Engaging the Earl

He is a master strategist, but she’s laying siege to his heart...

Vivacious Lady Katherine Granfield is the toast of the ton, but society’s most eligible miss secretly yearns for her childhood love, the man who vanished after her father forbade their marriage.

When the dark and brooding Edward Stanhope returns, his battlefield strategies having won him an earldom, he’s no longer a second son with no prospects. His return should be a victorious one, but the new Earl of Randolph possesses secret demons that no one can discover. Least of all, Katherine.

When the man she can’t forget reappears at her betrothal ball, Kat’s perfectly arranged future is thrown into tumult. Despite proper decorum, she sets out to win back her first love, but Edward is determined to remain cold and distant for her sake. As the debutante engages the war strategist in battle, he may find himself outmaneuvered.

Engaging the Earl

An Accidental Peers Novel

Diana Quincy

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

Copyright © 2014 by Dora Mekouar. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means. For information regarding subsidiary rights, please contact the Publisher.

Entangled Publishing, LLC

2614 South Timberline Road

Suite 109

Fort Collins, CO 80525

Visit our website at
www.entangledpublishing.com
.

Edited by Alethea Spiridon Hopson and Kate Fall

Cover design by Heidi Stryker

ISBN 978-1-62266-700-0

Manufactured in the United States of America

First Edition June 2014

For Taoufiq, who believed in me before anyone else.

Prologue

If she let him leave, he would be lost to her forever.

“You must ruin me.” Lady Katherine Granville’s clumsy fingers struggled to unlace the satin ribbons holding her snug bodice together. “It’s the only way.”

“Stop talking nonsense, Kitty.” Edward Stanhope’s large hands closed over hers, preventing Kat from exposing herself. His long musician’s fingers inadvertently brushed the tender swell of white flesh above her bodice and the sensation burned its way through her blood. With a sharp intake of breath, he snatched his hand away and gently urged Kat toward the doors leading from the music room to the terrace.

“Your maid awaits.” His tender hand brushed a tendril from her face. “You must return home before your father discovers you are not abed.”

Panic welled. If she left now, untouched, Edward would be lost to her forever. She looked into the face of the only man she could ever imagine loving, into the slant of his velvet green eyes topped by dark amber curls. His rounded cheeks were still full in the way of a boy who’d not yet matured into the man he would become.

“No.” She almost screamed the word. Grabbing Edward’s arm before he could ease her away from him, she gulped air into her deflated lungs. “Let us go to Gretna Green. Now, before we are discovered.”

Edward closed his eyes. When he opened them, pain shone in those clouded depths. “We cannot. There is no honor in that. Hush now, Kitty. You will wake the household.”

They were all asleep above stairs, Edward’s parents and brothers. She’d found Edward alone in his favorite place, the music room just off the terrace, where he’d returned after meeting with her father.

“It’s the only path for us now that Father has rejected your suit. Surely you see that.” She blinked against the pressure of tears building behind her eyes. “I hate him. He had no right.”

“He has every right.” His tone was firm. “The daughter of an earl should set her sights higher than a mere mister.”

“You are the nephew of a marquess. Soon to be the brother of one.”

“With no fortune to speak of.”

“You are an artist.” She thought of his passionate music compositions. “The most talented musician in all of England.”

“Hardly that. I am a second son who dabbles in music. Your father is quite right to say I have no prospects.”

“Don’t speak of yourself that way.” Fear squeezed her chest. “It isn’t true.”

“Of course it is. My brother will be a marquess, but what of me? I am one-and-twenty with no prospects beyond amusing myself with music.”

“Those are my father’s words, not yours.”

“You are young, Kitty, just ten-and-six. You’ll be a diamond of the first when you make your come-out. Titled gentleman will vie for your affection.”

“Stop! Why are you talking like this?” He was like a wave pulling away from the beach and she was helpless to stop it. Her father’s words from earlier in the evening reverberated in her head.
You will thank me one day, Katherine, once you’ve realized I stopped you from ruining your life.
Now, standing at the glass terrace doors, feeling the chill coming through them, she raised her voice. “I don’t care if we awaken the entire household. I hope I do. Then I shall be compromised and we will have to marry.”

The grim set of his features sent fear arrowing down her back. “You should know,” he said evenly, “that I have purchased a commission. I leave in a fortnight.”

“What?” Her pulse blasted in her ears. She couldn’t possibly have heard him correctly. “You can’t
leave
.”

Firm hands gripped her shoulders. “I’m joining the fight on the Continent.”

A horse stomping on her chest could not have been more painful. “You would give up on us?” she asked in a voice edged with growing hysteria. “You are leaving me?”

“I do this for us.” His determined gaze bored into her. “I shall serve valiantly. Once I make something of myself, I’ll come back for you.”

She shook her head, disbelief crowding out all cogent thought. “What if you die?” Fear blanketed her. “What will become of me then?”

“I will not die.” He cradled her face with his tapered artist’s fingers, brushing away her tears with his thumb. “I have far too much to live for.”

“No. Marry me now.” She would lose him forever if he went off to war. Snatching his hand from her cheek, she pulled it to her breast with both hands. The tender little mound swelled under his touch, its peak straining upward. “Why would you go to war when we can go to Gretna Green?”

His breathing arrested and he recoiled as though he’d touched a venomous snake. But Kat held tight to his hand with both of hers. “You want this as much as I,” she pleaded, tears flowing down her cheeks.

He cursed. Something she had never heard him do. His large hand closed over her breast and she almost sobbed in triumph. “Devil take it. You tempt me so.” Groaning, he pulled her close, burying his face in her hair. She’d left it long and loose on purpose, knowing how much he appreciated the shiny, wheat-colored strands. He cupped her breast through her clothing, kneading it, his thumb running over the pearl tip with increasing urgency.

Elation and relief poured through her. She’d won. He’d not abandon her after all. She rubbed herself against his body, savoring the comforting angles of his form and the way his clean soap scent poured over her. The firm pressure of his arousal against the swell of her belly caused a thousand nerve endings to dance with anticipation.

“I’ll always be with you, Kitty, always.” His hand slipped inside her bodice to fondle her bare breast and her skin purred with delight. No one else could make her body feel these strange, wondrous sensations. She arched into him, her mouth seeking his, and he obliged, his warm soft lips coming down to rub against hers with gentle insistence. She floated into the pleasure of it, her legs feeling like ribbons streaming in a warm breeze.

Then his tongue was pushing into her willing mouth, stroking against hers in urgent motions. He’d never kissed her like this before: hot, wet and open mouthed. He tasted like life and breath. She would die without him. Her terror at his leaving gave way to the physical need ratcheting up in her body.

His warm lips trailed down her neck, pulling her bodice open, baring her to him. He licked the top swell of her breast before taking the point fully into his mouth. Her insides swelled with sensation and she trembled, feeling close to bursting.

“Promise me,” he said as he mouthed her tender flesh.

“Mmmm, anything.” She strained against him, her head thrown back, eyes closed. “I shall promise you anything.”

“I couldn’t bear for any other man to see you thus.” His humid breath swept across the moist tip of her breast. “Promise you’ll wait for me until I return.”

What?
Disbelief surged, followed by anger so intense it swamped her senses. Slamming her palms against his shoulders, she shoved him away with the full force of her fury.

The suddenness of the movement stunned him, knocking him from his kneeling position at her breast to flat on his arse, his hands braced behind him. His eyes widened. “What was that for?”

Glaring at him, she pulled her top closed to cover her exposed flesh. “You still intend to go?”

“I thought you understood.” He frowned, appearing genuinely befuddled. “I do this for us, for our future. Once I make something of myself, we shall marry.”

“Why? I’ve told you I love you as you are.” Tears stung her eyes again. Her body still hummed from his caresses. How could he even think of leaving her? “I don’t have a care for what my father thinks.”

His eyes changed—the green in them darkened, draining them almost of all color. He pushed up from the floor, his lanky legs moving in a swift motion. “But I do care,” he said in a hard voice. “The earl’s esteem is of importance to me. You will want your husband to have your father’s respect.”

“I can’t believe you’re deserting me.” The answering surge of pain and fury almost incapacitated her. “How could you do this? How could you?” Trembling with anger, she stumbled toward the glass terrace door and pulled it open. A rush of icy winter air pelted her face. His pleading voice followed her into the frigid night.

“Promise me that you will wait for me.
Promise it
.”

She turned to take one last look at him. Her eyes moved over the dark amber curls, the turn of his boyish cheeks, the tall full body whose soft warmth she craved. Dread raked her skin. Her gentle Edward was no soldier. He would die on the battlefield.

“No.” Her voice shook with feeling. “Mark me, Edward Stanhope. If you go, I will not wait for you. I swear to hate you until my dying day.”

Color leached from his face. “You mustn’t speak that way.”

“If you leave, don’t come back. I mean it.” She stumbled out the door and along the terrace to where Fanny, her maid, waited for her.

Fanny stepped out from the shadows with concern etched in her face. “We must hurry, my lady. His lordship will have my head if he finds you gone.”

Numb with grief, she allowed Fanny to usher her away. A shattering noise pierced the air. Kat froze, listening to the crashing sounds of splintering wood coming from the music room she’d just left.

Fanny’s eyes narrowed at the expression she saw on her mistress’s face. “Come along, my lady. We must return.”

Ignoring her, Kat pivoted and flew back to the windowed wall of the music room that ran along the terrace. She peered in from the shadows to see Edward holding his violin high above his head with both hands, bringing it down with all of his force, smashing it against the wall, pieces of the fine wood splintering everywhere. Shock paralyzed her. Nothing was dearer to Edward than his music. The violin, one of his most prized possessions, had come from Italy.

The look on his face caused her stomach to contract with alarm. Edward’s countenance, always so kind and expressive, now beheld a storm of darkness, his eyes nothing more than hollow shadows.

Sucking in a shuddering breath, she forced herself to turn away.