An Earl Like You

by Caroline Linden

“Now, I presume, you don’t.”

  She raised her head, and he was startled to see tears in her eyes. “No. Eliza defended me and lied to Lady Gorenson when she might have confirmed that I’d been j-j-jilted.” Hugh reached for her but she stepped back. “I was an idiot to listen to Reggie. And he was a liar, about her and many other things.”

  “He was.”

  She swiped at her eyes. “I’m very sorry. I wanted to tell you.”

  “I’m glad you did,” Hugh said.

  His sister took a deep breath. “You were very clever to marry her.”

  That caught him off guard. “You think so?”

  Edith nodded. “I thought she wouldn’t have any taste, but she has. I thought she would be crude and gauche, but she isn’t.” She glanced around the room with red-rimmed eyes. “And I suspect you gave Mama permission to decorate the house because she persuaded you, which has made Mama so happy.”

  “Thank you, Edith,” he said quietly. “But perhaps you ought to say these kind words to Eliza.”

  Her smile wobbled. “I did tell her, right after breakfast. I wanted to tell you, too, since I was so beastly to you.”

  And Hugh felt a great weight lift off his chest. His mother loved Eliza. Henrietta adored her, and her dog. Now even Edith admitted she’d been wrong, and approved of Eliza. Again the feeling that he was going to get away with everything whispered through his mind, insidiously exculpatory, and he went to find his wife.

  She was in the drawing room, a kerchief on her head and an apron over her dress. The walls had been painted a light green, the floor newly buffed and waxed, and she was directing servants who were hanging drapes of deep purple satin, gleaming richly in the newly brightened room. Hugh stood beside her and watched them angle the heavy rod into the hooks.

  “What do you think?” she asked.

  “I think you look quite fetching.”

  She blushed. “I meant about the drapes.”

  “Men don’t think about draperies, they think about undressing their wives.” He savored the way the blush spread down her neck, toward the neckline of her dress. “Come with me.”

  “Where? Hugh!” she protested as he plucked the kerchief off her head.

  “You’ve done quite enough.” For the house, for my family, for me. “Let’s run away for the day.”

  “Run away—where?”

  “Anywhere,” he said, but he had a particular place in mind. “We leave in half an hour.” He paused on his way out of the room. “And bring Willy.”

  They drove out with Angus on the back of the carriage and Willy lodged between their feet. “But where are we going?” Eliza asked for the fourth time.

  “Away from town.” Away from gossiping matrons and broken engagements and the drawing room’s new drapes. Away from every reminder of what he had done and the lies he had told. Again he thought to himself that he would begin anew with her, and not waste the clean escape he’d managed.

  He drove north, around the bustle of Piccadilly and up Portland Street to the Islington Road. Eliza exclaimed at the expanse set aside to become Regent’s Park but they passed it entirely. He didn’t stop until they reached a hill rising above the future park, where he stopped the horses and set the brake. Willy leapt down with a joyful bark and shot off after a flock of sparrows pecking at the grass, sending them into the sky in a flurry of chirping.

  Hugh jumped down and held out his arms. Eliza reached for his hand, but he pulled, catching her and holding her tight against him. And she smiled at him, so delightfully pleased, that he resolved to do it more often. “Primrose Hill,” he said, sweeping out one hand. “With a stunning view of London, yet none of the unpleasantness.”

  “Why are we here?” She looked around, brows raised, endearingly puzzled.

  “I cannot seem to get you to myself in town.”

  She blushed. “Did you want me to yourself?”

  He did. It had never struck him that way, but—“Yes,” he said honestly.

  “Well.” She cleared her throat. “You never said so before.”

  I never thought so before. “Today I did.” He whistled sharply. Far across the grass, Willy raised his head, the breeze blowing his fur up around his head like a lion’s mane. Hugh whistled again, and the dog came bounding back, a stick in his mouth. Hugh wrestled the stick away and flung it, causing Willy to bolt after it. “Shouldn’t I be able to steal my wife away for a day?”

  Her face turned pink. “Oh—yes, but—it seemed very sudden, and it’s the middle of the day. It’s not like—”

  Not like you, she meant to say. He hadn’t taken pains to spend time with her. He’d gone about his usual habits since their wedding, and simply taken their moments together for granted. It caused an avalanche of shame inside his chest.

  “Perhaps not, but it felt right today.”

  Eliza had never heard that particular note in his voice. It seemed to burrow into a tender spot on her heart, sending a warm happiness through her. He hadn’t said any words of love, but more and more frequently they were implied. Perhaps that was all he would ever do. Georgiana had warned her that gentlemen of rank and title often didn’t care to express deep feelings or emotions. Hugh had demonstrated such affection that she felt silly for wishing he might say three trifling words. Anyone could say those words, after all, while Hugh had proven he cared for her. Perhaps it wasn’t even a thing aristocratic couples said to each other.

  They threw the stick for Willy for quite a while, until his tongue was hanging out. Hugh could fling it a great distance, which pleased the dog to no end. Eliza sat on the grass and let him flop into her lap, happily tired out at last. Willy licked her face until she laughed and stood up to escape.

  “Enough, Willy!” she said, wiping her face with a handkerchief. Having settled the horses while they played with the dog, Angus took off with Willy to explore a nearby wood.

  “Hard to blame him, really,” remarked Hugh, watching with his arms folded. “Maybe I’ll do the same.”

  Eliza laughed. “You want to lick my face?”

  “Perhaps I do,” he said with a rakish grin. “Come here . . .” With a shriek, Eliza ran, but he caught her in just a few steps. “Mine,” he said, swinging her off her feet. “All mine!” He kissed her hard on the mouth.

  “Much better than licking,” she said, her cheeks pink.

  “Wasn’t it?” Grinning, he did it again. “I’ll do it even more after a bite to eat.”

  He produced a blanket and a hamper from the boot of the carriage, and spread the blanket on the grass. Eliza opened the hamper and discovered fresh strawberries, cold ham, sliced bread and chutney, and a bottle of champagne. “A feast,” she exclaimed in surprise.

  Hugh stretched out his legs and lounged on the blanket beside her. “Hardly more than tea.”

  She held out a strawberry, and he ate it from her fingers. “Except for the lack of tea, and cakes, and any sort of proper setting.”

  “That’s why we ran away for the day—to escape propriety.” He looked at her. “Do you mind?”

  “No.” She thought she would do almost anything he suggested, but didn’t say it.

  “Good. I . . .” A frown crossed his face, there for a heartbeat and then gone. “I wanted to spoil you.” He reached for the champagne and opened it. “You’ve been working hard on the drawing room. You’ve quite won my mother’s heart, you know.”

  “Have I?” She sat up straighter, beaming. “Oh, I do hope so. That is . . . I hope she thinks well of me.”

  Hugh poured a glass of the fizzing wine and handed it to her. Eliza took a tiny sip, marveling at the decadence. Champagne at midday! “Very well indeed. It took them by surprise when I began calling on you, but they’ve completely got over it.” He gave her a rueful look. “I’ve been told many times it’s my fault for knocking them off stride.”

  Eliza thought it was more than that. She sipped her champagne and traced a leaf that had fluttered onto the blanket beside her. “I suppose they hoped you
would wed a lady.”

  “They likely expected it,” he agreed, “although no one ever said so to me. If anything, my mother expressed hope that all her children would marry someone they could care for. She adored my father and wanted nothing less for her children.”

  There it was again, the suggestion that he loved her. Eliza tried to repress the wish that he would say it plainly. Silly, she scolded herself. Actions spoke more than words, and here he had stolen her away for a romantic picnic, just the two of them—plus Willy, who did not count—and she was disappointed. What a ninny she was. “My parents also loved each other,” she said, pushing those thoughts aside. “I always hoped to find the same.”

  “Hmm.” Hugh was watching her, his glass dangling from his fingertips. “Your mother died when you were a child?”

  “Yes. Not quite four years old. She and my infant brother.”

  “It must have been lonely to grow up with only your father.” He said it evenly, but Eliza could hardly forget what he’d said about her father.

  “I never knew what it was like to have a mother, so I couldn’t miss her. My father sent me away to school when I was eight, so I could learn all the things she would have taught me. And I met Sophie and Georgiana there, who became like sisters to me.” She smiled wryly. “I was terribly excited to gain some real sisters when we married.”

  “Are they? Like real sisters.”

  Eliza took a deep breath. It certainly hadn’t been smooth or easy, but . . . “Yes,” she said firmly. “Henrietta is wonderful. And Edith was in an impossible situation. Mr. Benwick was dreadful to her, and I’m so happy she’s got over him.”

  “You put him in his place,” said Hugh with a grin. “Splendidly, too.”

  “I’m very pleased that worked,” she confessed. “I feared it might backfire, and anger Edith or upset your mother . . .”

  Hugh snorted. “Mother only wished she’d thought of it herself. And Edith . . .” He paused. “You showed Edith true grace and decency, and made her rightly ashamed of how she behaved.”

  “She did apologize to me.” Edith had been almost tearful as she confessed how stupidly she’d believed Mr. Benwick’s allegations. Eliza cared more for her promise that they would start anew, and get to know each other better. “Although I don’t think she’ll ever care for Willy the way Henrietta does.”

  Hugh smiled. “Probably not.”

  “I spoke to Papa, you know, to see what he’d done to Lord Livingston.” Eliza hadn’t told Hugh about that conversation, thinking it was better not to mention Papa unless absolutely necessary, but there was an air of frank intimacy between them today. She hadn’t missed how Hugh never spoke of Papa, nor of the possible ore at Rosemere that had seemed so important before the wedding. It was hard not to wonder if the trouble with Lord Livingston had ruined Hugh’s good opinion of Papa. Her new life would be absolutely perfect if her father and her new family could be reconciled, though. “He admitted he did business with Lord Livingston, but fairly and honestly.”

  Hugh’s smile looked a little rigid. “It hardly matters now. I lost every trace of respect for Livingston, and wouldn’t be surprised to discover he’s a liar.”

  “I wish you and Papa were more cordial,” she said without thinking.

  “Your father and I understand each other completely,” he said, which wasn’t the same thing. “But I’m astonished he sent you away to school! He seems more protective than that.”

  She rolled her eyes and let him change the subject. “I’m glad he did. It was wonderful there, with other girls my age and all sorts of lessons. Mrs. Upton’s is the finest academy for young ladies in Britain, and Mrs. Upton was so kind and encouraging. My father wanted me to be a true lady.”

  Hugh regarded her with a thoughtful gaze. “So he did.”

  Eliza flushed. “I never thought I would be a countess! That still defies belief.”

  “Does it?” He put down his glass and pulled her to lie beside him. “Are you unhappy as a countess?”

  “No!”

  “Why, then?” He propped himself up on one elbow above her. “Was it only your father’s dream? What did you want?”

  She blushed under his close study. “I—I didn’t have a particular dream. To find someone kind and patient, who wouldn’t mind Willy, I suppose. That was as much as I hoped for.”

  “Hmm.” The sun behind his head obscured her view of his expression. “Instead you got me.”

  “What? Oh—Oh no,” she exclaimed in alarm. “I didn’t mean . . . You must know you’re more than I ever dreamed of. I could not believe it when you asked to call on me—I thought it was a lark, or a mistake, or perhaps a sign you’d lost your wits. But I . . .” She laid one hand on his cheek. “I was happy beyond words,” she finished softly.

  For a moment he didn’t move. “You always manage to unman me, Eliza.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You do,” was all he said to her flustered query. “In the best way. Shall we eat?”

  They ate ham and bread spread with chutney, a specialty of the cook. They nibbled on strawberries and finished the champagne. As if determined to lighten the mood, Hugh told stories of his youth, including some pranks he and his friends got up to at school. Eliza told him how Sophie and Georgiana had become like sisters to her at Mrs. Upton’s Academy, including how Sophie had nearly been dismissed on her first day for trying to teach Eliza sums with a pack of cards.

  When Angus came back, with Willy at his heels, Hugh got to his feet. “Shall we have a walk?” he asked Eliza. She nodded, and they left the boy plundering the remains of the picnic and the dog stretched out on the grass.

  In the distance, far down the hill, London lay quiet and neat from this perspective. Eliza shaded her eyes and looked toward Greenwich, but the sun was too dazzling. Today everything was dazzling, and so far removed from her previous life she couldn’t even remember what things looked like from Greenwich.

  “Shall we turn into the wood?” Hugh suggested as she blotted her brow. “Is the sun too hot?”

  “Yes, let’s.” Gratefully Eliza followed him into the shade of the copse. They walked until a narrow brook cut off their path, and then followed it upstream, the ground rising beneath their steps.

  “You ought to have warned me to wear sturdy boots,” said Eliza after a while, breathing hard as she climbed over a fallen beech, its upper branches now drowned in the rushing stream.

  Hugh laughed. “Perhaps I like you flushed with exercise. Take off your pelisse.”

  “Oh, I’m not that warm,” she began to say, but he stepped up behind her and put his hand on the small of her back.

  “You will be,” he whispered, his cheek against hers. His other arm came around her shoulders and tugged loose the ribbon of her bonnet.

  She went up in flames every time he touched her. Eliza reached for the buttons. “What do you plan to do?”

  He lifted the bonnet from her head, giving him better access to her bare neck. “What will you allow me?”

  Anything. Everything. She thought he knew that, but it did give her a feeling of power that was wholly new and exhilarating. She turned out of his loose embrace and stepped away, peeling off her pelisse as she did. “It depends how you ask, I suppose . . .”

  He followed, hanging her bonnet on a low branch of a convenient tree. He tossed the pelisse over it, and Eliza felt her nipples harden as his eyes fixed on her bosom. “Should I beg?” He fell to one knee. “Shall I worship at your feet?” His eyes gleaming, he took hold of her ankle.

  Eliza blushed. “Worship seems unnecessary.”

  “Is it?” His hand slid upward. “Men worship all manner of things, most of them unworthy. Let me show you something that will cause you to sing alleluia.”

  “What?” Nervously Eliza glanced around. There wasn’t another soul to be seen, but still—they were outdoors, where anyone might walk by and see him, on his knees before her, with his hand—now both his hands—under her skirt.

 
“Now, now—you’ll have to trust me.” Gently he pushed away her hands when she made a weak effort to shove down her skirts as he raised them above her garters. “Do you?”

  “Yes, but—” She jumped as his palms glided up her thighs until his thumbs reached the slit of her drawers.

  “Good.” With a searing look, he pushed her skirts up even more and pressed his mouth to the spot where his fingers were. Eliza gave a loud wheeze, and he laughed softly as he nudged her legs apart—spread her apart—and kissed her again there.

  She had no idea what he did, but it almost made her fall over. She slumped back against the tree, her arms behind her trying to hold on to the bark. Light, delicate, so teasingly soft and wet . . . she knew he was using his tongue on her and she should be mortified and yet she only let her knees fall apart so he could do more of it. By the time he got to his feet and gathered her close, she could barely stand.

  “Put your arms around my neck,” he whispered. Shaking, Eliza complied. He lifted her against him and then he was inside her. Eliza sucked in her breath. Hugh gripped her bottom with one hand and tilted her hips, pushing deeper.

  “Don’t let go,” he growled. He shifted, setting one foot on a prominent root of the tree, and Eliza instinctively raised her knees around his waist. Now Hugh’s breath hissed between his teeth, and she felt a wild euphoria that she could elicit such desire in him.

  He moved slowly, one arm braced on the branch by her head and one hand under her hip, holding her, supporting her, moving her as he willed. Eliza clung to him, her every sense alive and taut—they were out of doors, with Angus and Willy nearby, but when Hugh looked at her with that heavy-lidded gaze, she thought she might combust if he didn’t make love to her immediately, even against a tree in St. John’s Wood. She grew weak when he touched her, but when he looked at her as if he couldn’t wait to have her, Eliza was discovering she became a wanton, wicked woman without shame or modesty. And she reveled in it.

  Her head fell back as her body began to tighten. Incoherently she urged him on, trying to move in time with his thrusts. Hugh groaned, his mouth coming down hard on hers. “Look at me,” he commanded, his lips against hers. “Open your eyes, Eliza, and look at me . . .”