To Tame a Highland Earl (3 page)

“
Lord Rushton’s father is
unlikely to take that into consideration,” she blurted. “The
marquess must have his sights set on a daughter-in-law of a more
elevated position than mine.”

Her father shifted his attention to Lord
Rushton. “As to that, thwart me and I will have my father contact
your father. He may be a mere viscount, but he holds some sway as a
member of the House of Lords.”

Tension cut like a knife. Eve had never heard
her father threaten to use her grandfather’s influence. The
viscount had surprised everyone by continuing to live despite his
advanced age of eighty-four years. So her father, at age
fifty-five, had yet to inherit the title.

“
If these inducements are
not enough,” he went on, “I shall dismember you.”

Lord Rushton kept his gaze locked with his.
“I was under the impression you didn’t hold me responsible for last
night’s…unfortunate events, and thought your daughter and I could
perhaps spend time together in the country before the
marriage.”

A hard glint shone in her father’s eyes.
“Only a fool would tell himself he wasn’t responsible.”

“
I am no fool.”

Her father gave a nod. “I did not think
so.”

And I will not marry him, Eve privately
added.
Even if it means shooting higher than his leg.

Chapter Two

“
Eve,” her father said to
her back, “in less than a day, the news that you shot Lord Rushton
has spread across England like wildfire.” Eve paused in leaning
over the conservatory’s roses she was watering and released a sigh
before moving to the next rosebush, as he added, “The story has set
Society
on its ear. A fact evidenced by these.”

She twisted and looked across the camellias
at him. He held up a silver tray piled with cards and
invitations.

Eve shrugged. “My mother and sister have
always enjoyed an active social life.”

“
Indeed?” He picked up an
invitation. “Lady Hamilton.” He dropped it and picked up another.
“Lady Roxeburgh.” He tossed the card beside the others and pulled
another from the pile. “Lady Morton—she was, last I heard, in
London.”

“
Manchester is a favorite
of London
Society
,” Eve replied. “Especially this time of
year, before the height of the London Season.”

He dropped the card onto the mound and set
the tray on the small worktable to his right. “These invitations,
one and all, include your name.”

Eve grimaced and once again faced the roses.
“The gossipmongers are looking for fodder. The fact I shot the earl
will silence any gossip that I was fraternizing with him.”

“
You are damned fortunate
the magistrate has not demanded your arrest,” he snapped. “I cannot
hush things up as I did last time.”

“
You will never forgive me,
will you?”

“
You ran away with the one
man I forbade you to marry, and will not marry the one I command
you to wed.”

She inhaled the roses’ scent. “Lord Rushton
has no wish to marry me and I have no wish to marry him. Why should
we do something we both hate?”

“
Because you have no
choice.”

“
Rubbish,” she said. “My
choice is to not marry him.”

“
That is not a choice, Eve.
Unless…”

She knew that unless. “The answer is no, just
as it was last month.”

“
His calling card is among
the others,” her father said. “He will forgive you, even believing
you compromised yourself with Lord Rushton.”

Eve had no idea why her father thought Lord
Somerset held her in such affection, but kept silent.

“
You have not told me why
you will not consider his suit.”

“
I do not love him,” she
replied.

“
You are too old to be
choosy.”

She turned. “Thank you, Father.”

“
It will be one or the
other. Your involvement with Lord Blane pales in comparison to this
escapade.”

Of that, Eve wasn’t so sure.

In the five years since her connection with
him ended, Lord Blane had proven himself to be a gambler—and a bad
one at that. His father had paid his debts in the sum of eight
thousand pounds, and yet Lord Blane continued to gamble. All those
years ago, when he’d presented himself to her father as her lover
and the father of the child he swore she carried, her father wrote
him a bank draft with the agreement that he disappear into Scotland
or France for at least a year. Eve fully expected to one day read
in the paper that his body had been pulled from the Thames. The
dull ache that had once been sorrow at a love lost was now sorrow
for a life wasted. Despite his deceit, Blane wasn’t a bad man. The
compulsion, the disease, was consuming him. He would eventually
succumb completely and make a wager even his father couldn’t, or
wouldn’t, cover.

“
Do you not want
children?”

Her father’s tone and the question jarred
her. “What am I teaching my children if their father doesn’t love
their mother?”

“
Respect.”

“
That is not enough of a
reason to marry, even for the sake of bearing children.”

A knowing light entered his eyes. “You forget
to whom you are speaking. You are a strong woman, but you are a
natural woman.”

“
Some would
disagree.”

He nodded. “And with good reason.”

“
My point
exactly.”

“
They do not know you as I
do. I remember you with your nieces.”

She warmed despite her effort to remember the
two little girls.

“
You begged me to raise
them when their father died.”

Eve set the watering can on the floor. “No
child should be without a father, which only serves to make my
point. Lord Rushton will make a terrible father.”

“
You could not be more
wrong. He will be a very good father—as good as his father was to
him.” She snorted, but her father cut her off. “Do not pretend to
be one of those females who insists a man must coddle a boy as a
mother would. A man’s world is hard. A boy must learn that early
on.”

“
Perhaps you are right, and
Lord Rushton will make an exemplary father,” she said. “But he will
make an abominable husband. He told me so himself. I do not intend
to marry a man who will not only live his life as if I do not
exist, but who will most certainly grow to hate me.”

“
If he comes to hate you
that will be your doing.”

Eve held her father’s gaze. “Just as you
hating my mother is her doing?”

“
Hate is too strong a word.
That aside, you know nothing of your mother when I met
her.”

“
Did you?”

“
No,” he said, startling
her. “I was young and reckless. But that is beside the point. You
will marry the earl.”

“
Lord Rushton is the
paradigm of recklessness. He broke into my room for pity’s
sake.”

“
But he is not blind to a
woman’s nature.”

Eve stiffened. “And, therefore, could not
possibly fall in love with me.”

“
His feelings for you will
be honest. That is more than most women get.”

“
He has, indeed, made his
intentions abundantly clear.”

“
He will not lie to you and
he will provide for you and your children.”

“
A fine picture you
paint.”

“
Which way will you have
it, Eve? You don’t want a man who sees you for the woman you are,
and you do not want a man who adores you.”

“
Adoration is overrated,
sir.”

“
Indeed, it is,” he said,
and she knew he was thinking of her mother. “But you feel you can
reject both. What of your sister?”

Anger welled up. “This is her doing. Yet she
has not suffered one wit.”

“
She will. Should you flout
convention, the scandal will place her outside of polite
society.”

“
Then let her marry him.
She wants him.”

“
Eve—”

“
No one knows Grace lied
about his seduction,” Eve cut in. “They can still marry, as you
first commanded. Surely, you must be pleased for her marry a man of
stature. Mother is thrilled.”

“
She has no common sense in
such matters,” he muttered.

“
What?”

“
Never mind,” he said so
abruptly it startled her. “I will not be gainsaid in this, Eve. You
have refused Somerset’s offer. Therefore, your marriage to Rushton
is a mere technicality.”

“
Even the worst scandal
does not mean I am obligated to marry him.”

“
In fact, it means just
that. I have an appointment with Philips after lunch.”

“
Your solicitor?” Fury
swept through her. “Cast me off into the wilds of Northumberland,
for I will not be coerced into signing a marriage
contract.”

“
Northumberland?” He gave
her a deprecating look. “You fail to grasp the situation. Even in
Northumberland, a respectable man will not marry a woman with the
reputation you will have if you don’t marry. No, I will not leave
you to marry a country bumpkin who sires ten children on you while
he whittles away your money—or worse, an out and out fortune
hunter. You are to appear at a dozen parties tonight.”

“
A dozen parties?” she
blurted. “I will be out until the sun rises.”

“
Not quite,” he said. “This
is not London.”

“
No one can make that many
appearances in one night.”

“
And you will dance at each
soiree where there is an orchestra.”

She stared. “I will be incapacitated
tomorrow. Even Mother and Grace could not keep up.”

“
Do not concern yourself
with them. You will make it plain that the future Countess of
Rushton is not to be toyed with.”

“
I am not the—” Her gaze
caught on the mound of invitations and she realized her father was
right. The future Countess of Rushton must put an end to this
miserable business. Eve acquiesced with a cant of her head. “I will
make every appearance.”

*****

Erroll’s hotel room door opened in the small
salon beyond the bedroom, but he didn’t bother to lift his head
from the edge of the tub to call out. He was in no mood to be civil
to anyone, not even the maid delivering his dinner. He did shift to
ease the ache in his back and the angle of his wounded leg, which
hung over the edge of the tub. It had been years since he’d ridden
as hard as he had yesterday—or gotten into a damned fist fight as
he had with Miss Crenshaw’s father—and he was paying the price.
Today, he was paying the price for many a sin.

He picked up a glass of whisky from the table
beside the tub and drank the contents in one long swallow. The
liquid burned a velvety path down his throat and landed in the pit
of his stomach where lay the other two glasses he’d already downed
with just as much gusto. Erroll poured another glass from the
decanter sitting on the table, then cradled the tumbler on his
belly and closed his eyes.

What a grand joke that he should be snared by
a woman who didn’t want marriage any more than he did. They would
make quite a pair—threesome, he remembered with a groan. The
younger Miss Crenshaw was not about to give up the chase without a
blood-letting battle.

Erroll had replayed last night’s events over
and over in his mind. He had thanked fortune that his accuser
stopped before reaching her father’s estate, and he thought himself
clever for cornering her alone in her room. But had the wheel on
their wagon not broken, he wouldn’t have caught them, and her lie
would have been exposed under the scrutiny of evidence that might
damn his soul, but not his body. Instead—he downed the whisky, then
poured another glass, sloshing half the liquid over the side of the
glass before slamming the decanter back onto the table. He wrapped
his fingers around the glass as the rest of his body began to
loosen.

Too bad he hadn’t actually compromised the
elder sister. Even an unrelenting hunter like Miss Grace Crenshaw
would relinquish her prey if it mated with her kin. Sliding between
Eve Crenshaw’s thighs would be all too easy. Her nipples had
pressed against his chest just hard enough to give away her desire.
Desire? He chuckled. Her only desire had been to put a bullet in
him. And she had, the vixen.

His cock throbbed and began to rise in
response to the memory of her body silhouetted by candlelight and
the dark patch he’d glimpsed between her legs. Erroll drank the
whisky in a flourish, intended to pour another, but the glass
slipped from his fingers onto the floor as his eyes closed. His
cock would fit snuggly inside her tight warmth. But what how to
induce her to wrap her fingers around him beforehand?

He startled, the erotic vision suddenly so
real he could feel her delicate hand closing around him. Erroll
jammed his eyes more firmly shut and allowed his mind to sink
deeper into the murky fantasy. Her fingers tightened and he lifted
his hips, then slowly lowered back into the water. Her grip firm,
she slid her hand up, then down, pulling his skin so tight he
hissed a breath in pleasure.

Her hand pistoned down then up, faster.
Erroll gripped the edges of the tub. He could smell her faint
fragrance. She slowed the motion and a feathery light caress
brushed his bollocks. Erroll shivered. His release was near and he
had yet to touch the apparition. Dared he try? Would she vanish if
he reached for her? He growled when the hand caressing his bollocks
cradled them and gently squeezed. His release rose toward the
surface. Soft lips brushed against his.