The Earl's Reluctant Proposal
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Louise Allen
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Chapter One
Thump.
Lucy woke with the scream lodged in her throat, yet, when she looked down at her hands cradled defensively against her chest, there was no pain, no blood. A dream? But the sound had been real, she realised when it came again. This time she recognised it for what it was: a fist hitting the door panels, not a keyboard cover slamming down on her unwary fingers.
She scrambled off the sofa, confused and oddly dizzy. Where was she? It came back as she stumbled to the door, turned the key. Lady Sophia’s piano lesson... That was what she was here for, she recalled as the door opened and she backed unsteadily away.
‘Sophia, what the devil do you think you’re about, locking yourself in here for half the day?’ The speaker stopped dead, three strides into the room. ‘Who are you and where is my sister?’
‘Lucy Lambert and I do not know.’ Lucy sat down with an inelegant bump on the sofa and stared at the man. What is wrong with me?
‘She said, um... She said she had received an urgent message to go to her old governess. She said she would return in two or three hours and that I should make myself comfortable, take refreshments, read a book. It was ten o’clock when she left.’
The clock on the mantelshelf chimed four thin notes. ‘But that’s impossible.’ Lucy blinked it into focus and as she did so the louder, deeper, strokes of the hall clock echoed the time. ‘We spoke for a moment or two. Lady Sophia was in great haste, but she pointed out the refreshments on the table and showed me the bookcase for entertainment. Then she left. That way.’ She pointed to the second door. ‘I was thirsty, so I drank a glass of lemonade and sat down to go over my notes for the lesson and... That is all I recall.’
The man stooped and picked up something from the carpet. ‘Yours?’
‘Yes.’ She reached out and took the little notebook, her thoughts coming into focus as her vision cleared. ‘The lemonade. That is why I feel so strange. She drugged me.’ Then, indignant as it sank in, ‘Drugged me!’
The man went to the table, picked up her glass, sniffed it, then poured some liquid from the jug and sipped. ‘You drank this?’
‘It wasn’t very nice.’ Rather bitter, she remembered. ‘But I was thirsty. It is hot outside. I did not like to ring and disturb the staff.’
‘Who are you?’
Lucy could guess who he was because she had looked up Lady Sophia Harker in the Peerage before accepting the invitation to come to her home. Single women with any sense did not enter the private homes of complete strangers, not without taking some basic precautions. Lady Sophia Harker lived in Cavendish Square with her stepbrother, Lord Burnham, the son of her mother’s second husband.
‘Miss Lambert, music teacher.’ She produced one of her newly printed cards from her reticule. ‘My lord,’ she added as an afterthought.
He took it, and Lucy got the better of her indignation, nagging headache and confusion and looked at him properly for the first time. Max Fenton was what her friend Melissa—never bashful—would describe as a fine example of his sex, she supposed. Not a massive specimen thankfully, because being of only medium height herself she disliked being loomed over. Even so, he had more than enough presence to fill the room and was possessed of an aura of chilly authority that, as he was clearly displeased, was uncomfortable.
Another friend, Jane, Lady Kendall, who was an artist, might not want to draw him, Lucy decided. He was too predictable—tidily just under six foot, she guessed. Lean and fit, but not overly muscular. Regular features—strong, straight nose, firm jaw, dark grey eyes and modishly cut light brown hair that looked as though it might bleach blonder if exposed to the sun.
Thirty, possibly. No scars, freckles, imperfections and just the hint of a dip in his chin that he would no doubt hate to have called a dimple. Yes, Jane would dismiss him as not interesting enough to be a challenge for a portraitist.
‘Will you be able to describe me adequately later, do you think?’ he enquired, and Lucy realised she had been staring.
‘Yes, I think so. When confronted by an angry male it is always prudent to be able to describe him afterwards to the authorities,’ she said and had the satisfaction of seeing him blink.
Mousy, skinny, brown-haired music teachers did not normally bite back when sneered at by earls, but recently Lucy had found her teeth and something that was not so much courage as a sense of frustrated irritation with the ways of the world. It was, she had discovered, a perfectly good substitute for bravery.
‘You think I might become violent?’ He spoke as he walked away from her to throw open the other door, the one his stepsister had left by.
‘I have no way of telling, my lord. You appear to be labouring under a strong emotion and I have noted that some gentlemen, in the absence of the real cause of their anger, will lash out at whoever is nearest. Verbally or otherwise.’
He opened the door, looked through, sighed, closed it again and walked back. ‘I do not lash out at women, children, servants or animals, Miss Lambert. You are quite safe.’
However, you, My Lordship, are very much on edge, despite your veneer of calm.
‘Excellent. I am much reassured that all those you consider your inferiors are safe from your ire.’ She stood up and looked around for her bonnet. ‘In that case, if you will be so good as to pay me, I will be on my way.’
‘Pay you? For what?’ Lord Burnham enquired. His eyebrows had drawn together into a straight line that echoed the lips that had tightened when she had answered back.
‘For the waste of a day. I was engaged to give Lady Sophia a morning’s lesson in the pianoforte, not to be drugged and rendered unconscious for the best part of six hours. In addition to which I will have the expense of a hackney to return home from this wasted journey. I certainly have no intention of walking, not after this experience.’
‘How much are you owed?’
Lucy did a rapid calculation, added in the cab fare, a weighting for the effects of the lemonade and five shillings for aggravation by the earl and told him the result.
The eyebrows did not relax, the vertical line between them growing a little deeper.
‘The labourer is worthy of her hire, my lord.’
‘Of course. But before I do pay you and you leave, Miss Lambert, tell me exactly what happened today. My sister, you see, does not have a governess, retired or otherwise, closer than Northumberland.’
That explained his grim expression, at least. ‘You think she has eloped?’
‘I think I would like to know what happened.’ She was not quite certain, but she thought he grew tenser at her suggestion.
This was definitely a man used to getting his own way without an argument. ‘I was recommended to Lady Sophia by a friend of mine, the Duchess of Aylsham.’
There, that’s given you pause, my lord.
Lucy did not give him time to express any doubts about a duchess being the friend of a spinster who earned her living as a humble music teacher. ‘Lady Sophia wrote to me expressing an interest in learning the pianoforte and engaged me to come and give her a preliminary lesson for two hours this morning. You appear surprised, my lord.’
‘Exceedingly. Sophia has been proficient on the pianoforte and the harp since childhood.’
‘She implied she was a complete beginner which, I must admit, struck me as unusual for a young lady of her background. I suppose I thought she had struggled with it as a child.’
Lied to and drugged. I would like a word with you, my lady.
Lucy refrained from saying what she felt and continued to report as concisely as possible. The man had some excuse for both anger and concern, she could understand that.
‘I arrived as requested at half past nine and Lady Sophia told the butler that she did not wish us to be disturbed. But that cannot be right—if he was expecting me to be teaching her to play, why was he not concerned when there was no music and no one emerged for hours?’
‘Because when I came in just now he informed me that my stepsister was engaged all day with a teacher of French and that as she found the language so difficult—another untruth, I regret to say—she needed to immerse herself without distraction. Hence the refreshments to cover luncheon. As this is her sitting room and that door leads to her dressing room and bedchamber, there would be no need for either of you to emerge to use the...facilities.’
‘And there is a back stair to the ground floor, I suppose?’ Lady Sophia appeared to be an excellent strategist as well as an accomplished liar.
‘A branch of the servants’ stairs, yes.’ The Earl had the air of a man concentrating on not grinding his teeth. ‘You arrived. Then what happened?’
‘I was shown in, but Lady Sophia immediately put on her bonnet—I had not even untied the ribbons of mine—and said, in an agitated manner, that she had received an urgent message and that she must go to her frail governess, but would return in a while. She begged me to stay so that we could begin her lesson when she returned, promised to pay me extra for my trouble and pointed out the refreshments. She also locked the door and left the key so that I would feel secure, being in a strange house, so she said. Then she rushed out that way.’
The headache was clearing now and she could remember more. ‘It was peculiar, now I reflect upon it. She appeared animated, but not upset. More excited, I would say.’
‘I have no doubt of that.’ At least Lord Burnham no longer sounded as though she was a dishonest housemaid about to be sacked for stealing the silver. He was clearly more exasperated with his stepsister than with her.
‘So it is an elopement?’
To her surprise Lord Burnham stopped pacing and sat down opposite her. ‘Not yet,’ he said cryptically. ‘Or so I hope.’ He raked his fingers through his hair, looking considerably more human. ‘You say you are a friend of Aylsham’s wife?’
‘We have been friends for years, since before Verity married Will.’ She ignored the way his expression changed when she used their first names. Lucy reminded herself that antagonising members of the aristocracy was not the way to begin a successful career teaching their families. ‘I choose to make my own living, but that does not make me unfit for polite society,’ she added mildly.
‘No, it does not,’ Lord Burnham said slowly. Those cold grey eyes were surveying her much as he might have sized up a horse he was being offered for sale, one he suspected of being unsound in some way he could not quite detect. ‘But have you the gowns for it?’
Lucy knew she was gaping and closed her mouth with a snap. ‘What has my wardrobe to do with anything, my lord?’
‘Humour me, Miss Lambert.’
He did not appear to be completely deranged. Lucy decided to indulge him. ‘My wardrobe is adequate for dining with a duke, attending a garden party or dancing in select company, yes.’ She did not add that it had been considerably boosted by gifts from her married friends discarding their pre-wedding gowns for outfits more suitable to married ladies of rank.
‘Mmm.’ The Earl, elbows on the arms of his chair, steepled his fingers and began thoughtfully tapping them against his lips. Lucy waited patiently for him to finish whatever the thought was. ‘You say Sophia left almost immediately after you arrived, before you had the chance to remove your bonnet. Had you raised your veil?’
Lucy eyed the door, rapidly revising her assessment of Lord Burnham’s mental stability. It was closed, but not locked. If she scooped up reticule and bonnet and ran—
‘Well? Had you?’
She walked her fingers along the sofa to her right, hooked the cord of her reticule and began to pull. It hurt, but she was becoming used to the strain on the injured tendons now. The cord slid over her wrist and she stretched to pick up the bonnet as though prompted by his question. ‘The veil?’ She folded it back. ‘Let me think. I was just lifting it, then I let it drop, I think—she took me by surprise—and then she had gone.’
‘In that case,’ said Lord Burnham, ‘what would you charge for an entire week?’
‘An entire week of what?’ Lucy relaxed a little. ‘Music lessons?’
‘Your time, Miss Lambert. I wish to hire you for a week to attend a house party.’
‘You... You libertine.’ She found she was on her feet and halfway to the door. No, not deranged at all, merely a rake. Poor Lady Sophia, having to live with a stepbrother like this!
‘Really, Miss Lambert, I am asking to pay for your time and your assistance, not your bod—your person.’ He was on his feet, too. ‘Hear me out.’
The old Lucy, before her injury, would either have hardly noticed an improper suggestion or would have been cast into confusion at having to deal with it. She realised just how much she had changed when she found herself sliding the long hatpin from her bonnet and holding it beneath the veil as she stopped and turned back, one step from the door.
‘Very well. But I should warn you, Lord Burnham, that so far I have formed the impression that you are either a rake or unhinged. Possibly both.’
‘You would be unhinged if you found yourself responsible for a pretty, well-dowered eighteen-year-old with as much common sense as a bank vole, the town bronze of a cloistered nun and a disposition for parties, shopping and romance. Especially romance,’ he added bitterly.
When she stayed where she was he walked away to the window seat at the far end of the room. ‘Please, sit again. Move that small chair to the door, if you must. You can always hit me with it if I become a ravening beast and sticking that hatpin into me does not stop me in my tracks.’
There was nothing wrong with his eyesight, however unstable he might be in either mind or morals. ‘I am listening.’ Lucy perched on the arm of the sofa, the hatpin still in her hand.
‘A little family history may help. My mother died when I was ten and my father remarried late in life, for companionship, I believe. His choice was Amanda Harker, the Earl of Longdale’s widow. She had a daughter—Sophia—who was ten years old at that time. I was twenty by then, so the arrival of a stepsister who was a mere child hardly impinged on my life.
‘When my father died four years ago I gave my stepmother the full use of all the family homes. I am unmarried, so I had no reason to unseat her and she had her own social circle. Then three years ago she became ill—or fancied herself so. She installed a distant cousin as a chaperon for Sophia and took herself off to Bath where she has fallen under the influence of some quack healer. She alternates between sending Sophia ridiculous tracts on inner healing, inappropriately large sums of money and letters expressing a fervent desire that she marry.’
‘And the cousin is an inadequate chaperon?’
‘Miss Hathaway is a romantic.’ His tone might have been appropriate for pronouncing her to be a dead rat.
‘Replace her.’ It seemed an obvious solution. ‘There are any number of single ladies of excellent breeding, firm will and much reduced circumstances who would be delighted with the position.’
‘She is employed by my stepmother. I am, as head of the family, Sophia’s guardian. I do my best to influence her, protect her, but I can hardly compel her into prudent behaviour by force.’
In the absence of anything more constructive to say than Oh, dear, Lucy made encouraging noises.
‘Her godmother has invited her to a house party, I refused to provide her either maid or carriage—it appears she has found a way around that and has set out on her own. I encountered Miss Hathaway returning from the pharmacist as I came in.’
‘Her godmother is not a suitable hostess for an unmarried girl? That seems... Whereabouts does she live?’
‘Staning Waterless in Dorset. Her name is—’
‘Ah, it must be Lady Hopewell.’
‘You know her?’
‘I spent some time in Great Staning, which is ten miles away.’ Lucy had grown up near there, to be more accurate, and had left only three weeks ago, just as soon as her hands were healed sufficiently to manage with just the help of a seventeen-year-old maid-of-all-work promoted to personal maid.
Her friends had wanted her to stay with them, of course, but that was too much like running away from home. She had left—on her own terms—although she was not so proud, or so foolish, as to refuse the help of her friends the Duchess of Aylsham, the Countess of Kendall and the Marchioness of Cranford in finding respectable lodgings and making introductions to potential clients. She wanted to make a success of her new life, not have to pocket her pride and go crawling back home a failure.
‘I have never met Lady Hopewell,’ she added. ‘But surely, if all Lady Sophia has done is to run away to her godmother, then it will be a simple matter to go after her and bring her back.’
Her own family was perfectly respectable gentry and they did not mix in aristocratic circles. But she had heard her mother and the other more upright members of the congregation holding forth on the sins of the widow in a way that was decidedly uncharitable, given that she merely appeared to be highly sociable and fond of parties. But obeying the outward rules was what her parents were obsessed with. Apparently, bitchy gossip about the sinful was not covered by the dictates of godly behaviour. Lucy had thought that the frivolous widow had sounded rather fun.
‘There is no reason why she should not visit Lady Hopewell, if it were not for the fact that she was so very anxious to do so and that her interest did not seem usual. When I suggested that we accept a different invitation to a house party in Northamptonshire she became so upset that I was suspicious.
‘I believe the silly chit fancies herself in love and her urgent desire to attend the house party is driven more by the wish to be with this wretched man than it is by the desire to gratify her godmother.’
‘Who is he?’ Lucy asked, not expecting to be told.
Lord Burnham did not tell her, although not for the reason she had been expecting—discretion. ‘I have no idea, Miss Lambert. He could be some callow youth or a hardened rake for all I know. All I do know is that one of her more sensible friends was concerned enough to speak to Miss Hathaway about hints that Sophia had dropped. Then Miss Hathaway told me.
‘I have nothing to go on other than the belief that a man who an eighteen-year-old girl cannot admit to knowing is no fit suitor. Which, to come to the point, is why, if I cannot keep her away from him and she will not confide in me, I need to find out who he is.’
He paused and Lucy found herself trying to read the expression in grey eyes that seemed all too effective at hiding his thoughts.
‘I can arrive at Waterless Manor and expect a warm welcome from Dorothea Hopewell and glares and sulks from Sophia—but she is far too cunning to be easily caught with the object of her affections or be tricked by me into revealing his name. But another young lady should be able to observe unsuspected, discover who he is and inform me.’
‘You want me to spy on your stepsister? But that is—’
‘In her best interests,’ Lord Burnham interrupted impatiently. ‘She is innocent, wealthy and impetuous. Do you wish to see her ruined or, at best, making some utterly inappropriate match because you are too nice to watch her?’
‘It is not my business to watch her,’ Lucy said indignantly. But his words had hit home. Her friend Prudence had fallen for an unscrupulous rake, lost her virginity to him and, as a consequence, had to make a very hasty marriage to another man. The fact that it had turned into a love match was the purest good luck. ‘But I do understand your concern...’
‘I will pay you five guineas a day for however long this takes. You will travel in comfort and be entertained lavishly. I believe Lady Hopewell has a very fine new pianoforte, one of concert standard.’
And he thinks that is an inducement? It would be torture. Lucy doubted she’d be able to stay in the same room with it.
‘I no longer play, my lord. I cannot.’
‘How so? You teach.’
She stood up, held out her hands in their thin black kid gloves so he could see the twisted fingers on her left hand, the shortened middle finger on the right. ‘I can demonstrate, with discomfort, enough to guide a pupil. I cannot play.’
‘What happened?’ Lord Burnham got up and moved closer.
‘The keyboard lid slammed down and I was not fast enough to move my hands away. It is not something I choose to discuss, my lord.’
Not something she could bear to.
