The Earl Who Played With Fire

by Sara Ramsey

  Amelia huffed a protest. “What she wants might be a list in its own right.”

  “I’m not sure that what I want will figure into our calculations,” Prudence said. “I am to marry Thorington in four days. That is all he thinks I need to know.”

  “Four days?” Amelia and Madeleine asked in unison.

  Ellie frowned. “That is much too soon. What is the man thinking? You can barely get a single decent dress made in that time, let alone an entire wardrobe fit for your new station. And some will be scandalized by the brevity of your engagement.”

  “One might almost think this was a love match,” Madeleine mused. “But Thorington doesn’t seem capable of such a tender emotion.”

  “He isn’t,” Prudence said flatly. “The man is a villain.”

  She hadn’t been quite so blunt about her feelings — or lack of feelings — before, and she had stunned them all into silence. When the silence stretched on a few moments too long, she waved a hand, trying to cut through it with a negligent gesture. “He won’t beat me, I’m sure. And he does have money and a title. I could have done worse.”

  They were still silent. Madeleine was the first one who spoke. “It isn’t too late, Prue,” she said, slowly, as though reconsidering every word as she said it. “You might choose to seek happiness instead.”

  “I plan to,” Prudence said. “But you know I’ll be ruined if I jilt him. Even the three of you would have to seriously consider whether to accept me. You could only do it quietly, not at a public occasion. Where could I seek happiness if I could not leave the house?”

  “Perhaps that life is still more bearable than a life in Thorington’s bed,” Ellie said.

  Prudence shuddered. “I cannot marry him. But if I don’t, I’ll have to give up my life to avoid him.”

  She might never be received, might never see most of her acquaintances again. But she couldn’t contemplate marrying Thorington. After seeing him, she was more sure than ever that she would rather hang it all and start again somewhere else.

  And surely, someday, she could have Alex. Even if she couldn’t tell her friends that she was waiting for him again.

  And even if she hadn’t told him the truth yet about her involvement in the auction. She would have to tell him if she wanted to take him to Ostringer; the shop owner was too unpredictable to trust that he would keep her secret. She would just have to hope that Alex could forgive her.

  If he could not…she would have to go into exile alone. That was still better than becoming someone else’s wife.

  Ellie seemed to know that she had made up her mind. “If you are going to go, you should leave now. Before Thorington realizes you might run away from him.”

  It hadn’t occurred to her that Thorington would try to stop her. But she couldn’t leave quite yet. Not until she made one final attempt to help Alex break his curse.

  Still, if she stayed, she might be trapped. Did the slim chance that she could keep Alex outweigh the probability that Thorington would capture her instead?

  She’d always claimed that she’d wanted more choices.

  Now that she had one, she wished she had kept her mouth shut.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Lady Andover’s musicale wasn’t an event that Alex would have wanted to attend even on his loneliest nights. But Prudence’s note about meeting Ostringer the following afternoon had been short to the point of terseness.

  And the invitation he had received from Thorington that evening — delivered by a footman rather than the mail — gave him a reason for her brevity.

  Unless he wanted to go to Ellie’s house and wait for Prudence to come home in the wee hours of the morning, he had to seek her out. He arrived at Lady Andover’s house just after the first musician had performed. The footman who took his coat seemed a bit miffed that Alex was so tardy, but Lady Andover was quite gracious.

  Not gracious enough to provide what he wanted, of course. All he wanted was easy access to Prudence in a place where they could talk. Instead, he spent an hour listening to a reasonably talented contralto, a mostly awful harpist, and a decent string quartet.

  As soon as the final strains of the concerto ended, but before the polite clapping had finished, Alex moved toward Prudence’s seat. He reached her just as she left the grouping of chairs where she had been seated with Ellie and Nick. “I should offer you felicitations again,” he said, bowing over her hand.

  “For what?” she asked as she curtsied to him.

  “Your wedding,” he said. “I expected that you might think to add me to the list for the breakfast, but I didn’t expect to attend the nuptials themselves.”

  Her eyes turned murderous. “Don’t say you’ve received an invitation.”

  Ellie couldn’t stay uninvolved when she heard that. “Thorington already sent out invitations? Lucky, Prudence — I spent days writing the invitations for me and Nick.”

  Prudence shot Ellie a killing glare. Alex might have laughed if he wanted to prolong the conversation, but he took Prudence’s arm instead. “Would you care to stroll about the garden for a moment? You look overwarm.”

  She didn’t look overwarm — she looked like she wanted to find the nearest pistol and call Thorington out. Still, she seemed to remember the rules. “I shouldn’t, my lord. But I appreciate…”

  “The rules can hang, Miss Etchingham,” he said. “You are about to be a duchess. No one will fault you for your sins then.”

  She hesitated. Ellie gave her a little push. “It’s true, dear,” Ellie said. “And even if it’s not, it’s much more entertaining to believe it.”

  “You truly are the worst influence,” Prudence muttered.

  But she walked willingly enough as Alex escorted her out the French doors to the balcony beyond. She took a deep breath when they were outside. “The harpist wasn’t very good, was she?” she asked.

  He didn’t bother to respond to her small talk. “When did you plan to tell me that your wedding is in four bloody days?”

  His voice was quiet, almost mild. She still flinched. “Thorington didn’t tell me until this afternoon.”

  “Could you not delay him?”

  Even in the dark he saw her glare. “Don’t say you think this is my fault?”

  He sighed and rubbed his fingers against his temple. “No. Of course not.”

  “I didn’t ask for him to marry me sooner,” she said. “But he is determined to marry at St. George’s. He claimed that it could only happen four days from now.”

  Alex tried to remind himself that it was Thorington’s madness that drove most of their current predicament, not either of their failures. “His first wife insisted on St. Paul’s. I don’t think she realized that St. George’s is more fashionable even if St. Paul’s is more grand.”

  “I don’t give a fig for what happened with his first wife,” she said.

  Alex laughed. “For all that I despise him, I must say that one cannot fault his taste. The woman who tricked him was an abomination, but you would make an excellent duchess.”

  “How can you make a jest about this?” Prudence asked. Her voice was strained, more than he’d ever heard it. “We only have three days to break your curse.”

  Three days. He’d had ten years and hadn’t done it. But he didn’t want her to worry. “If you don’t want to marry him, I can help you escape.”

  “I’m ready to escape. And I’ll go wherever I must go. But what are my options? Some town where I know no one? Some manor house where the servants will assume that I’ve fallen into disgrace?”

  “Surely there is something better…”

  She shook her head. “I’ve thought through all the options, Alex. There are none worth considering. There never are for women of our class. It’s either marriage, spinsterhood, or death. Unwedded exile isn’t something I ever thought I’d need.”

  “I will support you in whatever you choose, as long as it isn’t death,” Alex said. “But if you choose exile, I will take care of everything. A carriag
e, a house, money, whatever you need.”

  “And what strings come with that? Will I ever see you again? Or is this your curse sending me away forever?”

  Her voice sounded so bleak — bleak enough to freeze his certainty into little shards of doubt. “No strings, Prudence. I vow it. You…you don’t have to wait for me. If you find another who will love you, take him with my blessings. Just don’t marry Thorington. You deserve so much better than what he can offer you.”

  She sighed again. In the dark, in the cold, she sounded old. “I don’t, really. Perhaps he’s exactly what I deserve.”

  “Of course he isn’t.”

  Prudence had been facing out into the gardens, but she turned to him with a motion that almost approached violence. The light coming out from the music room cast eerie shadows on her face. “You don’t know me, not really. You’re in love with a fantasy. Now let me be proper again and go inside before someone catches us.”

  He caught her before she could escape, not caring at all whether anyone saw them. He pulled her deeper into the shadows at the corner of the balcony, out of view of the guests still mingling in the music room. “What is wrong? I’ve never heard you like this before.”

  “You’ve never heard a lot of things,” she said.

  It was like he held a different woman in his arms. She sounded angry, bitter — guilty.

  “I don’t fault you for thinking you might want to marry Thorington,” Alex said, striving to stay rational. “If you have changed your mind and don’t want to try to break my curse, I would never fault you for it.”

  His heart would have broken if she had agreed, but she shook her head. “I will never want to marry Thorington. Ever.”

  “Then why wouldn’t you take my help?”

  “I don’t want to marry him. But I might deserve him.” Her voice dropped. “I can’t let you help me unless you know what you’re doing.”

  Alex was totally in the dark. He couldn’t even think of a question to ask, beyond a simple, “What?”

  “In for a penny, in for a pound,” she whispered to herself. He remembered that night in his study, weeks ago. She’d said the same thing then, just before she had drunk his brandy.

  Then, she had been so daring, so full of life. Tonight she was falling apart in front of him. But she straightened her shoulders. “Do you remember how you said that the curse had a sense of humor?”

  He nodded. But he knew not to say anything — whatever she wanted to say was costing her too much to afford an interruption.

  “And do you remember how you thought that whoever Ellie had sold the rock for would regret it when the curse tried to give Thorington his money back?”

  His stomach dropped into his boots. “Where did you find the stone?” he asked.

  She looked down at her feet. Then, like a hero facing a firing squad, she lifted her eyes to his. “I made it, Alex. I designed it, hired someone to carve it, and sold it.”

  “What?” he asked again.

  He was sure that he had misheard her. An odd roaring had started in his ears when she’d mentioned Thorington getting his money back, and he couldn’t quite seem to comprehend her words. But she repeated herself. “I made it. I would take it back if I could.”

  He shook his head, trying to shake out whatever she was saying. “How could you have done it? Where did you find…”

  He trailed off, remembering that he’d left the dagger out when he’d left her in his study that night…knowing in a flash what she’d done. She filled the silence immediately, as though she hoped she could cauterize the wound with a flurry of words. “I’m sorry, Alex. Really. But I was so desperate. You have to know how desperate I was.”

  “You could have asked me for the money, Prudence,” he said.

  Oddly, her inability to rely on him wounded him more than her scheming did. She took a step back as if he’d threatened to hit her. “I didn’t want your money, Alex. I never did.”

  “But you would have accepted it if I’d won the auction.”

  “I…”

  She must have thought better of her excuse. “Did you want to hurt me?” he asked. “Or was it just about the money?”

  “Do you remember that night in your study?” she asked.

  He couldn’t forget it. He nodded.

  “I realized then that you would never love me. Or at least never enough to do anything about it. But perhaps that’s why I deserve Thorington. A better woman would have given up and found a different life. I decided to arrange everything to pay you back.”

  Her voice cut straight through him. “I have always wanted you, Prudence. I’ve never lied about that.”

  “No. But if Thorington hadn’t asked, would you have kept me on the shelf forever?”

  Alex had every right to be angry. In fact, he was furious. But suddenly he was the one on treacherous ground. “I would have wished you happy with someone else.”

  “As you did with Malcolm?” she asked.

  “That’s not the same,” he said, his anger turning into defensiveness. “I’m sorry I couldn’t offer for you then.”

  “But you can’t offer for me now, can you?”

  Alex balled his hands into fists. “I want you to be safe, Prue. That’s more important than anything else — our feelings, our guilt, our attraction, all of it is trumped by your safety. I can help you escape Thorington if that’s what you want. But I won’t see you die just because I’ve allowed myself to love you.”

  He was ready to keep fighting. But that pronouncement made her face crumple. She came to him of her own accord and wrapped her arms around his waist. It was an embrace made for comfort, not seduction — as though despite the lies and half-truths and hesitations between them, he was still the only one who could make her feel better.

  He sighed. He knew why she’d forged the rock, even if it made him angry to think of the desperate straits he’d driven her to. He kissed the top of her head. “Don’t berate yourself for forging the rock. We’ll find a way to rescue you from Thorington, even if I can’t break the curse.”

  “Do you really not care that I did it?” she asked, her words muffled by his jacket.

  “Not enough to change my mind about you.”

  It was another half-truth. Later, alone, he would remember that his apparent indifference had pushed her into a dangerous trade, and he would punish himself for it. But the words seemed to give her heart.

  “I have to believe we can cure you,” she said, looking up into his eyes.

  He didn’t respond. He couldn’t. He kissed her instead, hard and fast, and just long enough that it was difficult to stop.

  But the pain of stopping was better than the pain of telling her that her dream would never come true.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  The next day, Prudence sighed as Alex rapped on the door of Mr. Ostringer’s shop. He had ordered Prudence to remain in the carriage with Nick and Ellie, who had accompanied them as ineffectual chaperones.

  But surely he had known that they wouldn’t stay behind. Prudence joined him at his side before he could knock again, while Ellie and Nick stood slightly back, admiring the shop window next door.

  “Don’t you think you’ve knocked enough?” she asked.

  Alex scowled at her. “You should have stayed in the carriage.”

  “I know,” she said. “That’s why Ellie sent the carriage away.”

  Alex rolled his eyes and knocked again. The interior of the store was mostly dark. Ostringer only accepted clients by appointment, and he made little effort to dress up the front of the store. But Prudence was sure he was in there somewhere. “Mr. Ostringer never misses an appointment,” she said mildly as Alex knocked harder. “He might appreciate a few moments to come to the door.”

  “What do you know of Mr. Ostringer?” he asked.

  She colored slightly. She’d told Alex about her forgery, and he’d taken it well — surprisingly well. But she had neglected to mention Ostringer’s efforts in her other sales. “I
wrote to him when I was corresponding as Mr. Chandlord. And I’ve had the opportunity to meet him a few times in London.”

  “You didn’t seem to know him when we saw him at Soane’s house,” Alex said.

  Ostringer saved her by opening the door. He blinked, then gave her a very slight scowl before greeting them. “My lords, ladies,” he said, bowing just deeply enough to acknowledge them without seeming obsequious. “I am honored by your company, but I cannot take an appointment at this time.”

  He tried to shut the door, but Alex shoved a booted foot against the frame. “We have an appointment, Ostringer. And we would much prefer to take it in your shop instead of on the street.”

  Prudence would never look at servants quite the same way again, not after nearly being one herself since her father’s death. And so she saw what Alex couldn’t after his use of such an imperious tone — the flash of dislike in Ostringer’s eyes as his wounded pride turned into something more dangerous.

  She intervened before Ostringer forced them to leave. “Mr. Ostringer, I know it’s shockingly impolite to have misled you. But I was concerned that you would not take my appointment if you knew that Salford would be with me.”

  There was a sharp look to his features, as though his nose had been built and trained to sniff out valuable objects and interesting facts. But unless she was deluding herself, his face seemed to soften as he looked at her. “You were correct. Can I convince you to attend to me without Lord Salford’s amateur opinions tainting our conversation?”

  Prudence laughed. “I assure you, he’s quite intelligent for an earl. May we still visit you, or shall we leave you undisturbed? Our friends will examine your collection while we converse, if that is amenable to you.”

  Ellie smiled, all charm. “How do you do, Mr. Ostringer. I thought that the marquess and I might look for a wedding gift today.”

  He bowed again, seeming to mean it this time. “You are always welcome. How can I deny one of the best collectors in London?”

  Ellie’s presence swayed Ostringer in their party’s favor. He ushered them into the shop and closed the door behind them, turning the lock to prevent others from intruding.