The Disgraceful Lord Gray

‘Lord, I hope not! The man is such a dreadful bore.’ And an obvious fortune hunter who Thea suspected was one of her aunt’s cast-offs, not that she would ever admit such a thing even to Harriet. Her suspicions about her aunt’s infidelities were hers alone and, no matter how many times her friend pumped her for gossip, she kept her counsel. While she loved her uncle to distraction, he wasn’t a particularly good husband and had neglected his fragile second wife abominably over the years. At times his tone towards Aunt Caro was overly antagonistic and bitter, and if he was in the mood to be ornery with her then it was uncomfortable to watch. Poor Caro, in turn, had sought comfort elsewhere over the years and, although Thea didn’t condone it, she tried not to judge. Theirs was the unhappiest of marriages and a stark warning of what could happen if you settled for the wrong person.

Mr Hargreaves was one of several who might have warmed her aunt’s bed on her frequent forays out. The pair shared far too many knowing looks when they assumed nobody was watching them. ‘All he talks about are his superior connections—as if the fact he knows Lord and Lady So-and-So should impress me.’

‘He’s handsome though. If one has to be bound to a man for all eternity, it’s best he is easy on the eye. I insisted upon that when I had to marry. Crudge, God rest him, was exceptionally easy on the eye and liked to ride. Such pursuits do wonders for a gentleman’s buttocks. In my humble opinion, there is nothing better than a pert pair of cheeks encased in tight buckskin.’ Her incorrigible older friend had a wicked glint in her eye. ‘Did I ever tell you I seduced him first?’

‘Repeatedly.’ And in intriguing detail. Practically all of Thea’s knowledge of procreation came from Harriet’s detailed confessions.

‘I was already falling in love with him, was certainly in lust with him, and saw no point in beating around the bush with a long and protracted courtship. Obviously, it all turned out for the best. We married in haste and got to enjoy seeing each other naked a great many more times than we would have done had we adhered to the fashion for protracted courtships.’ She sighed again. ‘And, by Jove, did that man look good naked... Mr Hargreaves has a pleasant posterior. Or at least I think he has. I haven’t managed a thorough scrutiny yet to be completely sure, but I did catch a hint of a glimpse at last month’s hunting party. Decent thighs—which usually are a good sign. They suggest a certain robustness. Although, in truth, I want more for you than him. I want you to have some adventure and excitement first. Your life is far too predictable and regimented for one so young. It’s a crying shame...wait... Is that a dog barking?’

They both paused and listened. After a beat of total silence broken only by the chirping sounds of the morning chorus, a succession of rapid, high-pitched woofs could be heard coming from the trees.

‘That doesn’t sound good.’

‘No, it doesn’t.’ The bushes beyond rustled violently and the dog barked again, setting her vivid imagination whirring with possibilities. ‘Do you suppose the poor thing is in distress?’

Thea adored animals. The thought of one in pain was too awful to bear. More barking set her heart racing, but answered her question. With images of a poacher’s trap and a grisly death in her mind, Thea picked up her skirts and broke into a run. Twice this last month her uncle’s gamekeeper had found snares on the estate and evidence that someone was helping themselves to his pheasants. If the poor dog’s paw was caught, it would panic and injure itself in its quest to free it.

Thea plunged into the trees, following the sound, then skidded to a halt at the top of the bank at the unexpected sight of an exceedingly pert pair of male buttocks.

Very nice and very naked male buttocks.

A pathetic squeak of shock popped out of her mouth before she covered it with her hands and the buttocks disappeared beneath the water a second before the owner of them turned around, his own hands covering the most important part of his modesty. Which was now quite submerged, but leaving little else to her imagination. Her eyes travelled upwards from those hands to the flat abdomen bisected by an arrow of intriguing dark hair which widened over a broad chest. Muscled shoulders. A gloriously strong set of biceps. Twinkling blue-grey eyes stared cockily right back at her, clearly amused and set in one of the most outrageously ruggedly handsome faces she had ever seen.

‘Good morning, ladies.’

‘Er...’ For the first time in her life, Thea had no words at all. Her cheeks were glowing scarlet and it took all her strength to stop her eyes wandering back to where they had just feasted, making her blink and gape like a hooked fish. Because it was the right and proper thing to do, she immediately averted her badly behaved eyes and stared off into space, mortified.

‘Good morning, sir,’ said Harriet’s voice over her shoulder, then she unsubtly nudged Thea with her elbow. ‘I take back everything I said about buckskin, Thea. It is vastly overrated.’ Shamelessly, her friend barged past—no doubt to get a closer look. Harriet would never avert her eyes. ‘And who might you be?’

‘Lord Graham Chadwick.’ In her peripheral vision, the naked man executed a courtly bow with one hand still clutching his unmentionables, apparently completely comfortable and unrepentant in his nudity. ‘But do call me Gray. I am new to the parish.’

‘Ah, yes! You have recently rented Kirton House, have you not? Why—we are practically neighbours, my lord.’ Typically, Harriet was not lost for words. Evidently, she felt the situation warranted small talk, no doubt to prolong the encounter for her own outrageous reasons. ‘I am Lady Crudgington of Exley House and this is Miss Theodora Cranford, your new landlord’s ward.’

‘His ward?’

Hearing herself mentioned by the naked man himself, Thea guiltily looked up, heartily ashamed that her eyes had scandalously manoeuvred to his impressive chest again when she had been trying so hard to keep them properly latched elsewhere. After a valiant battle with the wayward, impetuous inner Thea, her eyeballs reluctantly flicked to his. The cocky smile was gone, replaced with an expression she couldn’t quite fathom.

‘The very one, although Thea has long passed the milestone of her majority, so is technically just his niece now.’ Harriet shot her a loaded glance. ‘Content to wither in her uncle’s house until Cupid sends her a worthy knight in shining armour to finally whisk her away.’

Before her interfering friend began matchmaking in earnest, something she was prone to do at every available opportunity, Thea had to interrupt despite having no earthly clue what she should say. ‘Mr Gray... I mean, Lord Graham... Er...’

Could this be any more mortifying?

‘We heard a dog... I came to rescue it... I didn’t mean to interrupt your... Um...’ Gracious, now she was waffling like a ninny and her silly eyes were darting every which way possible. It probably looked as though she suffered from an uncontrollable facial tick. One which explained why no knight had thus far bothered saving her. Her face was so warm and doubtless so very red with guilt that one could toast crumpets on it if there happened to be some handy.

To save herself from further embarrassment and to give her naughty eyes something suitable to do, Thea rapidly turned her back and stared resolutely at the trees. ‘Put some clothes on, sir! You are a disgrace. What do you think you are about, cavorting naked in my uncle’s stream?’

Hopefully that let him know in no uncertain terms that she did not consider him shining-knight material and was horrified by his total lack of propriety rather than itching to stare unabashedly at his wet body. His shirt and breeches lay in a heap near her feet, so she snatched them up and without turning around wafted them in the general direction of her friend. ‘Give him these! Immediately!’

She could hear him wading towards the bank and, if she turned her eyes slightly to the right, could see Harriet holding his shamelessly discarded garments in such a way that Lord Whatever-His-Name-Was would have to rise out of the water to reach them. She shot her friend a pointed look which was, of course, completely ignored.

‘Tell me, my lord, how exactly did you come to be naked in Gislingham’s brook? Are there no bath tubs in Kirton House?’

‘I apologise wholeheartedly for shocking you, ladies.’ She saw his big hand grab the proffered clothes, then heard the water move as he sunk back into it. ‘But I blame my dog. He led me astray. Trefor is a very bad influence. It is entirely his fault you caught me cavorting.’

At that, something fast and as black as pitch emerged out of the foliage with an enormous stick in its mouth. He took one look at Thea and simultaneously dropped the stick and shook himself, sending a spray of muddy water all over her favourite green-sprigged muslin, before wagging his tail cheerfully.

Then he lunged.

Two big, wet paws hit her squarely on her belly and she lost her balance. Arms waving like a windmill in a gale, she struggled to stay upright. Instinctively she threw one foot behind to steady herself, only to realise too late that she stood on an incline. Thea tumbled clumsily backwards, her feet lifting from the bank as gravity took over. To her utter horror, she landed with a huge splash in the water mere inches from the irritating naked man’s groin.

Chapter Two (#uaa404237-9cfb-5b94-9c2e-e2d8376d9704)

Judging from her furious expression after she emerged coughing and spluttering from the water, Gray shouldn’t have laughed. Especially as she was, unbelievably, Gislingham’s ward and he needed to make a good impression. But with Trefor already swimming in excited circles around her, her vibrant hair plastered over her face and her blush so ferocious she practically glowed, he couldn’t help it. It had been a spectacular fall.

‘Here... Let me help you up.’

She slapped away his proffered free hand. ‘No, thank you! I know where that has been!’ Outraged and delightfully flustered, she dragged herself to her feet, shooting daggers at her companion who was also snorting with barely contained laughter, as she tried and failed to climb up the slippery bank. ‘Don’t just stand there, Harriet! Do something!’

Keeping his filthy hands to himself and wondering exactly how he was supposed to fix this mess before Lord Fennimore had him lynched for his carelessness, Gray watched the older woman brace her legs and heave the fuming redhead out of the water. Despite his now-subdued mood, it was a wholly pleasant sight. Miss Cranford’s soaked, thin summer dress was stuck to her shapely body like a second skin, moulding wonderfully to reveal a gorgeous peach of a bottom, and because she had to hoist her dripping skirts up to scramble up the incline, he saw a great deal of a very fine pair of legs from ankle to mid-thigh. He had always had a thing for bottoms and legs. Hers weren’t covered in stockings, giving him a splendid view of her pale alabaster skin, which nicely filled in some of the blanks in his suddenly rampant imagination.

She would be wonderfully pale from top to bottom, and, like a Titian, that paleness would perfectly set off all her riotous hair. Although darker now that it was soaked, Gray remembered how it had popped and crackled in the sunlight when he first saw her, like the dying embers of a warm winter fire. Evidently, he now had a penchant for redheads as well as bottoms and legs. Who knew? It was these surprising, unforeseen revelations which made his meandering life interesting. That and the enormous potholes it consistently threw in his path.

He did a quick flick through his many happy memories, disappointingly sparse these last two years since ambition had come unexpectedly knocking, and came to the unfortunate conclusion he had never bedded a redhead before. Something he needed to remedy—but not yet. It was a crying shame he couldn’t bed this one, because she was a tasty morsel if ever there was one, but Gislingham’s ward wasn’t his mission.

Gislingham was.

For the foreseeable future, Gray had to be on his very best behaviour. But he would store it in his mind for future reference and try to repair whatever damage he had done, making a mental note to seek out a suitably willing redhead as soon as he was able as a reward if he miraculously managed to save things.

While the ladies were occupied on the opposite bank, he swiftly pulled on his shirt then sank down in the water to wrestle on his breeches. Something much easier said than done. Only once he was semi-decent did he risk scaling the bank.

Miss Cranford was striding across the parkland by the time he had grabbed his boots, her fists clenched tightly at her sides and her lovely legs tearing up the ground, oblivious of the already besotted Trefor trotting along beside her. Gray didn’t bother calling his hound back, instead he sprinted bare foot to catch up with Lady Crudgington, who was still grinning, intent on eating an enormous slice of humble pie.

‘My sincerest and humblest apologies, ladies. My lack of propriety was unforgivable.’ Yet another thing for Lord Fennimore to justifiably rant about and one he couldn’t blame on his dog. ‘I feel dreadful.’ Which was true, but for entirely different reasons. He blamed the spectre of ambition which had unwelcomely crept up on him and simply refused to go away no matter how much he tried to tell it that he was a wandering gypsy at heart. With every passing moment, that coveted promotion was slipping away, as all things he coveted tended to do if he wanted them too badly. And as per usual, it was all his fault. He really did need to work harder at being a better spy. Especially as his tendency to live in the moment had created this moment—one he would much prefer not to have happened at all.

‘A bit of water never hurt anyone, my lord, and it was very funny.’

‘Traitor!’ Miss Cranford’s head whipped around and she positively glared at her companion.

‘Well, it was funny, Thea. You’d think so, too, if you weren’t in a snit about your hair.’ The older woman dropped her voice conspiratorially, while clearly intending for her delicious friend to hear. ‘It takes for ever to tame the natural curl, poor thing, and she wants to look her best for Mr Hargreaves this afternoon.’

‘I most certainly do not want to look my best for Mr Hargreaves!’ Miss Cranford stopped so abruptly, Gray almost walked into the back of her. The flecks of copper in her dark eyes matched her hair. They narrowed in accusation. ‘Look at the state of me!’ Noticing the two muddy paw prints on the front of her dress for the first time, she rubbed at the stain ineffectually. ‘This will take hours to repair!’

‘It would be my honour to buy you a new gown, Miss Cranford, to replace the one my dog has ruined.’ On cue, Trefor nuzzled her thigh with his head and began to wag his tail so fast the whole of his gangly body shook, gazing up at her in canine adoration. Gray watched her eyes drop to the animal and soften and in that second found himself liking her a great deal. And his dog. She clearly had a weakness for the mutt, which might be the only hope he had. ‘Trefor is very sorry, too, if it’s any consolation. Look at his eyes.’ Only the most hardened of individuals—or Lord Fennimore—could not be seduced by those sorrowful eyes.

Her hand dipped down to tickle the dog’s ear. ‘You’re a good boy really—aren’t you, Trefor? Just boisterous is all. I don’t blame you for what happened in the slightest.’ He heard the intended dig as she glared somewhat half-heartedly at him, and he did his best to look contrite. She was calming down and seemed in no hurry to stop petting the dog.

‘Miss Cranford, I really do feel wretched. I should have behaved with more decorum. In my defence—although I am well aware what you witnessed was wholly indefensible—the parkland was quite deserted when I ventured into the stream. Trefor loves water, you see, and he especially loves it with me in it. Had I had any inkling that somebody would stumble across me so early I would never have sullied your delicate sensibilities with the sight of me cavorting in my birthday suit.’ He felt his lips twitching again and bit down tightly on the bottom one to stop it. Good spies didn’t ruin contrition with laughter. ‘I can assure you it will never happen again.’