Loving the Earl: A Loveswept Historical Romance

by Cullen, Sharon

  “I’m certain he’ll thank you for rendering him unconscious during what is probably the most painful moment of his life,” he said.

  A low groan had her turning to the horses only to find the other thief neatly tied up, gagged and lying by the side of the road. Blythe’s work, she assumed.

  The carriage door flew open and Marie tumbled out, her mouth an open O as she took in the unconscious man at Claire’s feet. She squealed and stumbled to him. Dropping to her knees to gather him to her bosom, she cradled his head in the crook of her arm and rocked him. She looked up at Claire with narrowed, angry eyes, and French words spilled quickly from her.

  “What is she saying?” Claire whispered.

  “It appears your … maid … is in league with the thieves.”

  “Pardon me?” Claire looked at Marie, at the thief in Marie’s arms, then at Lord Blythe. “Surely not.”

  Mouth set in a grim line, brown eyes hard and unyielding, Lord Blythe nodded. “I’m afraid so. They would have taken all your possessions. God only knows what they would have done to you.”

  “But …” Impossible. Marie had been so sincere. Except Claire knew from experience that even the most sincere person could possess an evil side and hide it quite well.

  “I could ride back to town and collect the gendarme, but I fear leaving you with them.”

  “We can’t just let them get away with this. We have to tell someone.” Claire crossed her arms over a stomach that was convulsing in revulsion and embarrassment. Maybe Sebastian was right. Maybe she did need a keeper. Apparently she was too trusting when it came to her luggage and her life.

  “Riding back will take the rest of the day,” he said. “By the time I reach Calais, it will be too late to return. Do you want to wait with them nearly an entire day and into the night?”

  “No.”

  “And if I bring you with me we’ll have to ride in the coach, which will take even longer. Besides which, by the time we return, they will be long gone.”

  The man groaned and rolled his head. Marie, her voice rising in panic, looked up at Claire.

  “Besides,” Lord Blythe said. “I think you’ve punished them enough.” He winced when the man moaned and clutched his … nether regions. “We’ll leave them here. By the time your maid untangles their knots we’ll be long gone.”

  Was it her imagination or did he put particular emphasis on your maid? She couldn’t tell because he turned away to survey her clothes strewn about. “I’ll tie him up and move him to the side of the road with his partner while you collect your belongings. Then we’ll continue on to Paris.”

  His dark eyes assessed her. What must he think of her? That she was gullible? Naïve? Impetuous? All the other things her brothers thought about her?

  Wait. What had he said? Paris? “We’re going to Paris?”

  “That is where you were heading, correct?”

  “Um.” She looked away, unable to believe he wasn’t dragging her back to Calais and tossing her on a ship bound for England. “Yes. Yes. I was headed to Paris.” He wasn’t demanding she return home. She wasn’t quite sure how to take that bit of news.

  Claire folded her fingers into her skirts, looked at the man on the ground and her angry ex-maid, then at the coach, trepidation joining the excitement. Paris was still quite a bit away and Lord Blythe was going to ride all the way with her?

  An entire afternoon with Lord Blythe’s company. Alone with Lord Blythe’s company. Claire had never ridden alone in a coach with a man, save her brothers and her husband. And no doubt this particular man would expect her to explain herself. It’s what Sebastian would have done in that calm way of his that always had her spilling every secret she harbored. But wait. He had his horse. Mayhap he would spare her and ride beside the coach. She could only hope.

  She made her way toward her clothes and gathered them together, cringing at the haphazard way she shoved them in the trunk. It made no difference. She was going to Paris and that was all that mattered. Yet she couldn’t control her mounting unease.

  “My lady?” He stood at the door to the coach, so large he nearly blocked the entryway.

  Claire hesitated. Having finished collecting her belongings, she gazed at the two men trussed up and neatly arranged at the side of the road. Marie sat with her back against a tree, her lover’s head resting peacefully in her lap, her eyes shooting daggers at Claire.

  Her gaze moved to the coach and Blythe’s horse, neatly tied to the back of it. Drat it all!

  Blythe moved away from the coach door and lifted the trunk with its broken lid as if it weighed nothing. With the help of the driver, they hoisted it up top and secured it next to a valise that could only be Blythe’s. Claire took the opportunity to scramble inside.

  She was staring out the window when Blythe climbed in, rocking the coach, blocking the sun and stealing the air from the confined space. He settled on the opposite seat, overtaking the entire front half of the coach. She flicked her skirts away and tried to breathe normally when her lungs screamed for more air.

  The coach lurched forward with a shout from the driver.

  “It won’t be long before someone spies your maid and her … gentlemen,” Lord Blythe said. “This road is heavily traveled.”

  Claire pressed her lips together. It might seem un-Christian of her but she didn’t care if Marie and her cohorts were never found. The thought of what they could have done to her and what she barely escaped made her want to shiver in revulsion, but she kept her reaction from Lord Blythe, not wanting to show weakness in front of him.

  She felt his eyes on her as he waited patiently for her to say something, but she didn’t. Couldn’t really. Not when it took every bit of energy to breathe. Why did he have to be so large and overpowering?

  To prove her point he stretched his legs out and folded his hands over his stomach, watching her from half-closed lids. He smelled of smoke and whiskey. His eyes were red rimmed and bloodshot and all that dark hair was mussed. Claire sniffed and turned her head, willing herself not to be intimidated.

  It was all well and good to speak her mind when outside among a crowd, and when she assumed she wouldn’t see him again. But being cramped in the carriage with him all alone drained her bravado.

  How far off was Paris?

  Chapter Six

  Claire was clearly uncomfortable riding in the same coach as him. What happened to her spunk? What happened to the chit who took down the miscreant with a knee to the groin? Nathan shifted, wincing at the pain the man had to be in.

  Not that he felt bad for him. The thief received his just reward for trying to rob Claire.

  When Nathan rode up on the scene a fury like he’d never felt before gripped him. Fury at the highwaymen for daring to rob her and fury at Sebastian for foisting Claire on him. He had a feeling Sebastian made a career of securing backup plans for his wayward sister.

  By the time Nathan had jumped off his horse, Claire had the first highwayman in hand and he had neatly taken down the second. He bit back a grin, inordinately proud of her—much to his confusion.

  From beneath half-closed lids, he watched her. Her face was set, her small hands balled into fists in her lap, scrunching the pleats of her traveling gown. Her head was turned toward the window, her shoulders rigid. As the silence dragged on, the tension between them grew with each lurch of the carriage wheels.

  He tried to recall everything he knew about Claire Hartford, née Addison, but nothing came to mind save the fact that at one time in her life she’d tried to run away with a gambler who owed money to too many people. He’d visited only that one holiday while in school. Sebastian’s parents had died soon after, then Nathan’s father had died. There were no more days of visiting friends.

  “Are you hungry?” he asked.

  “No. Thank you.” She didn’t turn her head to address him, which irritated him.

  “It’s been a while since breakfast and we have hours yet until we reach Paris. Surely a short stop is called for.
”

  “I’m fine.”

  He couldn’t help but admire the curve of her cheek and the long lashes that fanned her emerald eyes. He wanted her to look at him for some odd reason. “Lady Claire.”

  Finally she glanced up, but only for the briefest of moments, which doubled his irritation. “Since we’ll be confined to this carriage together for the majority of the day, you may as well call me Claire.”

  A victory. A small victory but a victory nonetheless. “Thank you. Of course you may call me Nathan.”

  She smiled but it was an empty smile, more for good manners than anything else. It was as if she’d retreated into herself, and he didn’t like that. If he was to be “confined,” as she called it, he didn’t want a shell of a woman to converse with.

  “What happened to Alice?” he asked. “Was she too ill to travel?”

  Claire drew in a deep breath and he couldn’t help but notice her bosom rising, rising and rising until she released the breath. He pulled his gaze from the spot where her plump breasts rose above her décolletage, the image seared onto his brain. She was truly magnificent but he wasn’t so base to notice only that about her. Other aspects intrigued him just as much. Sebastian’s sister was a contradiction in almost every way. Strong, vulnerable, sassy. Vulnerable.

  “She never made it to Calais,” she said.

  “Pardon?” He yanked his wayward thoughts back to the conversation. “Never made it to Calais?”

  Claire shook her head, her gaze going back to the scenery outside the window. “She, uh, ran away before we boarded the ship.”

  Not only did she lie to him about her name, she also lied at the inn when she told him her maid had taken ill. Why? Did she fear he would send her home? Most likely. Which begged the question of what was so important in Paris that she had to get there without her maid? Yet when he thought of asking her about it, something told him not to. That same something told him to keep his meeting with her brother quiet as well.

  “And Marie? How did you come to be with her?”

  Her neck turned a lovely shade of pink that slowly crept to her cheeks. “She was to travel with me to Paris and connect with her family once there.” Her lips twisted in a rueful smile. “Apparently she was meeting with her family much sooner than I was led to believe.”

  “So what now?” he asked, unwilling to continue with the subject of Marie because he felt she was mentally thrashing herself enough.

  She looked at him in surprise. “Now? Paris.”

  “And where are you staying once you reach Paris? Where will you find a maid? I’m assuming you’ll look for another?” Nathan didn’t know any woman who could function without the help of a maid. Then again, there were many men he knew who couldn’t function without their valet. Nathan had never relied on his valet as others had because for a long while he couldn’t afford one. Once he could afford one, he had already become accustomed to dressing without one. But women were a different story. Besides, ladies didn’t travel alone, period. That she’d managed to come so far by herself was miraculous in and of itself.

  She looked out the window again. He was beginning to suspect she did so to hide the truth from him. If that were the case, then she was hiding a whole lot of truths. “Of course I’ll find another maid.”

  A beat of silence passed, then two, three. “Where are you staying?” he asked again.

  She bit the corner of her lip, an action he’d witnessed a few times before. He tried to decipher what that meant but couldn’t. The woman was a constant question in his mind.

  “Staying?” She looked down at her hands, discovered she’d been pleating her gown to pieces and smoothed the irrevocably wrinkled fabric.

  “Yes. Staying. As in lodging. As in where will you be sleeping at night?”

  Her eyes widened and that pink blush crept up her neck and into her cheeks again. “Lord Blythe! That’s entirely inappropriate.”

  “I gave you leave to call me Nathan. And it’s inappropriate to want to be assured you have accommodations for the night? Should I drop you off at the gates of Paris and brush my hands of you?”

  Her eyes moved to look at him but she didn’t turn her head. “That would be fine.”

  He smothered his spurt of irritation. “Have you ever been to Paris?”

  She narrowed green eyes at him, some of that spark he’d witnessed earlier returning. “No, I’ve never been to Paris.”

  “You still haven’t answered my question. Do you have a place to stay once you reach Paris?” If she lost her maid in Dover and procured a thief as a maid in Calais, what the hell was she going to do in Paris—a city fraught with every imaginable thief, swindler and con artist?

  She bit the corner of her lip again. Bloody hell, did she even have a place to stay?

  “Surely your brother wrote letters of introduction and lined up something for you?”

  Her back straightened and her small, perfect teeth released her lip. “Of course he did.”

  The carriage wheels hit a rut. Claire clutched the seat, swaying with the conveyance.

  “Well?” he finally asked, beyond entertained and now exasperated.

  “Well what?” Her eyes rounded in innocence, a look that no doubt fooled many a man, but not Nathan.

  “Where are your letters of introduction?” He forced his voice to remain even, to not display his extreme frustration.

  “Oh. Those.” Her gaze skittered to the window, then back to him. At least her hands weren’t scrunching her gown anymore.

  “Yes. Those. May I see them, please?”

  “They’re in my bag.” She looked at him with such extreme innocence that he’d be a fool to believe her.

  “And where is your bag?”

  She shifted those lovely lips again to bite them, realized what she was doing and stopped. Wide, green eyes blinked a few times.

  “You don’t have the bag, do you?”

  She shifted in her seat, her gaze darting around the carriage. “It’s awfully warm in here.” She fanned herself with her hand and blew a lock of russet hair off her forehead. Earlier her hair had been wound on top of her head but now it lay past her shoulders, lending her a youthful air, but also the tumbled appearance of a woman well pleasured by her lover.

  Whoa. Enough of those types of thoughts. They were confined in this coach for most of the day and he could not afford to think such things of her. Especially when she was obviously nervous around him.

  She released the seat long enough to tuck a tendril of hair over her ear. He leaned back and settled into the seat to keep from running his fingers through all that soft hair that seemed to glow like fire every time the sun’s rays hit it.

  “It’s perfectly comfortable in here. Where are your letters of introduction? Where is your bag, for that matter? I saw only the one trunk. What happened to the other two?”

  “I found I was carrying too much and condensed them.”

  A woman who admitted she’d overpacked? Unbelievable.

  “And your bag with the letters?”

  She swallowed and suddenly her shoulders drooped. She concentrated on her knees. “My bag is in Dover.”

  He wiped a hand down his face and blew out a breath, cursing himself and Sebastian for getting him into this mess. “With your maid.”

  “Not exactly.”

  Nathan looked at her sharply. “What do you mean, ‘not exactly’?” Bloody hell. This woman was one mishap after another.

  “It was … well … stolen.” She cringed, as if he were going to hit her, which unsettled him more than he would have thought.

  “So you have no letters of introduction.”

  Her gaze shifted, darted, landing on everything and nothing at the same time.

  “Out with it. What else aren’t you telling me? What else was in that bag?”

  Her fingers twisted the fabric again—twist, smooth, twist, smooth—until he had to force himself from laying his hand atop hers to restrain her nervous movements. He held back because he wa
s certain any sudden movement from him would have her jumping out of her skin.

  She swallowed and met his gaze. “Just a few letters. Some clothing. Writing utensils.” Looking away she muttered something else.

  Nathan leaned forward. “Pardon me? I didn’t hear the last thing you said.”

  She sighed, a huge, gusty sound that would have rocked the coach if it weren’t already rocking. “My banknotes. The letters from Sebastian’s bank.”

  “Hell and damnation!” Nathan yelled, causing her to shrink into the corner.

  Never in his life had anyone burrowed beneath his calm exterior to get to him like this. That this woman had, in such a short time, was inconceivable and remarkable. He wanted to wring her neck.

  She had no money, no contacts in Paris. Nothing.

  Save him.

  Chapter Seven

  Out of the corner of her eye, Claire watched Nathan remove a silver flask from his coat pocket and drink from it. He sighed, cradled the flask in his hands and stared out the window. By the set of his shoulders and the tightness of his lips she knew she irritated him. More than likely she infuriated him.

  He hadn’t expected to be saddled with a woman on his journey. A woman who lost her money and her letters of invitation, and oh, yes, two maids.

  “I can secure lodgings on my own.”

  His gaze moved slowly to hers. He hadn’t shaved in a few days. His cheeks and jaw were covered in dark, bristly stubble. His cravat was gone, the top of his shirt unbuttoned, his waistcoat unbuttoned as well. Claire flicked her gaze away, but wasn’t strong-willed enough to keep it away. Never before had she been in the presence of a man in such dishabille. With the exception of her late husband, of course. However, Richard’s naked throat never inspired such emotion in her as Blythe’s did.

  “How?” he asked. “You have no money.”

  Her back stiffened and she bit her lip. Besides the revenue from the gowns and luggage she sold, she had money, but was reluctant to tell him so. Well, not real money. More like currency. Richard had bestowed lavish jewels upon her during their marriage. Mostly because he wanted others to think he doted on his wife when the opposite was true.