The Redemption of a Dissolute Earl

by Julie Johnstone

  Charlotte stood under the grey sky, knee-deep in the freezing snow as Mr. Perkins, her coachman, tried to fix the busted wheel of the carriage. This entire day had been bad and had only gotten worse. She’d not slept one wink between worrying about her father and worrying that Lord Salisbury would never forgive her for sending him a letter saying she was not going to marry him.

  Just because she did not love him did not mean she didn’t want to be friends, nor did she want the man as an enemy. She suspected Lord Salisbury could be a powerful enemy. Surely he would understand her need to leave for Danby in all haste. She hoped he had received her letter in plenty of time, and not stood for hours waiting for her to appear for their wedding. The notion of Lord Salisbury waiting for anyone seemed unlikely, and she knew he did not truly love her, so she felt fairly secure in having handled matters as she did.

  She tapped her foot against the powdery mound beneath her slipper and watched the deepening imprint in the snow. When she returned to London, she would call on Lord Salisbury and explain more coherently and in person why she had broken their betrothal. She prayed he would be a little understanding of her unforgivable note, since she had explained her father was terribly ill. Though a note saying “I can no longer bring myself to marry for anything but love” hardly would endear her to the marquess.

  Mr. Perkins let out a string of bawdy curses, interrupting her musings on Lord Salisbury. Charlotte―teeth chattering violently―nodded her head in agreement with the coachman’s sentiment. Mr. Perkin’s appeared from under the coach, worry causing the lines in his brow to deepen to the point Charlotte suspected the tip of her finger would fit perfectly into one of the craters.

  He shook his head as he stood and dusted the snow off his trousers. “It’s no use, Miss Milne. “Blasted wheel.” He kicked at the coach and then walked to the horse to unhitch it. “We’ll take the horse and find shelter and help.”

  Charlotte blew a damp strand of hair off her eyes. Blasted wheel, indeed. And blasted storm with the blasted snow and bloody, blasted lack of sun, too. Charlotte wiggled her numb toes and glanced down the shadowy, barren road then up at the darkening sky. What little bit of sunlight had managed to break through the thick storm clouds earlier today had long disappeared. The steady wind blew an eerie, high-pitched melody around her, while little slivers of ice pelted her face.

  She looked at Mr. Perkins. “The night’s approaching quickly.”

  He nodded. “Could be awhile, possibly morning, before another carriage ventures back out on the road because of the snow.” With the reins of the horse finally undone, Mr. Perkins tugged on the beast. The horse neighed in response, and the more Mr. Perkins tugged and pulled, the louder the horse’s protest became until Mr. Perkins ceased his efforts, bent down and hissed under his breath before letting out a string of curses, abruptly stopping in the middle of the last, most colorful expletive. He stood and faced Charlotte, his eyes downcast. “I’m sorry, my lady. I forgot my manners in my distress.”

  Charlotte clapped her soggy gloves together. “Don’t be silly. I’ve heard worse. What’s the matter?”

  Mr. Perkin’s gaze met hers. “Old Bessie has slipped a shoe. We’ll not be able to ride her for help.”

  Charlotte stared numbly at Mr. Perkins and absorbed the latest disastrous news. Panic stirred within, but she took four deep, measured breaths just as she always did when a case of the nerves attacked her on stage, and the rolling in her stomach and flutters in her chest calmed, though they did not totally disappear. As she saw it, they had two options, neither of them good, but one option at least did not put both of them sitting here waiting for help that might never come. Decision made, she set her jaw, knowing Mr. Perkins might argue. “You had better get going if you’re going to make it to the inn by nightfall.” A white puff of air came from her mouth on the second half of the word “nightfall.” Was that some sort of premonition of things to come? A deep chill settled into her bones that had nothing to do with the quickly dropping temperature.

  Mr. Perkin’s eyes widened, and then he shook his head. “I’ll not leave you here in the cold all alone.”

  “How sweet of you,” she said and took hold of his arm, turning him away from the carriage and pointing him in the direction of the inn. “When they find our cold, dead bodies tomorrow morning, they’ll praise you for your loyalty then curse you for your stupidity.”

  He nodded. “We’ll go together?”

  “I wouldn’t make it twenty feet, let alone a mile in my slippers.”

  Mr. Perkin’s gaze went immediately to her feet. “I see your point. Still…”

  “No ‘stills’ about it, Mr. Perkins. You’re much taller than me. I’ll only slow you down and leave us both open to freezing to death.” She squared her shoulders. “Go. I’ll wait in the carriage, cozy and warm under the lap blankets. It’s me who should be worried about you.”

  “I hope I don’t live to regret this,” Mr. Perkins said before turning and making quick work of re-harnessing the horse. When he was finished Mr. Perkins turned to her and reached into his pocket, withdrawing a shiny pistol. Charlotte sucked in a surprised breath that filled her lungs with a cold blast of air. Mr. Perkins handed the pistol to her. “Do you know how to use one of these?”

  She nodded, took the pistol, and clasped the cold metal in her hand. “What about you? What will you use to protect yourself?”

  He winked at her, bent down, and drew up his pant leg. “I always carry extra protection.”

  “You, sir, are the perfect coachman,” she said, squeezing his arm before turning away and clambering into the coach. Mr. Perkins poked his head in through the door. “I won’t be long.”

  “I’ll be fine,” she promised. She placed several blankets over her legs then forced a large smile on her face. “See, I’m perfectly warm.” She raised the pistol clutched in her hands. “And safe.”

  Mr. Perkins swiped a hand over his face. “All right then. I’ll go, but, Miss Milne…”

  “Yes?” She worked to keep the exasperation out of her voice. The man was worried about her, for heaven’s sake. She should be grateful, not irritated, but the longer he lingered, the darker it would be when he was gone.

  “Stay alert,” he said and firmly shut the carriage door.

  Stay alert. She snorted. As if she had any intentions to the contrary. She leaned forward and watched his tall, hulking frame make tracks through the snow until she could see him no more. Fear made her tingle from the inside out.

  She pressed back into the carriage seat, her fingers curling tightly around the pistol. Stay alert. His words echoed through her head. An excellent, albeit unnecessary, command. She’d already planned on remaining awake through the night.

  The wind whistled loudly around the carriage. She needed something to concentrate on besides the fact that she was alone in a burgeoning snowstorm. Laying the pistol carefully on her legs, she pressed her gloved fingers against the glass pane, the coldness seeping through the thin material of her glove. A memory of her father smiling while building her a snowman came to her mind. He loved the snow and the cold. Her stomach clenched with worry for him and fear for herself and her father battled for precedence inside her, leaving her with a decidedly queasy feeling. Fear for her father trumped everything, and she folded her hands together and prayed fervently that he had made a turn for the better.

  If he passed away and she didn’t get to say goodbye, she would never forgive herself for her cowardliness at fleeing Danby Castle. She’d been horribly selfish, depriving her father and herself of their relationship simply because she didn’t want to face the knowing looks Drew’s family would wear. Even now, she could recall clearly the scorn swimming in the Marquess of Norland’s gaze. And Drew’s twin sisters’ eyes had been rounded orbs of pity as Drew had crumpled under his father’s threats to make him penniless. She squeezed her eyes closed on a fresh wave of humiliation.

  Her father could not help the fact that he was employed by the duke any mo
re than he could help the fact that Drew had shunned her then fled the castle, leaving her to face the ridicule and scorn of his family alone.

  Drew.

  Her throat worked convulsively, and warm tears seeped out of her eyes to course down her cheeks. Drew was a weak fool who could not live without the money he was accustomed to. She swiped her cold glove across her cheek. Drew was not just a fool, now he was a drunken fool. She sniffed and grasped for the familiar idea that she hated him. The thought swirled in her head, and she tried to let it envelop her every thought as it had done for a year. After a few moments, she let out a long, shuddering sigh. At last, she was unable to maintain her anger towards Drew, which had helped her survive through this long, lonely year. Letting go of the hate was a relief.

  Now, in the dark, cold carriage, faced with her father’s possible death and her own, she allowed the truth to fill her mind and heart.

  She still loved Drew.

  Desperately. How silly to deny it to herself here and now.

  The carriage creaked and swayed with the force of the wind. Her heart jerked wildly. Coldness made her teeth chatter. She was cold. Much colder than moments before. She wiggled her numb toes, suddenly afraid of freezing to death. How long did it take before one died? How cold did it have to be? Overwhelmed with sadness and fear, she pressed her head into her hands, deep sobs wracking her body. Memories invaded her—Drew, his face twisted in anguish, as he told her his father would disinherit him if he married her. Tears had flowed down his stubbly jaw, and his body had shaken when he gripped her.

  She’d been so mortified, so angry. She’d wanted only to hate him. When her father had suggested she’d been seduced and all the other servants had agreed with him, she had been eager to believe her father’s scenario that Drew had found her attractive, wanted her, and employed any means necessary to have her. It was easier than to believe Lord Norland’s horrid words that she was a woman of easy virtue whom Drew had bedded and asked to marry in a childish attempt to anger his father. Either scenario was bad.

  She moaned with the memories. She saw Drew leaving her room, unable to look her in the face. His gaze had darted everywhere, never settling on her. She’d decided it was because of embarrassment, but perhaps it had been shame.

  She curled her fingers into the carriage cushion. She didn’t hate Drew. The acceptance of the truth was liberating. She loved him, but it was different now. She was different. She’d thought of Drew as a golden god―an invincible, beautiful creature with all the comforts life could ever offer who had turned his glorious love on her.

  Drew was simply a man, vulnerable to the core and flawed. She couldn’t hate him anymore for his weakness. He had demons enough without her hate. Maybe someday she would find a man who would want nothing more in life than to wake up morning after morning beside the woman he loved and who loved him wholeheartedly in return. If they awoke in a cottage on a lumpy bed with a dripping roof and they had to scrape for every pence they had, they would be rich beyond words because they would be rich in love.

  Her head pounded, whether from the cold or the revelations, she wasn’t sure. She closed her eyes and willed the pounding to subside. Hopefully, Drew would not be in residence when she was there, but if he was, she would simply have to avoid him. She understood just how vulnerable she was, and she did not want to fall prey to his silken words again and risk her heart for a man who would risk nothing for her. She accepted that she loved him, but she refused to accept that she was so weak she would allow him to seduce her again when she knew it would go nowhere.

  She pulled the bundle of blankets beneath her chin and hummed to herself, until her humming and the wind became the same in her ears and memories of sitting on her mother’s lap and being rocked in the warmth of her embrace filled her. When her head began to fall, she jerked up and started to hum again. Whatever happened, she must stay alert.

  Hours after leaving Miss Marchinson, Drew stared out of the slow-moving carriage into the darkness of the night and waited for Edgeworth’s breathing to turn to the deep rhythm of sleep. As Drew suspected, it didn’t take long for Edgeworth’s breathing to change. Just to be certain, Drew glanced at his cousin. Sleep had indeed claimed him. The man was sprawled across the length of the carriage, his booted feet propped on the opposite seat, his features relaxed into a perfect picture of sedateness.

  Relinquishing his tight control on his emotions, Drew dropped his face into his hands and inhaled a long, shuddering breath. Pretending as if he did not feel like he was dead inside while trying to carry on a semblance of conversation with Edgeworth had been one of the most tedious things Drew had ever done. Especially since Edgeworth had kept questioning Drew about what he would do if Char had not now been married. As if it bloody well mattered.

  Damn Char. She was now married to another man, and every part of Drew ached with longing and loss. He wanted to sleep and forget her in his dreams, but that was wishful thinking. He would dream of her―he always did.

  He would give his life for the chance to hold her in his arms and tell her what a fool he had been and that he would give up everything just to be with her if giving his life would change a thing. But it wouldn’t. She would still be married, and he would still be the idiot who had forced her down that path.

  What if he had been blunt and direct when he had collided with her in the theatre, instead of trying to be clever? Would her wedding still have transpired? Would he still have arrived at Salisbury’s, only to be informed by the haughty, tight-lipped butler that they had missed the wedding and that the happy couple was gone on their honeymoon?

  Drew sat back and allowed the devastation he had stored within himself since this afternoon to fill his heart. He clenched the edge of the seat against the pain of his loss.

  He would never get to enjoy the fantasy of domesticity he had painted of them inside his mind. They would not read by the crackling fire, while their children—at least four of them—played by their feet. Or there was the fantasy where they were riding horses through the meadows and they stopped to enjoy a lazy summer romp in the soft grass underneath the sun’s warming rays.

  He closed his eyes and saw her face, but not as it had looked in his fantasy. She was sad. So sad. And no bloody wonder why. She had married a man who did not love her, and Drew suspected she did not love Salisbury either.

  Drew had failed himself, failed her―hell he had even managed to drag Salisbury and Miss Marchinson down with him and all because one year ago, he’d allowed his father to convince him that he could never survive without his inheritance. Drew laughed bitterly. He’d been putting some of the blame for his shambles of a life on his father, but that was a mistake. The blame lay squarely on Drew’s shoulders. He could have rebuffed his father’s demand, he could have married Char anyway, and he damn sure as hell would have been happy―poor or not.

  What did he have now? Nothing. His plan since finding out Char was in London and still unmarried had been to win her back and spend his life proving he was a man worthy of her love. Now that she was married, he couldn’t even tell her how he felt and how sorry he was should he ever see her again.

  The carriage jerked to a sudden stop, and then the door swung open, frigid air blasting him in the face. “What the bloody hell?” He drew his coat tight around his body as Edgeworth’s coachman, Roberts, appeared in the door, lit lamp in hand.

  “I’m sorry for the inconvenience, my lord.” Roberts drew the lamp near his face. “A coach is stranded on the side of the road, and I thought perhaps…”

  “By all means,” Drew said and clambered out of the coach into the biting wind.

  “Oh, no, sir,” the coachman said on a strangled gasp. “I wasn’t implying that you should get out.”

  Drew waved the man’s assisting hand away. “I know, but I want to help.” Char may never be in his life again, but damn it all, he would be a better man. He would be the man he should have been. The first order of business was putting others before himself. No longer
did Andrew Whitton, Earl of Hardwick, exist. That self-indulgent fool was gone. If he was going to have more money and power than he deserved, then he was going to use it to do good.

  Decision made, Drew followed Roberts through the deep snow, the lamp flickering eerily in the dark night. Roberts reached the carriage just ahead of Drew and opened the door as he approached. The man turned towards him, and Drew faltered in his step at the deathly whiteness on Robert’s face displayed by the light of the lamp. “My lord, don’t come any closer,” Roberts whispered as if talking any louder might wake the dead.

  Disregarding the man’s warning, Drew moved to advance, but Roberts held out a barring hand. “’Tis nothing a lord such as you will wish to see.” The coachman glanced over his shoulder and into the carriage before turning back to Drew. “I believe the lady is dead. You needn’t expose yourself.”

  Drew shoved the man’s well-meaning hand away. “Let’s check the poor soul before you declare her departed to the maker.” Drew moved past the grumbling coachman, grasping the lamp as he did so. He leaned into the carriage and held the lamp in front of him. The light flickered and danced across the dark space creating misshapen figures and a distorted shadow across the body of the woman. She lay still in death, a shiny gun resting on her lap. Drew carefully removed the gun and set it on the coach floor.

  As he stood and really took a good look at her, his heart lurched in pity as the light from the lantern shone on her fine silk gown, her creamy, slender hands, her luxurious red hair, and the swell of her high breasts. She was young by all appearances.

  How wrong and sad to die alone and in fear. Drew swallowed and moved the lamp to view the woman’s face. Disbelief stole his breath until horror exploded into a blood-curdling cry. He dropped the lamp, lunged into the carriage, and grabbed Charlotte, pressing her cold body to his chest. “Charlotte,” he heard himself moan, her name becoming a tortured chant as grief threatened to swallow him.