Earl at First Sight (Love at First Sight #3)

1. Part I

Part I

“No spring nor summer beauty hath such grace as I have seen in one autumnal face.”

~ Elegy IX: The Autumnal – John Donne

Alec’s eyes narrowed to thin slits of frosty gray. “I turn five and twenty in three bloody weeks, Beasley!”

“I am aware, my lord, which is why I thought it prudent to wake you at such an unfortunate hour.”

The hour was unfortunate, Alec agreed silently as his gaze slid past the balding solicitor to the window behind him.

Framed with heavy brown drapes, it revealed Hyde Park in the very first glimmers of sunrise.

No one was out this early but the squirrels, their red tails on high alert as they dashed along the groomed bridle paths in search of whatever it was squirrels looked for.

He hadn’t a damned clue. Apparently, there was a lot he didn’t know.

Including the secret clause his father had hidden away in a will that otherwise should have been mind-bogglingly straight forward given Alec was the only child and heir.

Honestly, he really should have expected it. And that infuriated him almost more than this final hoop his father was making him jump through from the grave. The old, rotting curmudgeon was still trying to have his way. Controlling his son in death as he’d fought to control him in life.

The earl may have been under the dirt (thank God for small mercies), but Alec’s mind and body would forever bear the scars of abuse suffered from when his father had both feet planted on top of it.

From when he was five and the earl’s backhand had split his cheek open, leaving a long thin mark that had silvered with age, to now, almost twenty years later, when he was forcing him to choose between his freedom…

or the wealth he needed to fund his debaucherous lifestyle of gambling, drinking, and horse racing.

Dammit, the money, this house, the country manor, were his.

Earned, quite literally, through blood and tears.

After all he had endured, he wouldn’t let it slip through his fingers now.

To be donated to some orphanage, put up for sale to the highest bidder, or–worst of all–be passed on to his second cousin Eustice.

Bloody Eustice, of all people.

No.

Absolutely not.

Because it wasn’t just the money and the properties. Alec had a clever mind. He could easily turn a rag into riches ten times over. It was the principle of the matter.

He had received the brunt of his father’s brutality. Not the orphans. Not Eustice. Not some American with pockets full of gold.

He had done it.

He had survived it.

He had outlived the bastard.

And he refused to let go of what was rightfully his.

“Is there anything to be done? Any way to change the will?” he asked, his cool, calculating gaze shifting back to Beasley as a muscle ticked high in his jaw.

“Inheritance laws are strict by nature. To bend them, let alone break them, would require an iron clause. Particularly when there is a clear, direct line to a male bloodline heir.”

“I am afraid your father was quite thorough, my lord.” Beasley folded his hands behind him. “If brought to court, the order will stand as written. If you do not fulfill the terms of the will, you will lose your inheritance. Aside from your title, of course.”

The title.

What the hell did he care for a title if none of the lands accompanied it?

“How can you be so certain?” he scowled.

The solicitor’s expression remained bland as he replied, “Because I was the one that wrote it.”

A pile of neatly stacked correspondence succumbed to the same fate as the quill pens when Alec sat back down in his chair with a frustrated sweep of his arms before he dug his fingers into the nape of his neck.

If what Beasley said was true–and he had no reason to doubt him–then the will was truly ironclad.

Dammit.

Dammit.

Before the late earl had died, he’d made it known–loudly–that he desired to see his only son and heir wed.

Not out of some sentimental desire for grandchildren or a larger family (the earl had detested both in equal measure), but because he wanted what every wealthy, arrogant, self-absorbed mortal man wanted: a legacy that would outlive him after his time on earth was through.

People that would still praise his name in the decades to follow, for without him, there would be no them.

And with this change to the will, he’d ensured his last and final demand would be obeyed, less Alec willingly lose all that which he’d spent his life thus far silently coveting.

For his part, having been raised in a household with a largely absent mother (who remained alive and well and happily living in Bath) and an abusive father, Alec had never wanted or planned to marry.

He certainly didn’t want a child. Through their carelessness and cruelty, his parents had shown him that holy matrimony was something to be avoided at all costs, not something to aspire toward.

If he wanted company and a woman to warm his bed, all he had to do was snap his fingers and any number of svelte beauties would line up to be his mistress.

As for a child, an heir, he didn’t give a flying fig what happened to what was his when he was gone.

Eustice could have it then. But Alec would be damned if he let his cousin’s fat, greedy fingers touch it now.

“My lord…” Beasley began.

Alec gritted his teeth. “I’m thinking.”

The solicitor nodded, waited what he deemed a respectful amount of time, and then said, “Have you considered your betrothed?”

“My what?” Alec said blankly.

“Your betrothed, my lord. Your fiancée.”

“I don’t have one of those, Beasley. Please focus on the matter at hand.”

“I am, my lord. Finding, courting, becoming engaged, and marrying a suitable candidate in little more than a fortnight’s time is an improbable task at best, impossible at worst.”

Was Beasley trying to rub his nose in it?

“I’m sure I can find someone–”

“With all due respect, my lord,” interrupted the solicitor, “you have already found her.”

Alec gave a frustrated shake of his head. “Found who?”

“Miss Persephone Montague.”

To Beasley’s credit, the name did sound faintly familiar. A tickle at a memory that he hadn’t scratched in quite a long while.

Montague, he mused silently.

Persephone Montague…

Miss Persephone Montague…

What the hell kind of name was Persephone?

“Explain, Beasley.”

“The engagement contract, my lord. The one that your father won in a game of cards twenty years ago. The one granting his firstborn son–you–the legal first right of refusal to Lord Montague’s firstborn daughter.

The one that remains locked in a box in this very office, right there.

” Beasley inclined his head toward a shelf to the right of the desk, then held out a small brass key.

Incredulous, Alec took the key and inserted it into the lock of a small, nondescript, rectangular wooden box that he’d looked past a hundred times but had never bothered trying to open.

Why would he? In a room still largely filled with his father’s things, most of them reeking of opulence, a little trinket box was hardly something worth fussing over.

Except when he opened the lid, he saw it contained no trinkets at all, but rather a carefully folded piece of parchment.

He glanced at Beasley as he broke his father’s wax seal.

The solicitor’s countenance remained as stoic as ever.

Not even a twitch of his gray mustache to reveal what Alec might discover when he read the twenty-year-old contract.

A contract was unmistakably written in the late earl’s bold hand and signed at the bottom by the earl, Lord Montague, and Mr. Beasley.

Alec’s eyes widened slightly, then narrowed as he read the document once, twice, and finally thrice to ensure he understood it in its entirety.

In no uncertain terms, it stated that in exchange for forgiving a considerable debt accrued whilst gambling, Lord Montague agreed to withhold permission for his eldest daughter, nine months old at the time of his signing, to marry when she came of age, until and unless Lord Ashcroft’s eldest son married first.

It was not in and of itself a betrothal contract.

Courtesy of Lord Hardwick’s Marriage Act, those had been banned more than fifty years ago and, unlike the will, would be much more difficult to uphold in court.

But it was damned close.

Carefully folding the parchment and closing it away in the box, Alec drummed his knuckles on the edge of his desk as his mind did a rapid series of calculations.

For his part, Beasley remained silent, but his very presence was the equivalent of sand sliding through an hour glass.

With every grain, the future Alec had envisioned for himself once his old man had finally gasped his last breath was slipping away.

There was no way for him to stop it.

No way except for one.

“I take it this Penelope Montague has adhered to the terms of the contract?”

Beasley nodded. “Persephone. And she has, my lord. Willingly, per my sources.”

Of course she had. What sane young woman wouldn’t want to marry an earl of considerable means and wealth?

She was undoubtedly getting the better part of the bargain, which made him question why his father had ever drawn it up in the first place.

The bastard had never done a single thing that had not been of direct benefit to him.

“Where is she? In London?”

The solicitor shook his head. “Unfortunately not, my lord. She is currently residing at her family’s country estate just outside the small village of Litchfield. It is a full day’s journey by carriage.”

Alec’s fingers ceased drumming.

His mouth flattened into a scowl.

“I’ll leave within the hour.”

***

As Persephone held her breath behind the drapery in the drawing room and watched while her spiky little brown hedgehog, Mr. Roundtop, made a hasty advance toward her mother’s generous slice of rhubarb pie, it occurred to her–not for the first time–that she would have been better off leaving him in the garden.