The Earl's Defiant Wallflower

by Erica Ridley

  “It’s mine to give, and I want you to have it. Both of you.” Mama arched a brow at Oliver, but her eyes crinkled with humor. “It’s my understanding you lovebirds have a bit of refurbishing to do.”

  Oliver looked as thunderstruck as Grace felt, but he grinned back at her mother. “I believe the first improvement to be made is proper dowager quarters. Do say you’ll be living with us as part of our family. We dreamed of it even when we hadn’t a farthing.”

  “Well, now you’ll have plenty of farthings.” Grace’s grandmother put in. “Clara is finally home where she belongs, and I credit that miracle wholly to Lord Carlisle. I should have believed you sooner, Grace. If I had, Clara might’ve arrived weeks ago. Therefore, as our own wedding present to the two of you, Mr. Mayer and I will be matching the sum your mother gives.” She narrowed her steely eyes at Oliver. “But don’t go offering me dowager quarters. I still prefer my own home, thank you very much.”

  “Matching…” Grace could barely even choke out the words. “But Grandmother, you don’t even like Oliver!”

  “Perhaps not at first. But he helped me get Clara back. That alone is worth any price.” She cast Oliver a speculative glance. “Although, I’ll admit I knew there was more to him than met the eye when I saw his bare hands. Your grandfather had calluses just like that for many, many years. They may not be the hands of an earl, but they’re the hands of a man.”

  Grace’s mouth fell open, but not a single sound came out.

  “Now then.” Grandmother rapped Oliver on the shoulder with her walking stick and turned toward the manor. “How about that cup of tea?”

  Epilogue

  Grace awoke in the arms of her still-sleeping husband. She closed her eyes as she listened to the steady beat of his heart. Contentment washed through her.

  Oliver was hers forever. And she was his. Riches might come and go, but she would greet every morning for the rest of her life with the man that she loved. She could not possibly be more fortunate. A sleepy smile curved her lips.

  She had been wed for less than twenty-four hours, and married life already constituted the best days of her life. She couldn’t be happier. Her mother was safe and healthy. The Black Prince was back home with his family. And Oliver would finally be able to rescue his earldom from ruin.

  She snuggled against his warm chest and smiled with contentment. It had been hard to leave Pennsylvania, but now that she once again had everything she loved under one roof, the King’s army couldn’t drag her away from London.

  Oliver’s friends were doing their best to be her friends, too. The Duke of Ravenwood was even loaning them his private box at the Royal Theatre for the rest of the Season! She could hardly credit it.

  Last week, she’d been a penniless pariah without hope for the future. This week, she was the Countess of Carlisle with more family and fortune than she’d ever dreamed.

  She curled into Oliver’s warm embrace and held him close. He was more than she’d ever dreamed. Grace had come to England hoping for a miracle.

  Here, in her husband’s arms, she had finally found one.

  THE END

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  Did you know there are more books in the series?

  Join the Dukes of War facebook group for giveaways and exclusive content:

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  In order, the Dukes of War books are:

  The Viscount’s Christmas Temptation

  The Earl’s Defiant Wallflower

  The Captain’s Bluestocking Mistress

  The Major’s Faux Fiancée

  The Brigadier’s Runaway Bride

  The Pirate’s Tempting Stowaway

  The Duke’s Accidental Wife

  Other Romance Novels by Erica Ridley:

  Let It Snow

  Dark Surrender

  Let’s be friends! Find Erica on:

  www.EricaRidley.com

  facebook.com/EricaRidley

  twitter.com/EricaRidley

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  About the Author

  Erica Ridley learned to read when she was three, which was about the same time she decided to be an author when she grew up.

  Now, she's a USA Today best-selling author of historical romance novels. Her latest series, The Dukes of War, features roguish peers and dashing war heroes who return from battle only to be thrust into the splendor and madness of Regency England.

  When not reading or writing romances, Erica can be found riding camels in Africa, zip-lining through rainforests in Central America, or getting hopelessly lost in the middle of Budapest.

  For more information, please visit ericaridley.com.

  Acknowledgments

  As always, I could not have written this book without the invaluable support of my critique partners. Huge thanks go out to Emma Locke, Janice Goodfellow, Darcy Burke and Erica Monroe for their advice and encouragement. You are the best!

  I also want to thank my incredible street team (the Light-Skirts Brigade rocks!!) and all the readers in the Dukes of War facebook group. Your enthusiasm makes the romance happen.

  Thank you so much!

  The Captain’s Bluestocking Mistress

  Captain Xavier Grey’s body is back amongst the beau monde, but his mind cannot break free from the horrors of war. His friends try to help him find peace. He knows he doesn’t deserve it. Just like he doesn't deserve the attentions of the sultry bluestocking intent on seducing him into bed...

  Spinster Jane Downing wants off the shelf and into the arms of a hot-blooded man. Specifically, the dark and dangerous Captain Grey. She may not be destined to be his wife, but nothing will stop her from being his mistress. She could quote classical Greek by the age of four. How hard can it be to learn the language of love?

  Find it here: http://ericaridley.com/books

  Chapter One

  March 1816

  London, England

  Under normal circumstances, Miss Jane Downing would have been eager to alight from a chilly carriage and rush indoors for a welcome respite from the brutal winter. The exquisite building in front of the long line of coaches was none other than the Theatre Royal. The Duke of Ravenwood himself had loaned them his magnificent box for the occasion.

  Most debutantes—most anyone, for that matter—would have been in raptures at such an opportunity.

  Jane was not.

  She was old enough to be more properly labeled a spinster than a debutante, if anyone chanced to glance her way long enough to label her anything at all. She sighed. Unlikely. After all, the princely theatre box hadn’t been loaned to her. She was no one.

  But because even invisible old maids couldn’t gallivant about unchaperoned, her best friend Grace and her husband the Earl of Carlisle (to whom the box had been gifted) had driven in the opposite direction of the opera house in order to collect Jane and return to Covent Garden in time for the performance. All she could do was keep a smile on her face and do her best to be charming.

  The ignominy of her inconvenienced friends wasn’t why Jane wished she were elsewhere, however. Those were everyday trials. And these were her friends.

  Grace reached across the small interior to squeeze Jane’s hands a
s the wheels of the coach inched forward in the queue to the theatre. “Thank you ever so much for joining us. This is my first opera, and I am delighted to be sharing the night with all of my favorite people.”

  Jane gave Grace’s hands an answering squeeze. In situations like these, the best thing to do was to lie through one’s teeth. “I’m thrilled to be here. Thank you for inviting me.”

  She folded her hands back into her lap and wished for something else to say to break the renewed silence. She was adept at conversation when she was speaking privately with someone she was comfortable with. But she and Grace weren’t alone in the coach. Grace’s mother, Mrs. Clara Halton, sat to Jane’s left, gazing lovingly across the carriage toward her daughter. Lord Carlisle, of course, sat next to his wife, watching her as if the moon and stars paled next to her beauty.

  Jane would kill to have a man look at her like that. Just. Once.

  Lord Carlisle hadn’t stopped looking at Grace like that. Not since the moment he’d first caught sight of her. Jane should know. She’d seen it happen. From her eternal vantage point among the spinsters and the shadows, she observed everything. Other people laughing, dancing. Falling in love.

  Yet spending the entire evening with a newly wed, obviously besotted couple wasn’t what had her biting her lip and cursing her jittery leg. Jane was delighted for her friends. She loved spending time with them.

  She hated being out in Society. No—she hated being invisible in Society.

  Her friends wouldn’t understand. Before Grace had ensnared an earl and become his countess, back when she’d been penniless, gauche, and persona non grata for being an upstart American, she’d still caught everyone’s eye. After all, Grace was beautiful. With her white skin, black hair, and sparkling emerald eyes, she easily attracted the attention of men and women alike.

  Jane couldn’t even attract mosquitoes.

  It wasn’t because she was plain. Many plain women managed to be popular and find husbands. Not Jane. In four-and-twenty years, she’d only twice been invited to dance.

  Her dreams of finding someone were just that. Dreams. She smoothed out her skirts. It wasn’t the few extra pounds on her frame, or that she was an unrepentant bluestocking. Her lifelong curse was the unfortunate fact of being utterly, absolutely, one hundred percent… forgettable.

  Her head began to ache as the carriage wheels inched her ever closer to a long night of being ignored and misremembered.

  Even with all this snow and the serpentine trail of coaches, she and her companions would have plenty of time to mingle by the refreshments before taking their seats.

  Jane slumped against the squab. Mingling was horrid. Mingling was standing still in a sea of faces that never once turned in her direction.

  She turned her gaze toward the street and sat up straighter. A cluster of well-dressed gentlemen flocked toward a row of women strolling toward the theatre in stunning, bright-colored gowns. Courtesans. She stared out the window, fascinated. These men were hunting their next mistresses.

  Her nostrils flared as the men danced attendance upon the demimondaines. Some of the Cyprians were gorgeous and some were ghastly, but each of them would receive more male attention in one night than Jane would in her entire life.

  How ironic that the same gentlemen who had never thought to ask Jane to dance would gladly spend exorbitant sums of money in exchange for an hour in the company of a woman with less education and a worse reputation than she had.

  What must it be like to be one of them? These weren’t desperate, gin-addicted whores in some bawdy house, forced to accept every brute with a penny. These women were elegant and expensive. They could select their lovers as they pleased.

  Jane tilted her head. If she could have any man she wished, who would it be?

  A dark, hard-as-granite officer with haunted blue eyes sprang instantly to mind. Captain Xavier Grey.

  Heat pricked her cheeks. Of course he sprang to mind. He was all the ton spoke about, and one of the earl’s dearest friends. He had always caught Jane’s eye. Years before, when he was merely Mr. Grey, he had still been handsome and confident and the last person on earth who might notice the mooning gaze of a soon-to-be spinster. And then he’d left for war.

  Three years later, he’d become a hollow husk of a man, beautiful and broken. He’d remained locked inside his head until Lord Carlisle had rescued the captain from—well, wherever he’d been—and returned him to England, determined to give him back some life.

  The last time she’d seen the captain was over a month ago, the night Grace and Lord Carlisle had been compromised into marriage. He had seemed so… defeated. The ton was in full agreement that Captain Grey had miraculously awoken from his fugue that very night, but Jane held a private opinion.

  For him to “awaken” implied he’d been in a state of arrested consciousness, and she didn’t believe that was the case at all. Every time she’d glimpsed him, his eyes had been too tempestuous to imagine him unaware of the world about him. He just no longer wished to be part of it.

  Jane wrapped her arms about her chest and tried to put him out of her mind.

  The time to obsess over a strong, silent soldier with dark, haunted eyes was five hours from now, when she was alone in bed with her thoughts. Right now, she needed to focus on being a good friend.

  She gave her companions her sunniest smile. “How go the renovations on Carlisle House?”

  Grace’s eyes lit up. “’Tis only been a week since the wedding, so we haven’t purchased much—aside from furnishings for my mother’s chambers, of course.” She sent a fond glance toward her mother, then touched her fingers to Lord Carlisle’s chest. “I don’t care about chandeliers and fancy gowns. What we have is more than enough. I want Oliver to spend every penny on his tenants before restoring the estate.”

  “And I don’t want you to lack a single comfort,” Lord Carlisle responded gruffly as he pressed a gentle kiss to the top of his wife’s hair.

  Wasn’t that adorable? Jane clenched her teeth behind her smile. She wasn’t jealous in the slightest.

  No. This was going to be a splendid evening. She was fortunate to have been invited. This opera was one of her favorites.

  She pasted the smile back on her face.

  “What are your duties while Lord Carlisle handles his affairs?” she asked her friend. “I imagine managing such a large household must be a challenge.”

  Grace shook her head. “I thought so at first, but they don’t require much direction from me. Most of the staff has been working there since Oliver was a child. What I truly wish we had is some entertainment for Mama. The library is empty, and—”

  Lord Carlisle swung his head sharply in her direction. “I shall order a dozen titles as soon as the tenants’ roofs have been repaired.”

  Her chin jutted forward. “Absolutely not. You have other duties a hundred times more important than travel tomes and gothic novels. I refuse to—”

  “I have books,” Jane interjected before the fight could continue. “I can lend...” She coughed into her gloved fist. No. She could do better than that. These people counted their shillings, and she loved them dearly. “…that is, give you as many history tomes and gothic novels as you might like.”

  Lord Carlisle’s voice hardened. “We couldn’t possibly.”

  Jane made a self-deprecating gesture. “Your wife’s best friend is a bluestocking with more books than sense. You might as well get something out of the association.”

  Even if it killed her. She rubbed her suddenly chilled arms. Just the thought of losing any part of her collection left her empty.

  Every book, every story, was dear to her heart. For long, lonely weeks at a time, the only conversation she heard was the dialogue printed within those pages—well, that and the gentle prodding of her brother’s servants if she missed a meal. Books kept her company so often that she had a fair quantity memorized. Mansfield Park. Waverley. Guy Mannering. Her throat convulsed. Of course she would relinquish her dear
est possessions to Grace and her mother.

  That’s what friends did.

  Grace reached across the carriage to squeeze Jane’s hand again. “You are the kindest woman who ever lived. I will accept a loan, but not a gift. We shall return your books as quickly as we can read them.”

  Some of the tightness left Jane’s shoulders. “As you please.”

  The carriage jerked to a stop. Lord Carlisle and Mrs. Halton exchanged pleased smiles. Grace clapped her hands in excitement.

  Jane concentrated on making it through the night with her pride intact.

  Lord Carlisle helped his wife from the carriage, then his mother-in-law. When it was Jane’s turn to alight, she rallied her courage and forced herself up from the squab. It was just a Society event. She would survive.

  Once on Bow Street, they bent their heads against the bitter wind and dashed into the theatre lobby. Warmth enveloped them. To the others, the heat from the fireplace might have been welcome, but to Jane, it was her cue that she had officially entered Hell. Throngs of fashionable faces crowded them at once.

  “Lord Carlisle! Lady Carlisle!”

  “You look radiant, Lady Carlisle! Lovely to meet you, Mrs. Halton!”

  “I fancy you want your grays back, Carlisle. Their price has doubled, I daresay!”

  “Please say you’ll come to our dinner party next month, Lady Carlisle.”

  “Ravishing bride, Carlisle. I hear the mother’s a widow?”

  “Congratulations on your nuptials, Lady Carlisle. Is this stunning woman your mother?”