The Last Earl Standing

by Blackwood, Gemma

  George nodded, his thumb stroking soothingly over the back of her hand. “It is perfectly normal. The more you feel for someone, the more vulnerable you become.”

  Her heart sank. “But you are not afraid.”

  “Is that what you think?”

  “I have never seen you even so much as nervous.” Suddenly, it seemed so unfair she could choke on it.

  George sat back on his heels. The sparkle in Anthea’s eyes had been replaced by a fiery glare, and he was rather enjoying it. Each new emotion she showed him as he slowly breached the walls she had erected around her heart was a delicacy to be savoured.

  Even as he longed to take her in his arms and comfort her, even as he hated the fact that he had caused her pain, he relished her fear. It was the first sign she’d given him that he had not imagined that the connection between them went beyond mere flirtation.

  He had misjudged Anthea time and again. When he read that castigatory column, never dreaming that she could be behind it, failing her by refusing to take its lessons to heart. When she flung herself into reckless danger simply to see that he was not hurt by Wetherton’s schemes. And now, when he had let his own desires carry him away, never stopping to think what she made of his plunge into outright seduction.

  He wanted her so badly that all his finely-honed instincts had grown dull.

  “I am more practised than you can imagine at hiding my true emotions,” he said. “That is unfair to you, and I apologise.” The quick heartbeat his fingers caught in her wrist was slowing. Good. If kisses would not soothe her, perhaps he could find the right words. “Let me make my intentions absolutely clear. I mean to court you. I mean to charm your sisters, talk politics with your brother, and keep your Aunt Ursula so sozzled with sherry that she fails to notice any of my many flaws. I mean to kiss your lips in private and your hand in public. I mean to dance with you so often that people start to talk. To visit you every day and make the neighbours gossip. To give your other suitors the cut direct and drive them out of London with the shame of it. I want you all to myself. But, above all, I want you to know that you are mine. To want to be mine. And until you want me to kiss you again so desperately that all your morals desert you, as mine seem to have deserted me, I will do it. Not before.”

  A pretty frown still creased Anthea’s forehead. He would have given a fortune to break his word and press his lips to the wrinkle of displeasure between her brows.

  “George,” she said, “you must never think that I do not want to kiss you. That was not what I said at all.”

  He tried to keep his slow grin from becoming too eager. “Are you still afraid?”

  She shook her head. His hand rose impulsively to her cheek, cupping her face, exploring the delicate curve of her jaw with his thumb.

  “You may prove it to me,” he said. Anthea looked as though she did not know whether to roll her eyes and twist his ear or sink into his embrace.

  Fortunately, she chose the latter.

  It took some time for George to recover his senses enough to remember why he had called in the first place. He could hardly deny that it was extremely pleasant to feel the weight of Anthea on his lap, their arms a pleasant tangle, her head resting on his shoulder and her golden hair half fallen from its pins and tumbling across his arm in a lightly perfumed waterfall, but there were matters yet more serious that even romance could not set aside.

  He lifted Anthea’s hand to his lips and kissed each finger, noting not for the first time the ink stains that had soaked through her glove.

  “Anthea, I have no right to ask this,” he began. She stirred in his arms, pushing herself up to look him in the eye. “I want you to make me a promise.”

  “That depends on what the promise is.” Even kisses such as they had shared were not enough to persuade Anthea to surrender her independence. He rather liked that, even as it made his task more difficult.

  “An easy one to keep, I hope.” He caught up a lock of her hair and wound it slowly around his finger. He had never felt anything so soft. “Promise me you will do nothing to attack Lord Wetherton.”

  Sometimes he wished he had not been so highly trained in reading his targets’ expressions. He did not want to notice Anthea’s guilty start, nor the way her eyes darted towards the writing desk, but he did.

  She had written a column. He had no doubt that it was wonderful. Only a few days previously, he had sent his valet out on a mission to seek out as many back copies of the London Chronicle as he could find. Anthea’s previous columns were every bit as provocative and well-argued as the one she had used to punish him for deserting her at the ball.

  He could see why they were so popular. He could also see why she was forced to keep them a secret. And until he had earned her trust enough to draw the confession from her own lips, he would not reveal that he had discovered it.

  But he could not permit her to inflame Wetherton. Not when the wicked man knew she had a connection to the Chronicle’s owner. It would not take much for him to connect the two, just as George had. Assuming the slimy creature had not verified Lady X’s identity already.

  Anthea lowered her eyes. “I cannot make that promise, George.”

  “I will not take no for an answer.”

  Her back stiffened, moving her just out of reach of his caressing hand. “Don’t spoil this. I thought we had come to such a pleasant agreement.”

  “And we have.” He let her slip her hand from his. “But I cannot allow you to endanger yourself again.”

  “You are not allowing me anything. You have given me a handful of kisses, not a wedding ring. And even if we were married, I would not let you dictate my actions.”

  He groaned. There were only so many ways he could tell her that Wetherton was dangerous. Short of outing himself as an agent of the Crown, he had no way of convincing her that Wetherton’s punishment was already inevitable.

  And that, he could not do. Lovely as Anthea was, he could not compromise his mission for her sake. Julian would never forgive him. His reputation with his commanding officers would be destroyed.

  He liked the girl more than was wise, but he had not completely lost his head.

  “Anthea, the last thing I want to do is fall out with you –”

  “Wait.” She bit her lip, still looking at the writing desk. Then she raised her head and turned back to him with a smile. “Very well. I promise.”

  He sighed with relief. “Thank you.”

  Her eyes danced. “I hope you have something very special in mind to make it up to me.”

  “Oh, I think so,” he said, drawing her towards him again.

  11

  George left the Balfour house in such high spirits that even the splattering of raindrops on his head as he entered his carriage could not dampen them. He spent the drive home watching rain fill the gutters of the London streets, Anthea’s sweet words playing and replaying in his mind.

  Even when he returned home to find Julian, sodden by the rain and in the foulest mood imaginable, waiting in his study, he could not wipe the smile from his face.

  “There you are.” Julian shrugged off his jacket and began squeezing the rainwater from it, careless of the fact that it was splattering all over the patterned rug George had been given by a Turkish nobleman whose interests had once aligned with George’s mission for the British government. “I was wondering when you’d show your face.”

  It did not escape George that Julian was wearing the same clothes he had been in the night before. The dark shadows under his eyes suggested he hadn’t had much sleep.

  “Julian! I see you escaped the clutches of the Bow Street Runners.”

  “After a great deal of time, and a lot more bother than would have been necessary if only I had an aristocratic friend and colleague who could have used his title to get me out of there,” Julian snapped. A twinge of guilt penetrated George’s happy daydream.

  “Ah. Sorry about that, old chap.”

  Julian helped himself to a swig of brandy from
George’s drinks cabinet. “Not sorry enough to send a carriage and prevent me from having to walk back through the rain.”

  “Sorry about that, too. I had important business elsewhere.”

  “With Wetherton?” Julian perked up. “What have you discovered?”

  “Ah. Well. When I said important business, what I meant was…” Groping desperately for an excuse for behaviour which he well knew Julian would never excuse, George remembered what Anthea had overheard the night before. “Wetherton is blackmailing lords for votes in Parliament.”

  “What?” Julian’s hand tightened on the brandy bottle. “Ha! We’ve got him! Do you know what vote he wants to sway?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Who he has blackmailed, then?”

  “Well…” George grimaced. “There’s Lord Shrewsbury, of course –”

  “We already knew about Shrewsbury!” Julian narrowed his eyes. “How exactly did you come by this information?”

  George opened his mouth, found his brain utterly empty of clever excuses, and closed it again.

  “A woman,” Julian surmised, rolling his eyes and pouring out another hefty glug of brandy.

  “A lady,” George corrected him.

  “Not if you found her in that establishment on Curlew Street.” Julian took a swig and laughed at his own remark. “Not many ladies there, I’d say, Streatham. Only black lace and illicit whisky.” He looked into his glass regretfully. “I wouldn’t say no to another dram of that Scotch, to be honest. It almost made the exertions of the rest of the night worthwhile.”

  George stared at him. Julian frowned, proffering the bottle. “I’m sorry, Streatham, I thought it was a little early for you.”

  “Not that,” George grunted, striding to his desk and rifling through the papers. “Whisky.”

  “Oh!” Julian brightened considerably. “Have you got any?”

  “It’s too dashed hard to get hold of,” George muttered, thrusting aside a heap of old newspapers. He found what he was looking for and snapped it out straight, his eyes scanning until they found the small headline on the front page.

  Vote Yes to the Excise Act, Lady X Implores the House…

  “Blast.” George slammed the paper back down onto the desk. “He knows. The blackguard knows!”

  “Knows what?” Julian peered over George’s shoulder to see what he was looking at. “That’s not today’s paper, Streatham. Old news in there.”

  George’s fingers tightened, crumpling Anthea’s article. “And I should have seen it long ago. This is why Wetherton has been courting Lady Anthea Balfour.” He thrust the newspaper under Julian’s nose. “She’s been writing in favour of the sale of Scotch whisky!”

  Julian blinked, struggling to focus on the words George was waving under his eyes. “Lady Anthea?”

  “She writes the Lady X column.” George wiped a hand across his forehead, crumpling the newspaper still further. “She is Lady X. And Wetherton must be making a fortune smuggling Scotch across the border. He wasn’t trying to court her. He was trying to get close enough to her to convince her to recant her support for the Excise Act that would make his smuggling operation obsolete.”

  Julian took the newspaper before George managed to destroy it irreparably and scanned his eyes over the page. “My word, Streatham. I take back all the sarcastic things I was going to say about your attitude to this investigation. All this time, I thought you were pursuing Lady Anthea for your own entertainment! I wholeheartedly apologise for doubting you, my friend. How wrong I was!”

  George tugged at his cravat, which suddenly felt rather tight. Lying to his partner was a line he had never yet crossed. He and Julian had put their lives in the other’s hands time and again over the years. It did not seem right to deliberately mislead him.

  And yet, what was there to tell? He and Anthea had shared a moonlight tryst and a daytime dalliance. No hearts had been given, no promises made. Though he was growing ever more certain that his feelings for Anthea ran deep.

  Fortunately, Julian knew him well enough to read the subtle signs of guilt. He clapped a hand to his forehead and let out a dramatic groan. “So you are mixing business with pleasure. Well, I hope it doesn’t end the way things did in Barcelona.”

  “How dare you even suggest –” George broke off abruptly, realising Julian was teasing him. “Anthea is an angel,” he growled. “Speak against her at your peril.”

  Julian’s grin softened. “Gracious. That sounds rather serious.”

  “I managed to extract a promise from her that she would not write anything against Lord Wetherton,” said George, thinking it best to avoid the subject of feelings far too delicate for Julian to understand. “I will send her a note warning her to keep away from the subject of whisky in her future columns. Anthea’s safety is paramount.”

  “Understood.” Julian clapped his hand on George’s shoulder. “We’ll keep her safe. Don’t worry.”

  The butler’s footsteps in the corridor outside prevented George from answering. Discussing a mission in front of the servants was unthinkable, of course, but discussing Anthea at this uncertain stage would be far worse.

  The man who stormed through the door was not George’s butler, however – though a disgruntled Simpkins followed close behind – but Lord Shrewsbury, red in the face and puffing heavily.

  “Streatham! Good god, but I’m glad to find you!” He waved a dismissive hand at Simpkins. “Off with you. I have important business to discuss with your master.”

  “Thank you, Simpkins,” said George, not quite quickly enough to wipe the outrage from his elderly butler’s face. He took steps to forestall any similar treatment of Julian. “Shrewsbury, good to see you. May I present Sir Julian Stuart, my closest friend? Anything you have to say to me can be said in front of him. In fact, I insist on it.”

  Shrewsbury narrowed his piggy eyes, giving Julian an inspection so thorough it went well beyond rude. “Sir Julian,” he said curtly, giving a stiff bow.

  “My lord.” Julian’s manners, as ever, were impeccable beside the men who outranked him.

  Shrewsbury noticed the glass in Julian’s hand and his demeanour changed in an instant. “Ah! Pour me a glass, won’t you, Streatham? My nerves, you know. I suffer terribly!” He sat down in George’s favourite armchair without waiting for an invitation.

  “Do sit down,” said George coldly, pouring out a meagre portion of brandy. “Tell me, Shrewsbury, what brings me the pleasure of your company this afternoon?”

  Shrewsbury accepted the drink and slurped down more than half of it in a single gulp before responding. “Money,” he said baldly.

  George and Julian exchanged weary glances. Thanks to Lord Wetherton’s high stakes gambling venture, their budget for the mission was already under severe strain. “I sent you some money only the other day,” George reminded him. “The price of your silence over Lady Anthea’s reputation. Don’t tell me you’ve spent it already.”

  “Thought it would be enough,” Shrewsbury grunted. “Thought I was coming into a little more. Was mistaken.”

  “Lady Ursula’s diamond brooch didn’t pay off, I take it.”

  Somewhere in the depths of Shrewsbury’s somnolent brain, a small flame of discernment flickered. “You didn’t rat me out, Streatham. And yet, you’re still very close to that Balfour harridan. Why didn’t you tell her I had the maid steal the brooch?”

  Because I need you to betray Wetherton, and your arrest for petty theft would make that difficult. “Call it a gesture of friendship.” Sighing inwardly, George topped up Shrewsbury’s brandy. At this rate, he would soon have to send Simpkins to the cellar to fetch another bottle.

  “Most kind of you,” said Shrewsbury. “Most kind.”

  “But friendship goes in two directions, Shrewsbury.”

  The hoggish little man hesitated. “Does it?”

  George bent down so that his eyes were on a level with Shrewsbury’s red-rimmed ones. “If I do something for you – such as offering
you a loan, perhaps – you must do something for me.”

  Shrewsbury swallowed noisily. “You sound like Wetherton.”

  “Believe me,” said Julian, who had soundlessly moved so that he was standing at Shrewsbury’s back, “if you think Lord Wetherton’s anger is bad, it is only because you have not seen Streatham’s.”

  Shrewsbury’s eyes began darting from side to side, lingering on the closed doorway and the windows too small for him to heave his stomach through. “Now, now, gentlemen. There’s no need to be like that. Tell me what I can do for you.”

  “Why, Shrewsbury,” said George, “that’s the cleverest thing you’ve said in weeks.” He leaned in until he could feel Shrewsbury’s unclean breath washing over his face. “Now, listen closely…”

  12

  She had not lied to George.

  Really, by most standards, she had been impeccably truthful.

  George had asked her not to go up against Lord Wetherton. And, to the extent that George knew what he was asking, she had made the promise not to.

  The fact that George did not know about Lady X and the column, and could not, therefore, have asked her not to write it, and would, moreover, never discover what she had done, was beside the point.

  Anthea stared at her reflection in the mirror. Just as she had suspected, her eyes were brimming with tears.

  “Drat,” she said, and set her hairbrush aside. Selina might have several things to say about her unkempt appearance, but Selina was out shopping with Daisy that morning and would not see her until she was in a fit state to bear a scolding.

  On Anthea’s bed, Edith kicked her legs back and forth as she lay on her stomach reading the article. “What do you mean, drat?” she asked. “This is wonderful! No wonder they printed it on the front page. ‘Lord Wetherton’s evil schemes exposed at last!’ How on earth did you find out about it? Did you hire a spy to infiltrate the gaming club?”