Tempting the Earl

by Rachael Miles

  “I was at sea.”

  “In the years before his death, your father found it increasingly difficult to read handwriting. Printed books—as long as they had adequate space and clean margins—troubled him less, but eventually I became his sight, reading everything to him. Every week, we waited for the newspapers, anxious to know that you were still alive. The mail packet would arrive, and he would immediately pull out the newspapers, ignoring all the other mail. He would hand them to me, hands shaking with fear, and ask me to read for him. We would begin with the general listings, then the wounded, then the dead. One day, we saw a notice for your ship—‘the frigate Peaseblossom, sunk, all hands lost.’ Eyes wet with tears, he refused to believe it. He demanded I write a letter for him to some person he knew in the Home Office, and when the answer came, it fell to me to read it. I know you weren’t at sea. What I don’t know is whether you are still a spy.”

  “If Montclair is here, one of my projects is in trouble.”

  “You haven’t answered my question.”

  “I think I have.”

  “Is that why you didn’t come home to me?”

  She could see Harrison consider lying before his face became resigned. Perhaps he truly was an honest man. “I had decided not to come back before I returned to my other work.”

  Olivia felt the words like a blow, but she straightened, determined to show him only strength.

  “Thank you for your honesty. That explains a great deal. You should go to Mr. Montclair. He is in the green bedroom.”

  * * *

  “What brings you here? And so early?”

  “A foolish desire to see the world?” Adam could barely keep his eyes open.

  Harrison brushed aside the sarcastic response. “Tell me quickly, and then you can sleep.”

  “Mr. James believes he’s found a pattern in the news we’ve received from some of our northern informants. But he doesn’t know enough of the background to be sure. And he believes you are the only man who does. So, my purpose here is twofold: To bring you that giant pile of documents there on the desk, and to remain until I learn how you manage the remote agents. And I get to stay until I’ve learned it all, or caught up on my sleep.” Adam yawned wide.

  “Since you already have the files laid out on the table, do you mind if I review the documents here?”

  “If I can sleep while you do it.” Adam’s eyes looked bleary. “In fact, I’d prefer keeping them here with me. Some are quite sensitive, and until I understand fully what is in these reports, I should hide out up here. You will have my meals delivered, won’t you?” Adam yawned again.

  “Of course.” Harrison pulled a chair up to the table and began to separate the papers into precise stacks. “It will be best to keep these documents locked in here with you. The scholars have a habit of reading my mail.”

  Adam stripped to his underclothes and pulled back the covers on the tester bed. “There’s also a letter from Aldine. Something about whether he should proceed as you instructed with the situation you asked him to look into. I assume that means something to you.”

  Harrison picked up the envelope. He knew already what it would contain: the results of Aldine’s investigation into the validity of Harrison’s marriage. The packet was fat. Harrison knew he needed to open it, but especially after their delicious game in the billiards room, he couldn’t face learning that Olivia had never been his wife and that he couldn’t object when she left him. He wrote Aldine a short letter: “If the situation is clear, proceed as you think best. Harrison.” But something niggled at the back of his memory, so he set the letter on the edge of the table to consider it further.

  Several hours later, Harrison realized, ruefully, that the only way to keep all the various reports straight was to pencil a makeshift map on the large table in Adam’s room. He would have to swear Adam to secrecy, if the man weren’t snoring so loudly.

  With nothing more to do until Adam woke, Harrison returned to his turret room. He wanted to surprise Olivia with a gift: a set of drawing pencils he’d bought on the way down. He’d never expected Olivia to come to him. It seemed a sign that he was right to try to get to know her better. And for her to have given herself to him with such sweet abandon . . . he smiled at the memory.

  Olivia’s drawing of Bertie remained on the table. He picked it up, again admiring this time her depiction of Kit. Her delicate lines caught the emerging fox in the pup’s face.

  He began to set the drawing back on the edge of the desk, but it slipped from his hand. In trying to catch the drawing before it reached the floor, he knocked the blotter askew and revealed a piece of paper hidden under it. Looking over his shoulder to see if he was alone, he pulled the paper out of its hiding place. It was a long letter in Olivia’s hand. To whom did his wife write such long missives? Was it a lover? Jealousy flashed in a second before he tamped it down. He looked for an address but found nothing.

  He began to read the letter itself and within only five sentences, he felt as if his world had shifted.

  It was a draft of a letter from An Honest Gentleman to the World. This one took up again the question of corruption in the local magistrate offices. He sat down, stunned. The letter was in his wife’s hand. Was this one of her secrets? Was Olivia An Honest Gentleman?

  It couldn’t be.

  He’d come to admire An Honest Gentleman’s agile wit. Was that the same wit he’d seen in Olivia? And if not, why? What were the differences? He read through the other papers on her desk, taking care to leave each positioned exactly as it had been.

  It had to be her. She kept her study locked.

  Who else might have occasion to visit Olivia’s office? Any of the scholars? Pier and his wife? The parson?

  At the thought of the parson, Harrison remembered that Olivia herself had told him Southbridge had paid her a visit only that morning. Was Olivia serving as Southbridge’s amanuensis, making a fair copy of his letters to send to the World? Southbridge hadn’t seemed like the type to engage in letter wars—but Harrison had been surprised before.

  He would have to be more attentive now.

  He replaced the essay and the drawing and removed his gift of the drawing pencils. He didn’t wish to give any clue that he had been in the study alone. Or that he had found out one of her secrets.

  * * *

  Harrison worked late in the library, hours after it was closed to the scholars. Since no one knew yet that he was Walgrave, if he were discovered he would have to return to his room, and he wasn’t yet ready. Learning that the parson was likely An Honest Gentleman had renewed his enthusiasm for analyzing the letters. But Olivia’s involvement with Southbridge posed a problem. Now he understood her reluctance to help him discover An Honest Gentleman’s identity as well as her cautious agreement. Perhaps she thought she could protect the parson. But if Southbridge were An Honest Gentleman and if he were selling secrets, Harrison would have to distance Olivia from his plots before telling Mr. James.

  At a soft sound in the corridor, he snuffed his lamp, waiting. The door to the garden creaked. Then, a few moments later he saw Olivia, dressed in a dark robe, pass through a pool of moonlight outside the library windows.

  His hand was on the latch of the long glass doors before he realized he had risen from his desk.

  Of course he would follow her. Whether she wanted him or not, he still considered her his wife. And after holding her in his arms once more, he found himself possessive. But he couldn’t force her to marry him again. Perhaps finding her in a tryst with a lover—with Southbridge—would be just the medicine he needed to let her go. But he didn’t have to like it.

  Harrison could already predict where she was going: the summerhouse by the lake. Moonlight lit her way, making it easy to see her at a distance.

  At a sound to her right, she stepped into the shadow of a thick-trunked oak. A fairy tree. He could easily imagine Olivia as a member of the fairy folk, deceiving and bewitching in equal measure.

  A buck burst past,
followed by two does. Harrison wondered if Olivia’s lover caused their flight. Though Harrison had tried to convince Olivia to trust him, she had refused, instead telling him that she could not be trusted. Had a lover been the reason? But if she had a lover, why had she taken Harrison to her bed? Was she punishing him for leaving her alone so long?

  He almost turned back. He suddenly didn’t want to follow her. He didn’t want proof that Olivia loved another. In part he didn’t want to lose Olivia because she was his last connection to his lost family. Olivia had known his father, remembered him fondly, and even though Harrison had bristled at his father’s interference, he’d loved—and mourned—the old man. In part he didn’t want to lose her because he’d never stopped thinking of her, and after their tryst in the billiard room, he realized he never could.

  As he followed, his jaw set with determination or anger, he couldn’t tell. He should have let her go and not traveled to his estate until she was gone. What had been his motivations, and why was he following her now? Why not consign her to another man’s arms and be done with her? An invalid marriage would allow him to marry again, to have heirs if he wanted them. But the thought of enduring a matchmaking season turned his stomach. If he needed a wife, he would simply follow his father’s lead and ask Mr. James to find him one.

  In the past when he’d followed a suspicious person, he’d felt a heady mix of exhilaration and caution, ready at any moment for the situation to change. His senses heightened, he often imagined he could anticipate the other person’s emotions, excitement, or reticence or fear or anger. All he’d imagined left an almost visible imprint on the path, guiding him in how to behave, whether to stay in the shadows and observe or step into the light and demand a reckoning. This uncanny perception had made him Mr. James’s most trusted agent, one who could accomplish missions that no one else could.

  But tonight his perceptions were clouded by his own visceral emotions. Anger, frustration, disappointment, determination—all formed a bitter stew in the pit of his stomach. And though he wished to deny it, desire and jealousy also colored his plan.

  At the edge of the thicket, the path split, the left going farther into the forest and from there to the village, and the right to the summerhouse and the lake. He began to angle toward the summerhouse, so that if she looked behind her, there would be no chance of her seeing him.

  But as he turned, he saw her disappear into the greater darkness of the woods. The village, not the summerhouse. So. It was the parson.

  But what a coward the parson was! Why should he expect Olivia to come to him through the darkness? The man deserved to be beaten silly, not simply because he was Olivia’s lover, but because he hadn’t the gentlemanly good sense to come to her.

  Harrison began plotting revenge, more on the parson than Olivia. She was a fine woman, seductive and completely unaware of her power over him. She couldn’t know how, for years, his body had ached for hers. But, he’d left her few choices, and he should let her go. But of course it was only now that he’d lost her, that he wished he had tried to know her better. Harrison knew, if he were being as honest as he claimed to be, that this was entirely his doing. But there was no room for self-recrimination when vengeance was so much more appealing.

  He circled back to the path, relying on the hard-beaten ground to allow him to move quietly behind her. But she seemed unconcerned, walking swiftly but not fearfully. No backward glances or quickening pace, just a steady progress.

  The edge of the forest ran down the bottom of the parsonage garden, and past the churchyard. His stomach tightened, knowing he was about to be proved a cuckold.

  No, not that. She was not his wife, she had never been his wife. But he’d thought of her as his for so long, it was as if he’d learned that his parents weren’t his at all, but just a couple who’d taken him in when he was too young to know the difference.

  She was not betraying anyone, except perhaps herself. The parson would never marry her. Even though she and Harrison had no legal marriage, it would still be too much to overcome for a clergyman intent on rising in the ranks of the church.

  His stomach clenched in dread and disappointment. Just a few more feet and she would be at the parsonage, and he would return to the house, sign the separation agreement, and then return to London.

  From his position in the shadow of a poplar, he could see the garden gate and door of the parsonage. But the house was dark. Surely she was not meeting a man with so little income as to be unable to afford even a fire? Was she so lonely that a country parson was her best company? The blame for this, too, could be laid at his door.

  He was so caught up in his storm of regret that he almost missed seeing her turn, not to the house but into the churchyard. Suddenly, he was suspicious, but for entirely different reasons. Something felt wrong here. Off. Mr. James would call it his “confounded intuition.”

  If he hadn’t been so obsessed with his failed not-marriage, what would he have noticed that he needed to know now? Whatever it was, he was sure, without being able to pinpoint why, that Olivia was in danger. This wasn’t a tryst, but something else, something nefarious.

  When every muscle in his body wanted to run, he held himself back. At the bottom of the churchyard she’d left the gate wide open—no bar to a quick escape, but no impediment to being surprised from behind. He had to find her. But where had she gone?

  * * *

  “Ah, Lady Walgrave. I see you’ve followed my instructions. Now take one step back into the moonlight so that I can see you.” The voice was cultured, educated, with the hint of a foreign accent. French, perhaps? Or a refugee of one of the other European countries during the wars? Or was the accent merely a ruse to obscure his true voice?

  She stepped back.

  “One more step. No, not too far. I want you close—if you prove uncooperative. Ah, yes, that’s good.”

  The man was fully in shadow, though still within arm’s reach.

  Livvy kept her hand on the pistol in the pocket she’d sewn into the folds of her skirt. It was powdered and loaded; all she had to do was pull the primer and aim. She kept her fear in check, focusing instead on gathering what little information the man might give her.

  “Following your instructions wasn’t terribly difficult. I’ve walked to this churchyard at least twice a week every week for the last six years.”

  “But it’s the perfect venue, don’t you think? A place where the dead keep their secrets and you give up yours.”

  “I doubt that.” She stood with her back straight, refusing to appear cowed.

  “It’s such a shame that Sir Roderick couldn’t see what you’ve become. I wonder what he thought he was making of you, transforming a governess into a countess.”

  “What do you want?”

  “Money, of course, and a great deal of it. But you must understand: I want much more than money. I want you to stop looking. It’s a scandal you are courting, unless you pay me.”

  The man remained in the shadows. She needed to see his face. She needed to be able to recognize him later. Perhaps if she baited him, he would step out of the shadows . . . but it was a risk.

  “Not a cent,” she said confidently.

  “What false bravery, your ladyship. What would your husband do if he knew where Sir Roderick found you or what you’ve done since becoming his lady? Would he welcome losing a bright future in Parliament?”

  “My husband knows everything he needs to know about me.” She kept her tone level and firm; in normal circumstances—oh, to be able to remember normal circumstances—she would refuse to engage. But with Harrison at the house, and with her orders from the Home Office, she had to play this man’s game. “I have nothing to give you, so tell my husband whatever you think he would wish to know.”

  “Do you wish for me to tell him what you’ve been doing in London? All those men meeting you in dark places. All those essays. Many would pay for that information.”

  She took a shallow breath. “I don’t know what you
mean.”

  * * *

  Harrison couldn’t hear any of the words, but he could see the stiffness in Olivia’s back, the tension in her voice, and as he drew closer, he could hear a tone of triumph in the voice of the one who taunted her.

  She was too close to the man. Her back was straight, tense. At that distance, she wouldn’t have time to escape if the well-dressed man chose to restrain her.

  Suddenly she recoiled as if struck, backing away from the man. But it was too late. From the shadows behind her, a familiar-looking wiry man grabbed her arms and pulled her, struggling, against him. The taller man seemed surprised, even dismayed.

  Harrison saw the flash of a knife in the moonlight and heard Olivia’s stifled scream. Fear brought bile to his mouth. He ran forward, trying to reach her before the man could do her more harm. But before he could reach her, he heard the firing of a gun, and the man flung Olivia to the ground. The wiry man, clutching his arm, ran away, leaving a trail of blood through the gravestones. The elegant man disappeared into the shadows.

  Olivia lying on the ground was like a nightmarish painting. Beautiful and macabre. The moonlight fell fully on her body, blood pooling from a cut, likely on the back of her head, where her head had struck the edge of one of the gravestones. He prayed she was not dead, and that her injury wasn’t grave.

  He brushed her hair back from her face and pulled her into his lap. “Livvy, wake up. He’s gone.”

  He pulled his flask out of his boot and poured whiskey across her lips, patting her cheeks gently with his fingers. It seemed like an eternity before she began to moan and then to open her eyes.

  “Harrison? Why are you here?”

  “I thought I’d visit my father’s grave.”

  “At night? Now?” Her brows furrowed in confusion.

  “No, I followed you . . . I thought you were meeting a lover.”

  “Lover?” She tried to focus on his face. “I don’t have a lover. I mean, except for you.”

  “Well, certainly those men don’t care for you very much.”

  She tried to push herself out of his arms, but fell back, the corners of her eyes tight with pain.