How the Earl Entices Read online

  How the Earl Entices

  Anna Harrington

  Contents

  Dedication and Acknowledgments

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  Dear Reader

  Excerpt from IF THE DUKE DEMANDS

  Discover More by Anna Harrington

  About the Author

  Copyright

  This ebook is licensed to you for your personal enjoyment only.

  This ebook may not be sold, shared, or given away.

  * * *

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the writer’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  * * *

  How the Earl Entices

  Copyright © 2018 by Anna Harrington

  Ebook ISBN: 9781641970396

  * * *

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

  * * *

  No part of this work may be used, reproduced, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without prior permission in writing from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  * * *

  NYLA Publishing

  121 W 27th St., Suite 1201, New York, NY 10001

  http://www.nyliterary.com

  Dedicated to the real Gracie

  Love always, Mom

  * * *

  Special thanks to

  Sarah Younger for insisting that I write about the Carlisle men,

  the NYLA interns for their feedback,

  and Natanya Wheeler for creating such a beautiful cover

  Prologue

  On the English Channel

  April, 1823

  “Where are the documents?”

  Ross Carlisle, Earl of Spalding, spat out a mouthful of blood onto the midnight-black deck of the pitching ship as the storm intensified around it. “Go to hell!”

  A fist slammed into his stomach. He doubled over in gasping pain, coughing and struggling for breath, yet thankful for the pouring rain that cooled the bruises the men had already put on his ribs and face.

  The two Frenchmen holding his arms jerked him up straight.

  Their leader grabbed him by the hair and yanked back his head. “You are a murderer and a traitor. No one will care what happens to you.”

  Ross gritted his teeth against the pain.

  “So I will ask you one more time before I cut off your kneecaps,” the thug threatened in street French, having to yell even at such close range to be heard over the wind and driving rain. In his free hand he brandished a knife. “Where are the documents?”

  Ross glared at him, refusing to answer.

  So it all came to this…a decade serving the crown as a soldier and diplomat, an unblemished reputation without a hint of scandal, more recently a dangerous pursuit in which recognition would never have been possible—only to end ingloriously on a fishing boat being tossed about on the Channel.

  He’d been running for the past week, fleeing for his life from Paris to the coast with hired henchmen on his heels. First on horseback, then on foot, changing identities as easily as other men changed clothes. But he’d been unable to throw them off his trail, and always they’d been less than a day behind. Then a handful of hours. By the time he’d reached Calais and found a captain brave enough to take him across the Channel in this storm, they’d caught him. In a matter of minutes he’d be dead.

  And damn the world that the last person he thought about was Christopher! Not one of his French mistresses, not one of his first loves as a boy, not even his mother—but his brother. How the last thing Ross did in life was prove Kit right, that eventually he’d be discovered and that even his post at the Court of St James’s wouldn’t be able to save him.

  The Frenchman released his hair and stepped back, struggling to keep his footing on the wet, rolling deck. With a menacing gleam in his eyes, he lowered the knife toward Ross’s legs. “Where are the papers?”

  The knife tip sliced across his left thigh and through the rough work trousers he’d donned in his last attempt to hide, biting into the flesh beneath. Ross sucked in a pain-filled gasp through clenched teeth and bit back an ironic laugh—his left thigh.

  The boat rose on the swell of a wave, then dropped with enough force that the men holding his arms wobbled to keep their balance. His interrogator stumbled backward—

  Now.

  Ross lunged toward the closest railing, tearing his arm free of the man on his right and catching the one on his left off-balance. He lowered his shoulder and rammed it into the man’s chest to push past. All went dark as he tumbled over the railing and into the black sea below.

  Chapter 1

  Sea Haven Village on Winchelsea Bay

  East Sussex, England

  Grace Alden lay in her bed, staring at the dark ceiling and listening to the storm raging around her. The wind and rain roared so loudly that she couldn’t hear her own heartbeat. But she knew it was racing because it jumped into her throat each time she heard something bang against the cottage. The wind howled like a banshee over the cliff tops, screaming through the eaves and bringing with it a torrent of black rain that fell with the force of a hurricane.

  “Please God, let the roof hold.”

  Around her, the old limestone and timber cottage groaned beneath the fierce battering of the storm.

  “And the walls, too,” she whispered in afterthought, “if not too much trouble.”

  After ten more minutes of staring at the ceiling, she slid out from beneath the covers. Sleep was proving impossible tonight.

  The cottage was dark as pitch as she made her way slowly across the main room to the hearth, where a bed of coals hissed and snapped angrily against the few drops of rain that found their way down the chimney from the force of the wind. She stirred the ash bed with the iron poker to raise a flame, tossing in a few more chunks of coal to feed the fire enough to last until morning. Normally, she never would have burned a fire through the night, but tonight, she sought its comfort.

  Taking a brass candleholder from the mantel, she bent over to light the wick in the flames and let out a soft sigh when it caught hold. After nearly ten years of fearing things that bumped in the night, would she ever grow comfortable in the darkness? But the most frightening things weren’t the unseen. She’d learned the hard way that the worst were the ones a person knew well.

  She lifted the candle to read the storm glass fixed to the wall. The water in the spout had been rising during the past two days, and now it stood higher than she’d ever seen it. She bit her bottom lip. It could be hours before the water level dropped and the temperature fell, before the clouds rained themselves dry.

  Before she could bring Ethan home.

  Her chest tightened with aching worry. Sending her son into the village to spend the ni
ght with Alice Walters at the apothecary shop had been the right decision. She knew that. But oh, how much it hurt to be separated from him! For the first time in his life, too. But the sailors who had come ashore all day predicted that tonight’s storm would be the worst in memory. Ethan was safer within the shop’s thick stone walls, while she had to be here to rescue their belongings in case the roof caved in. Holding everything she owned in the world, this cottage had been her own safe port over the past stormy decade, where she and Ethan had been safe since he was born.

  But he wasn’t a babe anymore. He was nine years-old now, and growing so fast that it pained her to think of it.

  He’d soon reach an age when he should be going off to school. Instead, he’d have to stay here. Guilt gnawed at her. He deserved better, was born for better—fine schools, hundreds of books, private tutors, trips across England and the continent to see in person all the wonderful things that the world had to offer. Instead, they had to make do with the few books she could scrape together enough money to purchase and the tutoring sessions with the local vicar she’d negotiated in trade for cooking and cleaning the vicarage.

  But he could never have that other life. As far as Ethan knew, his father was a sailor who died at sea, and she fully intended to keep it that way. Because if Ethan ever discovered the truth, if he ever got the foolish notion into his head when he was older to pursue what was due to him…She shuddered.

  At least now, he would have a life. She would never regret what she had to do to keep her son safe.

  A loud banging shot through the noise of the storm. She jumped with a small scream, her hand going to her throat.

  The pounding came again. This time she recognized it—a shutter had broken loose and was banging wildly against the side of the cottage in the howling wind. Her chest sagged. She had to fix it. If she didn’t, not only would it continue to bang all night, but it might also smash through the window it was supposed to be protecting.

  Setting the candle onto the table, she moved toward the door, where she pulled on a pair of fisherman’s boots and an oilskin coat. The last thing she wanted to do tonight—oh, the very last thing!—was go out into the weather and be soaked, chilled to the bone, and battered about. But she had no choice, because she couldn’t afford to replace the window if it broke. At least she could brew up some hot tea when she returned. Taking comfort in that, she threw back the bolt and opened the door, only to have her breath ripped away by a burst of icy cold wind and rain that slammed into her.

  Pulling the old coat tighter around herself, she shouldered her way into the wind and along the front of the cottage. It took only a moment to close the shutter and fasten the hook that had somehow come undone.

  She turned to scurry inside—

  A strong arm went around her waist and swung her back against the side of the cottage. She screamed, but the sound was lost beneath the noise of the raging storm. A forearm pushed against her upper chest, pinning her against the wall.

  Another scream ripped from her throat. She kicked and punched with all her might at the man who’d grabbed her, who now held her a helpless prisoner as he leaned into her, his muscular legs forcing hers to still. With one large hand, he grabbed both her arms and pinned them over her head, while the other pressed the barrel of a pistol beneath her chin.

  “Who else is inside?” he demanded.

  She couldn’t see his face as the rain pelted down upon both of them, so fiercely that she couldn’t blink the water away fast enough. The black night covered his features, but nothing could hide the strength of him as he held her against the wall.

  He pressed the pistol harder against her. “A husband, brother—who?”

  “My husband!” she lied, so frightened that she nearly crumpled to the muddy ground. “He’s certain to have heard me scream, so you’d better leave!”

  He laughed, a terrible sound that scratched and screeched nearly as much as the wind howling over the bluffs. “No husband, then. Anyone else?”

  She was terrified and freezing, but she refused to submit to this man. Not to any man ever again. She’d rather die than surrender. “Go to hell!”

  His eyes gleamed in the darkness. “I’m already there.”

  Keeping the pistol pressed against her throat, he grabbed her arm and tugged her toward the door, which had blown open in the hurricane gale. He pulled her inside and kicked the door closed. Twisting from his grasp, she yanked her arm away. He let her go, only to reach behind him and throw the bolt to lock them inside.

  Grace ran toward the fireplace, snatched up the iron poker, and brandished it like a weapon. All of her shook so violently from cold and fear that she didn’t know how she managed to hold onto it. But he’d have to rip it from her hands before she released it. And if he took a single step toward her—

  But he didn’t. Instead he watched her silently from the shadows near the door, not making a move to force himself on her.

  “You need to leave. Now.” She prayed her voice didn’t sound as terrified to his ears as it did to hers. “I will use this if you come any closer.”

  “If I come any closer, I certainly hope you’d try,” he drawled dryly, amused at the idea. “But I have a gun. I don’t need to come closer.”

  Oh God. Fresh fear shuddered through her.

  “But I don’t plan to use it. Nor do I plan on hurting you.”

  A bitter laugh tore from her. “You shoved me against the cottage!” She kept the poker raised, holding it in front of her like a sword. “Then forced me inside, to—to—” The horrible words choked her…To rape me.

  “To be out of the storm,” he finished pointedly, as if reading her thoughts. “You never would have opened the door if I’d knocked.”

  “You unlatched the shutter.” The realization soaked into her as coldly as the rain. “It was you.”

  “Yes.”

  She whispered, too frightened to find her voice, “What do you want?”

  “A place to spend the night. That’s all.”

  “There’s an inn in the village.” She waved the poker in the general direction of the harbor. “You can spend the night there.”

  He tilted his head, as if listening to the storm. The silence that stretched between them only accentuated the howl of the hurricane gale that swept in from the Atlantic like a banshee from hell. Then he shook his head.

  “As soon as the weather breaks, I’ll leave.”

  Her hands gripped harder around the poker, so tightly that her knuckles turned white. “You need to leave now.”

  His deep voice matched the intensity of the rain lashing against the cottage. “I have no intention of going back into that storm.”

  He stepped away from the dark shadows by the door and came slowly forward toward the firelight, as if no more troubled by a woman brandishing an iron poker than he would have been by a gnat. He set his pistol down on the wooden settle yet kept it within easy reach as he peeled off his fisherman’s peacoat, which was sopped with water, and laid it over the back of the settle. Then he sat down and began to remove his boots.

  Her heart lurched into her throat. God help her, he was removing his clothing!

  “What are you doing?” she demanded, slashing the poker back and forth in front of her.

  “Taking off my boots.” He pulled the left one off his foot.

  Her eyes narrowed with suspicion. “Why?”

  In answer, he stoically held up the boot, then tipped it over and poured out the water onto the floor in a puddle.

  Her mouth fell open.

  He tugged off the other one and poured out just as much water, then looked at her solemnly. “Only Jesus should walk on water.”

  She snapped her mouth shut. Oh, his audacity! She jabbed the poker at him, pointing first at the boots, then at his feet. “Put them back on this instant! And leave. Now. You are not welcome here!”

  He reached beside him to rest his hand meaningfully on the pistol. Icy fingers of fear curled around her spine.

&nb
sp; For one long moment, they held each other’s gaze through the thick shadows of the dark cottage, lit only by the weak flames in the fireplace beside her and the flickering candle on the table. Darkness hid his face, but his eyes were bright as he silently studied her. Then he stripped off his neckcloth, tossing it across the back of the settle beside his jacket. Around him, the puddle on the floor grew larger, evidence of how exposed he’d been in the storm and how drenched through to his skin.

  But that didn’t give him the right to force his way into her home at gunpoint. And it certainly didn’t give him license to remove his clothing…which he was still doing, now unbuttoning his waistcoat.

  “Stop that! Put your clothes back on.”

  “I’m cold, and I’m not going to sit here freezing for the rest of the night.” He pushed himself to his feet and nodded toward her. “I advise you to do the same.”

  With her free hand, she clutched at her coat’s lapels, to keep it closed so that the villain couldn’t see her night rail beneath. He said he didn’t want to hurt her, but how could she trust him?

  He shrugged and peeled off his waistcoat, then tossed it onto the settle with the rest of his clothes. His wet shirt clung to his broad shoulders and narrow waist like a second skin.