An Earl Conquered (5 Pearls for the Earl #6)
1. Chapter 1
1
CHAPTER 1
D ecember, 1826
St. George’s Mount Street Cemetery , London
Cassandra stepped beneath the dripping branches of a towering yew tree and tilted her umbrella to rid the stretched oilskin fabric of the rainwater that still clung in the wrinkles and folds of the material. The umbrella, a gift from the earl last Christmas, had been a godsend on the walk from Grosvenor Street to the cemetery where she knew she would find Derek Welkirk, Earl of Framlingwood, on this day of all days. She peered around the umbrella. Not that she needed to in order to find the place where her employer now knelt to lay a bouquet of red roses. She knew the name on the plain but elegant black marble tomb as well as her own.
Celeste Swan
Beloved
December 3, 1799
September 21, 1820
He never missed his late mistress’s birthday, at least not in the nearly five years she’d been the housekeeper in charge of the five townhouses he kept on Grosvenor Street. This year, however, was different. The past few months had been a horrific trial for him, for her, and for the women who occupied those five townhouses. Between the murderous blackmailer, the accusations against his mistresses, the arrest of said villainous blackmailer, and now the search for the blackmailer’s employer, she marveled any of them left their homes at all.
Not him, though. Not since he’d received that letter from the mysterious woman behind the plot to name one of his mistresses a murderess. The person who had set these past terrifying months in motion, this unknown someone, had the earl prowling the streets of London at night and conferring with the men who’d come back into his life determined to rid him of the vengeful wraith. The same wraith who haunted Cassandra’s dreams and made it impossible for the earl, his five now former mistresses, and their husbands to move on with their lives.
“I know why he’s here freezing his b…nether regions off,” Young Rutherford said softly as he ducked under the tree limbs to join her. “Why are you here, missus?”
Cassandra started and punched the footman’s arm. “You frightened me. What are you doing creeping about London on such a day?”
“Take someone cleverer than me to frighten you, Mrs. Collins. A lady like you ain’t afraid of the devil hisself. Least that’s what young Dickie says.”
If he only knew. Cassandra glanced around.” Please tell me Dickie Jones is not here as well. His lordship will have all of our hides if he finds out we’re following him, especially today.”
“I ‘spect by now the lad is tucked up on St. James Square at Lady Camilla’s filling his belly with tea and some of Mister Charpentier’s raspberry tarts. He stopped at Number Five to give the ladies the news on his way back from the dispensary in the Dials.”
Cassandra’s heart stuttered. “News?” She lowered her voice. “What news.”
Rutherford glanced down to where her fingers clutched his arm in a grip so tightly as to make her hand shake. She loosened her hold but did not release him. He looked around her to where the earl stood staring down at the tomb now glistening in the rain.
“Shell is dead.” Rutherford returned his gaze to Cassandra. “The blackmailer, Elias Shell, was found dead in his cell in Bow Street gaol this morning.”
“Wh-what happened? I don’t understand.” Her mind raced. Archer Colwyn, the earl’s friend at Bow Street, had been certain he’d discover the name of the woman behind the last few months of fear and danger from the blackmailer he’d arrested.
“Mister Carrington-Bowles said poison. The Runner had the cove’s body brought to the dispensary, and Dickie’s keeper found poison in Shell’s belly. Some wench came to Bow Street. Said she was Shell’s sister and brought him some pasties.” He tilted his head to glance over her shoulder. She looked back and saw the earl head up the path to the back gate to the cemetery.
“Come on,” she said as she dragged the footman in the opposite direction toward the front of the cemetery. “Mister Carrington-Bowles is not Dickie’s keeper. He is Dickie’s father, and if he sent him to tell the ladies, the boy likely stopped off at the earl’s house before he finally landed at Lady Camilla’s. We must stop him.”
“Stop who?” Rutherford batted at the umbrella. Cassandra folded the contraption and marched out of the cemetery gates toward Grosvenor Street. “Missus Collins, you’ll catch your death.” He continued to protest as he stumbled along in her wake.
“They mustn’t tell the earl about this news. Not today. Especially not today.” She stopped so abruptly he nearly knocked her over. “Run, Rutherford. Run to the Grosvenor Street houses and tell them not to tell his lordship. Then send someone to his house on Grosvenor Square. Hurry.” She gave him a shove. “I’ll go back and detain his lordship. Go!” He stared at her for a moment, then nodded.
“Right. I’m off.” He was as good as his word and disappeared around the corner by the time Cassandra headed back the way the earl would take on his return to Mayfair.
She could not keep this latest news from him forever, perhaps no more than a day. Today, however, was not the day for yet another blow to the idea this nightmare was finally over. Someone had killed the one person who knew what was behind the threats and attacks. Not someone. The architect of it all. Cassandra pushed that thought aside. She had to concentrate on the earl. Her mind froze, and her blood ran cold at going any further than the moment. She’d had a feeling of dread since the note had arrived during the wedding breakfast after Margot and Gabrielle’s double wedding. Even after the last few days had passed, she could not rid herself of the twitch at the back of her neck and the sensation they were all being watched.
“Missus Collins?”
Cassandra rounded the corner so quickly she failed to see earl step out from the street ahead of her until he called her name. She stopped and watched him stride across the street with that elegant masculine grace that never failed to set her pulse pounding. Tall and lean, a whipcord of a man, more sharply muscled than an aristocrat had a right to be, Derek Welkirk defied the expectations of everyone who met him. His golden hair, damp from the rain but still tousled from the December wind, framed the stern features of an avenging angel from some painting in the Royal Academy.
“My lord.” She sank into a curtsy. As she rose, she allowed her gaze to sweep quickly over his face and body. His cheeks had grown thinner and the shadows under his eyes darker. His clothes, normally so expertly fitted to him hung from his frame.
“Where is your escort?” he asked without preamble once he reached her.
“He has gone on a little ahead with some parcels,” she lied. “To keep them out of the rain.”
He winged his arm at her and ducked under the umbrella. “He should have stayed with you. To hell with the parcels if he cannot convey them and you safely home.”
“Perhaps, my lord. But I daresay Young Rutherford would have raised a few eyebrows if he were seen carrying me and my parcels through Mayfair.”
“As if our lives have not raised enough eyebrows of late,” he replied with a sad half smile.
“I am not one to complain, my lord. But if the damp seeping into my pelisse from your coat is any indication you have been out in the rain far longer than is wise.” They turned up Grosvenor Street and strolled down the pavement in front of the long line of beautifully expensive townhouses. “Would you care to stop by Number Five for a cup of tea and some time by the fire before you go home and discomfit your servants?”
“You mean send them into paroxysms of hot baths, poultices, and summons to every physician of repute in London?” He gave her that arch look of his, the one they shared when their understanding of each other was without question.
“They love you, Derek.” She only used his given name in private and even then, only when she wanted him to pay attention to what she said. “They worry about you.”
“Most of them have been with me since I was twelve. They still see the child, not the earl.” He shook his head. “Thank you, by the way, for having the flowers delivered to Number Five rather than Grosvenor Square. I’d rather they not know about…today.”
“Hmm.” She made him no real answer as she tried to limit the number of lies she was forced to tell him to a handful each day. Of course, the servants knew. The servants, his former mistresses, his friends, they all knew about his visits to Celeste Swan’s grave on her birthday, Christmas Day, and the anniversary of her death.
Cassandra steered him down the lane that cut behind the five townhouses at the end of Grosvenor Street. There was no one at home at Number Five as Margot and Gabrielle were off with their husbands on a wedding trip to the estate the Duke of Chelmsford had gifted them. However, she preferred to enter by the mews gate at the back of the townhouse where her housekeeper’s rooms were more easily accessed without alerting the entire company of servants to her comings and goings. Especially when those comings and goings involved the Earl of Framlingwood.
She shrugged out of her pelisse and hung the garment on the hook just inside the door to the kitchens. With a crook of her finger, she directed Derek down the short corridor that ran parallel to the servants’ stairs. They managed to slip into her sitting room without attracting any attention. She tugged the bell pull next to the fireplace.
“Very well, my lord. Off with those wet things.” She boldly set to untying and unwrapping his neckcloth. “You own several carriages yet you insist on walking about London like some impoverished clerk. Only Weston knows how many greatcoats and capes you have hanging in your foyer on Grosvenor Square.” She dropped the neckcloth onto the tea table before her settee. “However, these last several weeks I have not seen you don one of those perfectly good, warm, and dry garments even once. Why is that, my lord?”
He stood perfectly still under her hands as she struggled to peel his morning coat from his shoulders. Once she’d unbuttoned and removed his waistcoat, he dropped his head forward and mumbled something, very much in the tone and attitude of a recalcitrant boy being called on the carpet by a governess or tutor.
She draped his coat and waistcoat over one end of the fire screen. “I didn’t hear…that.” Her voice faded when she turned and saw him standing there in his thin linen shirt plastered to his body like an opaque second skin. Dear God. Every muscle and sinew stood out as if carved from marble. His hair had fallen into his face and dripped onto the carpet.
“I don’t know,” he finally said, as he raised his head. “I have been distracted of late.”
“We all have, my lord. But even Young Rutherford remembers to put on a coat or to take an umbrella when venturing out in the rain. Sit down.” She pulled him forward and shoved him into one of the overstuffed pretty chintz chairs that had been moved into her rooms when John Kenton and Will Bullock had redecorated Margot’s townhouse. “I shall fetch a bath sheet. You must dry your hair.” She hurried to her linen cupboard and retrieved her heavy quilt and a thick bath sheet.
When she returned to her sitting room she stopped in the doorway and studied Derek as he slumped back into the chair and stared at the fire. The lamplight and the glow from the hearth brought out the shadows and deep lines in his face. Never had the embodiment of a battle-weary warrior been so beautiful and so frightening all at once. She made her way to the back of his chair and draped the quilt around him. He took the bath sheet she handed him, but merely held the white cotton folds across his hands as if he did not recognize what it could be for at all.
A sound, half scratch and half knock, rattled the door to her rooms. The door opened and Young Rutherford peered around the battered oak slab. Cassandra waved him inside and cleared the tea table. She hung his neckcloth on the mantel and snatched the bath towel from him. “Pour his lordship a cup of tea and then help him off with his boots, please.”
“Yes, Missus Collins.” Rutherford placed the contents of the tray he carried on the tea table and quickly poured a cup of tea from the sturdy Brown Betty teapot. He handed the earl the cup and grabbed Derek’s foot, nearly upending him.
“I can remove my own boots.” The earl glared at them both but began to drink his tea nonetheless.
“Best do as Missus Collins says, my lord,” Rutherford said as he removed the second boot and wet stocking. He draped the stockings over the fire screen and set the boots on the hearth. “Been my experience a man fares better if he does as she says.” He placed a plate with a sandwich of fresh bread, ham, and cheese on the table next to Derek. Then added a bowl of stew next to the plate. “Best eat all of this food as well. Elsewise you’ll have to deal with Cook.” He leaned closer and said in a low voice. “Worse than Missus Collins, she is.” He shuddered for good measure.
Cassandra rolled her eyes and handed the footman the empty tray. “Thank you, Rutherford. I’ll send for the carriage when his lordship is ready to go home.” He bowed to them both and quit the room. She stood behind Derek’s chair and used one end of the bath sheet to soak up the rainwater from his hair. “Eat,” she ordered.
He took several bites of his stew and drank some more tea. “Here I thought you stripped me nearly naked to have your wicked way with me.” He glanced over his shoulder at her and grinned. Her heart did a little flip at the fleeting moment of levity.
Cassandra snorted and rubbed his head vigorously as he tucked into the sandwich. “Wet as a fish and thin as a rail is hardly your best inducement to my having my way with you.”
“A hit, Missus Collins. A palpable hit. Rutherford is right. You are not one with whom a man might trifle.”
“And you would do well to remember it, my lord.” She tossed the bath sheet over a cane-bottomed chair in the corner and came around to settle into the matching chintz chair across from him. She watched in silence as he finished the bowl of stew and managed to devour two of the sandwiches Cook had prepared for him. Cassandra refilled his cup of tea and poured herself a cup.
“I did not realize how hungry I was,” Derek said as he slumped back into the chair and stretched his bare feet toward the fire. “I take it you sent Rutherford ahead to order that feast for me?” His unflinching regard might have disconcerted the servants in his home on Grosvenor Square. The Grosvenor Street crew, including herself, were made of sterner stuff.
“I would hardly call a bowl of stew and a few simple sandwiches a feast, my lord. However, when a man eats as sparingly as you do and spends his nights in the lowest taverns in London, the idea you might be starved for decent food is an easy conclusion to draw.” She kept her tone even and her attitude that of the efficient and uncompromising housekeeper. To do less was to succumb to the arousing sight of Derek, half-unclothed and bathed in the glow of lamplight and candles. A fallen angel would not present the temptation her employer did in this moment.
“Missus Collins is displeased with me.” He tilted his head, his expression thoughtful. “What to do to rectify this turn of events.”
“Stop bearing the responsibility of the lives of everyone you know. Stop blaming yourself for things completely out of your control. Allow your friends to bear this burden and solve this mystery. Have a care for your health before you suffer a collapse or worse.” Once she started, she didn’t have the strength or even the desire to stop. He was slowly killing himself and in his usual fashion, he ignored the opinions and feelings of others. His worse flaw? Derek Welkirk was oblivious to the concerns of those who cared for him. Those who…loved him.
Her set-down had an interesting effect. Silence. He rested his head against the back of the chair, closed his eyes, and didn’t say a word. Cassandra busied herself gathering the dishes from his meal and placing them outside the door to her rooms. As she did so, she glanced at the window along the short corridor between her rooms and the kitchens. Night had fallen. The servants were busy preparing food for tomorrow and conducting the final cleaning of the day. In an hour or so they would all make their way up the servants’ stairs to their chambers at the top of the five connected townhouses.
She should send him home, call for one of the carriages and send him home. His clothes were scattered over the fire screen and still damp to the touch. Safely tucked away on the ground floor of Number Five, close to the huge hearth that served the kitchens, her rooms were snug and warm. The icy winds rattled the windows in her bedchamber, but she knew that room would be warm as well. Unlike many of the homes in which she’d lived over her twenty-six years, the windows in the Grosvenor Street houses kept the winds at bay.
“Cassandra?” The normally rich, dark baritone of his voice sounded raw and broken. She closed the door to her rooms and hurried to where he now sat, his head in his hands.
“Yes…Derek?” He slowly gazed up at her. She took a short breath and then another.
“When does it stop?” he asked softly. “When does it finally stop?”
“When does what stop?” She lowered herself to her knees and covered his open palms with hers.
“The pain. And the loss. What did I do to lose so much? When will it be enough? You wonder why I take it all on myself? What else am I to do? These women, these friends…they are all the family I have left.”
“And they know that. You have nothing to prove. They know how deeply you care. Is it so hard to allow them to care for you?”
“They’re happy now. The five of them, you and I managed to keep them safe and see them settled and happy. Celeste never got that chance. I want them all to be safe, but I’m afraid. So afraid.” His voice faded to a hoarse whisper.
“Afraid? You? Of what?”
He took a ragged breath. She winced as a shard of sorrow shot through her heart at his expression, half agony and half rage. “That I will fail them the way I failed Celeste.”
“Oh, Derek…” She clasped his face in her hands. “You didn’t fail her. You haven’t failed any of us. Celeste died because of the decisions she made. Wh-whichever of the ladies who have been in your care is the cause of all of this because of something sh-she did. Your friends are involved because they have chosen to become involved. None of this is your fault. Of all of us, you are the one who was not given a choice. Only you.”
He covered her hands with his and gazed into her eyes. “I’m so tired, Cassandra. And I need you…so much.”
She shivered as every rule to which she’d held since the day she met him slipped into oblivion. All thoughts of tomorrow and consequences and the very real danger that surrounded them vanished as he surged forward and seized her lips in a soul-searing kiss.