How to Entice an Earl

by Manda Collins

  “You used to buy books for Clarissa at Felsham’s, didn’t you?” she asked, slipping her arm about his waist. “That’s how you knew to go there.”

  Pulling her against him, he decided that it was time to debride the wound. “Yes,” he admitted. “She was a great lover of books. And all things fanciful.”

  “Tell me about her,” Maddie said softly. Her arm tucked protectively around him gave him a degree of courage he hadn’t realized he’d needed.

  “We were twins,” he began, for the first time in a long while allowing the wall he’d built around memories of his sister to fall away. “She was the eldest by twenty minutes, but when we were small you would have thought it was twenty years.”

  “Bossy, eh?” Maddie asked with a smile.

  “You should know,” he said, poking her in the ribs. “You remind me of her at times. Or at least Clarissa before the melancholia set in.”

  “What caused it?”

  “She had her first episode not very long after my father died,” Christian said. “We were fifteen. Mama and Clarissa’s governess thought it was simply a young girl taking advantage of the situation to indulge in a bit of dramatics.”

  “But it wasn’t.” It was a statement.

  “No,” Christian said curtly, remembering his terror when he’d found Clarey standing on the bridge over the Ouse, her hand gripped around a very large rock. “No, it was not the dramatics of a willful girl. It was a sickness.”

  “She moved past the episode, though, didn’t she?” Maddie asked, kissing his shoulder.

  “Yes,” he said harshly. “She moved past it. She didn’t suffer any more episodes for several years. My mother, thinking that a change of scenery might keep them at bay, sent her to live with our elder sister in Scotland. She’d married recently and welcomed Clarey into her home.

  “I had bought my commission by that point, and was not able to see my sister as often as I would have liked,” he continued, “but she seemed happy enough when I came home on leave. She came to town for the season each spring. And when I was here, I’d buy novels for her at Felsham’s.”

  He smiled, “You would have liked her, I think, Maddie.” He hugged her to him. “And I know she would have adored you. And most especially your writing.”

  “I wish I’d been able to meet her,” Maddie said. “I know you must have loved her very much.”

  “She was my twin,” he said simply. “I would have done anything for her.”

  “What happened?” Maddie’s voice was strained. She knew how the story ended, after all. She knew that there would be no happily ever after for Clarissa, who had so enjoyed reading about them.

  “It came back.” Christian could not keep the bitterness from his voice. “The fog, as she called it, came back for her. Four years she’d gone without a spell of melancholy, and then in the middle of the season, she fell in love.”

  He still couldn’t quite understand how something that should have made his sister happy had ended up causing her so much misery.

  “Selford was a blackguard of the worst sort,” Christian continued. “If I’d known he was anywhere near Clarissa I’d have beaten him to a bloody pulp.”

  “But you were away.”

  He nodded. “As it was, I didn’t even hear about the affair until it was over. And Clarissa was gone.” His voice broke on the last word.

  He felt Maddie rise up, kissing him on the face. To his shame, he felt his own tears there as well.

  “I should have been there,” he said harshly, trying to smother his sadness with anger. “I should have known what was happening to her.”

  “Hush now,” Maddie said, smoothing her hand over his face. “You cannot have known. You were doing a very difficult job that most men would flee from. You are only one man, Christian. You cannot be two places at once.”

  They were all things he’d told himself before, but somehow hearing them from Maddie made them feel more true. As if her endorsement of them were more valid than his own. And perhaps it was.

  “She was gone before I could even cross the Channel,” he said, a great fatigue washing over him. “I had a letter from Mama telling me that she was very ill. I didn’t know at the time that the illness was because she was with child.”

  Maddie froze beside him. “Oh, my dear,” she murmured against his chest, where she lay, holding him in her arms. “I am so sorry. Why did this Selford not marry her?”

  “He was after her inheritance. Which my mother saw fit to protect not very long after the fellow began seeing Clarissa. But it was too late by then. He’d already seduced her. And when he learned that he would not have access to her funds, he abandoned her.”

  “Bastard.”

  “Yes,” he agreed, needing to tell the rest of the story. To get it all out. “Clarissa was despondent, of course. Her fog came back with a vengeance.

  “Mama knew that in those moods Clarey was not to be trusted alone,” he continued. “She saw to it that a maid was with her at all times. But she could hardly keep her a prisoner. Somehow—we think when the maid was sleeping that night—she left her bedchamber and found a bottle of laudanum.

  “She drank the whole bottle,” he finished. “The maid found her the next morning.”

  Maddie’s arms tightened around him. “Christian,” she said, tears streaming down her face, “I am so very sorry. Oh, my dear. I am so sorry.”

  He could not speak. Now that the story was told, he felt broken. Clasping Maddie to his chest, he felt a sob rise up in his throat. Giving in to his grief for the first time since he’d buried Clarissa, he wept for the sister he’d loved so dearly. And for the life, the happiness, that she would never know.

  Happiness like he’d found with the proud, brave woman he held in his arms, who grieved with him for someone she’d never even met.

  * * *

  Maddie knew exactly where she was when she awoke the next morning. Naked. Alone. Aching in places she’d never ached before.

  The evening before had been a revelation in terms of just what was possible between a husband and wife. Or a man and woman, come to think of it. Though Maddie could not imagine giving herself to someone when there was the possibility that he might go away from her and never return.

  Christian had been gentle at times, fierce at others. And Maddie had always been conscious that he was making himself just as vulnerable to her as she was to him. That was something that no one ever spoke of when they discussed intimacy—not that polite society discussed such things in anything other than a roundabout way. It was just that she’d always heard sexual congress described as something that could make or break a woman. Pregnancy had a way of doing that, she supposed. But she remembered her new husband’s gentleness, and the way that he’d allowed her to see him, to share his grief at the death of his sister, to see beneath all the masks and poses that one necessarily donned to face the outside world. She knew that she had been given a rare gift. And she vowed to herself that she would keep his vulnerabilities safe in her heart.

  Stretching in the soft sheets and rumpled bedclothes, she glanced at the clock on the mantel and gave a start. It was long past time she was up and dressed. Ringing the bell beside her bed, she was soon washing and dressing and headed downstairs to the breakfast room. To her disappointment, Christian wasn’t there, but she had only just been seated when a footman brought her a hastily scrawled note from him telling her that he’d been called to the Home Office and would be back in the afternoon. It was unfortunate but, she supposed, to be expected. Since when had the government had any concern with the wishes of new wives?

  As she finished her breakfast, she decided to spend some time in her new writing room. Asking for some tea to be brought up to her, Maddie slipped into the chamber, and set about looking through every cubby and drawer to take inventory and to see what supplies she needed. She was adding sealing wax to the list when a footman intruded with a card on a tray.

  Glancing at it, Maddie was surprised to see Lady Emily�
�s name. Telling the servant to show her in, she asked the housekeeper to bring fresh tea and waited for her visitor. But as soon as she saw the other woman, she suspected she might need something a bit stronger than tea.

  “I do beg your pardon, Countess,” Lady Emily said, her eyes puffy from weeping and her skin paler than Maddie had ever seen it. “But I was unsure of where to go. And you have always seemed so eminently … sensible.”

  Leaping up from her chair, Maddie wrapped a comforting arm around the other woman’s shoulders. “Make no apologies, my dear. Just come have a seat and soon we’ll have a nice cup of tea and you can tell me all about it.”

  To her horror, the other woman began to weep. Whatever it was that troubled her, then it must be serious, indeed, Maddie decided, for she did not think Lady Emily was the sort to indulge in public displays of emotion. Could it be something to do with Tinker’s death, Maddie wondered, or was it something more personal?

  “I am so sorry,” Emily said, dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief. “I cannot seem to stop blubbering. It really is not all that serious.”

  “I have little doubt that it is serious to you, my dear,” Maddie said wryly. To her relief, the housekeeper arrived with a tea tray and a plate of macaroons. “Ah, here we are,” she said, pouring out a cup for the other lady.

  Thanking her, Lady Emily took the tea and to Maddie’s relief did seem to find some comfort in holding the warm cup in her hands. When she had taken several sips, and seemed to be more in control of herself, Maddie said gently, “Now, then, why don’t you tell me what it is that has you so upset.”

  Staring into the amber liquid for a moment, no doubt getting her bearings, Lady Emily was silent. When so much time had passed that Maddie feared the need to repeat the question, her guest looked up. “I need your assistance in finding your brother, my lady. Do you know where he has gone?”

  Maddie was silent. She did know, of course, where Linton had gone, but she wasn’t quite sure if the woman seated next to her should be informed of where he was. Though Lady Emily had been the one to inform Maddie of the threats against Linton, Tretham, and Tinker, she could very well have disclosed that information because she knew it would become public knowledge soon anyway. And surely if Linton had wished for Lady Emily to know his whereabouts he would have told her himself.

  Aloud, she said, “May I ask why?”

  Setting her teacup down, Lady Emily took a deep breath. “Lady Gresham,” she began, “Madeline. I am not sure that your brother would wish me to tell you.”

  Maddie frowned. “Since my brother is not here to tell me that himself,” she said reasonably, “and since he is currently in hiding because of threats against his life, I believe that I will have to insist upon knowing what it is that you need to tell him before I decide whether to tell you where to find him.”

  Seeing the other woman’s frown, Maddie continued, “Or, perhaps you can write him a note and I will see that it is delivered to him.”

  “How can I be sure of confidentiality?” Lady Emily demanded, her nostrils flaring with pique. “I must be sure that no one will be privy to what I must tell him.”

  The other woman’s show of temper only reinforced Maddie’s feeling that it might be best not to share Linton’s whereabouts with her. “I apologize,” she said, “but if my word is not enough for you, then I am unsure of what to tell you. I feel certain if my brother wished for you to know his direction he would have told you before he left town.”

  “He would not have done so because he is the most pigheaded fellow in Christendom,” Lady Emily said with exasperation, all traces of her tears gone now. “The bloody fool thought that he was protecting me, but in fact he has simply made things more difficult. Especially in the current circumstances.”

  “Protecting you from the threat against him? And Tretham?” Maddie asked, wondering if there were more of a relationship between James and Lady Emily than she had at first thought. She had never even considered such a thing though she supposed she should have done so. Thinking back over her conversations with the woman on earlier occasions, she felt some pieces of the puzzle snap into place.

  “Among other things,” Lady Emily said with a shrug, “I believe he was worried that whoever made the threats against him and the others would take it into his head to add me to the list of suspects in my husband’s death. Who better to accuse of murder than the wife, after all? Especially when she is carrying on with her deceased husband’s best friend?”

  At the confirmation of her suspicion, Maddie nodded. “So, you are lovers,” she said. “That explains much.”

  “I should imagine it does,” Lady Emily said wryly. “So now you will understand that what I wish to tell him is of a very private nature.”

  “You are with child?” Maddie asked quietly. It was the only explanation that made sense. Especially given the other woman’s tears.

  “Yes,” Lady Emily said with a tight-lipped smile. “I had thought that since my marriage to Fielding was unfruitful that I was barren, but it seems not to be the case.”

  Maddie’s mind raced as she thought of the impact such news might have on both her brother’s safety—for he would no doubt make the unsafe decision to return to London as soon as he learned of it—and on his current quarrel with Lord Essex.

  “You are sure?” she asked the other woman.

  “As sure as one can be in such situations,” Lady Emily said with a shrug. “So you see now that my wish to contact him is not some attempt on my part to put him in danger. But I do really need to give him the chance to put our case before your father one more time.”

  Maddie frowned. “You mean Linton has tried to convince my father to allow a match between you before?”

  “Of course,” Lady Emily said. “In fact, it’s been over a year since he first approached Lord Essex. But I’m afraid your father does not think me a suitable match for his son and heir. Not by half.”

  She should not have been surprised by the news, but Maddie was. It wasn’t so much that she didn’t believe her father would do such a thing. It took only a glance at his condemnation of her match with Christian to know that he cared little for his childrens’ happiness and everything for appearances. But she had always thought Linton’s scandalous reputation to be primarily the result of his own recklessness, with only a bit of the blame laid at their father’s door. Now she saw that in this instance, at least, her brother had tried to do the right thing, and been prevented from doing so by their father. Who would doubtless condemn her brother for the scandal of a quick marriage to the mother of his unborn child.

  Not commenting on her father’s role in Lady Emily’s current situation, Maddie took the other woman’s hand. “I will see what I can do.”

  Eighteen

  It had been hard as hell to slip out of Maddie’s arms, dress, and head to White’s, but when he found Leighton seated in the coffee room, frowning over the papers, Christian knew he’d done the right thing. His superior looked as if he hadn’t slept in days, and his eyes beneath his spectacles were red rimmed and tired.

  “Thank you for agreeing to meet me,” Leighton said, the courtesy itself putting Gresham on further alert. “I know today of all days is the worst time possible to interrupt your sleep, but I knew that you needed to hear this as soon as possible.”

  Immediately, Christian felt his whole body go on alert. “What is it?” he demanded.

  “It’s Viscount Linton, I’m afraid,” the other man said curtly. “He is missing.”

  Christian swore.

  “I had word this morning that Gunning and Hedley lost him,” Leighton continued. “As far as they could tell, he was snug as a bug two nights ago in the hunting lodge where he decided to take refuge. They retired to the inn where they’d been staying, and sometime in the night, the whole town was roused to help douse a fire in a local house.”

  “The hunting lodge,” Monteith guessed, his jaw tightening. He could have argued with Leighton over the wisdom of Gunning an
d Hedley not taking turns watching the lodge, instead of both retiring to their beds at the same bloody time, but it was clearly too late for such niceties now. “Was there no sign of him in the house? No body?”

  Leighton shook his head. “Nothing that they were able to see. Of course they aren’t sure if Essex himself set the fire, or if someone else set it hoping to kill him in the ensuing blaze. The important thing is that he was not found in the ruins of the lodge, so there is every hope that he is alive and well, and simply hiding.”

  Christian rubbed a hand over his forehead. “Yes, it is good that he is not obviously murdered, I suppose.”

  “Yes,” Leighton said. “And though I had the men watching Linton out of an abundance of caution lest he become the target of the Bonapartists, I agree with you that Tinker’s murder was likely the work of someone who blamed him for Fielding’s death. The threats against Tretham and Linton seem far more credible a reason for his murder than his involvement with the Bonapartists.”

  “It does seem unlikely that the Citizen’s Liberation Society would kill Tinker and then pass up the opportunity to use it to promote their cause,” Christian said with a sigh. “And there has been no mention of them in the press since the murder.”

  He rubbed his chin. “It is possible, however, that the CLS was involved in the death in some other way.”

  “Could it be that Tinker killed Fielding because Fielding learned of his involvement with the society?” Leighton asked, his eyes losing some of their fatigue. “It would be easy enough to spook a horse along the road to Bath. There are any number of places to hide. And accidents like that happen all the time.”

  Christian leaned back in his chair and thought it over. “I suppose it is possible,” he said. “Tinker would most likely not be pleased to have his affiliation with them known. And a loose fish like Fielding would hardly be the sort you’d trust with a secret like that. And, since he wasn’t involved in the race, Tinker would find it easy enough to tamper wth the curricle in hopes that it would crash in the middle of the race.”