The Earl is Mine (36 page)

As Pippa listened to the toasts, she wondered how this perfect day had come to them. It hadn’t been an easy road to finding true love. Years and years it took her and Gregory to discover what Uncle Bertie had known all along … that they were soul mates.

And though there were rocky moments here and there—two strong-willed people, both of them creative, could never agree on
everything,
could they?—their lives were incredibly rich.

Love changes everything,
Pippa thought, remembering her sugar castle with the broken turret. Marcia held up her infant daughter and kissed her sweet, fat cheek. Pippa looked up at Gregory, who’d come to put his hand on her shoulder.

“You were right, Uncle Bertie,” she whispered just as the sun peeked from behind a cloud and shone upon the chestnut tree, causing little golden dapples of light to fall over the baby sleeping in her lap.

Read on for an excerpt from Kieran Kramer’s next book

Say Yes to the Duke

Coming soon from St. Martin’s Paperbacks

Chapter One

Lady Janice Sherwood—the one with the gorgeous older sister—had literally waltzed, however inelegantly, through two London seasons and still hadn’t found a husband. Everyone knew what a proper young lady did when she wasn’t in demand. She rusticated in the English countryside in the hopes she’d be missed. And it went without saying that if she were wise, she’d develop her own magical charm while she was there—perhaps even catch the attention of an eligible gentleman in residence.

The chances that the dowager’s grandson, the fabulously handsome Duke of Halsey, would fall madly in love with Janice when she was to stay at his house as a guest of his grandmother were slim. But her parents, knowing he was to be there hovering about his prize horses, hoped the impossible would happen. Even more, Janice hoped the impossible would happen.

Why not?

If I have to fall in love, it might as well be with a duke
, she thought. Because then she’d be a duchess, and everyone would notice her.

Finally.

Not that she cared for baubles and power and titles. But everyone else did. And it would be such a relief, wouldn’t it, to never have to dance to society’s tune again?

Which was why when Lord Brady’s glossy black carriage broke a wheel at the beginning of the long drive leading to the ducal manor, she was willing to walk the rest of the way. But Oscar said no, she should wait for him to return with a fully equipped carriage from His Grace’s stables.

“Because the daughter of a marquess doesn’t arrive on foot at the front door of a duke’s house,” he said. “Nor does she ride in a cart.”

Of all the Brady drivers, only Oscar had the privilege of speaking so freely.

“I thought you told me nothing happens in the country, my lady,” her maid Isobel fretted.

Oh, dear. Perhaps Isobel had that privilege, too.

“Nothing ever does happen,” Janice assured her.
Although I desperately want something to happen to
me
.

She wanted to be a duchess.

Oh, and fall in love while she was at it. She wouldn’t marry the duke any other way. She had principles, and she’d be just like Mama and Marcia in their marriages and be absolutely head over heels for him. But she’d also be a duchess—

Which they weren’t.

They’d be so
proud
of her.

And Mary Flinster and Louisa Bonnet would never dare ask her to hem their gowns in the retiring room at balls and call her “Shop Girl” under their breath at the punch bowl table because Mama was a lowly seamstress before she married Daddy.

“You swear it will be dull here?” Izzy’s nerves were always shattered, and she’d been quite looking forward to a bit of boredom.

“Dismal.” Janice hoped to change that, of course. “We’ll play cards until Oscar comes back.”

“Very well, but you’re not very good at cards, my lady. Do you think you’ll have better luck with the duke?”

“Izzy!”

“Don’t you want to marry him? Every eligible young lady should if she’s got a head on her shoulders.”

“But I want to marry for love.” She did, too.

“That’s nice.” Izzy didn’t sound very convinced, and dealt out the cards.

Janice arranged hers and noticed she had a preponderance of hearts. “It can’t be too hard to accomplish in a month, can it?” She was jesting, but she really wasn’t.

She and the maid laughed at the same time.

How long
did
it take to fall in love? Real love? Not silly infatuation. She’d already had experience with that.

“That’s the spirit, my lady,” said Isobel. “You should do your best to fall in love with His Grace while you’re here. I should think loving a duke would be easier than loving someone else.” Her tongue stuck out of the corner of her mouth as she eyed her cards. “Maybe,” she murmured, “you could fall in love with him the very first day.”

“What if I simply choose to do so?” Janice had been thinking about the topic all morning. “Perhaps love is really nothing more than being polite, cheerful, kind, and an excellent storyteller over breakfast. One must also be willing to bear loads of children without complaint and kiss one’s husband at the door before he leaves for the day. If I say yes to all those things, is that love?”

“I don’t know.” Isobel gave a slow, luxurious laugh. “The kissing part should be interesting.”

“I suppose so,” Janice replied faintly. She’d kissed a rogue before, Finn Lattimore, who’d broken her heart but not terribly much, probably because she’d found out with him that kissing was a bit dull. She’d been able to move on, especially as he’d broken Marcia’s heart, too. “I do hope Oscar returns soon. I can’t wait to meet the duke.”
And get started trying to fall in love
, she wanted to add but daren’t. “And get started helping the dowager,” she said instead.

There. That sounded so much nicer. And she did want to help the dowager. She was probably a lovely old thing who only wanted someone to look interested while she waxed on about the days when she was a young girl. Janice would hold her trembling hand and nod. She was good at nodding.

But when the carriage door opened fifteen minutes later, it wasn’t Oscar. From what Janice could see of the stranger through the new-fallen snow, he was a broad-shouldered man in his late twenties, she guessed—a working man, likely one of the duke’s grooms in his well-cut but serviceable coat and simply tied cravat. Beneath his beaver hat, his hair was like coal, curling around his ears and framing a square, shaven jaw.

Janice’s spine straightened. His eyes, thickly fringed in black lashes, were deep blue, the color of Daddy’s sapphire ring. And his mouth—ah, his mouth. It was like a work of art. Hard, male, yet as expressive as his eyes, which radiated intelligence, good humor, and a bold, restless intensity that proclaimed him his own man, despite his servant’s garb.

His sheer masculine beauty was a shock, especially when she was expecting the potato-nosed—but perfectly lovable—Oscar.

Isobel, too, found the stranger compelling, judging from the way her chin dropped onto the thick violet muffler with extra pompons Janice had knitted for her.

The man’s eyes glittered with interest when he perused Janice’s face, setting her heart racing.
What on
earth
?
He was a servant, of all things. He shouldn’t be looking at her that way.

“You’re obviously unhurt,” he said, “so I’ll dispense with the niceties.” His voice was rich, earthy, faintly bitter, like one of the coffeehouse brews Janice craved on a regular basis and sneaked out to get when Mama wasn’t looking. “State your business, my lovelies. No one with good intentions comes down this road.”

“Of course, we’ve good intentions,” said Janice, mortified. “We’ve been traveling
all day long
with good intentions, and we two lovelies, as you’ve brazenly described us, would like to get out of this carriage and have a cup of tea with His Grace and the dowager duchess.” Her heart pounded like a herd of stallions crossing a plain. She was dressed modestly, in a navy cape and simple matching bonnet. And as for her hair, she’d taken no time to pin it back up after a few ringlets had fallen out at their last stop. Yet the man eyed her as if—

As if he’d like to disrobe her.

She immediately thought of her underthings, all of them practical but with scraps of the finest Avignon lace sewn here and there. Mama had made them and stitched Janice’s initials on every garment.

“Tea with the duke and the dowager.” The man grinned, exposing strong, white teeth. “That’s a good one. We received no notice of your arrival. Yet you’ve enough trunks to stay for months.”

“Of course we do. We
are
staying.” Janice sat up higher on her seat, and despite her pique with this man, felt an insane desire to lean forward, lay the flat of her palm against his jaw, and cup it, just so she could trap that grin and stare at it all day long. She didn’t need the rest of him. Oh, no. The rest of him could jump in a lake. Just the grin would do. “The dowager summoned me herself.”

“Caught you,” he said. “She’s incapable of summoning anyone. She’s beyond eccentric. She thinks she’s the Queen.”

Janice felt a great shock course through her. “Well, queens do summon people.”

His skeptical glance didn’t faze her.

“I’ll have you know she was quite lucid in the letter.” Her tone was cool, but inside her heart was clamoring. How could the dowager think she was the Queen? Janice absolutely ached for the old lady if it were true. Mama would be most upset to know that Her Grace wasn’t in her right mind. She was to be Janice’s chaperone. Mama and Daddy would want Janice to come home straight away.

But she couldn’t do that—no. Absolutely not. But—wretched thought—what if the duke didn’t even know she was coming? Mama had conducted all her correspondence with the dowager herself, who hadn’t once signed off as the Queen. It was all most peculiar. Perhaps this man was lying. “Who are you, pray tell? A tenant farmer? One of the duke’s grooms?”

The man lofted a brow and opened his mouth to speak.

“I knew it!” gasped Isobel before he could say anything. “He’s the duke himself!”

“Izzy!”
Janice cried, embarrassed. “What duke drives a cart?”

His mouth twitched in amusement. “I
am
a groom, actually, and the best in the county, too. My skills venture beyond the stables, however. I’m tasked with preserving the integrity of the place, so don’t bother making up a wild story about why you simply have to stay. I’ve heard them all, I assure you.”

“But we haven’t done anything wrong,” Janice insisted. “The dowager
did
summon me—I have the letter and seal to prove it—and you’re the most disrespectful”—
handsome
—“groom I’ve ever met—”

“I assume your driver has gone ahead with the horses,” he interrupted her smoothly. “This road is impeccably kept, not a pothole in it. Which of you engineered that? Or was that your driver’s trick? The letter is easy enough to discount—forgers abound—but a broken wheel permits a second chance at staying while the letter is examined. An ingenious complication to the ploy, ladies.”

“There
is
no ploy,” Janice returned hotly.

But she could hardly hold on to her shock and anger. His eyes had filled with jealous admiration. Or perhaps it was reluctant respect, not the kind she usually got—the “I’m looking through you” token respect that men, servants, and everyone gave her as the stepdaughter of a marquess. It was very much like the respect she’d earned from her old friend Dickon. When she was eight and he was nine, she could balance on one leg much longer than he could. She could run to the back of the cemetery and to the gate again faster, too, much to Dickon’s dismay.

This man was looking at her the same way, as if she had a talent. A skill of some kind. A special trick.

And you do
, the thought came to her.
You’ve got all sorts of special tricks and talents.

It was a big, wonderful notion, and it hadn’t occurred to her in a very long while. Confidence surged through her. She felt so confident, in fact, that she tossed her head and said, “I’d like to know what trick
you’re
up to, sirrah. I’m Lady Janice Sherwood. And this is my abigail, Miss Isobel Jenkins.” “Of the traveling circus Jenkins,” Isobel interjected proudly.

He raised a brow.

“You’re being most irregular suggesting we’re here under false pretenses and planned our little accident,” Janice said. “Had I not been rattled by the shock of hearing that the dowager isn’t well, coupled with the tumble we nearly took within this carriage, I’d take offense. What’s your name?”

“Luke Callahan,” he said in a serious tone. “Thank you for asking. You’re the first ever to ask, of all the strumpets who’ve come to see the duke in the last six months.”

Oh, God.
His eyes
. The pupils were like little black diamonds inside those sapphire irises.

“You’re welcome, Mr. Callahan.” Janice swallowed. “Wait a minute, what did you say?” She stared at Izzy. “Did he call me a strumpet?”

Izzy nodded, her eyes wide.

“I’ll take it back”—his tone was completely unapologetic, but his gaze felt like a wonderful caress—“if you’ll cooperate. You’re going to the village, and you’re not to come back. Speaking of which, please behave in Bramblewood. The residents are my friends. I’ll turn my cart around now to escort you there.”

“A cart?” Janice practically squeaked the words, she felt so prim at the moment—and she only felt prim whenever she was in over her head. Her middle was starting to get less discombobulated. More focused. More
worried
. “I don’t know what you’re about, but it makes no sense. No sense at all. I’m wearing such conservative garb—”

“It doesn’t disguise your true hot nature,” he replied.

“And if you don’t stop spouting nonsense—”

“Let me explain a little closer,” he said, and without ceremony half entered the carriage, grabbed her by the hand, and pulled.

Janice’s heart went wild. “What in heaven’s
name
? Just what do you think you’re doing?” Shock turned to anger, and anger made her fierce. She clung to the door of the carriage with every ounce of strength in her.