A Wicked Way to Win an Earl

by Anna Bradley

  “No,” she answered after a brief pause. “I suppose I was once, before . . .” She stopped speaking for a moment, and her smile faded. “Now I try to be practical, though Lily would tell you I mostly fail miserably at it.”

  Alec didn’t like to see her smile disappear. “I think you must be whimsical still. With a name like Delphinium and blue eyes to match, you can’t help it. For that reason alone, you always will be.”

  For once he’d said just the right thing. She glanced up at him a little shyly, her face pink with pleasure. “What a lovely thought. You could even reconcile me to the name Milkweed, I think.”

  Alec looked at her glowing face and the same dull ache from last night lodged in his chest. He thought of her stricken expression when she’d fled from the garden three nights ago, the way the blood had rushed into her face and then as quickly receded, leaving her pale and unsteady. And again last night, in the garden, when he’d realized she was close to tears, and a pain so acute it was nearly agony ripped through his chest.

  If the gossips in London could be believed, he was a ruthless adversary—a cold, calculating man who’d stop at nothing to win. Who’d crush anyone who got in his way. Maybe he was that, and worse. More so since he’d become the earl. It had been a long time since he’d felt like the hero his sisters once thought him. But did that mean he was the kind of man who would crush Delia like a flower under his boot heel, because her name was Somerset? The kind of coldly manipulative man his father had been?

  What he was doing was despicable. No matter what kind of threat Delia was, it didn’t justify his low and dishonorable behavior. This was beneath him. Every time he thought about what he planned to do, his chest felt hollow and his gut clenched, because deep down he knew he was a better man than this. A better man than his father had been.

  And Delia—Christ, she didn’t deserve this. She was better than all of them. Better than Lady Cecil and the rest of the ton, and better than him, too. Not because she was a rare beauty, but because of everything else about her—the way she held her head high when the ton gossiped about her mother, and the way she challenged him with her every breath, when all the rules of society demanded she charm and flatter him.

  He was punishing her because she was too tempting. Because he was afraid he couldn’t resist her. When she smiled, he couldn’t help but grin back at her. Watching her eat an apple became exquisite torture because her lips aroused him to distraction. He’d ride miles out of his way for the chance to see her blush.

  He couldn’t do this to her. He couldn’t do this to himself, because if he hurt her like this, he’d be just like his father, and he couldn’t live with that.

  It was all an awful mistake. But maybe it wasn’t too late to set it right.

  Alec looked at the sky—it was still only about nine in the morning. If they rushed, they could be back at Bellwood by eleven, likely before anyone even realized they’d been gone.

  With sudden, jerky movements he gathered up the remains of their meal and shoved it haphazardly into the hamper. “I’m afraid we’ll need to return to Bellwood at once. I’ve just recalled some urgent business.”

  Delia stared at him, astonished. “What about your tenant? Didn’t you say you needed to see him today?”

  Alec knew he sounded as though he’d gone mad, but there was no help for it. They had to leave now. “I’ll send my steward out when we return. He can conclude the business.” He paused. “I’m sorry to cut our ride short. I promised you a tour of the western grounds.”

  “Another day perhaps.” She rose to her feet.

  Within minutes they had retrieved Thomas and were mounted on their horses. Alec squeezed Ceres’s ribs with his knees and the horse shot forward and tore across the ground like a bird in flight, back to Bellwood.

  Chapter Seventeen

  It was a quick ride home. Alec spurred Ceres to ungodly speeds, riding as if the hounds of hell chased him. Delia didn’t mind. She loved the way the wind whipped her hair and coaxed color into her cheeks. Athena surged beneath her, and she could almost imagine she’d sprouted wings as the horse’s long, smooth strides sent her soaring across the grounds. Alec rode just ahead of her, expertly controlling the gigantic black horse with his powerful thighs, his back straight, with the wind tossing his wavy dark hair.

  It had been a glorious ride. A glorious morning.

  She looked up when they reached Bellwood, surprised at how short the ride home had seemed. Rylands, with the uncanny prescience of all perfectly trained butlers, had already opened the door and stood stoically waiting for them.

  “Hello, Rylands.” She waved gaily.

  Rylands bowed. “Miss Somerset. Lord Carlisle. Luncheon will be served at noon.”

  Alec drew Ceres to an abrupt halt. “Has my mother come down yet this morning, Rylands? The other guests?”

  Rylands shook his head. “It’s been a quiet morning, my lord. Lady Carlisle took her breakfast in her room.” The butler hesitated, then added blandly, his face impassive, “As did Lady Cecil and her daughter.”

  Alec merely nodded, but his body relaxed and the tightness in his jaw eased. “Very good.” He turned to Delia. “Thank you for your company this morning, Miss Somerset.”

  Delia supposed this was her cue to dismount. She did so reluctantly, taking a moment to stroke Athena’s neck and murmur to her. She glanced shyly up at Alec, about to thank him for the wonderful ride, but before she could say a word, he gathered Athena’s reins, gave her a cursory nod, and trotted off to the stables.

  Delia watched him go. She felt vaguely dissatisfied, though she couldn’t have said why.

  She hurried up the stairs to her bedchamber to dress, and found Lily sitting in front of the mirror, puzzling over which ribbon best matched her gown. Delia gazed at her sister’s reflection and smiled. Lily’s cheeks were pink and the dark circles under her eyes had faded.

  “The white one.” Delia hurried into the room and discarded her hat on the bed.

  “Goodness, Delia. Where have you been? Off on a ride? You’d best hurry; it’s nearly time for luncheon.” Lily turned away from the mirror and eyed Delia with curiosity.

  “Blast! I left my hat ribbons in Thomas’s saddlebag.”

  The wind had loosened the silk ribbons on her riding hat. Fortunately she’d noticed it and she’d given the ribbons to Thomas, who’d tucked them into his saddlebag for safekeeping.

  “You look as if you rode home without a hat altogether. It would explain your hair.” Lily turned back to the glass and gave her own perfectly arranged hair a complacent pat.

  Delia reached up to touch her hair and groaned. She didn’t need to look in the glass to know it was a mass of tangles. “It’ll take me ages to brush it out. Do you suppose I could retrieve the ribbons after luncheon?” Her stomach gave a hopeful growl.

  “If you forget and the ribbons are lost, Hyacinth and Violet will go mad.” Lily turned away from the mirror and eyed Delia sternly. “I wouldn’t blame them, for you’ll never match the color, and the hat is the best part of the costume.”

  “Blast,” Delia repeated, this time with resignation. “I’m going.” She was already halfway out the door.

  “If you hurry back, I’ll help you with your hair!” Lily called out, just as Delia closed the door behind her.

  “Help me indeed,” she muttered, taking the stairs at a near run. “If you really wanted to help, you’d go down to the stables with your perfect hair and fetch the ribbons for me.”

  Rylands saw her bolting down the stairs and opened the front door. “Luncheon is served at noon,” he repeated as Delia flew out the door and ran in the direction of the stables.

  “I know, Rylands. I know!” she called over her shoulder. She couldn’t be sure, but she thought she heard the butler sigh heavily.

  She arrived at the stable doors and was about to hurry in when she heard raised ma
le voices coming from inside. She paused, not sure what to do. She didn’t want to interrupt, but—

  “. . . don’t know what the hell you think you’re doing, Alec, sneaking around last night and then disappearing for the entire morning today!”

  It was Robyn Sutherland’s voice, and he sounded furious. Delia let out a long, quiet breath. The ribbons would have to wait. She couldn’t barge into the stables in the middle of an argument.

  “You don’t need to know, Robyn.” Alec’s voice was cold. “It’s only necessary I do. And I hardly disappeared with Miss Somerset.”

  Delia froze. Were they arguing about her? She instinctively drew closer to the stables, into the deeper shadows at the side of the building.

  “Oh, I’m sure you do know just what you’re doing, Alec—you always do. But I find myself wondering what you could have to gain by spending the morning alone with her, without a chaperone.”

  “Thomas was with us the entire time.” Alec’s voice sounded strained.

  “A servant! Not quite the same as a proper escort, is it, Alec? Rather like Major Lytton at dinner last night. You were careful to make sure no one overheard that conversation.”

  “Have you taken your eyes off her even once since she arrived, Robyn? You seem to be watching her very closely.”

  “Not as closely as you are,” Robyn snapped. “And now everyone else is watching her, too, brother, since you’ve exposed her to their notice with your pointed attentions.”

  “If she didn’t want to be noticed, she should have stayed in Surrey. Would to God she had,” Alec added in a dark voice, as if to himself.

  Delia wrapped her arms around herself and squeezed. The wind had picked up, hadn’t it? She shivered and pressed her back against the stable wall. If she pressed hard enough, maybe she’d disappear.

  Robyn gave an angry snort. “What are you talking about? Why shouldn’t she be here?”

  “She doesn’t belong here. You know it’s true, Robyn. Even Miss Somerset knows it, naïve as she is.”

  Delia’s throat went tight when she thought of the rush of pleasure she’d felt just this morning when Alec said she was as accomplished as any young lady of the ton. He hadn’t meant it, then. Her heart throbbed with misery. God, she was such a fool to believe she could ever belong here.

  Robyn’s voice had gone very low. Delia didn’t want to hear anymore, but still she found herself straining to make out his words.

  “I see.” But Robyn sounded as if he didn’t see. Not at all. “Perhaps we should clarify your objection, Alec. Is it her behavior you find offensive? Her manners? Her conversation? In what way does she fall short of your lofty expectations?”

  “There’s nothing wrong with the girl’s behavior.”

  Delia had never heard the word girl sound like such an insult before. Alec’s tone was utterly dismissive.

  Robyn must have thought so, too, for his voice had gone as cold as the wind that clamped its icy hand on Delia’s neck. “What’s this all about, Alec? You can’t mean you object to her simply because of her birth?”

  There was a pause. Delia clenched her hands so tightly her nails dug into her palms, but she didn’t notice the sting. Her whole body had gone numb.

  “Simple? If only it were.” It sounded as if Alec’s calm demeanor was crumbling. “But it goes way beyond that. Delia Somerset’s father was a nobody, and her mother was at the center of a scandal that humiliated our family. Their own grandmother, Lady Chase, doesn’t even acknowledge them. Do you think the ton will welcome her into society when her own grandmother has rejected her?”

  “I didn’t think of the ton at all when I urged Charlotte and Eleanor to invite her here,” Robyn said. “I thought only that she’s charming, and our sisters’ friend. I didn’t realize you expect me to take the ton’s opinion into consideration every time I issue an invitation.”

  “I don’t expect anything of you anymore, Robyn. So it falls to me to point out the ton will be tittering over the Sutherland name in every drawing room in London if the scandal is revived. Do you wish to see our mother and sisters exposed to society’s derision again? Have you no family loyalty, Robyn?”

  “Family loyalty?” Robyn echoed faintly, as if he couldn’t believe what he’d heard. “That scandal is decades old, Alec! You can’t seriously accuse me of lacking family loyalty on the grounds of a house party invitation.”

  “Christ, Robyn!” Alec’s voice cracked off the high rafters and echoed through the stables. “Do you really expect me to believe that’s all it is? Anyone can see you’re besotted with her! You can’t take your eyes off her. You can’t stop thinking—”

  Alec broke off abruptly and there was a moment of tense, stunned silence, like the hush after a gun discharges unexpectedly. When he spoke again, his voice was tight. “I accuse you on the grounds you’re seriously pursuing her when a match between you is impossible. It’s out of the question, Robyn.”

  “It seems to me as though you’re pursuing her,” Robyn shot back. “I’ve hardly seen her since her arrival because you’re always alone in some dark corner of the garden with her, or off on some mysterious ride.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Alec replied very quickly. “I’ve been trying to keep her out of your way!”

  The sound of the flies buzzing around the stable door was deafening. Delia waited, motionless, nausea roiling in her stomach. Alec hadn’t been trying to seduce her, then. She knew she should be relieved. Thankful, even. So why did it hurt her so much? Because he’d gone to such great lengths to keep her out of his family?

  It must have been so odious to him to pretend interest in a nobody like her. But like the rest of the ton, he was a skilled dissembler. She’d actually believed he enjoyed spending time with her. What had he felt when he’d kissed her? Touched her? Tears stung the corners of her eyes. Had he imagined he was kissing and touching Lady Lisette instead?

  Finally Robyn spoke. “What if I said I was in love with her, Alec? What then? Would you encourage my suit? Or would the potential scandal be more important to you than my happiness?”

  There was a long silence. Alec’s voice when it came was flat, toneless. “Are you trying to tell me you’re in love with her, Robyn?”

  “I’m asking you if it would make any difference to you if I was. What if my happiness depended on her?”

  “There are other ways to get what you want. Perhaps if you took her as your mistress . . .”

  Delia pressed her hand to her stomach, directly over the chasm that opened there at Alec’s words. Oh God, she was going to be sick. She’d be sick and they would find her here, and they would know she’d overheard every awful, painful word . . .

  There was a furious snarl and then she heard what sounded like an angry scuffle. One of the horses whinnied nervously, but it ended almost as quickly as it had begun.

  “God damn you, Alec.” Robyn’s voice shook, and he’d abandoned any pretense at restraint. “Do you think Delia Somerset would consent to be any man’s mistress? Or that I would ruin a gently bred young lady?” Robyn was nearly spitting with rage. “You don’t know her at all, Alec. What’s worse, you don’t know me.”

  The nervous horse stirred for a few moments, then settled down into the stall with a snort. Delia watched the dust motes dance in the one remaining shaft of weak sunlight. Alec was silent.

  At last Robyn took a deep breath. “I wish I could say I don’t recognize you anymore, Alec, but I do. You’re just like Father. Just as cold and manipulative. Oh, you’re far more charming than Father was. You put a better face on it. But no matter how polished the surface, it’s still the same underneath.” His voice was quiet and final. “If carrying the title means being like Father, then I’m damned thankful I’m not the Earl of Carlisle.”

  Delia heard footsteps and shrank back against the wall, in a near frenzy at the thought of being discovered. When no one
appeared, she realized Robyn must have exited from the opposite side of the stables. At least she thought it was Robyn. It had sounded as if he had nothing else to say.

  She needed to get away from there as quickly and as quietly as possible, but she was trembling from head to toe and she didn’t trust herself to move. It would be a disaster if Alec found her there—

  She went still as a realization swept through her. It would be a disaster for him to find out she’d overheard his hateful words, but it wasn’t one for her. She’d done nothing wrong, except to choose a deucedly bad time to search for her ribbons.

  A pure, cleansing anger took hold of her at that moment, a glittering, frozen anger unlike any she’d ever felt before. She’d be damned if she’d skulk away like a common criminal. Before she could talk herself out of it, Delia stepped away from the side of the building and through the stable door.

  As soon as she saw Alec’s face, she almost regretted her bravery. His sensuous mouth was a thin, grim line. His fists were clenched so tightly on his riding crop, his knuckles had gone white, and he was deathly pale under his sun-bronzed skin.

  When he looked up and saw her, his face went even paler. For one fleeting moment her heart seized with pain for him. But then she remembered.

  Her own grandmother rejected her . . . Her father was a nobody . . . She doesn’t belong here . . . Perhaps if you took her as your mistress.

  Delia wanted to put her hands over her ears to shut out the words, but she knew it would do no good. Those hateful words would echo in her head for as long as she lived.

  Good. They would remind her never to be so foolish again.

  “All this time I’ve wondered why an insignificant, naïve girl like me should be fortunate enough to enjoy the attentions of the great Lord Carlisle,” she said in a dead voice. “At one point I even believed you were trying to seduce me.” She laughed a little, but the sound was hard and cold. “You’re certainly determined to keep my family’s disgraceful scandal from polluting the pure Sutherland name, aren’t you, Alec? How ironic,” she added with another near-hysterical laugh, “since I never remotely considered Robyn a marriage prospect.”