An Earl to Save Her Reputation

by Laura Martin

  Harry wasn’t sure if she were proposing a friendship for his sister or that Lydia would be the charity work Miss Wright’s friends engaged in.

  ‘That is very generous,’ he said, trying to dampen the feeling of discomfort building.

  ‘I am sure with our support she could re-enter society and find herself a respectable husband. Perhaps not a duke or an earl or a marquess, but most certainly a baron or a second son.’

  It was exactly what he’d wanted for his sister, so why did it feel so underhand, so sneaky?

  ‘Of course she would have to engage in charity work and behave in an exemplary fashion, but with a little time I think her little indiscretion could be glossed over.’

  ‘Mmm,’ was all Harry could bring himself to say. He wanted Lydia to be accepted back into society, even wanted her to find a good husband and settle down with a family of her own, but this just didn’t feel like the right way to go about it.

  ‘It would be my pleasure to help her in this way,’ Miss Wright said, stepping closer, but still maintaining an appropriate gap between them. She certainly was a stickler for the rules of propriety.

  ‘That is very kind, Miss Wright,’ Harry murmured.

  ‘There was one other little matter I thought I might mention,’ she said quietly. ‘Your engagement to Lady Fortescue.’

  The fake engagement that Harry just couldn’t seem to bring himself to end.

  ‘Although I can see Lady Fortescue has some wonderful qualities, she does have a certain reputation. I wondered if you appreciated how much your association with her damages your reputation and, by extension, your sister’s.’

  ‘Lady Fortescue is a friend,’ Harry said softly but firmly. ‘I would not abandon a friend in their hour of need.’

  ‘But surely you have done enough, Lord Edgerton. And if Lady Fortescue considers you a friend, then she will not hesitate to distance herself from you at such an important time. A respectable marriage for you could make all the difference to your sister’s chances.’

  It was exactly what Harry had been telling himself for the past few months, but as he looked at Miss Wright and imagined a future with her in it he found himself shuddering and not in a good way.

  ‘Thank you for your concern, Miss Wright,’ he said, trying to keep his voice light. ‘I shall certainly consider what you have said.’

  As a well-brought-up young woman she didn’t press the matter any further. There was no way for a respectable debutante to declare her desire for a man to start courting her, especially not outright. Many indicated interest with a flutter of the eyelashes or fleeting glances, but Miss Wright could do no more than curtsy and take her leave.

  * * *

  Harry was still outside five minutes later when most of the guests had trickled back into the large drawing room for the second part of the recital. He was gazing out over the darkened gardens, his eyes wandering over the immaculately kept grass and the neatly dug borders as a fine drizzle began to fall. He knew he should be grateful to Miss Wright—her offer to take Lydia under her wing was exactly what he had hoped for. With Miss Wright’s influence and reputation Lydia’s past indiscretion would eventually be forgotten, at least enough for her to find a husband.

  If he were truly being selfless and working towards helping his sister recover from the scandal, he’d marry Miss Wright without a second’s thought and bring some respectability back to the Edgerton family, but he just couldn’t do it. It was ridiculous, Miss Wright was exactly the sort of woman he’d always been determined he’d marry one day: amiable, level-headed and someone he absolutely would never fall in love with. He should be dropping to his knees and begging the young woman to marry him, but he couldn’t, not now he’d met Anna.

  Running a hand through his hair, he inhaled deeply. He was falling in love and no matter how hard he tried there was no way of stopping it. A sensible man would distance himself, would take himself away from the woman he couldn’t stop thinking about, but Harry was in too deep already. The situation was everything he’d always vowed to avoid—a woman he loved, someone he could actually hurt and who could hurt him. Not that he could imagine Anna doing anything to harm him deliberately...

  ‘The performance will be starting again in a minute,’ his sister said as she stepped outside. Despite her words she seemed in no rush to return to the audience and gently closed the door behind her.

  ‘Are you enjoying it?’ Harry asked, taking her arm as she approached and leading her for a slow stroll along the terrace.

  ‘The pianist is very talented,’ Lydia said, ‘but it feels a little strange to be out in society after so long.’

  ‘You don’t regret coming?’

  He found himself holding his breath as he waited for her to answer.

  ‘No. Anna and her cousin, Beatrice, have been very kind and Miss Wright has introduced me to quite a few people. No one has said anything unkind.’

  ‘Good. I wouldn’t want you to be unhappy.’

  Lydia smiled at him, the impish smile he remembered so well from her childhood, one he hadn’t seen much this past year.

  ‘No one would dare with you scowling at them.’

  ‘I don’t scowl.’

  ‘You’re scowling now.’

  Harry didn’t have an answer for that, instead deepening his scowl to make his sister giggle.

  ‘I don’t want you to be unhappy either, Harry,’ Lydia said once she’d regained her composure.

  ‘I’m not unhappy.’

  ‘Not now, but you could be. I know what you’re planning and I think it would make you miserable.’

  ‘What do you think I’m planning?’

  ‘Marrying someone you don’t love, someone like Miss Wright.’

  ‘I thought you liked Miss Wright?’

  ‘She’s pleasant enough, at least to my face. And she’s probably pleasant enough behind my back. But pleasant doesn’t make a good choice for a wife.’

  ‘I think I’d like a pleasant wife.’

  ‘Not if that was all there was, Harry,’ Lydia said, her large blue eyes staring up at him with more wisdom than an eighteen-year-old should have. ‘You deserve someone who adores you, who challenges you, who you think about every moment of every day.’

  Anna, his mind screamed, that was who he thought about every moment of every day.

  ‘We’ve seen what happens when people marry for love,’ Harry said softly.

  ‘That wasn’t love, Harry,’ Lydia said in a voice much older than her years. ‘Two people who love each other don’t go out of their way to hurt one another. Father was cruel and Mother provoked him again and again. I don’t know what their relationship was built on, but that wasn’t love.’

  Harry frowned, but before he could speak Lydia continued.

  ‘Love is caring for another person more than yourself. It’s doing anything and everything to protect them and never knowingly causing them harm. Love is beautiful, Harry, and what our parents had wasn’t beautiful.’

  ‘You’re eighteen, Lydia...’ Harry began.

  ‘I don’t pretend ever to have been in love, but I watch people. I can see when two people truly care for one another—they’re the happy ones. Not those who marry for money or titles or some other silly reason.’ She reached out and squeezed his hand. ‘Don’t let our parents’ disastrous marriage ruin your life. You’re not like Father, Harry, you’re a better man. I know you would never hurt someone you loved, you wouldn’t intentionally hurt anyone.’

  ‘Who would you have me marry?’

  She levelled a completely grown-up stare at him that made him wonder where the little girl who loved pony rides had disappeared to.

  ‘Someone who makes you smile when you see her, someone who makes you whistle as you come down for breakfast, someone that has you acting like a carefree young man and not someone with the weight of the wor
ld on his shoulders.’ She patted his arm as if he were a little boy.

  ‘But if I take a well-respected wife, someone who could help you back into society...’

  Lydia grimaced. ‘Then you will be unhappy and I will be unhappy because you are unhappy.’

  Standing on tiptoes, she reached up and gave him a kiss on the cheek before turning and slipping back into the drawing room. Harry knew he should follow her, but lingered for a few minutes longer, too deep in thought to hear the piano music start again.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  ‘Rebecca Tointon has had four proposals this month,’ Beatrice said as she flopped on to Anna’s bed, creasing up the delicate silk of her gown in one swift movement.

  ‘Rebecca Tointon is the richest debutante London’s ever seen,’ Anna said, smiling at her cousin in the mirror. ‘And it’s not like you haven’t had any.’

  ‘Two, that’s barely anything. And both were entirely unacceptable. Sir Witlow is barely out of the schoolroom and Mr Gainsborough has a daughter older than me.’

  ‘You’ve only been out in society a few months,’ Anna said soothingly. ‘I’m sure an earl or a marquess will fall head over heels in love with you soon.’

  ‘You can joke, but you’re engaged to the most eligible bachelor in London. And he’s an earl.’

  ‘Pretending to be engaged,’ Anna corrected.

  Beatrice levelled her with a hard stare. ‘No one believes that any more. You two are besotted with each other.’

  ‘I am not besotted,’ Anna said, feeling the heat rise in her cheeks as she came out with the lie. ‘And Lord Edgerton is just being chivalrous and trying to save me from a little gossip.’

  ‘If that was true he’d have broken the engagement this week when Lady Arrington got caught in a rather compromising position with Lord Wilbraham. Apparently her husband is thinking of divorcing her.’

  Anna had half-expected Harry to suggest they quietly end their engagement once society was preoccupied with the rather scandalous discovery of Lady Arrington half-naked in the arms of a man who was most certainly not her husband, but he hadn’t. He hadn’t even hinted that it might be a good opportunity.

  ‘Lord Edgerton has made it very clear he wants to marry a well-respected young woman, not an old widow who everyone gossips about.’

  ‘That’s what he thinks he should want, but not what he really wants,’ Beatrice said with all the self-assurance of a confident eighteen-year-old. ‘He wants you.’

  Anna remembered their kisses, the stolen caresses, the looks that turned his eyes dark with desire.

  ‘And you want him,’ Beatrice said, holding her hand up to stop Anna from interrupting. ‘I know you’ve vowed never to marry again, you’ve told me a thousand times, but that doesn’t stop you from being besotted with Lord Edgerton. It’s rather sweet and tragic, of course.’

  A knock on the door halted the rebuke Anna had been forming as Beatrice skipped across the room to answer.

  ‘Lord Edgerton, we were just talking about you,’ Beatrice said with a dazzling smile.

  In the mirror Anna watched as he raised a questioning eyebrow, but Beatrice just shook her head.

  ‘I suppose I must have something to busy myself with before the rest of the guests arrive.’

  Anna saw her cousin give Lord Edgerton a rather salacious wink that she suspected Beatrice had picked up from somewhere and someone entirely inappropriate and felt a prickle of guilt. It was truly scandalous that Harry be in her bedroom with her and Anna felt once again that she wasn’t the most conscientious chaperon for the young girl.

  As she tried to secure a dainty gold chain with a teardrop ruby on the end around her neck she saw Harry check over his shoulder and then close the door completely, turning the key until the lock clicked. She felt a shiver of anticipation as he slowly turned back to face her.

  ‘Allow me,’ he said, coming up behind her and taking the two ends of the gold chain in his hands. His fingers brushed against her neck as he secured the clasp and then lingered for just a second longer than was necessary. ‘I thought we should discuss how to move forward with finding who has been sending you those horrible packages.’

  ‘I haven’t received any more,’ Anna said, feeling a little disappointed he didn’t want privacy for any other purpose. ‘Perhaps it was one of the Fortescues and now they’ve been scared off.’

  ‘Perhaps, but it is unlikely. We both saw their reactions when we mentioned the packages—they didn’t have any idea what we were talking about.’

  ‘I don’t know who else would want to harm me.’

  ‘No spurned lovers? No spiteful wives who have a reason to hate you? No business rivals who would prefer you cowed and afraid?’

  Anna shook her head. She truly couldn’t think of anyone.

  ‘No gossips you’ve publicly humiliated? No men you’ve turned down?’

  ‘I really can’t think of anyone,’ Anna said. ‘I have not ever had a lover to be spurned and the only man to propose to me in the last year is Mr Maltravers, and he’s harmless.’

  ‘Ah, yes, the man who’s proposed to you nearly every week for the past six months.’

  ‘But he wouldn’t be sending me the packages, it wouldn’t make sense.’

  Harry looked thoughtful for a moment, then shrugged. ‘Let’s add him to our list. I’m told unrequited love is a large burden to bear. Anyone else?’

  ‘I will think the matter over tonight,’ Anna said with a small shake of her head, ‘but I can’t think of anyone else at present.’

  ‘We should go downstairs,’ Harry said, but didn’t move from his position standing behind her.

  ‘The other guests will be arriving soon.’

  Anna’s uncle, Mr Tenby, was hosting a small dinner party for a select group of friends as he did most months. He’d insisted Anna invite Harry, but most of the other guests would be middle-aged men and their wives, all friendly enough but not overly interesting.

  ‘Perhaps they wouldn’t notice if we were a couple of minutes late,’ Harry murmured, dropping a hand lightly on Anna’s shoulder. Her dress was low-cut with a wide neck, exposing her collarbones and the tips of her shoulders, and now Harry’s fingers were tracing a path along the bare skin.

  ‘Harry, we shouldn’t,’ Anna said, regretting the words as soon as they left her mouth.

  ‘I know.’

  He didn’t stop, but in the mirror Anna saw he closed his eyes for a moment as if trying to reason with himself.

  ‘What are we doing here, Harry?’ she asked quietly.

  ‘We’re just two people, pretending to be engaged and finding it damn difficult to keep our hands to ourselves,’ Harry said bluntly.

  ‘We should break off our engagement.’

  ‘We will. Just not yet. Give me a few more days.’

  ‘What for, Harry?’

  ‘To enjoy you.’

  She turned and stood, facing him so they were chest to chest, body to body. Anna was not small in stature for a woman, but she had to tilt her head back to see Harry’s face she was so close.

  ‘Lydia thinks I should marry you,’ Harry said, trailing his fingers from her temple down to the tip of her chin. ‘She thinks you make me happy.’

  ‘Doesn’t she know I wouldn’t have you?’

  Harry shrugged, leaning in closer. ‘She thinks I’d be able to persuade you.’

  Right now Anna was feeling as if she would be very easy to persuade.

  ‘It got me thinking, my conversation with Lydia, about what life is all about.’

  Anna was finding it hard to concentrate with Harry standing so close. She could feel the heat from his body, the tickle of his breath on her neck and the completely distracting fingers on her skin.

  ‘I started wondering if maybe I’d been approaching things all wrong.’

  Managin
g a non-committal squeak, Anna looked up, knowing it was the wrong thing to do even as she did it.

  ‘I’ve been too preoccupied with worrying about not repeating my parents’ mistakes that I have nearly made an even graver one myself. I thought marrying a woman I cared deeply for would make me unhappy, but really not marrying for love would be a much greater source of misery.’ He dropped his fingers to her neck, his touch feather-light and oh, so seductive. ‘And here you are, a woman I care deeply for, and we’re already engaged...’

  ‘Pretending to be engaged,’ Anna corrected, half in a trance-like state. The correction made Harry smile.

  ‘Do you know what would make me extremely happy right now, Lady Fortescue?’

  Anna shook her head, hoping with every fibre in her body that it would involve a meeting of their lips.

  ‘Kissing you right here.’ He dipped his head and brushed his lips against the patch of skin that sat in the hollow just above her collarbone. ‘And here...’ His lips moved across her neck, pausing at the angle of her jaw before he groaned softly and covered her mouth with his.

  Anna felt time stop. She wasn’t aware of anything but Harry’s lips on hers, his tongue, his hands, his body. Already her head was spinning and her heart pounding.

  Never had she been kissed like this before. None of her husbands had ever made her feel even a fraction of what Harry did whenever his lips met hers.

  ‘What would make you happy, Anna?’ Harry asked, pulling away just enough to whisper the question.

  She couldn’t form any words, couldn’t think of anything but Harry’s firm body and their slow movements towards her large, inviting bed.

  ‘Tell me,’ he murmured, ‘what would make you happy?’

  She couldn’t bring herself to utter the words, couldn’t bring herself to admit out loud that she wanted him to lay her down on the bed and make love to her. Despite all the rumours and all the gossip she was a respectable widow. She’d only ever shared a bed with her husbands, never even entertained the idea of a lover.