Still gazing at his naked body in the mirror, Will was pulled from his musings by a knock at the door. Knowing that it could only be one person, he snatched his banyan from the bed and pulled on a pair of smalls.
"Come in," he called as he settled himself behind his desk and tried not to look guilty of anything more than preparing for the evening's entertainments.
As expected, his sister Anna swept into the room in a cloud of dark curls and deep, doe-brown eyes. She was clad in a low-cut, pale yellow silk evening gown, one of the few new frocks they had been able to afford this season. His late mother's pearls, one of the few heirlooms he had managed to hide from the creditors, encircled her slender neck. As dark as he was light, the only physical feature Will and his sister shared was the Davenport eyes. And those eyes of hers were flashing fire as she came to stand before him, hands on her hips, her lips pursed in obvious anger.
"You really are going to go through with this witless scheme, aren't you?" she huffed. Will watched the emotions race across her lovely face, everything from fear to anger to - Lord, he hoped not - disappointment.
"What I do or do not do is not up for debate, sister dear." Scowling, he looked up at her. "And how do you know what my business is about anyway?"
"Lady Frostburn," Anna replied crisply. "The woman really cannot keep her mouth shut and is forever spreading rumors, especially since she has everyone who will listen all but convinced you are about to become her lover. For hire!" Anna practically screeched those last two words. "You are simply fortunate that the gossip sheets, in particular Lady A. at the Town Tattler, does not believe a word of this outrageousness."
Will wasn't at all certain what to say to that. There wasn't anything he could say, really. Instead he shrugged. "Much of what you hear is exaggerated, Annie." That was neither confirmation nor denial and, as such, he could not be accused of lying.
"And much of it is not." Her face softened then as she took in her brother sitting before her, as if noticing for the first time that he was clad only in his banyan. From the look on her face, it was clear she could guess what he had been doing before she knocked. "Please, Will. I am begging you. Do not do this. It is not necessary. I can survive without new gowns."
Earlier in the day, Will had been forced to pay a call on Madame LaVallier, the dressmaker to the very upper crust of Society. The previous fall, the family's finances had been improving and he had instructed Anna to place a modest order with the renowned woman. Now, with the draining of the funds to repair the tenant cottages, there was no longer enough to pay the modiste's bill and he had been forced to cancel the order. All of it, even down to the last chemise. The whole nasty business had shamed him, but it had been necessary. No one in London would extend them credit any longer and he did not expect the dressmaker to break with the other shopkeepers.
"Survive yes, but succeed? No." Will ran a hand through his hair. "Annie, you know what Society is like. If you do not have the gowns and other fripperies you require, how will you ever snare a husband?"
"Any husband I desire would not care about such things," she retorted, but he could see a hint of uncertainty lingering in her eyes.
"Perhaps not, but you would also have to hope and pray that this fictional husband of yours would not be run off by Lord Winthrop first. The man wants you, Annie, and I cannot allow that fate to befall you. Yet I fear that in the end, the man will get what he desires if I am not powerful enough or wealthy enough to stop him. He will find a way to compromise you, knowing that I do not have enough coin to stop him from taking what he wants." Will stood, heedless of his current state of undress. "Is that what you want?"
"If you do this, will selling yourself to Lady Frostburn or one of her ilk provide you with the power, financial or otherwise, that you seek?" Anna countered quietly. "For I do not think that to be the case, Will. I think that in the end, you will lose your soul and gain very little in return. And I do not want that for you."
He spread his hands wide. "Then what would you have me do, Anna? For other than some ugly statuary from an artist that Mama was convinced was an untapped genius, we have precious little left to sell. Anything that was unentailed is already long gone." He gestured around his bedchamber, which was all but empty save for a few essential pieces of furniture. "I have stripped us bare, Annie my love, and there is nothing left to sell." He paused. "Save for myself. And I have a price on my head, whether I like it or not. A very steep one, it seems, that would go a long way to saving us. To saving you."
"There has to be another way," his sister insisted. Reaching out, she covered her hand with his. "Please, Will. Think about it. Just for a little bit longer until I can find some rich, handsome young swain to take an interest in me."
His dark eyes met hers and for one upside down moment, it was like looking into the mirror once more. "Is that not selling yourself, Anna? The very same thing you begged me not to do?"
She shook her head, her gaze never leaving his. "Young ladies of good breeding sell themselves on the Marriage Mart every day. It is expected, the way of things. Men do not lower themselves, or at least they do not acknowledge it if they do. That is the difference. You know this." She blinked once, then twice, as if clearing an internal struggle of some sort that he knew nothing about. "I can snare a wealthy husband, Will. I simply need time."
"And pretty gowns." He sighed wearily. Anna might be beautiful and determined but without a dowry, she was at a grave disadvantage. She likely knew this but refused to be deterred, her will often stronger than his. Then again, that was Anna. She always believed that her plans would prevail, even when faced with unlikely odds.
Now it was her turn to shrug. "Gowns do help," she allowed, "but they are not the only key to snaring a proper and wealthy husband."
"A sizeable dowry goes a long way as well," he quipped as Anna glared at him.
"Will," she grumbled, "I am not stupid. I can do this. Please. Give me a week. Make no promises to any woman who approaches you until then. Please. Promise me that you will not do anything foolish just yet. I do not want you to sell yourself for me. I could not live with that kind of guilt, nor could I ever be happy knowing that you destroyed your life to save mine."
There was a pleading look in his sister's eyes, one that Will could not ignore any longer. "Very well," he acquiesced. "One week. However if you have not secured at least one very serious suitor by that time, I will seek out a lover," he warned. He did not need to add "who will pay for my services" at the end of that sentence. It was, unfortunately, understood.
"Thank you." Anna breathed a sigh of obvious relief and it appeared to Will as if some sort of weight was lifted from her slim shoulders at his agreement. "I will save us, Will. I promise."
"We shall see, Annie. We shall see."
With a cheery smile - one she likely did not truly feel - Anna leaned over and kissed her brother on the cheek. "See you at the carriage in one hour," she said. "Do not be late. Lord and Lady Raynecourt's Spring Ball waits for no one. Not even the infamous Davenport siblings." Then she was gone, swirling out of his chambers the same way she had entered and leaving Will feeling even worse than before, something he had not thought possible.
He was the man of the house. He was supposed to provide for his sister. Now? She was going out into Society and doing precisely the same thing he had been planning to do. She was about to sell herself to the highest bidder. Only her plan was cloaked in the respectability of a marriage proposal and the belief that women were good for little more than decorating a man's arm and providing heirs to the title. Just because it was viewed as socially acceptable did not make what she was about to do any more palatable, at least in Will's opinion.
There had to be something more. A better way. A different way. He wanted Anna to know the love their parents had shared, that deep and lasting bond that formed from common interests. He wanted her to wed because she wished to and because she loved the man, not because he had the biggest bank account in England.
&nbs
p; Will wanted better for her than he would ever have for himself. That was why he had come to the conclusion that Lady Frostburn's suggestion was the only way for Anna to have all that she deserved in this life. He was the earl. He was the one responsible for cleaning up the mess his father's risky business decisions had created. That was his birthright, his millstone around his neck dragging him down. Not Anna's. He needed to be the one to sacrifice and sell himself. Not his precious sister, no matter how often it was done or how socially acceptable it was.
With a sigh, Will rose from his desk and rang for Aversely, his valet.
There was one thing his sister was correct about, however. There was a ball for them to attend. A very large one. One that was certain to be populated with plenty of wealthy Society women who had heard the rumors about him, many of whom would simply wonder if the rumors were true and a handful who would be brazen enough to actually inquire. It was those brazen ones he needed to meet tonight in order to lay the groundwork for what was to come. What he knew had to come.
For while he had promised Anna that he would not accept any proposals this evening, he had not promised that he would not field inquiries as to his availability or requirements for service. He would and planned to do just that. Not because he doubted Anna's ability to snare a husband, but because he doubted she would be able to find one of means in a week's time. She might be young and beautiful, but she was also penniless and unless a man was utterly smitten in a single glance, there was little chance she would have her promised suitor by the end of the week.
Therefore, the task of saving the Davenport family and the Blackthorne earldom still fell to Will. Just as it always had.
If that meant selling his body and his soul to accomplish that task, then he would do just that. No matter how distasteful he found the matter.
Chapter Two
Lady Miriam Bexley looked around her family's ballroom with a critical eye, assessing where might be the best place to hide for the evening. It was well known by just about every member of Society that "Lady Miri," as she was usually referred to, hated balls with a passion. In particular, she hated any ball that her family hosted. At a stranger's home with a stranger's servants, it was far easier to hide until the blasted event was over than it was in one's own home where everyone from the butler to the cook knew precisely where to look if she went missing.
In Miri's opinion, she had extremely excellent reasons to hate balls, starting with the fact that she could not dance. Well, to be more precise about the matter, she did not enjoy dancing. At least not in public. She knew the steps of just about every acceptable dance there was, as all young ladies of proper breeding did. Her dancing master had made certain enough of that. She possessed her voucher from Almack's so she could waltz if she wished - though she never did. In short, Miri had all of the knowledge and skills necessary to thoroughly enjoy herself on the dance floor.
The one thing she lacked to accomplish that task, however, were two good legs.
Born with a lame left leg, Miri had never been able to run and jump and play like the other children. Rather, she had learned from an early age to walk with a cane or walking stick. Because she was not confined to a wheeled chair and had learned to walk reasonably well, her family had assumed that, in time, such things like dancing would be possible. However no matter how many dancing masters her brother Brook, the Earl of Raynecourt, employed, Miri could never quite master the art. Her body knew the steps, but she lacked the natural grace that came from two good legs - and perhaps a decent and understanding partner as well. That, coupled with the ridicule over her infirmity that had come as she aged and entered Society, often left Miri hiding on the edges of ballrooms, desperate for a place she could go to escape. Much like tonight.
She was only attending this ball to appease her new sister in law, Sarah. Brook and Sarah had wed the previous summer by special license after Sarah's brother Frost, Viscount Chillton, had discovered his sister in bed with the so-called "Earl of Heartbreak" - and said earl just also happened to be Miri's older brother. Theirs had been a star-crossed romance but now that she was blissfully happy being wed, Sarah was of the opinion that every woman - including obstinate and scientifically minded Miri - ought to know the joys of holy matrimony.
Well, that and the fact that there was the possibility of a minor scandal surrounding Miri's dismissal from a finishing school she had been exiled to back in January. And the fact that Sarah had somehow gotten into Miri's mother's head and convinced the dowager that it was high time her youngest daughter wed, and it really didn't matter to whom.
God save her from lovesick women, Miri thought as she slowly edged around the far side of the ballroom that led back into the depths of the Bexley home. In Miri's opinion, some women were just not meant wed, including her.
It wasn't that Miri didn't like men. She did. Very much so, in fact. Rather, men did not like her overly much. Oh, they liked to look at her red hair and vivid green eyes, and she knew they gazed at her small but pert breasts beneath the thin fabric of her gowns often enough, likely wondering how she would look naked. However her jaw was a little too long and her chin a little too pointed. She was also a bit on the thin and willowy side, her body never developing the same voluptuous curves that her older sisters enjoyed.
Miri was pretty, as well, but not nearly pretty enough and coupled with her lame leg? Well, there were other, far more beautiful debutantes on the Marriage Mart to tempt a man in search of a wealthy wife. Not that any of the men in Society knew exactly how wealthy she really was. Like much about her, Miri kept the truth of her finances a secret.
She had no doubt that if she announced to the world that she was the one in control of Aunt Beanie Bexley's legendary fortune, there would be a throng of suitors flocking to her door and scaling the walls of the family home in Mayfair. However, Miri did not want that. If, on the off chance that she might some day decide to take a husband, she wanted him to choose her for herself and not for the enormous pile of money she already possessed and the other enormous piles of money she would one day inherit.
Though really, Miri didn't think of marriage much in general. Or of dancing or courting or any of those activities that other young women enjoyed. They simply weren't for her, and she had learned that lesson long ago. Simply put, Miri didn't like people. At all. Oh, she liked her family and few close friends well enough, but in general? She greatly disliked most of her fellow humans, instead preferring the silent, neat order of the stars that she could observe through her various telescopes. In fact, she adored the night sky, though, like the truth of her vast fortune, she hid that truth from Society as well. No need for people to think her even stranger than they already did.
Miri was well aware that part of her dislike of people was driven by the cruelty she had suffered as a child. It was hard to like mankind as a whole when, for the most part, everyone she had ever encountered either snickered at her misfortune behind her back or outright laughed at her twisted leg. As if a leg that faced slightly inward instead of forward somehow made Miri less of a person, one without feelings or intelligence. Over time, it had simply been easier to retreat into her world of telescopes and stars than for Miri to face a world that had very little use for the imperfect youngest daughter of an earl.
However that had been before her extremely brief and scandal-ridden stay at Mrs. Witherson's School for Proper Young Society Ladies in the small hamlet of Lower Puddington, near Bath. Miri and her friend, Lady Pearl Weston, the American-born sister of the current Marquess of Lansdale, had attended Mrs. Witherson's for exactly three and a half weeks before "transgressions of a most egregious nature" had forced them both to return home to London - in theory, disgraced beyond all measure.
Except that Miri didn't feel the least bit disgraced. In fact, she really did not care that she had been expelled from the prestigious ladies finishing school. She knew her dear friend and confidante Lady Pearl felt the same. In Miri's opinion, being forced from the hated school only solidifie
d her dislike of people, save for her intimate circle of friends and family.
Miri's family however, in particular her sister in law Sarah, who was also a graduate of Mrs. Witherson's and considered one of their finest success stories, did not share that belief. Instead, they saw Miri's dismissal from the school as proof that they had done something wrong in her upbringing and instead of raising a polite and proper young lady, they had instead, somehow created a wild hoyden with no manners and no desire for what was good and proper in life.
Therefore, her family as a collective whole, led mostly by Sarah, had decided that if Miri were to wed and know the joys of matrimony, she would see the error of her ways and settle down properly to raise a family - just as all young women of the ton should. If Miri were the model wife and mother - eventually, anyway - then all of her past transgressions, her odd fascination with the stars, and her lame leg would be all be forgotten and forgiven. There would no longer be any sort of black mark against the family name, either. Nor would there be any more whiff of scandal.
Never mind that Miri's brother was the infamous "Earl of Heartbreak" and had caused enough scandal in his life to fill hundreds, if not thousands, of pages in the gossip rags of London. Or that he had all but lived with Sarah at Hallowby Grange, her family's country seat, for well over a week the previous summer, bedding her and getting her with child before they were even wed. Or that he had paraded his many mistresses among polite society for years, never giving a damn what others thought or said.
An Earl For Hire Page 2
