Wicked Earl Seeks Proper Heiress (7 page)

“Rufus, Earl of Southbrook,” the footman called out nervously and rather belatedly, just as Gareth started forward to greet his guest. “Lord Southbrook, you are most welcome. Most welcome.”

“I’m glad to hear it.”

The earl’s dark and brooding gaze dismissed Gareth then moved on, and Averil realized with shocking awareness that it was her he was looking at.

Looking at with such intensity that she found herself believing—and the thought struck a strange sort of excitement into her heart, rather like the flare of a match—that she and she alone was the reason Lord Southbrook had come here tonight.

“L
ord Southbrook, I am flattered you have graced our humble supper with your presence.”

The man was still blathering and Southbrook gave him an impatient glance. As far as he was aware his “presence” was causing more trouble than flattery.

He guessed this was Dr. Simmons, who’d sent him the invitation, the fellow the Baroness Sessington paid to share her bed, although to the world she bleated that she was only his patroness. Was anyone really fooled by such playacting? Was Averil?

But tonight Rufus could not have cared less about Dr. Simmons and his peccadillos. He was here because of Lady Averil Martindale, with her pale beauty and her stormy gray eyes. He’d spent the previous week wrestling with his conscience and his desperate circumstances and his uncle James’s latest advice.

Marry her, my boy, before someone else gets their hooks into her!

He’d tried to rationalize the idea of seducing an innocent young woman for her fortune, but he couldn’t seem to manage it. Somewhere deep in his wicked, dark heart there was still a spark of decency.

Now Simmons was introducing them, unaware they had met before.

“Lady Averil, how do you do?” Rufus said politely with a hint of amusement.

“So-so glad you could attend our . . . function, your lordship.”

Averil was speaking in a soft little voice, managing at the same time to give a quick glance at the good doctor. Rufus understood that the words and the voice were meant to prevent Dr. Simmons from noticing anything was amiss.

Or was the girl in love with him? Dr. Simmons was too busy with his charities to love anybody, but that had never stopped the relentless march of unrequited passion before. Perhaps Averil found goodness lust-inducing? And no doubt the doctor encouraged her; he would find her money very useful for building orphanages and saving whores. He would take everything and leave her poor and miserable, whereas at least with Rufus she would have Southbrook Castle and a title to keep her warm.

Oh, well played!
He mocked himself.
Pretending to be doing her a favor by relieving her of her fortune!

Baroness Sessington, standing by the supper table with her wig askew, was gesturing wildly toward Dr. Simmons, while he was trying to ignore her. When she started hissing like a snake he gave in to the inevitable and excused himself, leaving Rufus and Averil alone. They might as well have been entirely alone. The other guests were keeping their distance, some gossiping and staring in his direction, others preparing to leave in case they became contaminated by his mere presence.

He found it darkly amusing and would be sure to tell Uncle James all about it when he got home.

Averil gave him a surreptitious glance full of anxiety. Was she thinking he was about to announce his presence in her bedchamber the other night? The memory of her propped up against her pillows, her fair hair in loose waves about her, her skin like cream, and her lips just begging to be kissed, made his body tighten.

“How is Hercules?” he asked, meeting her eyes and willing her to keep looking at him.

“Very well. Thank you. My lord.” Her eyes had widened slightly at the question but she faced him without any apparent need to rush off and remove herself from his contamination.

“And your injury?” He gestured toward her cane.

“I am recovering,” she replied calmly. “How is Eustace?”

“Eustace is well. I have given him firm instructions that he is not to frequent London by night again.”

“I think that is wise. You could point me and my injury out as a cautionary tale.”

“I have.”

Her mouth twitched up despite herself, and then she giggled. “I’m glad our adventure served some purpose, my lord.”

He smiled back. “Our adventure. I like that.”

Averil was looking into his eyes as if she had all the time in the world, and Rufus was sorry to have to break whatever spell she seemed to be under. His next words sobered her. “I wished to speak to you about your sister. I presume you have not found her?”

Her manner grew less calm, and she glanced across at the doctor and the baroness, huddled together in furious discussion. “I would rather not discuss that matter, my lord. It is a private one.”

After a moment of awkward silence she took a step closer, and lowered her voice. “I do not wish to be rude, Lord Southbrook, but why are you here? I do not believe you have any intention of donating to Doctor Simmons’s cause, and as you can see, you are disrupting our guests.”

His smile was rather grim. “Disrupting your guests was not what I intended when I decided to come here tonight, Lady Averil. I wondered if you were recovered from . . . well, recovered, and I thought I would be able to speak to you without doing you any harm, with so many watchful eyes upon us. Eustace wanted to call on you at your house, you know, but I dissuaded him.”

Averil blinked up at him. He noticed her hair was beginning to hang rather unsteadily from its pins and the wax flowers were sliding down from her crown. His fingers itched to free the heavy tresses and he clenched his hands to remind himself where he was.

“Then . . . you came here to see
me
?” she said. “But why?”

“I did come to see you,” he agreed, “but don’t tell anyone. It would ruin your reputation if they knew the Wicked Earl was seeking you out. I have only to smile at a woman and she is cast out.”

Averil gave an impatient sigh. “Don’t be silly,” she declared. “You are not as hazardous as you think you are, my lord. Your reputation may be a little shadowy but it isn’t so very bad. Is it?”

Mockery filled his face. “You underestimate the power of public opinion, Lady Averil.”

“Oh, but surely—”

“Please, no pity. I am happy being an outcast. I can no longer imagine putting up with the excruciating boredom of conforming to society’s rules.”

Her gray eyes sparked a challenge at him. “And yet you have conformed enough to come here tonight.”

He noticed that her cheeks were colored a faint, delicious pink, and surprised himself by wondering whether her blush went below the neckline of her silk gown as well as above it. He could see the swell of her breasts over the top of her dress, the way the rose silk nipped into her small waist, and he found that his imagination was perfectly good enough to visualize what she looked like without her clothing.

Could he marry Lady Averil Martindale for her fortune? Always assuming she would take someone who was an outcast from society! For a moment he allowed himself to imagine pursuing her, wooing her, making her fall in love with him, wedding her and bedding her in that order. Or maybe the wedding and bedding could be interchanged, if it became necessary.

And afterward?

Damned and blasted misery for them both, more than likely.

No, it would not do and he must stop thinking that it would. Lady Averil was no solution to his troubles, no matter what James might think.

“Lady Averil,” he said, bending his head to be closer to her. “I visited St. Thomas’s for you last week, aware as I was that you were incapacitated. I hoped you would be glad of my help.”

“Hush!” She put her hand upon his arm to stop him, evidently innocent of the fact that it was unseemly to touch a man such as he. “This is a private matter, as I said before.”

There were tears in her eyes.

Something in his heart gave a little tremor, but he ignored it and continued on.

“Lady Averil, I can help you in this matter. Indeed you would be doing me a favor if you allowed me to help; I need a distraction right now. And I know those streets well. At one time I worked for the government. I was the man who delved into the dark places of London for all the missing people no one else could find. I promise you that I will find your sister.”

She put a gloved fingertip to her cheek and quickly wiped away a tear that had escaped her long lashes. “I don’t know what to say.”

“I am offering you my help,” he said and his voice was utterly sincere. “Say yes.”

A
veril was having difficulty seeing into Lord Southbrook’s heart. At least, she was having no difficulty at all, and that was what was puzzling her. Because what was a man like him doing, helping her find her sister? What possible reason could he have, apart from using her as a distraction, as he claimed? Averil was inclined to trust people and her intuition was telling her to trust him, but she was no fool, and she knew the earl was someone beyond her usual experience.

He was the sort of man women fantasized about, herself included, but in real life, up close, he was so much more . . . more of everything. The way his hair fell about his lean, masculine face, and his hooded eyes, staring down into hers, not to mention his scar. She imagined herself reaching out and touching that savage line of destruction, as if her fingers could somehow heal him.

Was this how her mother had felt, before she bolted with her mystery lover? Was Averil going to be as poor a judge of the opposite sex as Anastasia?

The thought sobered her. She would not make a fool of herself by imagining there was more to this than appeared. He was offering to help her, and for Rose’s sake she couldn’t afford to reject any offers of help.

“Lord Southbrook.” Gareth was back again, having shaken off the baroness. “I do hope you will have time to visit the Home for Distressed Women? Once you see what we are trying to do for those unfortunate women, you may consider making a donation.”

The earl looked annoyed at the interruption, but he could hardly say so when the Home for Distressed Women was supposedly the reason he was here. He considered Averil with his brooding gaze and then asked in a clipped tone, “Would tomorrow morning at ten be suitable?”

Gareth was taken aback by the promptness of his reply but was not about to refuse a potential donor. “Yes, of course, my lord. Tomorrow morning would be perfectly suitable.”

“I hope Lady Averil will join us?” he added questioningly, and gave her a meaningful look. “I’d like to discuss matters with her, too.”

Averil knew they had matters to discuss. He had been to St. Thomas’s and he might know something about Rose, and she was eager to hear it. She met the waiting expression in his eyes. She wanted to say yes but something made her hesitate, some niggling warning at the back of her brain. She had the sensation that once she allowed herself to be drawn into Southbrook’s orbit she might never be free again.

“I had planned to donate a sum to cover the care of another two girls,” he said, his deep voice vibrating inside her in a most unnerving manner, “but . . . there are plenty of other charities, Simmons.”

It was a cruel thing to say. Averil narrowed her eyes at him.

“Of course Averil will attend!” Gareth burst out, all but hopping on the spot in his anxiety to please. “She has no other engagements. Have you, Averil?”

The Home for Distressed Women meant a great deal to Averil, and to Gareth. His offer was too good to refuse. But his manipulation of her made her cross and uneasy.

Gareth was staring at her like Hercules at a bone, willing her to say yes.

And indeed what
could
she say, but, “It seems I do not have another engagement, Lord Southbrook.”

Her gray eyes sparked as she met those dark ones—his uncle was right, he was a bully!—and she couldn’t help the spurt of rebellious anger that set her nerve ends tingling. She had a temper, and although she managed it well, sometimes it crashed through her defenses. He must have seen. In fact the twitch of his lips told her he had, and far from causing him discomfort, her temper amused him.

“Then we shall meet at ten o’clock? As you have no other engagements?” Lord Southbrook insisted, brushing a speck of imaginary dust from his cuff.

“No, my lord. And I will be pleased, eh,
honored
to show you about.”

He held out his hand and automatically she gave him her own. He lifted her fingers to his lips, and she could feel his smile against her skin.

“I particularly like the ‘honored,’” he murmured.

Averil glanced sideways at Gareth but he appeared not to have noticed, or if he did then he chose to pretend otherwise. A donation was a donation after all, and she’d noted before that Gareth, for all that he was such a moral man, had the ability to set aside those rigid standards if he felt that the end justified it.

It was over. A beaming Gareth led the earl away from her, introducing him to other people, some of whom appeared to wish he’d rather not. Averil didn’t care. She breathed a sigh of relief. Now he was gone she felt herself again, and yet she was aware of him, even at a distance. Dear Lord, that was a memory to keep her tossing and turning at night! The earl of Southbrook kissing her hand as if she were the most desirable woman in London.

She would need to be very calm and collected tomorrow morning at ten o’clock. Just as well she wasn’t someone Southbrook could bowl over with his dark charm, she told herself firmly. No, she was meeting Lord Southbrook to benefit the women she so much wished to help, and for the sake of her sister, Rose. No matter what her senses—and his smile—would have her believe, this was a matter of business, pure and simple.

S
outhbrook strode through the fog, hardly noting it as it swirled about his legs and clung like cold arms.

He wondered what he thought he was doing.

He was twenty-nine years old and a widower. He’d lived his life very much as he pleased until recently, when he’d began to take seriously his responsibilities to his son and his name. Eustace’s treatment by his nanny had been like a dash of cold water in his face. It was as if he’d woken from a long sleep, and seen so clearly that he must spent more time with his son, that he must put aside his own selfish desires and become a good father. Eustace should have been at school by now, but Mrs. Slater had set him back, and it seemed better to wait another year or two, to employ a tutor instead.