Loving the Earl: A Loveswept Historical Romance

by Cullen, Sharon

  “No. Well, yes.”

  “Yes, you’re visiting friends, or no, you’re not visiting friends?” His mouth quirked in a smile and Claire found herself staring at his well-formed lips before tearing her attention away.

  “I am visiting friends.” In Italy. She wasn’t about to tell him she had no friends in France. Lord knew what he would do then. Probably offer to escort her to Italy. Oh, good Lord, wouldn’t that be disastrous.

  She stopped beneath a wooden sign swaying in the wind that advertised the Admiral’s Inn.

  “Here we are, my lord.”

  “Lady Claire.” He snagged her arm to keep her from entering.

  Claire froze. She stared at his hand on her arm, the large fingers circling her bicep and her thoughts scattered in a burst of panic.

  Chapter Three

  Claire desperately tried to gather her scattered thoughts. She was on a busy street, in front of a busy inn. Dockworkers were unloading the ships and loading wagons. Vendors were conducting business not a few feet away, yet all she saw was Blythe’s hand on her arm. All she felt was the pinch of his fingers on her tender skin. All she heard was the breath rushing in and out of her in short pants as the panic settled in the pit of her stomach.

  She looked up into Blythe’s brown eyes. Eyes not consumed with rage, but concern.

  Suddenly a burst of anger shot through her. She’d had about enough of men telling her what to do, where to go, what to say. And she certainly had enough of men touching her. She wrenched her arm from his grip and poked a finger into his chest.

  He stepped back, his eyes widening.

  “Don’t ever touch me like that again,” she said softly. Power surged through her, hot and potent, and it felt good.

  She yanked open the door of the inn and stepped into the dim interior, blinking until her eyes grew accustomed to the darkness. The scent of meat pies hit her and her stomach growled, reminding her that she hadn’t eaten anything substantial in almost two days.

  Blythe stepped in beside her and she tried her best to ignore him.

  The inn wasn’t much different from any in England. A bar sat off to the right, tables to the left. Sailors mixed with gentry and shop owners taking a bit of tea. Serving girls hustled between the tables, carrying large tankards of ale and plates of food. Claire grew light-headed at the sight of the food.

  A man whom Claire assumed was the proprietor rushed forth with a wide smile.

  “Welcome, welcome.” He spoke in excellent English, half bowing, his hands clasped in front of him. “My name is Laurent. Do the lord and lady require a room for the night?”

  “Yes,” Lord Blythe said.

  Claire glared at him while he simply stared back with an expression that dared her to contradict him.

  “Excellent, excellent.” Laurent rubbed his hands together. “My wife, she is preparing our best room for our prestigious guests. In the meantime you may follow me to a private room while all is being prepared. You need to eat, no?”

  Even though the thought of food had Claire’s mouth watering, she stiffened, her gaze again going to Blythe. Obviously Laurent thought they were married and he was preparing one room for them. Blythe glanced at her with a heated look.

  “We will need two rooms,” she said, quickly turning back to Laurent.

  Laurent hesitated, looking from one to the other.

  “We’re not together,” she stated.

  “Ah.” The Frenchman smiled and winked at Blythe.

  “One room for the lady and a separate for myself,” Blythe said, then paused. “The lady’s maid has already arrived, I believe.” He turned to Claire with a raised brow. “What is her name?”

  Was it her imagination or was there a challenge in his tone? Did he know about Alice? She looked at Blythe then Laurent, who was watching her expectantly, eager to please.

  “Your maid’s name, my lady?”

  “Yes. Um. Alice. Her name is … Alice.” She wanted to close her eyes in despair and hopelessness. How did she ever think she would get away with sneaking off to France? Her plan had seemed so simple but was now disintegrating into one lie after another.

  Monsieur Laurent’s brows puckered and she could tell he was trying to recall an English maid arriving earlier. He barked an order to a young girl who was hanging back in the shadows. Immediately she scurried off while Blythe instructed the man about their luggage.

  “There is a small, private room this way, my lord and my lady. You may rest there while you wait for your lodgings and while I find the lady’s maid.”

  Claire followed the men. Her mind worked furiously to find a way out of the trap she’d neatly walked into. Laurent would return, inform Blythe that no maid had arrived and Claire would be caught in her lie. She hadn’t made it this far only to be put back on a ship and returned to England. And she had no doubt Blythe would do exactly that. Already he was taking his role as Sebastian’s friend too seriously.

  Laurent showed them to a small sitting room, made cozy by a blazing fire.

  “My wife, she will bring you refreshments while you wait.”

  “That won’t be necessary, monsieur. If you could please show me to my room. I’m quite exhausted from the journey and would like to freshen up a bit, then retire for the night.”

  Laurent’s brows dipped low. “But your room needs to be made ready, my lady. And your maid found.”

  Of course. She smiled at the little man as he bowed his way out of the room, leaving her alone, once again, with Blythe, who was leaning against the mantle and watching her with those intense eyes that made her want to squirm.

  She shifted and made a face. “If you’ll excuse me, my lord. I find the need to attend to personal business.”

  He straightened away from the mantle. “Of course.”

  With a smile, she slipped through the door and breathed a sigh of relief. She was away from Blythe. Now she simply needed to find Laurent. But first she opened her reticule and took out a few precious coins, dwindling even further her already short supply. She wouldn’t think about that right now, though.

  She found the proprietor in a far corner, his head bent, talking in low tones to what appeared to be a groom and a maid. The groom was shaking his head and the maid wringing her hands. Oh, dear. She had a feeling she knew what this was about.

  “Excuse me, monsieur.”

  Laurent’s head jerked up and a moment of panic crossed his face before he forced a smile. “My lady. What can I do for you?”

  She glanced at the groom, who was looking a bit sick, and the maid, who was near tears, before pulling Laurent a few steps away.

  “Monsieur, we both know that no English maid has arrived claiming to be ill.”

  His brows puckered and wariness crept into his eyes.

  Claire took his hand and pressed the coins into it, praying this ploy worked.

  “I find, due to unforeseen circumstances, that I am without a maid for the time being. I’m hoping you can help me with my problem. I am in search of a young girl who would be willing to travel to Paris with me on the morrow.”

  Laurent’s fingers closed around the coins and they disappeared as deftly as if they’d never been there at all.

  “Of course, my lady. I may know someone who would welcome such an opportunity. She has family in Paris whom she likes to visit on occasion. A few extra coins will help her family as well.”

  “Certainly.” Claire thought of the money left in her reticule then pushed the thought away. Once she reached Paris she would reverse that circumstance. “And of course, Lord Blythe need not know of any of this.” She gave him a warning look. Or at least what she hoped was a warning look. This subterfuge was entirely foreign to her.

  Laurent nodded and motioned to the maid still standing in the corner, frozen as if she were afraid to move. “Please show the lady to her bedchamber, Cecile.”

  Claire followed Cecile up the steps with a sense of pride and a bit of trepidation. What would Blythe think when she didn’t return
? What would Laurent tell him? As long as Laurent didn’t reveal the truth, she was fine. Tomorrow she would leave so early that Blythe wouldn’t be awake, and then she would brush her hands of the man and finally begin her adventure.

  Chapter Four

  Claire Hartford, Viscountess Chesterman.

  The woman Nathan was charged to look after.

  She was beautiful. Delectable, actually.

  His memory of her had been faulty. She didn’t possess brown hair as he thought he remembered, but rather a fiery red that fell down her back in a waterfall. And her eyes weren’t the snapping blue that her brother’s were but a soft green. She wasn’t young, yet she was far from old. She had a maturity about her eyes that spoke of life’s lessons. Not to mention a maturity about her body that heated his own.

  She said she didn’t remember him visiting their home all those years ago when he’d been a schoolboy. She said she didn’t recall that he and Sebastian were friends, but Nathan was a master at reading body language and he knew she was lying. What was the point unless she didn’t want him to know she had changed her brother’s plans? Then again, what did it matter to her whether he knew or not?

  And why give him a false name?

  The fact that she’d neatly evaded him this evening only reinforced the confirmation that she was hiding something.

  He made his way to the bar where he ordered a bottle of whiskey. He downed the first shot without even tasting it, poured a second and downed that just as fast. The liquid fire scorched his insides. He sighed, waiting for the effects while sipping his third.

  All he knew was that Lady Chesterman was safely on French soil and his mission was complete. According to Laurent she was tucked away in her bedchamber for the night, even though she hadn’t had the common courtesy to take her leave of him and thank him for saving her from the thief on the dock.

  “Blythe, lad, how are you?”

  Nathan turned to the voice and bit back a groan. Henry Phillips, Lord Burnbaum, was the last person Nathan expected or wanted to see at the moment. Of course meeting up with an Englishman in Calais wasn’t odd. The place was filled with them. Traveling to Paris via Calais was common practice and done daily. Nathan knew no less than fifteen who traveled on the ship with him. But Burnbaum? He bit back another groan.

  Burnbaum slid onto the wooden stool to Nathan’s right and nodded to Laurent. “Ale.”

  Nathan took another sip of whiskey.

  “Saw you on the ship,” Burnbaum said. “You were speaking to Lady Chesterman so I didn’t want to intrude.”

  Nathan grunted an answer. He didn’t want to be social, didn’t want to make pleasantries with Burnbaum. The man had been a contemporary of Nathan’s father and had been on the trek through the mountains the night his father died. Burnbaum was the only one who kept in contact with Nathan and his mother after his father’s death. It helped that Nathan allowed him in his gaming hell without calling in the debts he owed.

  “Tragic, that,” Burnbaum said.

  Nathan lifted a brow. “Pardon?”

  “The death of Lord Chesterman.”

  Ah. Burnbaum was still discussing Lady Chesterman.

  Burnbaum shook his head. “Such a bright future ahead of him too.”

  Nathan took another sip of whiskey, putting pieces together that he should have done before. Lady Claire had been wed to the famous Richard Hartford, Lord Chesterman. A favorite of the king, and popular among the ton. Hartford had never entered Nathan’s gambling hell so he knew little about him other than what he learned through the newspapers.

  “So what brings you to France, Blythe?”

  “Business.”

  Burnbaum wiped his mouth with the sleeve of his coat and smacked his lips together. “Thinking of opening a gaming hell in Paris, eh?”

  “Not this time.” Although the thought was intriguing.

  Soon after Nathan’s father’s death, Burnbaum had shocked society by marrying a French woman. It wasn’t the fact that she was French that had been shocking but rather that she was beautiful. Burnbaum was decidedly not beautiful. Short, compact, turning soft around the middle even back then, with a receding hairline and a perpetually red nose. The two had produced all girls, the oldest of which was now of marriageable age. Matchmaking mamas usually steered their little darlings away from Nathan, but there had been one or two who deigned to overlook his reputation in favor of his wealth and title. Burnbaum was the only matchmaking papa Nathan had ever encountered and he wasn’t exceptionally subtle about it.

  Blythe finished his fourth glass of whiskey and poured another. “You up for a game of cards?”

  “Not tonight.” Burnbaum’s lips thinned and Nathan smiled, recalling the growing debt Burnbaum owed his gaming hell.

  Nathan surveyed the inn, studying the men who he thought would be up for a game of piquet. Reaching into the pocket of his waistcoat, he pulled out a deck of cards and nimbly, mindlessly shuffled them. Burnbaum frowned at the cards and sipped his ale.

  Nathan needed the rush that only a good card game could give him. A rush that would erase from his mind those bright green eyes, the cheeky grin and all that red hair that he couldn’t stop thinking about. It’d taken every ounce of self-control to not touch it.

  Hell and damnation.

  He didn’t have time for redheaded sirens or their problems. He was on a mission to find answers to questions he hadn’t even known existed until a few weeks ago.

  He continued to shuffle the cards and ignored the urge to pull the letter out of his pocket to read it one more time. The letter that shattered his belief and turned his world around. The letter that told him his father hadn’t died in a snowstorm in the Swiss Alps as everyone believed, but possibly by nefarious means.

  He studied Burnbaum, who was looking around the common room.

  “What brings you to France?” Nathan asked, not because he cared, but because he wanted answers to other questions.

  “Visiting family, I’m afraid.” Burnbaum sighed in what could only be construed as resignation. “The wife and girls are already here but business kept me in England a bit longer.” Burnbaum’s face brightened. “I have a splendid idea. You should come with me to my wife’s family’s estate. We’d be thrilled to have you visit.”

  “Afraid I can’t,” Nathan said with no true regret. Good God, a holiday with the Burnbaums? He shuddered at the thought. “My business meetings will keep me in Paris.”

  “Too bad, Blythe. My Elise and Lady Burnbaum will be disappointed.”

  He was sure they would be. If Burnbaum managed to unload Elise, he had two more in line behind her. The man was desperate.

  “Tell me about the night my father was killed.”

  Burnbaum’s eyes widened and he took a hasty sip of ale. To cover his reaction? Because he was surprised Nathan would be so forward?

  He’d asked one other time and Burnbaum had been kind enough to give an account of what transpired, but Nathan had been a green sixteen at the time and he suspected Burnbaum had cleaned the story up for his benefit.

  Maybe cleaned it up too much?

  “Why go there now, son? ’Twas long ago and you’ve managed to save the family. No small feat, that.”

  Nathan shrugged, opting for nonchalance. How odd that he received a letter regarding his father’s death and suddenly Burnbaum was sitting next to him in a French inn. Yet not odd at all. Englishmen traveled to France almost as easily as they traveled to their country estates.

  Burnbaum sighed and stared off into the distance. “It was snowing and it was bloody cold. We opted to travel the smaller pass but I doubt it would have made a difference.” He shook his head and looked down into his tankard. “He was a good man, your father.”

  “Sometimes I wonder how a man as fit as my father managed to fall off a mountain.”

  “The wind was blowing. It was cold. We could barely see. It’s a different world up there in the mountains.” He pushed his tankard away and stood. “If you change your mind a
bout visiting my wife’s family, we would love to have you.” He paused. “I wasn’t just saying that your father was a good man. He truly was. His death was regrettable. A tragedy. Nothing more. Good evening, Blythe.”

  Nathan watched him go. Was Burnbaum trying to tell him something or merely attempting to give solace? They were the same words, or near enough, to what he said right after Nathan’s father’s death.

  Burnbaum was a quiet man who lived a quiet life. He managed to amass a small gambling debt but nothing compared to what others owed Nathan. He appeared in Parliament, voted conservatively and doted on his family. There were no skeletons in his closet other than he had been on the mountain the night Nathan’s father fell. And that wasn’t necessarily a skeleton.

  Chances were Burnbaum was in France for exactly the reason he stated—visiting his wife and children. And more than likely searching for a husband for all those children. Maybe he knew nothing about what transpired that night. And maybe this whole voyage was a dead end.

  There was nothing for it now but to carry on with his original plan and find the person who wrote the letter and find the answers to all his questions. If Burnbaum was involved, Nathan would find out soon enough.

  Unfortunately he was already a day behind schedule due to the ship’s late arrival. He’d have to make haste to get to Paris in time to meet the letter writer. If he missed this meeting there would be no second chance, and Nathan’s journey would end with his questions unanswered.

  He took another gulp of whiskey and eyed the bottle, thinking not of what drove him to Paris—as he should be—but of the gently swaying hips of Claire Hartford as she walked away from him on the ship. Of the luminous emerald eyes and the twist of those beautiful lips when she admitted she knew of him and his reputation.

  The whiskey suddenly turned sour in his stomach. Nathan motioned to Laurent, who hurried over. “Where can I get in a good game of cards?”

  “The Lady’s Mug, my lord. Always a good game going on there. And other things if you’ve a mind.” Laurent winked. “Best to go through the back door and down the alley. Three doors down on your right.”