Tamed by the Earl

by Carole Mortimer

  For Jo, having to present herself daily to the earl was becoming more and more tortuous, while his own manner became increasingly terse as the days passed. Some mornings, he would barely glance at her, despite the fact she’d kept her promise and now washed daily and always wore clean clothes before going up to the house.

  The earl might be becoming irritated with this arrangement, but Jo’s own problem with it was that as each day progressed, she became more aware of the earl as an extremely handsome and equally as desirable gentleman.

  Never having been beset with such emotions before, Jo found herself in constant turmoil.

  She had almost groaned out loud the morning the earl stripped off his jacket and removed his neck cloth before unfastening the top of his shirt for further comfort, and then knelt down in the straw of Lady Midnight’s stall to stroke and fondle the beautiful black foal.

  Jo had watched those long, elegant hands as they moved gently over the silky coat, and imagined how they might feel caressing her in the same way. She had listened to the earl’s murmurings of affection and admiration to Lady Midnight, and inwardly longed to have such a warmth of feelings expressed toward her.

  There had been few single gentlemen where they lived in Cheshire, and those who did live close by very quickly decided her grandfather was strange. Some of the gentlemen’s mothers had gone a step further and made it obvious they believed Jo had inherited some of that strangeness. Maybe she had. She had lived such a quiet, uneventful life with her grandfather, she had nothing to compare herself with.

  Consequently, she had never been alone with a gentleman, let alone seen one without his jacket and neck tie and with his shirt unfastened at the throat. That open shirt had allowed her to see the hardness of the earl’s muscles at the top of his chest, and her fingers had clenched and unclenched with the urge to touch the light dusting of auburn hair she also glimpsed.

  Which, coming from Jo Turner, would no doubt have caused the earl to recoil in disgust before dismissing her on the spot.

  Jo was well aware she would have to leave Latham Park soon. She had been here long enough to have recovered her strength and to save enough money from her wages to be able to afford to take a public coach to her great-aunt’s home in Hampshire, and so avoiding the risk of being robbed a second time.

  Something held her back from doing so.

  Someone.

  Daniel Somersby.

  His manner might be terse toward her, but she had grown not only to like him in the past week but also to admire him. He was fair and considerate to all who worked for him on the estate and paid a decent wage too, where many landowners did not. Several of those days, he had even joined the men in the fields to help bring in the harvest.

  Today was one of them.

  Knowing of his presence in the fields, Jo had sneaked away from her own work in the stables and now stood some distance away in a copse of trees, unable to stop herself from watching the earl as he worked. He had removed his shirt completely and swung a scythe with the rest of the men, muscles rippling across his back and chest with each stroke, his olive skin having turned a burnished bronze in the heat of the sun, and glistening with a sheen of perspiration.

  Heat suffused her body, and her breath caught in her throat as he accepted a flagon of cider from one of the men and raised it to his lips to take a huge swallow, the strong column of his throat visibly moving as he did so. Several drops escaped the side of his mouth and dripped down onto his chest before slowly sliding downward and over each defined muscle of his abdomen to the slenderness of his waist.

  The binding about Jo’s breasts suddenly seemed much too tight for comfort and caused the hardened tips to ache and chafe against the material confining them. It was—

  “Wotcha doin’ hidin’ in here, spyin’ on the earl?”

  Jo gave an inward groan as she instantly recognized Mickey’s accusing voice, at the same time as she stopped herself from replying that he had just answered his own question. She was indeed spying on the earl. Mickey simply wasn’t intelligent enough to understand or appreciate sarcasm.

  She tensed her shoulders before turning to face him, keeping her expression deliberately bland even as her gaze darted from side to side, looking for an escape. “I ain’t spyin’ on no one, I’m takin’ a walk.”

  Mickey glanced across to where the men were working in the fields before turning back to her, a sneer on his face. “Looks like yer spyin’ to me. And what the ’ell ya doin’ takin’ a walk when there’s still work to be done in the stables?” His expression was bullish, his stance its usual one of aggression—shoulders hunched forward, hands clenched at his sides.

  Jo bit her tongue to stop herself from asking him the same question. She didn’t want to have another fight with him. Not only was he much larger than her, but they were completely alone out here in the copse. He could do her irrevocable damage before she even had chance to call out for help.

  He might also discover she was female rather than male.

  Her gaze lowered. “I’ll get back, then.”

  “Not so fast.” He reached out and grasped her arm with painful fingers as she would have walked past him. “I’m on to you,” he warned.

  Her heart skipped several beats. “Yer hurtin’ me arm.”

  His grip tightened rather than relaxed, his smile one of sly pleasure as he saw her wince of pain. “Old Haynes an’ the earl might be fooled by you, but I’m not.”

  The tightness of Jo’s chest was now caused completely by fear, but she knew better than to show that emotion to someone who would feel empowered by it. “Whatcha mean?” she challenged.

  “Fancy the earl, you do. I seen you lookin’ at ’im, all cow-eyed, like some girl.”

  Like some girl. Not that she was a girl.

  But the reference was enough to tell Jo she had outstayed her welcome at Latham Park. Mickey was only using words to try to hurt her at the moment, but if he ever guessed her real secret, she had no doubt it would feed his vindictiveness to expose her.

  “Don’t be daft.” Her chin rose after her effort to release herself proved to be a dismal failure. Mickey was much stronger than she was. “I ’as a girl of me own in London.”

  He gave a snort. “What’s his name—Tom?”

  She could stand and fight, or she could try to run. Pride said she should stand. Instinct told her to run. Mickey was too big for her to outfight, but her lighter weight gave her greater speed. If she could just get her arm free—

  “Ow!” Mickey took a hopping step but didn’t release her after Jo kicked him hard in the shin with her booted foot. “You little bleeder!” Rage burned in his eyes as his other fist swung up and he punched her in the mouth.

  Pain exploded in Jo’s head even as she went down like a fallen tree. She barely had time to blink the stars and tears from her eyes before Mickey was on her, the heavy weight of his body pinning her to the ground as he began to rain punches to her abdomen in short painful jabs.

  “What on earth is going on here?”

  The heavy weight was wrenched from on top of Jo, at least allowing her to breathe even if her head still swum dizzily and she could feel her lip swelling. Her abdomen also ached from the punches it had received.

  She gingerly turned her head sideways to look at her savior.

  The earl’s expression was livid with fury, cheekbones sharply etched either side of his aristocratic nose, his mouth a thin, angry line. His eyes glittered with that same emotion.

  Whether that anger was directed at her, or Mickey, or both of them, Jo wasn’t sure.

  Her tongue felt as if it was stuck to the roof of her mouth at the realization Daniel’s chest was still bare, the shirt he’d been carrying having fallen to the floor when he grabbed hold of Mickey and dragged him off Jo.

  It was one thing for her to gaze surreptitiously at Daniel’s half-naked form from a safe distance, something else completely to be close enough to reach out and actually touch the dampness of his olive-toned fles
h and those rippling muscles across his shoulders and chest.

  His tousled, dark auburn hair fell over his brow, giving him a rakish appearance and drawing attention to the deep green of his eyes.

  Mickey seemed to be equally as disconcerted the earl had come upon the two of them without either of them being aware of his approach. But he recovered quickly, his smile ingratiating. “Jo’s slackin’ off ’is work, me lord. I came to take ’im back to the stables.”

  Daniel had no idea what it was he had chanced upon as he took a shortcut through the copse to the river after a strenuous day of helping to harvest the hay. Whatever it was, he had felt enraged at seeing Mickey sprawled on top of Jo’s prone body as he pummeled the smaller boy with his fists. Noting the boy’s swollen and bloody bottom lip would seem to indicate that at least one of those blows had been aimed at his face.

  He narrowed his eyes on Mickey Bates. “You appeared to be attacking him rather than allowing him to return to his work.”

  Mickey shifted from one foot to the other. “Yeah, well, he didn’t want to go, did he. Kicked me in the shin, ’e did.” He shot a resentful glare at the still-prone Jo.

  Daniel released Mickey to hold out a hand to help Jo to his feet. He seemed reluctant to take it at first, his fingers icy cold when he finally did so. Daniel noted Jo’s pained wince and careful movements as he stood. The boy’s lip seemed to have stopped bleeding now, but it was becoming increasingly red and swollen.

  Daniel kept his rage in check rather than inform the bully exactly what he thought of his method of persuasion. There was already enough antagonism between these two without his adding fuel to that particular fire. “Is this true? Did you kick Mickey?” He could see by the way Jo’s gaze slid away from meeting his that it was. “What were you doing out here in the first place?” he demanded impatiently.

  Jo’s gaze remained fixed on the forest floor. “Takin’ a walk.”

  “When you should have been working?”

  “Well…yes,” he acknowledged reluctantly.

  Daniel turned to the larger lad. “And you?”

  Mickey’s triumphant smile slipped slightly. “I was lookin’ for Jo.”

  “On Mr. Haynes’s instruction?”

  Bates’s expression became surly. “No.”

  Daniel arched a brow. “Then you are just as guilty of shirking your work.”

  “Yes, but only—”

  “Then I suggest you now take yourself back to the stables whilst I have a private word with Jo about this matter.” Daniel had been working in the fields since sunrise and was in no mood to act as referee between these two. He was hot and tired and did not welcome this interruption to his intended swim in the river nearby. “Go,” he instructed through gritted teeth, relieved when Bates, after one last glare at Jo, lumbered back off to the stables.

  Daniel’s attention returned to the boy standing in front of him. Jo’s hair had been tied back with string when he appeared before Daniel earlier this morning but it had come free during his altercation with Mickey, and it now hung like a curtain about his face, half concealing the pallor of his cheeks if not his swollen and cut lip.

  Daniel hardened his emotions to stop himself from reacting to the injury.

  He had become increasingly affected by Jo this past week. He found the boy fascinating and himself increasingly eager, and equally as appalled by that eagerness, as he waited first thing every morning for the time Jo would enter the study so that Daniel could approve his clean appearance.

  He had even taken to toiling in the fields with the estate workers these past few days as a way of working off his excess energy, and the hope he would be able to fall asleep at night without the image of this fair-haired angel to haunt him.

  He gave a snort at the thought of the peace and quiet he had been so desirous of when he first arrived. That had become nothing more than a pleasant memory. “Well,” he bit out. “Have you nothing to say, no excuse to offer in your defense?”

  Jo bit his lip, and then seemed to think better of it when it obviously pained him. “No.”

  “I did not think so,” he snapped. “What do you imagine might be a fitting punishment for your laziness?”

  Jo’s heart lurched at the thought of the physical chastisement this man had once promised her. She held no fear of what he might say to her, because she knew she deserved it, but the thought of being bent over his thighs and spanked filled her with the fear she might actually enjoy it.

  That led her to wonder if the earl had noticed her looking at him with cow eyes this past week too. It might even be the reason his mood had become more and more taciturn as the week progressed, which would be utterly humiliating.

  The earl sighed his irritation as he bent to retrieve his shirt from the ground where he had dropped it. “Come with me.”

  She hung back. “Where we goin’?”

  He raised one arrogant brow as he swept his critical gaze over her. “You are back to being your filthy self. As such, we are going to the river so that you can wash your face and hands before returning to work.” He turned on his booted heel and walked off through the trees, coming to halt when he realized Jo had remained where he left her. “I am in no mood to repeat myself.” His voice was a low growl.

  Jo had to break into a trot in order to catch up with his much longer strides, each step causing a jarring pain through her rib cage, causing her to wonder if Mickey might possibly have broken one or two of them with his pummeling fists.

  Whether they were broken or merely bruised the discomfort was going to be a problem in carrying out her earlier decision to leave here. Jo doubted her great-aunt would appreciate welcoming Jo into her home with a swollen face and broken or bruised ribs.

  Could Jo be looking for reasons not to leave Latham Park?

  Not to leave Daniel Somersby…

  She had come to feel safe with him here this past week—

  “Take off your shirt, and let me have a look at your chest.”

  Jo gazed blankly at the earl as he came to a halt beside the gently flowing river to look at her expectantly.

  The expectation being that I will take off my shirt and let him look at my chest.

  Daniel could tell by Jo’s mutinous expression the boy was going to refuse the request. His shoulders had tensed, his chin tilted to a challenging angle, his blue gaze rebellious.

  Damn his stubborn hide.

  Considering Daniel had once again been inconvenienced by this troublesome imp, he had little patience with that stubbornness. His intention, before he chanced upon the scrapping boys, had been to strip off and go for a swim in the river in order to ease the aches and pains away from his physical working day.

  “What are you doing?” Jo’s expression was panicked as he attempted to push Daniel hands away from the grasp he had taken of the boy’s shirt to begin lifting it upward.

  “I need to take a look at your ribs before I—” He broke off as the lifting of Jo’s shirt revealed the strapping already about the boy’s upper chest. “Has Bates hit you before today?” He scowled his displeasure at the thought that might have been the case.

  “Let go of me!” There was a desperate sob in the boy’s voice now as he tried to swat Daniel’s hands away.

  A totally ineffective stratagem, as Daniel continued to pull the shirt upward, his scowl deepening as he saw the tight strapping covered the whole of the top of Jo’s torso. “Who did this to you?” he demanded as he released the fastening and then began to unravel the strapping.

  “Stop it!” Jo sounded completely panicked now, nails digging into Daniel’s wrists as he attempted to push his hands away.

  Daniel’s movements stuttered and then stopped completely as he peeled away the last of the strapping to reveal—

  Breasts.

  Firm, uptilting, mature, and very feminine breasts.

  Chapter 4

  Daniel stared incredulously at those breasts for several long seconds before his gaze moved downward to a slender and femin
ine waist, and then lower still to what he did not doubt would be curvaceous hips.

  “What are you doing?” the girl/woman demanded as Daniel now began to unfasten the piece of rope securing her trousers. She gave a gasp and tried to cover herself, as he had allowed that garment to fall about her ankles, revealing— “Dear God…” He staggered back a step at the sight of the bared cluster of golden curls covering a distinctly female mound rather than a male appendage.

  Daniel didn’t know whether to shout out his relief at knowing his attraction this past week had been toward a woman rather than a boy. Or to shout his outrage at the tortures of hell he had suffered because of the deception that had been practiced upon not only him but everyone at Latham Park.

  Either way, he was going to shout.

  He opened his mouth to do so at the same moment Jo clutched the sides of her gaping shirt to turn away self-consciously. She bent over to pull up her trousers, revealing the sweet curve of her feminine—thank you, God!—and shapely bottom.

  A woman, by God.

  A woman, not a boy.

  And not aged sixteen from the look of those pert breasts and deliciously plump mound and bottom.

  Daniel’s relief was tempered by a need to punish her. To make her suffer as he had suffered endlessly this past week, believing himself to be some sort of perverted monster. Not because the person he desired was male; the law may condemn such men, but he did not. One could not choose whom one loved. No, it was not the sex of the object of his desire which had tormented him, but the belief Jo was only sixteen years old. Which he—she, clearly was not.

  “How old are you?” he demanded.

  It was the last question Jo had been expecting now her secret had been revealed, literally in all its naked glory. What are you? Or even, who are you? But not how old are you.