He dipped his head. “Thank you for the condolences.”
She hesitated. “How many died?”
“Almost five thousand head.” She gasped. “It was a flood,” he added. “A sudden torrential rain. They were caught in a valley, and would not run uphill despite the herders’ efforts.”
“And none were saved?”
“Not many. Sheep aren’t the cleverest creatures.” He raised his eyes to the heavens wearily. “Bloody idiots, really.”
She laughed before she could stop herself, and then tried to mask it with a cough as Lord Dowling cocked his head and quirked his lips. “I hope you didn’t expect more of sheep.”
“No. I wish I’d had the benefit earlier of your suggestion to invest in goats or cows.”
“Perhaps you should keep them all out of valleys, just to be safe.”
He laughed. Margaret smiled in reply, then realized what she was doing and wiped it from her face. He was acting so warmly because he wanted to marry an heiress, she reminded herself. “I must return,” she said, her voice stilted. “Your pardon, sir.”
His eyes glinted at her. “So you can suffer the importunate attentions of other destitute gentlemen?”
She raised her chin. “I’m sure it isn’t any of your concern what I intend to do. I was wrong to be so curt the other night, but you and I are strangers still. Good day, my lord.”
“We won’t be strangers for long,” he said with that trace of amusement that irked her so.
“Did you not listen to what I said the other night? My brother has given me the choice.” She couldn’t resist looking him up and down once more, although without the chilly scorn she had managed the first time they met. Had she really been so quick to dismiss such a dangerously attractive man? He was one of the many fortune hunters chasing her, true, but he was the handsomest one of the pack. From his splendidly muscular calves to the dark waves of his hair, he was utterly beautiful.
“I heard you.” He came closer, his shoes crunching on the gravel of the path. Margaret kept her face smooth and composed, but she couldn’t make her feet move and walk away. The nerve of him! To stand there caressing her with his gaze as if he wanted her—her, not her money. It was shocking and impudent and rude and . . . and . . . and somewhat thrilling. Which was even worse than rude, she was sure.
“But what you didn’t allow for, my dear,” he went on softly, “was that you’ll choose me.”
What nerve he had! “I am quite familiar with the concept of impossibility,” she snapped back. “I refuse to marry any man who needs money.”
“No, you’re going to marry me.” He lowered his eyelashes and gave her a wicked smile. “And we’ll be very happy.”
She stared at him for a moment. In spite of her outrage, something inside her hummed like a barely plucked string at his tone, deep and rough and tinged with the promise of something so sinfully pleasurable . . . she couldn’t even imagine it. She didn’t want to imagine it. “You’d swear the same to any heiress. They say you’re utterly ruined.”
“Not ruined. Destitute. There’s a difference.” He held up one finger as she started to speak again. Somehow he had moved close enough to touch her, as he did now, laying that bare finger against her lips. “But we’re the same sort. We belong together.”
She jerked away from him. Her lips tingled from the touch, and it was all she could do not to lick them. “I fear lunacy has overtaken you, sir.”
He laughed, a low, easy rumble that made her heart skip a beat. “Undoubtedly! That doesn’t change the truth of my statement, though. We’re two of a kind, you and I.”
She sniffed. “Good day, Lord Dowling. Take care on your way back to Bedlam.”
“We neither of us arrived at our current circumstances through our own actions,” he called out as she walked away. “You’re an heiress through the fortunate providence of Arthur de Lacey’s death without issue.” She whirled to face him, mouth open in fury, but he only nodded as he strolled after her. “I’m on the brink of ruin because my father, and then his appointed guardian, thought our family fortunes lay in the colonies. Unfair in both cases, don’t you agree?”
She found her voice. “I never asked to be an heiress. I told my brother to keep his money. The ducal branch of the family cut us off decades ago. How dare you imply I reveled in the death of—”
“Of a cousin you never met, and probably would have disliked if you had.” He grinned again. “I knew him in passing. He would have been just like his father, miserly with his patronage and cruel to his servants. No one in England was sorry to see him meet an untimely end.” He paused. “Although I do believe he was near sixty. Hardly cut down in the blush of youth.”
“I never knew him, and didn’t realize until after his untimely death what it meant for my brother,” she said coldly. “I was happy as I was!”
“Were you?” His gaze wandered down her bare throat and bosom, over her tightly laced bodice, past her striped silk petticoat, all the way to her embossed red leather shoes tied with jaunty black ribbons. Margaret had never felt so studied, and even though her face flushed at his impertinence, some small, wicked part of her liked it. If he was merely pretending to find her attractive, he was doing a very flattering job of it.
Which was ridiculous. He would say anything to seduce her, and once she succumbed to his charm and married him, he could lock her away in his attics and spend every last farthing of Francis’s money.
“I was happy,” she told him with hard finality. “I had dear friends—who now are too inferior for me to associate with, for all their kindness and good natures. I had a comfortable home—not a mansion, but warm and safe and cozy. I was never hungry, or cold, or despised.”
“But did you ever have passion?” he murmured. “A lover? A husband to protect and provide for you, to hold you in his arms at night, to give you children?”
The charge struck home, but she hid her flinch. “One doesn’t need those things, my lord.”
“No?” He arched a brow. “Perhaps some do not . . . most likely because they don’t know what they’re missing. But you, my dear, you need them. You crave them. If you didn’t, you wouldn’t be strolling Lord Feithe’s grounds wearing a dress worth more than a farmer makes in a year. You’re disgusted by me, and every other man simpering over you, because you want someone who will love you, not your dowry.”
He was right, sadly. Her shoulders hurt from the effort of keeping still. “You wouldn’t even be speaking to me if not for that dowry,” she said softly.
“Only because I never had the chance to meet you before.”
That made her laugh. “Indeed? You would have called us two of a kind when I was merely the sister of a businessman in Holborn, years past her prime with only five hundred pounds to her name?”
“No, I would have said you were above me,” he replied with a remarkably straight face. “I inherited my title twenty years ago, and there was precious little money in the estate then. I was only a boy of ten; a cousin of my father’s had the management of all that was mine until I reached twenty-one, and he did a piss-poor job of it. I watched my inheritance bleed away because he fancied everything would be solved by tobacco farms in the colonies.” His voice was growing tight, but he lifted his shoulders and his tone eased. “Perhaps it did, until the slave rebellion, followed by the fire, and then fever. Now the colonists are agitating against British rule, and the land isn’t worth a quarter what he paid for it.”
“You’d better sell it then, and cut your losses,” she said tartly.
He extended his arms, palms up. “I did. It took two years and cost me dearly, but I promptly invested the proceeds in a flock of Cheviot—a respectable, reliable English way for a gentleman to support himself. Very nice wool, you see. If only they could swim. And now, as you said the other night, I’m completely destitute, brought low by a cursed weed and idiotic sheep.”
One of their neighbors in Holborn had been ruined when his warehouse burned. It could happen
just as easily to an earl, she supposed. She cleared her throat. “I am very sorry for it, just as I’m sorry I lost my temper. But that doesn’t make us alike.”
“But I want what you want, my dear,” he said softly, gliding a step closer. She tried to meet his eyes without tilting back her head, and couldn’t do it. “I want a wife to hold me in her arms at night. To give me children. To find the sort of passion and companionship that lasts a lifetime.”
Oh goodness. She swallowed, telling herself she was insulted and outraged instead of alive with longing at the images he conjured. “Very prettily said, sir, but it won’t persuade me to marry you. I hope you didn’t expect it would. Good day.”
His low laugh floated after her as she turned and walked away. “This wasn’t persuasion, darling,” he said. “But next time we meet . . . it will be.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Rhys followed her at a leisurely pace. She was aware of his presence; twice he caught her stealing glances over her shoulder at him. Each time she immediately snapped her head forward and walked a bit faster, her spine stiff—with outrage, he presumed. Her blond curls, pinned up under an absurd little hat, bobbed sharply with each step she took, and her skirts swayed with appealing vigor. He enjoyed the sight. He liked picturing her hips swaying like that without the concealment of a hoop and petticoat. Everything about her was intriguing.
Clyve met him at the edge of the party. Technically Rhys hadn’t been invited to this gathering, but Clyve appealed to Lady Feithe, his one-time lover, and persuaded her the notorious Earl of Dowling wouldn’t cause a stir at her party. And Rhys wouldn’t. He’d only come today to verify his initial impression of the lady, and begin his courtship if circumstances permitted. It had been a complete surprise when she came around the path alone, but a welcome one. It took only a few minutes for him to know, with an unearthly sort of certainty and calm, she was the woman he wanted. Life would never be dull with her. She had a retort to everything he said, and she made him laugh, even about the death of his sheep, a subject that invariably roused his temper whenever anyone else mentioned it.
And to his everlasting relief, she was quite attractive. Her face lacked the soft, girlish plumpness of Lady Charlotte’s, but he had no objection to that. She was a woman, not a girl, and Rhys had always found women far more appealing than girls. She was slender and tall for a woman, with a lovely bosom very temptingly displayed today by her tightly laced bodice. He had admired her spirit the other night, but today he realized her physical charms were considerable as well.
Yes, she was the one for him. All he had to do was persuade her he was the man for her.
“How did you get on?” Clyve asked. “I’ve been quite beside myself with anticipation, imagining all manner of seduction.”
“That’s my future countess. Mind your tongue.” Rhys watched her hurry through the crowd until she reached the side of her austere companion. Miss Cuthbert, he remembered, doubtless some connection of the Earl of Islington. From the safety of her dragon’s side, Miss de Lacey peered back at him once more. Rhys smiled and bowed politely. Her defiant expression faded into annoyance, and then she gave him her back once more, slipping further into the crowd of guests. He chuckled.
“I see you’ve won her heart already.” Clyve grinned, watching the exchange. “When shall the wedding be?”
“Idiot,” said Rhys absently. “I haven’t proposed yet.” The lady from the other night, Miss Stacpoole, had joined Miss de Lacey. Were they truly friends? They made a decidedly unusual pair: short, plump Miss Stacpoole with her frizzy red hair and unfortunate nose, and willowy Miss de Lacey with her glossy blond curls and pert pink mouth that cried out to be kissed—soon, if he had anything to say about it. “Her friend,” he said to Clyve. “You’re acquainted with her?”
Clyve snorted. “Not at all, as you saw the other evening. I know her fiancé, though. Viscount Eccleston’s heir. Genial chap; not very bright. She shall lead him like a mule on a rope.”
Margaret de Lacey wouldn’t lead him, but neither would she be a meek, quiet wife. Rhys foresaw a future filled with passions of all sorts, and took a long, deep breath to quiet the unexpected urge to whisk her away to begin courting her in earnest. That would be foolish. She wasn’t a girl who would be impressed by his title or easily bowled over by a little charm. She would need persuading. Pursuing. Tempting.
“Introduce me to young Mr. Eccleston,” he said to Clyve. “I have a feeling he and I are going to be friends.”
“The Earl of Dowling is watching you, Margaret,” Clarissa reported in a loud whisper.
Margaret set her teeth and led the way to the pavilion set up to shade the ladies from the sun. “Does he still have that arrogant smile on his face?”
Clarissa craned her neck. Margaret started to tell her not to be obvious, but refrained. Lord Dowling knew they were aware of his interest. He’d been looking at her every time she happened to glance his way, which she had done an unfortunate number of times. Was he still watching her? She thought slightly better of him after their brief meeting on the path, but his parting threat to persuade her to marry him still echoed in her ears. He wanted her money, she reminded herself again, even though he looked as if he wanted something else from her entirely. Much to Margaret’s disgust, she found she wasn’t immune to the temptation when her eyes met his, so dark and intent, his wicked mouth touched with a smile that promised all sorts of pleasures. Better that Clarissa be obvious than she. Especially since Margaret really wanted to know.
“Yes,” her friend said after a moment. “He looks quite impertinent. Good heavens, a gentleman ought to know better than to look at a lady that way in public, especially a lady he hardly knows. Of course, everyone knows he really isn’t a gentleman—the Welsh are quite, quite wild, I hear—but his rude friend ought to tell him. People will notice!”
As if to prove Clarissa’s point, Miss Cuthbert hurried after them. “Miss de Lacey,” she said sternly, “I must ask, what occurred on your stroll? Did you meet anyone?”
She breathed deeply to control her temper. “Why do you ask, Miss Cuthbert?”
Her companion moved closer, eyeing Clarissa with resignation. She dropped her voice even lower. “A gentleman is staring at you with the most improper expression! And he arrived from the same direction you returned, only shortly after you!”
“I did not have an assignation with anyone,” she said shortly. “I chanced to meet the Earl of Dowling as I walked, but our conversation was brief and unremarkable.” Except for the way he made her laugh, and the way his gaze felt like a physical touch on her skin. “I cannot help it if someone is staring at me in any manner. If it disturbs you, perhaps you should tell him to stop.”
Miss Cuthbert grew rigid with disapproval. “It is hardly my place to do such a thing.” It was probably Francis’s place, Margaret supposed, but he wouldn’t be dragged out of the safety of Lord Feithe’s smoking room just to tell some brash earl to stop staring at her. Francis, in fact, would probably be all in favor of it, and go tell Dowling to make an offer for her.
“Then it seems a hopeless case. The only way I can make him stop looking at me is to leave, and I thought we were to stay for dinner.”
Miss Cuthbert closed her eyes in despair. “Miss de Lacey,” she said plaintively. “You must have a care for your standing!”
“I don’t think it will hurt her much to have Lord Dowling watch her,” said Clarissa. “Everyone is well aware of what he wants, but really, if one must be pursued by fortune hunters, at least Dowling is young and handsome.”
“Young and handsome do not make an eligible match,” snapped Miss Cuthbert.
“He’s also an earl, and Mama tells me his property used to be one of the loveliest in England.” Clarissa shrugged good-naturedly when Margaret looked at her in surprise. “Mama had these wild, foolish ideas at one time. She had a list of every unmarried man in England, detailing advantages and disadvantages. Every night I say a prayer of thanks Freddie saved me befor
e she could grow desperate and start pushing me into carriages with them.”
“Surely she wouldn’t have,” exclaimed Margaret.
Clarissa gave her a speaking look. “I hadn’t enough money for Dowling in any event. My father would have kept Mama from throwing me at him, just because Papa appreciates a well-laid table and Dowling is at his last farthing. Papa never would have been able to visit if I’d been Lady Dowling, making do with mutton and fish for dinner. Not that I would have minded, just once, seeing how ruthless and barbaric those Welshmen can be . . .”
“Miss Stacpoole!” Miss Cuthbert was turning purple. “Remember yourself!”
Clarissa pressed her lips together and made a face behind the older woman’s back. Margaret choked back a laugh. “What is so wrong with Lord Dowling, Miss Cuthbert?” she asked on impulse. From the corner of her eye she could see him, together with his peacock of a friend from the other night. That one glittered in the sunlight, with silver embroidery covering his sleeves to the elbow, while Lord Dowling’s unadorned coat was almost austere in comparison, but somehow the contrast made him seem more masculine. More approachable. More like someone she would know and like. Try as she might, she couldn’t forget what he said about them being alike in some way.
Perhaps she had been a bit hard on Lord Dowling. None of her other suitors would be so brash as to admit they needed money; they preferred to pretend a sudden interest in her eyes or lips. No one had told her so bluntly he had something she craved as well: love, passion, friendship. Margaret wasn’t a nobleman’s daughter, raised from birth knowing her marriage would be a business transaction between families rather than a personal affinity between man and woman. Her parents had loved each other, and deep down, Margaret admitted she expected both more and less from marriage than Miss Cuthbert assumed. Less, in that she didn’t require a certain rank in a prospective husband, but more, in that she did require true affection—even love, if possible. She was exasperated by Miss Cuthbert’s favored suitors because they had impeccable dignity and rank, but little chance of engaging her interest, let alone her affections. Lord Dowling was the only one who even claimed he would try. She doubted he would succeed, but perhaps . . . just perhaps . . . she was a little curious how he planned to go about it.
I Love the Earl Page 4
