What an Earl Wants
KASEY MICHAELS
USA TODAY
bestselling author Kasey
Michaels introduces a delicious new series about the Redgraves, four siblings
celebrated for their legacy of scandal and seduction….
Gideon Redgrave, eldest child of the late Earl of Saltwood,
refuses to be humbled by the scandal that once tore his family apart. He’s built
his life in London society around one rule: trust no one. So the last thing he
wants is to play guardian and role model to a headstrong boy…or to engage in a
battle of wills with the boy’s spirited half sister, who is fighting Gideon for
custody.
Beautiful and bold, young widow Jessica Linden proves to be a
formidable and passionate adversary. But the more they lock horns, the more
Gideon realizes he’d prefer to have Jessica on his side…and in his arms.
Especially now that a new threat—sprung from his father’s supposedly defunct
secret society—is poised to destroy the Redgraves once and for all.
Praise for
USA TODAY
bestselling author
KASEY MICHAELS
“Kasey Michaels aims for the heart and never
misses.”
—
New York Times
bestselling author
Nora Roberts
“The historical elements…imbue the novel with powerful realism
that will keep readers coming back.”
—
Publishers
Weekly
on
A Midsummer Night’s Sin
“A poignant and highly satisfying read…filled with simmering
sensuality, subtle touches of repartee, a hero out for revenge and a heroine
ripe for adventure. You’ll enjoy the ride.”
—
RT Book
Reviews
on
How to Tame a Lady
“Michaels’ new Regency miniseries is a joy.… You will laugh and
even shed a tear over this touching romance.”
—
RT Book
Reviews
on
How to Tempt a Duke
“Michaels has done it again…. Witty dialogue peppers a plot
full of delectable details exposing the foibles and follies of the
age.”
—
Publishers Weekly
on
The Butler Did It
(starred review)
“Michaels can write everything from a lighthearted romp to a
far more serious-themed romance. [She] has outdone herself.”
—
RT Book Reviews
on
A Gentleman by
Any Other Name
(Top Pick)
“[A] hilarious spoof of society wedding rituals wrapped around
a sensual romance filled with crackling dialogue reminiscent of
The Philadelphia Story.
”
—
Publishers Weekly
on
Everything’s Coming Up
Rosie
Also available from Kasey Michaels and Harlequin HQN
The Blackthorn Brothers
The Taming of the Rake
A Midsummer
Night’s Sin
Much Ado About Rogues
The Daughtry Family
“How to Woo a Spinster”
A Lady of Expectations and Other Stories
How to Tempt a
Duke
How to Tame a Lady
How to Beguile a Beauty
How to Wed a
Baron
The Sunshine Girls
Dial M for Mischief
Mischief Becomes
Her
Mischief 24/7
The Beckets of Romney Marsh
A Gentleman by Any Other Name
The
Dangerous Debutante
Beware of Virtuous Women
A Most Unsuitable
Groom
A Reckless Beauty
Return of the Prodigal
Becket’s Last
Stand
Other must-reads
The Bride of the Unicorn
The Secrets
of the Heart
The Passion of an Angel
Everything’s Coming Up
Rosie
Stuck in Shangri-La
Shall We Dance?
The Butler Did
It
The Redgraves
“The Wedding Party”
Rules of Engagement
Coming soon, the next sparkling novel in the Redgraves
series
What a Lady Needs
Dear Reader,
For this series of four books, I’ve stepped back in time to
the year just before the Regency officially began in February of 1811.
Hellfire clubs have always interested me, as has the politics
surrounding the years of the Napoleonic Wars. The thing is, however, when I read
histories I immediately begin weaving plots and peopling those plots with
characters who make the whole business of history more alive to me.
You could say that’s the reason for all historical romances,
I suppose. A love of the era you’re reading about, and an interest in the
well-being and happily-ever-afters of the characters the author has plunked down
in the middle of all of it.
I hope you enjoy
What An Earl Wants,
and then move on to read the stories of the earl’s three siblings, the
headstrong Lady Katherine, the frankly adorable Valentine, and the (he believes)
love-resistant Maximillian.
Happy reading…and please visit me online if you have a
chance!
Kasey Michaels
With affection, to Debi Allen,
lovely lady
extraordinaire!
Kent, England
1789
T
HE
GROUND
SEEMED
SUITABLE
enough for the purpose.
Nearly a tunnel of well-scythed lawn on the Saltwood estate, the carefully
planted double row of trees serving as a rather romantical canopy overhead. Or
it would have, were it summer, which it was not. In fact, it was the dead of
winter and, in the false light before dawn, cold as a witch’s teat.
But, then again, no colder than the heart of the man now
surveying the scene, no matter how appearances would prompt the casual onlooker
to dismiss him as a mindless dandy.
“I say, Burke, shouldn’t there be a mist curling about our
legs? Yes, I’m convinced of it. All the best early morning duels feature wispy
tendrils of curling mist. I would have thought it mandatory. You’ll hold my
cape, of course?”
The seventeenth Earl of Saltwood, one Barry Redgrave by name,
lifted his arms and negligently shrugged out of his sable-lined cape, then
laughed as his horrified valet sprang forward in a panic to rescue the
magnificent thing before it could hit the ground.
“Ah, well executed, Burke. My compliments.” Relieved of the
concealing cape, the earl was revealed to be not only a well set-up gentleman
but also an exceedingly handsome man, or would be, were it not for a certain
indescribable hardness about his dark blue eyes. His humor never quite seemed to
reach them.
“You’ve drunk half the night away, my lord. You really must
reconsider your timing,” Burke pleaded, now struggling with both the cape and
the heavy rosewood box containing the Saltwood dueling pistols.
“I must, Burke?” The earl removed his tricornered hat with the
lilac plume, placed it on Burke’s head at a jaunty angle, and then discreetly
adjusted his snow-white periwig. “Why? Because of the lack of a mist? God’s
teeth, man, it’s actually in the rules?”
“I don’t believe so, my lord, no. I meant only that you might
be a mite...foxed, my lord,” the valet said, sighing.
“More than a mite, Burke,” the earl acknowledged, suddenly
seeming amazingly sober. “I do my best shooting when three parts drunk. But if
it calms you, I promise if I see three of him I’ll prudently aim for the one in
the middle. However, if the unthinkable were to occur, you know what to do.”
“Yes, my lord,” Burke said, visibly trembling. “Everything goes
to the Keeper, who also knows what to do.”
“Make me pretty, Burke, and well attended by handmaidens, or I
shall come back to haunt you,” his lordship warned, and then laughed at his
valet’s horrified expression. “I’m not about to
die,
you old woman. I’ll never die. Satan protects his own. Now, how does our
importune Frenchman look to you? Quavering in his boots I should hope, as my
reputation must surely precede me.”
Burke hazarded a look toward the plain black coach and the
surgeon just now conversing with the very tall man and his second. “I don’t
think so, no, sir. Rather, I should say, he appears
determined.
I should be remiss if I failed to mention that the duty
of a second is to dissuade you from dueling, sir, and to broker a peace with the
opponent’s second, one that will be acceptable to both sides.”
“A waste of breath best employed to cool your porridge once
we’re finished here, Burke. There can be no acceptable solution other than that
already decided upon. The man has been poking my lady wife.”
“Many have, sir,” Burke said, sighing once more. “Begging your
pardon, my lord, and no offense meant.”
“None taken, my good man,” the earl said, flourishing a snowy
linen handkerchief unearthed from his magnificent lace cuff before delicately
pressing it to the right corner of his mouth, so as to not disturb the small
star-shaped black patch he wore at the left. “Maribel has seen more cocks than
any three generations of hens. With my express encouragement, although I should
point out she defied me with this one. In any event, her perfidy serves only as
a convenient excuse.”
“Sir?”
“Ah, my apologies. I wasn’t clear enough for you, Burke? It has
become apparent to me for reasons I won’t bore you with at the moment that my
opponent must cease drawing breath in the next quarter hour at most.” The earl
replaced the handkerchief and shot his cuffs before smoothing down the lilac
velvet of his frock coat, putting out his right foot to admire the dull sheen of
his satin breeches in the waning moonlight. “Too much, do you think, Burke? This
rig-out, I mean. I didn’t wish to appear shabby, although I might make a richer
target in this cursed moonlight than previously considered. Well, no matter.
Shall we be on with it?”
“If there is no other way?”
The earl’s jawline went hard as he touched a hand to the small
golden pin in the shape of a rose in full bloom stuck into the foaming lace of
his cravat. “There probably exist a veritable plethora of other ways, but I have
chosen this one, magnanimously granting the dishonorable creature an honorable
death. Civilized murder, if you will, with man-made rules. And, of course, a
lesson quite literally brought home to my lady wife, hmm, when I bring his
bloodied body to her bedchamber, to fling it at her feet? Please allow my
fornicating opponent first choice of weapons.”
Burke did as he was told, and much too short a time later he
was huddled alongside the surgeon and the other second, watching the combatants
stand back-to-back, pistols raised to their shoulders, the duel about to
commence. The earl appeared to be at his ease, a smile on his handsome face. The
Frenchman, his chin held high, was pale-cheeked yet determined, as if knowing he
was probably about to die.
Yes, Burke thought, civilized murder. All but an execution.
The earl himself began counting out the paces before they would
stop, turn and shoot. “...eight...nine...
ten.
”
Burke closed his eyes, only opening them again when the sound
of a single shot ripped the morning silence, jolting nesting birds into startled
flight. The two men now faced each other across the expanse of winter dead
grass, their right arms extended, their pistols aimed at each other. Rather like
statues, frozen in place.
But then the earl turned about rather stiffly, as if hunting
something, and Burke looked to the opposite line of trees and the cloaked figure
standing there, head and shoulders wreathed in blue smoke.
“Now there’s something I hadn’t expected...” the Earl of
Saltwood said at last, just before he dropped to his knees and pitched forward
onto the ground, dead.