The Brooding Earl's Proposition

by Laura Martin

  ‘Luna,’ she called without much hope of being listened to. ‘Lu-n-a!’ she bellowed, although the sharp little creature was even less likely to come if she heard anger in her voice. ‘Wretched animal,’ she muttered darkly.

  There, she was right, she had heard a distant and excited yip, yip almost in reply when she called last time and she impulsively plunged into this wild and ill-kept wood after her. Luna even sounded a little closer this time; not as if she meant to come when she was called, but nearby was a lot better than over the hills and far away. Fliss broke into a trot, then a run when Luna’s surprisingly deep bark sounded ever more excited and closer than ever. She almost dared hope the little dog was tired of hide and seek and might come to her if she managed to get closer before she called her again. She tried to judge how long ago they had left Broadley Town from the length of shadows the trees were casting now. Which meant she was not looking where she was going when she stumbled over an exposed tree root. Flailing her arms to regain her balance, she knew it was too late to avoid the puddle of mud at the foot of the tree even as she pitched forward with a jarring thump and hit the ground so hard the breath whooshed out of her with a startled ‘Oomph’.

  Sprawled headlong in the surprisingly cold puddle that was still here even in midsummer, thanks to the lie of the land and the dark shadow cast by the mighty oak, her soft landing felt like a mixed blessing. Mud was soaking through her light summer gown until she felt as if she might as well have bathed naked in the awful stuff. She wrinkled her nose and fought a strong urge to gag at the stench of stagnant slime. Now she was filthy; lost and still without her friend’s beloved pet.

  Blinking back tears of shock and frustration, she gasped for air and made herself assess the damage to her limbs and body before she got cross about ruining every single garment she had on and still having to find her way back to Broadley and Miss Donne’s house in this sorry state. Apart from stinging knees, one or two bruises and bruised and grazed hands where she had tried to save herself as she hit the ground it could be a lot worse, she supposed philosophically. She was disgustingly dirty and sore, but at least nothing felt broken or sprained and she did not appear to be bleeding.

  A couple of choice phrases were out of her mouth before she could stop herself saying them as she rose very gingerly to her feet and felt every ache more acutely now the shock of landing in a morass had worn off. She recalled her sailor father muttering them under his breath when she was a girl and took a tumble when they were out on one of their long rambles through the Devon countryside, during what turned out to be her parents’ last-ever shore leave before his ship was lost. Even the memory of her mother’s fury with them both when Fliss innocently repeated his curses was a poignant reminder that her parents were so long dead now she sometimes found it difficult to recall what they looked like.

  She was not going to cry, though. Luna was still loose and they had a long walk to endure in this sorry state when she found her. Tears would not help to make any of it seem less of a challenge.

  ‘You will just have to brazen it out, Felicity,’ she told herself crossly. Excited yips from the other side of the great tree spurred her into prising herself out of the mud completely and stumbling on past the soreness and bruises to the urgent business of finding her friend’s dog. If only she could catch the horrid little animal, they could hurry back to Miss Donne’s house and get clean again. If she was very lucky indeed, nobody would see her looking so awful and smelling this foul.

  * * *

  Darius Yelverton had heard those distant yelps as well, but he was furious with whoever had let a dog stray on his land. From the noise and restless movements he could hear up ahead his best ewes and lambs felt under threat from it as well. Dashing up the lane in his still-unfamiliar workingman’s boots, he wished he had his army boots as well as his rifle so he could shoot the cur if it was playing the wolf with his stock.

  He hated killing anything after years of doing it for his country as an officer in Wellington’s Peninsular Army, but he was determined to protect his flocks and this precarious new way of life with his last breath. He had come back home after the ill-starred Battle of Toulouse a war-weary former infantry officer without much idea of what he was going to do with the rest of his life but, please God, let it not be fighting. Then Owlet Manor and its rundown farms had fallen into his lap like a miracle and he would fight even harder than he had had to in the army to keep it.

  He felt his heartbeat race with dread of what he might see and broke into a run, cursing the lie of the land, all this overgrown scrub and the high-banked stone walls blocking his view of his precious livestock. He reached the gate and heaved a sigh of relief; the sheep were milling about, calling in alarm as they clustered by the gate to get as far away from the noise of a predator nearby, but they were safe, for now. He had to catch that dratted dog before it got among them and caused terrible damage. The sight of their shepherd would have soothed the flock, but he was busy helping mend walls and fences so they could be moved closer to the house. Not being as quick at the job yet, Darius had volunteered to check on the flock for him, but as he was still more or less a stranger to them they did not quiet when he appeared. He really had to get hold of that yapping dog before it did them any more harm. It was a good thing they were not heavy with lamb at this time of year so at least they could not abort in their terror.

  While he might not know every inch of his land yet, nothing had prepared him for the fierce burn of possession he felt for this rundown but almost magical place the moment he had laid eyes on it. He was never going to let the tired old manor house and rundown farms go unless someone physically wrested them from him. If he could only afford to have both of his sisters living safe under his roof at long last, he would be a very happy man.

  Darius scrambled over the rickety stile and into the unkempt woods and wished he could afford a woodsman, especially when a bramble snagged his ankles and he had to stop and unwind himself from its sneaky barbs before he could hurry onwards. The noise of the confounded dog sounding almost hysterical with excitement now spurred him into a run as soon as he was free again. If the animal was after a fox it could get itself killed and maybe that would be good riddance to it—except he had seen too much death and wanton destruction in the Peninsula to shrug and pass by.

  Now he could hear the scrabble of claws as the still-unseen dog shifted to get closer to whatever was provoking it. Frustratingly the path snaked round a twisted old oak tree and he slowed down as his boots squelched into a dip he was surprised was still dank with muddy water even in midsummer. Human footprints and a watery impression of human hands not quite filled in by the sluggish mud said someone else had passed this way very recently. He felt a little bit guilty that someone had fallen into a near swamp on his land, even if they had to be the neglectful owner of the yapping dog he had been cursing since he first heard it in the distance. He really must get the undergrowth cleared and the ditches re-cut before winter, even if he had to do it himself.

  ‘Come here, you double-damned limb of Satan,’ an otherwise refined female voice muttered on the other side of the tree and past another thicket of brambles. The sound of more unladylike curses made him smile as he carefully avoided following in her muddy footprints and skirted the tree root that had probably caused her to fall into the mud in the first place. ‘I will string you up and carve out your liver with a spoon when I finally catch you, you triple-confounded spawn of hell,’ she told the excited dog in a sweetly coaxing voice as the noise of its scrabbling paws told him it had evaded her yet again.

  He rounded the bole of the vast old tree, then the brambles beyond, and got his first sight of the female supposedly in charge of the dog. She tried to outwit the sharp little terrier again and fell on her hands and knees as the dog sped past her and one of the brambles he had just cursed himself snagged her already ruined gown. He was fiercely glad she was too preoccupied to look up and see him staring at her
like a dumbstruck idiot. He knew he should avert his eyes, but he was a man as well as a former officer and supposed gentleman. Her buxom figure and wildly tumbling red curls would have forced a furtive second glance from any sentient adult male, even before her gown was sodden with mud and dirt and clinging to her magnificent figure like a lover. Now her lush breasts and hips were clearly outlined by a filthy and wet summer gown and she had no idea he was gawping at her, but he still let his gaze linger on a Venus revealed as if she was stark naked. In the middle of his own overgrown wood as well! He could still hardly believe his eyes. Even her back view was delightful. He fought to control his inevitable masculine reaction to so much feminine temptation innocently on display.

  She scrambled to her feet and darted after the small brown and white dog and the sight of her generous breasts moving under her mud-stained and lovingly clinging draperies had a fire blazing his gut. He was so fascinated by the sight of her—so blissfully unaware his darker male impulses were being stoked up by her far-too-revealed curves—that for a few moments he forgot he was a gentleman and gawped wolfishly while she darted about the clearing like a very dirty wood nymph concentrating all her efforts on the dog. He was far too fascinated by the way her lithe and slender legs contrasted with the full curves of her breast and those lushly feminine hips to take much note of the animal she was chasing. He had never seen a finer female figure in a so-called classical painting or naked in his bed and he urgently wanted this one in there right now. Except her accent had sounded refined and ladylike, despite her vocabulary, and she must have looked like a modest young lady when she set out on a country walk. That was before it went so badly wrong, as she had clearly been chasing the busy little terrier now darting away from her for hours.

  And he was behaving like a satyr. He should be ashamed of himself. Even if she was a relatively innocent country wife and not the single lady he fervently hoped she was, he owed her more respect than this. He would rather not lust after another man’s wife and he could not afford to keep one of his own on his current income and so many responsibilities to worry about already. Disgusted with himself for even thinking that if she was a country wife she might be fair game, he remembered the terrible violence against women he had seen the aftermath of in Spain. For a moment he hated his own sex—himself included—for lusting after a woman who had no idea he was watching her with all sorts of wrongheaded masculine needs and desires torturing his unruly body.

  Serve you right to burn, he told himself sternly as he turned his eyes from the tempting spectacle of a female so intent on the nimble little beast she was chasing she had no idea he was standing here watching her with such greedy eyes.

  Which is just as well, Captain Yelverton told Darius sternly. You won’t be fit to be seen until you put those ridiculous fantasies to bed. And that was not the right place to try to bury them, now was it?

  Darius argued with himself. By thinking hard of somewhere very cold and unpleasant and adding in how furious he would be if any rogue stared at either of his sisters so lustily, he overcame the worst of his animal impulses and decided to intervene before she woke up his inner devils again. Best take dog and woman by surprise, he decided, and calculated distances and obstacles like an artilleryman. Satisfied it was his best chance of success he made a dive for the dog next time it was taking evasive action and luckily he was right and he got close enough for him to catch it.

  ‘Got you, you little demon,’ he told the muscular little terrier now squirming in his arms in its desperation to get away from a complete stranger. He braced himself to be bitten and held the animal out by the scruff to keep its teeth as far away from his skin as possible until it calmed down. He had to respect whoever had taught it not to bite when seized by unknown humans and risked holding it closer so it would feel more secure as a reward. It settled into the crook of his elbow as if it was tired after a demanding morning and did a fine imitation of a docile lapdog.

  ‘Who the deuce are you?’ the muddy young woman demanded with no sign of gratitude. If she knew how much she had to be grateful for, she might be more wary about waking his inner devil while she glared at him as if she was wearing layers of respectable finery and he was intruding on her solitude.

  ‘Does this wolf in lapdog clothing have a collar and lead, or did you rely on...’ he hesitated for a moment and held the animal at arm’s length again. The dog squirmed around to lick his cheek as he tucked it back into the crook of his arm and a fine watchdog she was ‘...her ladylike instincts to keep her in check? If so, they seem to have failed you both rather badly.’

  ‘She didn’t bite you, though, did she?’

  ‘Well, no, but I dare say she would have liked to.’

  ‘Out of shock, not nastiness,’ she defended the little creature she had been cursing only seconds ago.

  ‘And unless you keep her under control she will be shot by an irate farmer. She upset my livestock with her wild barking, so you should either learn how to keep her under control in future or stay at home.’

  ‘I know she should be on a lead,’ she said, not very apologetically. He could practically hear her fighting with an urge to argue, then snatch her dog back and flounce away. For her to even know the language he had heard before she knew he was listening she could not be anywhere near as proper as she was now trying to pretend. There had even been a few choice phrases in French and something that sounded like very low Dutch to him, so perhaps the rebel under her skin was as fiery as her hair. That idea was too arousing for his own rebel body so he forced it to the back of his mind and tried to look coolly sceptical while he waited for a better explanation.

  ‘She is not mine,’ she admitted, looking a bit shamefaced now the shock of his words had finally hit home. ‘And of course she was wearing her collar and lead when we set out for a walk in the country. Maybe I did not fasten the collar tightly enough since she found it too easy to slip out of it when I was not paying her enough attention. Then she was off and away before I could grab her and I have no idea how many miles we are now from where we began. First she got on one scent, then another and here we are,’ she explained as if the full force of her situation had only just hit home. ‘Where is that, by the way?’ she asked almost casually, eyeing him warily as if she had just realised he was a man and they were alone together in the middle of nowhere. His legs were longer than hers and unfettered by sodden skirts so he would have a lot of unfair advantages in a chase, if he was that sort of ruthless, opportunistic predator. Lucky for her he was not, but she did not know that. No wonder she was looking at him so warily now it had finally occurred to her he was a healthy male with all the needs and urges of his kind in full working order.

  ‘Brock Wood,’ he told her shortly, after an unwary glance at her, then a hasty glare at the nearest bramble thicket. She had no idea her delicious feminine figure was lovingly outlined by dirty water and Herefordshire mud. Even where the finely woven stuff was drying out it threatened to plaster earth-heavy cloth against her body and mould it lovingly as a sculptor. ‘On the edge of Owlet Manor’s Home Farm,’ he added a bit more informatively.

  ‘I have not the least idea where that is,’ she said with a trace of despair in her voice that made him pity her situation instead of worrying about his own reaction to her delightfully outlined body. Somehow he had to persuade her she could trust him far enough to come back to the house with him so she could be fussed over and cleaned up by his sister Marianne before they took her home. Meanwhile he could fetch one of the farm horses in from the fields and have it harnessed to the gig, then he supposed he would have to drive her and her borrowed dog back to wherever she came from and try to pretend he was made of stone all the way there.

  He was not quite sure he had enough stone in him when he risked a glance at her again and she was still deliciously curved and utterly feminine, despite her unusual garnish of smelly mud and pond slime. Marianne could drive better than he could and she would get
this goddess in sheep’s clothing home before she had been away too long for anyone to send out a search party. Whoever she was and however innocent she was of blame for her current state, he still refused to marry a passing stranger to save her reputation. He had to marry money so that his sisters would have a better future than the ones they could expect if things went on as they were.

  Copyright © 2020 by Elizabeth Beacon

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  ISBN: 9781488065569

  The Brooding Earl’s Proposition

  Copyright © 2020 by Laura Martin

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

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