The Redemption of a Dissolute Earl (8 page)

Drew’s face came so close to hers she could
see the blond, unshaven whiskers, the small white scar on the cleft
of his chin, the fine lines on the surface of his lips. She
swallowed her desire. She could not play his doxy. She could not be
drawn into his game and come out standing.

Before she knew what he was about, he swept
her hair off her neck, her skin tingling where his fingers touched
her skin. “You’re wrong about everything, Char. The whiskey was
plenty strong, but I could never consume enough to forget what I’d
done to you.”

Damn him. Hearing he had been plagued with
guilt made her heart squeeze with empathy. She refused to let him
off the hook or believe him.

He traced his fingers down her cheekbone,
and she shivered with just how much she had missed his touch.
“There were no women, ever, not once, because none of them were
you.”

“
Never?”
Why was she even asking? As
if he would tell her otherwise. Yet he did sound earnest.

He brushed a soft kiss across her lips. “I
swear it.”

Her body responded with such jarring desire
it scared her. Was she so weak that she would forget how he had
betrayed her and hurt her simply because he gave her two admissions
and a vow? Intent on putting a safe distance between them, she
pulled away, but Drew gripped her tighter. “Please, Char. I deserve
your doubt. Hell, I deserve your anger, but I swear it’s always
been you I love. It will always be you I love.”

His words swirled inside of her, coiling
around her heart like a snake and tempting her to bite of the apple
in the garden of his Eden. She squeezed her eyes shut, breathed
deeply, and willed her senses not to desert her. She was no Eve,
and Drew offered no garden, only the poison of rejection when he
hurt her again. She opened her eyes slowly and stared at him. “I
find that hard to believe. Now if you’ll excuse me?”

She did not wait for his response. Sliding
past him, she scrambled out of the carriage and into the dark, cold
night. A blast of wind hit her in the face. If that didn’t cool her
desire nothing would. Shivering, she wrapped her arms around
herself as Drew’s boots clomped down the carriage steps behind her.
She didn’t want another confrontation. She started to walk away,
not entirely sure of where she was going or what she was doing.

Drew caught her arm before she’d taken her
second step. She whirled on him, angry that he was hounding her
now, after she had finally come to peace with it all, and horribly
angry at herself for that small part of her that still thrilled at
his touch. “Let go, Drew. I don’t believe you could ever love me
enough to give up your allowance, and I have more important matters
to tend to.”

“Such as?”

“My coachman and my father,” she snapped.
Now there was the Drew she had remembered for the last year. The
self-indulged earl who had vowed he loved her then thrown her over
for fear of losing his money.

“Char, I don’t doubt you have more important
things to think of than me, I just thought perhaps I could
help.”

Why did have to go and say that? And look
wounded and self-sacrificing all at the same time. Now she felt
like a complete cad. “I fear my coachman has come to harm on the
road. We were on the way to Danby because I received a letter that
my father is very ill.” She clenched her jaw on the threatening
tears. “My coach broke down, and my coachman went in search of
help.”

Drew released her arm and shrugged out of
his overcoat. He placed it on her shoulders and began to button it
up. She knew she should protest him putting his coat on her. It was
entirely too familiar, too much like something someone who really
cared for another would do. But it was cold. She pulled at the
folds of his coat, and sighed when his familiar manly smell filled
her senses.

He put his arm around her waist and pulled
her to his side. “We’ll find your coachman immediately, and I’ll
take you personally to Danby. I’m on my way there myself.”

“I don’t need you to take me.” It was one
thing to accept his overcoat in order to avoid freezing to death,
it was quite another to allow him to grip her, soften her, seduce
her once again. She shrugged away from him. “I’ve my own
coach.”

“That thing back there?”

“It’s a perfectly acceptable coach,” she
said tartly. Maybe it wasn’t as expensive as
his
coach, but
it was quite nice―when all the wheels were working.

“Don’t be foolish. Even if your coach were
not in disrepair, Edgeworth’s coach is superior―”

“Ah, words spoken by the pompous earl who
would never dream of parting with his money.”
Damnation
! She
bit her lip. She’d never meant to say so much. To appear
wounded.

The corners of Drew’s mouth turned down.
“What I was going to say―before you interrupted me―is that
Edgeworth’s coach is built for speed. Your coach is built for
comfort. It is a simple matter of their purposes. Not a matter of
any superiority of my cousin’s coach.”

She clenched her jaw together against
apologizing or accepting his offer. He may sound changed, but he
was bad for her. Her head knew it, even if her heart and her body
wanted to believe something else. She needed to get away from him
as soon as possible.

“You surprise me, Char,” Drew said, his tone
mildly disapproving, his look even more so.

“How do I surprise you? Because I am not
falling at your feet? Asking you to step inside the carriage with
me and have a quick romp?”

Drew took in a long, audible breath. “No. I
never expected either of those things from you. I’m surprised you
would delay reaching your father for the sake of your pride.”

He thought this was all about pride
?
She rubbed the back of her stiff neck. Thank God he didn’t suspect
just how much she wanted to throw herself into his arms and feel
his lips on her body. It wasn’t simply pride, though she did need
to keep what little she had left. She feared she would crumble
under her desire when in such cramped quarters with him and end up
back in his bed. But he had a point. She wanted to reach her father
as soon as possible. “I’ll ride with you.”

“Excellent. Then we’ll sleep at the Queen’s
Head tonight and leave together at first light tomorrow for
Danby.”

She wanted to argue that they should ride
through tonight, but in light of how bad the weather had turned it
was a ridiculous proposition. “Fine,” she murmured, trying
desperately to ignore the burgeoning giddiness the thought of being
so near him for an entire day brought to her. She couldn’t be weak
or stupid. “You will sit on the opposite side of the coach
tomorrow.”

“Whatever you demand.”

“How surprising,” she said churlishly. “I
knew you were one who did as commanded, I just had no idea money
didn’t have to be involved.”

“You’ve every right to be cruel. I deserve
it. But know this—I’d rather be penniless than spend one more
second without you, and I’m going to prove myself to you.”

“Just how do you plan to do that?” She was
tired of his declarations. Declarations without actions were so
easy to make. “Do you mean to face your father and tell him you’re
going to marry me? Or better yet,” she taunted as she strode toward
his carriage, unleashing all the pain she had stored inside her for
a year, “perhaps you plan to actually marry me this time. I’ll tell
you this—” she poked him in the chest— “I’d never be so stupid as
to fall for your lies
again
and let you bed me and
leave
me
twice.”

“I wouldn’t want you to,” Drew said simply.
“I’ll not lay one finger on you until you’re my wife. That’s a
promise.” Instantly, his warm lips covered hers, sucking, kneading,
and leaving her knees weak when he drew back.

She pressed her fingers to her swollen lips.
“You touched me,” she accused in desperation against the chaos he
had caused inside her.

“Not with my fingers,” he said with a wink
and a wicked grin before motioning for her to climb into the
carriage unassisted.

Half a mile down the road, they found
Charlotte’s coachman limping through the deep snow at a pace Drew
suspected would never have gotten the man to the Queen’s Head
before Christmas. Thank God Drew and Edgeworth had come by when
they did. If Char had waited for her coachman to rescue her, she
would have truly been good and frozen to death. And then Drew
really would have been destroyed. As Charlotte wrapped blankets
around her coachman and fretted over his twisted ankle, Drew tried
not to glower at the older man. Based on Edgeworth’s smirk, Drew
had not successfully disguised his irritation with the
coachman.

It was petty to begrudge the hurt man Char’s
nurturing attentions. The fellow had, after all, set out through
the snow to bring help for Char, and of course it wasn’t the clumsy
oaf’s fault he’d stepped in a hole and twisted his ankle. Despite
those facts, Drew couldn’t help the annoyance gripping him. He
wanted nothing more than to be near Char, to feel the heat of her
body, the press of her leg against his, and to be close enough to
smell the scent of freesia that lingered around her and filled his
lungs every time he breathed in.

Instead of the stolen, precious moments near
her he had anticipated when they set out for the Queen’s Head, he
now sat next to Edgeworth, who smelled like sweat and liquor and
kept stepping on Drew’s foot. The change in his circumstances made
him surly, and when they rode up to the Queen’s Head Inn and he saw
the overflowing courtyard packed with too many carriages to count,
his mood worsened.

“Oh, dear.” Charlotte leaned forward,
prompting Drew to hurriedly do the same so he could get a whiff of
her heavenly scent. This might be the closest he would get to her
for the rest of the night the way his luck was running. Still his
circumstances were better than they had been mere hours before. At
least now he knew that Char was not married. He would win her back
if it took a lifetime. Though a night was vastly more preferable.
Char frowned out the window then slowly sat back. She turned to
him, her pretty pink lips pulled down in worry. He had to curl his
fingers into a fist so he would not break his oath not to touch her
until they were married. What a damnably stupid oath to make.

“If the inn’s full, what will we do?”

“We’ll get them to squeeze us in. Don’t
worry.”

“Leave it to me,” Edgeworth said, putting on
his gloves. “I’ll simply tell them the Duke of Danby’s
grandchildren have arrived, and they can boot some other riff-raff
out of their room for us.”

“What a horrid thing to even think of
doing,” Char snapped. “I wish I could say I’m surprised, but I’m
not.” Her glare landed on Drew like a dagger. He shot Edgeworth a
glare before returning his eyes to Char.

“The suggestion was not mine.”

“I’m sure you were thinking it.”

Drew flinched. He had thought it and quickly
dismissed it, but he would never have dismissed the same thought in
the past. The fact that it had once been true and she still thought
him to be of deplorable, entitled behavior and character made it
all the harder to hear now. He gave Edgeworth a quick jab in his
side for reminding Char what an ass Drew had been in the past.

“Say, that hurt,” Edgeworth grumbled while
rubbing at his injury.

Drew didn’t feel the least bit of remorse.
The bloody fool should have known better. Now Char was mad at him
for what he’d done in his past and what Edgeworth had stupidly said
in the present. And Drew was mad at himself because of how much he
knew he had wounded her, that her words to him were constantly
laced with hurt.

Char shook her head. “I’ll have no part in
your throwing some poor souls out of their rooms. You two—” she
waved her hand at Drew and Edgeworth— “may invoke your
grandfather’s name all you like to the detriment of the riff-raff
better known as commoners. A class, might I remind you,
Lord
Edgeworth,
I
am part of.”

“I’m sorry, Miss Milne. I spoke before I
thought.”

“A problem since his birth,” Drew
growled.

“No doubt a recurring problem for
both
of you,” Char snapped, “given that your parents
instilled in all of you since your births that you’re better than
everyone else.” Char’s coachman jerked as she tapped him on the
shoulder. He whipped his head up, his cheeks flaming red, his eyes
darting everywhere but on them. “Let us get out, Mr. Perkins, and
leave these two to their plotting.”

“I’m not plotting,” Drew said helplessly,
clambering down the ladder after Char. She was halfway to the
entrance of the inn before he caught up. “Char.” He grabbed her arm
to stop her brisk exodus from his presence. “Are you going to stay
mad at me all night for something I didn’t even say?”