Meet the Earl at Midnight

by Gina Conkle

  He led her past the Chinese pear tree to her workbench. All was in order, if a little bare from her recent neglect. The undercurrent hummed between them, a silent reminder of what would pass between them. Edward’s eyes smoldered darker than usual. She’d become used to the sparks that flew between them. Comfortable in his domain, Edward leaned his backside on the workbench and braced his hands on the wood.

  “Do you feel ready?”

  “It’s what we agreed from the beginning. Nothing’s changed, has it?” Lydia planted her bottom on the high stool, facing him. “I suppose I need lots more lessons in comportment.”

  She gave him a cheeky grin, but couldn’t shake jittery nervousness. She rubbed her fingers, chilled at the tips from gloveless kite flying. Edward’s eyes, his face, everything was too intense. Did he know somehow what she’d done? The letters?

  “I was going to take you worming today, but that’s not the most romantic outing a man can offer a woman, is it?” He studied her with keen eyes.

  “You are if anything, a surprising man. Worming…” She laughed. “I was hoping to paint, really. I haven’t had the chance at all this week. The countess has been relentless, demanding all my time.”

  His gaze flitted to her workbench. “Yes, I see your pile of illustrations hasn’t increased. What about your promise to help me? Your recompense for snooping in my room?” His eyes turned fierce for a playful second of mock judgment.

  That incident seemed like it happened years ago. She fidgeted, making a study of her hands on her knees. She squeezed her eyes shut, about to blurt out the full truth of what she did, when Edward tossed what must have been his own theory to her hesitancy.

  “Lydia, what’s wrong? Is this about what I said over by the butterflies?”

  She breathed a sigh of relief. He didn’t know.

  She shook her head. She had to give him something. “The fact is I burned the illustrations—”

  “What?” He sprang off the bench.

  “It was an accident. I was cleaning my desk and tossed good pages in the fire with my mistakes. But don’t worry, the originals are here.” She turned and picked up a pile of his first-draft diagrams and illustrations, a pile about an inch thick.

  He grabbed them from her and shuffled through them, clearly needing reassurance that the originals were sound. He set the stack down and rubbed the back of his neck.

  “These are for my treatise on the Agathosma betulina. How far along are you on the pamphlet?”

  “Up in my room and almost done.” She touched his arm. “You know I’m fast. I can get them all done quickly enough.”

  “Good, because I wanted to publish the pamphlet before I left, rather than leave the work hanging.” He tapped two fingers to the bench. “I need you here every day without interruption.”

  With him standing so close and irked, she wasn’t put off by his bristling irritation. She found him quite appealing this way. A smile flirted across her lips.

  “I could say the same about you, my lord.” She let her voice drop, a lure for him to flirt back with her.

  “Ah, Lydia.” But there was no bite to him.

  She leaned closer, liking the smell of his soap.

  His knuckles grazed her cheek, her lips, and she captured his warm hand and kissed his knuckles. She’d burned those copies in a thin hope to slow him down, but that was a weak gamble on her part. He knew how quickly she worked.

  The other, bolder effort was what truly scared her. The letters. His seal. Her stomach fluttered unpleasantly when that deception came to mind. Instead, she shoved it away, ignoring it. Part of her wanted to explode and tell him, and part of her was scared what would happen. She held his hand to her cheek and shut her eyes, not able to bear the honesty that always shone from his.

  He brushed back strands of hair that fell about her face. The way he touched her, she could be a fragile treasure that he adored and would keep forever.

  “And so the red-hooded hoyden of Wickersham tames the Greenwich beast.” He dropped a kiss on her forehead, her hairline, and skimmed her temple. “Or the phantom…not sure which name I like most today.”

  “Jest if you must,” she said, letting her lips brush his cheek. “But people hold misconceptions about you because you fail to show your face in public. No one will ever know the truth.”

  He pulled away, but not with anger. He stood too close for that, and for the first time, something like consideration for that argument reflected in his eyes. What was it about intimacy that tore down barriers? The good people of Greenwich Park had laid out their arguments in the same vein to him these past three years, since he was first scarred. She knew as much, since all and sundry told her, as did Edward. He looked at her with a satisfied smile.

  “You know the truth about me.” And he kissed her lips, a feathered touch. “That’s good enough for me.” He pulled away again, and his gold-tipped lashes hovered over his topaz-brown eyes. “You really don’t see my scars when you look at me, do you?”

  That startled her. She reached up and stroked the cheek, knotted and shiny. Her fingers skimmed lower to his shirt’s neckline, where dark-edged scars showed. Lydia’s hand slipped just inside the linen fabric to explore enticing flesh.

  “I see a great deal, but not scars.” Her voice was low and throaty.

  The scandalous idea of sketching him without his shirt on made her blush, but he didn’t notice. She held that secret idea to herself as Huxtable came up the path, two buckets swinging at his sides. The gardener plunked the buckets on Edward’s workbench.

  “Are ye goin’ to sit there playin’ patty fingers all day? Or are ye goin’ wormin’, like ye said?”

  “We’re not going worming today, Hux.”

  The old man removed his pipe and twirled it at Edward. “Good, ’cause I wondered if I needed to teach ye a thing er two about courtin’ a lady. Draggin’ ’em through mud doesn’t work.” His bushy brows twitched over his rheumy eyes. “If yer not goin’ wormin’, what are ye doin’?”

  “Getting married. Today.”

  Twenty-one

  Whatever you can do or dream,

  begin it.

  —Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Sitting at Edward’s desk, Lydia twirled the quill between her fingers as she peeled back time to that summer of “firsts.” Every girl remembers her first kiss, her first love. Twelve summers ago, Rosalba Carriera, an old Venetian artist visiting the Duke of Somerset, was the first to take her talent seriously and teach her about art. That was the “first” she savored most until today.

  Today she would marry the man she loved, but the torture was whether or not to admit those feelings to a man who didn’t want them. Oh, he wanted her, all right, but not all the parts she wanted to give, and therein rested her dilemma. Bits of old wisdom played in her head: Mrs. Carriera’s thick Italian accent, textured by time, tutoring her in the discipline and beauty of drawing and painting.

  Art, like love, grows as much from what you put in as from what you keep out.

  Should she add love, the most nettling emotion to her evening with Edward?

  Now at his desk, she composed a quick missive to her mother, or tried to. The half-formed letter wouldn’t end. Instead, Lydia kept connecting art and love with sex and marriage, but without a completely willing partner in all aspects of wedded bliss, she was destined to be incomplete…a painting not quite finished. She needed him to stay.

  Late-day sun reflected the time ticking closer to the magical hour. Lydia dipped the quill in ink to finish what was meant to be a quick note.

  “Hello, miss. Surprised to see you here.” Mr. Bacon strode into the study with a packet stashed under his arm. “The kitchen’s all abuzz. You’re to wed. Tonight.”

  “Mr. Bacon.” She glanced up, distracted, as she added her signature to the letter. “Yes, tonight.”

  He must’ve entered through the kitchen, since no footman had taken his coat or hat. Sanford Shipping’s man of business was as comfortable moving a
bovestairs as below, moving with stealth and collecting information from both areas.

  “What’re you doing in here?” He set the leather packet on the desk and removed his black frock coat, tossing it on the back of the chair.

  “Writing a letter to my mum…ran out of paper at my desk upstairs,” she said, waiting for the ink to dry. “If a woman’s to enter the state of matrimony, her mother ought to know the day. I owe her that.”

  “One could argue much is owed you.” He settled himself in the chair and crossed one leg, setting his ankle over his knee. He balanced his cap on his thigh in a most informal fashion.

  “We all take care of our mums in one way or another.” She folded the missive, but when she looked up, he stared at her with his bright blue eyes, a penetrating observer. “I’m assuming you have a mum somewhere in the world?”

  A leading question, since Mr. Bacon was a mystery to her. The man always looked more pirate than businessman to her, but he had genteel moments.

  “We all come from somewhere.” He twirled one of his pitch-colored beard braids. “You seem calm for a woman about to attend her own wedding.”

  “I’ve got Lady E. and two maids upstairs to worry for me.” She smiled and held the sealing wax over a candle, not focusing on Mr. Bacon. “They’re all aflutter over what I’m to wear. I had to escape the feminine excess.”

  Believing the conversation done, she concentrated on the task of closing the letter and stamping Edward’s seal to the back. But Sanford Shipping’s man of business rumbled from across the desk once more.

  “Don’t let them change you. Edward needs you just as you are.”

  Lydia took a good look at the man across the desk, the man by all accounts Edward would surely call one of his dearest friends. Jet-black hair had begun to sprout from his pate, less than an inch, but clearly he was not naturally bald. His bright blue eyes stayed guarded but alert in every social transaction she’d ever witnessed him partake of.

  Why had she never probed into the mystery of Mr. Jonas Bacon?

  “That sounds like a version of a compliment. I think,” she said, smoothing her dark brown skirts as she rose from the chair.

  He stood up as well, a rough-and-tumble version of a gentleman, but a gentleman nonetheless. A thickly muscled man, he set cap in hand and stood tall. She gave a polite nod, about to retreat into mental preparations for the biggest promise of her life, but Sanford Shipping’s man of business wasn’t finished.

  “He told you about the scars.” Both his meaty hands clutched the cap as if he would wring it dry. “But I don’t think he told you everything.”

  “Barbary pirates attacked the ship in search of treasure, right?” Lydia stayed on her side of the desk. “Is there more?”

  “We were not prepared for the attack, outgunned and outnumbered three to one,” he said, taking a breath to recount the facts. “They herded us below deck, but we could see from the hold.”

  “Edward?” Her hand went to her mouth, despite what she already knew.

  “No, the captain…” He braced his curled fist on the desktop and leaned closer. “You know how Edward dresses. They didn’t even take him for a third mate, that and his age. He was below, like all the rest of us.”

  “They took the captain, thinking he’d hidden something from them. The man was old. That was to be his last voyage, and then he’d settle down in some Cornwall cottage.” He shifted his stance. “Do you see what happened? Edward sacrificed himself for the captain…yelled he was the one they wanted…that he had a treasure map.”

  “Oh.” She breathed the word. “I can’t believe it.”

  “Believe it, miss.” He glanced away from her, but a sneer twisted his lips within his heavy beard. “I’d been running like a rat from my past, and here was this stripling nobleman almost a decade younger than me, willing to take on the world to save an old man.”

  Her hand slipped from her mouth to her chest. “That’s how you met? On that ship?”

  “Yes, I saved Edward’s life, and we’ve been friends since the day.”

  “How did you save him? I thought you were locked away and outnumbered?”

  Mr. Bacon settled his hip on the desk. “Getting in and out of places is a skill of mine.” His oak-solid voice finished the story, at least what he would tell. “The pirates were half in their cups by then, easy pickings, but damage had been done to Edward.”

  “I see.” She took a deep breath, but a hollow ache for Edward settled in her chest. “Thank you for telling me.”

  From the doorway, Rogers coughed into his white-gloved hand. “Miss, her ladyship’s asking about you. She wishes you’d finish your letter and quit dawdling.” He winced and turned a shade of scarlet. “Pardon me, but she bade me say those exact words. Said I couldn’t leave you until I escorted you to the red hallway.”

  Lydia and Mr. Bacon exchanged smiles.

  “I’m on my way.”

  Jonas gave her a curt nod. “Many ways he’s given me my life back.”

  His blue stare was strained and tense, but his message was solid.

  Give my friend his life back.

  ***

  “Of all the days to wander off.”

  The countess held court on the settee, fussing over her own skirts and venting opinions. Her ladyship’s work was complete. But Tilly and Simpson labored on with the countess directing the bride’s assembly.

  Lydia had been poked and prodded, cinched and pinched. She was dangerously close to being peacocked as Edward would say. Her sable-colored tresses had been swept high off her forehead.

  Tilly completed the picture by pinning jeweled stars at strategic points within the dark curls. The countess did everything in her power to visually transform Lydia into a noblewoman, everything short of powdered hair. Not that her ladyship didn’t try.

  When Simpson held the talc-covered puff, Lydia raised a staying hand. “No powder.”

  “Really, Lydia. You can wear powder if you want,” the countess fussed from the settee. “Even if he puts that in the vows, it’s not like it matters today. You’re not honor bound to obey him until after the wedding. And believe me, most women give those words a liberal interpretation.”

  Lydia rose from the dressing table. “I think this is quite acceptable.”

  “Oh no, miss,” Tilly gushed, breaking one of her ladyship’s cardinal rules of silence until spoken to. “You’re a vision.”

  “Thanks, Tilly.” Her blue-silk court dress not only showed a good deal of bosom, but shoulders as well. “His lordship’s bound to see lots of me up here.”

  She wanted to wrap a shawl around her shoulders, but the countess banished that practical item. The dress was severely plain, except for tiers of extravagant white and silver lace draping from her elbows. A twine of silver and white embroidery threaded a simple design up the center of the bodice. She took a tentative step, and the countess echoed in her head: head up, shoulders back, face forward…always face forward.

  “There’s lots more underskirts,” she said, looking down in alarm.

  The countess rose from the settee. “You’ll get used to that.” She stepped into the hallway, where she checked her own appearance and waited for Lydia. “Aren’t you coming? The vicar awaits us in the Dutch Salon.”

  The volume of fabric and a sudden sense of power made her hesitate. The idea playing in her head, delicious and powerful like champagne, was pure imp’s mischief. Lydia stroked her skirts.

  “In a minute. You go ahead.” Then she looked at Tilly. “I need your help.”

  Give a man his life back? She’d certainly try.

  ***

  “I can’t be sure if you’re happy to have wed me or to get a child on me.” Breathing heavily, she pulled away from Edward’s voracious kisses.

  “Both.” He pressed her back against the wall. His lips worked their way along her hairline down to her earlobes bare of jewelry.

  He worshipped those plump bits of flesh, spreading goose bumps all over her with s
oft bites and attention. That was the first part of her he undressed when they were alone in the vermillion hallway. Earbobs glittered somewhere in the sea of red. Bubbling over with euphoria, her head tipped back. She laughed when his mouth skimmed her neck, tickling her. Lydia needed him to lose control, craved it as much as she craved feeling him inside her.

  But others mingled belowstairs within earshot. The visual image of Edward finishing his hardly touched dinner played in her mind. Her new husband had barely got them away from the others when he began feasting on her. He had growled away poor Tilly when the maid offered to undress the bride. Instead, he wrapped Lydia’s arm possessively through his and took her from the dining room’s civilization. The beast would take the damsel to his lair and do the undressing.

  Faint celebratory voices floated from belowstairs, champagne poured for servants and guests alike. Now, inches from his door, she wanted to explode. Under Edward’s potent attention, the evening’s joy morphed into a slow opiate, seeping into her limbs. Kisses and roving hands stirred the brew that thrummed her veins. But, the precipice of being caught in this passionate state excited her.

  Lydia’s arm stretched out, as much to hold her up as to find the doorknob. All the better to get them to the right place to reveal her surprise. Sculpted lips pressed hers, insistent, teasing…demanding. His hands framed her face, and long fingers slipped into her hair, kneading and pressing. A jeweled hairpiece fell to the floor.

  “Your mouth,” he growled. “Open for me.”

  She opened her eyes. Edward’s eyes burned hot and black. Annoyed even. Her brain registered satisfaction to have upset his sense of order. Obedient to his command, she tilted her head back, needing the solid wood. Her lips parted, giving him that sliver of control over her. He groaned, eyes shuttering, and lost himself in her mouth. Yielding was its own kind of power. The beast, barely tamed a split second ago, ravaged her, wanting more.

  Her knees buckled. Fingertips dug into smooth walnut paneling, bracing her from falling into a puddle. Her mouth barely moved, receiving Edward’s unbanked fiery passion. His kisses, deep and passionate, sought and explored. His hands slid over her silk dress, circling her hips. Volumes of silk sang whispered music when he caressed her there.