The Redemption of a Dissolute Earl (7 page)

Relinquishing his tight control on his
emotions, Drew dropped his face into his hands and inhaled a long,
shuddering breath. Pretending as if he did not feel like he was
dead inside while trying to carry on a semblance of conversation
with Edgeworth had been one of the most tedious things Drew had
ever done. Especially since Edgeworth had kept questioning Drew
about what he would do if Char had not now been married. As if it
bloody well mattered.

Damn Char
. She
was
now married
to another man, and every part of Drew ached with longing and loss.
He wanted to sleep and forget her in his dreams, but that was
wishful thinking. He would dream of her―he always did.

He would give his life for the chance to
hold her in his arms and tell her what a fool he had been and that
he would give up everything just to be with her if giving his life
would change a thing. But it wouldn’t. She would still be married,
and he would still be the idiot who had forced her down that
path.

What if he had been blunt and direct when he
had collided with her in the theatre, instead of trying to be
clever? Would her wedding still have transpired? Would he still
have arrived at Salisbury’s, only to be informed by the haughty,
tight-lipped butler that they had missed the wedding and that the
happy couple was gone on their honeymoon?

Drew sat back and allowed the devastation he
had stored within himself since this afternoon to fill his heart.
He clenched the edge of the seat against the pain of his loss.

He would never get to enjoy the fantasy of
domesticity he had painted of them inside his mind. They would not
read by the crackling fire, while their children—at least four of
them—played by their feet. Or there was the fantasy where they were
riding horses through the meadows and they stopped to enjoy a lazy
summer romp in the soft grass underneath the sun’s warming
rays.

He closed his eyes and saw her face, but not
as it had looked in his fantasy. She was sad.
So sad
. And no
bloody wonder why. She had married a man who did not love her, and
Drew suspected she did not love Salisbury either.

Drew had failed himself, failed
her―
hell
he had even managed to drag Salisbury and Miss
Marchinson down with him and all because one year ago, he’d allowed
his father to convince him that he could never survive without his
inheritance. Drew laughed bitterly. He’d been putting some of the
blame for his shambles of a life on his father, but that was a
mistake. The blame lay squarely on Drew’s shoulders. He could have
rebuffed his father’s demand, he could have married Char anyway,
and he damn sure as hell would have been happy―poor or not.

What did he have now?
Nothing.
His
plan since finding out Char was in London and still unmarried had
been to win her back and spend his life proving he was a man worthy
of her love. Now that she was married, he couldn’t even tell her
how he felt and how sorry he was should he ever see her again.

The carriage jerked to a sudden stop, and
then the door swung open, frigid air blasting him in the face.
“What the bloody hell?” He drew his coat tight around his body as
Edgeworth’s coachman, Roberts, appeared in the door, lit lamp in
hand.

“I’m sorry for the inconvenience, my lord.”
Roberts drew the lamp near his face. “A coach is stranded on the
side of the road, and I thought perhaps…”

“By all means,” Drew said and clambered out
of the coach into the biting wind.

“Oh, no, sir,” the coachman said on a
strangled gasp. “I wasn’t implying that you should get out.”

Drew waved the man’s assisting hand away. “I
know, but I want to help.” Char may never be in his life again, but
damn it all, he
would
be a better man. He would be the man
he should have been. The first order of business was putting others
before himself. No longer did Andrew Whitton, Earl of Hardwick,
exist. That self-indulgent fool was gone. If he was going to have
more money and power than he deserved, then he was going to use it
to do good.

Decision made, Drew followed Roberts through
the deep snow, the lamp flickering eerily in the dark night.
Roberts reached the carriage just ahead of Drew and opened the door
as he approached. The man turned towards him, and Drew faltered in
his step at the deathly whiteness on Robert’s face displayed by the
light of the lamp. “My lord, don’t come any closer,” Roberts
whispered as if talking any louder might wake the dead.

Disregarding the man’s warning, Drew moved
to advance, but Roberts held out a barring hand. “’Tis nothing a
lord such as you will wish to see.” The coachman glanced over his
shoulder and into the carriage before turning back to Drew. “I
believe the lady is dead. You needn’t expose yourself.”

Drew shoved the man’s well-meaning hand
away. “Let’s check the poor soul before you declare her departed to
the maker.” Drew moved past the grumbling coachman, grasping the
lamp as he did so. He leaned into the carriage and held the lamp in
front of him. The light flickered and danced across the dark space
creating misshapen figures and a distorted shadow across the body
of the woman. She lay still in death, a shiny gun resting on her
lap. Drew carefully removed the gun and set it on the coach
floor.

As he stood and really took a good look at
her, his heart lurched in pity as the light from the lantern shone
on her fine silk gown, her creamy, slender hands, her luxurious red
hair, and the swell of her high breasts. She was young by all
appearances.

How wrong and sad to die alone and in fear.
Drew swallowed and moved the lamp to view the woman’s face.
Disbelief stole his breath until horror exploded into a
blood-curdling cry. He dropped the lamp, lunged into the carriage,
and grabbed Charlotte, pressing her cold body to his chest.
“Charlotte,” he heard himself moan, her name becoming a tortured
chant as grief threatened to swallow him.

“Char,” Drew cried out again, burying his
head against her neck.

“Yes?” came a muffled reply. Drew jerked
backwards and stared through the shadowy darkness into Char’s
face.

She wrapped her arms around her midsection.
“I must have fallen asleep.”

Asleep?
He couldn’t form a coherent
thought past that one word. Shaking, he fell into the seat beside
Charlotte and groped until he found her hand. Though she flicked
his fingers away, he clasped her hand firmly in his. “You’re
alive.”

“It appears so,” she said.

“I thought you were dead.” He could not keep
his voice from shaking.

Edgeworth leaned into the coach, lamp in
hand. “Clearly, she’s not,” he drawled. “You never have been very
observant, Hardwick, old boy.”

Drew snatched the lamp out of his cousin’s
grasp and waved him away. “Go sit in the carriage,
Edgeworth
. We’ll be there directly.” Edgeworth opened his
mouth as if to retort, glanced from Charlotte to Drew, and nodded,
backing out of the carriage.

Needing reassurance that Char was indeed all
right, Drew slowly removed her glove and rubbed his fingers gently
over the top of her hand. Her skin was cold, but now that his head
was clearing and logical thought was returning, he could detect a
faint warmness that signaled life.
Her life.
He hadn’t lost
the only person he had ever loved to death―only marriage to another
man.

Drew’s fingers curled tightly around her
small, delicate bones. Bones that should be protected at all cost
at all times by her husband. Rage exploded inside of Drew. “Where
the bloody hell is Salisbury?”

Char frowned and tried to tug her hand away,
but Drew held tight. “How should I know?” she said, tugging again.
“Drew.”
There was an unmistakable warning in her sharp tone,
but he didn’t damn well care. This could be the last time he ever
got to feel her softness, caress her, be so near to her, and he was
not going to give up the moment until he was in danger of losing
his bollocks from frostbite.

“Char.” He brought her hand to his lips and
pressed a soft kiss on her flesh.

A small gasp escaped her. “You mustn’t do
that,” she whispered.

He knew he shouldn’t touch her, but knowing
she was right fueled his anger. “Because of your husband?” he
snarled.

“No.” She snatched her hand away, and he
forced himself not to reach out and grab her hand once again.
Instead, he handed her glove to her. He wouldn’t dishonor her
again, though the need to touch her was a physical ache twitching
in every muscle he possessed. “Where’s your illustrious husband?
Why did he leave you on your wedding night on the side of the road
without anyone in sight to protect you?”

“Salisbury didn’t abandon me.” Charlotte
looked down at her hands. “He’s not my husband.”

“
What?”
Drew could hardly believe
he’d heard correctly.

Charlotte’s gaze remained on her hands,
which were squeezed into two small fists on her lap. “I…I broke the
betrothal last night.”

The block of ice that had been lodged in
Drew’s chest for the last year and doubled in size upon thinking
she was married melted with her words. He set the lamp beside him,
slid across the space separating them, hooked a finger under her
chin, and raised her face so he could see her eyes. “Because of
me?”

She pushed his hand away. “Certainly
not.”

Char’s lips twitched, displaying her
deception. She never had been a very good liar. It took all of
Drew’s will to contain his grin. “Then why?”

“Simple,” she said. “I do not love him.”

“Because you still love me,” he said
emphatically.

“Ridiculous,” Char disagreed, but the denial
was weak, breathless.

“Prove you don’t love me.” He splayed one
hand over the small of her back and slid the other up to cup the
delicate curve of her head. His body hummed with his need. Char’s
pink tongue darted out to lick her full lips.

She stared at him for a moment, her green
gaze unblinking. Finally, she sighed. “Let me go,” she said
simply.

He couldn’t, though a gentleman would. The
possibility of regaining Char changed all the rules. He was no
gentleman anymore. He was a man determined to win the woman he
loved no matter what he had to do. “I can’t.”

She quirked an eyebrow. “Can’t or
won’t?”

“Both.”

“Drew, I’m no toy for you to pick up off the
shelf because you’re interested in playing with me again. I’ll not
let what happened between us
ever
happen again.”

“I won’t either,” he promised. It was now or
never. He’d bare it all to her. Risk it all for her. “I love you.
I’ve loved you since that first afternoon we kissed at the meadow,
and I’ve never stopped. I’ve been a fool. I’ve been weak,
and
I’ve been drunk for a year. Now all I want to be is a
man you can love. I want to be your husband and for you to be my
wife.”

Charlotte had dreamed of Drew saying those
words to her at least a thousand times. But the dream had been of
Drew declaring himself the day his father had demanded he break
their betrothal, or at least the next day when he came to his
senses. The dream had never, ever been one year later, after she
had endured hell trying to forget him. Why was he toying with her?
Why now? “What is it, Drew? Are you bored? Did the women in Paris
become dull? The drink too watered-down?”

“You tracked me to Paris?”

She stared at him, refusing to be
baited.

“
You still care
.”

Oh, good grief
. She couldn’t let him
think that. “I did not track you,” Charlotte insisted. And she
hadn’t. Not really. She’d overheard whispers and she had listened,
instead of turning away. She was human, after all.

Drew grinned an infuriatingly handsome grin,
which took Charlotte instantly back to the first time she had seen
him on his return from Eaton―tall, muscled, and eyes twinkling with
merry mischief, all directed her way. She had been naïve. And her
father had sheltered her too much. One fall from a ladder followed
by one glorious smile from Drew―and the realization that he had
finally noticed her after all the years of her being the invisible
butler’s daughter―and Charlotte had not stood a chance. Her head
had been calm, but her heart raced right out of the gate and took
her senses with it.