Compromised Miss

‘Be silent!’ Wallace rounded on her. ‘This is not for you. Although many would say you brought it on yourself, cavorting as you do with the Free Traders. I will settle this. What hopes for a suitable match if this gets out—as it surely will?’

‘Then there is only one remedy, is there not?’ A cold interjection in the heat.

The Earl walked across the room towards her, slowly but steadily enough. His eyes were on her face, and Harriette saw banked fire there and recognised a lethal fury at her brother’s wily methods. Even so, he bowed before her with inestimable grace.

‘Miss Lydyard. There is one solution to restore your good name in the eyes of the world. Would you do me the honour of accepting my hand in marriage?’

Marriage! To become the wife of this man? The knot of ice melted in a rush of heat. If she could choose her heart’s desire, would it not be this gift that was being offered to her, as in a childhood fairytale? A precious jewel on a silk cushion? She might have damned him as a traitor, but now she must acknowledge the depth of honour that he should come to her rescue, much as a knight of old would ride to slay the dragon—Wallace—and carry off the damsel in distress.

Would not this miraculous offer make her heady dreams come true?

But Harriette heard herself reply, her voice as distressingly matter of fact as his. ‘No, my lord. There is no need. As we both know, my brother was ill informed. I am grateful and will never forget your kindness in making so great a sacrifice, but I must refuse your generous offer.’

She saw him react. That was not what he had expected. The muscles along his jaw tightened. ‘Perhaps you do not quite understand the situation, Miss Lydyard.’

‘I am not a fool, my lord.’ A flash of impatience, which she strove to temper, but without much success. ‘I understand the situation perfectly. As I see it, there is no situation between us.’ And gasped as her brother grasped her wrist with painfully hot fingers.

‘Show some sense, girl—’

‘Sir Wallace,’ the Earl interrupted icily, raising a peremptory hand as Harriette tugged ineffectually for her release, ‘I need a moment’s private conversation with your sister. Alone, if you will. Is there a library or drawing room in this establishment that we can use?’

Sir Wallace drew himself up to his most pompous. ‘I’ll not allow it. It’s not appropriate that you—’

‘Sir,’ the Earl interrupted bitingly, without finesse, ‘if I spent the night with Miss Lydyard behind locked doors as you imply, luring her into my bed and proceeding to destroy her reputation by the physical demands of my body on hers, five minutes in a library in the full light of morning will not make matters any the worse.’

Harriette froze at the brutal description of what had not occurred. And for the length of a heartbeat wished that it had.

‘Five minutes, then.’ Sir Wallace allowed Harriette to pull her wrist away. ‘Take his lordship to the library, miss, and try to keep some sense in your stubborn head.’

They descended the stairs, Harriette leading the way into a library as dusty and disused as the rest of the house, what furniture there was shrouded in Holland covers. The leather spines of the few books on the shelves were dull, clearly unread. Immediately the door was closed behind them, a swathed form of a sofa strategically positioned between them, Harriette swung round to face the Earl. Her eyes were clear and bright and very determined. She might have been proud of her earlier reticence, but she could remain silent no longer, even if it meant rejecting the heartstopping image painted in her mind by the Earl’s savage words.

‘There’s no need for this, my lord. I know what my brother is about. I’ll lay odds he didn’t suggest marriage until he heard you were an earl!’ She saw her sharp cynicism cause a slash of high colour along the Earl’s magnificent cheekbones—whether from anger at her brother’s presumption or disapproval of her lack of discretion she could not tell—but she would not simper and prevaricate.

‘I wouldn’t take your odds, Miss Lydyard. Sir Wallace certainly saw the opportunity.’

‘I’ll wager the Lydyard’s Ghost he did! To get me off his hands, and to gain a connection with a man of wealth and consequence.’ Harriette made no attempt to bury the bitterness. ‘My brother is nothing if not ambitious. And I should tell you, I won’t do it, just to further Wallace’s ambitions. Not even if you were the Prince Regent himself!’

‘Fortunately for both of us, I am not!’ the Earl responded, taken aback. What was the impression he had gained not ten minutes ago? Here was no innocent, vulnerable, gently reared girl, bullied by her brother. Here was a highly opinionated young woman actually refusing his offer of marriage. And with a forthrightness that, quite frankly, he resented. His lips thinned. ‘Would marriage to me be such an anathema, Miss Lydyard?’

‘That’s not the issue here. What possible advantage could there be for you in such a mésalliance? I think you must be all about in your head to even consider it, my lord!’

‘The blow from a club might have rattled my senses as a temporary measure,’ he snapped back, ‘but I think I am sane enough.’ What possible advantage…? The kernel of an idea began to form in his mind. That such a marriage might just bring him a glimmer of light, an unforeseen advantage….

‘We know nothing about each other. How would I fit into your elevated social circle in London? I have no notion how to go on there. I have never been to London, not even further than Brighton. Why would you possibly wish to marry me? A beautiful debutante? No. A wife skilled in the social mores of London? Not that. A rich wife with powerful connections? Not that, either. So why? I am no fit wife for you.’ Harriette kept her voice unemotional, ignoring the weight of regret that lay on her heart. He would never know how difficult it was to reject him. ‘I am twenty-three years old, my lord!’

‘And I am thirty-four, if that is of any interest to anyone but myself.’

She saw the flash of proud temper as she resisted him, but would not retreat. ‘I agree your age is irrelevant. Mine is not. I did not think you obtuse, my lord.’

‘Obtuse?’ His eyes hardened, unused to being challenged.

‘I am firmly on the shelf, with nothing to recommend me as a wife, fit for nothing but to be governess to my brother’s children.’ She stated the uncompromising truth without a quiver, her chin raised.

His face remained stern. ‘I commend your shining honesty, Miss Lydyard, but marriage can be the answer—if you are not determined to be so stubborn.’

‘What will your family say with a plain nobody like me for a bride, trailing behind you on your expensive doorstep, somewhere I expect, in Mayfair?’

‘I have no idea, nor do I care,’ he replied, struck by the sad little image. ‘It seems to me, Miss Lydyard, that you sell yourself short. You are hardly a nobody. Your family is perfectly respectable.’

But Miss Lydyard did not retreat. ‘Respectable! How damning a word is that? Compared with the Hallaston family, the Earls of Venmore, we are parvenus indeed. It takes no intelligence to guess the on dit of the Season. A common smuggler as the Countess of Venmore! As bad as Lady Lade. I can’t wed you, my lord.’

At which he smiled, for the first time with some level of genuine humour. It lit his face, softening his mouth, rendering her instantly breathless. ‘Not as bad as Letty Lade. She, as I recall, before she was elevated to society, was a servant in a brothel and mistress of Sixteen-String Jack, who ended on the gallows. I doubt you, Miss Lydyard, have any such claim to fame.’

His face was alight with laughter, atrociously handsome despite the disfiguring bruises and the vicious path of the knife on his cheek. Harriette was forced to look away, forced to take a steadying breath as her dreams shattered before her eyes. He was not for her. To know that he had offered for her under duress, driven into an honourable gesture by her despicable brother, was entirely shaming for her. Without Wallace’s spiked accusations, the Earl of Venmore would never have noticed her, much less invited her to share his life and his bed. She took another breath against the sharp dejection and wished with all her heart it could be otherwise, but she could not, would not, let him be a sacrifice for her brother’s greed. It would humiliate her—and him. Marriage on such terms, when all he had shown her was kindness, would be beyond tolerance for both of them.

‘Why did you do it?’ His soft question surprised her.

‘What?’

‘Take on the appearance and identity of Captain Harry?’

‘A family obligation.’ She walked away to look out towards the cliffs where seabirds wheeled and dived in a joyous freedom, finding it easier not to face him.

‘It’s a hard burden for a family to ask of a young girl.’ To her dismay he followed her to stand at her shoulder, a solid physical presence so that she was immediately aware of the heat of his skin against hers, the sheer dominance of his tall figure. But she would not allow herself to feel vulnerable.

‘It’s not just an obligation.’ She felt an inexplicable need to defend herself to him. ‘It’s the excitement, too. Lydyard’s Ghost is my own. So is Lydyard’s Pride, this house that I love but can’t afford to keep and where my brother refuses to let me live.’ Unaware, animation coloured her words and her face. ‘The smuggling runs have become part of my life. Without them, what do I have before me? I am unwed and unlikely to be so, whatever my brother might say. So I must die of boredom—a neverending round of embroidery, painting, sedate walks under my sister-in-law’s caustic eye. When Zan first took me on a run…’ She flushed, regretting having laid herself open to his interest. ‘It’s in my blood, I suppose.’

‘Zan?’ he asked.

‘Alexander Ellerdine. My cousin. My friend. He showed me the…the satisfaction of it. And since Wallace would not, I took on the family connection. The sea is in my blood, too. Lydyards have always had an interest in the Free Traders.’

The idea that had crept into Luke’s mind blossomed into a fully fledged possibility. To rescue Miss Lydyard from dishonour—a matter of duty in itself—and at the same time…the cutter, Lydyard’s Ghost! He turned to lean, careful of his shoulder, against the window shutter so that he might look directly at her, obliging her to raise her eyes to his.

‘Since you don’t appear to value my offer of marriage overmuch…’his mouth curled in a touch of self-contempt ‘…allow me to suggest a contract that might appeal to you Miss Lydyard. A business deal, if you will.’

‘A business deal?’ That she had not expected.

His eyes narrowed as if he contemplated some distant plotting. ‘I find I might have the need for a fast cutter to give me easy access to the French coast. You own such a cutter.’

‘Well—yes. But if you need one, would it not be simpler to just buy one?’ Harriette’s brows rose in blatant disbelief. ‘Why saddle yourself with a wife?’

He thought fast of the advantages that he might just make use of. ‘I need a trustworthy crew and an experienced captain with knowledge of tides. A captain with knowledge of the French coast and a connection there. And speed would be important—might be crucial in my planning. You could offer me all of that.’

Harriette folded her arms. ‘I could. Why?’

‘A matter of family business. It need not concern you.’ And Harriette watched as a grimness settled about the Earl’s mouth. It was like a shutter closing, she thought, masking any emotion.

‘So you get use of the Ghost.’ She pursed her lips. ‘What do I get?’