The Redemption of a Dissolute Earl

by Julie Johnstone

  “Char,” Drew cried out again, burying his head against her neck.

  “Yes?” came a muffled reply. Drew jerked backwards and stared through the shadowy darkness into Char’s face.

  She wrapped her arms around her midsection. “I must have fallen asleep.”

  Asleep? He couldn’t form a coherent thought past that one word. Shaking, he fell into the seat beside Charlotte and groped until he found her hand. Though she flicked his fingers away, he clasped her hand firmly in his. “You’re alive.”

  “It appears so,” she said.

  “I thought you were dead.” He could not keep his voice from shaking.

  Edgeworth leaned into the coach, lamp in hand. “Clearly, she’s not,” he drawled. “You never have been very observant, Hardwick, old boy.”

  Drew snatched the lamp out of his cousin’s grasp and waved him away. “Go sit in the carriage, Edgeworth. We’ll be there directly.” Edgeworth opened his mouth as if to retort, glanced from Charlotte to Drew, and nodded, backing out of the carriage.

  Needing reassurance that Char was indeed all right, Drew slowly removed her glove and rubbed his fingers gently over the top of her hand. Her skin was cold, but now that his head was clearing and logical thought was returning, he could detect a faint warmness that signaled life. Her life. He hadn’t lost the only person he had ever loved to death―only marriage to another man.

  Drew’s fingers curled tightly around her small, delicate bones. Bones that should be protected at all cost at all times by her husband. Rage exploded inside of Drew. “Where the bloody hell is Salisbury?”

  Char frowned and tried to tug her hand away, but Drew held tight. “How should I know?” she said, tugging again. “Drew.” There was an unmistakable warning in her sharp tone, but he didn’t damn well care. This could be the last time he ever got to feel her softness, caress her, be so near to her, and he was not going to give up the moment until he was in danger of losing his bollocks from frostbite.

  “Char.” He brought her hand to his lips and pressed a soft kiss on her flesh.

  A small gasp escaped her. “You mustn’t do that,” she whispered.

  He knew he shouldn’t touch her, but knowing she was right fueled his anger. “Because of your husband?” he snarled.

  “No.” She snatched her hand away, and he forced himself not to reach out and grab her hand once again. Instead, he handed her glove to her. He wouldn’t dishonor her again, though the need to touch her was a physical ache twitching in every muscle he possessed. “Where’s your illustrious husband? Why did he leave you on your wedding night on the side of the road without anyone in sight to protect you?”

  “Salisbury didn’t abandon me.” Charlotte looked down at her hands. “He’s not my husband.”

  “What?” Drew could hardly believe he’d heard correctly.

  Charlotte’s gaze remained on her hands, which were squeezed into two small fists on her lap. “I…I broke the betrothal last night.”

  The block of ice that had been lodged in Drew’s chest for the last year and doubled in size upon thinking she was married melted with her words. He set the lamp beside him, slid across the space separating them, hooked a finger under her chin, and raised her face so he could see her eyes. “Because of me?”

  She pushed his hand away. “Certainly not.”

  Char’s lips twitched, displaying her deception. She never had been a very good liar. It took all of Drew’s will to contain his grin. “Then why?”

  “Simple,” she said. “I do not love him.”

  “Because you still love me,” he said emphatically.

  “Ridiculous,” Char disagreed, but the denial was weak, breathless.

  “Prove you don’t love me.” He splayed one hand over the small of her back and slid the other up to cup the delicate curve of her head. His body hummed with his need. Char’s pink tongue darted out to lick her full lips.

  She stared at him for a moment, her green gaze unblinking. Finally, she sighed. “Let me go,” she said simply.

  He couldn’t, though a gentleman would. The possibility of regaining Char changed all the rules. He was no gentleman anymore. He was a man determined to win the woman he loved no matter what he had to do. “I can’t.”

  She quirked an eyebrow. “Can’t or won’t?”

  “Both.”

  “Drew, I’m no toy for you to pick up off the shelf because you’re interested in playing with me again. I’ll not let what happened between us ever happen again.”

  “I won’t either,” he promised. It was now or never. He’d bare it all to her. Risk it all for her. “I love you. I’ve loved you since that first afternoon we kissed at the meadow, and I’ve never stopped. I’ve been a fool. I’ve been weak, and I’ve been drunk for a year. Now all I want to be is a man you can love. I want to be your husband and for you to be my wife.”

  Charlotte had dreamed of Drew saying those words to her at least a thousand times. But the dream had been of Drew declaring himself the day his father had demanded he break their betrothal, or at least the next day when he came to his senses. The dream had never, ever been one year later, after she had endured hell trying to forget him. Why was he toying with her? Why now? “What is it, Drew? Are you bored? Did the women in Paris become dull? The drink too watered-down?”

  “You tracked me to Paris?”

  She stared at him, refusing to be baited.

  “You still care.”

  Oh, good grief. She couldn’t let him think that. “I did not track you,” Charlotte insisted. And she hadn’t. Not really. She’d overheard whispers and she had listened, instead of turning away. She was human, after all.

  Drew grinned an infuriatingly handsome grin, which took Charlotte instantly back to the first time she had seen him on his return from Eaton―tall, muscled, and eyes twinkling with merry mischief, all directed her way. She had been naïve. And her father had sheltered her too much. One fall from a ladder followed by one glorious smile from Drew―and the realization that he had finally noticed her after all the years of her being the invisible butler’s daughter―and Charlotte had not stood a chance. Her head had been calm, but her heart raced right out of the gate and took her senses with it.

  Drew’s face came so close to hers she could see the blond, unshaven whiskers, the small white scar on the cleft of his chin, the fine lines on the surface of his lips. She swallowed her desire. She could not play his doxy. She could not be drawn into his game and come out standing.

  Before she knew what he was about, he swept her hair off her neck, her skin tingling where his fingers touched her skin. “You’re wrong about everything, Char. The whiskey was plenty strong, but I could never consume enough to forget what I’d done to you.”

  Damn him. Hearing he had been plagued with guilt made her heart squeeze with empathy. She refused to let him off the hook or believe him.

  He traced his fingers down her cheekbone, and she shivered with just how much she had missed his touch. “There were no women, ever, not once, because none of them were you.”

  “Never?” Why was she even asking? As if he would tell her otherwise. Yet he did sound earnest.

  He brushed a soft kiss across her lips. “I swear it.”

  Her body responded with such jarring desire it scared her. Was she so weak that she would forget how he had betrayed her and hurt her simply because he gave her two admissions and a vow? Intent on putting a safe distance between them, she pulled away, but Drew gripped her tighter. “Please, Char. I deserve your doubt. Hell, I deserve your anger, but I swear it’s always been you I love. It will always be you I love.”

  His words swirled inside of her, coiling around her heart like a snake and tempting her to bite of the apple in the garden of his Eden. She squeezed her eyes shut, breathed deeply, and willed her senses not to desert her. She was no Eve, and Drew offered no garden, only the poison of rejection when he hurt her again. She opened her eyes slowly and stared at him. “I find that hard to believe. Now if you’
ll excuse me?”

  She did not wait for his response. Sliding past him, she scrambled out of the carriage and into the dark, cold night. A blast of wind hit her in the face. If that didn’t cool her desire nothing would. Shivering, she wrapped her arms around herself as Drew’s boots clomped down the carriage steps behind her. She didn’t want another confrontation. She started to walk away, not entirely sure of where she was going or what she was doing.

  Drew caught her arm before she’d taken her second step. She whirled on him, angry that he was hounding her now, after she had finally come to peace with it all, and horribly angry at herself for that small part of her that still thrilled at his touch. “Let go, Drew. I don’t believe you could ever love me enough to give up your allowance, and I have more important matters to tend to.”

  “Such as?”

  “My coachman and my father,” she snapped. Now there was the Drew she had remembered for the last year. The self-indulged earl who had vowed he loved her then thrown her over for fear of losing his money.

  “Char, I don’t doubt you have more important things to think of than me, I just thought perhaps I could help.”

  Why did have to go and say that? And look wounded and self-sacrificing all at the same time. Now she felt like a complete cad. “I fear my coachman has come to harm on the road. We were on the way to Danby because I received a letter that my father is very ill.” She clenched her jaw on the threatening tears. “My coach broke down, and my coachman went in search of help.”

  Drew released her arm and shrugged out of his overcoat. He placed it on her shoulders and began to button it up. She knew she should protest him putting his coat on her. It was entirely too familiar, too much like something someone who really cared for another would do. But it was cold. She pulled at the folds of his coat, and sighed when his familiar manly smell filled her senses.

  He put his arm around her waist and pulled her to his side. “We’ll find your coachman immediately, and I’ll take you personally to Danby. I’m on my way there myself.”

  “I don’t need you to take me.” It was one thing to accept his overcoat in order to avoid freezing to death, it was quite another to allow him to grip her, soften her, seduce her once again. She shrugged away from him. “I’ve my own coach.”

  “That thing back there?”

  “It’s a perfectly acceptable coach,” she said tartly. Maybe it wasn’t as expensive as his coach, but it was quite nice―when all the wheels were working.

  “Don’t be foolish. Even if your coach were not in disrepair, Edgeworth’s coach is superior―”

  “Ah, words spoken by the pompous earl who would never dream of parting with his money.” Damnation! She bit her lip. She’d never meant to say so much. To appear wounded.

  The corners of Drew’s mouth turned down. “What I was going to say―before you interrupted me―is that Edgeworth’s coach is built for speed. Your coach is built for comfort. It is a simple matter of their purposes. Not a matter of any superiority of my cousin’s coach.”

  She clenched her jaw together against apologizing or accepting his offer. He may sound changed, but he was bad for her. Her head knew it, even if her heart and her body wanted to believe something else. She needed to get away from him as soon as possible.

  “You surprise me, Char,” Drew said, his tone mildly disapproving, his look even more so.

  “How do I surprise you? Because I am not falling at your feet? Asking you to step inside the carriage with me and have a quick romp?”

  Drew took in a long, audible breath. “No. I never expected either of those things from you. I’m surprised you would delay reaching your father for the sake of your pride.”

  He thought this was all about pride? She rubbed the back of her stiff neck. Thank God he didn’t suspect just how much she wanted to throw herself into his arms and feel his lips on her body. It wasn’t simply pride, though she did need to keep what little she had left. She feared she would crumble under her desire when in such cramped quarters with him and end up back in his bed. But he had a point. She wanted to reach her father as soon as possible. “I’ll ride with you.”

  “Excellent. Then we’ll sleep at the Queen’s Head tonight and leave together at first light tomorrow for Danby.”

  She wanted to argue that they should ride through tonight, but in light of how bad the weather had turned it was a ridiculous proposition. “Fine,” she murmured, trying desperately to ignore the burgeoning giddiness the thought of being so near him for an entire day brought to her. She couldn’t be weak or stupid. “You will sit on the opposite side of the coach tomorrow.”

  “Whatever you demand.”

  “How surprising,” she said churlishly. “I knew you were one who did as commanded, I just had no idea money didn’t have to be involved.”

  “You’ve every right to be cruel. I deserve it. But know this—I’d rather be penniless than spend one more second without you, and I’m going to prove myself to you.”

  “Just how do you plan to do that?” She was tired of his declarations. Declarations without actions were so easy to make. “Do you mean to face your father and tell him you’re going to marry me? Or better yet,” she taunted as she strode toward his carriage, unleashing all the pain she had stored inside her for a year, “perhaps you plan to actually marry me this time. I’ll tell you this—” she poked him in the chest— “I’d never be so stupid as to fall for your lies again and let you bed me and leave me twice.”

  “I wouldn’t want you to,” Drew said simply. “I’ll not lay one finger on you until you’re my wife. That’s a promise.” Instantly, his warm lips covered hers, sucking, kneading, and leaving her knees weak when he drew back.

  She pressed her fingers to her swollen lips. “You touched me,” she accused in desperation against the chaos he had caused inside her.

  “Not with my fingers,” he said with a wink and a wicked grin before motioning for her to climb into the carriage unassisted.

  Half a mile down the road, they found Charlotte’s coachman limping through the deep snow at a pace Drew suspected would never have gotten the man to the Queen’s Head before Christmas. Thank God Drew and Edgeworth had come by when they did. If Char had waited for her coachman to rescue her, she would have truly been good and frozen to death. And then Drew really would have been destroyed. As Charlotte wrapped blankets around her coachman and fretted over his twisted ankle, Drew tried not to glower at the older man. Based on Edgeworth’s smirk, Drew had not successfully disguised his irritation with the coachman.

  It was petty to begrudge the hurt man Char’s nurturing attentions. The fellow had, after all, set out through the snow to bring help for Char, and of course it wasn’t the clumsy oaf’s fault he’d stepped in a hole and twisted his ankle. Despite those facts, Drew couldn’t help the annoyance gripping him. He wanted nothing more than to be near Char, to feel the heat of her body, the press of her leg against his, and to be close enough to smell the scent of freesia that lingered around her and filled his lungs every time he breathed in.

  Instead of the stolen, precious moments near her he had anticipated when they set out for the Queen’s Head, he now sat next to Edgeworth, who smelled like sweat and liquor and kept stepping on Drew’s foot. The change in his circumstances made him surly, and when they rode up to the Queen’s Head Inn and he saw the overflowing courtyard packed with too many carriages to count, his mood worsened.

  “Oh, dear.” Charlotte leaned forward, prompting Drew to hurriedly do the same so he could get a whiff of her heavenly scent. This might be the closest he would get to her for the rest of the night the way his luck was running. Still his circumstances were better than they had been mere hours before. At least now he knew that Char was not married. He would win her back if it took a lifetime. Though a night was vastly more preferable. Char frowned out the window then slowly sat back. She turned to him, her pretty pink lips pulled down in worry. He had to curl his fingers into a fist so he would not break his oath not to to
uch her until they were married. What a damnably stupid oath to make.

  “If the inn’s full, what will we do?”

  “We’ll get them to squeeze us in. Don’t worry.”

  “Leave it to me,” Edgeworth said, putting on his gloves. “I’ll simply tell them the Duke of Danby’s grandchildren have arrived, and they can boot some other riff-raff out of their room for us.”

  “What a horrid thing to even think of doing,” Char snapped. “I wish I could say I’m surprised, but I’m not.” Her glare landed on Drew like a dagger. He shot Edgeworth a glare before returning his eyes to Char.

  “The suggestion was not mine.”

  “I’m sure you were thinking it.”

  Drew flinched. He had thought it and quickly dismissed it, but he would never have dismissed the same thought in the past. The fact that it had once been true and she still thought him to be of deplorable, entitled behavior and character made it all the harder to hear now. He gave Edgeworth a quick jab in his side for reminding Char what an ass Drew had been in the past.

  “Say, that hurt,” Edgeworth grumbled while rubbing at his injury.

  Drew didn’t feel the least bit of remorse. The bloody fool should have known better. Now Char was mad at him for what he’d done in his past and what Edgeworth had stupidly said in the present. And Drew was mad at himself because of how much he knew he had wounded her, that her words to him were constantly laced with hurt.

  Char shook her head. “I’ll have no part in your throwing some poor souls out of their rooms. You two—” she waved her hand at Drew and Edgeworth— “may invoke your grandfather’s name all you like to the detriment of the riff-raff better known as commoners. A class, might I remind you, Lord Edgeworth, I am part of.”