Enticing the Earl

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Epilogue

“T
hey do say he's desperate handsome,” the first hotel
maid said as she scrubbed the door panel. “And a wild man in bed!”

“Tell me some'um I ain't 'eard,” the second maid jeered. “The earl's famous for 'is way wid the ladies. And I 'ear 'e's dumped the 'igh-priced ladybird 'e's been supportin' in such style. She'll 'ave to find some'un else to pay for 'er 'igh perch carriages and diamond-studded boots. Wish I 'ad a chance to take over her post, and she could 'ave this 'ere mop!”

Grinning at this fantasy involving the Quality's love lives, she sloshed her mop about on the staircase landing, splattering drops of dirty water. Thick with muscle, her arms wielded the handle with ease.

“Ha!” The first servant snorted. “You and me and half of London's females, besides. He's probably built her a castle—and–and—God knows! Who wouldn't want to be mollycoddled with jewels and pretty clothes, and made love to night and day?”

“It'd jolly me just to spend a few 'ours alone wid a man like that!” The other maid groaned in mock ecstasy, and both servants dissolved into fits of giggles.

Who indeed?

Seated on the stairs a flight above them, Lauryn Applegate Harris wrapped her arms about her knees, feet drawn up beneath her, and wondered if she would ever meet such a man. It didn't seem likely.

She had been in London for six weeks, and this—eaves-dropping on the hotel maids as they worked—was as close as she had come to any social life. Not that Lauryn had clothes suitable for entering Society, anyhow. She was still wearing the rusty black gowns she had dyed for her unexpected widowhood last year, and now she lacked the money to replace them. Just this morning she had found a hole in her last pair of good stockings. Being poor was enough to make a saint curse.

And she was no saint—just a young widow who was acutely weary of always making do with too little and forever covering up her own sadness as she tried to help her father-in-law, the squire, cope with his. He had taken the loss of his only son so hard that she'd feared more than once for his sanity. And the only comfort that might have assuaged his misery was beyond her power to offer. If only she had given her late husband an heir….

Then Squire Harris would have had something to console him and take his mind off the terrible deprivation they both felt. And she would have had some part of her husband to hold on to, and a child to love.

She pushed away the guilt that rode as constant companion with her lingering grief. She had to look forward, not back, as her four sisters reminded her in their letters.

“If you will not come home, if you are determined to stay and aid the squire, please try not to dwell on the past,” her older sister Madeline had written. “You know we love you, Lauryn. I write this for your own good.”

Everyone had advice. Easy for Madeline to say, Lauryn thought, as her sister cuddled her own firstborn, with a husband beside her to offer his strength and support. But Lauryn knew the counsel was sincere. Early on, she had made herself ill with grief, and at some point, she'd realized she could bear no more tears and sleepless nights. None of it would bring Robert back. Now if she could just hear a little laughter again, once in a while enjoy an outing and a pretty dress—was she terribly selfish to think such thoughts?

She'd had few enough such entertainments to enjoy even before Robert's death. Sighing, she glanced at the sewing basket beside her and the abandoned stocking she'd been trying to darn.

Wedding her childhood sweetheart when both were quite young, Lauryn had expected to live an agreeable life with her husband, bearing many children, with long, happy years to enjoy them together. But the babies had not come, and as the years passed, Robert had seemed to accept their childless marriage.

Their first flush of postwedding passion had drifted into occasional lovemaking and pleasant companionship, and her husband had amused himself instead with hunting and shooting and the details of running their small estate. Perhaps more aware of time's relentless passage, Robert's father, the squire, had appeared more concerned about the lack of an heir—the next male in the Harris family line was a distant cousin whom the squire detested—and Lauryn herself had felt the guilty burden of her barren state.

Then Robert had been struck down by a sudden illness. Now, at the age of nine and twenty, Lauryn found herself a widow, doomed to a life of sitting on the sidelines, wearing her widow's weeds and her matron's cap, and watching other young ladies dance—if, indeed, she ever had the chance to attend a ball again, which didn't seem probable.

And now—

A new, brightly colored dress, nothing black or gray or even violet…a handsome man with eyes only for her…a man who made her blood quicken once again, a man who made her feel alive, not in the grave with her poor, struck-down-too-soon young husband…

Oh, was she a terrible person to allow such wistful reflections to dwell in the farthest reaches of her mind?

Despite herself, Lauryn's reflections turned to the scandalous Earl of Sutton. What did he look like, this much talked about lord? What would it be like, to be the lady he sought out? For a moment, her pulse quickened, then the fantasy faded. Turning back to her basket, she picked up the wooden darning egg, which she thrust into the heel of her stocking. She'd better darn that hole, unless she wished for cold feet, as she and licentious earls were most unlikely to meet!

Hours later, when her father-in-law returned at long
last, his face appeared gray with fatigue. He had looked weary before, but this was worse. His eyes had seemed lifeless ever since Robert had died, but now—now, the light inside them had retreated even farther.

Lauryn opened the door to their rooms. Observing his slumped shoulders, she swallowed hard. “Are you all right, sir?”

“I've lost it all, Lauryn. All. I'm an old fool.”

Her first feeling was one of relief. Perhaps now he would return to Yorkshire and give up this reckless behavior, drinking too much, gambling with men with deeper pockets. The squire had never spent so much time in the city before. Normally, he was content in his own shire, on his own acres, but after losing Robert, it seemed as if he could not stand the sight of his own land, not without the son who should have inherited it.

Without an heir…Guilt moved once more inside her, and she tried to push it back.

“Do you have enough left to pay the hotel's charges? We can return to Yorkshire—”

“You're not attending, child. There's nothing to go back to.” He rubbed his hand across his face.

“What?” She felt the first stirring of panic.

The squire's voice shook a little, and she could smell the drink thick on his breath. That had likely not helped his skill at cards, but she would not remark on it. It did little good to offer censure after the fact.

“I don't know how I shall pay the hotel, or how we shall eat. The pot had gotten so large, and I was in so deep—it was all I had left to cover my losses. I thought with just one more good hand, I might redeem it all—”

He named a figure that made her blanch and reach for the support of the back of a chair to keep her legs from folding.

“And then I lost again. Now the land is gone, the estate in Yorkshire, and the worst of it is, I don't think the earl even wants it. He was making jokes about moth-eaten sheep to the rest of the table when I took my leave. I've already written him out a deed—best to get the thing over with, don't you know—but he'll like as not toss it away or throw it into another card game.”

The squire dropped down onto the side of the bed as if his legs would not hold him. He buried his face in his hands.

She patted his shoulder, but her stomach roiled, and she thought she might be ill. The squire's land—the land that had been in his family for generations—the land that should have been Robert's some day—gone in a game of cards? The squire wouldn't survive this!

“Who is it—to whom did you lose it?” she asked, when she could make her voice work. Could she call on some of her brothers-in-law to come together and as a group loan the squire enough to get his land back? Would his pride endure such a lowering blow? She doubted she could get his permission to even ask.

“The Earl of Sutton,” he told her, his tone grim. “It might as well be the devil himself…he has the devil's luck at cards, I can tell you.”

Lauryn was glad her father-in-law was lost in his own misery and not watching her face as he lay back on the bed. She had gone quite rigid.

Sutton? The notorious rake the hotel maids loved to gossip about? He was the one who now possessed the squire's deed and other vowels? Good heavens!

Was the earl a cruel man? Had the gossip about him ignored that side of him—was this an aspect she had not realized as she'd painted him in her daydreams? Or were the eternal card games that the men played just ignorant of all real life outside of the patter of cards and the skill or the luck that determined who came out on top?

And if the squire had been lost in the deepening circle of his despair, would someone else, if not the earl, have been bound to have won…. Should she blame the earl for being the winner or was it just fate?

Yet why should she let the earl off the hook? She didn't even know the man! It was the squire who was suffering, who would suffer…. Was there anything she could do to help?

That land had been in the Harris family for more than a hundred years. Even though not formally entailed, it was meant to stay in their family. She had not dreamed of anything else, and she knew the squire hadn't, either, so she could not think what momentary madness had led him to offer it up as collateral.

Could Lauryn do anything? Although Madeline had been the “little mother,” Lauryn had always been there to offer help, the gentle middle child who looked out for her younger sisters, who assisted around the house when her mother had died too young, who had made her father smile by being mature beyond her years—it was second nature.

And to be truthful, if aiding the squire now brought her into contact with a handsome, dissolute lord who might bring some excitement into her subdued, even bleak existence—she felt a small thrill deep inside, and she was aware that the idea didn't exactly displease her.

Feeling guilty at once, she pushed the feeling back. She had to think first of the squire. She went back to check on him and found him dropping off to sleep.

Lauren pulled a blanket up over her father-in-law as he shut his eyes and fell into a troubled slumber, muttering and tossing about now and then. She went into the next small room and paced up and down as she tried to think.

Despite the lateness of the hour, she was suddenly wide awake. She went to the window and opened the pane, leaning out to look and listen. The street was still busy with elegant carriages returning from evening engagements.

Lauryn thought of the affluent, perhaps titled personages inside, with their fancy clothes and rich and privileged lives. That was the existence the Earl of Sutton must lead. What would he want with the squire's small Yorkshire estate, and how could she convince him to release it? If she told him how devastated the squire was and why—no, no, it would be unfair to strip away all her father-in-law's dignity. Plus, if he should find out, he would never forgive her.

Men were stubborn, as well, about gambling winnings—it could become an affair of honor if she were not careful. Then both men's hands would be tied as to what they could do.

Sighing, Lauryn rubbed her temples, which all at once threatened to ache. One would think she must have something of worth to give the earl in return, in order to get the squire's estate back, but imagining what was near impossible. She looked down at her empty hands. She had nothing of value to give. She had no jewelry, except a few trinkets of sentimental value that Robert had given her. She had had no real dowry; her own family was not wealthy.

For some time her thoughts flew from one impractical scheme to another. And then the obvious answer came to her.

She had only herself….

Lauryn blinked. What about—no, no, that was unthinkable.

Was it?

Jumping up, she ran across to the small looking glass on the wall. She strained to see her reflection in the faint light now coming from the window as the sun fought to rise over London's horizon, its weak rays pushing valiantly through the haze of coal dust from countless chimneys.

In her girlhood Lauryn had been called pretty by swains in her shire. She made out a familiar pale, heart-shaped face, with large green eyes, delicate features, and long hair of a golden hue with reddish highlights, just now pulled back behind her head. No longer the girl she had been, but not totally repellant, surely. Was it enough to satisfy an earl known for his discerning taste in women? If she went to him and pledged to serve as a–a courtesan, would he engage her?

How did such a woman work?

Her heart dropped. She had no clothes! How could one look alluring in faded black mourning gowns?