Page 28 of Joy to the Earl

“She is an adaptable kitten. As long as she has her basket and cushion and yarn to maul, she is content.”

Jack nodded gravely, and she couldn’t help noticing the new lines around his eyes as he toyed with the stem of his champagne glass. “I’m glad.”

“What about you? Enjoying life at Wakefield House, my lord?”

“No,” he said bluntly, abruptly encircling her wrist with his fingers, one thumb tracing the faint veins there as he again leaned in to whisper directly into her ear. “Everything is beautiful, but I can’t sleep. I can barely eat. All I can think about is you. I miss you. Your voice, your smile, your Shakespeare quotes—”

“Stop it,” Rosalind said fiercely, as the intoxicating spell of his words threatened to shatter every defense she had. “Our affair is over.”

“It is far worse at night. The earl’s bed is far too large, even for me. And I dream of you naked beside me, your breasts pressed against my chest and those sweet pink nipples waiting to be sucked, the hot wetness of your cunt—”

Aroused beyond bearing, Rosalind shoved back her chair so fast it almost tipped over. “Excuse me, Claire,” she said desperately. “I’m in sudden need of the powder room.”

“Out into the hallway, fourth door on your left,” said Claire with an anxious frown. “Rosalind, are you well?”

Wordlessly, she nodded, walking to the dining room door before hitching up her gown and fleeing at pace to the powder room. Thankfully she found the correct door on the first try. Once inside, she leaned her head back against the cool stone wall and closed her eyes, trying to regain her scattered senses and calm the pounding of her heart.

“Excellent idea. Now we can talk properly, sweet.”

Her eyes flew open. Oh God. Jack stood in the open doorway.

He’d followed her.

* * *

All he could do was stare, hungry for the sight of her. Had it only been four days since he’d seen Rosalind? It felt like a lifetime. Or perhaps it felt that way because he’d been forced to spend time with Lady Lynthorpe and lawyers and clerks and bankers. To be trotted out at several private parties, stared at, exclaimed over, interrogated by strangers equally as loathsome, while Lady Lynthorpe dabbed at her dry eyes and thanked heaven for her precious John’s return, miraculously found because of the nonstop quest of a loving mother.

How he’d managed to not cast up his accounts or heave all the rabid wolves over a balcony, he’d never know.

But he was here with Rosalind now, finally. She looked stunning in the dark blue gown, but the same lines of care that bracketed his eyes and mouth were evident on her face. And she’d run from the dining room. This woman wasn’t indifferent to him at all, and that gave him a small measure of hope.

“We have nothing to talk about,” she said, but her voice held none of its usual strength.

“We have everything to talk about,” Jack countered, moving away from the door and propping himself against the opposite wall.

“You lied to me. You lied to everyone. You aren’t Jack Reynolds, but the Earl of Lynthorpe.”

“I am. Now. But I have been different people in my life. Until aged two, I was The Honorable John Henry Francis Wakefield, youngest son of the Earl and Countess of Lynthorpe. Then the countess decided, and I quote, she could not bear to raise a gargoyle in her own home. So she handed me off to a distant relative, and told her friends and acquaintances that I’d been stolen by a deranged woman who couldn’t have children of her own. And thus for the next twenty-six years I was Jack Reynolds.”

Rosalind stared at him, her eyes huge and face pale, but she made no move toward the door. “Go on.”

“The well-dressed man who died in the carriage accident was the family lawyer, Crawley. He came to Northridge to inform me that the two brothers I’d never known had recently succumbed to a fever, and unfortunately for the family I was the last of the direct line of Wakefields, and now the eleventh earl. That was two days before the accident.”

“Two days?” she said, gasping. “That is all?”

“Yes. It was not…a happy conversation of reunion or restoration,” said Jack, his fists clenching at the memory of the day, the shock, the humiliation, the sheer coldness and casual cruelty of the words. “In the space of a few hours I discovered my own mother had me banished, and the woman I’d known as my mother was actually a distant relative paid to raise me. I had two brothers who never wanted to acknowledge me, even when the eldest inherited. And furthermore, that the only reason I was being contacted now, was due to rigid British inheritance laws. Of course I didn’t know the first thing about being an earl, but I said yes because there would be people like Jack Reynolds, poor and struggling and without family or security. I thought with my own experience, I could be a good landlord. I could help them.”

“Oh my God.”

“We left Northridge to travel south. Crawley was eager to get back to London, so he ordered the driver to push the carriage hard. And then…the accident. That head wound. I swear I couldn’t remember anything, Rosalind. Nothing of the previous few days.”

A single tear trickled down Rosalind’s face, and she dashed it away with the back of her hand. “So it wasn’t you who tried to ruin Phillip.”

“No. Never. I visited him at his warehouses and persuaded him to listen to the whole story. I actually found a few pieces of correspondence in a drawer in the library, and the dates and handwriting were further proof it wasn’t me. That is why he and Claire agreed to arrange this dinner…and invite you so I could see you without getting a door slammed in my face.”

“But you brought Lady Marianne,” she whispered, her voice quavering. “Your fiancée. And hurt poor Lord Chisholm. He is in love with her, it is plain as day.”

“I brought her for Chisholm. She loves him in return, and he needs a kick in the backside to declare it. I couldn’t care less what schemes were devised between Lady Lynthorpe and Annie’s parents. While Annie and I may well be friends in future, the idea of a cold marriage based entirely on duty and lineage rather than love and passion was repugnant to us both.”