Yankee Earl (2 page)

      
Rachel had never felt at such a disadvantage in her life as she did at that moment, looking up at the arrogant Yankee Doodle. In spite of his muddy appearance, he merely looked ruggedly handsome, not slimy and unkempt as she did. He had a dimple at one side of his mouth when he grinned, which he was doing now, as if he understood exactly how she felt. Never one to allow an opponent the first move, she raised her chin proudly and faced the insufferable devil.

      
“You must be the one they're calling the Yankee Earl in London.”

      
“Jason Beaumont, at your service, Countess,” he replied with a mocking nod of his head. The sunlight danced off the blue-black highlights in his shaggy hair.

      
Does he know?
She stood frozen for a moment as he slid effortlessly from the black.

      
“How are you privy to what goes on in the ton? This is quite a rustic place for gossip about the Quality.”

      
“And, of course, you assume I'm a rustic wench,” she replied sweetly. She was dying to know if giving him her name would elicit any response, but decided it would be better to take him by surprise at the ball next month.

      
He cocked his head and crossed his arms over that broad naked chest. “You speak like a countess and possess the arrogance of one, but I vow I've never seen a female this side of the Atlantic dressed in britches.”

      
She enjoyed the puzzled expression in his dark blue eyes. “Oh, but you have seen females in britches in America?”

      
“Yes, among my blood brother's people.”

      
“Blood brother?” she echoed. What sort of barbarian society did he come from?

      
“The Shawnee. They're Indians.”

      
“Savages! You compare me to savages!”

      
“Not at all,” he replied. "They have far better manners than you."

      
She raised her hand to slap his face, but he caught her wrist, enveloping the slender bones in one big hand. “Tut, don't tempt fate, m'dear. My Shawnee brothers may have better manners, but I don't.”

      
“Let me go,” she gritted out, suddenly aware of how isolated they were and how big he was, towering over her not inconsiderable height. She knew how to defend herself and had done so against her fair share of country ruffians over the years, but this fellow was unsettling in a far different way.

      
He was holding her much too near that bare, hairy chest. Rachel seemed unable to take her eyes from one small droplet of perspiration as it wended its way down his throat into that black forest.
How would it feel to touch that hair, feel the crisp spring of it? To feel the hard muscles beneath?
Before she could stop herself, she blurted out, “You're a fine one to cast aspersions on
my
manners, going about half naked. At least my body is decently covered.”

      
He released her, chuckling as he said, “Covered, yes, but as to decently…” His eyes roamed slowly over her curves, which were far more tantalizingly revealed by her soaked shirt and pants than she could have imagined. In spite of the voluminous cut of the shirt, the mud and creek water had molded the soft cloth like second skin to breasts, belly and hips.

      
She preferred riding astride in britches when working on the estate, but Rachel knew it was not acceptable for any woman, least of all one of Quality, to wear men's apparel. Flushing because of that—certainly not because of
his
opinion, or the way he affected her—she replied, “A pity that poacher was such a poor marksman. A few holes in that thick colonial hide might let some of the wind out.”

      
With that, she spun on her heel and stalked across the meadow toward home, feeling his mocking blue gaze burning a hole in her backside. She felt compelled to place some distance between them.
Just for now. I'll exact my revenge when next we meet,
she consoled herself, refusing to admit how the Yankee lout upset her equilibrium.

      
Suddenly his black pulled up beside her and he leaned down, murmuring to her, “Crude colonial that I am, I can not leave a woman stranded without her horse.”

      
“I shall manage famously,” she said without looking up. “My home is but a short distance.”

      
“Ah, but I must accompany you,” he insisted. “Indeed, we can ride as we did before. You make a fine baggage, Countess.”

      
“What marvelous flash of wit…and you need not even pick your nose to prime your brain pan. A marvel for so great a lobcock!”

* * * *

      
With his mocking laughter echoing in her ears, she plodded doggedly toward Harleigh Hall. It was only a mile or so distant, no difficult walk…if only her boots did not squish with every step she took. That wretched Reddy would by now be munching hay in his stall, all safe and dry.

      
She cursed the horse…and the Yankee.

      
But she would never ride in any fashion with her body pressed against any portion of his, especially that bare chest. Just thinking of it made her shiver in spite of the heat. She ignored him when he reined in and sat, leaning on the saddle, watching her stomp toward the manor house nestled in the valley below. “Stubborn wench,” he called out after her retreating figure. “We'll meet again, Countess.”

      
A threat or a promise? She smirked.
If only you knew, you crude colonial clod.
Rachel Fairchild would have a surprise or two up her lace-covered sleeve when next they did meet.

Chapter Two

      
Alvin Francis Edward Drummond was a small man with light tan hair and piercing green eyes that missed nothing. He was possessed of a wicked wit, a fierce sense of loyalty and an absolute aversion to the state of matrimony.

      
Reclining on a lyre-back chair in the dressing room of the eminent tailors Schwartze and Davidson, he observed as Jason was fitted for the clothing a new earl would need to carry him through the end of the Season. “No, no, that won't do a'tall, good fellow,” he said, waving away a bolt of fine woolen cloth.

      
As the clerk scurried off, Drum emitted a sigh, then turned his attention back to his newfound friend, picking up their conversation where they had been interrupted. “You mean to say that you actually lived with Red Indians—and you without a dram of their blood?” the dandy inquired with one slim eyebrow raised to indicate amazement.

      
“Yes. They're a remarkable people,” Jason replied with a grin, imagining Drum's reaction if confronted by six feet four inches of Shawnee warrior with a shaven head and roached scalplock.

      
“I have a good friend from the col—er, the United States,” Drum corrected himself, “who is right now somewhere belly deep in a swamp with his cousins, who happen to be…” He paused and put a pinch of snuff on the back of one pale hand, inhaled and sneezed delicately into a snowy linen handkerchief. “Ah, yes, Muskogee—I do believe that is what Alex's tribal brothers are. I say, you would not by any chance be acquainted with Alex Blackthorne or any of those Muskogee chaps, would you?”

      
Jason threw back his head and laughed. “I'm afraid you underestimate the size of the United States. The Muskogee reside in Georgia, nearly a thousand miles south of Maryland, where I lived. But I've heard of Blackthorne Shipping. The family has one of the largest and most successful merchant operations in the country.”

      
“A pity you never had the opportunity to meet Alex. Lud, the times the three of us could have had,” Drum said with a sigh. Then, peering at Jason through his quizzing glass, he shook his head. “Odd, that. With your black hair and all that sun-darkened skin, you more resemble an Indian than Alex does. We really must do something about giving you a fine English pallor, my boy. Perhaps a touch of arsenic, eh? It's all the crack to whiten one's complexion.”

      
Jason shuddered. There are many things I will do for my grandfather, but poisoning myself is not among them,” he replied as the tailor entered the room buried beneath half a dozen bolts of kerseymere.

      
Drum's impeccable taste in fashion had induced Jason's grandfather to overlook the young rapscallion's reputation as a duelist and gambler who lived well beyond his means. In spite of his faults, he was well received at all the best clubs, including White's and Watier's. George William Beaumont, ninth Marquess of Cargrave, was determined that his grandson be accepted by the ton. There was no one better equipped to make over an American privateer into an English gentleman than the Honorable Mr. Drummond.

      
When the ordeal of clothes selection was finally over and Drum announced that Jason had sufficient finery to last him until the Season ended, the two men repaired to the library of the Beaumont city house just off Grosvenor Square.

      
“Grandfather is expecting me to attend a recital tonight.” Jason sighed as he handed Drum a brandy, then raised his own glass.

      
“At Chitchester's?” Drum inquired. Jason nodded, and his companion shuddered. “Zounds, 'twill be the duke's younger sister Theodosia torturing the pianoforte.”

      
Jason chuckled. “You are most unchivalrous for a gentleman, sirrah.”

      
The gel's on the marriage mart.” He studied Jason over the rim of his Waterford tumbler with merry green eyes.

      
Now it was Jason's turn to shudder. “No, thank you.
If
and when—note the emphasis on the first word—I decide to marry, I shall choose a woman for her personal allure, not her dowry or bloodlines.” Suddenly that hoyden in britches flashed into his mind, and he grinned.

      
Thinking about that allure, are we, hmmm?”

      
“Just a rather unusual female I encountered last week in the country. No one of account. But she possessed a sharp wit. Claws to match, too.”

      
“Just like Alex. Always chasing a skirt,” Drum said with a chuckle.

      
“No skirt.”

      
“No skirt? Egad, was she running about mother naked?”

      
Jason smirked. “She wore britches.”

      
“Britches?” Drum choked on his brandy.

      
“Is there an echo in here?”

      
Ignoring the taunt, Drum asked sourly, “Is there to be nothing left sacred for us poor males? Women in britches, indeed. We need a night of diversion sans female company, in skirts or otherwise attired. Heigh-ho, we're off to the Haymarket Room. Two of Domenico Angelo's pupils are putting on a demonstration with foils.”

      
“Personally, I've always preferred a good sturdy cutlass.”

      
“Being a retired pirate, you would…regrettably,” Drum replied. “But you shall learn better under my most excellent tutelage.”

* * * *

      
The room was not all that large, considering the crowd. Drum had been right. Unlike gambling hells, dog fights and horse races, where ladies of the evening were always in evidence, the fencing demonstration drew an all-male audience. Most were from the upper ten thousand, but a few wealthy Cits were present as well. The low murmuring of fencing enthusiasts filled the smoke-laden air as gentlemen puffed on expensive cigars and wagered.

      
“I say to hell with that Mediterranean mediocrity,” a nasal voice announced from a corner of the room as Jason and Drum entered. The speaker stood surrounded by a gaggle of sycophants. His blond hair was cut a la Brutus, framing a pale angular face with a long patrician nose and deeply set yellow eyes that skimmed the crowd with restless energy.

      
As the fellow continued to hold forth, it was apparent to Jason that he had imbibed too much; but no one seemed inclined to notice. “Who is that pompous ass?” he asked Drum, sotto voce.

      
“Ah, Forrestal, an insufferable lout. Drinks too much and has execrable taste in fashion,” Drum replied, shaking his head at the man's waistcoat, which was embroidered with a garish floral design. “If the sot ventured into the countryside in that flowered monstrosity, he'd be suffocated by amorous butterflies.”

      
“His companion's sensibilities don't appear offended,” Jason replied dryly.

      
That's because Forrestal is Etherington's heir. Currently he's waiting for the old man to kick the bucket so he can ascend to the dukedom. Well known as a skilled duelist.”

      
“Displaying such manners, he had better be.”

      
“Ah, but he'll be a duke one day. Most of the ton is willing to overlook a fault or two for that. Of course, in the meanwhile he's perpetually out at heels.”