An Unexpected Earl

by Anna Harrington

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  Books. Change. Lives.

  Copyright © 2021 by Anna Harrington

  Cover and internal design © 2021 by Sourcebooks

  Cover art by Katie Anderson

  Sourcebooks and the colophon are registered trademarks of Sourcebooks.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing from its publisher, Sourcebooks.

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  All brand names and product names used in this book are trademarks, registered trademarks, or trade names of their respective holders. Sourcebooks is not associated with any product or vendor in this book.

  Published by Sourcebooks Casablanca, an imprint of Sourcebooks

  P.O. Box 4410, Naperville, Illinois 60567-4410

  (630) 961-3900

  sourcebooks.com

  Contents

  Front Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-one

  Twenty-two

  Twenty-three

  Twenty-four

  Twenty-five

  Twenty-six

  Twenty-seven

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  About the Author

  Back Cover

  Dedicated to Rachel Taylor,

  my former student turned friend

  and one of the best future nurses in the world.

  One

  London

  Early August, 1816

  That dress was pure sin.

  Brandon Pearce, Earl of Sandhurst, raked his gaze over the woman standing on the other side of Lord Torrington’s smoke-filled ballroom. No matter that her back was to him, she was still delicious to drink in. Red satin shimmered like brimstone as it draped over her curves, cinched tightly enough at the waist to highlight her full hips and cut low enough in the back to expose a delectable stretch of flesh that was rivaled by her bare shoulders. Only a hint of gauzy straps dropping over her upper arms gave assurance that the dress wouldn’t fall down at any moment of its own wanton volition and reveal every inch of soft flesh beneath.

  “Wouldn’t that be a damn shame if it did?” Pearce mumbled against his glass as he lifted it to his lips.

  Sweet Lucifer, he wished she’d turn around so he could confirm that the front of her was just as much a creation of the devil as the back.

  Her face would be hidden, of course. This was one of Torrington’s infamous masquerades, which meant that all the gentlemen in attendance wore the most expensive finery Bond Street could offer and all the women wore masks. As Torrington had told him when he arrived, “Makes the competition all the more interesting.”

  Apparently, that’s what tonight was about. Gentlemen behaving badly. Anything which encouraged their debauched behavior was welcome. Including masked women.

  And this masked woman had transformed his otherwise boring evening into something interesting.

  After all, he was attending the party only to gain more information about Scepter. Certainly not for the entertainment. Although he’d have to admit that it was certainly not the usual society fare. He slid his gaze across the ballroom to watch a pair of half-naked female acrobats grab each other by the ankles and roll head over heels across the room, while no one else seemed to notice except for a violinist whose bow paused straight up in the air when they went rolling past.

  Marking the approaching end to Parliament’s session, Torrington’s annual party was the most anticipated event of season’s end. All of London’s most influential, powerful, and wealthiest men clamored to attend… Well, all the influential, powerful, and wealthy men who wanted to spend the evening at what amounted to little more than a drunken orgy with some gambling tossed in.

  Which was how Pearce secured an invitation. As a new earl, he ranked high enough socially to gain Torrington’s notice, and because he was a former brigadier, Torrington was certain he shared the same crude tastes in entertainment.

  Torrington was wrong. Tonight, Pearce was here as bait.

  Of all the gentlemen at the Armory, he was the only one whom Scepter might approach to bring into their fold. So he had to make himself visible at events like this where he was certain their members would be in attendance.

  He watched the acrobats roll back across the floor and blew out a hard breath. Even if events like this irritated the hell out of him.

  Marcus Braddock, Duke of Hampton and former general, had gathered together the men who had served with him on the Continent to stop the criminal organization. The men worked out of a renovated armory north of the City, but the old building had also become a sanctuary, a place where they could go when they needed to be around men like themselves—all former soldiers struggling to adapt to postwar life. For some of them, fighting Boney had been easier. Only joining together to stop Scepter had given them a path forward.

  What they’d discovered was that Scepter functioned like an octopus, with tentacles reaching from London’s underworld to men at the highest ranks of the aristocracy and into all kinds of criminal activity. Including, most recently, what appeared to be the assassination of several government officials, all made to resemble accidents or suicide. Sir Alfred Wembley, War Office Paymaster, who stepped in front of a speeding carriage. Mr. John Smithson, Chancellor of the Exchequer, who drowned by falling drunkenly into the River Avon. Lord Maryworth, Master of the Mint, who shot himself with his own dueling pistol. And Sir Malcolm Donnelly, who died from falling off his horse…and who made the men of the Armory realize that the deaths were more than they seemed. Because Donnelly had never been astride a horse in his entire city-dwelling life.

  Twelve deaths of prominent officials, twelve deaths now considered murder. All gentlemen of various backgrounds and positions, with no connection to each other except that they’d held government appointments. And that they’d all been quickly replaced in their positions, sometimes within a fortnight of the funeral. Pearce would have bet every penny of his newly acquired fortune that Scepter was responsible.

  After all, the organization was already amassing great power and murdering those it needed to silence. Wholesale slaughter of government officials to further their agenda was absolutely possible.

  But no one knew Scepter’s endgame or the men behind it.

  Pearce frowned as he glanced around the par
ty. At this rate, nothing new would be forthcoming tonight either. Certainly not from the gentlemen gathered here, who were all foxed out of their minds or well on their way to it, losing great sums of money in the card room and doing their best to wiggle their hands beneath the skirts of every woman in the place.

  He’d been ready to leave and call it a night. But then he’d seen that flash of red and stopped in his tracks.

  “Who the devil are you?” he murmured.

  The longer he stared at her, the more convinced he was that he needed to introduce himself and do the gentlemanly thing of offering to help her out of her dress at the end of the evening. With his teeth.

  Even from across the room, he could see she wasn’t like the other women in attendance tonight. Those women treated sex like a commodity, to be bought or sold to fit their needs. They were courtesans auditioning new protectors for the long term, less skilled light-skirts chasing the monthly rent in exchange for a few hours of bed sport, and society wives and widows escaping their normally boring lives with an evening’s adventure. All safely hidden behind the anonymity of masks.

  But the lady in red didn’t seem to be here for any of that. Even when talking to the men, she kept herself apart in a way the other women didn’t. She didn’t lean in when they spoke to her; she leaned away. She didn’t tap them flirtatiously with her fan; she held it between them like a shield. And she didn’t view the other women as competition, giving no territorial signs toward any of them. No, she was distant. Cool. Wary. She didn’t belong here, despite that dress.

  Sinful and a mystery. And becoming more interesting with every passing moment.

  Apparently, though, not just to him. His eyes narrowed on the Earl of Derby as the man ignored the dismissive way she turned away from his advance, slipped his arm around her waist, and yanked her back against him.

  Immediately, she smacked the earl on top of his head with her fan, hard enough that the ivory guard bounced against his skull.

  Pearce choked on his drink.

  Good Lord, he’d never seen that before at one of these parties. Neither had Lord Derby, based on his stunned expression and the bruise undoubtedly forming on his crown.

  Yet the little minx had the nerve to feign surprise at what she’d done, followed by a mumbled apology even as she attempted to sashay away.

  But the earl pursued. This time, when he grabbed her fully into his arms, she gave him a hard push that sent him rocking onto his heels. Derby only laughed, still determined to find his way beneath her skirts, and grabbed her once more into his arms, this time too tightly for her to fight her way free.

  Pearce’s grin melted into a grimace. He snagged a glass of champagne from the tray of a passing footman and sauntered forward. That red flash of temptation not only beckoned but now also needed to be rescued.

  “Scarlet,” he called out. “There you are!”

  Derby looked up, startled.

  Seizing on the distraction, the woman shoved her way out of Derby’s arms. She wheeled around to face Pearce.

  At the sight of him, her green eyes flared from behind the mask that covered everything except for her sensuous lips, and she froze like a doe startled by hunters. But then, so did he…except for his gaze, which dropped deliberately over her from head to slippers.

  Sweet Lucifer. The back of her might have been pure sin, but the front was simply soul-stealing.

  Her hair cascaded over one shoulder in a riot of golden curls that teased seductively at the swell of her breasts, visible above the low-cut neckline of her tight bodice. But for all that the shimmering satin of her dress captivated him and those silky tresses had him longing to brush his hands through them, what struck him was the gold locket she wore around her neck on a little blue ribbon. The schoolgirl innocence of that single piece of jewelry undercut the sinfulness of the red gown in startling contradiction.

  More. The sight of the locket jarred something inside him, knocking loose from the past a memory he couldn’t quite place yet one so familiar that it begged to be remembered… Damnation, did he know her?

  He sent her a far too intimate smile. “I leave you alone for two minutes and you slip away, sending me on a merry chase to find you.”

  Her brilliant eyes grew wider, but wisely, she said nothing.

  “Shame on you.” He winked at her. Trust me… Then he glanced past her to Derby, the man standing so close at her side that surely he could see right down her dress to her navel. His smile tightened. “Ah, you’ve been making friends.”

  “Pearce,” Derby bit out with his own forced smile. Like half the peers in the Lords, he refused to acknowledge that Pearce was now one of them by not using his title.

  The man probably considered the slight an insult. Pearce considered it a compliment.

  “Derby.” Pearce stepped forward and took the woman’s arm to gently but possessively move her safely away from the earl and to his side. “I see you’ve met my Scarlet.”

  “Yes.” Derby’s mouth twisted. “I didn’t realize that you’d already claimed her.”

  “Claimed?” Pearce clucked his tongue in chastisement, then lifted her hand to kiss the backs of her gloved fingers. “Can any man truly claim a woman like this?” He saw her arch a brow above her mask at that blatant whopper of a flirtation. “God knows I’m not man enough for her.”

  At that, her other hand flew up to her lips to stifle a shocked gasp. Or a laugh. With this bold woman, it could have been either.

  “Something in your throat, my dear? Here.” He held out the glass. “The champagne you requested.”

  Her eyes sparkled as effervescently as the bubbles in the wine. “How thoughtful,” she mumbled as she accepted it, playing along.

  “Anything for you, darling.”

  Her mouth fell open. She covered her surprise at his audacity by quickly raising the glass to her lips.

  Biting back a grin at her expense and unable to resist, he leaned over to place a kiss to her ear. She trembled but didn’t fling the champagne in his face. Good. He’d take his victories however he could get them.

  He wrapped her arm around his. “Shall we dance?” Not giving her the chance to refuse, he led her toward the dance floor and tossed dismissively over his shoulder, “Goodbye, Derby.”

  The earl said nothing. But as he turned and stomped away, Pearce was certain the man was cursing him, his ancestry, and every stray French bullet that had somehow managed to miss killing him during the wars.

  The woman began to slip her arm away.

  “Not so fast.” He placed his hand over hers to keep it on his jacket sleeve. “I helped you. It’s only fair that you now help me.”

  She stiffened with wariness. “How?”

  “Help me put a positive end to a very boring evening by dancing with me. That’s all.” When that didn’t seem to mollify her, he gestured toward the dance floor. “It’s for your own benefit.”

  “That’s a novel approach for a lord to meet a woman,” she drawled, her voice so low and throaty that he suspected she was purposefully attempting to disguise it. But she couldn’t hide the sardonic laughter that colored it.

  He crooked a grin. “I’m not an average lord.” When she began to give him the cut that bit of arrogance deserved, he interrupted. “Everyone will see us together, so you can tell every other unwanted man who comes too close that you belong to me for the evening.” His gaze fixed on hers. Sweet Jesus, a man could happily drown in those emerald pools…ones that seemed so oddly familiar. “They won’t dare touch you then.”

  “You’re awfully sure of yourself.”

  When it came to making men fear him… “I am.”

  She hesitated at his offer—one dance for the opportunity to be left alone for the rest of the evening. He felt like the devil himself bargaining for her soul.

  She must have realized it, too, because when she glanced to
ward the dance floor, she murmured in a voice that was little more than a purr, “I don’t think what they’re doing is dancing.”

  He followed her gaze. Couples who hadn’t yet left to find more private spaces where they could be alone danced across the floor. But this wasn’t a London society ball. Instead of bouncing through quadrilles or reels, these couples completely ignored the music to move to their own wanton rhythms. They touched fully along their fronts from hips to shoulders, with the women clasping glasses of brandy and port in their hands and the men clasping breasts and buttocks in theirs.

  “No, indeed,” he agreed. But for some reason he couldn’t name, he wanted a dance with her. He wanted the chance to have her in his arms if only for a few minutes, to find out who she was beneath that mask and why she was here…and why he felt increasingly certain he knew her. “But the musicians won’t mind playing for a couple who want an old-fashioned waltz.”

  “An old-fashioned waltz?” she asked, her voice breathless with irony. “Is there even such a thing?”

  He called out to the lead musician and tossed the man a coin. “There is now.” When the first flourishes of a waltz went up, he held out his hand with a formal bow. “Lady Scarlet, our dance.” He arched a brow. “I promise to keep my hands where you can see them at all times.”

  An ironic smile tugged at her lips. “With a request like that, how could a lady refuse?”

  Pearce took her into position and twirled her into the waltz, making certain to maintain a proper distance as he led her through the steps.

  She followed lightly in his arms, just as he’d suspected she would. Refined and polished to the bone, she gracefully placed every step, including the perfectly positioned tilt of her head that showcased her elegant neck. Just another reason he knew she didn’t belong here tonight. She was far too good at waltzing to be someone who made her living on her back, and she lacked the hard-edged bitterness that marked the society ladies.

  So who the devil was she? And why couldn’t he shake the suspicion that he knew her?

  He led her into a half turn. “Now that I’ve rescued you from Derby, tell me… What’s your name?”