A WICKED WAY TO WIN AN EARL
Publisher: Berkley
Release Date: November 3, 2015
Chapter One
Kent, 1814
The spring mud seeped through the thin soles of her
leather walking boots and began to creep into her stockings. This was no
ordinary mud. Before long it would be tickling her garters.
“Blast it,” Delia muttered halfheartedly. She’d known it
was a mistake to come here. A mudslide would certainly prove her right,
wouldn’t it? There was a sort of grim satisfaction in being right, though at
the moment she’d settle for being dry. And clean. And home, instead of stranded
on a deserted road in Kent, with the sky turning dark over her head, at grave risk
of being buried in a freak mudslide.
At the very least she should have listened to her sister Lily
and stayed with the carriage, but no, she’d insisted on finding help, and now
here she was in an awful predicament—
Delia stopped suddenly, one foot in a puddle. Was that . . .
yes! She crossed her fingers and sent a quick prayer up to heaven the noise she’d
just heard was not a bear or some other wild animal.
Were there bears in Kent?
Delia strained to hear, and waited. No, it wasn’t a bear.
That is, unless the bears in this part of England were prone to high-pitched
giggling. She pulled at her foot with some force to dislodge it from the
puddle. The sound was coming from farther up the road, around the other side of
a bend.
She staggered forward as quickly as her sopping skirts would
allow. It was odd to hear giggling on a lonely road at dusk, but she was in no
position to be choosy. All she wished for in the world was one single person
who could help her find a conveyance. One human being. Was that too much to
ask? Anyone would do. Anyone at all.
She trudged around the bend, dragging her hems.
Oh, dear. One did need to be careful what
one wished for.
She squinted into the dusk, trying to make sense of the two
shapes leaning against a tree. It was a woman, and she was . . .
the squint turned into wide-eyed shock. Delia froze, as if the mud at her feet
had become quicksand and she was sunk up to her neck in it.
It was a woman, indeed, and she wasn’t alone. She was engaged.
With a man. A very large man. He was at least a head taller than his companion.
If the woman hadn’t been giggling, Delia would have missed her entirely, hidden
as she was by a pair of impossibly wide shoulders. The man had discarded his
coat, which hung carelessly over a wet tree branch. Without it, his white shirt
was just visible in the dusk, and under it what appeared to Delia to be miles
of muscled arm and long, sinewy back.
Well, he wouldn’t need his coat, would he? Not for what he
was doing. It would only get in the way.
For instance, it might prove difficult
for him to trap the woman against the tree. His arms were stretched on either
side of her and his palms rested on the trunk beside her head. Delia swallowed.
If he wasn’t right on top of her like that, his lips might not be able to reach
her throat and neck so easily. And his hands . . .
Delia held her breath as one of the man’s hands dropped
away from the tree and slipped inside the gaping neckline of the woman’s dress
to caress her breast.
A hot flush began deep in the pit of Delia’s belly. She looked
behind her, then back at the scene in front of her, her eyes darting wildly.
Was it too late to turn back the way she’d come? She’d decided in favor of the
mudslide and the bears, after all. But her feet refused to move. She was rooted
to the spot, unable to tear her eyes away from this man with his muscular back
and his bold, seeking hand.
“Alec! Stop that!” The woman let out a little squeal and
slapped playfully at the man’s hand.
Oh, thank God. Delia breathed a
silent sigh of relief. This reckless young woman was coming to her senses at
last. Any moment now she’d push the man away.
Any moment now.
But then the man gave a low chuckle and murmured something
in the woman’s ear. Delia watched, appalled, as the woman giggled again and snaked
her arms around the man’s lean hips to pull him tighter against her. Once he
was there, the woman sighed. And oh, it was such a sigh! Delia had never heard
one like it before, and it made her ears burn with embarrassment.
And he was . . . oh no!
One large hand slipped down to fumble at the fall of his breeches while the
other caught a handful of the woman’s skirts and began to raise them up, up,
and higher still . . .
Delia clapped her hand over her mouth but some noise must
have escaped, some cry of distress or outrage, because suddenly the man’s back
stiffened. The woman peered over his shoulder, saw Delia, and with a quick,
practiced tug, she freed her skirts from the man’s grip, batted them down, jerked
her neckline up, and disappeared around the side of the tree. Within seconds it
was as if she’d never been there at all.
Delia blinked. Well, that was over quickly, wasn’t it? Now
that it was, she had two choices. She could ask the man for help, or she could
flee back to Lily and the safety of the carriage and pretend she’d never been
here, either.
Then again . . . she’d never seen a real debauchery
before. Since there was no longer any danger of this one coming to its final
embarrassing conclusion, Delia found she was curious.
What would he do now?
She watched, rapt, but for a long time he didn’t do
anything. He didn’t turn around. He didn’t speak. He just stood there, inhaling
deeply, the muscles of his back rippling with each breath. In.
Out. In. Out. He tipped his head back and for several minutes he concentrated
on the tree branches swaying above him.
She was just about to conclude this was the dullest debauchery
ever when he let out a frustrated groan, grabbed his coat from the branch, and
turned to face her.
“Who the devil are you?”
Delia’s mouth dropped open and she stumbled backward a few
steps, her curiosity evaporating. His tone was inexcusably rude, and he was
even bigger and more intimidating from the front, but the real trouble here was
that . . .
He was naked.
Well, not naked really,
but more naked than any man she’d ever seen in the flesh, and he had a great
deal of flesh. His loose white shirt was open at the neck, revealing a generous
expanse of his muscular
chest. Delia stared, her face flaming even as her eyes
moved helplessly over the bounty of bare male flesh.
He pinned her down with penetrating dark eyes that sported
lashes long enough to satisfy even the vainest of women, and crossed his arms
over his chest.
“Miss?” he barked. “I asked you a question.”
Yes—he had, hadn’t he? Yes, of course—who the devil was she? “Delia Somerset?” She cringed when it emerged as a
question.
A glint of lazy humor flashed in the black eyes. “Well, are
you or aren’t you? You don’t seem to be sure.”
Delia didn’t trust that glint. Her married friends sometimes
whispered about men like him. Men who became crazed with lust and were swept
away by their animal passions. All manner of wicked behavior followed.
This one looked more savage than most.
“Let’s assume you are indeed Miss Somerset,” he drawled,
when she still didn’t speak. “Now that I know who the
devil you are, may I suggest you tell me what the devil
you’re doing here?”
Why, of all the offensive, bullying . . . all
at once Delia’s embarrassment faded under a wave of indignation. Even an
intriguingly bare chest didn’t excuse profanity.
“And may I suggest, sir,” she
snapped, “that you don your coat?”
One dark eyebrow shot up in acknowledgment of this show of
temper. “Forgive me, Miss Somerset.” He put on his waistcoat and began
buttoning it with an air of complete unconcern, as if he spent every day
half-naked on a public road. He shrugged into his coat. “I didn’t mean to
offend your delicate sensibilities.”
Delia stared at him. “It’s a bit late for that, isn’t it? My
sensibilities were offended, sir, when you unfastened your breeches.”
She’d meant to give him a firm set-down, but instead of
looking ashamed or embarrassed as a proper gentleman would in such disgraceful
circumstances, this awful man actually laughed.
“I fastened them again before I turned around,” he pointed
out, as if this were a perfectly reasonable argument.
Delia pressed her lips together. “I see that. Are you
expecting applause? A standing ovation, perhaps?”
“No, just pointing out you should be grateful for it, as it
was damned difficult to do under the circumstances.”
Delia sniffed. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”
The man studied her face for a moment, noted her baffled
expression, and all at once he seemed to grow bored with her. “Of course you
don’t. Now that we’ve discussed my clothing in more detail than I do with my
valet, you will answer my question.”
Delia huffed out a breath. “My sister and I have come from
Surrey to attend a house party at the home of the Earl of Carlisle. We’re
friends with the earl’s sisters.”
No reaction. Delia stopped and waited, but not even a
flicker of recognition crossed his face. For pity’s sake. He must know who Lord
Carlisle was?
“The coach we were traveling in broke an axle about a mile
down the road.” She pointed in the direction from which she’d just come. “My
sister and the coachman—”
“You should have stayed with the coach. What possessed you
to go scampering around the countryside like a curious little rabbit?”
Annoyed by his condescending tone, Delia decided to
overlook the fact she’d been thinking the same thing only minutes ago. “Believe
me, sir, I’ve come to regret that decision most bitterly. But I thought it best
in this case because—”
“Why didn’t you just send the coachman to the inn for a
carriage?” he interrupted again, looking at her as though she were simple.
“I couldn’t, because when the axle broke—”
“The Prickly Thistle is in the opposite direction,” he said,
as if she hadn’t spoken. “Didn’t you ask for directions?”
“Would you kindly stop interrupting me?” Delia nearly
shouted the words.
There was a pause, then, “Why should I? You interrupted me.”
For a moment she wasn’t sure what he meant, but then she
felt her cheeks go hot and she knew they’d turned scarlet. “I’m sorry to have
interrupted your”—she gestured with her hands—“your fornication, but that’s no
reason to—”
“Fornication?” He found this very funny indeed. “Did you
just call it fornication?”
“Well, yes. What of it?”
“Oh, nothing. It’s just very, ah, biblical of you.”
Delia crossed her arms stubbornly over her chest. There was
no way she was going to ask. He was mad indeed if he
believed she would. If she asked, he might just tell her, and she didn’t want
to know the answer.
“Well, what do you call it?”
Drat.
He smirked. “Something far more descriptive, but I’d rather
not repeat it now. Tell me. Precisely how much of my fornication did you witness?”
“Far more than one generally expects to see on a public
road,” Delia snapped. “In short, a shocking amount.”
“I see. That would explain why you stood there for so long,
gaping. The shock.”
Delia glowered at him. “I didn’t have much choice, did I? I
heard a noise and so I followed it, and there you were, right in plain sight.” Pressing against each other, sighing, kissing, caressing . . .
“You heard a noise. What kind of noise was it?” he asked,
as if he were humoring her.
“At first I thought it was a wild animal,” she said, then
added in an undertone, “and I wasn’t entirely wrong.”
His eyes narrowed. “I beg your pardon, Miss Somerset?”
Delia bit her lip to keep from laughing. “I said, can’t we
move this along? My sister is waiting for me to return with a conveyance. She’s
been ill, and I would rather not leave her in the cold any longer than
necessary.”
He waved his hand imperiously, as if he were the lord of
the manor and she a lowly servant. “Very well. Go on.”
She took a deep breath and recited the facts quickly,
before he could interrupt again. “The axle broke, the coachman suffered an
injury, they’re stranded on the road, and night is coming on. I need to find
the inn, procure a conveyance, and fetch them both at once.”
“The coachman is injured?” Now she had his full attention. “How
badly injured?”
“Badly enough. He fell from the box when the axle broke and
twisted his ankle. It’s either sprained or broken. That’s why he couldn’t come
for help. He did describe where I could find the Prickly Thistle Inn, but I
must have missed a turn, for I didn’t see it.”
“The turn is difficult to spot from the road.” He thought
for a moment and came to some kind of decision. “Come.” He turned and started
back down the road, splashing casually through the mud puddles, clearly
expecting her to follow without question, as if she were a dog or a sheep or
some other kind of dense livestock.
Delia hesitated. She was in no more danger alone with him
here than she’d be a mile down the road, and she didn’t have much choice, but
the idea of putting herself under this man’s sole protection seemed, well, unwise.
When she didn’t immediately follow, he jerked around. He
must have read her thoughts on her face because his arrogant gaze moved
deliberately from the top of her bedraggled bonnet down over her muddy
traveling dress, and came to rest at last on her ruined boots. “Believe me,
Miss Somerset, you are perfectly safe with me.”
Delia gasped in outrage. He was insulting her? She didn’t
need him to remind her she looked a perfect fright. “Such a gallant thing to
say.” She had to struggle to keep her temper. “But perhaps you’re not
accustomed to the company of ladies who are fully dressed.”
He shrugged, then turned again and started back down the
road, leaving her no choice but to stagger behind him. “Let’s just say I prefer
the company of ladies who are fully undressed.”
Delia supposed he meant to shock her, but she was beyond
shock at this point, and hardly turned a hair at this scandalous comment. She
followed behind him, scrambling to keep pace with his long-legged stride. “I
see. Well, that explains why you felt compelled to undress your friend on a public
road. How terrible it must be, to be so at the mercy of your animal passions.”
She was glaring at the back of his head when she noticed
he’d begun shoving a hand through his thick dark hair. The crisp waves curled
and caught a bit against his long fingers. Did that mean he was nettled, then? Oh,
she hoped so. She’d be immensely gratified to have annoyed him.
She had just begun to enjoy that idea when he whipped
around to face her. She was so surprised she crashed right into him. Strong
hands reached out to steady her, but when she was upright again, he didn’t
release her. Instead he pulled her just a bit closer—not so close his body touched
hers, but more than close enough to completely unnerve her.
“I was carried away by my animal passions,”
he murmured in a low, seductive voice. His velvety dark eyes caught and held
hers. “I’m an impatient man, you see, Miss Somerset. Especially when it comes
to”—he dropped his voice to a whisper—“fornication.”
For one moment Delia was mesmerized, staring at him as if
he were a snake charmer and she were rising from her basket after languishing
there for decades. But then she noticed a hint of a smirk on his lips and
jerked free from his grasp.
Goodness gracious. Her face heated yet again. “Perhaps it
would be better if we didn’t speak.”
Another careless shrug. “If you choose.”
Awful, teasing man.
They walked along the road for a while, the only sound now
the soft, wet thud of boots against mud. After a half mile or so he turned off
the road and pulled back some overgrown bushes. “The inn is on the other side.”
He gestured for her to walk in front of him.
As soon as Delia passed through the thick brush, she could see
the path, and there at the end was the Prickly Thistle Inn. She’d walked right
by it earlier without noticing, as it was impossible to see the squat stone
building from the road. She glanced resentfully at her silent companion. She
had cause to regret her inattention now, didn’t she?
Delia breathed an immediate sigh of relief when they
entered the inn. It was almost dark outside and growing colder, but there was a
massive stone fireplace at one end of the main room that threw out considerable
light and heat. A grizzled little man was running a damp cloth over the scarred
wooden surface of the bar. “A pint fer ye, me lord?” he called, when he caught
sight of Delia and her companion hovering in the doorway.
“Not this time, thank you, George,” Delia’s companion
replied, but he wasn’t looking at the gray-haired man. He was looking at her, a
smug grin lifting the corners of his wide mouth.
Delia stared back at him, aghast. Oh, no,
no, no! But even as her brain worked frantically to deny it, she began
to remember certain little details. His lack of reaction when she mentioned the
earl’s name. His concern over the injured coachman, a coachman who had been
sent by the Earl of Carlisle to convey them to Kent. The fine quality and fit
of his clothes—that is, when they were fastened.
And who else but an arrogant earl would dare . . .
Delia wanted to stamp her foot with ire. It couldn’t be!
Her mind struggled to think of anything that would prove her dreadful suspicion
wrong.
Yes! The woman. The one he’d been groping. The giggler. She’d
called this man Alec. That wasn’t right, because
Charlotte and Ellie’s brother was named . . .
Delia closed her eyes in despair. Charlotte and Ellie’s
brother was named Alexander. Alexander Sutherland.
Alec.
The fornicator. The debaucher. The lifter of women’s skirts
and the unbuttoner of breeches.
He was Lord Carlisle.
~~~~~~~~~~
What debut authors have you discovered this year?
The banter between Alec and Delia is so much fun. Do you enjoy a heroine who gives as good as she gets?
One person who leaves a comment on today's post will receive a Kindle copy of A Wicked Way to Win an Earl. (available Nov. 3)
Stop by Wednesday, November 4th when Anna Bradley will join me for a Q&A!
England, 1811. Delia Somerset despises the privileged ton, but her young sister, Lily, is desperate to escape their family’s scandalous past and join high society. Unwilling to upset her sister, Delia reluctantly agrees to attend a party at the Sutherland estate—and avoid the gossip at all costs.
Alec Sutherland is known as a hot-headed scoundrel, but nothing gets a rise out of him as much as the news that his brother desires Delia’s hand in marriage. She is, after all, the daughter of the London belle who soiled their family name. He’s determined to ruin her reputation as well, in the most delicious way possible. It’s only a matter of time before he can woo her with his irresistible advances.
As Delia devilishly plays along in Alec’s game, determined to prove the joke is on him, they inch ever closer to repeating history. And in this game of seductive glances, scandalous whispers, and old debts, the outcome might be much more than either of them anticipated…
