The Earl Who Played With Fire

by Sara Ramsey

  “That hardly signifies for me,” she said, smiling as though fraud was the furthest thing from her mind. And it very nearly was — she was too wrapped up in Alex to care much about Ostringer. “I don’t have the funds to buy anything from him, real or no.”

  “I will buy you whatever you need. But please don’t associate with Ostringer.”

  Prudence frowned. “I do not know him. Why would you care whether I associate with him or not?”

  “Intuition, I suppose,” he said, after a moment of silence. “I feel honor-bound to protect you, Miss Etchingham. All I want is for you to stay safe.”

  He looked down at her as he said it. She tried to read him — tried to understand his tone.

  “I am quite safe here,” she said. “You’re with me.”

  His arm tightened under her hand, pulling her just the slightest bit closer. That smoldering look she sometimes caught him with was back in his eyes. “I cannot always be with you. But I want you to be safe without me.”

  “Why must I be safe without you?”

  The question cut too close to the bone. She dropped her eyes as silence pooled around them. He paused for the longest time, long enough for her to answer her own question in any number of ways.

  His answer, when it finally came, wasn’t the one she wanted. “I’m the best protection you’ve got at the moment. Allow me to indulge in my protective instincts.”

  “I am not your responsibility,” she said.

  It was a test. She looked up. Their eyes met, held.

  She should have known better. His gaze slowly cooled. He stepped back, not enough to drop her arm, but enough to make his point. If she hadn’t seen that smoldering look earlier, she would have guessed that he was neutral, slightly concerned, but mostly unaffected. As though she was any dependent.

  As though she would never mean anything to him beyond duty.

  “If you would allow me to stand in for your brothers, I would do so gladly,” he said.

  The sentiment should have touched her. Instead, it destroyed her.

  “How charming of you,” she said, trying for banter instead of heartbreak.

  He inclined his head. “It isn’t meant to be charming. I merely wish to see you have all the happiness you deserve.”

  He escorted her into the library then. There was a sculpture of some vague renown, but Prudence didn’t listen closely to his description. It was clear that he had taken her there to protect her from Ostringer — but his protection came from duty, not love.

  Alex would never love her. Even if he would come to, she could no longer wait for him. She could no longer sit in his house, eat his food, use his carriages, and all the rest while waiting endlessly for him to notice her.

  She just needed one more object. One more big, valuable forgery that could buy her freedom.

  Miss Prudence Etchingham had never been characterized as audacious before. But if she had to choose between audacity and poverty…

  She looked up at Alex. His gaze was fixed on the statue, so intently that he was either obsessed with it or was purposefully ignoring her.

  She had to let him go. And she would do it now, before she wasted any more of her life on a fantasy.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Alex Staunton, the Earl of Salford, wasn’t quite a candidate for Bedlam yet. But a casual observer wouldn’t be faulted for thinking it.

  The house was quiet this late at night — perfect for a final glass of whisky beside the dying fire in his study. He tossed another log onto the fire, then picked up the whisky decanter from a shelf full of libations. He poured a finger of liquor and downed it in one go.

  It burned as whisky should, but it tasted sour on his tongue. After all these accursed years, he knew he could drink the entire decanter if he wished without feeling anything at all. He didn’t bother. Instead, he grabbed the decanter, opened the French doors that led into the garden, stepped outside, and poured it all onto the cobbled path.

  The fumes rose up to greet him. He stepped back from the rapidly expanding puddle to avoid ruining his boots. As the stream of whisky turned into a trickle, he heard the familiar sound of metal clinking against crystal, then thudding to the stones.

  There was just enough light from the open door that he was able to find the key without too much effort. He picked it up and went inside, closing the door and leaving the empty decanter next to the dirty glass. The butler would refill it without comment in the morning. If the servants wondered why Alex rarely drank, then sometimes drained an entire bottle, they would never question him.

  He wiped his hand, then the key, on his handkerchief. Then he opened his bottom desk drawer and pulled out the lockbox hidden under a mass of papers. He sat, scowled at the box for a moment, and turned the key in the lock.

  The dagger within was hammered bronze that had somehow never dulled with age. The hilt felt familiar in his hand — muscle memory from years ago, when he used to hold it every night. He could draw the Egyptian characters etched on the blade with his eyes closed.

  He traced the blade across the faded scar on his left palm. The scar had knit itself together years before, but it had never disappeared. Even when the dagger was safely locked in his desk, Alex carried the reminder of it on his skin.

  He hadn’t held the weapon in at least six months. Keeping the key in a bottle of whisky had helped to break him of his tendency to obsess over it — now, it took effort to unlock the box, just enough that he could usually ignore it. He’d been happier, these last years, ignoring it.

  But Prudence had set him dreaming again.

  Alex closed the box and set it aside, leaving the dagger centered in front of him. A paper had come with the dagger, but he never looked at it anymore — it would crumble if he unfolded and refolded it many more times. And anyway, he could recite the text from memory, both in the Greek it was written in and the English he’d translated it into.

  Speak your wish and cut your palm.

  So simple. Simple enough to laugh at. Simple enough to make a wish, thinking it all a grand joke.

  But he should have paid more attention to the second line. You will have your wish until the power is broken.

  The scribe who had written the note should have been more bloody precise about the consequences.

  He drew the tip of the knife across his palm again. He could never have Prudence. His rational mind knew it. His wish had become a curse. He was no closer to breaking it than he had been a decade earlier, when he’d awoken to discover that his wish had been granted. And, truth be told, when he wasn’t obsessing over a cure, his life was pleasant.

  More than pleasant, when he ignored what he couldn’t have. He had wished, stupidly, that nothing would interfere with his studies. And his life was now perfectly, permanently arranged to give him what he had wished for. He never fell ill. He couldn’t get drunk. He never suffered gout, or indigestion, or any other indignities that aging earls were supposed to suffer. When he felt the urge to fuck someone, he could find a high-class courtesan or charming widow without the slightest effort.

  Of course, if he loved one of them enough to be distracted, she might choke to death on a chicken bone or poison herself with contaminated jam. That tended to dampen his ardor.

  Still, these last few months of enduring Prudence’s presence in his house — the way he would see her unexpectedly and feel his heart leap, the chance to see her at dinner, the smile he sometimes surprised her into giving him — had stirred his old desire for a cure. He’d kept that desire in check, for her sake rather than his. If he allowed her to distract him from his studies, she would die. But still…

  If he could read the damn words on the dagger, he might know how to break the curse’s power.

  He opened another drawer and pulled out a sheaf of papers. He’d tried to decipher the Egyptian before, using a rubbing he’d made of the Rosetta Stone. But he, like everyone else, had so far failed to discover how the Greek and Egyptian letters on the Rosetta Stone might match.

>   Perhaps he should try one last time. Before he was too old to care.

  Before Prudence found someone else.

  He had just picked up the dagger again when the study door opened. No one ever disturbed him at this hour. He looked up. Prudence stood in the doorway, framed like an offering.

  She paused, uncertain, but certainly not a dream. Alex was cursed, but he wasn’t a madman. His eyes took in every detail. Her dress was unremarkable; she refused to let him buy her anything, even though he’d have bought her anything she desired. But the body it covered — those lush, mouth-watering breasts that he would never touch — didn’t need silk or satin to draw him in. Her chestnut hair gleamed in the firelight, still pulled up in a chignon but otherwise uncovered.

  He couldn’t let himself think of her hair. He drove the dagger point-first into the polished wood of his desk. “Is there something I can help you with, Miss Etchingham?” he asked.

  Prudence’s eyes widened. “You’re looking rather dangerous tonight, my lord. Are you off to fight the Americans at dawn?”

  Alex forced a laugh. “Not worth the effort. But I shall if they’ve caused you a moment’s distress.”

  Her lips twitched. Alex had always been able to make her laugh. Even tonight she seemed able to be amused despite whatever was on her mind. Something had to be on her mind — she found him in his study occasionally, but never at night.

  “I didn’t mean to interrupt you,” she said, stepping back toward the hall. “I shall leave you to your studies.”

  He gestured to the chairs in front of his desk. “Please, join me. It’s no interruption.”

  He regretted it as soon as he said it. Not because he didn’t want her to join him — because he wanted her too much. Would she fall down the stairs in the morning because he’d asked her to stay?

  Her eyes scanned his face. She shook her head. “It is late, my lord. I had thought to borrow a book, but I shall wait until tomorrow.”

  “What do you need?” he asked, standing up and coming around the desk. He should have stood as soon as she had entered, but he had been so addle-brained that he had forgotten propriety.

  “I need nothing that cannot wait,” Prudence said. “Good evening, my lord.”

  She turned to the door. He reached her before she exited. “Stay,” he said behind her, placing a hand on her shoulder. “We haven’t talked in an age. I would be happy to discuss any book in my collection with you.”

  They hadn’t talked in an age because he had avoided her in an effort to spare them both. But if she wanted to talk about books…that was close to studying, wasn’t it? The curse wouldn’t care if he talked about history with her, as long as he didn’t give in to his baser instincts.

  She looked at his hand, but from behind he couldn’t read the expression on her face. He felt her tremble, though — a reaction he let himself ignore when she suddenly turned and smiled, sweet and wistful. “Very well,” she said. “Conversation may help me to fall asleep.”

  He pulled his hand away and clasped it over his heart instead. “You wound me, Miss Etchingham. Am I that much of a bore?”

  “You know you are, my lord. But I can survive it.”

  Her smile was lovely as she teased him. She wasn’t the stuff of legend. She wasn’t the proclaimed beauty of her season. But her wide, expressive brown eyes, her even more expressive mouth — the irrepressible vitality of life as she gazed at him — drew him in. Her eyes held a secret promise that he wanted her to share with him — a strength of purpose that almost seemed enough to break his curse.

  He gestured her toward the chairs again, shutting the door behind her. “What would you care to discuss, then, if my topics bore you? Ribbons? Whatever horrid novels you and my sister are reading?”

  She pretended to deliberate. “Ribbons. Such a fascinating subject, don’t you think?”

  Her voice was light, but she gave a sidelong glance at the closed door. He had never closed them in alone together. But it was late, and no one would disturb them.

  And he wanted to pretend that he could have her. Fool that he was, he would take what he could get.

  “Indeed, quite fascinating.” He sat across from her, as though everything was normal. “Do you prefer satin or velvet?”

  She tilted her head, considering. “I find satin to be prettier, but it is difficult to hold my hair in place with something so slick.”

  He’d never seen her hair down. It suddenly felt like a tragedy. “Is your hair quite unruly? I’d never have guessed it of you.”

  “Do you think me so proper that I couldn’t have curly hair?” she asked.

  Dangerous question. He gave the dangerous answer. “No. You could be quite unruly, I’m sure.”

  She looked down at her hands. “You know I cannot be.”

  “I vow you could be,” he said. “You just need the opportunity.”

  “Unlikely, my lord.”

  Her voice was suddenly quelling — not at all the sort of emotion he was used to from her. “You could, I’m sure of it,” he said.

  “I’ll grant you that I could be unruly,” she said. “But the opportunity is unlikely. How long do you think I could live on others’ charity if I misbehaved?”

  “You could live on my charity as long as you like.”

  He meant it as a reassurance, but he knew as soon as he said it that he was in trouble. Her eyes flashed. “Is that what you think I want? A comfortable life with your money?”

  She stood. Out of habit, he stood with her. “Of course not. I didn’t mean it as an insult.”

  Prudence flushed. “Do not concern yourself with my feelings, my lord.”

  She stepped toward the door again. He couldn’t let her leave like that. Even if he could never allow himself to have her, he didn’t wish to hurt her. He didn’t touch her this time — didn’t trust himself to touch her. But he moved to block her.

  “Allow me to be concerned, Miss Etchingham,” he said. “And allow me to apologize. I didn’t mean to distress you.”

  “Was that the apology?” she asked.

  The words were sharp, but her voice had softened. He didn’t rest on his laurels, though. “No. I am sorry, Miss Etchingham. Please, stay. I vow I’ll have more care with my words.”

  She considered — considered something more than whether to stay, it seemed, given the way her gaze roved over his face. Her thoughts were indecipherable. But he sensed the moment when she had made her decision. He felt it in the air as she squared her shoulders. She looked straight into his eyes. His heart skipped just a bit.

  “Very well. I shall stay. But if you expect me to be unruly, I shall require sherry.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  She shouldn’t have stayed. She hadn’t expected him to be in his study; it was almost two in the morning, after all, and she had thought he would be in bed.

  She wasn’t there to see him. She was there to look through his engravings, seeking inspiration for whatever she might forge next. But, fool that she was, she was happy to see him.

  And he seemed happy to see her. It was another mark in the column that said he might love her.

  Stupid girl. She should have drowned herself in the sherry rather than drinking it.

  But she let him pour her a glass and turn the conversation to safer waters. They didn’t last long on ribbons. Instead, they discussed Mr. Soane’s exhibits. That led naturally into a discussion of Grecian art and the latest public sentiments over Lord Elgin’s actions in bringing part of the Parthenon to Britain.

  Her heart was beginning to warm — and not from the sherry, even though he had poured her another. He looked at her with that special gleam in his eyes. He barely touched his brandy. Was he so taken with her that he forgot to drink?

  It was after she’d made a rather risqué joke about Elgin’s divorce, after he had laughed like he was utterly charmed, that she decided that this was her opportunity. He had wanted her to be unruly. Surely that meant something?

  She pointed at his
brandy snifter. “Will you share with me, my lord?”

  He swirled his full glass. “You wouldn’t like it.”

  She lifted her chin. She didn’t know how to flirt, but she was game to try. “Who is to say I wouldn’t?”

  “I say you wouldn’t,” he said. But he retrieved the brandy decanter. “Are you sure?”

  “Sure I wish to be unruly?” She reached for the decanter herself. “If you don’t wish to aid me in my sin, you may leave.”

  She said it imperiously, as though it were her house. He laughed. “Not until I see you drink this. If you’ll take a suggestion, you may wish to sip it first.”

  Prudence poured two fingers into her glass and swirled it like a connoisseur. She sniffed it, delicately, and shuddered.

  “You can still change your mind,” he said, reaching for her glass.

  She turned slightly to keep it away from him. “In for a penny, in for a pound.”

  She sipped.

  Then she coughed.

  He tried to take the glass from her, but she glared at him even as she covered her mouth with her other hand. “No,” she said, when the burn would let her talk. “I may never drink brandy again. I want to know how it feels.”

  She ignored the flash in his eyes, too sure that it was pity. She sipped again. It burned again, but this time she was ready for it. The burn was friendly enough — the warmth of a hearth, not hellfire.

  As daring adventures went, this wasn’t much of one. But when she met his eyes over the rim of her glass, it felt like she had dared everything. He smiled, a bit crookedly, as though he was deep in a dream.

  She grinned back at him. “I think I could develop a taste for this,” she said.

  He was what she had developed a taste for, not the brandy. But Alex didn’t know her secret heart. “Thank the gods you can’t,” he said. “I’ve changed my mind. If you were unruly, you would be a menace.”