout into an abyss without knowing what one might hear in return.

  Sometimes I see something in your eyes that gives me hope tha
t you truly want me in your life. At least part of you. I hope that part can convince the rest of you, but I admit I will not be surprised if it doesn’t.

  I will always be grateful for everything you have done for me these past weeks. I cannot imagine not having known you, however painful losing you might be.

  I do love you.

  Olivia

  PS I almost forgot. I asked Jem to take the box with your father’s letters to Sinclair House. I wish I could have met him and your mother. I think I would have liked them.

  ‘Livvy...’ he whispered as the words blurred. ‘They would have loved you. Adored you. Blast you, Livvy—’

  ‘Is that an exasperated Livvy or a pitying Livvy or an affectionate Livvy? I cannot tell.’

  His heart, already sorely abused, tried to catapult out of the room altogether. He had not even heard her enter. She stood again with her back to the door, her brown-and-gold pelisse like a continuation of the warm wood colour behind her, only her face, pale, and her eyes, huge pools of forest and amber, stood out. Her hands were splayed back against the door, as if trying to hold back furies beating on the other side. Or trying to steady herself.

  Olivia. Livvy.

  His.

  She did not move as he approached, just watched him as she had once in the carriage—without expression, prepared to stand strong and show nothing of what was inside her. Relentless and so very scared.

  He took her hands from the door and somehow he was on his knee before her, breathing them in, her.

  ‘Forgive me, Livvy. I am so sorry...’

  She crumpled on to the floor next to him with a little cry, her hands tightening on his.

  ‘Ah, no, Lucas, please, please not yet. Please just a few moments. I cannot bear it. I told myself whatever you said, whatever you decided, I would be strong, but I’m not, I’m not. I don’t want to hear it, not yet. Not ever.’

  His mind was clearly suffering from the same upheaval of his other inner organs because for a moment he had no idea what she was talking about. Then the world settled and he could think again. He pulled her shaking form against him, sliding back so that he could lean against the wall as he drew her on to his lap, stroking her hair, wiping the damp from her cheeks as she cried. He spoke, soothingly, lightly, easing her out of her pain because he knew now just how it had clung to her from the day he left, just as it had clung to him. A chain and ball of ice dragging with his every step.