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But so far, all she had were sore toes and a growing distrust for this year’s crop of so-called eligible bachelors.
Was a bachelorreallyeligible if he stank vaguely of fish and used his time with her to brag about the number of mistresses he’d kept? Or if he brought his mother into every conversation? Or if he didn’t say anything at all, but instead stared at her without blinking and consistently licked his lips in a lewd, unsettling way?
Was it her?
Wasshebeing too selective?
Perish the thought, Annabel told herself with a shudder as she descended a set of steps that led into a stately garden of hedgerows. If this was the best there was, then she’d start searching for a tree to live in alongside Eloise.
Her knighthadto be out there somewhere.
She just needed to find him.
Ezra Washington, the Earl of Whitmore, was not a knight.
While he respected those brave men who had taken up the sword for Queen and country, he’d never been one of them. Given the choice, he would have much rather spent the night in the arms of a warm, willing woman than on the hard ground of the battlefield. And despite his title and seat in the House of Lords that came with it, he wasn’t particularly enthused by politics.
His interests (such as they were, and in no particular order) included:
1) Fucking
2) Brandy
3) Food
He was the quintessential ne’er-do-well. The standard by which all other rogues compared themselves, and all up-and-coming scoundrels hoped to one day become. It was a mantle that he wore proudly, and with just enough self-deprecating humor to avoid arrogance.
To his family, Ezra was a lovable disappointment.
To his friends, he was a guaranteed source of merriment.
To his lovers, he was the one that got away.
At some point–years, and years, andyearsfrom now–he’d do what his father, the Marquess of Richborough, expected of him. He would stop drinking (as much), find a wife (who had never been a lover, which in and of itself could prove…complicated), and settle into his role as earl and heir to one of the oldest noble families in all of England.
Sometimes, when he was deep in drink and feeling philosophical, Ezra wondered if he hadn’t been snatched out of the right cradle and put into the wrong one. Stealing babies wasn’t unheard of, and God only knew that he’d never quite fit in where he was placed.
If his parents and his sisters (five of them, if you could fathom it, all with names beginning with the letter E) were circles, then he was a trapezoid, or a hexagon, or even a rhombus. Whatever shape had the sharpest edges.
And he hadtriedto file them down. To curb his wildest tendencies. To not embarrass his mothertoomuch. But why have a life if you weren’t going to live it? To siphon out every last ounce of decadence, pleasure, and carnal delight.
It wasn’t as if he was a card cheat. Or a thief. Or a murderer. So he enjoyed his drink and pretty women sitting on his lap. Surely there were worse crimes being committed by humanity the world over. Compared to a lot of people, he was a bloodysaint.
Unfortunately, when he’d last tried explaining as much to his father, Lord Richborough hadn’t seen it that way.
“When are you going to grow up, my son?” asked the marquess on a dismal, drizzly morning in late October when all Ezra had wanted to do was crawl back under the covers and nurse his bottle-ache from a night spent carousing about town in peace and quiet.
“I am grown,” he’d quipped. “Or have you forgotten that I am taller than you, now?”
“Taller, maybe,” his father had returned dryly, “but with the maturity of a boy half your age. You need to start seriously looking for a wife, Ezra. A suitable countess to bear your children and help you reopen Whitmore Crossing which, it goes without saying, has sat vacant for far too long while you’ve been carousing about London.”
Here, Ezra had visibly winced. “Bear your children,” he had muttered under his breath. “It sounds like a disease or a curse. I don’t want a woman to bear me anything. Best leave the poor things alone. Between their application for suffrage and having the Duke of Monmouth snatched off the marriage mart, they’ve enough on their plate without adding me into the mix.”
Lord Richborough had sighed heavily. “I love you, Ezra. You are my only son and heir. But I cannot say that I understand you, or where your mother and I went wrong in raising you.”
That particular statement had brought an unexpected twinge of hurt, Ezra recalled, even though his reply escaped him. Something witty, no doubt. That’s what he was renowned for, after all. His banter, and his immaturity, and his love of a rousing good time. He was the earl that had never grown up, and why the devil would he want to? Every single one of his peers that had embraced their titles and taken a wife as duty commanded was absolutely fucking miserable.
They all had mistresses and gambling debts up to their eyeballs. Why would he want a mistressanda wife? While Ezra certainly wasn’t opposed to having multiple women in his bed at the same time, he’d prefer not to balance two separate households.
