What a Cheeky Earl (The Marriage Managing Society #2)

Chapter 1

London

A fine exhibit in a private garden

“If you keep reading, your face will stay like that,” sneered Nathaniel Allworthy, fourth son of the Duke of Lindly.

Miss Ernestine Foxley pursed her lips, clutching her parasol with one hand and the rather excellent pamphlet on the Roman sculptures she’d come to see in the other. She did not lift her gaze. She didn’t care if her face froze. At least it would show she’d been reading.

Unlike the oaf who’d just spoken. She wouldn’t be surprised if he couldn’t count his own teeth, let alone read an erudite passage on the goddess Minerva.

In Ernestine’s unimportant opinion, though it was important to her, sons of dukes were the worst.

Especially second, third, and fourth sons, or any number of sons that weren’t firstborns.

She had a personal theory that they were all so resentful that they were not going to be the duke that they went about petulant and determined to spoil things wherever they went.

In the immortal words of her dearest cousin, Roland, sons of dukes were coxcombs.

And Nathanial was the coxcombiest. Which wasn’t a word, she knew. But she certainly thought it should be one.

Now, this was a word that she could not use in everyday company.

Young ladies could not say the word coxcomb if they wished to do well and not have their entire family ruined, and so she peered more intently at the pamphlet that had been provided to her upon entrance into the exhibition of the Earl of Seaborough’s rather remarkable collection of Roman statues and tried to read further.

Allworthy and a few of his friends, though sycophantic dandy henchmen might be more apt, sniggered.

“Perhaps she’s deaf as well,” Nathanial jested sharply.

She scowled. “Perhaps I like my face the way it is,” she dared to reply.

“I wouldn’t if I were you,” he returned, leaning over her, casting a shadow on her fine day and her reading material. “No doubt you’ll be a wallflower for the rest of your life. Though flower hardly suits.”

“Weed!” one of the other gentlemen, though that word clearly only denoted his class, offered.

“Yes!” another guffawed. “A weed is better.”

Allworthy leaned in. “You know the only thing to do with a weed, don’t you?”

How she longed to slap his face or storm off, but it was a delicate thing, offending one’s betters.

Her father had been a gentleman. As had her uncle.

But her aunt was now husbandless in this world, and they had no title.

Just a bit of money, which allowed her cousins, Roland and Delia, to pursue a Season, strictly to find a spouse.

All she had wanted today was to come and look at the statues, which had been imported from Italy by Seaborough, and admire them. She did not know Seaborough, but he had excellent taste, and she loved all things Italian, but, like most things, her day was being ruined by an Englishman.

“Are you bored, sir?” she asked archly, at last daring to look at the man who was being so foul.

Nathaniel Allworthy, who was shockingly handsome, though his lips were rather thin and gave him the ever-whining look of a three-year-old boy, lifted his blond brows. “Bored, madam? Why in God’s name would you think I am bored?”

“Because,” she returned, straightening her spine, surprised by the fierceness in her voice, even as she began to shake, “you are trifling with someone of little account in comparison to you. Someone who simply wishes to enjoy her day.”

He arched a brow, looked her up and down, and found her wanting.

But like a cat unable to stop playing with the mouse he’d caught, he kept talking.

“How can one possibly enjoy statues such as this?” he said, gesturing his broad hand decked with rings at the carved stone. “The Romans had nothing on the Greeks.”

“And how would you know, sir?” she replied.

He huffed. “Because I’ve traveled, unlike you.”

She stiffened. It was true. She had never gone beyond her aunt and uncle’s small country estate and London.

Something that she was going to rectify as soon as she reached her majority and inherited her money.

Bless her aunt. She knew how hard she had tried to make Ernestine’s first Season bearable, but she had no interest in any of it.

She’d had little interest in anything since her parents’ untimely deaths five years ago. For some reason, she’d taken solace in anything Italian. The rest? She’d largely shut out. Including her own feelings.

All she wanted was to get away and imbue herself in the landscape of the Italians. Surely, Italy would be bliss compared to this ongoing nightmare that was London and the ton and men like Allworthy, who seemed to love to make young ladies’ lives miserable.

“How wonderful for you, sir,” she said, “that you have had the good fortune to travel. Perhaps you would like to travel more and take yourself off to another area of the exhibition.”

Allworthy laughed, a cold amusement filling his eyes, which seemed to ripple through his friends like a pack following its leader. “Oh no, I think I’m enjoying myself quite a good deal right here.”

“I thought I was a wallflower, sir. Surely a wallflower”—she cleared her throat—“a weed should not interest someone like you.”

The hateful scoundrel’s friends laughed, clapping each other on the back.

Allworthy arched a brow again, his cravat pin winking in the light. Light which also caught on the silver embroidery lining his waistcoat. “Oh, sometimes a lowly weed is exactly the sort of thing that I wish to take an interest in.”

And he had the audacity to leer at her.

Yes, leer.

It was an excellent word, one that she had read mostly about in books, and was rather appalled to find herself experiencing. Given the fact that she was a wallflower, she genuinely did not get leered at or bothered by men.

These fellows were bored, they were stupid, and they were unkind, all the worst things about the English aristocracy rolled up into one, and she was somehow the object of it.

She was tempted to glance back over her shoulder and look for her cousin, but she didn’t want to appear meek or afraid. Roland had sneaked off for just a moment to use the necessary, and now she wished she had gone with him.

She hated the fact that a group of young men could make her feel so displaced and out of sorts, but she refused to give way to them, and so she gripped her parasol a little harder, lifted her chin, took inspiration from the rather fierce-looking statue of Minerva just in front of her, and said, “You shall retreat, sir. I am in no need of your company at present.”

His lips curved as if he adored tormenting her. Again, a cat letting the mouse get away, then snatching it back by the tail. “You are alone. Clearly, you are in need of male protection.”

“Oh?” she mocked. “And is that what you’re going to do? Protect me?”

His eyes grew shadowy, and his friends behind him stood quietly, enjoying their ability to do as they wished to whoever they wished. “Well, you are without protection, so…”

“You think I am without protection?” she returned, squaring her shoulders under her yellow spencer.

Where was everyone?

It was a vast garden. Surely someone would come by any moment? But she couldn’t rely on that.

Allworthy nodded slowly. “Oh, yes. I’ll definitely protect you.”

His friends laughed.

He took a step forward, and she found herself inching to the left, but she was trapped between him and the statue.

How had she gotten herself into such a remote part of the exhibition on a sunlit day with the air tinged with the scent of roses?

Nothing bad could happen in such a beautiful spot, with the summer air about one, could it? Of course it could. She knew the way life could rip everything away from one, even in the most beautiful places.

For a moment, fear clenched her belly, and she felt an almost animal-like need to tremble, to beg him to let her go or to not hurt her.

But then she remembered who she was. She was Ernestine Foxley, and she’d survived the death of her parents. A fool of a lord wasn’t going to scare her.

Indeed, this was absurd, and she was not going to be intimidated.

She refused to allow her day to be completely ruined, and so she whipped up her parasol, snapped it open, and rammed it forward, poking him right in the chest. He let out a yelp of surprise, and before the group of them could say another word, she pivoted quickly and, quite frankly, retreated more swiftly than she wished to.

In fact, she ran. Ran as hard and as fast as her slippered feet would take her.

She could hear them laughing behind her as she marched off, still gripping her open parasol behind her like a kite, ready to use it as a weapon again if necessary.

Heart in her mouth, she rushed as quickly as she could down the gravel path. Her hat pin dislodged, and her bonnet bounced off her back, and before she could stop herself, as infuriating as it was, tears began to sting her eyes.

The chorus of their laughter still lingering behind her was one of the most awful sounds that she could recall. At least they weren’t following her.

She whipped around the corner of a hedge, past a pair of statues arm in arm, and sucked in a breath. She was going to find a bench and repair all the damage done to her soul by this rather horrid moment, but suddenly she found herself whipped to a halt.

Her parasol jolted out of her hand.

She gasped for air and danced on the tips of her toes. She was stuck, caught in place. She scowled.

“What the blazes?” she ground out. She tried to turn, but she could not.

Her bonnet, which had bounced off and had been hanging off her back, was now completely and totally wound about one of the statue’s arms.

She tried to twist to see it better.

It was a statue of Cupid and his beloved Psyche.

How absolutely annoying.

Ernestine had no wish for Cupid at present. Or for the story of his great love for Psyche. The fact that he’d fallen in love with her after watching her and without a single exchange between them made Ernestine fairly skeptical.

She loathed Cupid.

Frankly, she wished Cupid would stay far away from her.

Getting pierced by an arrow seemed like a terrible thing.

A terrible way to fall in love. Now, she knew the story, of course, that Cupid had been pierced by his own arrow when he was supposed to kill Psyche, who he fell in love with instead, but truthfully, that too sounded absolutely appalling.

The whole story was appalling.

Life was appalling.

London was appalling.

And her being caught on the entwined lovers statue was also appalling.

Surely, she could get herself extricated from this mess.

“Miss,” someone drawled, “are you quite all right?”

“Do I look all right?” she returned, tensing.

“No,” he said with surprisingly good humor. “Not really. Would you care for assistance?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “What sort of assistance are you planning to give?”

There was something about that voice that was completely unlike the son of a duke’s. There was no mockery in it.

In fact, it was resonant, deep, rumbling and…compassionate.

“I saw you running down the path from a distance and thought perhaps you might need some care, and it seems as if you have gotten yourself into quite a situation.”

“Yes, from one to the next.” She sighed, still dancing on her tiptoes.

“What the devil caused you to race like that? A bee?” he asked.

“Not a bee,” she ground out. “A bee would be far preferable, for they are excellent creatures. It was a bothersome group of young men.”

And then the gentleman she was speaking to strode into her view, and his face, dear God, his face was as captivating as any Roman god’s in this garden.

Cupid, who was exceptionally handsome, had nothing on him.

His jaw was chiseled and cut. His cheekbones were high.

His dark hair was tousled. His frame was pure bliss.

Yes, heaven. He looked as if he would be able to complete any labor assigned to him by one of the fiercer gods of the pantheon with ease.

In fact, it looked like he had only just descended from Jupiter’s side.

If she needed extraction from any difficulty, surely this rather formidable fellow would be able to do it.

Unless, of course, he was the difficulty itself.

Her insides did the strangest fluttering, but it was hard to release the tension she had felt after just a few moments in the company of such terrible individuals.

“And do you agree with the other gentlemen that I just interacted with?”

“I highly doubt it,” he said, a strangled growl in his voice, “if they have caused you distress. What did they say?”

“That I am essentially fair game since I am alone.”

His eyes shone then, like twin torch lights. “They said that?”

She sucked in a breath. “It is what they inferred.”

He strode to her slowly, his body languid, as if the world belonged to him and there was no need to rush or justify anything that he said or did.

She winced for a moment, because she could not escape, but it wasn’t his presence that made her wince. No, it was her situation, the very situation that made all young ladies feel trapped. When one had to rely on the help of a man and prayed that the one helping was a good one.

He looked down at her, since he towered well over six feet. He arched a dark brow and vowed gently, “Whatever help you need, I will give it…before I go pound those other louts into the ground. No lady should ever have to be afraid, and certainly not in my garden.”