How to Wed an Earl (3 page)

Actually, Penelope doubted the earl even remembered their engagement. The way everyone was still inclined to believe her claims was a small miracle. She hoped she could keep the pretense up until the time Lord Ravenstone decided to marry.

It was imperative to keep people certain about her affianced state. Nothing was more important, because the third thing she definitely knew about her betrothal was she had used it to ask the creditors to give Papa a little more time to pay off debts. Papa would be livid if he found out she’d used her engagement as a bargaining tool, but there had been little else the family could have done. Her stepfather had been away on business, and if she hadn’t bargained for more time, they would have already lost Highfield Manor.

The fourth thing she knew about her engagement was there would be the devil to pay if Lord Ravenstone ever found out she’d been using his name without his consent or knowledge.

Penelope sighed and dismissed the gloomy thoughts. She refused to allow unresolved issues and forgetful earls to destroy her day.
This rainy, muddy day.

“Don’t worry, I’m not leaving Rusland anytime soon,” she reassured Mari. Rusland Valley was where Highfield Manor was located, a five-minute horse ride north of Bouth. “I haven’t received any message from Maitland Hall regarding the earl.”

“Speaking of Maitland Hall,” Mari said in a hushed tone while she looked around to see if anyone was within hearing distance before deciding that it was safe to go on talking, “A gentleman from London checked in here last night, asking about Baron Maitland and directions to your uncle’s estate.”

Penelope’s eyebrows rose and before she could stop herself, she asked in a tone of mild curiosity, “What did the gentleman want with my uncle?” Mari opened her mouth to speak but Penelope held up her hand for silence as she hastily dismissed the news. “Never mind. Whatever my uncle is up to, it has nothing to do with me. I don’t care what Uncle Hugh does as long as he leaves me and Mama out of it.”

“Aren’t you the least bit interested in this visitor?” Mari pouted, clearly disappointed with her lack of enthusiasm for juicy gossip.

“I’ll admit it’s an unusual occurrence. No one ever goes to Maitland Hall.” She considered that for a moment. “Very well, did the gentleman say what the visit was about? And why are you so sure he’s a gentleman?” she couldn’t help but ask.

“Penelope, I grew up in a coaching inn.” Mari crossed her arms over her chest, looking smug. “I
know
when I see nobility. It’s a skill an innkeeper’s daughter has to learn. This particular gentleman’s clothes were of the finest quality. And even if his clothing were shabby, his accent and good manners would’ve given him away. Why, even his giant of a horse looked positively regal.”

Penelope reined in her sudden impatience. “Did the gentleman have a name? And what did he want?”
Why did she care?

“Papa was the one who checked him in, so I don’t know his name. You know how Papa can be about guests’ privacy. But I was the one the man asked about Lord Maitland when I brought his breakfast in this morning. He said he had ‘personal business’ with the baron.”

“Well, that certainly counts Mama and me out,” Penelope said cheerfully even as a strange combination of relief and disappointment settled on her chest.

She stiffened.
Disappointment
? What was the matter with her? Hadn’t she learned long ago not to hope for anything from her aristocratic, pompous relatives or her equally self-important fiancé? Their social class gave them a bloated sense of entitlement, making them consistently disregard anyone whom they deemed to be useless.

She suspiciously eyed the now empty plate before her on the scarred oak table. Perhaps the apple and blackberry pie wasn’t so awesome after all. Perhaps the pie had somehow muddled her mind, for the most trifling matters agitated her. She’d heard that sort of thing happened by eating too many sweets.

“It could have something to do with your beloved earl! Oh, Polly, what if your white knight has come at last?” Mari clasped her hands together, her pretty face alight with excitement. “It’s so romantic! Just imagine — a chivalrous knight in shining armor, riding his glorious steed to rescue his fair maiden.”

“Why would I want to marry a medieval knight?” she scoffed. “You forget those ‘heroic’ knights were paid to be ambitious murderers, and I’ll wager they also carried the scent of the Middle Ages.”

Mari’s look of dismay made her laugh heartily.

“I’ll tell you a secret,” she continued, still chuckling, “I can assure you my ‘beloved earl’ has long since forgotten about me.”

She gave Nelson one final pat on the head before rising to leave when a captivatingly deep, curt, male voice addressed her from the staircase behind them.

“I wouldn’t be too quick with giving assurances, if I were you, Miss Maitland.”

Penelope and Mari whirled in unison toward the staircase where an imposingly huge, well-dressed man loomed.

“And who, pray tell, are
you
?” Penelope demanded, refusing to be cowed by such a haughty individual. She placed her hands on her hips and tapped her foot. “Didn’t anyone tell you it’s considered ill mannered to eavesdrop on other peoples’ conversations?” Somehow, she managed to crane her neck, look the man straight in the eye, and ignore Mari’s horrified gasp.

The tall, black-haired beast of a man stalked to her and Mari with a purpose that lent deadly grace to his soundless footsteps. Ill-concealed interest and amusement glittered in his midnight-dark eyes as his bold gaze raked her insolently from the top of her bonneted head to the tips of her well worn half-boots, then travelled back up to meet her eyes.

“Didn’t anyone tell
you
it’s considered ill mannered to talk about one’s fiancé with so little respect?” the arrogant man said in a gentle, chiding tone that, if Penelope hadn’t known how deliberately unpleasant she’d just been to him, she would have thought the stranger was actually flirting with her.

She stole a glance at Mari to gauge her reaction. Her friend had always known more about men because unlike her, Mari had a nicely trimmed form and a face of classic beauty.

At the moment, however, Mari seemed unable to do anything but stand there, gawking nervously.

Penelope had a sudden, sinking feeling of foreboding in the pit of her stomach as she dragged her eyes to meet the giant’s dark, steady gaze. “Who are you, sir?” she asked again in the barest of whispers.

Please, God, let me be wrong
, she silently prayed.

In answer, the immaculately dressed gentleman bowed in one swift, smooth motion, then grabbed her bare hand and brushed his lips against her knuckles.

At the touch of his lips on her skin, Penelope felt a disturbing, unwanted tingling sensation all the way up her arm that made her heart pound while a strange — if late — warning rang inside her head like distant church bells and …
the man refused to let go of her hand!
She must’ve tried to tug her hand free from his iron grip at least three times by now.

“I am delighted to finally meet you, Penelope,” the stranger murmured in an inappropriately intimate voice, a smile tugging at his lips. “Please allow me to introduce myself. My name is Lucas Arthur Phillip Drake. And I, my dear, am your ‘beloved earl.’”

Penelope paled. A ghost from the past had come back to haunt her.

And she was in big trouble.

She watched the Earl of Ravenstone dwarf the private reception room of The Mucky Duck while he paced the flagstone floor and stopped in front of the cozy fireplace, looking more like a fierce warrior than a self-important peer of the realm, despite the elegant cut of his dark blue coat and buff riding breeches.

He looked so out of place and alone that she had an almost overwhelming impulse to pat his powerful shoulder and tell him everything was going to be all right.

But first, she had to make sure he was real.

Because Penelope
knew
she was hallucinating. This wasn’t the first time she’d imagined the earl coming for her, though it had been at least seven years since she’d last daydreamed about him.

She sat on the red velvet settee opposite the hearth, not sure of what to make of the situation. Perhaps, if she blinked, he would disappear.

She blinked. Hard.

He is still here.
Either she was feverish or she’d actually stepped into one of those “horrid” novels she and her sister Sarah loved to read. Except she wasn’t a miserable, beautiful damsel in distress.
No, indeed
.

She fought to contain a wayward, sympathetic grin, imagining how the earl must have felt seeing her for the first time, standing in the dining hall next to the gorgeous Mari. What a surprise that must have been for him.

A disappointing one
, she thought deprecatingly.

When she was with Mari, men generally regarded Penelope in the same manner one regards a side vegetable no one asked for but was always served with the meat nonetheless.

She looked down at her plain, eucalyptus-hued wool gown, inspected her mud-splattered half boots, and felt another urge to giggle inappropriately.
Was I worth waiting twenty-two years for
,
my lord?
She almost asked him the question as he continued to stare into the flames, his back to her.
I do hope you like your women plain, short, and plump.

She forced herself to stop fidgeting with the ties of her reticule. Fidgeting was a clear sign that one’s nerves were rattled, and she was someone with very strong nerves. It would take more than this man to send her scurrying for a vinaigrette.

When the silence stretched and became awkward, Penelope scrambled for something to say but didn’t know exactly how to begin. What did one say to a fiancé who, despite everything she knew about him, was still technically a stranger? A fiancé whose name one had been using to fend off creditors without his permission?

She considered starting the conversation by asking him about his journey, but somehow that didn’t seem appropriate. Perhaps a direct approach would be the most effective one as well. She cleared her throat and broke the silence.

“I suppose you’re here to ask me to cry off from the betrothal, my lord?” she ventured.

He whirled to her, surprise evident in his sharp, forbidding features that somehow reminded her of the craggy fells surrounding her hometown.

“Why would you think that?”

“Well,” Penelope answered, managing to look everywhere but directly at him, “I assumed you plan to marry someone else, and you’ve come here to demand I break our engagement. I mean, why would you travel all the way from London if not to make certain I cry off?” She directed her gaze to the fire. “It’s the only reason I could think of that’s important enough for your lordship to honor one such as I with your esteemed presence.”

Was that a
bitter
edge in her voice? No, of course not. She was nervous, that’s all. She had no cause to be bitter; she was only stating facts. It just so happened the facts were humiliating.

She stole a look at him, and the earl leveled her with a piercing stare for what seemed like several minutes before speaking.

“I have not come here to ask you to break our betrothal,” he said in a quiet voice that nevertheless conveyed an iron resolve as he strode toward her with his hands clasped behind his back and continued, “Quite the opposite, actually. I meant to call upon your uncle, but from the conversation out in the hall I gather he isn’t responsible for you?”

Penelope shook her head. “I haven’t had anything to do with my uncle since my father died.”
But you’d know that if you bothered to think of me in the past two decades.

She gathered up her courage and looked him straight in the eye. Of course, she had to crane her neck all the way up to do so. Did he have to be so tall? He loomed over her, arresting and intimidating and overwhelmingly male.

He probably didn’t even realize the effect his low, rumbling voice had on the female population. It was definitely affecting her in a way she found most disturbing. Then the rest of his words sunk in.

He didn’t want to break the betrothal?

“If you don’t want me to cry off, then what is it you want, my lord?”

His dark eyes flashed with what looked like irritation. “First, I want to know what in the flaming heaven you think you’re doing, ensconced in a private salon in a coaching inn with a strange man. Have you no sense of the sort of danger you could put yourself in?”

She opened her mouth to reply, but he silenced her with a wave of his aristocratic hand as he continued to pace in front of her, his back to the fire.

“You came to a coaching inn without an escort of any sort,” he bit out. “Not even an Abigail.”

Why, the arrogant wretch!
He had the nerve to question her actions? He, who’d hardly bothered to send any communication in all the time they’d been engaged. How dared he question her conduct now? He had no right! She couldn’t believe she’d actually felt sorry for him a few minutes ago.

If he presumed their engagement authorized him to lecture her, then he’d given her the right to treat him as if he were an imbecile. “If you were paying any attention, my lord, you’d know that I did have an escort. He was eating with me and my friend.”

“You had a dog.”

“Who is perfectly capable of protecting me better than any lady’s maid.” She trusted Nelson implicitly. Besides, she couldn’t afford a lady’s maid. But he didn’t need to know that. She reminded herself that she needed this man’s cooperation if she wanted to keep fending off the creditors from her family’s doorstep.

She sat straighter in the settee and gave him a bright smile. “And I’m confident of my safety now that you are here, my lord. I trust you’ll make sure no harm comes to my person.”

“Bloody hell.”

Her eyes widened at the curse, but she wisely refrained from commenting on his appalling language. “Since you’re not here to break the betrothal, I assume you came to do your duty?”

His square jaw seemed to clench. “You assume correctly, Miss Maitland. Is there anyone I should speak to before we get married?”