Sex and the Single Earl

by Vanessa Kelly

Genres: Historical Fiction; Historical Romance

Synopsis

Their marriage was convenient. . . Simon St. James, fifth Earl of Trask, knows he could do worse in the marriage of convenience department. Sophie Stanton may be a bit of a social liability, with her ungovernable ways and flighty nature, but Simon has responsibilities as an earl that far outweigh happiness in the household. And as for happiness in the bedroom. . .he has to admit he sees Sophie's potential in that arena. . . Their passion was not! But Sophie isn't some bargaining chip to be traded, and she's not about to let Simon St. James tell her how to live her life--even though she has nurtured a crush on the handsome young earl for as long as she can remember. If his idea of courtship is telling her what to do, then she is not interested, or at least she is trying not to be. But when his scolding words turn to scorching kisses, suddenly Sophie starts paying attention. . . Praise for Vanessa Kelly and Mastering the Marquess "A rare gem." --Julianne MacLean, USA Today bestselling author"Fast paced and difficult to put down." -- Romantic Times "A delectable treat." --Sharon Page, author of The Club

Release date: April 15, 2010

Publisher: Zebra Books

Print pages: 351

Sample

Yorkshire, August 1815

Sophie would kill him if she ever discovered what he planned to do. But the benefits surely outweighed the risks.

Simon St. James, Fifth Earl of Trask, leaned over his horse’s neck and surveyed the rolling, gorse-covered hills of the York shire landscape. Satisfaction surged through his body, tightening muscles in the familiar response that always came to him before the next challenge.

His business agent, Henry Soames, huddled miserably on top of the serviceable mare standing beside Simon’s big bay. He glanced at Simon before returning his gaze to the wind-scoured horizon.

“The surveyor would appear to be correct, my lord.”

A gale-force wind, surprisingly cold even for the dales of Yorkshire in the late summer, snatched away his agent’s words. Simon nudged Romulus with his knees, moving his horse closer to the mare so he wouldn’t have to shout over the buffeting gusts.

“You interviewed the man yourself.” He made it a statement, not a question. Soames would never leave something this important to chance. He knew Simon too well to risk otherwise.

“Aye, my lord. Mr. Bedford came highly recommend by The Royal Society of Engineers. There are at least three major coal seams running through these hills, and large deposits of other minerals, as well.”

Simon nodded. “Excellent. This land should provide all the coal required for the new mills in Leeds.”

He flexed his hands within the soft leather of his riding gloves, no longer bothering to stem the sense of triumph that came with the knowledge he had been right. Now he could place the last stone in the path—the final piece that would bring to fruition his plan to dominate Britain’s wool industry. Soon, he would exert an overwhelming influence over every aspect of the trade, from the production of the raw materials to sale of the finished goods in the shops of every city in the country.

Of course, he would have to retain an iron grip over these final steps, and make sure that Sophie’s uncanny ability to cause scandal didn’t blow all his careful work to perdition.

“Will General Stanton sell or lease these lands to you?” asked Soames.

“He might have a few months ago, but he recently promised to add the estate to his granddaughter’s dowry.” Simon could feel a cynical smile pulling at his mouth. “To sweeten the pot, as it were.”

Soames’s long face took on the puzzled demeanor of a basset hound. “How then will you acquire…oh. Are congratulations in order, my lord?”

Simon sighed. “Eventually.”

He shifted in his saddle, irritated by the other man’s barely concealed masculine pity. As Romulus sidled under the movement, he reached a soothing hand along the bay’s powerful neck.

Soames returned his gaze to the chalk downs. “I’ll contact Mr. Russell to begin negotiations immediately.”

As always, Soames had read his mood and shifted the discussion accordingly. Simon had no desire to talk about Sophie now, or even think about the monumental changes that lay ahead for both of them—not until he had figured out in his own mind just how much his feelings for her had changed.

And then there was Bathsheba, another difficult situation waiting for him in London.

One problem at a time.

Simon gave Soames a brusque nod of approval. Jedediah Russell had built and run the most successful textile mills in Bristol. The industry was moving north now, to be near the coal, and Russell intended to move with it. And Simon fully intended to be his partner in building a series of wool mills in Leeds, even though other investors were already courting Russell.

“Do that, Soames. I can meet Russell in Bath before I travel on to Somerset. I might as well pay a visit to my aunts while I’m in that part of the country.”

In a week Simon would be standing up at the wedding of his best friend, the Marquess of Silverton. The bride’s estate was only twelve miles as the crow flew from Bath, and the elegant townhouse of his aunt, Lady Eleanor St. James, and her younger sister, Lady Jane. He hadn’t seen them since Michaelmas, and he was due for a visit, though he would rather walk through Whitechapel in his nightshirt than spend even a day in the most boring city in England. But if he could meet with Russell, at least the trip would be productive.

“I will write to him immediately, my lord.”

Simon took one last, lingering look over the rolling hills that would soon be his, then wheeled around to head back to the small hunting box on the estate parallel to the Stanton acreage. St. James land had marched side by side with Stanton land for generations, as had the families, through times of both war and peace.

Soames’s mare cantered gently beside Simon’s bay. “Lord Trask?”

Simon threw his secretary a glance. The man’s lugubrious face looked even longer than usual.

“Well?”

“Mr. Russell will want some assurances that you can provide the necessary resources for this venture. The coal from the Stanton estate is vital to your plans. How do you…?” He let the question hang uncomfortably between them.

Simon gave a harsh snort of laughter and tapped his crop against the flanks of his horse. Romulus exploded over the muddy earth, spraying large clots of dirt in his wake.

“I’ll do whatever I have to, Soames,” he flung back over his shoulder.

London

The women in his life would surely drive him to Bedlam, starting with his soon to be ex-mistress. Simon realized he should be feeling at least some modicum of guilt about ending their affair, but, oddly enough, he didn’t. It had really run its course some months ago, and they hadn’t slept together…. Well, he couldn’t even remember the last time they had.

In any event, Bathsheba wasn’t the type of woman to invite a man’s pity.

Better known to the ton as the dowager Countess of Randolph, Bathsheba was a lushly beautiful woman in her late twenties, small of stature, but with full, round breasts and generously curving hips. A riot of titian hair had been ruthlessly tamed into the most fashionable style of the day, framing a face that had the serene beauty of an angel painted by, well, not Titian, but some other Renaissance painter whose name he couldn’t remember.

Unlike an angel’s, though, her eyes glittered like cracked ice, and the edges of what should have been enticingly full lips had a narrow sharpness that boded ill for anyone who crossed her. Bathsheba knew her own worth and, since the death of her husband in a carriage race two years ago, made sure every one of her acquaintances knew it as well.

She stood before him in the center of her French-inspired boudoir, her small fists clenched against hips barely covered by a wisp of a silk dressing gown, her green gaze hard as the emeralds he had bestowed upon her last month.

He, on the other hand, perched comfortably on the back of her chaise, grimly confident he had made the right decision.

“So, this is how it ends.” Her melodious voice sounded high and thin, as if the muscles of her throat were constricted. “I should like to know, Simon, why you have decided to cast me aside so abruptly, when I have done nothing to merit such an insult. What do you imagine this will do to my reputation, when you have courted me so assiduously? What in God’s name will all our friends think?”

Simon choked back an astonished laugh. Courting her? Bathsheba knew full well what had gone on between them. They had used each other, and used each other well. To suggest anything else was absurd. She knew it, and all their friends knew it too. Bathsheba Randolph was the furthest thing from an injured maiden he had ever met in his life.

There were things he would miss, of course. The nights spent in hot passion, leavened with lethally witty conversation as they dissected the foibles of the ton. But Bathsheba had become possessive and grasping, as if she expected something more than he could give. Even without the changes that Sophie would bring into his life, his time with the voluptuous countess was over.

He pushed away from the chaise and strolled across the soft pile of the Savonnerie carpet, coming to a stop before her. The gleaming leather of his hessians almost touched the tips of her gaily painted bare toes. She was forced to tilt her head back to meet his gaze.

“Come now, Bathsheba. Don’t be dramatic. You know it had to end between us sooner or later.” He smiled down into her beautiful features. Strange that he had never noticed before how the bones of her face seemed to grow knife-edged when she became angry.

“I don’t see why,” she flashed back. “Have I done anything to displease you? Embarrassed you in any way?”

“Now you’re being deliberately obtuse, my dear. In fact, your reaction tells me that to continue as lovers would surely jeopardize what has been—and I hope will continue to be—a most enjoyable friendship.”

She jerked away as if he had slapped her. An ugly flush of crimson swept up her throat and into her cheeks, clashing with her bright auburn hair. Her eyes narrowed to pinpoints of sooty rage.

“You call what happened between us friendship? How dare you! When I have given so much of myself to you…expecting nothing in return but…” She gasped and bit her lip, perhaps in response to the astonishment that must be evident on his face.

“My dear Countess Randolph,” he began, deliberately using her title in the hopes she would make an attempt to reclaim her dignity. “I have never been anything but honest with you. We agreed when we started that there was no future beyond friendship. No future beyond our mutual enjoyment. I’m saddened to discover you thought otherwise.”

She glared at him, but the anger had begun to fade from her eyes, replaced by a sullen wariness. He waited for her to see reason. After all, Bathsheba was hardly a creature of excessive sensibilities.

After a few moments she gave a reluctant bob of her head.

“Good.” He smiled his approval. “You know you can always be assured of my friendship. You must continue to come to me when you need financial advice, or have a desire to discuss your investments. I will always consider your best interests as my own.”

God, now he sounded like a politician, not a lover. Not even an ex-lover.

“Thank you, my lord.” Bathsheba nodded her head a second time, her voice scrupulously polite. Her face had resumed its usual mask of alabaster beauty.

Simon ruthlessly suppressed the nibble of guilt that finally gnawed at the edges of his mind. He had little reason to feel that way. Bathsheba had gained much from him, both in the generous gifts he had bestowed upon her, and in the financial guidance that had seen her fortune double in the two years she had been his mistress. She had nothing to complain about, and he should have no regrets.

“Capital, my dear.”

He winced inwardly at his inane response. Idiot. He extracted a little velvet bag from his waistcoat pocket and tipped the contents into his palm. A spill of glittering emeralds draped over his fingers.

“Bathsheba, I would be grateful if you would accept this as a small token of my esteem and gratitude. I wish you to know how sincere I am when I say I shall always value our friendship.”

Her face went as blank as a newly stretched canvas. She reached out, carefully extracted the bracelet from his fingers, and returned her hand to her side, clenching the expensive and delicate piece of jewelry in her fist.

“Thank you, my lord.”

He stared for a long moment into her opaque gaze, then turned on his heel and strode to the door of her boudoir.

“Will I see you in town, my lord?” Her soft voice drifted across the room and slid like a cool silk scarf over the nape of his neck.

He repressed the urge to hunch his shoulders. Instead he glanced back, smiling. “No. I’m off to Bath this afternoon, then into Somerset.”

Her eyes blazed to life with razorlike curiosity. “Bath? You never go to Bath at this time of year. You never go to Bath at all, if you can avoid it.”

“Nonetheless, I am going to Bath.” Simon made his voice deliberately cool. She had to realize it was over between them.

She took one step, then another, toward him. He reached out and grasped the handle on the door.

“This has something to do with business, doesn’t it? I know you, Simon, better than you know yourself. You’re planning something, and you don’t want me involved. You think I’ll get in the way.”

His hand froze on the knob. Just how much had he revealed to Bathsheba whilst in the throes of passion? They rarely talked about his ventures in trade, but she had a knack for wheedling information out of a man, especially when it had something to do with money.

He looked back over his shoulder at her, painfully aware of both her beauty and her grasping nature. A cold weight of frustration—with her, but mostly with himself—settled in his chest.

“I’m sorry, Bathsheba, but my business is no longer any of your concern. It would be best if you remember that,” he said softly, trying to keep the sting from his voice.

Her breath gently hissed out from between clenched teeth, but her eyes blazed forth an answer that struck him like a blow. He turned away, pulled the door shut behind him, and strode down the hall of his former mistress’s townhouse.

No regrets.

After all, business always came first.

Bath, October 1815

Sophie Stanton felt a sharp tug on her wrist, the beaded chain of her reticule digging painfully into her skin before snapping free. She spun around to make a grab for the dirty little urchin who slipped just beyond her reach.

“Stop! Thief!” she yelled.

Heads turned. The fashionable shoppers on Milsom Street craned their necks as Sophie hitched up her cambric skirts and dashed after the boy as fast as she could.

Blast and damn!

Racing down the street, she dodged startled pedestrians as she tried to keep the boy in sight. He was fast as a whip, but so was she. She couldn’t let him escape or she’d never see her gold bracelet again. It was nestled in the bottom of her reticule, stowed for a trip to the jeweler’s shop for cleaning and a minor repair. But instead of going straightaway to the shop, she had lingered in front of the display window of Barratt’s and made a perfect target for an enterprising thief.

Sophie dashed up the long promenade running through the center of Bath, ignoring the startled exclamations of three soberly dressed matrons as she flashed by them. If she had the breath to spare she would have groaned. One of them was Lady Connaught, who would no doubt report her latest misadventure to Lady Eleanor before the day was out.

But panic drove her on. Dodging and weaving up the street, she pushed to catch up with the boy. Her heart, already pounding from exertion, beat faster at the thought of losing him—and of losing her mother’s much-loved and valuable heirloom bracelet.

Just ahead, the boy slipped into an alleyway next to a coffee shop. She put on a burst of speed and rounded the corner of the shop, skidding to a precarious halt beside a pile of refuse partly blocking the entrance to the alley.

The boy had come to a stop in front of a high wall that cut off the lane from the street behind it. He was scanning it, obviously looking for toeholds in the rough brick, when Sophie came up behind him.

“Stop, boy,” she gasped, bending over to catch her breath. Her voice sounded little stronger than a squeak, so she had no hope he would pay her any heed. But the lad froze in position, and then slowly turned as if confronting the devil himself.

They eyed each other across the back of the dingy laneway. The smell of garbage wafting out from dirt-encrusted baskets shoved up against the wall made Sophie wish she hadn’t eaten quite such a large breakfast. The stones under her feet were slick with moisture, dotted here and there with a sticky brown substance that had splashed up to her ankles. She didn’t even want to think about what that substance might be, but she suspected her new and expensive kid boots were ruined.

Repressing her irritation over the likely destruction of her footwear, Sophie drew herself up to her full height—which wasn’t very considerable—and stepped firmly through the muck toward the boy.

And stopped in her tracks at the look of sheer terror on his pinched little face.

She drew in a startled breath, forcing herself to remain still as she studied the urchin before her.

He was small, as small as a child of five or six, but his face looked a few years older—almost the age she had been when her father died. A coarsely woven shirt several sizes too large gaped open at the strings that looped across his bony chest. The legs of his burlap pants ended in ragged hems trailing around his ankles, and his bare feet were so encrusted with grime they barely looked human.

Her chest squeezed with sympathy as she studied his emaciated limbs. But then she gazed into his small, terrified face and gasped, stunned by what she saw.

He was beautiful, with features so delicate and so perfectly symmetrical that she imagined she was gazing at the face of an angel.

An angel who had been abandoned by his Maker to the depths of hell.

His huge blue eyes blinked back tears.

“Don’t be frightened, lad,” she said, keeping her voice soft. “I won’t hurt you.” She struggled to force a smile to her lips, heartsick at the look of fear stamped on the boy’s face. “You can keep the money and the purse, but there is a bracelet inside my father gave to my mother many years ago. I would be very sad to lose it. Do you think you could take it out and give it to me?”

A bit of color returned to the boy’s ghostly complexion, and his terror seemed to recede under the soothing influence of her voice. He cast a quick glance past her, as if trying to assess his ability to get by and out into the street. Sophie shifted slightly to the center of the alley, making it plain she would block any attempt to escape. The boy skittered back against the wall, a look of panic returning to his face.

She frowned. For a street thief, the child seemed remarkably timid, but Sophie had spent enough time trailing behind her mother as she did charity work in London to know that most urchins hid their fear behind a mask of bravado.

“I won’t hurt you, I promise,” she repeated. “And I won’t turn you over to the constable.” She smiled and took a small step forward, offering her hand palm up in a gesture of reassurance. “In fact, I’d like to help you—if you’ll let me.”

The boy shrank back against the wall, almost disappearing inside his oversized garments. Her heart wrenched, and she stepped forward again, determined now to help this frightened child.

“My name is Sophie Stanton. What’s yours?”

He hesitated while he stared earnestly into her face. What he saw there must have encouraged him, for he straightened his little body and opened his mouth to speak.

“My n-name is T—”

His stuttering reply was interrupted by a noisy bang, as a door in the wall beside them swung open and crashed into the bricks. A scullery maid—obviously from the coffeehouse—suddenly stepped out, throwing the contents of a large pail into the alley.

Sophie jumped, biting off a startled shriek as the rancid contents of the slop bucket splattered across the front of her dress. In the same instant the little boy took flight. Leaping forward, she caught the edge of his sleeve as he found a toehold on the wall, hoisting himself away from her. For a moment she had him, but the material of his shirt shredded between her fingers. He pulled away, scrambled to the top of the wall, and disappeared in the blink of an eye.

“Lord, miss, but you gave me a fright! Whatever can you be doing out ’ere in this nasty alley?” cried the scullery maid.

“Damn and blast!” This time, Sophie didn’t bother to hold in the curse. The scared boy had started to trust her, and now she would probably never see him again.

Or the priceless bracelet that had been in her family for generations, and that she had worn almost every day since Mamma had given it to her on her seventeenth birthday.

The gloom she had been trying to fend off ever since her brother’s wedding finally settled over her like a dank London mist. How could she have allowed this to happen? Mamma would be devastated, and the rest of the family would see it as yet another example of her careless regard for what really mattered. She was making a muddle of things these days, and disappointing her family no end. They only wished to see her happy and settled, but, for some reason, she just couldn’t seem to comply. And she didn’t know how to fix it.

“Lord, miss, let me help you.” The scullery maid pulled a dirty rag from the waist of her apron and rubbed it vigorously down the front of Sophie’s skirt. The rank drippings smeared into a streaky mess across the bodice and waist of the apple green fabric.

“Thank you, but that won’t be necessary,” Sophie choked out. “It’s really a very old dress. I only wear it when I’m running errands.” She backed away, wondering why she felt the need to explain herself to the gap-toothed maid.

In fact, the dress—like her boots—was new, recently arrived from her favorite modiste in London. She very much doubted even a long soak in vinegar would remove the revolting stain from the delicate cambric.

Waving a vague good-bye to the woman, Sophie turned and hurried from the laneway. She rushed out into the street, not bothering in her haste to look either right or left.

And proceeded to crash into a very hard, very broad male chest.

“What in the hell?”

A deep voice rumbled the question somewhere above her head. Sophie sucked in a breath, every nerve ending in her body coming to a sharp, almost painful awareness. Then she heard an exasperated, all-too-familiar growl.

“I thought that was you. Sophie, you are wearing your spectacles. Presumably they keep you from blundering about like a bull in a china shop. What in God’s name were you doing in that alley?”

Even though her glasses had been knocked askew, Sophie would have recognized that gravelly voice and the smell of expensive tobacco anywhere.

Simon, Earl of Trask.

The man she had been madly in love with since the age of twelve. The same man who aggravated her so much at times she could barely think. That particular note of censure in his voice always set her teeth on edge, so it took a brief struggle to resist the urge to punch him in the arm. She had found out long ago that punching the earl had the same effect as punching a rock.

Adjusting her spectacles, Sophie drew herself up to her full height, just below his chin. She had been called many things by her tiny coterie of devoted admirers—angel divine, fairy, wood sprite. Only Simon would call her a bull in a china shop.

“A thief ran off with my reticule. I was simply trying to retrieve it,” she replied with as much dignity as she could muster.

His dark eyes sharpened with concern. “Are you injured?” He took her arm and pulled her toward him for a better look. “Did you fall?”

She shook her head. “No, I’m fine. The thief was just a little boy.”

A strange expression crossed his face as he took a large sniff. Just like a retriever, Sophie thought crossly.

“What is that smell?”

She began to bristle under his critical gaze, but then sighed with resignation. “It’s me. A scullery maid came out into the alley and threw a bucket of slop all over me.”

He snorted. “That’s typical. Well, you can’t go walking through the streets of Bath smelling like this. I have to get you home before anyone sees you.”

The chances of that happening were nonexistent, since several people she knew had already passed by in the last few minutes, inspecting her with avid curiosity. She had no desire to tell Simon about all the others who had seen her running through the streets of the town like a madwoman.

“Yes, Lord Trask.”

Simon waved at a hackney that approached from the other side of the street.

“Oh, don’t get so starchy, Sophie. You know your mother would hate it if you went parading through the streets looking like this.”

Lord. There was no point in trying to maintain her dignity around the blasted man. He simply knew her too well.

“Yes, Simon,” she replied, biting back the grumpy tone that threatened to creep into her voice.

He ushered her across the street to the waiting hackney. She saw him cast a quick glance up the street and then wince when Nigel Dash, one of his oldest friends, waved tentatively at them from the door of a linen draper’s shop. Simon practically threw her inside the carriage. He hated gossip and scandal, and her escapade today would generate both.

He gave a few terse directions to the driver before climbing in after her. He sat as far from her as he could, jammed against the side of the carriage and practically sticking his head out the window. The smell was bad, but it annoyed her nonetheless that he made such a show out of it.

This incident, sadly, was entirely typical of her. Simon had known her since she was a child, and clearly still regarded her as little better than a grubby twelve-year-old, forever tumbling out of trees and falling into lakes. Lately, whenever he spoke to her it seemed to be to deliver a reprimand or scolding. He refused to understand that she was a woman grown—after all, she had been out now for almost four years.

Not that it really mattered, since he would never look at her as anything more than an annoying female relation. More like a sister than anything else. Simon’s tastes ran to voluptuous and sophisticated young matrons and widows of the ton, not to skinny misses who wore glasses and obviously didn’t know how to behave. The only thing she had in common with his established flirts was that she adored him too.

Fortunately for her pride, however, not as openly as they did.

She slid her gaze sideways, covertly studying the man who always made her skin prickle with heat. Simon was only a few inches above average height, but he had the hard, muscular body of an avid sportsman. His broad shoulders and powerful arms strained the cloth of his beautifully tailored coat, while his sinewy legs, sheathed in breeches and riding boots, took up most of the space in the small carriage.

Those who were jealous of the earl’s prowess both in the field and, she suspected, in the bedchamber sneered that he looked like a blacksmith, with his coal-dark hair, fierce black eyes, and brawny physique. But Sophie thought he looked absolutely perfect, and if he hadn’t such a knack for annoying her, she would likely spend all her time in his company fluttering about like a schoolgirl with a mad crush.

“Sophie.”

His deep voice made her jump in her seat.

“Yes?”

“Why did you chase the boy? You could have been hurt, not to mention the gossip that could result from your actions. Proper young women don’t go about chasing thieves.”

Sophie froze, casting desperately about in her mind for some reason to explain her rash behavior. She simply couldn’t bear to reveal she had lost her gold bracelet, not yet, anyway. And especially not to him.

She opened her eyes wide, hoping she looked both distraught and innocent. “I know, Simon. But my, ah, coral bracelet was inside. The one Robert gave me after Papa died.”

Plea. . .