The Earl Who Played With Fire

by Sara Ramsey

  Prudence shook her head. “Treatises don’t have the same appeal as your Gothic romances. None of the historical societies will grant me a stipend — they would expect me to turn up in person, and the ones I correspond with don’t know I am a woman. The Duke of Thorington is searching for a private secretary for an expedition to Egypt, which would perfectly suit my interests, but I know he will only take a man. So what does that leave me?”

  “Thorington?” Madeleine said. “He’s even worse than Ferguson used to be, from what I’ve heard. You’d be ruined if you went to the East End with him, let alone Egypt.”

  Madeleine was forthright about her husband’s former reputation. And she was right — Thorington’s was worse. “It matters naught,” Prudence said. “I sent him my credentials using my masculine pseudonym, but he never responded.”

  Their gasps were so in unison that they might have been a matched group of Furies. “You corresponded with Thorington?” Amelia said. “I know you’ve dreamed of visiting Egypt, but at the price of your reputation?”

  Even Ellie — the most scandalous woman of her acquaintance — looked stunned. Prudence shifted uncomfortably. “I wrote as Mr. Chandlord, as usual. And he has never met me as Miss Etchingham before — he would never think to link the two. But it was almost a jest anyway. Do you know how much I dream of all of those horrid men at the Society of Antiquaries realizing that a mere female is just as capable of serious study as they are?”

  That sentiment softened their horror just a bit. They knew how long it had grated on Prudence’s patience that she could only carry on correspondence by pretending to be a man and routing her letters through a pub in Soho Square. Amelia and Madeleine had both pursued their artistic visions using false names. Of anyone in London, they would understand the risks she took.

  They understood enough that she should have told them about her forgeries from the start. They wouldn’t judge her for it — in fact, they might urge her on. But if she told them, they would try to rescue her rather than encouraging her. And their well-meaning charity would eventually destroy her pride.

  She saw a bit of that in their reaction to her latest statement. “Promise me you will take rooms with me and Ferguson before you come to any of those ends you mentioned,” Madeleine said. “Rothwell House could billet an army without feeling crowded. You may stay with us as long as you like.”

  “Or you may stay with me and Malcolm, once our townhouse is ready. Unless your dislike of other people’s children extends to this one,” Amelia said, patting her rounded belly.

  Prudence laughed. “You know I cannot say anything to that without sounding ungrateful.”

  Amelia smiled. “Yes. So you must accept to avoid wounding my feelings.”

  Prudence shook her head. “Thank you. But I shall find a way.”

  Footsteps sounded in the hall. Madeleine craned around to look through the doorway, then sighed. “It’s only Alex,” she said, disappointed. “I hoped Ferguson had come to retrieve me.”

  “If it were Ferguson, he would be more likely to want my husband,” Amelia said. “I vow the two of them are plotting to take over the Government — they spend enough time together to do it.”

  Alex stepped through the door a moment later. Even though she’d steeled herself against him, Prudence’s heart still skipped. He looked perfect, the best combination of tousled hair and chiseled cheekbones, a Grecian fantasy come to life.

  But he hadn’t come to life for her. Alex met her eyes, only briefly, as though he couldn’t stand to look at her. He knew she didn’t belong.

  She knew she was being irrational, that that wasn’t how he viewed her. But she couldn’t stop the self-loathing litany. Her heart beat faster as though it could outrun the shame. Her new dress — one of several she’d bought with the proceeds of her first forgeries, in one of those weak moments when she thought she might be able to win Alex back — suddenly burned against her skin. His gaze slid over her figure, but was it admiration? Clinical observation of one of his possessions? Did he even notice that she wore something new?

  “Did you need something, Maddie?” Alex asked, perfectly calm, perfectly oblivious. “I am off to the Society, but I heard my name — I can attend to you first.”

  Madeleine waved a hand. “So like a man to care more for his club than for us poor females.”

  He grinned. His nonchalance was yet another dagger to Prudence’s heart. “The club is quieter, after all.”

  “I doubt that,” Madeleine said stoutly. “From what Ferguson tells me, the men gossip more than any group of women.”

  Alex frowned at the mention of Ferguson. It seemed instinctual, just as it was instinctual for Prudence to watch every flash of emotion across his face in hopes of translating motion into knowledge. “Ferguson does, perhaps. But I assure you, the Society of Antiquaries is entirely sober and straitlaced.”

  “That’s a shame,” Ellie said. “Surely you have more sin in you than that.”

  Prudence saw the flicker in his eyes. She swore he glanced at her, so fast that she wouldn’t have seen it had she not been watching him intently. “No sins, I vow,” Alex said. “Now, if you will excuse me…”

  Amelia cut him off. “Will you please pull me out of this chair before you go? I shall have to confine myself to hard benches for the duration if this babe grows any bigger.”

  Alex laughed. “Such manual labor is beneath me. Earls aren’t meant to haul around great burdens.”

  “Remind me to kick you in the shin for that when I can find my feet again,” Amelia said, holding out her hand so that he could lift her up.

  He helped her out of the chair with more gentleness than one might expect after the banter between them. Then he ruffled her hair. “If I see Malcolm out in town, I’ll send him home to you. I’m sure the threat of a manservant helping you out of your chair will be enough to steal him away from Parliament for an afternoon.”

  “No need to play the overprotective brother,” Amelia said. “I’ve made my bed, and I’m quite happy with it.”

  “We can see that,” Madeleine said drily. “Shall I help you up to your room so Alex can leave us?”

  The three of them left the drawing room. Prudence closed her eyes. Their laughter faded away as they moved toward the main staircase. Amelia and Madeleine would go up, to Amelia’s bedchamber. Alex would go down, to the main door and the street, free to walk out of the house unescorted and unencumbered while Prudence stayed behind, trapped and caged like an exotic pet…

  The drawing room door clicked shut. When she looked up, Ellie moved away from the door she had just closed. “Well?” Ellie asked.

  Prudence made a show of filling her teacup again. “There’s nothing to say.”

  Ellie came to sit next to her on the settee, taking the place Madeleine had vacated. “I thought you might say something to Salford about your feelings for him. Did something happen between the two of you?”

  “The less said, the better,” she said.

  Ellie examined her face. Prudence wondered what the marchioness saw. Ellie was a painter, after all — perhaps that was why she had noticed what no one else had? Was there something to the color of Prudence’s eyes, or the fine lines starting to web around them when they narrowed as Alex looked at her? Some clenching of the jaw that Prudence herself wasn’t aware of?

  Mercifully, whatever Ellie saw on Prudence’s face kept her from continuing her questions. Ellie sighed instead. “Whatever happened, I’m sorry for it.”

  Gentle sympathy, without insinuation or action required. Prudence’s eyes unexpectedly filled with tears. “I’m sorry, too,” she whispered.

  Sorry that she had risked her heart. Sorry that she, the most romantically-minded of their circle, would never have what they had.

  Ellie squeezed her hand. “It changes, you know. What you’re feeling now — whatever happened — doesn’t last forever.”

  Prudence nodded. She couldn’t trust her voice for a moment, sure that if the words came
out, her tears would too.

  Hadn’t she cried enough tears? Really, she preferred anger to grief.

  They sat in silence for a few moments. When Prudence felt her heart slow, felt her breath ease in and out of her lungs without catching on the lump in her throat, she pulled her hand away from Ellie. “There is something you can help me with, if you’ll consider it.”

  Ellie nodded. “Anything. You can stay with me as well, you know — days or months, whatever suits.”

  “Not that. I’ve no wish to shift the burden of my care from Lady Salford to you.”

  “You’re not a bur…”

  Prudence cut her off. “I have a plan that will keep me from being a burden, if you’ll help.”

  She hadn’t known for sure that she was going to ask Ellie for help until that moment, but the fresh pain of Alex’s obliviousness was enough to throw her over the edge. She took a breath, then said the lie that would change her fate.

  “I found a stone in an antique shop on Curzon Street that they were selling for a pittance of its worth. It cost me all of my pin money, but I think it could set me up comfortably for at least a year or two. Would you help me to sell it?”

  “What kind of stone?” Ellie asked.

  She described it — the Egyptian writing, the Aramaic below it, and the type of stone itself. Granite, it seemed, although a casual observer would never guess it came from Wales instead of Nubia.

  Nor would they guess that the stonemason was alive and well in Westminster, rather than returned to the sand millennia earlier. Or that the very proper Miss Etchingham had designed the text using Alex’s dagger as a guide, then paid the man all the remaining proceeds from her first sales to carve it.

  Ellie’s eyes lit up. “If you’ve found another Rosetta Stone, you have a fortune on your hands.”

  Prudence had so far lied glibly and without remorse, but she still felt honor-bound to warn Ellie, just a little bit. “It could be a forgery,” she said. “The cost was astonishingly low, after all.”

  Ellie shrugged. “If you think it is real, then I shall take your word for it. You’re the scholar, not me. But why not take it to Alex? He’s the most likely buyer in London.”

  Prudence started to lie again, but Ellie interrupted, already knowing why. “You don’t want him to know it’s coming from you, do you?”

  Prudence nodded. “I would rather sell it anonymously. He might overpay out of pity.”

  “And pity is such a bad thing?”

  “As though you ever let anyone pity you,” Prudence said.

  “A valid point. But you should seek as much as possible for this, even if pity fuels the sale. An auction might serve, though,” Ellie said, tapping her fingers against the upholstered settee as she thought through the implications. “Men can be so competitive when trying to win something rare.”

  Ellie already had a vision in mind. Prudence didn’t add much to the conversation over the next few minutes; it was all Ellie, and how she would arrange a soiree to incite the most competition between the collectors she would invite. Outrageous public displays were Ellie’s forté — the marchioness’s parties and bacchanals were legendary. She wouldn’t need anything from Prudence to make the next phase of the plan a success.

  Prudence knew she should feel guilty. And she did feel some guilt for involving Ellie. But her only choices were Ellie or Ostringer — and she wasn’t sure she could trust the man as much as she had thought. If everything went wrong, Ellie wouldn’t seek to hurt her. She didn’t think Ostringer would be quite so selfless.

  Not that she was being selfless, either — she should have told Ellie exactly what she was doing. And she couldn’t entirely deny that she was seduced by the notion of keeping all of her profits, rather than sharing them with Ostringer. But her guilt was overruled by a wanton mix of elation and relief. After all, if no one ever solved the Rosetta Stone, they would never know that this stone was a forgery. And in a week’s time, she would have the money necessary to leave Alex’s house. She didn’t know where she would go after that. Her funds would go further on the Continent, even if she couldn’t go alone. She might take her mother, though — they had discussed going to Italy before, but Lady Harcastle hadn’t been ready to abandon England yet. She might, though, especially if there was money to fund the trip.

  The money was the main goal, of course. But if Ellie invited everyone on the list she suggested, Prudence would get some measure of revenge against all the men who had ignored her. She had corresponded with dozens of scholars over the years — including Alex — but always pretended to be the reclusive Mr. Chandlord. They would never accept a woman in their ranks. And while they’d never know that a woman had tricked them, Prudence would know.

  Selling one of them a forged rock would be eminently satisfying.

  She knew that Alex would be the winner. She waited for her conscience to pain her, but it hadn’t yet. Today, again, he’d looked at her like he loved her. That hope was crueler than any cut.

  She could match him, though. She would give him hope of a translation, hope that would later be crushed.

  It wasn’t nice. It certainly wasn’t moral. And she knew she might someday regret it.

  But she didn’t regret it today. “Thank you for your help, Ellie.”

  “You are most welcome.” Ellie smiled, one of those satisfied grins that somehow made Prudence love her despite it. “And you never know what may happen. If you leave Alex’s house, he may miss you and finally come to his senses.”

  The comment dampened a bit of Prudence’s excitement. She tried to stay focused. What happened with Alex after didn’t matter. All that mattered was that she had a means of escape that didn’t involve marrying someone awful, moving in with one of her mother’s cousins, or taking advantage of her friends.

  Of course, she was taking advantage of Ellie. Was it worse that she was taking advantage of her trust instead of her charity?

  She didn't answer her own question. She sipped her tea instead, and dreamed of being able to buy her own tea. That dream was too powerful for her conscience to overcome.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Later that evening, after enduring yet another dinner in which Prudence avoided his gaze entirely, Alex retreated to his study alone. Something had broken between them after that night in his study weeks earlier. She was brittle with him now. She never smiled at him. Sure, she pretended that everything was fine. She laughed at his jests. She was civil at the breakfast table.

  But she never came to his study.

  He missed her. Worse, he knew that he had hurt her. He would have apologized, but there was nothing he could say — nothing she would believe. Still, it was better to have her alive and able to scorn him than dead because he’d indulged his need for her.

  He sighed and opened a ledger on his desk. Soon enough he would lose himself in his work. He still loved history, after all, despite what it had cost him. And it was now so nearly the only solace he had — his competence and expertise the only bright bit in his otherwise disenchanted life. It also offered the only hope he had. He was no closer to finding a cure than he had been before, but he would keep searching.

  When the door opened thirty minutes later, he was so deep in his books that he didn’t look up immediately. He felt his heart leap, though, hoping and dreading that it was Prudence.

  It was worse than that.

  “Salford, toss your books and have a drink with us,” Malcolm said as he strode into the study.

  Alex frowned at his brother-in-law and the two men behind him. “You are more than welcome to entertain your friends in the saloon without me.”

  Malcolm MacCabe, the Earl of Carnach, was Amelia’s husband — and, lamentably, Alex’s houseguest for the next few months. Malcolm ignored Alex’s suggestion as he strode to the sideboard and poured himself a whisky. “Can’t leave you out of the fun, brother,” he said, tipping his glass up in a mock toast.

  Malcolm’s best friend, Ferguson, the Duke of Rothwell, was the
next to reach the decanter. “A quiet evening en famille seems like just the thing, doesn’t it?” the duke said.

  Alex didn’t put down his pen. “If you wish to be en famille, you should visit the drawing room. I’m sure our female relations would be more appreciative of your company.”

  Neither man was dissuaded. They sat down instead, entirely uninvited and without waiting for the third member of their party to finish pouring. Nick, the Marquess of Folkestone, was the only one who couldn’t claim relations with Alex. He was Ferguson’s brother-in-law, though, since he had married Ferguson’s sister Ellie a few months earlier. And he at least had the grace to look at Alex as he picked up the decanter. “Do you mind, Salford?” he asked.

  “Please, help yourself. You will anyway,” Alex said.

  Malcolm leaned back in his chair, fully at ease despite the frost in Alex’s voice. “The ladies have many talents, but they cannot help with our current mission,” he said.

  “You should still ask them first,” Alex said. “The last time one of you asked me for help, I nearly killed someone.”

  That reference was meant for Nick, who scowled at the reminder. “I asked in good faith.”

  Nick had been trying to ferret out a killer in his house, and he had asked for Alex’s assistance. However, the outcome had been unexpected. “I said at the time that you would owe me. I should call in the favor and make you all leave.”

  Ferguson chuckled. “Waste of a favor, if you ask me. And besides, Carnach and I don’t owe you a thing.”

  Alex sighed. If he were a praying man, he would have prayed for patience. Instead, he stood and poured himself a whisky. It wouldn’t taste any better than it usually did, nor would it get him drunk — the curse would eliminate that distraction. But he needed to keep up appearances. Once he’d poured, he turned back to them. “Why have you favored me with your presence?”

  They all pretended his sarcasm was sincerity. “Your company is so very charming,” Ferguson said. “Or at least good enough to give us a fourth for a rubber of whist.”