The Earl's Prize

by Nicola Cornick

  “We seem to have managed to scandalize the entire ballroom simply by dancing together.”

  Joss’s voice was low and edged with amusement.

  Amy glanced around and realized the truth of his words. Everyone was staring, the fans were fluttering, the debutantes whispering.

  “I cannot see why there is such a fuss,” she said. “We are but dancing, my lord.”

  “Perhaps I should enlighten you, Miss Bainbridge. I seldom dance with debutantes, and when I do most people assume I am intending to seduce them.”

  Amy raised her brows. “Then we need have no fear, for I am not a debutante.”

  She heard him laugh. “Perhaps I should have phrased myself a little differently for the sake of clarity, if not propriety. How can I put this? Miss Bainbridge…if I dance with any lady, the world assumes I am intending seduction.”

  The Earl’s Prize

  Harlequin Historical

  Praise for Nicola Cornick’s latest books

  Lady Allerton’s Wager

  “Ms. Cornick has managed to pack a whole lot of mystery and humor in this highly romantic and fast-paced story and is nothing short of a pure delight to read.”

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  The Virtuous Cyprian

  “…this delightful tale of a masquerade gone awry will delight ardent Regency readers.”

  —Romantic Times

  “A witty, hilarious romp through the Regency period.”

  —Rendezvous

  The Larkswood Legacy

  “…a suspenseful yet tenderhearted tale of love…”

  —Romantic Times

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  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Prologue

  Joss—1792

  My Lord and Lady Tallant had been quarrelling for the best part of two hours, which was an improvement in their relationship, according to the more cynical members of the servants’ hall, for normally they barely exchanged a word. The words that were being exchanged now were less than civil. The Marquis’s deep tones vibrated with sufficient anger to shatter the priceless vases on the drawing-room mantelpiece whilst his spouse responded in the shrill accents of one who was determined to break the glass in the fine gilt gesso mirror.

  ‘You’ve never cared a fig for me, yet now I have the chance of true happiness you have not the generosity of spirit to let me go! Well, I won’t stay with you! Never, never, never!’

  ‘Cease this foolish prating, madam, and retire to your room until you can view matters in a more reasonable light. I have tolerated your tiresome infidelities for more years than I care to remember, but give you up to Massingham in this appallingly public manner I will not!’

  The sound of breaking china greeted this assertion. The whole structure of the house seemed to shiver. The servants, going about their business via routes that took them close to the drawing-room door, shivered with it.

  ‘I want you to divorce me, Bevill!’

  ‘Pray do not be so absurd, madam. Now kindly withdraw.’

  ‘I shall run away!’

  ‘Foolishness! I will never permit it.’

  ‘You are all bluster and no substance. You always were! I know you will not stand in my way.’

  The drawing-room door was flung open and the Marchioness of Tallant flounced through in an explosion of silks and neroli perfume. She threw a challenge over her shoulder.

  ‘I am going to pack my portmanteau—’

  ‘Do so.’ The Marquis sounded bored. ‘It will keep you from making an even greater fool of yourself, at least for an hour or so.’

  ‘Massingham will have a carriage waiting for me…’

  ‘If he brings it closer than Oxford I shall have him horsewhipped from my estate.’

  ‘Oh!’

  The Marchioness gathered up the cherry-red silk of her skirts in one hand and ran up the staircase, her slippers pattering on the oaken treads, her petticoats foaming about her ankles. She scattered servants before her like corn in the wind. One of her golden curls had come loose from its elaborate coiffure and curled artlessly in the hollow of her throat. Her blue eyes were wild. She looked beautiful and abandoned.

  ‘Out of my way! Where is Trencher? Send her to me at once!’

  On the upper landing, beneath the three-light mullion window, a child was sitting. He was playing with a set of toy soldiers, lining them up, and laying out his battle plan with studied absorption. The light from the window lay across him in coloured bars of red, green and gold. The Marchioness almost tripped over him before she realised that he was there. She swooped down on him in a flurry of silk.

  ‘Joscelyne! What are you doing here? Where is Mr Grayling?’

  The boy shrugged. His amber eyes swept over her indifferently for a moment.

  ‘I am sorry, I have no notion, Mama.’

  The Marchioness suppressed a shudder. It was not the boy’s fault that he looked so like the Marquis, but just at the moment it made her feel quite ill. Joss and his father shared the amber eyes of the Tallants, hair of the richest, darkest auburn, and a tawny complexion to match. They had features that were so pure and classical that the Marchioness had once imagined Bevill Tallant to be some Greek god, come to pluck her from her narrow existence and take her to some other, more exciting plane. But that had been nine years before, when she had not actually known her husband at all. Now she knew better, knew him to be a narrow-minded bigot who denied her even the smallest of pleasures with a self-satisfied smile. But never mind small pleasures now—the greatest pleasure she had found in the past months was waiting for her out there, somewhere beyond the lion gates and the double avenue of elms, waiting in a closed carriage to whisk her away from dreary England and her grey existence, dull as the weather. Clive Massingham. She shivered again, this time with anticipation.

  It would mean losing her children. Her calculating blue gaze fell on Joscelyne once again as, head bent, he brought his cavalry into play. Such a strange child, with his self-absorption and his martial games. But he would barely notice her absence for she seldom saw him as it was, and soon he would be going away to school.

  As for his sister upstairs in the nursery, that puling, puking child—she could never be quite sure who had fathered her but she knew that Bevill would do his duty by the girl. She had done hers by giving him an heir of undeniable Tallant blood. Juliana’s parentage might be in doubt, but Bevill would never say so openly.

  Dropping to her knees on the step below Joss, she looked her son in the eye. The bitter bile rose in her throat.

  ‘I am going away now, Joss darling, but before I do I beg you to remember this piece of a
dvice always. It is the best thing that I can do for you.’

  She paused. The boy was looking at her now, unblinkingly, and it was quite uncanny. She put a hand on his arm and felt the tension in his body through the rich copper velvet of his sleeve.

  ‘Never fall in love, my darling boy. Love is for fools and it will only make you unhappy. Do you understand me?’

  There was a pause. The boy gave her back look for look.

  ‘Yes, Mama.’

  The Marchioness nodded. She got to her feet. ‘I am going away for a space but I will see you soon. Be a good boy.’

  ‘Of course, Mama.’ There was something faintly amused in the boy’s tone. The Marchioness frowned slightly. It felt odd, saying such things to the child, as though she were giving redundant advice. Joss had always seemed so self-contained.

  ‘Goodbye then, darling.’ She patted his cheek. At the top of the stairs she looked back, but Joss’s head was already bent over his soldiers again. She sighed. Bevill would never let him join the army, not when he was the heir and there was no spare. Still, that would be none of her concern and already she was late for her rendezvous. She cast one last look at her son, absorbed in his play, and went to pack her cases.

  An hour later, the Marchioness had dragged one portmanteau down the oaken stair and her maid, Trencher, had carried the remaining three downstairs, treading heavily on the discarded toy soldiers as she went. All the servants appeared to have vanished and the door of the drawing room remained obstinately closed.

  The Marchioness stood in the middle of the white stone floor of the hall and looked around a little uncertainly. Even she could see the ridiculous side of knocking on the drawing-room door to announce to her husband that she was leaving him. After a few minutes, however, that was exactly what she did.

  ‘Bevill, I am about to depart.’

  The Marquis was sitting with his back to the door and did not even trouble to rise from his wing chair.

  ‘Then go and be damned to you, madam. Is Massingham here for you? Send a footman to the gates and tell him to drive up to the house!’

  ‘Are you then to let me go so easily after all?’

  ‘Aye, madam.’ The Marquis’s voice was a low rumble. ‘Be damned to you and to all women. Now, get you gone.’

  Slightly baffled at her husband’s volte-face, the Marchioness withdrew and sent Trencher to despatch a footman to the gates of Ashby Tallant. The carriage came, the baggage was loaded, and the Marchioness turned to take a final look at the walls of her prison.

  Upstairs at the nursery window, a flash of white caught her eye. Little Lady Juliana Tallant was waving to her. The Marchioness waved back.

  Downstairs in the drawing room the Marquis of Tallant replaced the brandy bottle on the small table beside him with a slightly unsteady hand. In the big stone bay window his son knelt on the cushioned seat and pressed his nose to the mullioned glass as he watched the carriage roll away in a cloud of summer dust. The Marquis had kept his son close by in case his errant wife had chosen to snatch the boy away with her. But he should have known better, the Marquis thought heavily. Lady Tallant would never wish to encumber herself and her lover with a seven-year-old boy, not even to spite her husband.

  The Marquis stood up and walked over to the window embrasure, where he put a heavy hand on his son’s shoulder. The boy seemed to wilt ever so slightly beneath the pressure. He turned his head slightly and his enigmatic amber eyes met those of the older man. Just for a moment, the Marquis thought that he saw an expression there that should never be seen on the face of a seven-year-old child. Just for a moment. But his mind was already cloudy with misery and bitterness and brandy and he dismissed the thought. Really, the Marquis thought, children would do better to avoid any facial expression whatsoever, just as they should be seen and not heard. It was better that way.

  The Marquis leaned closer until he could whisper brandy fumes into the boy’s ear. ‘Listen to me, Joscelyne,’ he said to his son and heir. ‘Never trust a woman. D’ye hear me? They are perfidious creatures, right enough. Never trust ’em and never fall in love. It will only make you unhappy. Love is for fools, boy, you mark my words.’

  In later life Joss Tallant, Earl of Tallant, was to say that he had only ever received one piece of advice that both his mother and his father agreed on and he had lived by it ever since.

  Amy—1807

  When the carriage came for her, Amy was already half-expecting it. Her mother’s most recent letter, determinedly cheerful, had made her suspicious. At fourteen, Amy was adept at reading between the lines.

  It had happened before, of course. Several times. There would be the rumble of carriage wheels on the cobbles outside, the muted hum of voices breaking into Amy’s sleep, the flare of a light, the urgent hand shaking her awake. Tonight it was just the same. When she opened her eyes she saw her mother’s face, pale and resigned in the candlelight, and Miss Melville, the headmistress, her expression tight with disapproval.

  ‘If only you could leave her with me a little longer, Lady Bainbridge! Amy is such a bright and promising pupil, but this constant disruption makes any progress quite hopeless…’

  Amy dressed and packed her meagre possessions, and tiptoed away. There was no time for farewells. The other girls slept on, unaware and unconcerned, all but for Amanda Makepeace, who had the bed next to Amy’s. Amanda rolled over, groaned as the pale light dazzled her eyes, then sat up.

  ‘Amy, what is happening?’

  ‘It is nothing, Amanda.’ There was a lump in Amy’s throat. ‘I have to go. I do not suppose I will see you again…’

  Amanda reached out of bed and hugged her tight. She had always mothered Amy, who was two years younger, and now she felt warm and familiar. Amy choked back a sob.

  ‘Of course we shall meet again!’ Amanda whispered. ‘You’ll see…’

  For a long moment they hugged each other in silence, then Amy drew back.

  ‘Goodbye, Amanda.’

  She knew that she would not be coming back to Miss Melville’s seminary and in a way she was glad. The embarrassment was so difficult to overcome. The last time that her parents had taken her away she had been gone a twelvemonth; when she had returned she had pretended that urgent family business had kept her from school. It was scant protection, but in a sense it was true. All the same, Amy had been aware of the sidelong glances and the giggles of the other girls. Miss Melville herself might be discreet, indeed, Amy suspected that her teacher was sympathetic, but the other pupils had family in the ton, family who gossiped and stirred scandal and knew all about her father, ‘Guinea George’ Bainbridge, a compulsive gambler who was perpetually financially embarrassed. There was no escaping the malicious talk and, even with Amanda to protect her, Amy had felt intensely vulnerable. Whilst outwardly she steeled herself against the sneers, inside she withdrew.

  Amy had attended several seminaries for young ladies in her time. There had been two whole years at a school near Oxford, a time of relative stability when her father must have been on an extended winning streak. There had been the snatched months at Miss Melville’s, a spell at a school in Bath and almost a year in Hertford. Each time her parents would send her to a different school where her family history could be concealed, at least for a little while. Each time the truth came out and the more spiteful pupils made her life a misery with their sharp teasing. Each time Amy moved on, she lost the few friends she had gained.

  This time the journey back to London took just over an hour, for Miss Melville’s school was out at Strawberry Hill. Amy, too sleepy and too disheartened to question her mother, curled up in a corner of the carriage and dozed. She awoke as the carriage jerked to a halt.

  ‘Where are we, Mama? Mansfield Street?’

  Lady Bainbridge did not reply at once. She made a business of collecting up her reticule and Amy’s luggage. In the pale dawn light her face looked deeply lined.

  ‘No, my love. This is Whitechapel. We are…staying here for a little while. A ve
ry little, until Papa is ready and we can go to the country.’

  ‘Whitechapel?’ Amy flung open the door of the cab and scrambled down. The hansom had come to rest in a narrow street between high buildings that seemed to scrape the streaky dawn sky. It was cool, but the air was heavy with the stench of rotting vegetables, alcohol and something else more unsavoury still. Amy wrinkled up her nose. Splintered barrels and crates littered the street and beside one of them lay a man, deep asleep. An empty bottle lay beside his outstretched hand and a stream of liquid puddled on the cobbles next to his prone body. A woman was sitting in a doorway opposite, her dirty red skirts up about her knees and her filthy bodice barely covering her bosom. She favoured them with a long, slow stare.

  ‘Mama!’ Amy had become accustomed to the various indignities that came upon them through her father’s improvidence, but this seemed too much to believe. The distance between Miss Melville’s genteel classroom and this rookery was too great for her to take it in so suddenly. She looked beseechingly at Lady Bainbridge, but her mother had turned away to pay the surly cab driver. He whipped up his horse and left them standing in the middle of the street, Amy’s bags at their feet.

  ‘Mama,’ Amy said again, but this time it came out as a whisper. Two gentlemen were turning the corner of the street now, flashy and swaggering, no gentlemen at all, in fact. As they saw Amy one nudged the other and they broke into a run. With an exclamation, Lady Bainbridge picked up the bags and whisked Amy through the door of a house whose wooden signboard boasted the legend: ‘Lodgings for Travellers’. She slammed the door behind them and Amy heard the gentlemen run past, their feet thundering on the cobbles, their fists beating on the boarded-up windows. Lady Bainbridge was visibly shaking.