Never Dare a Wicked Earl

by Renee Ann Miller

  Hayden grunted an affirmation as he sat on the edge of the mattress.

  “Ah, I thought so,” the valet said, taking the crutches.

  Carefully Hayden swung his legs onto the bed and pulled the counterpane to his waist.

  “Might I get you something?”

  “No.” He wouldn’t admit it, but he was feeling bloody tired.

  Mathews inclined his head. “I shall leave you so you might rest.”

  “Has Miss Camden returned yet?” Why he asked he wasn’t sure. He should be pleased the woman was gone.

  “She has not—” A commotion in the corridor halted the man’s reply.

  A Saint Bernard the size of a small pony, weighing at least eleven stone, dashed into the room, dragging the butler in its wake. Hawthorne attempted to tighten his hands on the lead as the dog barreled forward.

  The animal lifted its head. Hayden recognized the big brown eyes and drool-covered mouth. “Dash it all! What is Lady Olivia doing here?”

  A frazzled Hawthorne dug his feet into the thick carpet, halting the dog’s progression. “A young urchin left her. I told him you would not want the beast. But he insisted Sir Harry felt the animal would be good company for you during your confinement.”

  Bugger it. “Return her to Sir Harry immediately.”

  “The boy said the gentleman has left town,” Hawthorne responded, inching himself away from the animal’s salivating mouth and overlong jowls.

  Good God, most likely a creditor was on the man’s tail. Why he stayed chums with the rascal was beyond him. Harry had few qualities to endear him, unless one had a penchant for gamblers, wastrels, and cads—the man had the illustrious achievement of being all three.

  Lady Olivia jerked her head sideways, sending a massive glob of drool onto the butler’s perfectly pressed trousers.

  Hawthorne groaned. “The boy said the animal must be walked four times a day or she makes a bleedin’ mess. Those are the lad’s words, not mine, my lord.”

  The dog jerked forward. A clearly startled Hawthorne released the lead. Lady Olivia barked, and with her tail swishing back and forth in an enthusiastic rhythm, she vaulted upon the bed, and began an affectionate round of face licking, nose nuzzling, and crevice sniffing—all to Hayden’s utter distaste.

  “Get me my pistol!”

  Hawthorne paled. “My lord, you cannot shoot her.”

  “I’m not going to shoot her. I’m going to bloody well shoot you.”

  The butler bristled and tipped his long thin nose into the air. “The lad shoved the lead in my hand and took off. H-he just left her. What was I to do?”

  Hayden scowled at Hawthorne and then at Lady Olivia. The dog lay on her back. Her tongue lolled out the crook of her mouth as she batted her eyes at him.

  Damnation. The deuced dog had always shown a strange attachment to him.

  No doubt, Celia would find the animal amusing, but what to do with the beast until she returned was beyond him.

  * * *

  Sophia arrived back at Lord Westfield’s residence before three o’clock—in time to bring him his afternoon tea tray. As she neared his room, she paused. The man was snapping orders at someone and cursing like a sailor. Hopefully, it wasn’t the new maid. The young girl, fresh from the country, stammered when nervous. Squaring her shoulders, Sophia rushed toward the doorway in hopes of derailing Westfield’s tirade.

  “Damnation, can’t you lie still?” he complained. “Olivia, get your head out from under my nightshirt, and stick your bloody tongue back in your mouth.”

  Sophia stopped dead in her tracks and eyed the open door ahead. Surely, Westfield was not entertaining a woman with his bedchamber door ajar. She shook her head. She must have misheard.

  She stepped over the threshold. Her breath caught in her throat. Westfield nudged at a long body completely snuggled under his bedding.

  “You unrepentant bitch. Stop licking my toes!”

  Sophia halted with the intention of stepping back out of the room, but Westfield peered up at her.

  “I don’t know how much Harry paid for her, but the man was a deuced fool. She can’t follow the simplest command, and she’s as large as a cow.” He scooted away from the woman. “She’s been here only a few hours, and I’ve already tired of her.”

  Sophia stood still, her gaze fixed on the tray she held in her hands. Thomas was correct. The man had no morals whatsoever, dallying with some tart while his door remained open. Worse, he seemed to have no shame with regard to the fact she’d walked in on them.

  Westfield’s voice broke into her thoughts. “Miss Camden, put the blasted tray down, and tell Hawthorne to get in here. Perhaps he can do something with her.”

  Sophia’s throat constricted. The butler? He wished the butler to have a go with the woman? If this was some indecent ploy to win their dare, he was close to succeeding. She opened her mouth to speak—to tell him what she thought of such moral depravity. However, at that exact moment, Westfield lifted the top edge of his counterpane to glare at his bedmate. “Olivia, stop pawing at me, or I’ll have your big hairy bum carted outside.”

  Sophia had listened to enough of his degradation. The woman, whatever her station in life, deserved more respect than Westfield bestowed on her. She slammed the tray down on the dresser, rattling the china. “You should be ashamed of yourself. I’ve heard men talk to their horses with more respect.”

  “I damn well wish it were my horse. Why don’t you get into bed with her and see how you like it? Better yet, I’ll have her sent to your room later, so you can spend the entire night together.”

  The only thing that would have stopped Sophia from responding would have been a catastrophic event, something along the magnitude of an earthquake or a flood. “Oh, you wicked man. You”—she scraped her mind for a word that would clearly betray her abhorrence—“vile heathen!”

  She opened her mouth to continue her fulmination when a long muzzle accompanied by a massive tongue poked itself out of the counterpane at the foot of the bed. Sophia clasped the wool fabric of her bodice and jumped back. “Good heavens, what is that?”

  Westfield stared at her as if she were a simpleton. “What does it look like? It’s a bloody dog.” His eyebrows pinched together. “Goodness, woman, what did you think?”

  “Um . . .” Heat flooded her cheeks.

  His dour countenance lightened. His eyes crinkled at the corners and a slow smile spread across his lips. He tipped his head back and burst out laughing. After what seemed like minutes, he swiped at the dampness at the corners of his eyes and sobered his expression.

  Folding his arms over his broad chest, he stared intently at her. “Miss Camden, what . . . or should I say who did you believe shared my bed?”

  Sophia swallowed. “Well, you called her Olivia, and said Harry had foolishly paid too much for her, so naturally I believed . . .” The tips of her ears burned, and she focused on the animal peering at her.

  “Yes, do go on,” Westfield prompted.

  She stepped closer to the bed. “I believe I owe you a grave apology, my lord.”

  Westfield opened his mouth, and she braced herself for his caustic reproach, but instead he asked in an intrigued voice, “My door is wide open. What manner of man do you believe me to be?”

  She gave a weak smile. “Magnanimous, sir.”

  Westfield grinned. “I’ve been called many things over the last several years; however, magnanimous isn’t one of them.”

  He tugged the blankets off the massive dog. “Lady Olivia, may I introduce you to Miss Sophia Camden?”

  The dog, the largest Sophia had ever seen, rolled onto its back and spread its hind legs wide.

  His lordship looked utterly disgusted. “No need to curtsey, Miss Camden. As you can plainly see, her ladyship is not a stickler for formality.”

  “Is she yours?”

  “Good God, no. She belongs to a friend. A soon-to-be departed friend, when I get my hands on him.”

  The dog’s long to
ngue reached out to lick Westfield’s toes.

  “Lord, help me.” He shifted his feet away. “Now, be so kind as to ask Hawthorne to come retrieve her ladyship. He has generously agreed to walk her at least six times a day, though he insists it need only be four.”

  Chapter Six

  The following day, the mantel clock in Hayden’s bedchamber chimed three times.

  In precisely fifteen minutes, Miss Camden would enter the room with his afternoon tea. The woman was as regimented as a general in the Royal Navy.

  A faint tap sounded on the door. It slowly swung inward, and Mathews crossed the threshold like a thief in the night. Hayden noticed the crutches in the valet’s hands and smiled. “Where did you find them?”

  “She hid them behind a tall cabinet in the laundry room.”

  The sly vixen. Last night, he’d leaned the crutches against the bedside table and awoken today to find them missing. When he’d asked his nurse where they were, she’d smiled with that wide, sensual mouth of hers.

  Hayden swung his legs over the side of the bed and tugged his nightshirt down. It was damn inconvenient wearing the garment. “Where is she?”

  Mathews tiptoed to the bed as if expecting Sophia Camden to burst through the door, rip the wooden braces from his hands, and strike the valet over the head with them. “She is conversing with a maid in the kitchen. She should be here shortly.”

  A laugh escaped Hayden’s lips. Perfect. He couldn’t wait to see the expression on his pretty nurse’s face when she found him up and about again. Balancing himself on his good leg, he tucked the crutches under his arms, and hobbled toward his private sitting room.

  He’d reached the doorway when a gasp sounded behind him.

  Damn, he wanted to see her expression, but turning around on these blasted crutches was precarious at best. He continued across the room.

  “My lord!” There was no mistaking the displeasure in her sharp tone.

  Mathews, the coward, squeaked and dashed from the room.

  Upon reaching the mahogany desk, Hayden lowered himself into the high-backed chair behind it. He tried to keep his countenance impassive, but the steady throbbing in his leg made it a difficult task.

  Hands on her hips, Miss Camden strode toward him. A rosy pink tinged her honey-colored cheeks. She looked lovely when irate. “Do you comprehend the damage you may be causing?”

  He pinched the bridge of his nose. She’d look even more attractive if she stood before him gagged. He opened the top drawer of his desk and withdrew some business correspondence that required a reply. “Madam, I have no intention of staying in bed all day.”

  “You are a most obstinate man.”

  “Then we are evenly matched, aren’t we, my dear?”

  The corners of her lips turned up a fraction. “Well, if you insist on this reckless course, at least elevate your leg.” She moved to the corner of the room, lifted a small chair, and placed it next to him. “Please, put your leg up on this.”

  The pain in his thigh was so intense he didn’t dare move.

  As if sensing his discomfort, she knelt, gently raised his leg, and set it on the upholstered seat. Almost immediately, the throbbing slowed, and all he experienced was the pleasant warmth of her fingers on his calf.

  Her head was right below his chin, and the scent of lemon and lavender drifted to his nose. He leaned forward and drew in the enticing fragrance at the exact moment she turned and peered up at him. Only inches separated her mouth from his. Her almond-shaped eyes grew round.

  This close, he could see her irises were a few shades lighter than her pupils. A deep, warm chocolate. The urge to brush his fingers over the texture of her silky skin nearly overrode him.

  He jerked back.

  Bloody hell. She was his adversary. He wanted to win the dare. He wanted her gone. Didn’t he?

  She scrambled onto her feet, looking as disconcerted as he felt, and tugged at the waistband of her white pinafore. “I brought your afternoon tea. It’s in your bedchamber. I shall bring it in here.”

  As she walked out of the sitting room, he leaned sideways to get a better view of the sway of her hips. He grasped the edge of the desk as he nearly toppled out of his chair. “Damnation, get ahold of yourself, old boy.”

  Miss Camden stepped back into the room. “Did you ask me something?”

  “No,” he grumbled.

  “Do you wish me to pour?” She set the silver tea service on the desk.

  He grunted an affirmation, and watched as her delicate hands lifted the teapot. Her fingers were long and elegant, and he imagined them sliding down his abdomen to his—

  “It’s hot,” she said, jerking him from his naughty daydream. She set the cup and saucer on the corner of his blotter. Her head tipped to the side and she wet her lips. A habit of hers that made the brainless appendage below his waist react. Thankfully, her gaze wasn’t on him, but on something on the desk.

  She bent closer. “I know that emblem.”

  He slapped his hand atop the parchment emblazoned with a Hereford bull and the name J. H. MASON scripted beneath it. “Do you mind?”

  “I do beg your pardon, my lord. It’s just that I see a great deal of crates and barrels burnished with the J. H. Mason mark at the Whitechapel Mission. Do you conduct business with the wholesaler and grocer?”

  “What concern is it of yours?”

  She pursed her lips. “I daresay it’s not. However, Mr. Mason donates a prodigious amount to the charity. And Mrs. Hamblin, the mission’s matron, says what he sends is of superior quality, not rancid like most of the other alms they receive.”

  He swept the correspondence up and folded it.

  “Miss Camden, Mason is far from a saint. He buys his goods in quantity, which in turn, allows him to procure them at a better price. Moreover, when he opens a new grocer’s shop, he immediately undercuts his competitors. Believe me, a man like Mason doesn’t reach the success he has attained without treading ruthlessly upon others. Indeed, if he is in possession of a heart, it is black at best.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “I beg to differ. Any man who is so generous to the poor and friendless cannot be without merit.”

  “If you met him, you’d disagree. Now, I have work to do, if you don’t mind.” He picked up a fresh piece of paper and started writing correspondence to his banker.

  “Is there anything else I might do for you before I go?”

  Go? His gaze snapped back to her face. “Where? I hope you’re not returning to that hellhole again.” His gut tightened.

  “Do you mean Whitechapel?”

  “Yes.”

  She smiled, causing those two dimples on her cheeks to make an appearance. “No, I was only going to have a cup of tea in the kitchen.”

  “Very well, I don’t need your coddling.” Yet, even as he said it, he had a feeling he’d sit here and wonder when she would return. Sophia evoked an odd dichotomy within him. At times, he wished to wring her slender neck and at other times, when she wasn’t about, he experienced a loneliness he couldn’t explain.

  * * *

  Sophia strode out of the private sitting room and into Lord Westfield’s bedchamber. Her black medical bag sat on a low mahogany dresser, and she rummaged through it. Alice, the chatty maid, was suffering with a terrible toothache.

  Ah, here it is. She withdrew a bottle of Dr. Young’s Soothing Syrup. Though not a proponent of the tincture, she’d give the maid a single dose to alleviate her pain.

  She descended the servants’ steps to the kitchen. Alice sat at a long table, holding the side of her face. The ginger-haired girl was as pale as a ghost.

  “You need to visit a dentist,” Sophia said. “I’ll give you a spoonful of this to ease your discomfort.”

  “Thank you, miss.”

  “Alice, it will only get worse if you ignore it. The tooth might become abscessed. There’s a dentist on the Strand. A Dr. Weber. He is most gentle.”

  The young woman swallowed the syrup and stood. “Mr
s. Beecham has already agreed to give me the afternoon off to see a dentist. Thank you, again, miss.”

  Still clutching her cheek, Alice exited the room.

  Sophia poured herself a cup of tea from the porcelain pot on the sideboard. As she sat in the now empty kitchen, she noticed the chef and Elsie, a kitchen maid, in an adjacent room washing root vegetables at an oversize copper sink. The robust Frenchman waved his hands in the air as he spoke to the young girl.

  This morning, instead of porridge, Monsieur Laurent had made warm cinnamon rolls and eggs for the staff. He’d acted irate at the additional work involved in preparing such a breakfast, but had smiled repeatedly as the staff oohed and aahed as they ate. Obviously, this change from the normal fare was Westfield’s doing. His lordship was a bit of an enigma.

  After finishing her tea, Sophia made her way upstairs and entered the bedchamber she’d been given: a lovely cream-colored room with a large tester bed with green velvet bedding and a wide mahogany armoire. Not a servant’s room, but the closest in proximity to his lordship’s apartment across the corridor.

  Sophia sat on the edge of the bed and touched her cheek where Lord Westfield’s breath had fanned against it, his lips only inches from hers. His blue eyes had stared intensely at her. For a moment, she’d thought he might kiss her. Her heart had fluttered in her chest. Was it all part of his plan to unsettle her? The scoundrel.

  A noise drifted up from under the bed, pulling her from her thoughts. She jumped and dashed to the far corner of the room.

  Something was under there. She prayed it wasn’t a rat. The beasts terrified her. She’d endured them when she’d first returned to London. They had infested her sister Maria’s tenement, scurrying about the dark recesses of the squalid room, gnawing in the walls, especially during the night. The recollection dried her mouth.

  She reminded herself that she was much larger than any rodent, and one must expect to see rats, especially in a city as crowded as London. Yet, already her palms grew sweaty, and her heart pounded in her chest.

  The noise sounded again. Louder.

  Sophia lifted her skirts, darted to a small gilded chair, and leapt upon it in a most unladylike manner. The delicate chair creaked, and for a terrifying moment, she feared it would shatter and send her unceremoniously back to the floor.