Chapter One
London, England
Julien Caruthers, the Earl of Dartmore, drummed his fingers on his desk as he read over the ledger for his estate in Hertfordshire. After he scratched his bold signature into the journal’s margins, he handed it to his secretary.
“Wilson, draft a letter to my estate manager informing him I want expenditures cut by another five percent.”
“Y-yes, my lord,” Archibald Wilson stuttered.
His new secretary was as nervous as a cat staring into the eyes of a mastiff who hadn’t eaten in days. Beads of sweat glistened on the man’s pale forehead, and if he trembled any more, his knees would start knocking.
Julien knew his direct gaze and the deep timbre of his voice, along with the fact he was an extremely powerful man, unsettled some of his employees. Yet he doubted that was what disconcerted his new secretary. Most likely, Wilson’s fright had more to do with the rumors that Julien might have had a hand in the untimely deaths of his last two secretaries.
He freely admitted he was a demanding employer, but Mr. Hobbs’s coronary thrombosis was probably due to the man’s penchant for eating an excessive number of French pastries. And Mr. Granger had been hit by a carriage crossing Oxford Street. His secretaries seemed to be an unlucky lot, but that wasn’t his fault. It wasn’t as if he’d poisoned Hobbs and hired someone to run Granger over.
A knock sounded on his office door.
His secretary made an audible squeak as if an assassin would step into the room and put a bullet between the man’s eyes.
Doubtful Wilson would last through the week, but hopefully the fellow would quit before he died from fright. The passing of another secretary would only add to the swirling rumors that when displeased, Julien disposed of his secretaries in a heinous way.
“Julien, darling.” His mother fluttered into the room, smiling like the Cheshire Cat.
Blister it. He’d forgotten Mother had sent word she’d be coming into Town today. He loved the woman, but she could be exhausting—the reason Julien rarely visited his Hertfordshire estate, even though it was a reasonably short distance from London.
“Hello, Mother. Wilson, that will be all.”
Mother blinked at the young man. “Are you my son’s new secretary?”
Wilson bowed as deep as a Shakespearean actor at the end of a performance at Drury Lane Theatre. “Yes, Lady Dartmore.”
She lifted her gold, ruby-incrusted quizzing glass that hung from a chain and peered at Wilson with a critical eye. “You look hearty enough. Hopefully, you won’t turn up your toes like the last two.” Lowering the eyepiece, Mother offered the man a sorrowful look as though passing on her condolences before his impending death.
Julien stifled a groan. Leave it to Mother to say something like that. Wilson probably wouldn’t show up for work tomorrow—though perhaps that might be for the best.
The fellow’s Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat. He bowed again, then dashed out of the room as if escaping the hounds of hell.
“How was your trip into Town?” Julien set his pen down and stood.
“Bumpy. Though I know taking the rail would have been faster, I came by carriage. I want you to witness how uncomfortable the ride is. I require a new vehicle.”
His mother was a spendthrift. Her desire for a new carriage was most likely the result of one of her friends having recently purchased a newfangled equipage.
“Mother, your landau is fine. The vehicle is only two years old. But I will have the springs checked.”
She opened her mouth, apparently set on arguing, then closed it. With a defeated sigh, she reached into the reticule dangling from her wrist. “While en route, I completed the list for the Christmas house party I’m planning.”
Every year Mother held a party at their country home in Hertfordshire, last year being the exception since the family had been in mourning after Father’s death. But Mother had shed her widow’s weeds last month, and today she wore a violet gown. Not a dark violet dress as one might expect, but a brightly colored gown with a good deal of ornamentation and frills.
“Do you wish to look it over and see if I’ve missed anyone before I send the invitations out?” She handed him the paper and regally sat in the high-backed chair facing his desk.
As Julien read the list, his anger rose. When Mother had told him she wished to resume the family’s annual Christmas house party, he’d thought it would be for the old fogies she’d invited in previous years, but this list seemed to include every debutante from Cornwall to Northumberland, and a few from Scotland as well. The excessive number of eligible chits was surely part of some scheme.
He pinned her with a hard stare. “Are you planning a party or scheming against my bachelor status?”
“Dearest, I don’t know what you’re talking about.” His mother flashed a feigned look of innocence, but the pink that flooded her cheeks indicated she knew exactly what he referred to.
He gave a grunt of disbelief. “Are you sure there isn’t someone you’ve missed? I’m positive there are debutantes in America you’ve omitted.”
Oblivious to his sarcasm, she wrinkled her nose at the mention of Americans, yet she tapped her left index finger against her chin.
“Mother?” Julien released a frustrated breath.
“Don’t rush me, dear, I’m thinking.”
“And why are there no men on this list?”
“I haven’t added them yet.”
“Well, I might need to travel to one of my other estates during the week of your house party.”
She bounced up from the chair as if catapulted by a spring mechanism. “During Christmas? Why? Which one?”
“Any one that doesn’t involve being surrounded by debutantes.” He crumpled the paper and tossed it into the rubbish pail.
“What are you doing?” She retrieved it, placed it on the corner of his desk, and feverishly smoothed out the wrinkles.
“Make another list. That one is unacceptable.”
“Julien, you must marry. Your father has been gone for over a year. You have a responsibility to the earldom. What if something were to happen to you? Your horrid second cousin Herbert would be the new earl.”
“Mother, I’m twenty-eight and in fine health, so any talk of my demise is premature.”
“I thought your father hale and look what happened to him. An apoplexy right in the middle of bedding his mistress. It was only fitting the scoundrel should drop dead, but still, life can be unpredictable.”
He didn’t know what to say to that. He’d always thought his parents’ marriage a good one. A faithful one. Until he’d been called to Lady Markum’s residence and found the woman hysterical and his father dead in the viscountess’s bed.
Julien strode around the desk and embraced her. It was a good thing Mother didn’t know the whole truth. That Father had not been alone with his mistress—that one of Lady Markum’s maids had joined them.
Julien had loved his father. Everyone had. The man had laughed a great deal and wore a perpetual smile, which now seemed understandable. Father had enjoyed life—perhaps a bit too much.
Mother pulled back and stared at him with tear-filled eyes. “What happened to your father could very well happen to you. You run with a fast crowd. You are no saint. Drinking, gambling, cavorting with unsavory members of the demimonde. The gossip sheets are always posting about the Naughty Earl and I know who they mean.”
“How do you know that’s me? I always thought it was the Earl of Granger.”
“Oh, pish. The man is eighty-seven years old.”
Mother was correct. At one time, he’d run with a fast crowd. Though lately, he spent most of his time trying to oversee the earldom’s vast holdings, along with avoiding his mother’s machinations. Plus, being a hellion wasn’t as fun now that three of his closest friends had settled down. Westfield, Adler, and Huntington were now all leg-shackled.
“I have lived at Dartmore House since I was nineteen,” Mother continued, breaking into Julien’s thoughts. “Since I married your father. If you die, I’ll have to leave, as will your three sisters.”
“I do hate how my death would inconvenience you.” He smiled at her.
“I see no humor in this.”
“Frankly, I don’t find the idea of my impending death a laughing matter either.”
“Your father has stripped me of my pride, and now I fear your avoidance in finding a suitable wife will strip your sisters and me o. . .
We hope you are enjoying the book so far. To continue reading...
Copyright © 2024 All Rights Reserved
Please log in to recommend or discuss...
