Her Errant Earl Read online

  Her nostrils flared, the only indication that his words affected her. “Ah, at last the charm has fled. No more pretty words and roaming hands? If you would force me, my lord, I have no choice.” She dropped the book to the floor, and it was one of the heaviest sounds he’d ever heard. Then she settled into a supine position, arms tight to her sides, still as a corpse, staring at the ceiling. “Here you are, my lord. If it pleases you to take what I’m not willing to give, then take it. It’s yours, after all. Everything I’ve ever had is yours now.”

  Damn it. Damn her, for being the heiress the duke had chosen to replenish the dwindling family coffers, for being yet another unwanted duty foisted upon him, for being outspoken and bold, for taking him to task and making him feel lower than the worst sort of East End criminal. Damn her for making him see her. For making him want her. For making him see the man he’d become.

  He grabbed the bedclothes and yanked them to her chin, disgusted with himself. “I’d never force you.”

  She met his gaze, unflinching. “I’m not spoiled. Nor am I a girl.”

  No, she wasn’t a girl. She was very much a woman. Her body was lush and full in all the proper places. High, heavy breasts. Rounded thighs, trim ankles. She smelled of orris root, and her hair was a revelation. Freed from the dreadful, pastel gowns she’d worn during her Season, she was all woman. All lovely. Perhaps she had been before, and he’d been so blinded by his resentment that he’d failed to notice. He hadn’t been her only suitor, after all. But he’d been the heir to a duchy, and he had won her hand.

  Yes, he’d won her, and then he’d left her. Little wonder she thought he would ravage her. Jesus, what a bastard he was. It had been easy to blame her when she’d been an afterthought rather than a woman staring at him with haunted eyes.

  “My apologies,” he blurted, because he didn’t know what else to say and because everything he’d imagined—all the meaningless praise and sweet flattery he’d intended to ply her with—had been vanquished by the sight of her lying still on the bed, waiting for him to abuse her.

  She stared at him. “Why have you returned?”

  Why had he returned? The answer was simple. He’d made a deal with the devil, and the devil had reneged.

  “An inkling of responsibility,” he repeated her words as he slid from the bed. With the formality of a suitor in a drawing room, he bowed to her. “I shall leave you to your slumber, my lady. Until tomorrow.”

  Without waiting for her response, he strode to his adjoining chamber, slamming the door at his back. Damn it all to hell. How had he ever imagined this would be straightforward? Nothing about returning to Carrington Hall and the wife he hadn’t wanted was. Here he stood, alone in his unprepared chamber, which he generally disliked even when it had been readied for him and which he vastly disliked when it had not.

  The room smelled as though it had been sealed up for quite some time. The lamps were lit, but beyond that, nothing was readied. His valet was likely still overseeing the unpacking of his carriage below, and he was left ringing the bell pull for assistance.

  His hands shook. Jesus, she’d unnerved him, his wife. She had a name, of course. Victoria. He’d never spoken it aloud, had never even thought it until this moment with the sting of self-disgust roiling through him. How little he knew of her. How little attention he’d paid her. She came from a well-known New York family and her father had made a fortune on stocks before sending her to London with an immense dowry. She hadn’t been as bold as some of her fellow American heiresses. She had seemed mild of temperament, given to dreadful dresses. Proper and prim, the sort of lady he sought to avoid at house parties and balls.

  The sort of lady one might abandon in the country for five months at a time.

  Beyond that, he knew nothing. Not nothing, perhaps. He knew she smelled of violets and her hair felt like heavy silk in his fingers. He knew the lush lines of her body. Thinking of her now, her creamy skin and full breasts, the glimpse he’d caught of a pink, erect nipple—made his cock hard all over again. None of it made sense—not his reaction to her, not her transformation, not any damn bit of it. This odd, inconvenient attraction he felt for her was surely the effect of a lack of spirits and a return to his grim ancestral home and all its demons.

  After all, he was the Earl of Pembroke, celebrated womanizer and unrepentant rakehell. He preferred fast women who wore bright colors and low décolletages, women who gambled and changed lovers like gowns and had husbands who didn’t mind. His father had hand-selected Victoria as his wife, largely for her marriage settlement of half a million pounds. Not a sum to be sneezed at by anyone these days. Will had been given an ultimatum—marry the chit to restore the familial coffers or be disinherited altogether. He’d swallowed his pride and half a bottle of whisky and made a deal with the devil. Marriage to the little American mouse, then he’d return to his old life once more. And return to his old life he had, with the abandon of the truly dissolute.

  Until the summons.

  The duke expected him to produce heirs and was not pleased to see his august decree so openly flouted. But Will couldn’t resist perturbing the old bastard with a good scandal. He’d allowed Maria to live in the Belgravia townhouse for two months, and she’d destroyed a number of costly family paintings when he’d informed her that her services would no longer be required.

  He’d only succeeded in goading his father too far, however. Once again, the duke had been enraged, and when enraged, he issued threats. He’d sworn to take this moldy heap of family stones back into his care—not that Will particularly gave a damn about it. Carrington House had been neglected and virtually abandoned since his mother had died within its walls, and it held few fond memories for him. But this time, the duke had vowed to do away with his entire inheritance save the entail and had immediately cut off all access to further funds until Will finished his duty and provided the duchy with a proper heir.

  A man with no blunt was not a man about town.

  Which meant returning to his shy mouse of a wife and bedding her until the deed was well and truly done. He’d imagined the naïf he’d left behind to be awaiting him. He hadn’t precisely envisioned being attacked by a volume of Dickens, or being so affected by the sight of his wife en dishabille, angry color in her cheeks. Or being so affected by his own bloody shortcomings.

  A sneeze interrupted his frustrated musings. Good Lord, was that dust he spied on his Louis Quinze chair? Where the devil was his valet, anyway? With a sigh of long-suffering impatience, he crossed the chamber and gave the bell pull another forceful yank. He wanted his bed prepared, damn it. He’d traveled all evening and he was tired, and his wife had thrown him out of her sweet-smelling, comfortable high tester.

  This was not going to do, none of it. He’d be back in her bed before week’s end, he vowed. And before the month was through, she’d be with child and his time of reluctant duty to his father and the great Cranley duchy would be at an end.

  He sneezed yet again. Jesus, it couldn’t happen soon enough.

  Her husband had returned.

  This knowledge brought Victoria no comfort as she sat for her morning ritual of chocolate and correspondence. Her hands were unsteady as she perused her customary stack of letters. Some from her sisters. One from her mother. She longed for news from home, but it would only make her weak. And she could not afford to be weak now as she faced Pembroke. He had returned for her, he’d said.

  I could very easily bend you to my whims, my dear.

  His voice had been low and deceptively calm when he’d issued the warning. She thought of his expression, that of a man torn. Something had brought him back to her side, back to her chamber. That something was not her, no matter how much he pretended it was.

  I could take you, if I chose.

  She shivered, though somehow those words didn’t fill her with trepidation or disgust. What was it that she felt, this awful, unfurling coil deep within? Surely not excitement or a stirring of her old feelings for him. Certainly no
t desire.

  No. He could not take her. She wouldn’t allow it. She wasn’t so weak, so swayed by his lovemaking. Victoria spied the familiar penmanship of her dear childhood friend Maggie, Marchioness of Sandhurst, and slid the envelope open. They’d grown up together in New York and had landed on England’s shores as dollar princesses, as the press had dubbed them. Together, they had navigated the complex terrain of English polite society. It had oft proved more treacherous than the most dangerous passage across the Atlantic ever could.

  Maggie’s words swirled beneath her eyes now, blurred by a combination of anger and tears. How dare he? Had he not already treated her poorly enough? A fresh onslaught of betrayal hit her like a runaway carriage. The letter dropped from her numb fingers and she yanked the bell pull.

  She scarcely even paid attention to her toilette as she dressed with the help of her lady’s maid in unusual speed. By the time she marched into the breakfast room with the letter in hand, she had worked herself into a fine fury.

  Pembroke stood at her entrance. He was irritatingly perfect, his well-tailored clothing immaculate, handsome as ever. The utter cad. What right did he have to invade her territory, to make butterflies flit through her stomach even though she knew him for the heartless rake he was? How had he been so brazen to come to her last night, to touch her, to warn her that she was his? She would never, ever be his. What he’d done was beyond the pale.

  “Good morning, my lady,” he greeted with his standard charm. He scarcely resembled the semi-wild man she’d seen just before he’d stalked to his chamber last night. This Pembroke was collected. Polished. Cheerful, even.

  Victoria ignored him and politely dismissed Wilton, the efficient butler she’d grown to admire over her time at Carrington House. When they were alone, she strode to him, pressing Maggie’s carefully worded missive into his hard chest. “Perhaps you would care to read this.”

  He took the letter from her to scan the contents. “The Marchioness of Sandhurst is a damned meddlesome gossip,” he pronounced. “You ought not to know her.”

  That was all he offered? No apologies, no explanation. Not even an attempt to dissemble. Merely an insult for dear, sweet Maggie while he was the worst creature she’d ever had the misfortune to meet. Where was Great Expectations to be found when one needed a weapon with which to knock sense into one’s blackguard of a husband? Perhaps she could dump his plate of breakfast into his lap.

  She gritted her teeth. “That is all you have to say for yourself?”

  “Need I say more? I feel confident my opinion of Lady Sandhurst is quite warranted.”

  The arrogance of the man. She’d had enough. To hell with the breakfast in his lap. Before she even knew what she was about, she slapped him. The satisfying sound of her palm connecting with his face echoed in the silence.

  He rubbed his jaw, watching her like a hunter intent upon his prey. The mild disinterest vanished, replaced by something indefinably dangerous. “Do you not think you’re being a tad dramatic, my dear?”

  “You allowed your…” She paused and closed her eyes, unable to say the word “mistress” aloud. Ladybird she could say in a fit of pique. Mistress was something far more intimate, as it implied a favored status. A permanent relationship to rival the marriage itself, in some instances. Her mother had told her never to acknowledge such a thing existed, and for the entirety of her marriage to Pembroke she had not. She had not while whispers inevitably made their way to her. She had pretended to be unaware, had pretended not to care. But this was the outside of enough.

  “Signora Rosignoli,” he supplied.

  Her eyes flew open, her entire body shaking with roiling emotion. “You dare to speak her name?”

  Pembroke raised an imperious brow. “What would you have me call her?”

  She had tolerated his abandonment. She had quietly accepted gossip sheets and Maggie’s letters about her husband carrying on with widows and lonely wives, had pretended each new name hadn’t scored another wound in her heart. But this, she was quite certain, was beyond the pale. He had openly lived with a courtesan, opera singer or no, and had done so for all the world to know. He had touched the woman, kissed her, allowed her to dwell in the family house as recently as a fortnight ago. Last night, he had come to Victoria claiming he wanted to atone for his sins. It would have been laughable if the notion of this Signora Rosignoli in his bed didn’t make her ill. And still he dared to view it all with a carelessness that made her long to slap him once more.

  She took a deep breath, her corset nipping at her sides. “Never again speak of her to me.”

  He shrugged. “It will be as you wish.”

  A physical ache took up residence in her breast. She didn’t know whether to cry or rage. She wished she had never consented to marry him. She wished to God she had become a spinster and gone back to the city she loved and so dearly missed. At least her life had not been a mockery in New York, with no one to hurt her.

  Her vision grew dark around the edges as if she were about to swoon. She needed to escape. How had she been naïve enough to allow him to kiss her last night? How weak she’d been. Worse, she had enjoyed his mouth, his touch.

  “This marriage has become insupportable to me,” she said on a rush.

  He calmly turned back to the table as though she hadn’t said a word. “I recommend you collect yourself and enjoy breakfast with me.”

  Did he truly think there would be no consequences for his actions? That she would sit and eat kippers and toast as if nothing untoward had occurred? As if she had not just discovered the depths of his depravity and duplicity? True, she was at his mercy as his wife. He could carry on as he wished with every opera singer and unscrupulous lady he liked, and he could keep her in the country, and he could use all of her money to buy dresses and baubles for his conquests. She had no rights. Indeed, she had less rights than an unmarried female.

  But that did not mean she would calmly lie down for slaughter. “I don’t care what you recommend, Pembroke. I may be subject to your whims, but know that you disgust me.”

  He smiled but it did little to relieve the harsh planes of his brooding expression. “I believe I’ve already disproved your claim.”

  She gasped, shocked that even he would stoop to such a level. “How dare you?”

  Pembroke gave another shrug. “Why bother with deceit?”

  “I daresay deceit is all you’ve been bothering yourself with, my lord.”

  “You go too far,” he warned, standing at last.

  He towered over her diminutive stature, but she didn’t care. “It is you who has gone too far. Was it not cruel enough to discard me as if I were no better than an outmoded waistcoat? Now you come to me in lies and try to make love to me as if you actually had a care for me when all along it was a farce. Did you laugh to yourself, thinking you made me the fool once again? Tell me, did you crow with all your friends at how you’d hie off to the country and make me your dupe again? Did you even think about me when you were living with your paramour?”

  She didn’t need an answer to her questions for she already knew. Of course he had not thought of her. Very likely, he never thought of her at all. She envisioned a gloriously beautiful woman with dark hair and a voluptuous figure lounging about in his bed and revulsion swept over her. Of course his mistress would be ravishing. She wondered if he kissed and caressed Signora Rosignoli the way he had touched her last night.

  Pembroke closed the distance between them with one angry stride and caught her against him, trapping her in his arms. “Stop this nonsense, Victoria. I’ll not hear another word of it.”

  She was in no mood to be subdued. She struck out at his chest with her fists, wanting to pummel him. “Then you shall have to sew my mouth shut, you rotten cad.”

  “Or I shall have to kiss your mouth shut.”

  His mouth was sudden and hard, almost bruising over hers. Angry as she was, her body still responded to him, and she loathed it and him both. His chest was muscled and tempti
ng. He didn’t live an idle life, not from the feel of things. But that just reminded her how little she knew of him. He’d been living apart from her for nearly half a year. His tongue swept over the seam of her lips then, seeking to plunder and render her mindless.

  But Victoria was determined not to give in to him this time. She pushed him away. “Lovemaking is not a cure, Pembroke.”

  He gave her a wry grin. “Perhaps it is a symptom then.”

  She studied his eyes, unable to fathom his thoughts. “A symptom of what?”

  “Of being a rotten cad.” He took her hands in his. “We are husband and wife. We cannot forever be at odds.”

  “Your actions have proven otherwise to me.” She tried to escape from his touch but he was persistent and stronger. “I understand you do not care for me, and I never cared for you. I never wish to ever be in your presence again.”

  “Victoria.” He gripped her waist and pulled her into his tall, lean body, anchoring her against him. He lowered his head until their noses nearly bumped. His breath was a hot, invisible curtain drawing over her lips.

  Despite her anger and disillusionment, she was breathless, caught in his smoldering gaze. “I think that I hate you,” she whispered. She hated him as much for what he had done as the way he made her feel. Dizzy, confused, hopelessly wanting. How could she want such an unfeeling rake? What had he ever done but lie to her and manipulate her to suit his own interests? And yet his mouth on hers made her shamefully vulnerable.

  “Before you can hate someone, you must have loved them first,” he said, his eyes dropping to her mouth.

  She tried to squelch the rampant stirring of desire his nearness and heated glances produced. “You speak like a man who has learned from experience,” she observed.