Page 6 of The Earl’s Forbidden Temptation

Perhaps Emelia was right. There had been a hard indifference in Lord Raine that his father had never shown her, at least not in those remembered afternoons when he had laughed and listened and placed a book in her hands as if it were a treasure. Yet resentment had been gathering in Darcy for months, souring even the tender recollections. The man she had called father all her life had been a wealthy nobleman and had left no provision she could find for the women who depended upon him. Their mother had sunk into the slow suffocation of sorrow until illness took hold and carried her away.

The memory angered her. She could not understand the fervent belief that one might love so deeply that life without the beloved became unbearable. The physician had told them grief and melancholy had undone their mother. To Darcy’s mind, it meant that love for her daughters had not been strong enough to fight for breath. “Let us try to sleep,” she said softly.

Emelia nodded, drowsy, and settled back onto the bed. Darcy curled upon the soft pillow with its clean scent and closed her eyes. The fire gave a gentle crackle; one candle guttered and then steadied. She listened to her sisters’ breathing until her own fell into the same rhythm. The mattress was firm beneath her; the counterpane cool under her palms.

“The earl was angry,” Emelia whispered.

“I know he was.”

“His voice hurt.”

“He was shocked,” Darcy said, recalling the stricken look in those blue eyes, fury bleeding through it. “Shock makes even kind men unkind.”

“Is he kind?” Emelia asked, very low.

“I do not know,” Darcy said honestly. “I thought his father was kind. I hoped the same of him. Perhaps I hope too much. We can only wait and see. But you must not speak rashly again. Think before you answer him.”

“I trust whatever you decide, Darcy.”

A lump rose in her throat. Trust. Her sisters trusted her to keep them safe. She felt woefully unprepared for such a charge, yet she would fight, claw, and do all in her power to see that they had a good life. She shifted and looked toward the window. Rain ran in bright threads down the glass, the streetlight beyond turning each bead to a jewel before it slid away. Darcy would tell the earl the truth. She would not let fear make her a liar or a supplicant.

If Lord Raine turned them out, she would find another way. Darcy had done it before. She would do it again. The rain kept speaking upon the glass. At last, her body unknotted, and her eyes slid closed in the first true measure of peace she had allowed herself in many months.

Several hours later, Darcy drew a steady breath and lifted her knuckles to the study door. Her hand felt cold despite the pleasant and steady warmth of the townhouse. Everything depended upon this meeting with the earl. She had put on her best muslin gown, the one with the lace edging and the hem she had re-stitched twice. It was still two inches too short. She had smoothed her hair into a chignon and allowed several tendrils to curl upon her cheeks. The rest was courage and prayer.

Darcy knocked. A deep voice commanded her to enter. Lord Raine’s study was large and ordered. Tall windows admitted a pale wash of morning light that gilded the rows of books and drew a soft glow from the brass. A fire burned steadily upon the hearth; the scent of beeswax, leather, and coffee mingled in the air. He sat behind a great oak desk, the surface cleared save for the stack of letters she had given him. He looked much as he had the night before, only more handsome and, perhaps, less cruel. Daylight defined the clean planes of his cheekbones and the firm line of his mouth. She felt an uncomfortable and unfamiliar rush of awareness of him. His cravat was tied with effortless precision. The air about him was one of cool control, yet something in the indolent ease of his long frame suggested a scoundrel who knew his power.

Heat touched Darcy’s cheeks for noticing it. She sank into a curtsy. “My lord.”

He inclined his head. “Have you eaten?”

Startled, she blinked. “I… my sisters are breaking their fast. I… I was too unsettled to eat, my lord.”

His expression shifted, settling into a cool indifference, as though the inquiry had been one of mere courtesy, and her answer held no real consequence for him. A sharp mortification stole over Darcy.

“Miss Whitley, be seated.”

She crossed to the wingback chair before the desk and sat. She folded her hands and met his gaze without flinching. He regarded her with a civility so cold it felt like frost upon the skin.

“What is your mother’s full name?” he asked at once.

“Mary Whitley, my lord.”

His gaze did not flicker. “And your sisters? Do they share the Whitley name?”

“No.” She moistened her lips. “They go by Darlington.”

He studied her face for an uncomfortably long moment. “Yet you are Darcy Whitley. The late earl was not your father.”

She drew breath. This was the nettle that must be grasped. “The late earl came into my life when I was three. My mother had been widowed before she met him. He never treated me as anything other than a daughter, my lord.”

The earl’s eyes gave nothing away. “When did your mother die?”

“Three years ago.”

“Why wait until now to approach me?”

Darcy reached into her pocket and drew out an envelope, the paper softened, the edges furred where her fingers had worried them.