Beauty and the Earl Read online

  “I apologize, Miss Milford,” he said, turning away to gather some vestige of his composure. “I assure you I do not normally unleash my animal lusts on a woman I’ve never even been properly introduced to.”

  She laughed, and he spun to look at her because the light tone of it was almost like music in the echoing room.

  “Great God, you act as though I’m some virgin daughter of a duke you just tumbled.” She shook her head and dunked herself under the water to backstroke toward the stairs where she had entered the private bath. “I wanted this, my lord. And I am vastly pleased to have had it.”

  She didn’t wait for a response, but walked up the marble stairs, giving him a view of her rounded hips and perfectly shaped backside before she took a robe from a chair beside the door and wrapped herself away from his gaze.

  She glanced at him with another smile. “Perhaps we’ll do this again…after we’re properly introduced, of course. Good afternoon.”

  He stared in stunned silence as she padded through the door and out of the bathing area, leaving him staring after her.

  Before Violet had the chance to touch the knob, Olivia threw open the door to the home Lord Rothcastle had let for them. Her friend’s face was pink and her eyes bright as she ushered Violet inside.

  “And?” Olivia asked without preamble.

  “And?” Violet repeated as she stepped into the parlor to pour herself a cup of tea. Her hair was still wet and she smiled as she pushed a lock away.

  Olivia huffed out her breath. “I have been waiting here for you forever. How did it go with Windbury?”

  Violet sank into the closest chair and took a long sip of tea, stalling for time to think about that question. Her plan was advancing perfectly…but she wouldn’t say it had gone “well”. Not when she felt such a discomfort about the entire arrangement.

  Although none about the physical encounter, which still made her body hum with pleasure.

  “Violet?” Olivia said with a laugh. “You are making me mad! Tell me.”

  “Well,” Violet said slowly. “He is—”

  When she broke herself off, Olivia stepped closer. “A beast?”

  Violet flinched. “No. Well, yes, but no.”

  Her friend shook her head. “You are terrible at this. I want to know details.”

  She thought of the man, with his too-long dark hair and his bright green eyes that seemed to seer into her. Not to mention his body, molded into hard muscle. It was like wrapping herself around the body of an Adonis. Only he was all too real.

  “He is scarred, of course,” Violet said, working on patience as best she could. “But it is anything but unattractive on him.”

  In fact, she had been very drawn to that scar that slashed across the left side of his face. It added a rugged realness to what was otherwise almost too perfect beauty. The scars on his shoulder and the arm that had been damaged by the accident did the same.

  But she hadn’t touched them. She could well imagine women, especially women of a certain type, cooed over his injuries. He would not allow someone in who did such a thing.

  “And were you able to enact your plan?” Olivia pressed.

  Violet nodded. “Yes. As soon as you distracted his friend…thank you, by the way.”

  Olivia’s smile was a little too wide. “It was entirely my pleasure.”

  Violet’s brow furrowed. “How far did you go?”

  “Not as far as I would have liked. That man is…” Olivia shivered. “He is very attractive.”

  Violet laughed. Bringing Olivia had been for support, but she was already proving to be helpful in other ways. If Liam’s hulking bodyguard could be swayed by Olivia’s attention…well, all the better for her plan.

  “Well, once you distracted him, I was able to enter the private bathing room and…”

  She found herself almost blushing as she recalled the searing encounter that had followed. She hadn’t quite intended to go so far, but the moment she touched him, she had felt a wild, unexpected desire to have him. All of him.

  “Your seduction is underway,” Olivia finished when she wouldn’t. “So what is your next step?”

  Violet bit her lip. “I have captured his attention by giving him pleasure, then walking away. He was taken aback, I know that from his face and demeanor. He will be thinking of me, I’m certain, but if I pursue him, his desire may fade. When we next meet, I must make him believe it is an accident.”

  “Reel him in,” her friend said with a knowing nod.

  Violet hesitated. Why did the truth have to sound so damn cold and unfeeling? And why did it make a pit form in her stomach that she would never reveal to Olivia?

  “I suppose that is one way to say it,” she admitted with a sigh. “But for now my next move will be to write to Lord and Lady Rothcastle and tell them I have encountered Lord Windbury. I’m sure they are awaiting my report.”

  Olivia arched a brow. “And will you give them details of that ‘encounter’, as you so appropriately put it?”

  Violet shook her head swiftly. “Of course not. They know what methods I shall employ to gain his trust, but I would never be so crass as to elaborate on them. There are some things better left unsaid.”

  Unsaid like that she had felt something…odd…when she kissed the Earl of Windbury. Something…special. She would never confess such foolishness to Olivia or anyone else, because that would be utterly stupid. And untrue. It was definitely untrue.

  Chapter Three

  Liam paced the length of his office before he stopped at the floor-to-ceiling window and stared out onto the rolling hills of his small estate just outside of Bath. He had things to do at present, a great many things.

  But he was doing none of them. He was staring out a window thinking about a woman. A woman whose body, touch and kiss had been haunting his mind for two days, since their wicked encounter at the bathhouse.

  Violet Milford.

  “Are you still mooning about that woman?”

  Liam jumped and turned to face the door. He found Malcolm there, leaning on the doorjamb. His friend looked utterly unimpressed that a sexual encounter with a courtesan could leave Liam so nonplussed.

  “Are you talking about that woman you let into my private bath?” he asked with a raised eyebrow.

  Mal’s stern expression softened as he laughed. “She had a pretty friend, Windbury—what was I to do?”

  Liam shook his head. They were a pair, that was for certain. “It’s good to know your loyalty is so connected to your cock.”

  “Ah, well, you didn’t seem to have such a bad time, at any rate. Even if she hadn’t distracted me with perfumed hair and soft lips, I probably would have let her in.” Mal shrugged.

  Liam flashed to Violet’s lips closing over his cock. To her body squeezing around him in wet, heated urgency. He could hardly breathe. “No, I didn’t have a bad time.”

  Mal lifted his gaze from the papers he was staring at in distraction. “She could still be in Bath, if you have an interest in seeing her again.”

  That was certainly a benign way to put the desire currently coursing through his veins. It was strange. He hadn’t had an interest in a woman beyond a night of pleasure for a very long time. But he was so damn drawn to the exotic beauty who had so unexpectedly intruded upon his privacy.

  “Do a little research,” he said, hoping his tone was even. “If she is still here in Bath…”

  He trailed off, and Mal nodded. “I’m certain you’ll make the best decision should that prove to be true.”

  Liam chuckled. He wasn’t entirely sure of that, but he nodded anyway. “Yes.”

  Mal shot him a side glance. “Will you go out today?”

  Liam’s good humor faded, as did thoughts of Violet. He hated that manner Mal took when he asked the question. Like he was tiptoeing around a person who was dying. Like he was making some grand, important inquiry.

  Just because Liam locked himself away didn’t mean a damn thing. But if he said no, if he told Mal
that he intended to stay on the estate again, his friend would grunt and make pained faces and try to encourage him to get out.

  Liam was too exhausted to go through it all. So he shrugged.

  “A book I ordered upon our arrival has likely come in. I suppose I could go into town to pick it up.”

  “Good,” Mal said, his voice suddenly light. “I shall have the carriage readied immediately.”

  Liam nodded as his friend left the room, but the moment he was alone, he sighed deeply. He loved Mal almost as a brother and he appreciated his friend’s companionship and aid, but Malcolm wanted to save him. Just like everyone wanted to save him.

  What none of them seemed to grasp was that there was little worth saving anymore.

  “Perhaps there never was,” he murmured before he left the room to ready himself for the ride into town.

  Liam’s order had not yet come in, but he didn’t feel any disappointment now that he was here. There were few pleasures he allowed himself anymore, but a bookshop was most definitely one of them. He breathed in the dusty smell of the pages as he strolled through the aisles.

  At one time he had indulged more in physical escapes, letting his body be his strongest asset. But since the accident, sometimes the only thing that kept him sane was a book to read during a sleepless night. Stories could carry him away, dragging him from reality when he needed it most.

  He turned a corner to the next shelf and stopped dead. There, standing at a shelf, perusing the titles, was Violet Milford.

  He couldn’t breathe as he stared at her. Unlike their last meeting, she was wearing a fine gown, but the fabric hugged her curves and left little doubt that the fantasies he had been having about her were not exaggerations when it came to her body. Nor her beauty. Her thick, dark hair was coiled about her head in a complicated style and her lightly olive skin was clear and fresh.

  She must have sensed his stare, for she turned from her study of the shelf and faced him. Her eyes widened slightly with what seemed to be surprise, though not unpleasantly so.

  “Good Lord, Miss Milford,” he forced himself to say as he took a step toward her at last. “I didn’t expect to find you here.”

  She smiled, the surprise she had initially shown wiped away in an instant. “Lord Windbury, what an unexpected treat.”

  The way she said treat and looked at him with such a long stare made him shift with increasing discomfort thanks to the rush of blood to his cock. Was he really about to have an erection in the middle of a bookstore? Had he suddenly become a green boy facing his first sexual encounter? It was truly ridiculous.

  “I thought you might have left Bath,” she continued, seemingly unaware of her effect on him.

  “Why?” he asked, moving closer again. He almost couldn’t stop himself.

  She drew back. “Well, I have not seen you since…” She smiled. “Since we last bumped into each other, and that has been two days. It isn’t such a large place that I would expect to have you disappear entirely.”

  “I have a small estate just outside the city,” he explained. “So I don’t come into town every day.”

  “Ah.” She nodded. “That would make perfect sense. But books brought you here today.”

  He looked around them. “Books, yes.”

  She tilted her head and continued to stare at him. There was no mistaking the challenge in her eyes. She knew he wanted her, no matter what his body did to protect or betray him, no matter his careful politeness in public. She knew, and she was daring him to say something, do something about it, with just an arch of one finely shaped eyebrow.

  The boldness aroused him beyond measure, just as it had done during their first encounter.

  “Will you join me for supper at my home?” he asked, and winced. It was an abrupt question.

  She smiled slowly. “Do you count this as our proper introduction?”

  He found himself smiling in return at her cheeky reference to her parting volley the last time they were together.

  “Indeed, I do. And I would like to share a meal with you tonight.”

  She drew in a deep breath as she considered the question. “I do not believe I have any prior engagements tonight, my lord,” she finally said after what seemed like an interminable amount of time.

  “Then I will send a carriage for you around seven?” he asked. “And we can eat at eight?”

  “Yes,” she said softly. “I look forward to it. Now I must go. A friend is waiting for me at another shop.”

  He nodded as she gave him one final smile and exited the bookshop. For the first time in almost as long as he could remember, he looked forward to a night too.

  Violet leaned forward and peered out the window in wonder as Liam’s home came into view through a copse of trees that lined his long, curving drive. He called this a small estate? It seemed massive to her, with a large main house rising up in the darkness and a few outbuildings visible by lamps that lined the pathways.

  But then, she was accustomed to a very different kind of man than the Earl of Windbury. She took men as lovers and protectors who had the money and status to keep her comfortable and add to her accounts, but she had always avoided men of title. There were too many trappings that came along with a name and five estates and possibly a family who would be crushed by the truth of what he did in the dark.

  The carriage pulled to a stop, and she shook her head to clear her suddenly spinning mind. Lord Windbury was not going to be her protector. She wasn’t even really here for him, but for his secrets. Her body was just a way to access those.

  Her body which betrayed her with shocking pleasure the moment he touched her.

  “You are a foolish girl,” she snapped at herself, loud enough that when the carriage door opened, Liam’s servant gave her a funny look.

  She ignored it and allowed him to help her down, then moved toward the door. It opened before she could knock and to her surprise, it was Liam himself who waited on the other side.

  She looked at him with a barely suppressed growl of pleasure. He truly was a beautiful man. His face was all hard angles, giving him a lean, hungry look that was only accentuated by the bright, harsh line of the scar that ran along the left side of his face. His hair was dark and too long for the current fashion of close-cropped Grecian-inspired silliness.

  He was wearing a buttoned white shirt but no jacket, and he had removed any cravat he might have worn at some point. With the shirt open at the collar, she saw a glimpse of warm skin, touched by the sun and lean and muscled.

  But even though he was a draw in many physical ways, in the end it was his eyes that captured her most. Dark green, almost emerald, they focused entirely too closely on her as she moved toward him, hand outstretched as if they were two people meeting in a normal exchange, rather than lovers who had already shockingly surrendered to pleasures more powerful than she had felt in a long time.

  It would take a good deal of control to maintain her normally casual and rather dismissive façade in the light of the fact that something about this man intrigued her.

  “Miss Milford,” he said, taking her outstretched hand and tugging her gently through the doorway into his foyer.

  She smiled despite her complicated thoughts. “Are we to be so formal, my lord? Even now?”

  He began to stroke his thumb back and forth across the place where her thumb met her hand. He held her gaze.

  “Should I call you Violet, then?” he asked, his tone softer.

  She caught her breath at how intimate things had suddenly become between them. And how out of control his touch made her feel. Wasn’t she to be seducing him, not the other way around?

  “Yes,” she said, hating how breathless she sounded. Good Lord, she had never played the wide-eyed, panting innocent with men, and yet she couldn’t seem to stop now. “But what shall I call you?”

  “Liam,” he responded without hesitation. “For I truly despise being called Windbury.”

  She drew back slightly at that unexpected confe
ssion. “And why is that?” she asked softly.

  Now he released her hand and stepped away. “Forgive me, it was a foolish thing to say. I will not bore you with ‘heavy is the head that wears the crown’ complaints.” He motioned down the hallway. “Will you instead join me for a drink before we dine?”

  Violet’s lips parted, but she swallowed back any desire she might have had to push the subject further. She had plenty of time to get to know this man’s secrets. If she overplayed her hand now, she might not obtain what she desired, and then all this, and all her confusing turmoil about what she was doing here, would be for nothing.

  “Of course,” she said, surprised when he held out an elbow for her to take.

  “It is a beautiful home,” she said, admiring the place honestly as they entered a parlor. There were fine lines to the place, though little decoration. “Did you let it for your holiday?”

  He shook his head as he released her and crossed to the sidebar where he held up a decanter. “Sherry?”

  She nodded, and he poured one for each of them.

  “It isn’t let,” he explained, handing over her glass. “This is actually a family home. One of many pretty little places my father kept so he could flit about the country being very important.”

  “Did he drag you and your sister along on those very important missions?” she asked, walking away from him so that the question seemed less important than she knew it was. She held her breath, wondering how he would react to this first mention of Ava, her first acknowledgment that she knew some part of his story.

  He hesitated, and she glanced at him. His expression was pained, tension around his lips and eyes that made him look suddenly very stern and unbendable.

  “Yes,” he finally said with a shrug. “Occasionally he brought his family for company. I always liked this place best of all. It is the least ostentatious.”

  She pivoted to look at him fully. “Our definitions of that word are clearly not the same. I think this is one of the finest homes I’ve ever been in. But I’ve moved in slightly different company.”