The Earl of London

by Louise Bay

  Students started whooping and cheering. Avril clapped enthusiastically. “She’s focused on expanding. She already has two other girls working for her. It’s quite incredible. She’s sixteen and two years ago, I worried she’d never hold down a job.”

  Logan cleared his throat and the laughter died down. “The second investment I’m going to make is to David Road’s newsletter app that condenses football news from all over the web for fans who follow the sport internationally. I’ve been impressed with the way David has learned new skills in order to make his business work.”

  “Yes,” my neighbor said in a loud whisper. “David deserves that. It’s so nice that Logan is giving more than one prize. He only committed to one every six months, but now he gives money to any idea that he thinks deserves it.”

  Who was this man she was describing? The man up on stage was nothing like the one I’d been sparring with all this time. He was generous and thoughtful. Cared about people, wanted to invest in something bigger than himself.

  How was it possible to feel so incredibly proud of someone who days ago I’d hated? What else had I assumed about him that I was wrong about?

  “I have one final announcement. I’ve never done this before for a Newham student, but her ideas during work experience coupled with the turnaround in grades and determination to succeed has meant that for the first time, I will have a Newham student working full-time at Steele Enterprises. Julia Simpson has agreed to come and work for me. She’s shown time and again her attention to detail and commitment to stress-testing the ideas you put forward. She’s attended every single workshop I’ve run at the school in the last two years and I believe she’ll be a great asset to my business.”

  If Logan Steele had announced that he was in fact Wolverine, I would have been less shocked. He’d turned my view of him around one hundred and eighty degrees. The man I’d agreed to go to dinner with wasn’t the one I was with tonight. I’d clearly misjudged him. Underestimated him. Logan Steele deserved my respect and admiration, and I planned to get to know him better.

  Eighteen

  Logan

  Had I upset Darcy by bringing her to the center? Irritated her because I’d put another engagement first? She hadn’t said much since we’d walked out. “Dinner?” I asked as I slid into the car next to her.

  “Sounds good,” she replied, her voice softer than I was used to.

  “Sorry, that was a little out of our way, but it was a commitment I couldn’t break.”

  “Of course not,” she replied. “I’m glad I got to come. Who knew Steele Enterprises invested in dog-walking businesses?”

  I raised an eyebrow. “It was the Steele Foundation. And I want to be encouraging. She was hardworking, organized and committed. That should be rewarded.” I fastened my seat belt as the car got moving.

  “I wasn’t teasing you—you did a great thing. It seems there’s a lot about you I don’t know.”

  “Maybe a couple of things.” It hadn’t been my intention to show Darcy what I did with my old school. I rarely spoke about it with anyone. Even my grandmother didn’t know the extent of my support for Newham Comprehensive. I’d wanted to take Darcy to dinner, but I couldn’t get out of the announcements tonight so there had been only one solution—to take Darcy with me.

  She didn’t seem horrified, and a part of me had wondered if she would be. By my background. By the state of the community center, by the scruffy and sometimes unruly kids. She’d grown up very differently to me—in many ways she was down-to-earth, but there was no way of getting away from the fact that she’d grown up at Woolton Hall as the granddaughter of a duke, at the ancestral estate.

  “And here I was, thinking you were all about money.”

  I sucked in a breath as I fiddled with my cufflink which seemed to be loose. “Don’t get me wrong. Money’s important to me. Poverty was the best foundation I could have ever had, and a huge motivator.”

  She shifted slightly so her knees pointed toward me. “I don’t get it, though. You’re an earl. At some point your family must have had money.”

  I pulled off my cufflink, which had broken. “My father gambled away all our family’s wealth very shortly after he inherited.”

  “I’m so sorry,” she said.

  I glanced out of the window, not wanting to see pity in her eyes.

  “Do you still see your father?”

  I shook my head. “Not since I was three years old. I have no memory of him at all.”

  “Three? Wow. That’s so young. Did he leave you and your mother?”

  I blew out a breath. I never shared this story. And people never asked. My money and power was all people saw. No one tried to dig under the surface. “My mother died when I was two. Meningitis.” I never cared that I didn’t know my father. I didn’t want to know him. But my mother? I just had a flash of a memory of her. A single snapshot of blue eyes and soft blonde hair, and it wasn’t enough.

  “Is that why he gambled? Because he lost his wife?”

  I rested my arm on the window ledge. “No. It was all gone by then, from what I understand.”

  “And so you went to live with your grandmother,” Darcy said.

  If it had only been that easy. If only my father had wanted to do the right thing by his son. “My grandmother paid my father to give me up, and Badsley was the only thing she had left that was worth anything. He sold me. Took his mother’s money. And she had to give up her home.” Even though I’d bought Badsley back, the wound hadn’t completely healed. My resentment toward my father would last my entire life.

  Darcy slid her fingers over the fist I had clenched around my cufflink and we sat in silence. There was nothing she could say that could make it better, and she knew it. And her touch provided comfort that I hadn’t expected. Finally, she twisted my wrist so my hand faced up. “I bet I can fix this,” she said, taking the cufflink from my palm.

  I wanted to tell her to forget it, to link my fingers with hers as we made our way to the restaurant, but instead I watched as she inspected the broken cufflink and then dug about in her bag for something.

  “It makes more sense to me now,” she said, “you buying Badsley, money being so important. Even the helicopter. Sort of.” She pulled a pair of tweezers from her bag and set about tightening one of the screws that had worked loose. “It’s like proof or something.”

  “Badsley’s not just a way of me making up for my father destroying his family. That’s a big part of it, but I enjoy being there. I like living in Woolton.”

  She frowned, but didn’t say anything. I wasn’t sure if it was because she was concentrating, or if she was skeptical that I enjoyed Woolton and Badsley.

  “Here,” she said, reaching for my shirtsleeve. “All fixed.” She slid the silver through the holes and snapped it into place. “Perfect.”

  “Thank you,” I replied.

  She smiled, clearly proud of her repair. “Have you done everything you set out to?” she asked. “Even though your father’s sins weren’t your own, you seem to have taken them on like they were.”

  “I’m far from done, but I don’t think it’s about just making money anymore. You using that article in the council meeting was…”

  Darcy winced. “I’m sorry. I did whatever—”

  “It was a smart move. You went for my Achilles heel. Takes guts. But that article made me reassess. I don’t want success for its own sake anymore. I don’t need it, and I don’t want to have a legacy of destruction. I want to build something of my own. I’ve always taken on other people’s businesses and improved them or sold them, but I’ve never built anything from the ground up. That’s what I want to do with Manor House Club.”

  She groaned. “I can’t regret that it’s not coming to Woolton, Logan.”

  “I know. And there’s an upside to me losing that fight—I’m sitting here with you.”

  The corners of her mouth turned up as she shook her head.

  “I mean it,” I said as the car slowed to a stop
outside the hotel. “Here we are.”

  I would never have called myself a romantic, but I’d wanted to do something special for Darcy. And I wanted her to know that dinner with me was something to be savored and enjoyed rather than tolerated and endured. As much as she clearly had money, her life didn’t seem to involve much indulgence, and tonight I wanted to be a little decadent, indulge her a little. I liked to see Darcy’s smile and I’d enjoy seeing her wearing it more often around me.

  I opened her car door and guided her to the hotel entrance, my hand on the small of her back. “I don’t know if you’ve ever been here before,” I said as we rode up in the lift.

  “To Windows?” she asked, referring to the restaurant at the top of the hotel. “I haven’t. I heard it has a wonderful view.”

  I nodded as the doors opened on the twenty-eighth floor. She stepped out and I followed. A member of staff held a tray of champagne as we entered the restaurant. Tonight was a risk. Darcy’s comfort zone would be a picnic in Badsley’s woods or a home-cooked meal made with products from the farm shop. But I wanted to push her a little. Make her realize that she might enjoy things she’d not properly considered. Including me.

  She turned to me when she saw the quiet restaurant. “Are we the only diners?” she asked.

  “I thought it would be less distracting if it was just the two of us.”

  “So you just hired out the entire restaurant?” she asked as if she thought it was the craziest thing she’d ever heard, but I couldn’t tell if under the shock she was a little pleased.

  I followed as she wandered farther inside. Floor-to-ceiling windows on all four sides of the circular room gave us the best view in London. “If you look into the distance, the countryside is right there. I thought this was the perfect combination of great food with rural views,” I said. “And it’s very glamorous. Which I thought would suit you.”

  “Are you serious?” she asked, turning to face me. “I live in jeans and if I manage to put a comb through my hair most days, I’m doing well.”

  I paused and pushed her hair behind her shoulder. “Sometimes, I think you’re scared of being beautiful. And perhaps a little frightened of letting go and just enjoying yourself. I thought we could both indulge a little this evening. And I’ll get to enjoy your beauty even if you don’t. This evening you look particularly stunning.”

  “I just have some makeup on,” she mumbled as she scanned the room.

  “Stop making excuses for being gorgeous. Have you seen yourself this evening?” I countered. “You’re beautiful with or without the makeup, but tonight you’re like a Roman goddess.”

  As I stepped forward, she tipped her head back. “You’re right. I’m a terrible compliment receiver, so I’m going to go with thank you.”

  I swept a strand of hair that had escaped one of the pins away from her face and a blush dusted her cheeks.

  Perhaps she didn’t think I was such a terrible date after all.

  “How is your cufflink holding up?” she asked, glancing down at my sleeve. Her fingers dipped under the cotton and against my skin, sending shivers across my body.

  “Holding,” I said. “You’ve always got a solution.” I met and worked with a lot of clever, independent women, and though Darcy had never set foot in an office, she was one of the most capable women I’d ever met.

  I smoothed my hand up her back and she blinked slowly and then stepped away from my touch. “Let’s take a seat,” I said.

  “But where?” Her grin lit up the room as she twirled around in a circle amongst the empty tables.

  “We can move with every course, if you like, to get a different view.”

  She shook her head. “It’s too much. But tonight, I’m going to enjoy it.” She chose a table overlooking Hyde Park.

  Although I knew money wouldn’t impress Darcy, I’d meant to make an impression by hiring out the restaurant. To go beyond what any other man had done on a date. As much as she would have dated wealthy men before, I knew the British aristocracy weren’t fond of extravagance—yet it was what she deserved. And I wanted to stand out to her, as she did to me. But I hadn’t imagined seeing such delight painted across her face.

  It was intoxicating.

  She wasn’t pretending that she did this all the time. She wasn’t trying to make me feel bad for being indulgent or even for bringing her to London. She was enjoying herself, just as I’d hoped. I’d never had so much fun with a woman. Never enjoyed someone’s pleasure quite so much.

  “You can see the Serpentine, even in the dark. Look,” she said turning to me.

  It was just possible to see the light catching the water of the lake between the parting of the trees in Hyde Park. “You can,” I replied. “And Apsley House, down here.”

  “Gah,” she said. “I love that place.”

  I grinned, enjoying that she knew it and loved it. “It’s my favorite thing to do in London. That huge statue of Napoleon at the bottom of the stairs? I love that Wellington kept his archenemy at the heart of his home.”

  “It’s an interesting way to deal with your nemesis, for sure. Are you going to install something at Badsley?”

  I chuckled. “No enemies. None worthy of a sculpture, anyway,” I said. She’d been my most worthy opponent.

  “I’m surprised you have time to take in the sights when you’re in London.”

  I took a seat opposite her. “I haven’t been for a while—perhaps you’ll take me.”

  “Take you sightseeing? I don’t think so. I’m a busy girl.”

  I couldn’t remember wanting to touch, stroke, connect with a woman, like I did Darcy. Being on opposite sides of the table created too much of a divide between us. I reached, brushing my thumb under her chin. “I like that about you.”

  She sat back in her chair and looked at me as if she were trying to see inside my brain. “Is this your general M.O.? With women? Dazzle them with this kind of thing?”

  The waiter placed napkins on our laps and left us with the menus.

  “No. Normally my M.O. involves no more than a drink and a compliment.”

  “Then why all this?” she said scanning the room. “It’s a lot.”

  “Too much?” Had I read her enjoyment wrong? Was this a step too far out of her comfort zone?

  “If this is what you think you need to do to get me into bed, then yes, it’s too much.”

  “You think I’ve done this so at the end of the night you’ll feel obligated to sleep with me?”

  “No, more that maybe you’re trying to…seduce me.”

  “I can’t decide whether you want me to reassure you that you’re different, or if you’re trying to shame my sexual appetite.”

  “Both, maybe,” she replied, tracing the edge of her glass with a delicate finger.

  It was the most honest answer I’d ever had from a woman. When I thought about it, Darcy was never anything but honest with me. She never dressed anything up, or paid me false compliments to ingratiate, the way so many others did. I’d never known her to say anything she didn’t mean.

  “Well, you are different.”

  “More of a conquest?”

  I liked smart women, but Darcy was something else. “I think it’s my default setting to see everyone and everything as something to be conquered. And with you it might have started out that way. Getting you here might have been partly me wanting to prove to myself that I could have what I wanted.”

  “Partly?”

  “There’s something I like about you that I don’t understand, but I’m here to explore it.”

  “But you can’t work out whether or not you want to sleep with me,” she said.

  I frowned. “No. I’m absolutely sure I want to sleep with you. If I’m holding back, it’s because I’m not used to knowing the women I fuck.” She deserved the same honesty from me that I had from her.

  “And that’s a problem because?”

  Clearly, she wasn’t averse to sleeping together, hadn’t balked when I’d been cl
ear about my desire for her. “Because sex is usually just sex. And sometimes I like the woman. Sometimes I don’t know her. But it doesn’t matter. Because I don’t need to know her or like her.”

  “No feelings involved. No awkwardness the morning after. Well, maybe I’m the same.”

  I laughed. “You want to use me for my body.”

  She looked up at me from under her lashes. “It’s nice, from what I’ve seen of it.”

  “I don’t think so. I don’t think that’s who you are. Not deep down inside.” I reached across the table and linked my fingers through hers. She shrugged at my response. She knew I was right. But she was even practical and straightforward about seduction. There was no hiding anything. Nothing unspoken between us. “I’m having a lot of fun tonight. What do you say we just take each moment as it comes and see where it leads us?”

  Any other woman and she’d be naked right now. But this wasn’t about sex for me. And her pretending it was for her was a defense mechanism. In the same way that she didn’t see herself as glamorous or beautiful, she didn’t get that I wanted to have dinner with her and get to know her. I wanted to earn it if it happened. And I wanted to deserve it when it did.

  Nineteen

  Logan

  I wasn’t ready for this evening to be over. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d talked so much. Listened so hard. Laughed so often. Dinner with Darcy had exceeded every expectation I’d had. As we pulled up at Woolton Hall, I stroked my thumb over our linked hands before releasing her so I could get out to open her door.

  I hadn’t even kissed her yet, but every molecule in my body vibrated with the need to pull her close.

  “Come in,” she said as I took her hand and helped her out of the car.