Unraveling the Earl (8 page)

Three days later Henry rode into the village of Deerfield
atop a winded stallion whose gray coat perfectly matched the clouds rolling in
from the north. Too restless to countenance another day confined in his
carriage with only his thoughts for company, he’d left his entourage of
servants at the Pig and Hen inn that morning.

Deerfield was a quiet hamlet, little more than one narrow
road of shops bisected by half a dozen dusty lanes dotted with small cottages.
A gray-stone church sat on a rise just within the village proper, an ancient
graveyard sporting listing tombstones surrounding it on three sides.

Some sort of ceremony had just ended. Villagers dressed in
their finest garments lingered in the shade of an old tree while others had
already begun the journey through town. A line of ladies in groups of two and
three wandered along the high street, bright colored muslin and faded calico
skirts lifting on the warm breeze that blew in with the clouds.

Henry looked up at the darkening sky and wondered how likely
he was to make the last leg of his journey to Idyllwild before the sky opened
up. No mind, the rain was much needed and he would happily get wet if it would
just arrive already.

A lilting laugh carried on the wind and he turned to watch a
young lady skip ahead of another, a straw bonnet hanging down her back from
bright green ribbons. Seen in profile as she passed him on the walkway, Henry
decided she was lovely, with pretty pink cheeks and a tilt-tipped nose. Softly
rounded breasts rose above the bodice of a pale green dress tightly cinched at
the waist before flowing over a bottom that looked plump enough for a man to
hold on to while he lunged between thighs that promised to be soft and dimpled.

“I saw it first, Margery,” the lady behind her called out as
she hurried to catch up with the first.

Holy hell, if Margery was gently rounded in all the right
places, her companion was downright voluptuous.

From the flowers on her bonnet to the scalloped hem of her
skirts, the lady was adorned in varying shades of pink silk and lace. Her dress
skimmed over an amazing bosom swelling above a wide ribbon wound around her
waist. Her generous hips swayed with each step she took, sending her skirts
flowing from side to side.

As she came abreast of him riding on the edge of the street,
she peered up at him from beneath the brim of her bonnet. Her eyes were
enormous, as green as her friend’s dress and surrounded by dark lashes that
fluttered as she blinked. Her mouth was a red bow, her nose small and dainty.
Dark curls framed her flushed cheeks.

Henry drank in the ladies’ combined beauty, waiting for his
cock to catch up with the signals his brain sent rollicking through his blood.

“You’ve spent your pin money for this quarter,” Margery
called back.

“I will simply charge it to Papa’s account,” her friend
replied, her eyes never leaving Henry as he slowed his mount to keep pace with
her faltering steps.

“You know perfectly well Papa has told Mrs. Peabody she
isn’t to allow us to charge so much as a peppermint stick to his account.” The
lovely vision in pink turned away with a flutter of her hands, skipping to
catch up to her sister.

Henry shifted in the saddle, beyond frustrated to realize
his shaft lay soft and limp within his trousers.

“Damn it to hell.”

“Such language, Lord Hasty,” a husky voice called out.

Swiveling around in the saddle Henry found Georgiana
Buchanan gliding to a stop just beyond his horse’s flank. In her customary
fashion she’d adorned herself in yards of silk and lace, from the frilly edge
of the modest square-cut bodice of her lavender gown, to the wide ribbon
cinched around her waist, to the layers of ruffles and furbelows of her full
skirts.

Atop her head she wore a ridiculous concoction of straw,
flowers, ribbons and bows, hiding her glorious hair but for one long spiral
that had escaped its pins to flutter over her shoulder.

“And in front of two young ladies.” She smiled up at him,
her eyes shining in the sunlight that had yet to be chased off by the gathering
clouds. “Poorly done even for a libertine, my lord.”

Henry could only stare at the lady, too surprised by her
sudden appearance to form words.

“Miss Georgiana, there you are,” Miss Margery called,
hurrying over to join the lady, her gaze flitting over Henry atop his horse.
“We waited for you as long as we could, but there is the loveliest lace shawl
in Mrs. Peabody’s shop that I simply must have.”

“You will not,” the dark-haired goddess warned as she
stopped beside the blonde.

“Lord Hasty, are you acquainted with Miss Eleanor Brooks and
her sister Miss Margery?” Georgiana asked, her eyes never leaving Henry’s face
that suddenly felt too hot.

“Lord Hastings, silly,” Miss Margery corrected with a smile.
“We have had the pleasure of making his lordship’s acquaintance two years past
when he visited Idyllwild. How do you do, my lord?”

The sisters dropped into curtsies that showed off trim
ankles in satin slippers. Georgiana did not follow suit, instead continuing to
look at him, her smile growing wider with each passing second.

“A pleasure to see you again,” Henry replied with a nod,
barely sparing a glance for the ladies he had no memory of having met.

“Have you come to spend some time at Idyllwild?” Miss
Margery asked, her gaze darting between Henry and Georgiana.

“What in blazes are you doing here?” he barked.

The Misses Brooks looked at one another and back to Henry,
two sets of green eyes round and unblinking.

“We are just coming from Matilda Marshall’s wedding,”
Georgiana replied as calmly as if he hadn’t shouted at her on the street. “And
what a lovely wedding it was, too.”

Huffing out a frustrated breath, Henry climbed from his
mount to join the ladies on the walkway. “What are you doing in Deerfield? Why
are you not in London where you belong?”

“I wasn’t aware I belonged in London, or anywhere else for
that matter,” she answered, wrapping her hand around his arm. “Will you walk
with us, my lord?”

“Oh yes, please do, Lord Hastings,” Miss Margery urged while
her sister bobbed her head. “Perhaps Jilly and Laura will see you escorting
us.”

As he looped the horse’s reins around a hitching post, it
occurred to Henry that the Misses Brooks were quite young, likely barely out of
the schoolroom, which would explain why he did not remember meeting them. Two
years ago they’d still been in braids and pinafores.

“Oh I’d wager they are in the bakery,” Miss Margery told her
sister.

“Shall we run ahead and see?” Miss Eleanor asked with a
giggle.

“Please do,” Henry muttered.

“We’ll stay to the street so that you might readily find us
again,” Georgiana offered, turning her smile on the exuberant girls. “His
lordship will be certain to fawn all over the both of you when you return.
That’ll pickle Silly and Laurel’s insides to no end.”

Beaming their gratitude before spinning away, the two girls
with curves too generous for their young minds hurried down the street
hand-in-hand.

“Aren’t they darling?” Georgiana asked, tucking her hand
more firmly around his arm and tugging him forward along the sidewalk.

“What are you doing here?” Henry asked for the third time,
his frustration falling away as his balls twitched and his cock pulsed.

“Is there some reason I should not be here?” she asked.

“Why did you run off?” Henry watched her as they set off
toward the center of the village, quite unable to look away from her profile
and the smile that coasted around her full bottom lip. “I awoke to discover
you’d fled in the night. In my shirt, no less.”

“There was no need to linger,” she replied airily. “I’d
gotten what I wanted, after all.”

Dumbstruck by her blasé words and the slow lift of her lips
into a full-blown grin, Henry halted beside her.

“Never fear, my lord. I shall return your shirt.” Georgiana
peered up at him through her lashes.

“I don’t give a damn about my shirt,” he muttered. “I am not
accustomed to falling asleep with a lady only to awake alone.”

“No, you likely lie abed devising ways to remove either the
lady or yourself from the premises,” she agreed. “Have you contemplated sawing
off your arm?”

“Sawing off my arm?”

“Killjoy once told me he has considered such drastic
measures on more than one occasion, most especially when he awoke to find
Prudence McIver curled up beside him.”

Henry barked out a laugh.

“You have imagined it!” Georgiana skipped ahead of him and
spun about to face him, clapping her hands and beaming up at him. “Who inspired
you to meditate upon life with one arm?”

“I have never—”

“Come, come, my lord. You can tell me. Who was she?”

Henry shook his head, enchanted by her smile, by the dimple
that winked beside her wide mouth, by the humor shining from her eyes.

“Tit for tat,” she teased, falling in beside him again and
twining her hand through his elbow, her fingers curling around his arm.

Dropping his hand over hers, he laced their fingers
together. “What are you offering up in trade?”

“To be sure I’ve never thought to lop off my arm,” she
drawled, her voice taking on a soft lyrical cadence.

“You must share some dark secret from your past,” he told
her.

Tapping one long finger against her chin, she hummed softly.

“Too many to choose from?”

“I am only attempting to think of one worthy of the loss of
a limb.”

“The contemplation of such loss.”

“Oh, I know.” She peered over her shoulder as if to assure
their privacy before leaning in to whisper, “Do you think sneaking into our
neighbor’s barn to watch his stable master making free with a dairymaid is a
fair trade?”

“You contemplated sneaking into the barn to watch a pair of
servants…”

“Take a tumble,” she finished when he faltered. “Well,
certainly I contemplated it. In truth I thought of little else for weeks, since
the first time I saw Loose Lucy emerge from the barn with her skirts tucked
into her bloomers and hay in her hair.”

“But you did not actually…”

“Your turn.”

“Are you saying you watched the servants making love?”

“Gracious me, no,” she exclaimed.

“No,” he agreed, a bit breathless by the notion.

“To be sure there was no love between Lucy and Will,” she
continued. “And the only thing they made was a spectacle of themselves. And an
outrageous amount of noise. It’s a wonder they weren’t heard all the way up to
the house.”

“You watched them?” Henry made no attempt to keep the shock
from his voice.

“It was rather like witnessing a carriage accident, terribly
gruesome, all fat buttocks and jiggly breasts, but I could not look away.”

Georgiana tugged at his arm and Henry realized he was
standing stock-still, an elderly couple sidling around them, gifting them with
smiles as they passed.

“Your turn.”

“You watched them? Until they’d finished?”

“I couldn’t very well climb down from the loft without
interrupting them,” she answered a bit defensively. “Had Loose Lucy known I was
up there while she was bent over a bale of hay she would have sold Mum nothing
but curdled milk for weeks. Months even.”

“But why did you climb into the loft?”

“Can you think of a better place to hide?” she countered,
pulling on his arm.

Henry took two stumbling steps. “Why did you want to watch
them?”

“Why?” She blinked in obvious confusion.

“Yes, what made you wish to see two people…”

“Swiving?” she offered. “I was curious.”

“You were curious,” he repeated. “How old were you?”

“Hmm, I suppose I was ten and five, nearly ten and six.”

“Christ, you were little more than a girl.”

“I was barely that. A girl, I mean.” Georgiana laughed
softly. “Fair is fair, my lord. Which of your dozens of ladies had you wishing
for a saw?”

“Cybil Fairley,” he answered after a pause in which he
contemplated simply telling her the truth.

“Truly?” she asked. “But wasn’t the lovely actress your
mistress for months?”

“She was my mistress for all of two weeks,” he corrected.

“Ah yes, weeks become months and months become years in the
retelling of tales,” she agreed with a sigh. “But were you wishing yourself far
away each and every morning of those two weeks?”

“Will you think me a cad if I say yes?”

“I already think you a cad,” she answered as the Misses
Brookes skipped up the street arm in arm.

“Jilly and Laura are not in the bakery shop,” Miss Eleanor
reported.

“Perhaps you ought to try the apothecary’s shop,” Georgiana
suggested readily.

“What on earth would they be doing in that dusty old shop?”
Miss Margery asked.

“Just this morning while Mary made her way down the aisle I
heard Silly lamenting the freckles that have cropped up across her nose,”
Georgiana replied.

“You are a gem, Miss Georgiana, you always know what
everyone is about,” Miss Margery replied.

“Is that why you were telling her about Dalrymple’s patented
cream?” her sister asked, her gaze intent upon Georgiana. “You’ve only been in
the village a week and already you know everyone’s secrets.”

“You’ve been in Deerfield for a week?” Henry turned to
Georgiana in surprise.

“I would hardly name Jilly’s need for whitening cream a
secret,” Miss Margery replied with a giggle, cutting off whatever reply the
lady might have made.

“And precisely how to solve their problems,” Miss Eleanor
continued, ignoring both Henry’s and her sister’s words entirely.

“Oh, but didn’t Mrs. Mortimer use Dalrymple’s cream with
disastrous effects?” Miss Margery asked. “I seem to recall her complexion
turning green.”