Unraveling the Earl (7 page)

“When is your ball this year?” Henry asked, interrupting an
examination of the risks and rewards of frolicking in a maze.

“Eight weeks hence,” Alice answered.

“Surely you intend to cancel the ball,” Easton said.

“Why should I?”

“Alice, we are a family in mourning.”

“And what would you have me tell the widows and orphans?”
she demanded. “So sorry you’ve no husbands or parents to support you but
there’ll be no help coming your way this year on account of the death of one
countess?”

“You cannot host a ball eight weeks after your aunt passes
on,” Easton argued.

“I can if I put it about Town that Aunt Hastings’ dying wish
was that I not disappoint the widows and orphans,” she replied.

“Was it her dying wish?” Everett asked.

“Who is to say?” Alice asked. “It might have been. Besides,
but for the theater, my charity ball is the only entertainment any of us shall
see for the rest of the Season.”

“We cannot attend the theater for months yet,” Easton replied.

“Not for a comedy,” Alice agreed. “But I have it on the
highest authority that it is perfectly proper to attend a drama, especially a
tragedy such as
King Lear
, which just happens to be playing.”

“Whose authority?” Easton demanded.

“Has Miss Buchanan made a donation to the Widows and Orphans
Fund this year?” Henry asked before an all-out battle of manners and morals
could break out.

“A rather generous one,” Alice answered as four pairs of
eyes swung in his direction and he fought not to fidget in his seat.

“Surely you don’t intend to have another go at the lady,”
Everett said, clearly surprised.

“Honestly, Hastings, are two mistresses not enough for you?”
Alice asked.

“He hasn’t kept two mistresses since Mrs. Fairley and Mrs.
Sotheby nearly scratched each other’s eyes out last year,” Everett replied with
a grin. “What an evening that was.”

“Did I not hear from Lady Beckwith just last week that you
were supporting Dolly Lawry?” Alice persisted.

“Mrs. Lawry is last month’s news,” Everett replied, saving
Henry the trouble. “She’s been pawned off on Lord Herbert.”

“I do not pawn off my mistresses.”

“You pawned Cybil Fairley off on Jasper Clive,” Easton
argued.

“Why is it every time I turn around someone is mentioning
Mr. Clive?” Alice asked. “If they are not whispering of his penchant for whips
and velvet cuffs, they are humming that silly song.”

“What song?” Henry asked, grateful for the change in topic.

“You pawned Josephine Amherst on my household,” Bentley
added, unerringly bringing the topic right back around, damn the man.

“Josie was never my mistress.”

“A mere technicality.”

“So are you?” Everett demanded, leaning forward in
anticipation.

“Am I what?” Henry asked, having lost track of the
conversation.

“Intending to bed the beanpole again.”

“Miss Buchanan is not a beanpole,” Henry growled, rising to
his feet, his chair scraping the floor behind him. “And I have not bedded the
lady.”

He wouldn’t consider her well and truly bedded until he had
her screaming out her release as she rode him. Hard and fast, by God.

“Pax!” Everett jumped to his feet with his hands raised in
the air. “No need to wallop me. I was only asking. And now you’ve explained the
fascination.”

It was then that Henry realized his hands were balled into
fists at his sides, his chest heaving and his heart thundering, each beat
echoing in his head.

“Sit down, Hastings,” Easton murmured.

With one final glare at his cousin, Henry lowered himself to
sit, only to jump up again when Everett mumbled, “When you’ve had her the
fascination will pass.”

“Will you never learn when to keep your mouth shut?” Easton
demanded.

“What? I’m only saying that it appears Hastings has finally
come up against a woman he might have to woo a bit.”

“Has he ever wooed a woman?” Bentley asked.

“Not that I recall,” Easton answered.

“My point precisely,” Everett crowed. “It’s a novel
experience for him. Of course he’s fascinated. He’ll win her, too. And we’ll
all know when it happens by the speed with which he loses interest in her
charms, whatever they may be. And then all will be right in the world.”

“In whose world?” Bentley asked.

“Why, Hasting’s of course.”

“And yours, I’d wager.” Easton said.

“Well hell, who am I to carouse with if Hastings is fixated
on one woman to the exclusion of all others?”

“I am not bloody fixated,” Henry muttered but no one paid
him the least mind, instead continuing to discuss him as if he weren’t standing
right there.

Turning on his heel, he stalked from the dining room. In the
hall he heard the soft chatter and laughter of his female relations in the
front parlor. He contemplated joining them, perhaps engaging his sisters in a
game of cards. Except both Olivia and Beatrice had taken to plying him with not
so subtle hints that it was time for him to marry and give up his debauched
ways.

He turned to the stairs and the quiet of his empty chamber
above.

“Hastings, a moment if you please.”

Turning at the whispered words he found Alice emerging from
the dining room, softly closing the door behind her.

“Are you truly interested in Miss Buchanan?” she asked as
she reached him where he waited for her beside the newel post.

“I don’t intend to court her with marriage in mind, if that
is your question,” he answered, wondering if she intended to treat him to
further acerbic comments.

Alice waved away his words. “Of course not. The lady is
hardly the sort you would take to wife. But you do intend to pursue her for
other purposes?”

“If I do?” he hedged.

“You might consider speaking with Piedmont as they have
become rather friendly.”

“Georgiana and your husband? Surely you are not suggesting—”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Alice interrupted. “Piedmont has no
interest in the fairer sex. No, he is only interested in his dogs and his
castles, which is how he and Miss Buchanan came to be friends. She is something
of an expert, having lived within the shadow of Joy on the Mount.”

“Should I know what Joy on the Mount is?”

“It’s a crumbling old castle in Scotland.”

“And Piedmont’s latest addition to his collection?” Henry
guessed.

“He broke ground on the eighth, and hopefully final, castle
just last week. He has come to know Miss Buchanan while gathering information.
They often take tea together while she looks over his plans and corrects his
miscalculations. He must get the proportions just right, it seems.”

“What has he told you about her?” Henry asked, not even
remotely interested in Piedmont’s need for perfect proportions in the miniature
castles that dotted the front lawn of Evergreen.

“I haven’t discussed Miss Buchanan with Piedmont. That would
require engaging him in conversation, which, as you know, is something I make
every attempt to avoid.”

“You’ve learned nothing?”

“Only what I’ve overheard as I’ve passed by the parlor when
she is visiting and what I’ve heard Piedmont saying to Cheeves,” she answered.
“Which is precious little as I do attempt to avoid our butler, as well. He’s a
sneaky little fellow with an unpleasant odor about him.”

“Alice,” Henry grated out between clenched teeth.

“Gracious, what on earth has come over you?” Alice asked. “I
have never seen you in such a state. And all over a woman. Everett is likely
correct. It is the novelty of the thing, the thrill of the chase.”

“What have you learned?” he demanded, ignoring her words.

Alice huffed out a breath. “From what I can gather, your
Miss Buchanan came to Town last year to escape her wretched relations and the
wild set that runs with them.”

“Yes,” he agreed, an image of kilted warriors swarming
heather fields taking shape in his mind. Except the libertines who ascended the
mountain were Englishmen.

“Or perhaps it was to find one or the other of them,” Alice
continued. “Although why anyone would search for a Buchanan if one were lucky
enough to lose him, I’ve no idea.”

“Are the Buchanans really so terrible?”

“Heathens, every last one of them. It’s whispered they’ve
murdered one another for generations over a craggy plot of land good only for
the raising of sheep. They are a family of wastrels, gamblers, debauchers and
turncoats if ever there was one.”

Henry waved away her words. Hadn’t Georgiana herself had
told him the Buchanans were likened to the boogeymen of children’s nightmares?

“Oh, and she is frightfully well read,” Alice tacked on. “I
know this because Piedmont had Cheeves sorting through dusty old tomes in
search of a book he must give to her in gratitude for her assistance.”

“She does not strike me as a blue-stocking,” he replied
skeptically.

“Perhaps she hides her penchant for knowledge,” Alice
suggested.

“Somehow I doubt that,” Henry said with a chuckle. “Miss
Buchanan is…well an open book. She is who she is and makes no apologies for it.
It seems her grandmother instilled in her the ability to embrace her unique
qualities.”

“One must wonder what else the lady instilled in her,” Alice
murmured.

“That’s it? That’s all you got?”

“Oh, and she has an interest in angels,” Alice said.

“Angels?”

“Your mother’s angels in particular.”

Henry barked out a laugh that sounded bitter and cold to his
ears. “Mother may have possessed the ability to call up the devil’s minions,
but angels?”

“Have you never heard the little ditty about your mother’s
angels?” Alice asked in apparent surprise.

“Are you referring to the lewd song about Father running off
to Idyllwild with Mary Morgan?”

“So you have heard it.”

“Lord Casterbury was kind enough to sing a few bars for my
entertainment one night last year when he was drunk on port and too many losing
hands of whist,” Henry replied, his fists balling in remembered fury and
humiliation.

“Then you know the angels were those ladies who offered
solace to your abandoned mother,” Alice replied with a sly smile. “A dozen
sweet angels immortalized to the tune of an old lullaby. And your Miss Buchanan
has a keen interest in those angels.”

Georgiana Buchanan might possess barbarian blood and an
interest in angels.

What she apparently did not possess was an interest in was
being found by the Earl of Hastings.

This Henry knew because he’d taken to riding around Bedford
Square and lingering in the park at its center nearly every day. Not once did
he see the lady careening around corners or cutting off unwary travelers in her
bright yellow curricle. Nor did he see her coming or going from any of the
houses that lined the square.

She did not attend the theater or ride in Hyde Park.

This Henry knew because Alice and Everett were only too
happy to tease him with the knowledge.

She was not seen loitering outside his town house in
Grosvenor Square or his club on St. James’s Street, nor had she attended a
single wedding or funeral at any church in the vicinity of Mayfair.

This Henry knew because he’d stationed his servants as
lookouts at all three while he skulked about in Bedford Square.

For three full weeks he’d been searching for a tall, slender
woman in ridiculously wide skirts, red curls escaping from beneath an outrageous
bonnet bedecked with ribbons, bows and flowers.

Just that morning he’d molested a woman with a stuffed bird
perched atop her hat only to learn she wasn’t a woman at all and the bird was
not stuffed.

It was at that precise moment, as he ducked the swinging
fist of a foreign sailor while a parrot flew circles around his head, that
Henry realized he’d lost his mind.

And determined to reclaim it, along with his dented ego and
his bruised masculinity.

Thus he found himself at Angelique Henri’s ball on the
fringes of Hanover Square.

Angelique was the reigning queen of the demimonde and a
decidedly lovely woman, one Henry had contemplated bedding on more than one
occasion. Alas she had not offered up the opportunity, which struck him as the
height of hypocrisy.

She bedded only the wealthiest, most powerful gentlemen of
the
ton
.

And those reputed to be exceptional lovers.

Henry fit all three requirements and still she’d never been
more than mildly flirtatious when he’d attended her various entertainments.

“Lord Hastings, what a pleasure to see you.”

Henry looked away from his hostess’ piled-high raven locks
and rather amazing bosom only to find himself face-to-face with a woman nearly
as blessed.

Vivienne Culpepper was an astoundingly beautiful woman with
blonde ringlets framing her face and dark eyes tipped up at the corners. They’d
flirted with one another for a time last season without ever coming to the
sticking point.

Henry swept his gaze over curves that invariably overflowed
whatever gown she’d been stitched into for the evening.

Tonight was no exception. Her breasts swelled over the
bodice of a crimson gown until the crests of her rouged areolas peeked over the
top, one after the other, like eyes winking at him with each breath she took.

Henry wondered if she practiced utilizing first the left
lung then the right to breathe, thereby obtaining the perfect alternating
winks. It certainly appeared so.

“Vivienne.” Henry made her a bow, careful not to bend too
near her breasts lest he give one or the other a poke in the eye. “Where have
you been hiding yourself? It seems an age since I’ve seen you.”

“Have you missed me, you naughty man?” she cooed, dropping
into a curtsy that caused her bodice to gape, giving him an unobstructed view
of her nipples.

They weren’t pretty ripe berries but they were certainly
lovely, pert and pouting.

“But of course I’ve missed you, dove.”

The beginning strains of a waltz soared over the chatter in
Angelique’s ballroom.

“I don’t suppose I could be so lucky as to find you without a
partner for this set?” Henry inquired.

“Tonight is your lucky night,” she purred, her dark gaze
sweeping over him, lingering none too subtly at his groin before coming up to
meet his eyes once more.

In that moment Henry knew precisely how the night would play
out. He would twirl her around the dance floor while she tossed out flirtatious
hints as to her availability for the night. Afterward the lady would suggest a
walk in the gardens, a visit to the orangery or an inspection of a portrait in
one of the many empty chambers abovestairs.

As they took up their places amid the other dancers,
Vivienne’s dainty hand swallowed in his, Henry waited for the first pulse of
desire to take up residence in the vicinity of his crotch.

“You have not commented on my gown, Hastings,” she
admonished playfully, her left breast winking.

“Astounding,” he assured her. “And you look ravishing in
it.”

“I purchased an entire new wardrobe while in Paris…”

As he led her around the dance floor she rambled on about
dresses made to order and the naughty underthings she’d acquired to wear
beneath them. Garments one must see to believe, she assured him.

Henry found his gaze riveted to her breasts, entranced by
the never-ending show that was the winking, blinking, perfectly synchronized
appearance of the tops of her areolas.

“Champagne sounds divine.”

Henry fought his way out of a hazy fog to find the music
fading to a close and Vivienne standing motionless in front of him with a
rather peevish expression on her lovely face.

“Forgive me. I was entranced by your beauty.” Henry pitched
his voice low in the way that women everywhere adored.

Had Georgiana adored it?

Pushing away the unwelcome thought, he brushed his thumb
over Vivienne’s knuckles while he trailed his fingers over her palm.

“I am drunk on your beauty, but if you wish for champagne, I
shall not deny you. I could deny you nothing.” The words tripped off his
tongue, stiff and unwieldy.

If Vivienne noticed, she gave no indication.

Why should she notice? She hardly knew him beyond the playful
banter they’d exchanged while dancing together a handful of times.

“It is terribly warm in here,” Vivienne proclaimed as Henry
led her from the dance floor toward a hovering servant with a tray in his hand.
“Perhaps we might share a glass in the garden?”

As propositions went, her technique was flawless.

Brazenly coy.

“I am yours to command.” Handing her a glass, he watched as
her lashes fluttered over dark eyes and her tongue darted out to sweep over her
lower lip.

Henry knew the look. He ought to. He’d seen desire on a
woman’s face dozens of times since Lady Churchill had proclaimed him talented
beyond words.

And dozens of times he’d felt an answering pull, tightening
his balls and throbbing down his shaft.

And now? Nothing.

Had one night with Georgiana left him emasculated?

“The garden awaits,” he muttered, pulling her out the french
doors and onto the terrace.

“My goodness, you are a surprisingly forceful man,” Vivienne
said with a trilling laugh as Henry hauled her down a shallow flight of stairs.
“I hadn’t heard that about you.”

“I am impatient to have you in my arms,” he called back over
his shoulder as he pulled her along behind him.

“Ooh, I do love a man who knows what he wants.” Her voice
had taken on a breathless quality, whether from passion or the sprint along the
garden path Henry neither knew nor cared.

He would have her, by God. He would take her to the gazebo
and pull her to his lap, burying his face in her astonishingly coordinated
breasts. He would drop his trousers and lift her skirts and take her, thrusting
into her heat.

He would be damned if she would drive him to the brink of
madness with her clenching cunny and soft sighs. Not until she’d reached her
crisis. Twice.

And if she dared to laugh while he labored, he would fuck
her until she could not walk.

Reaching the gazebo, Henry tugged her in and spun about to
take her in his arms.

But she was already there, her arms wrapping around his
neck, her fingers fisting in his hair as she dragged his mouth over hers.

“Mmm, yes,” she moaned against his lips before prying them
apart with her tongue.

Henry reached around and cupped her bottom, lifting her off
her feet and pulling her tight against his cock.

His flaccid cock.

“Fuck.” He sank onto the cushioned bench behind him, taking
her with him.

“Oh, yes,” she whispered. “Use your naughty words.”

A ragged laugh forced its way past her stabbing tongue and
puckering lips.

“My lord?” She lifted her head to look at him.

“Oh, pardon me,” a soft voice intruded.

Saved, was Henry’s first thought.

Or not, was his second.

Angelique Henri stood just outside the arched opening, one
hand resting on the wood, the other holding a bottle of whiskey.

“Sorry to interrupt, but Mr. Culpepper just arrived.”

“Oh no!” Vivienne lurched off his lap. “Is he in a temper?”

“Quite so.”

“Damn and blast, now he’ll cancel my dress order!” Leaving
her wailing words echoing around the gazebo, Vivienne fled into the night.

Angelique approached Henry with bottle in hand.

“You owe me, my lord,” she informed him as she took the seat
beside him.

“Is Mr. Culpepper truly here?” he asked, taking the bottle
from her unresisting hand.

“I never invite them both. It makes for screaming matches
and fisticuffs.” Angelique plucked the cork from the bottle. “Take a swallow.
You look as if you could use it.”

Henry lifted the bottle and poured the good Scots whiskey
down his throat, welcoming the burn.

“Why?” he asked when he could get enough breath for the one
word.

“Vivienne Culpepper will harass you unmercifully should you
bed her.”

“Harass me?”

“When Horace Michaels broke things off with her last year
she stalked him to Paris.”

“I’ve already one woman stalking me. Or I did until I mucked
it up somehow,” Henry replied, his throat raw.

From the whiskey.

“Perhaps you might unmuck it?” Angelique suggested.

“I’ll be damned if I know where she’s run off to.”

“Love is a bitch. Or so my grandmother always said.”

“I do not love Georgiana Buchanan!” Henry jumped to his
feet, his head spinning.

From the whiskey.

He held the bottle out to Angelique, surprised to see it
shaking in his hand.

“Georgiana Buchanan?” she asked around a giggle. “Keep it,
my lord. You’re going to need it.”