Mad About the Earl (2 page)

A telling sign, but that had not daunted her, had it? She’d spent hours carefully transposing Griffin’s likeness onto a small tablet of porcelain cut to fit her locket. Each stroke of that tiny brush seemed to bring him closer to her. Like a besotted fool, she’d spent an age mixing the precise shade of arctic gray for his eyes. Such dreams she’d woven in her head!

Gaining her bedchamber, Rosamund rang for her maid. As she’d done fifty times a day, Rosamund clicked open her locket and gazed down at Griffin’s miniature.

She narrowed her eyes at her intended husband’s face. Oh, hadn’t she mooned and sighed over that portrait like a silly greenhead? As if it depicted an Adonis, rather than the fascinatingly ugly collection of features that stared out at her.

Griffin deVere was not handsome, not in the least. His large beak of a nose had obviously been broken, perhaps more than once; his jaw was uncompromising, bluntly square. The wild dark hair that grew thickly from his head moved beyond the fashionably windswept to the wildly cyclonic. A deep scar slashed his right temple, giving his eye a lazy, decadent cast.

Yet somehow, the very imperfection of his lineaments made them appear more striking.

He reminded her of the jagged cliff faces of the Cornwall coast, all weathered crags and treacherous angles. No softness to be seen, except in a shockingly sensual mouth.

No, Griffin deVere was not handsome. Decidedly not. But each time she gazed upon them, his looks pierced her to the core.

Was it only because she knew she was to wed him that this likeness exercised such a powerful effect on her? Perhaps. The portrait had spawned a thousand imaginings, nonetheless.

She’d planned and plotted. She’d lain in her bedchamber late at night, dreaming of him. Such wicked dreams they’d been. So wicked, her cheeks heated at the thought of them. She’d spun a perfect imaginary world around this man.

All for nothing. He didn’t want her. He hadn’t even bestirred himself to
meet
her, much less beg for her hand in marriage.

The sense of bewildered hurt made tears smart behind her eyes. She shook her head and forced them down. Weeping achieved nothing. This was no time for maudlin theatrics. She needed to act.

Rosamund’s hand clenched into an unladylike fist as latent anger flared. Regardless of wounded feelings, Griffin deVere’s deliberate absence insulted her.

How
dared
he dismiss her with such disrespect? She ought not stand for this cavalier treatment. If he began so poorly, how would he go on once they were wed?

The assurances of both her mother and the duke echoed in her mind:
Marriage is a business arrangement between two families, no more.

No. They were wrong.
Her
marriage would be far more than a dynastic transaction. She’d be the best wife Griffin deVere could wish for. And before she was finished with him, he’d be the best kind of husband, too. She refused to give up her dream of a happy home for some rude, ill-bred man who preferred hobnobbing with his horses to wooing her.

After all, she was a Westruther, wasn’t she?
Au coeur valiant, rien est impossible:
“To a valiant heart, nothing is impossible.” Griffin deVere would soon learn that Lady Rosamund Westruther might look like a Dresden china doll, but her heart was as valiant as any of her forebears’.

The door opened. Rosamund snapped the locket shut and composed her features into a serene expression.

“There you are, Meg.” Rosamund smiled at her maid. “My riding habit, if you please.”

*   *   *

Griffin deVere emerged from the horse barn for the first time in the past God-knew-how-many hours and squinted against the brightness of the sunlight that showered the stable yard. Wiping his grimy, sweaty face on the sleeve of his shirt, he headed for the pump.

He stank of linseed oil and other secretions he’d rather not think about. His favorite brood mare had died during a difficult birth two nights before. The loss of her had gutted him. He’d battled hard to haul her back from the brink of death, but nature gave him a sound thrashing for his impudence.

At least he’d managed to save her foal.

Griffin had paired the infant with another mare in milk, a difficult process that required patience, persistence, and a grand dose of sheer brute strength. The mare had to be restrained and tricked by scent into accepting the foal and letting her drink. He’d monitored the fostering progress closely so that the mare wouldn’t hurt the foal as the infant suckled.

Now that the worst was over, he’d left the pair in his head groom’s capable hands. Griffin was hungry, he was tired, and the message his bastard of a grandsire had sent demanding his presence up at the house had done nothing to smooth the rough edges of his temper.

He bent over to duck his head under the pump. The gush of water tingled icily on his skin as it sluiced over his neck and shoulders.

If it weren’t for Jacks and Timothy, he’d have consigned his old Devil of a grandfather to Hell years ago. He’d give anything to tell Lord Tregarth exactly where he could shove his marriage of convenience, but he had little choice there, either. His siblings always suffered for his misdemeanors; if he didn’t knuckle under and betroth himself to Lady Rosamund Westruther, his brother Timothy would be yanked out of university and sent into the army. He couldn’t let that happen. Education was the key to a younger son’s future, as the old earl was well aware.

But even Griffin’s compliance had its limits.

Or had it? Lord, he’d give a monkey to see the old gentleman’s face if he appeared in the earl’s library immediately, as ordered, muck clinging to his boots and his outer garments caked with filth. Ready to meet his intended bride.

Griffin ripped off his coat, which had probably suffered the worst of it, and flung it over a nearby rail. His cravat, waistcoat, and shirt followed. Then he set to work on the pump again, scrubbing at his torso as best he might.

Well, he wouldn’t apologize for tardiness in a cause such as this. Dancing attendance on a spoiled Westruther heiress came a very poor second to his duty to a motherless foal. Besides, Lady Rosamund Westruther might as well learn now as later that Griffin deVere never danced, and certainly not to any female’s tune.

He cupped his hands to catch more water and dashed it over his face. Briefly, he wondered about this girl he was supposed to marry. He’d deliberately closed his ears and his mind to his grandfather’s lectures; he couldn’t remember what, if anything, the old Devil had said about her.

Not that it mattered one way or the other. No gently bred lady would entertain the notion of marrying him for longer than it took to assimilate the full, spectacular extent of his ugliness. One glance at Griffin’s monstrous bulk, and his delicate prospective fiancée would faint or fall into hysterics and beg the duke to take her home.

As soon as he’d heard of the scheme to bring them together, he warned his grandfather against it. Better for them to plight their troth by proxy if the union was truly the old man’s wish.

But he needn’t have bothered. The earl palpably anticipated Griffin’s humiliation. Relished the prospect, in fact. He must be very sure of the girl to have agreed to this meeting.

Perhaps it was as his grandfather said: The Duke of Montford would never allow the chit to draw back from the union simply because her betrothed was a gargoyle.

Suddenly, Griffin noticed something … or the lack of it. The bustling stable yard had fallen silent. Only the
splat, splat, drip
of water on the ground could be heard.

He released the pump handle and straightened, wiping the water from his eyes. Glancing up, he saw at least three stable hands frozen in place, as if turned to stone. His eyes narrowed. Was that a hint of drool slipping from the corner of Billy Trotter’s slackened mouth?

With a strong feeling he wouldn’t like what he was about to see, Griffin turned around.

Sweet. Jesus.

He nearly shoved his head under the pump for another dousing. If the reaction of every other male in the vicinity hadn’t told him his eyes didn’t lie, he’d have believed her a vision conjured by exhaustion. But not even his imagination could have manufactured such a breathtaking piece of womanhood.

She wore a deep cobalt blue riding habit that fitted her form so precisely, his hands itched to shape themselves around those well-defined curves. The habit was in the military style, with elaborate silver lacing across her torso that drew the eye to a magnificent bosom and trim waist.

Griffin peeled his gaze from her mouthwatering form and forced it to her face. Eyes as blue as the heavens stared at him from beneath a sweep of thick black lashes and delicately arched brows. Rich golden ringlets escaped artfully from one side of her jaunty black hat.

The angle of that hat seemed unconscionably rakish. In fact, with her pearly skin and her adorable bow of a mouth, celestial eyes, and gilt curls, the set of that particular piece of millinery struck a jarringly saucy note. It was as if an angel stood before him, closing one eye in a sly, knowing wink.

Stunned as he was, moments passed before the truth crashed in on him, like Armageddon.

Lady Rosamund Westruther.

Bloody. Bloody. Hell.

Her lips moved, but he didn’t hear what she said for the pounding in his ears. His heart pumped. His mouth dried. His hands grew clammy. Blood abandoned his brain like rats from a sinking ship.

She’s not for you.

His skeptical, cynical mind fought for supremacy, but instinct, powerful and raw, drowned out the frantic messages from his brain. A low, animal hum swelled inside him.

I want her. Now.

The angel’s brows snapped together, and for the first time, he noticed a distinctly militant sparkle in her eyes.

She put up her chin and said, “You, there! Didn’t you hear what I said? Saddle me a horse, please. I wish to ride.”

CHAPTER TWO

Beastly man!

Rosamund’s first sight of Griffin deVere would have caused a maiden with a less valiant heart to quail. Shirtless, dirty, sodden, and glaring, he presented a spectacle to strike terror into any gently bred lady’s soul.

His massive body gleamed wetly in the sunshine: acres of hairy muscled chest, miles of long, strong legs. Hands as big as plates shoved a shock of black hair from his eyes, plastering it back over his skull. The movement made the muscles in his biceps bulge with latent power.

Her fascinated gaze snagged on the tufts of dark hair beneath each armpit. Oddly, the sight was the opposite of repulsive. A hot shiver burned down her spine.

But it was the brooding, angry look in his eyes that made her insides melt and slide and sizzle, like butter in a sauté pan.

Rot the man! Why did he have to be even larger, more intensely alive, more masculine than her wildest imaginings had painted him? He was colossal, and not only in stature. The powerful life force within him seemed to blaze from those lightning-colored eyes.

She ought to be disgusted by the state she found him in, particularly in the circumstances. The least he could do was make himself presentable on this, of all days!

Ah, how she wished she
were
disgusted. Her fury fired anew that he should have such a cataclysmic effect on her. He was rough and dirty and in a shocking state of undress, so far from the gallant prince of her imaginings, it would have been laughable had she not been consumed by disappointment.

Well. If he wanted to behave like a groom, she’d treat him like one.

But her heart obstructed her throat as she opened her mouth to teach him a lesson. Her voice wavered on the first attempt; she was obliged to repeat herself, and that only honed her temper to a sharper point.

Still, the brute made no answer.

“A horse, if you please,” she said again. “I presume my saddle has been sent down by now.”

A snicker sounded behind Griffin. His jaw hardened.

“Back to work.” He tossed the command over his shoulder, not bothering to check whether it was followed. The men scattered, leaving Rosamund and her beastly betrothed alone in the stable yard.

He tilted his head, surveying her as keenly as a predator examines prey. She half expected him to sniff the air, bare his teeth … and pounce.

Instead, he crossed his massive arms in front of him. “Your mount hasn’t arrived yet.”

The deep rumble of his voice set parts of her to trembling. His pale, penetrating gaze traveled slowly over every inch of her, making those trembles multiply. If he
were
a servant, she’d reprimand him for such insolence.

More heat washed over her, wave after wave of it. “S-saddle me something from here, then.”

Oh, she could have killed herself for that betraying stammer. Besides, she was never so autocratic as this in her dealings with servants.
He
put her all on end. She couldn’t seem to come to grips with restraint.