Deceiving an Earl Read online

  She set her back teeth together in frustration. Lord Armbruster was a charismatic man. He drew people to him like bees to flowers, and she did not want to be another bee. Not again.

  Never again.

  “I should mingle. Enjoy the poetry.”

  She caught another grimace before she walked off and felt a small thrill that he wasn’t happy about the poetry reading.

  Chapter Two

  Oliver sat in the back of the room, figuring if the poetry reading became too tedious he could make a quick escape.

  He was not alone. A few other men had quickly taken the empty seats around him, commiserating with each other with long faces and raised brows.

  Oliver recognized a famous actress, and an opera singer. There was a journalist from The Daily Telegraph.

  It was an eclectic group of people, and from what he gathered, these salons were held periodically, focusing on one art form or another. He’d heard that some of them involved nude drawings. But, alas, he was subject to a poetry reading. He hoped to God it wasn’t Byron. A sniveling fool, in Oliver’s estimation.

  The Chartist walked in—Bertrand—with a beautiful woman on his arm who, upon closer inspection, appeared very much younger than him.

  But it wasn’t the woman Oliver was interested in. Why would Ellen invite a Chartist to her gatherings? Her husband was dead, but her son was the current Earl of Fieldhurst and if there was one thing Oliver knew about Ellen it was that she was fiercely protective of her son. A reputation as one who hosted a Chartist was not a good reputation to have.

  And then Ellen sailed in, a stunning sight in burgundy with all of that black hair, dark, dark eyes, and pale skin. She smiled to a few people as she made her way to the front.

  Oliver didn’t listen to her words of introduction so much as he let the cadence of her seductive voice carry him backward through time.

  Oliver had his wine glass halfway to his mouth when he spied her. She was across the room, various guests flitting between him and her, frustratingly obstructing his view so that he had to twist his head in unnatural positions to keep his eye on her.

  She was dressed in pale, earthy green, like the color of springtime. But she didn’t put him in mind of spring. No, she was more like winter, or maybe a dark, stormy summer night, with all that black, black hair piled high on her head and those dark eyes that were crinkled in laughter.

  A dark emerald would have looked better on her, but she was young, most assuredly a debutante, and the darker colors were better suited to the more mature women.

  And still he couldn’t look away. His old schoolmate, Kitchener, was droning endlessly in his ear, but Oliver had stopped listening the moment he spied her.

  “Who is that?” Oliver interrupted, rather rudely.

  Kitchener paused. “Who?”

  “Her.” Oliver gestured with the glass he was holding. “In the green.”

  Kitchener squinted through the crowd, and Oliver was surprised at how impatient he felt. He wanted to know her name. Right that moment. How absurd. But nonetheless there it was.

  “I don’t see…” Kitchener’s expression cleared. “Oh. Miss Ellen Hillgrave.”

  “Miss Ellen Hillgrave,” Oliver said to himself. Ellen. “Do you know her?”

  “We met once—”

  That was all Oliver needed to hear. He grabbed Kitchener by the sleeve and dragged him across the dance floor, through the swirling bodies, straight toward Ellen.

  He stopped a safe distance away. “You will introduce us,” he said.

  Kitchener gulped. He was a socially awkward one, preferring his books to balls. How he ended up at this ball Oliver didn’t know, but he was glad Kitchener was there to make the introduction. How was it that he had not known of this Miss Hillgrave?

  He was pretty certain that since he’d left Eton, his mother had shoved every available chit in his face in the hopes that a spark of something would ignite and Oliver would fall madly in love, court and marry, and partake in the bearing of children. It had not happened yet.

  But his mother had not introduced him to Miss Hillgrave.

  Kitchener cleared his throat and bravely stepped forward.

  The gaggle of girls that Miss Hillgrave was in the presence of all stopped talking and turned expectantly to Kitchener. His face turned an alarming shade of red, and he stammered.

  “Miss Hillgrave, I would like for you to meet The Viscount Fairview.”

  Oliver stepped forward and bowed. Miss Hillgrave’s brow went up, her cool, dark eyes dancing with an inner amusement, and for a moment Oliver faltered. Well, what had he expected? The girl to fall at his feet? To fawn over him?

  “My pleasure, miss.”

  “Lord Fairview.”

  Good God, but her voice hit him like a ship being broadsided. Low and raspy. Not the high-pitched squeals of all the other girls he had met.

  Miss Hillgrave was poised, holding herself straight and giving off an air of someone who was very comfortable in her own skin.

  A waltz started up, and Oliver threw all caution to the wind. Later, he would find that Ellen had that effect on him. He lost all sense when he was near her.

  “Would you care to dance?” he asked.

  Both brows went up this time. “My dance card is full, I’m afraid.”

  Oliver refused to let her see that this wounded him. “Of course,” he said smoothly. “Silly of me to think that there would be an available spot.”

  The girls around her tittered, and he felt his face warm but kept his gaze steady on her. She was measuring him, sizing him up. He wondered what thoughts were going through her mind and found that he very much cared what she thought of him.

  “Maybe some other time,” he said. “It was a pleasure to meet you.” He nodded at the other girls who were standing in a semicircle around Ellen. “Ladies.”

  Even though it was one of the hardest things he’d done, he turned and walked away. He could feel Miss Hillgrave’s gaze upon his back. His shoulder blades itched with it, but he kept walking.

  Pulled from his reminiscence by a smattering of polite applause, he opened his eyes to find that he’d missed the poetry reading entirely.

  A plain, young woman with thick glasses and hair pulled so tightly it made her eyes slanted, stood, clutching a book to her chest, and blushed at the applause. She scurried away, pushing her glasses up her nose with the tip of her index finger.

  People began moving around and talking.

  Oliver spied Ellen in the front row. She leaned to her left and said something to the person sitting next to her. Oliver had to shift to the right and tilt his head to see to whom she was speaking. It was a gentleman with black hair liberally shot with gray and combed straight back. He was in a black jacket, and that was all Oliver could see of him.

  Ellen whispered something in the man’s ear, leaning far too close for this to be a casual acquaintance. She smiled, and the man turned to look at her, revealing his profile to Oliver. He was older than Ellen. Why was Ellen attracted to the older men? Her husband had been twice her age when they’d wed. The man smiled down at her, and Oliver caught a flash of white teeth, eyes crinkled with laugh lines, a prominent nose.

  Who is he?

  Not an aristocrat. Oliver would know him if he was. A businessman? He wouldn’t put it past Ellen to allow a businessman to court her. Not that there was anything wrong with businessmen. He was one himself.

  Society had changed. It used to be that businessmen were looked down upon by nobility. Part of the working class, nearly indistinguishable from the laborers. But, as he’d predicted long ago, times were changing. There were many businessmen far wealthier than nobles, who had been impoverished by vast estates that gobbled up any spare cash they might have.

  People rose and talked quietly among themselves. Oliver stood there awkwardly. At the balls he attended there was always someone for him to talk to, but here there was no one. He had nothing in common with these people, and he wasn’t sure how to act.
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br />   “Did you enjoy the reading?”

  Startled, he looked down at the woman who had been on the Chartist’s arm. What luck.

  “I did,” he lied. “And you?”

  Her lips twisted. “I don’t understand the attraction to his poetry.” She shrugged, and he confirmed that she was quite young. More his sister’s age. And she was French. “But people seem to enjoy it.”

  “They do,” he agreed.

  Her gown was cream-colored and off the shoulder. It would not have been appropriate for the societal events that he attended, but it looked good on her, hugging all her curves before dropping into a full skirt.

  “I am Amelie Bertrand,” she said.

  How was she related to Antoine Bertrand? She seemed far too young to be his wife, but Oliver couldn’t be sure.

  “Oliver Armbruster,” he said, leaving off his title. Women sometimes acted strange about his title. They either coveted it or were frightened of it. Of course, all the women he met knew he was an earl. This anonymity was rather nice and besides, he wanted to get close to the man she was with and was afraid a title would scare him off.

  “It is a pleasure meeting you, Mr. Armbruster.”

  “Do you come to these salons often?” he asked.

  She shrugged and looked around. Her eyes were a dark brown, her hair a blond that was almost the same color as her gown. “Often enough. I come with my father.”

  Ah. So Bertrand was her father.

  “Your father?” He raised a brow in inquiry. What a perfect opportunity that had just dropped into his lap.

  “Armbruster. How did you enjoy the poetry?” Ellen swept up next to him and took his arm. For the first time he wished her away, even as his body responded to her touch. Seventeen years he’d gone without her touch. There had been a time when he’d thought he’d die without it. He’d been wrong. He’d lived.

  “It was entertaining.”

  She grinned. “Liar,” she whispered. “You despised it.”

  “Poetry is not my favorite. I will admit that.”

  Amelie wandered away, and Oliver cursed the missed opportunity to talk to her.

  “A little young for you, don’t you think?”

  He shrugged, wondering if Ellen was jealous of Amelie like he was jealous of the man Ellen had sat next to during the poetry reading. How absurd to be jealous after all this time. She’d made it clear that she hadn’t wanted him.

  “We were discussing the poetry,” he said.

  She arched her brows in doubt. “So now that you have a taste of these salons, what do you think? Will you return?”

  Was that hope in her voice? Was he projecting his own feelings of hope onto her?

  He needed to leave. He should never have come in the first place. He’d been foolish to agree to this preposterous proposal by O’Leary.

  The gentleman who had been sitting next to Ellen approached and put a proprietary hand on her elbow.

  She pulled her gaze from Oliver and smiled up at the man. Oliver felt a twinge in his chest region and forced himself not to rub it. Must have been something he’d eaten that wasn’t sitting well. Or the flat wine.

  “My lord, I would like you to meet Sir William Needham. William, this is…an old friend. Lord Armbruster.”

  …

  “What do you know of a William Needham?” Oliver asked Detective O’Leary the next night.

  They were sitting in the detective’s office, enjoying an ale. Oliver had come to appreciate his weekly meetings with O’Leary and much to his surprise, he enjoyed the ale just as much. Normally he was a wine or port drinker.

  O’Leary was sprawled in his chair, the front legs tilted back, his heavy booted feet resting on the top of his desk. From Oliver’s vantage point he could see that the soles of O’Leary’s shoes were nearly worn through.

  He was a big man, O’Leary, a ginger, with freckles over his face and forearms. Oliver could easily see O’Leary as a street thug or working a farm. That they were friends was as much a surprise to O’Leary as it had been to Oliver. They were of a different class, would never have met under any other circumstances—they’d met through their mutual friend, Ashland.

  Ashland was normally at these informal, ale-drinking get-togethers, but Ashland was spending time with his wife.

  “Needham,” O’Leary said after taking a swig of ale and wiping his lips with the back of his hand. He tapped his chair arm with a thick, callused finger.

  “Sir William Needham, the surgeon?”

  Oliver raised a brow. “Surgeon?”

  After Ellen had introduced the two men she’d been called away, and Needham had followed her. Much like a puppy, Oliver had thought. Again he’d felt that twinge in his chest that he now knew hadn’t been caused by food or drink.

  “Serjeant Surgeon to the royal family,” O’Leary said. “If it’s the same man you’re speaking of. Can’t be two Sir William Needhams. I’m surprised you haven’t heard of him.”

  “Never until last night,” Oliver said, feigning disinterest, when in reality he was very interested indeed.

  Surgeon to the royal family?

  “Very accomplished gentleman,” O’Leary said. “President of the Royal College of Surgeons. Teaches some classes at the Kings College. Medicine, obviously. I hear he’s a nice gent, extremely focused.”

  Oliver turned his glass of ale around on the desk, studying the liquid as it sloshed around. Accomplished, nice and focused. A surgeon. Not of nobility, but also not of a class too low for Ellen’s interest.

  Ever since her husband died Ellen had dabbled in the arts. She was known as a great patroness—yes, Oliver had kept track—but where did a surgeon come into that picture?

  “Was he there last night?” O’Leary asked.

  Oliver grunted.

  “Strange place for a surgeon to be, but I’ve heard that Lady Fieldhurst is a beautiful woman. She would be quite a catch for someone like Needham.”

  “He’s not married?”

  “I seem to remember that his wife died a few years back. From Scotland, she was.”

  Quite a catch.

  Those words bothered Oliver for some reason.

  “Tell me about Antoine Bertrand,” O’Leary said. “Were you able to speak to him?”

  “There was no opportunity. He was surrounded by people most of the night. I did meet his daughter, however.”

  O’Leary seemed to brighten. “He has a daughter?”

  “Amelie.”

  Maybe not speaking to Antoine had been a good thing last night. Now he’d have to return to another salon, and he would get a chance to see Ellen again.

  Would she take offense if he asked her what she was doing in the company of a surgeon?

  Chapter Three

  “Philip, please.” Ellen did not want to resort to begging her son, but she was out of options. The boy simply would not listen to her. He listened to no one.

  Philip did what Philip wanted to do and damn the consequences.

  He’d been like that his entire life. It had not helped that his father had doted on him and had excused any bad behavior. Ellen had tried. Lord knew she’d tried to discipline her son, but she was merely the mother, and her words had held no weight with Philip or his father, Arthur.

  He was sixteen now and out of her control. Truth be told, he’d been out of her control for years.

  “You simply cannot quit Eton. It’s not done.”

  He was sprawled on his bed, half propped up by a mountain of pillows. Clothes were strewn about, and she winced at the thought of his valet having to clean up after him. Her son was a slob.

  “Oh, please, Mother. This is getting tiring. I don’t need Eton. There is nothing more they can teach me.”

  How about manners? She swallowed the question because that would lead to another row, and she was so weary of arguing with him.

  “Your father would be furious if he were here.”

  “Father would say that I am the Earl of Fieldhurst now, and it is time I
took the reins.”

  “You are not ready for that responsibility.”

  He swung his legs over the bed and stood, the motion so graceful that she was put in mind of someone else. Someone she’d forced herself not to think about for many years. But more and more Philip reminded her of Oliver, and it broke her heart.

  “It is not up to you to determine if I am ready for the responsibility. I became the earl when Father died. I know you hate the idea, but there is nothing you can do about it.”

  “I don’t hate the idea.” She just didn’t think he was ready. He was… Well, to be honest, her son was lazy and demanding, and he felt the world owed him everything. He’d become an earl at too young of an age. Thirteen was too young, but even then he’d felt he was ready, and he’d resented the fact that she’d made him attend Eton. It had been his father’s dream that he attend the school, and it had been her hope that the professors would straighten Philip up.

  Instead he’d been suspended multiple times. This last incident was the worst, and she feared that even Eton would not have him back. But it seemed Philip wasn’t going to give them a chance anyway. He had declared that he was finished with schooling and would not return, no matter what.

  He’d been caught in the linen closet with a maid. The headmaster had not given her the salacious details. He’d been very circumspect, but she had heard one of the other boys tell another boy that Philip had been found with his pants around his ankles and his bum facing the door when it had been opened.

  She’d nearly died of mortification and had wanted to flee right then—to leave him there and run away.

  She simply did not know what to do with him anymore.

  If he took over the earldom, he would bankrupt it within a year.

  At the moment, it was being run by her late husband’s steward, and she was fine with keeping it that way, at least for a few more years.

  Philip padded past her and entered his changing room.

  “We are not finished discussing this,” she said. “Philip?”

  He said something from the depths of his dressing room, but it was muffled.

  “What did you say?”