Attracted to the Earl

by Bronwen Evans

  She almost came undone at the first swipe of his finger through her wet folds but she wanted to hold off and come with him. A long finger slid deep within her, then another, while his thumb moved in circles over her hardened nub. She began to ride his hand in time to the lifting of his hips. All the while they looked at each other, barely blinking—almost like the connection was so strong they could not break away.

  The tempo grew, their breathing got faster, their movements frantic, and they both cried out at the same moment—time stood still for a fraction—then came rushing back. Only then did Guy cup the back of her head and bring her lips to his and the tenderness in the kiss almost undid her. So she did what every coward does, she withdrew her lips from his.

  “I must be hurting you,” and she tried to push herself off his chest, where she had fallen replete.

  “Nothing is hurting, pleasure is coursing through my blood.”

  When she looked at him with doubt he added, “That was a fabulous way to make my pain disappear,” he whispered against her hair. “It was amazing, but now I want you even more. Crave to taste you. To see you spread across my bed without clothes between us.”

  The image he painted was so strong, given she’d seen his bedchamber, that she could picture exactly the position she’d lie in to entice him. Bad idea.

  She should not encourage an affair until she knew whether she could trust him to protect her and those she loved against Patrick. If Guy found out she was working for his cousin he could misinterpret what she had just done. She had not been thinking of orchids or Patrick or Dora. She’d only focused on her own need. Now she needed to put space between them to think. Her life and Dora’s was at risk and maybe even Guy’s and his mother’s.

  She stood up. “I think I should collect the horses and let’s see if we can get you back without making your ribs worse. I have to say that I’m beginning to think you are the most accident-prone man I know.”

  He cautiously sat up on a hiss of breath from between his gritted teeth. “You can’t blame me for this, damn saddle was at fault. I shall have to speak to the grooms.”

  She whistled for Lady’s Secret and she came trotting over. The mare’s movement brought Bolton following on behind. Guy spoke softly, but in a deep tone, and the frisky stallion calmed enough for him to swing up on its bare back.

  “I’ll send one of the grooms to collect the broken saddle.”

  She jumped and wiggled up onto the mare’s back and swung into the saddle. “We must send a note to Rose so she doesn’t worry. Perhaps I could go tomorrow; you’ll be resting.”

  “No rest for me. Patrick is arriving. But you may visit with her on your way to the forest tomorrow if you so wish.”

  As they began the slow walk home, Abigail didn’t answer him. It was decision time. Tonight she had to decide what to do. Who would she put her trust in—Guy or a man like Patrick Neville. Who was the most likely to succeed in this war? For Dora’s sake she had to pick the winning side.

  While Guy was a strong and clever man, Patrick was the more deadly because he would do anything to win.

  And that is what she was afraid of.

  Chapter 11

  “The saddle’s girth was cut, deliberately,” Brodie said with his cap in his hand. “I blame myself. I should have saddled Bolton.”

  Guy cursed at the news, and at the manhandling he was suffering as the doctor saw to his ribs. He noted Brodie’s frown. “What else?” Guy asked as he allowed the doctor to bind his ribs with linen. They hurt like a bitch but he’d suffered worse.

  “As to who saddled Bolton…”

  “So, who did?” Brodie said nothing. “Tell me.”

  Brodie scratched his head. “I don’t know.”

  Brodie was hiding something. “But you have your suspicions.”

  He moved forward. “I left the saddle next to Miss Pinehurst, who was feeding Lady’s Secret. But there is no way she could have put the saddle on Bolton alone. I doubt the stallion would have let her near, or if she’d have the strength to tighten the saddle. You know what Bolton is like. You have to use your knee to get him to stop bloating his stomach out. If a woman had saddled the stallion, you would have noticed it slipping as soon as you mounted.”

  “Was there anyone else in the stable?”

  “I have questioned everyone. None of the grooms, or lads, said they saddled him.”

  “Could anyone have snuck into the stable unseen?”

  Brodie shrugged. “I suppose, but it’s unlikely as Miss Pinehurst was right there. If they did, it must have been while I was seeing to the gelding. Miss Pinehurst would be the only one close enough to know.”

  And could he trust Abigail to reveal the truth? Would she tell him if she had seen someone? Could Abigail have done this, or was she covering for someone? To what end? His death? He could have broken his neck. His gut began to twist. If she had tried to kill him, what was her seduction in the field about? It wasn’t he who seduced this day.

  They needed a reply from Haxby. And soon. Before Patrick arrived. “Where’s Kit?”

  “He’s out with Miss Pinehurst—Dora, that is.”

  The doctor finished tying the knot on his binding. “All done. No riding or any other strenuous activity for at least two weeks. The ribs are only cracked. But if they break they could puncture a lung—or worse, your heart. Do I make myself clear, my lord?”

  “As water.” Guy fumed. He needed to be fighting fit because it looked as if Patrick was instigating a more permanent solution to getting his hands on not just the trust, but the title too.

  “You can remove the bindings to bathe but they must be put back on tightly.”

  “These are not my first cracked ribs, Doctor.” His father cracked his ribs when he was five with one punch. It had actually saved him from a worse beating but it had hurt like hell for weeks.

  “I was there when you were born, and I’d like to think I won’t be there when you die. I hope to be long gone, and see you live to a ripe old age.”

  He hoped so too. He waited until the doctor had left before he stood and gingerly pulled on a shirt. “Send Kit to me as soon as he returns from his jaunt with Dora. I want him to examine the cut girth, see if we can determine the type of knife used.” He reached for his jacket. “Where is Miss Pinehurst now?”

  “With the ladies in the drawing room.”

  “Christ, what time is it?”

  “About half after three.”

  Damn. He was supposed to take tea with the ladies today. Still, his mother could not be too mad, he did have an excuse, but it was one that would make her push him toward marriage with more vigor than an elephant protecting her young.

  Still, if Abigail was with his mother…

  “Good. Then we search her room. Look for a knife of any kind.”

  * * *

  —

  After twenty minutes of looking in every corner, draw, cupboard, and through her clothes and belongings, of which there were not many, no knife was found.

  “She could have it on her,” Brodie suggested.

  Guy nodded. “It would be the perfect place to hide a knife.”

  “You could demand to search her.”

  “And if she is not involved, how do I explain my actions? No, I know a better way to search her clothing.” By removing it in a seduction. Tonight.

  The two men went downstairs to Guy’s study. Brodie took his leave back to the stables. Guy sat at the desk that had been his father’s and remembered how as a young boy he’d literally felt his bowels loosen whenever he’d stood on the other side of this desk. He was made to read from a book his father handed him. Every time, his heart raced as he wondered if the book he’d be given was the one his tutor had told him to memorize. He also hoped his father had opened it at page one. But if not, Reginald gave him a hand signal to specify the page number.

  What his father didn’t know was Mr. Heaphy had read him every book in his father’s study and most of the lower shelved volumes in the l
ibrary. He only had to hear a reading once to remember the books word for word. Mr. Heaphy called it a gift from God, when all Guy wanted from God was the ability to read.

  Mr. Heaphy told him to read slowly, to stumble over a few words so his father would not get suspicious of the perfection.

  The first time they instigated Mr. Heaphy’s plan, he had been seven years old. It had worked. Guy still could remember the heady success of victory. No more beatings. No more being dunked in the well until he shivered so hard his teeth almost came out.

  Of course his father took all the credit. Guy could still hear him telling Mr. Heaphy that the beatings and starving and locking in the cellar had worked. His boy was simply lazy, not stupid. Guy needed to be taught to obey, just as he’d thought.

  It was one of Guy’s greatest accomplishments that he had fooled his father for almost seven years. He would never have been successful if not for Mr. Heaphy and Reginald. It hadn’t been that difficult, his father took very little interest in him once he was assured his son could read. In fact, Guy’s father took more interest in his harlots than his family.

  But that smug safety came to an end when he was fourteen.

  It still gutted Guy that Mr. Heaphy died ten years ago, before he could reassure him that he was all right. That while the army had been hard, especially in the years where he had hid his background and was treated as a commoner, he was free. Free of his father’s abuse and the fear that he’d be locked away in an asylum.

  The army was preferable to that outcome. The horror stories of what went on in those places had driven him on a daily basis to hide his failings. He’d lived in constant fear of his father finding him and sending him away.

  His throat began to close as he remembered the day his father realized he’d been fooled all those years. A visit by Viscount Wilton, a friend of his father’s, for the hunt saw the sons called into the drawing room. They were to do a reading in Latin. His father was showing his sons’ talents off. Mr. Heaphy brought the books he had made Guy memorize. Reginald went first and all was well. However, Lord Wilton was a fan of the classics and had brought a volume with him. He must have found Reginald’s piece too boring for he whipped a small book out of his jacket pocket and handed it to Guy to read from.

  Guy’s body went ice cold at the memory, exactly as it had on that dreadful day the book was forced into his hands. He had looked at Mr. Heaphy, his face deathly pale, and knew the game was up.

  Reginald stepped in and tried to say it wasn’t fair that Guy got a more interesting piece to read and grabbed the book from him. It would have worked too if his father was not such a clever bastard. He noted Mr. Heaphy’s face, and probably the terror on Guy’s, and took the book from Reginald and shoved it into Guy’s hands, ordering him to read.

  Lord Wilton, bless him, must have realized that something was wrong for he quickly grabbed the book off Guy and said that perhaps they had had enough reading, and that they were expected to get ready for the hunt.

  He stood trembling in fear and watched as his father’s face mottled purple with rage and his fists clenched. Guy knew that the beating he was about to get would be like nothing he’d experienced before, because they had made a fool of his father. He’d definitely be sent to the asylum now.

  He did the only thing he could do. He turned and ran. Ran from the house, past his mother, who cried out his name, past the stable, and kept running to the forest, where he would hide. He thought he’d be safe.

  He’d been very much mistaken.

  Guy poured himself another brandy and tried to shake the violent memories away. His father had tried to kill him.

  After Mr. Heaphy learned that the earl had hung Guy in the woods, he blamed himself. He was of course dismissed without a reference and when Guy ran away…Reginald said Mr. Heaphy never got over the fact he’d failed Guy.

  Guy ran a hand over his face. Mr. Heaphy hadn’t failed him. Guy failed himself and still did. This situation was because he was dumb. He could not learn to read. Mr. Heaphy protected him. Mr. Heaphy had gifted Guy seven years relatively free of fear of his father and he’d had an opportunity to be a normal boy.

  He was roused from his sad memories by Kit’s arrival.

  “Giles said you wanted to see me.”

  He looked up at his best friend and envy burned deep in the gut, replacing the sting of the brandy he’d just drunk. “You look happy.”

  Kit’s smile faded. “I am. Dora is everything I hoped for and more. You sound like you’ve had a few brandies without me.”

  He gingerly moved in his chair. “I took a spill off Bolton. Cracked a few ribs.”

  “Well, you wanted a horse that challenged you.”

  “The saddle girth was cut.”

  Kit slowly sank into the vacant chair beside the desk. “Patrick. It has to be Patrick. He’s trying to kill you and make it look like an accident.”

  “My cracked ribs and I concur.”

  Guy told Kit everything Brodie had revealed. “You’ve gone very quiet.”

  “I don’t want to believe Abigail is involved.”

  Guy raised an eyebrow. “It does not necessarily follow that Dora is guilty.”

  Kit’s eyes looked at him. “I have been preoccupied with her. I have not been protecting you as I should.”

  Guy banged his glass on the desk. “I do not expect you to ‘protect’ me for the rest of my life. You’ve done more for me already, so much so that I owe you everything I have.”

  Kit merely shrugged. “We save each other. Always have and always will. You are a brother to me. More than if by blood.”

  The two men sat in silence drinking brandy and remembering.

  Guy broke the silence. “I could not choose my father. But I chose well in you, my friend.”

  They both raised their glasses in a toast. Kit whispered, “Here’s to watching each other’s back.” In a louder voice he said what Guy had been thinking. “In that vein, we can’t wait for the missive from Haxby. If Abigail didn’t cut the saddle then who did and is she somehow involved? All of this started when she arrived; it can’t be a coincidence. Perhaps Patrick expects to come and find you dead.”

  Guy had no answers. In the army he knew how to get answers out of men who would not talk, but he could not bring himself to use such tactics on a woman. What would make her talk? To answer that question he needed…“We need to understand why she would help Patrick.”

  “How?”

  Guy stood and went to look out the window. The Argyle estate lay before him in all its glory. Never in his life had he dreamed he would be responsible for it, let alone want to see it thrive. “I have no idea, but Patrick will be here tomorrow night, or the next day at the latest. I have to know if she is his spy or not.”

  “Then I’d simply ask her?”

  The two men jumped like naughty schoolboys at the sound of his mother’s voice.

  “Mother! How long have you been standing there?”

  His mother walked into his study and closed the door behind her. “Long enough to know that you believe Miss Abigail Pinehurst is working for Patrick. Why you have jumped to that conclusion I have no idea. She impresses me as an honest young lady. Just ask her.”

  Guy and Kit looked at each other. Kit shrugged. “It may work. If he is holding something over her, we could offer to help.”

  His mother sighed. “Take her for a walk in the gardens after supper. Serenade her with moonlight and sweet nothings. My boy can make any young lady’s head turn. I’ve seen the way she looks at you. I suspect she’s already sweet on you. There is no harm using that to your advantage. She must know nothing can come of any relationship with a man of your standing.”

  Guy’s hands curled into fists, almost cracking the brandy balloon he held in his hand. “A man so dumb he cannot read is not above anyone in this life.” His mother’s mouth firmed. “Most of society would look at me very differently if they knew the truth. Would any of the ladies even want to bear a child by me? What if my
son is born stupid too?”

  His mother clapped her hands. “Nonsense. Money and position make many women blind. Besides, what they don’t know won’t hurt them, and once you are wed—”

  “It’s too late. They cannot get free.” The idea of tricking a woman into marriage and then having her hate him, despise him, for the rest of his life made his blood run cold. “I will tell the woman I plan to marry all my faults.”

  “You can’t do that,” his mother cried. “What if they tell someone? The scandal, the shame…that is, could the Chancery take the running of the estate away from you?”

  “They could try but I would fight.” It was the first time he could not ignore the fact that his mother cared more about her own life and security than his. He could not really blame her. She’d experienced a marriage of living hell, and since his father’s death she’d had the perfect life with Reginald. Guy had been gone from her life for over fifteen years—he was a stranger. His mother worried that her relaxed and safe life was about to be taken away again.

  Kit stepped into the fray. “I’m sure if Guy finds a woman he wishes to marry, it will be because she is in love with him. If she loves Guy she will see that he may not be able to read, but he has a brilliant mind. Besides, she will love him. Nothing else will matter.”

  Guy prayed that was so, or his life would be lonely as hell, for he would not marry without love. The irony. Patrick’s family would end up with the title anyway.

  “Mother, please do not worry. I will talk with Abigail and see if she knows anything about what is going on. I may not be able make sense of my letters but one thing I can do well is read people.”

  * * *

  —

  Four hours later, still in the study, Guy sat facing his estate manager, Mr. Mathis. He held the report on the sheep fleece weights in his hand, pretending to be reading over the numbers.