Beauty and the Earl Read online

  Dedication

  For Amy and everyone at Samhain. I love how you support me and my career, and I’m so happy to be a Samhain author. Also for Michael, not only for being the love of my life, but for being my best friend. The fact that you always have my back is the greatest gift of my life. Thanks for being you.

  Prologue

  July 1813

  Liam, the Earl of Windbury, stood behind a tree across the narrow street from the house of his greatest enemy, the Duke of Rothcastle. The home rose above him, gaudy and false, like some ridiculous beacon of everything wrong with Rothcastle and his wretched family. All that man touched became soiled and destroyed.

  A carriage with an ornate crest slid its way into the circular drive and Liam leaned in closer to watch as liveried servants rushed out to pull luggage from the top and open the doors for the occupants of the rig.

  The first person to step out was Rothcastle himself, and Liam’s stomach clenched with rage. The duke was tall with dark blond hair. Liam couldn’t see them from so far away, but he could picture Rothcastle’s sharp, hawkish eyes that almost glittered with cruelty and malice.

  The other man hesitated and slowly turned to look across the street, almost as if he sensed someone there. Liam flattened against the tree so he wouldn’t be seen, but kept his gaze firmly on the man at the carriage.

  When Rothcastle moved, his limp was still apparent. Liam might have rejoiced in this proof of his enemy’s pain, except for the circumstances that had caused it.

  Both of them had been injured on a night over six months before when Rothcastle had chased Liam down in his carriage. The duke had been bent on stopping Liam from marrying Rothcastle’s sister Matilda. Then a horrible crash. So horrible.

  He sucked in a breath as pain in his chest nearly exploded at the memory. Matilda broken. Dying. Dead. His world began to spin, as it always did when he thought of that awful night, and nausea hit him in a wave.

  Through his blurred vision, he looked again at Rothcastle, and he could barely contain himself. Rothcastle blamed Liam for Matilda’s death, and Liam could hardly argue. But he placed just as much blame on the shoulders of her brother. If Rothcastle hadn’t run them down, the accident never would have happened.

  Anger boiled, a desire for revenge made him see everything in a red haze. He had a gun in his boot. He could pull that gun out, march across the street and put a bullet in Rothcastle’s chest before anyone could prevent it.

  There was only one thing that stopped him.

  Rothcastle turned and reached up to help a passenger down from his carriage. A woman dressed in a beautiful beige gown with green highlights. She smiled as her feet touched the ground. She smiled up at Rothcastle, and even from this distance Liam could see there was nothing on her face but pure, unfiltered love for the man. The monster.

  His stomach turned because the woman from the carriage was his sister, Ava. His sister who Rothcastle had kidnapped in a twisted revenge plot. His sister who had been seduced by nothing short of the Devil himself. His sister who had somehow convinced herself that she could love the man, no matter what that fact did to Liam. To herself.

  Liam stared as Ava reached up to cup the cheek of a man he hated more than anything in this world. Her laughter could be heard on the wind, but was cut off when Rothcastle leaned down and kissed her. There was no hesitation in her reaction. His sister kissed his worst enemy back with enough passion that even the servants stepped away to give them their privacy.

  After all, they were newlyweds, just returned from Gretna Green that very moment. She belonged to Rothcastle now. She shared his name.

  Rothcastle broke the embrace, leaned down and whispered something to Ava. Liam’s sister’s smile returned, and she took her husband’s arm and allowed him to lead her into his home.

  Her home.

  For better or for worse.

  As they disappeared into the estate, Liam fought the urge to vomit into the bushes beside him. There was so much to despise in what he had just seen. Clearly Ava had been entirely taken in by a bastard. No matter what she said to try to convince Liam otherwise, he would never believe that Rothcastle didn’t have some evil ulterior motive in taking Ava for a bride.

  And then there was how blasted happy they appeared. In love. Planning the rest of their lives together. No matter how firmly he believed that Rothcastle didn’t mean any of it, their expressions still reminded him of his time with Matilda not so very long ago. He had wanted exactly what Rothcastle had now stolen with Ava.

  Matilda was dead. Liam would never touch her again. He would never be near her again. He would never love anyone ever, ever again.

  The reality of that sunk in, deep into his bones. It made his old injuries from the accident burn with pain, it made his chest hurt, it made him feel so dull and empty that he briefly considered wandering into the Thames and letting the churning water take him, just so he wouldn’t ever have to face that fact again.

  Instead, he turned on his heel and walked away from Rothcastle’s home. He would never return here. He would never again force himself to look upon his sister as the Duchess of Rothcastle.

  Never.

  Chapter One

  April 1814

  Violet Milford sat in her carriage outside the very large and rather intimidating London home of the Duke and Duchess of Rothcastle. She stared up at it through her narrow window and wondered, yet again, why in the world she had been summoned here.

  Yes, she was without a protector at present, but she had heard all the stories about how besotted Rothcastle was with his bride of less than a year. And what kind of man would bring a courtesan like herself into his main home and flaunt her about for the neighbors and his family to see?

  Not many.

  The carriage door opened and she found herself looking into the grizzled, wrinkled face of her longtime driver, Gregson. He looked more like a sea captain than a driver and sounded like one too as he said, “We’re ’ere, miss.”

  She glanced at the house again, a niggling fissure of doubt threading through her. Not dread, really, or fear, for she never ignored those intuitions, but something else.

  “Miss?” Gregson repeated with a tilt of his head.

  She moved toward him, taking the hand he offered so she could step down onto the crushed rock drive.

  “Stay close,” she said softly, lifting her hand to shade her face from the unexpectedly sunny day as she continued to look up and up at the mansion.

  Gregson nodded. “You think there might be trouble?”

  “Here?” she asked.

  She let her gaze slip down to the front door. These kinds of places seemed so respectable and safe, but she knew full well that a great deal of misfortune could come from “proper” men in their “proper” homes.

  “I have no idea,” she murmured as she moved toward the door.

  One way or another, her servant would come looking for her if she did not reemerge from that door in precisely one hour. He was well-trained that way.

  She raised a hand to knock, but the door opened of its own accord to reveal the perfunctory stern butler that all men of a certain status seemed to employ. The man looked at her, his face carefully neutral.

  “Miss Milford, I assume?” he intoned in a grave and gravelly voice.

  “Yes,” she responded, moving into the parlor as he indicated she should enter. He took her light wrap, hat and gloves before he began to move down the hallway as he said, “Their Graces will be made aware of your arrival immediately. Please wait for them here.”

  He motioned through an open door to a parlor. Violet bobbed out a nod and stepped inside. To her surprise, there was a fresh pot of tea with a few cakes waiting for her, as if she were just a normal guest. But sh
e didn’t touch them. Best not to anger a very powerful duke the moment he entered the room.

  After all, she knew her place.

  She settled into a seat before the fire that faced the door, despite the fact that she longed to look around the room. There were some lovely landscape paintings that she instantly recognized as works from Joseph Mallord William Turner, but she held firm in her seat and merely admired them from afar.

  She didn’t do so for long, though, because a couple soon walked into the room. Linked arm in arm, she knew who they were both from artistic renderings in the papers and from seeing them from afar at certain gatherings.

  The Duke and Duchess of Rothcastle made a handsome couple, for both were beautiful in their own way. Lady Rothcastle had dark hair with a ruddy highlight that brightened in the firelight. Her face had an underlying sense of kindness to it, though at this moment she was not smiling or even looking directly at Violet. Not that Violet expected it, given their disparate circumstances.

  Rothcastle had dark blond hair with piercing blue eyes that had been the subject of many a flighty courtesan’s fantasy. He had a lean strength to him despite the fact that he had a faint limp and still carried a cane more than a year after the infamous accident that remained the topic of much gossip in her circles and in ones far above her own.

  Violet rose to her feet and gave a curtsey to recognize the pair and their status.

  “Good afternoon, Your Graces,” she said.

  Lady Rothcastle smiled, though her lips were thin. Violet sensed the other woman’s hesitation instantly. But she sensed something else too. Just by the briefest of exchanged glances, the light squeeze of a hand on an elbow as they released each other, she felt the powerful, deep connection between the couple. Something very uncommon in upper class marriages.

  And something that made her invitation here all the more odd.

  “Good afternoon, Miss Milford,” Lord Rothcastle said, motioning her back to the seat she had chosen. “Thank you for coming today.”

  Violet settled into her chair and arched a brow as she met his bright gaze evenly. “When the Duke of Rothcastle calls on you, you do not refuse him.”

  Lady Rothcastle’s hands clenched as she all but collapsed on the settee near Violet’s chair. Her face was pale as she speared Violet with a sharp look.

  “Then you know us?” she asked, her voice as strained as her expression.

  Violet fought the urge to laugh at the ludicrous nature of that question. “Forgive me, Your Grace, but everyone knows you.”

  To her surprise, the duchess blushed deeply and turned her face. “Of course. The talk never ceases, does it?”

  The duke reached out to stroke a hand over his wife’s shoulder briefly, and once again their connection was clear as a bell on a soundless day. As was their love for each other. It almost radiated.

  It was Violet’s turn to avert her gaze in the presence of such a thing.

  “What I do not know,” she said, her voice rough as she stared at the teapot instead of the couple, “is why you would ask me to your home and invite me into your parlor.”

  Lady Rothcastle pushed to her feet and paced to the window to look outside. She was silent a long moment before she turned back and looked at Violet with an even stare. Her high emotions were masked now.

  “If you know us, then I can only assume you know of my brother.”

  Violet drew a breath as she examined the woman across the room. She was certain the duke knew exactly what Violet was, but did the duchess? Was she willingly asking this question of a courtesan?

  Still, it wasn’t as if Violet had intruded in their home. She had been summoned. It wasn’t her place to protect the rich and titled.

  “Yes, he is known in my circles,” she said with a slight shrug of her shoulders and a glance toward the duke.

  “Courtesans,” Lady Rothcastle said softly, erasing all Violet’s questions with one word said with such heavy implication.

  The duke crossed to his wife and took her elbow gently. “Ava,” he said softly, their eyes meeting in unspoken communication.

  Violet got to her feet and smoothed her dress, holding her head up high so that there would be no question of her having some kind of shame about what she was.

  “Yes, my lady, your brother was known to visit women in my position, both before his accident and also after. Although, since he was injured, he has not kept any one woman for more than a short time. He and I were never…affiliated.”

  Not that she hadn’t looked at the handsome earl long and hard on the occasions she’d seen him. Even with his disfiguring scar and brooding personality, he was a physical specimen worth swooning over.

  None of that seemed to impress the duchess, though. She pressed her lips together and shot her husband a look. Rothcastle moved toward Violet and motioned her to sit. He took the seat across from hers and leaned forward, resting strong arms over equally strong thighs.

  “Miss Milford, I will get right to the point. Obviously you know about the break in the relationship between my wife and her brother, as well as the long history that scars our two families. Everyone knows some version of our story, so I won’t pretend as if you don’t. And because of that, Lady Rothcastle and I are seeking to find out information about her brother.”

  Violet refused to let her surprise at this revelation be seen on her face.

  “As I said, I’ve never had an affiliation with the man,” she said, carefully measuring her tone. “I don’t even know that I’ve ever spoken to him. So what does your desire for information have to do with me?”

  “Currently, the earl is in Bath. He won’t let us near him.” The duke stopped and shifted uncomfortably. “But if he were to take a lover…”

  He trailed off and looked at her evenly, his meaning suddenly very clear. Violet lifted both eyebrows in shock and snapped her gaze from the man across from her to his wife. Lady Rothcastle did not seem surprised by his outrageous implication, but her mouth was set in a grim, determined line.

  “So you wish for me to seduce the man and report his activities and whereabouts and emotional state to you?” she asked, making their request as plain as she could since they wouldn’t.

  Lady Rothcastle almost sagged as the description was put so plainly. “Yes,” she whispered.

  Violet swallowed hard and pushed to her feet deliberately. “I’m sorry, but that isn’t what I do.”

  She turned toward the door to leave, but she hadn’t made it three steps, when Lord Rothcastle’s voice echoed through the chamber.

  “One thousand pounds.”

  Violet froze at the number he had called out and slowly turned toward the duke and duchess again. “I beg your pardon?”

  “I will pay you a thousand pounds if you do this,” he repeated.

  All her ability to cover her reactions faded in that unexpected instant, and she stared at him, blinking rapidly as that number swirled around and around in her head.

  “Why?”

  Rothcastle hesitated a moment, apparently taken aback by her direct question. Then he folded his arms. “For my wife.”

  Lady Rothcastle sucked in her breath, looking up at him with a look of apology and love in equal measure. Her heartbreak was clear on her face, her desperation to know something, anything, of her brother.

  And didn’t Violet know that feeling well herself? She pursed her lips. A thousand pounds was a great deal of money. Almost enough money…

  “Two thousand,” she heard her voice say, although she didn’t remember making a decision to bargain.

  The duke’s eyebrow arched. “There are other women we could ask.”

  “But you don’t want to spread this request throughout the ton,” Violet said, her hands shaking even though her voice did not. “You came to me because you know I have a reputation of discretion. You might not be able to say the same of the next woman you call here. Two thousand.”

  The duke let out a low rumbling sound that she wasn’t certain was a growl
or a sigh. It was irritated, that was all that was certain.

  “Fine, two thousand.”

  Violet’s heart lodged in her throat, but she refused to let excitement and hope keep her from continuing.

  She nodded once. “I will do everything I can to obtain access to the man and uncover any information for you, but I make no promises. He may have no interest in me. But I cannot be expected to go to Bath for nothing.”

  The duke tilted his head, both eyebrows lifted. His wife glared at Violet, arms folded and her disdain as clear as day. Violet found herself regretting that on some level. She actually liked Lady Rothcastle, from all she had heard about her.

  But that couldn’t dissuade her.

  “You will receive five hundred pounds up front,” he said softly. “And I will cover your expenses in Bath. Does that settle this?”

  “Indeed, quite amply,” Violet said. “I shall depart for Bath as soon as I receive the funds in my account. Shall I send any news to this address?”

  “No, I’ll give you the address of a solicitor who will forward your letters to me,” the duke said. “Excuse me a moment and I will fetch the particulars.”

  Violet watched him go, and when she turned her gaze from the door, she found Lady Rothcastle was now on her feet, watching her.

  “You are surprised my husband left you alone with me,” the duchess said softly.

  Violet conceded that point with a slight tilt of her head. “I don’t know many women of your stature who wish to interact with courtesans.”

  Lady Rothcastle seemed to consider that for a moment. “I wish to interact with people who I like and respect, regardless of their place in life. I don’t know you, Miss Milford, though I can see from your handling of my husband that you are shrewd, and I suppose that is exactly what we need when we hire a woman meant to manipulate my brother into revealing his secrets.”

  Violet wasn’t certain that comment was meant as a compliment, but she didn’t press further. “I get the sense that perhaps there is something more you wish me to do.”

  The duchess gave her a long, appraising look. “I love my brother. And recent…developments have come to pass that make me wish very much to have him back in my life.”