Teaching the Earl

Teaching the Earl

Amelia Hart

Christopher
Alexander, new-made Earl of Carhampton, paused on the threshold and prayed for strength. He added a plea that Sophia would be in one of her rare calm moods.

She had arranged herself artistically on a settee near the window, and gazed out languidly over the fields, a lace
handkerchief in one hand. He stepped into the room and knew she had heard him by the faint twitch of her shoulders. Still she did not turn, only let him admire her elegant figure and profile, displayed to such advantage.

She wore a melancholy expression and a pouting lip. He winced. She was feeling poetical. This would not go well.

"Miss Burbage." He bowed precisely, and came forward.

She turned her head and arched one brow in faint surprise.
"Darling. Why so formal?"

"We shouldn't be unchaperoned."

"Nonsense. Miss Butler is taking a nap, and the servants all know we are engaged. They will think nothing of it."

He shot her a frown. "The servants know?"

"Of course. There's no point in trying to keep such things from servants. One might as well tell them straight off," she said, and turned her head back to the window with an air of careless disregard, as if gossiping servants was too earthly a concern for such an elevated mind as hers.

"I asked you to keep silent on the matter until I had the funds to marry." This made things so much worse.

"You know I don't care if we must live on bread and water. Love shall sustain us."

He had a very good idea what she would say if truly expected to live on bread and water. For once her artistic poses did not amuse him, as they usually did.

"I have difficult news." She looked at him with interest, and he took a breath, gazed down at the brim of the beaver hat clasped in one hand, then back into her light brown eyes. "My cousin has overturned his carriage and been killed. I am the new earl."

"Oh."

He saw the dawn of delight on her face, calculation narrowing those fine eyes, and his brows rose. He went on quickly, "His man of affairs sought me out to say the estates are mortgaged to the hilt. The income does not cover the debt, and I have no way to redeem them unless I marry for money."

"Sell them. The title is what is important," she said with conviction.

He hesitated at this unexpected comment. "They are entailed."

"What?
All of them? That's ridiculous."

"Everything else was sold by my cousin or uncle, or perhaps even my grandfather if one goes back far enough. They were all gamblers."

There was a pause as they looked at one another, and the silence in the room was heavy with meaning. He hoped she would speak the words, and save him from dishonor.

She did not.

"Release me," he said quietly.

She shot to her feet. "How dare you?"

"You know it's not my choice. I would far prefer to keep my promises-"

"You scoundrel!"

"I'm sorry-"

"How can you do this to
us. To me. You are so cold. Colder than ice." She clasped her hands at her throat, and her voice throbbed. "You care nothing for the heart you break. A tender, loving heart that has always been yours; laid at your feet, and now you spurn it. For what? For money. How dare you?"

"Miss Burbage-"

"Don't you Miss Burbage me, as if we were nothing to each other. As if you had not held me, kissed me, told me you loved me-"

"I did. I do-"

"But not enough! Not enough to put love before duty. That's not true love. I was deceived. I thought you a better man than this. Deceived. Deceived." She began to weep in great, stormy sobs that shook her whole body, then crumpled to the floor.

He went down on one knee before her and caught the wrists she held up before her face. "You'll make yourself hysterical. Don't drive yourself into one of your turns. It distresses us all so much."

"What do you care? Don't pretend it matters to you. I know it doesn't. You would be happy to see me laid up on my bed, near insensible with misery."

"Of course not."
He was patient, and reminded himself he was the villain here. She was entitled to her dramas, in this case.

"I will be alone forever," she wailed. "Do you think I'll ever love another, marry another? No, a thousand times no."

At that he looked away, and said very low, head averted, "I hope you will love again and will marry. I don't want to destroy the happiness of us both." It surprised him that he did not feel more pain at the idea. Was there no jealousy in him, then? He truly did want her to be happy, even if he could not be.

"We can run away. Let someone else take on this burden. It doesn't have to be you."

The idea was startling. It had never occurred to him to surrender his duty. "Foolishness. There is no one else. If I refuse it, there is no one after me. The title dies with me."

"Let it die."

"That would be purely selfish. I have retainers to support, and a place in the House of Lords to make changes to our laws. The parliamentary seat I dreamed of is mine by right now. You know how important that is to me. Can't you see-"

"What are these things when set against love?" she moaned. "Damn you and your duty. Damn your nobility. Damn you to hell. You never loved me."

He paused, surprised by her curses, and took a breath. "I did. With everything I had in me to give, I have loved you, and love you still." His best friend, close companion of his childhood. His confidante.

"You lie. You could not love me, and leave me."

"There are no funds to support us. We could not live-"

"We'd have each other, and love to sustain us. But you don't want that, do you? You've changed your mind. You regret your offer."

"It's not that-"

"Never speak to me again. Never speak
of
me." She shook her head violently, losing hair pins so her hair began to escape in long strands. "I hate to think you will laugh about me to her. To your
wife
. Your rich
wife
." The word was half a sneer, half a sob. "If you do truly love me never say a word of me. Do not share her bed. Promise me that. As I lie cold and alone in the darkness I can at least know you are not warm and happy with her."

He hesitated, torn. This he could not promise her. "I have to think of the lineage-"

"Bastard!" She clutched at her face, hands pulling her flesh into a grotesque mask. "Filthy stinking bastard! I curse you! You and that trollop. You never loved me. You do not love me now. You lied." Her voice was shrill as a scream.

"You're hysterical. When you have calmed you will see things more clearly-"

"I will never calm. I will never heal. When I said I love you I meant it forever. There will never be another."

"Sophia-"

She wrenched her wrists from his loose hold and collapsed to lie full length on the floor, then rolled back and forth. He felt a deeper unease. This was not rational behavior. Had he driven her so far beyond reason?

She sobbed, "You hate me. I know you do. You want to destroy me. You want to see me broken, ground into the dust."

"Of course not. I have loved you-"

"Don't talk to me of love, you monster.
You fiend."

"Sophia, you are not yourself-"

"No, I am not."

She lifted a twisted face to him, lips curled back from her teeth, and he drew in a sharp breath at the madness that glinted in her eyes. He had never seen her like this, though he had heard the
rumors. They had not concerned him. He had thought them exaggerations. Even if she was truly a little difficult to manage, he was equal to anything. But this woman writhing on the floor was new to him.

"I am not myself," she hissed. "I am what you have made me. I am the monstrosity you have concocted. Vile and wretched, rejected, loathed. I am a nothing. I should just die-"

"Sophia! Good God, don't say such things-"

"Why not?
Don't you like the truth? Too ugly for you. Too ugly as I am too ugly?"

"Don't say such things," he repeated, helpless to heal this. A chasm had opened before his feet. Had he ever truly known her? She seemed a complete stranger. Where was Sophia, his friend?

She lay on her back and stared up at him, the fight suddenly going out of her, her eyes half-lidded and her face very pale and still. After a moment she said quietly, "Leave me. Go. Do not speak to me again. Do not touch me. Go."

He waited, but she was silent. He wanted to comfort her, his friend, as he had often done. But that was not his right anymore. Eventually, reluctantly, he turned away, picked up his hat and went slowly out of the room, feeling for the first time in twenty-five years of life that he was truly a coward. As he shut the door there was a great scream from the other side of the
paneled wood and he immediately turned back.

"No, sir.
No," came a voice from behind him, and matronly Miss Butler, Sophia's hired companion, stepped around him and put her hand on the door handle. Sophia's wails sounded loud and anguished in the hallway. "You've done enough here. Leave her to me now. I know how to handle her."

He felt the accusation of that, though her tone was level. "I did not mean to hurt her."

"What you meant to do and what you did are two separate matters entirely. You would have done better to leave her alone."

Once he would have trusted his ability to judge how best to care for Sophia. But that was before he had seen her, feral and irrational, wild beyond reason. "I did not know-"

"And now you do. Just go, sir."

He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, then opened them and looked at her again, and met an expression of pity and resignation.

"Take good care of her. Please," he said.

"That's what I'm paid to do."

". . . then there is Charlotte Bonmouth at thirty-thousand pounds, which is not enough, I think. A pity, since she's a prettily-behaved girl and the family is good. The Carol sisters are said to come with fifty-thousand apiece, which makes me wish you could marry both of them since that would leave you very well set up. Though they are silly widgeons and just one would try the patience of a saint. All that giggling. Appalling. I don't know what their mother is thinking not to whip them into silence. There is Amy Salisbury, who is a Friday-faced girl if ever I saw one, a little mouse of a thing, but she would be obedient and at eighty-thousand she must be considered. I have taken her mother into dislike but you needn't have much to do with the family once you are married, or even keep the girl in town if it does not suit you-"

"I can’
t bear this," said Christopher, stood abruptly, and drove his fingers deep into his brown hair. He turned away and began to pace. "Not at this moment." He saw Sophia's twisted face before him, and though his heart did not yearn for her as he had expected, still guilt was a live thing in his chest.

"There is no time to waste, my dear. You must marry immediately."

"Surely the creditors will wait a little longer-"

"To what purpose?
With every day that passes you are only deeper in debt. Best to face the reality of the situation and address it this instant. Delay solves nothing."

"But my heart, Mama.
What of that?"

Mrs Alexander arched one supercilious eyebrow at her son, and a chill came over her patrician face. "What of it?"

"I am not made of stone." It was too much to force himself into marriage so swiftly.

"Better you were. Cultivate the appearance of it and you will get on very well. No one admires a man who wears his heart on his sleeve. Only contempt is reserved for one who cannot govern his emotions."

He set his jaw, his fists clenched. She looked him over and then changed her approach. In a more gentle tone she said, "You must act now. Your sacrifice is only meaningful if you act quickly. You face financial ruin. There is no time to waste. You must settle on a girl and charm her sufficiently. We will draw up contracts with her family and see the deed done. Your hesitations may come afterward, when she is safely wedded and bedded, and the money in your coffers."

"I have no taste to be traded like a piece of meat-"

"No time for your die-away airs, my lad. It comes to us all. You will do your duty by your name. I know it is difficult, yet there is great satisfaction to be had in doing the right thing. Only be strong in your resolve."

He shook his head firmly. "It's not right to marry one when I love another."

"Love." Her tone held a subtle sneer. "As if that Burbage girl would have done you any credit-"

But he glared at her, and she quickly retraced her steps. "Never mind that now. It's over and best forgotten. Least said is soonest mended. Marrying without great love is th
e way of things. Affection is good to have in a marriage, and I hope you like well enough the girl you choose. But love? Love is a burden. Passion sets everything awry. Do not yearn for it. It is a sickness, and like a sickness, it is temporary. It runs its course in time and leaves one weaker and sorrier for it. No, best to let her go while you can make a better choice."

"I don't know if I can bring myself to it, Mater. Miss
Burstow deserves better of me. I should honor my pledge to her-"

"And what?
Retreat to your rundown estates to live on turnips while your roof caves in over you? Watch her starve by your side, your children wither and die and the title pass from memory? Now you are nonsensical."

"If you had only seen her face-"

"I'm glad I did not. I can well imagine it, and if ever there was a girl who was dangerously overwrought, it is that one. There is an unstable strain in that family, and I'll be pleased not to mix bloodlines-"

"Do not speak of her that way," he said, very low.
A warning.

"Well I shall not, since you dislike it so, but I
say again she contrived to be caught with you like that. It was she who compromised herself, and hardly your responsibility to propose."

"I have always cared for her-"

"As a brother, perhaps. And she has depended on it more than she should. I should not have let you run together so much as children. I blame myself, though I saw no harm in it then. But she fixated on you and was determined to have you. We could have paid Galloway off. He would not have told anyone what he saw."

"
Dishonorable, Mater. You would not wish it."

"When I am up against such a scheming-"

"Mater!"

"Yes, well, let us not squabble. Far better that you find some tame, milk-and-water miss who will do as she's told and produce heirs for you without delay. Not to mention mend our fortunes. It will be such a relief to me-"

There was a knock on the door, and a moment later Mrs Alexander's serving man entered, his face set and very pale. He did not say anything, only came to stand at the edge of the carpet.

"Yes?" snapped Mrs Alexander after a moment. "What is it, Galloway? Speak up, man."

"Grave news," he said, but it was not Mrs Alexander to whom he looked. It was Christopher.

Christopher stepped forward, as the chill of impending disaster slid down his spine. "Out with it," he commanded.

"I'm sorry, sir. Milord. It's Miss Burbage." He took a deep breath, and his dark eyes were compassionate. "She's hanged herself."

There was silence. Then Mrs Alexander stood and tottered to him, and put a single hand on his upper arm, her face etched in lines of shock and dismay, an uncommon display of emotion.
"How dreadful. The choice has been taken from you. There is no other way but forward. I'm so sorry. My dear, I'm so sorry."

He spun away from both of them, his hands raised to cover his face. "Leave me!"

"But we must-"

"Leave me!" he roared, and after a startled pause he heard their footsteps retreat across the
carpet, and the door shut quietly behind them.

He was alone.