Page 4 of Earl, Enemy, Husband?

Like? ‘Like any other privileged male.’

Lilian frowned. ‘No, I mean what does he look like? Is he young? Handsome? You know…’

His beautiful face appeared before her vision. ‘Swoon-worthy’ came to mind, as if she was some totty-headed miss still in the school room. Not unlike the way she had been when she’d first met Mr Campbell, her music teacher.

Cold slithered down her spine at the memory. It was something she had never told anyone about, not even Lilian. ‘I don’t know. I don’t care about that sort of stuff.’ So she’d told herself, since she’d discovered Mr Campbell attempting to seduce her beautiful thirteen-year-old sister, the way he had seduced Florence into thinking he loved her. ‘I did think he might make good husband material, so I suppose he isn’t old or ugly.’

And Primrose was utterly lovely and just the sort of gently bred girl to make any nobleman a good wife. If he could get past the fact she was a Dearing, that was. They would make a handsome couple.

The pang that thought gave her took her by surprise. Why would she care? She had no interest in men or marriage. And what man could look at her sister and not fall in love? Which wasn’t hubris. It was a simple fact. And, after her own experience with Mr Campbell, it was why Florence kept such a close eye on her sisters.

If Primrose could bag herself an earl, or one of his noble friends, then all their troubles would be over and her youngest sister, Iris, would have an easy path to making a good match, thereby freeing Florence of her responsibility for her sisters.

It was an excellent plan. And hopefully, when she returned the earl’s handkerchief on the morrow, she would undo the terrible first impression she must have made.

‘You are hopeless, you know,’ Lilian said, laughing. ‘You must have noticed more.’

‘He was tall.’ But then, when she was five-foot-nothing, everyone was tall, and usually slender to boot. She was what people called ‘a pleasant armful’. In other words, she was plump.

They reached Lilian’s front gate, set in a neat privet hedge. It wasn’t a grand house, but it was more than a cottage.

‘Will you come in for a cup of tea?’ Lilian asked.

Lilian would keep digging until she extracted every possible detail regarding the earl. Florence wasn’t in the mood. She didn’t want to think about how much taller than her he was, or how his eyes had fascinatingly darkened when she had berated him. And she definitely did not want to think about how her stomach had fluttered at his touch. Decent young, unmarried women were not supposed to know about such things.

He had been handsome, though, hadn’t he? Poetically so. She stifled the urge to sigh.

‘No. I won’t come in.’ She glanced up at the sky. ‘It might rain again and I really do not want another soaking.’ And besides, she was going to have to go the long way home. Walking up the earl’s lane and cutting across the field was not an option.

No matter how tempting the idea of a second encounter might be.

Chapter Two

‘Your lordship, may I speak with you?’

Graydon put down the letter from his mother asking when he would visit her again. Bath; he hated Bath with a passion. ‘You may, Mrs Spragg.’

She glanced down at the paper in her hand. ‘This cabinet maker asks when he can deliver the bedroom furniture you ordered. He is running out of space in his warehouse.’

‘I cannot give him a date. I wish I could.’ He held out his hand. ‘Give it to me. I will write to him.’

Mrs Spragg had been handling a great deal more than any housekeeper should, but she was an able woman, and he had brought her with him from Canada because he trusted her implicitly with the running of his household, as Uncle Robert had trusted her before him.

‘Very good, my lord.’ She handed over the letter and left with a small curtsey and a twitch of her black skirts.

Graydon glanced out of the window. The morning was still young and the weather fine. He had planned to take the map of his estate and ride round his eastern boundaries today with a view to assessing the state of the land. And perhaps running into his neighbour’s daughter… He shook the ridiculous thought off. If he happened to encounter her, well so be it. He certainly wasn’t eager to meet her again. He shrugged into his riding coat and headed for the courtyard, where his horse should be waiting by now.

He had never spent much time at this house, growing up. He had either been away at school, with his mother in Bath or with his father at the hunting lodge in Leicestershire. Neither of his parents had lived at Blackdown Hall after he’d been born, so Graydon wasn’t as familiar with the estate as he should be, wanted to be.

He wanted a home. A place where he could put down roots. As a lad, being shuffled between one parent and the other when not hived off to school, he had never felt as if he belonged anywhere. He had learned what it felt like to have roots when he’d lived with Uncle Robert.

Now this house would be his harbour. And as fine a one as he could make it.

Arriving at the stables, he found his horse being walked around the yard. The stable master greeted him with a nod and Graydon mounted.

He realised where he was going the moment he turned out of the stable. He was going to check out the house on the edge of his property where the woman from yesterday said she lived. The map indicated the property belonged to a Francis Dearing, but the map was fifty years old. He should have introduced himself and got her name. Well, he had introduced himself, in a way. When he said he owned the house at the end of the lane, she would have known his identity.

Anyway, he wasn’t planning to make a call. He just wanted to look at the situation, and make sure his neighbour wasn’t encroaching on any of his land. If they thought it was all right to use his field as a shortcut, they might also think it was all right to use it for livestock or a vegetable patch.