When a Girl Loves an Earl (Rescued from Ruin Book 5)
Read When a Girl Loves an Earl (Rescued from Ruin Book 5) Online
Authors: Elisa Braden
When a Girl Loves an Earl
by Elisa Braden
Copyright 2016 by Elisa Braden
Kindle Direct Publishing Edition
Cover design by Kim Killion at The Killion Group, Inc.
Couple photo by Period Images, Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any form by any means—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without express written permission from the author.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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For more information about the author, visit
www.elisabraden.com
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BOOKS BY ELISA BRADEN
Rescued from Ruin Series
The Madness of Viscount Atherbourne (Book One)
The Truth About Cads and Dukes (Book Two)
Desperately Seeking a Scoundrel (Book Three)
The Devil Is a Marquess (Book Four)
When a Girl Loves an Earl (Book Five)
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There’s much more to come in the Rescued from Ruin series! Connect with Elisa through
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DEDICATION
For all the girls who have stared intractable adversity straight in the eye and said, “There must be a way.” This one’s for you.
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CONTENTS
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CHAPTER ONE
“Use your colossal head for more than hammering stone, boy. Must I think of everything?”
—The Dowager Marchioness of Wallingham to the Earl of Tannenbrook in a moment of perplexity at said gentleman’s unyielding nature.
June 4, 1802
Netherdunnie, Scotland
“Yer heid be harder than that block, laddie,” grumbled Mr. McFadden, slumped and weathered against the rough-edged door. “I told ye tae leave it fer me. Auld I may be, but these bones binna dust yet.”
Jamie paused as he straightened with the block in his arms. Even at sixteen, he could carry twice what other men could with half the effort. Of a certainty, he would not leave a man forty years his senior to lift such a load when he could do it without losing a breath. He raised a brow at the iron-miened stonemason who had honed him like a fine block of granite these past five years. “Shall I set ’er doon here, then, rather than upon yer bench?”
McFadden grunted, glanced at his own gnarled hands and the heavy downpour beyond the windows of his workshop, then sighed into a frown. “Dinna be daft.”
Keeping his expression carefully neutral, Jamie moved the heavy sandstone block to McFadden’s workbench, bending his knees to set it gently upon the scarred wood.
All day, he had battled a grin. Everything delighted him. McFadden’s false gruffness and stubborn pride. The smooth-planed surface he’d achieved on his own block of stone—the beginnings of a set of corbels for a grand house between Netherdunnie and Edinburgh. Even the thick, constant rain turning the roads to a muddy stew.
Today, everything shone to a high polish.
Because of her.
Today, she would agree to marry him. He could feel it the same way McFadden’s knuckles could sense a coming storm.
“What the devil has ye grinnin’ sae, laddie?” McFadden grumbled, whisking away a bit of dust from the block and scowling in Jamie’s direction.
Instantly, Jamie reined his mouth back into line.
“Gie’s the mallet,” the old man said, nodding to the tool near Jamie’s hand.
He handed his former master the mallet and watched McFadden begin boning in the edges of the block with emphatic strikes against the head of his chisel. Chips of sandstone flew, striking Jamie’s leather apron.
“Ye might as well gae’n see her. Seems that’s where yer heid be anyhou.”
The grin broke open again. “Thank ye, Mr. McFadden.” Jamie stripped his apron with sharp tugs, flinging it at the peg on the wall before rushing to the workshop door.
“Slow doon, ye fool. She’ll be there whither ye tear that door from its frame wi’ yer great, muckle fist or no.”
Jamie scarcely heard the caution, but it was unnecessary. When he’d sprouted to his current size, towering over everyone in the village, he’d dented more than a few lintels with his skull before learning to duck when he passed through a doorway. He’d also required only one instance of accidentally shoving his sister to the ground with a playful swat of her shoulder before realizing his new strength required great temperance, especially with women. Now, despite a drumming heart demanding he rush to meet his bonnie love, he paused long enough to snag his hat and plunk it upon his head before striding out into the silvery deluge. He felt not a drop upon his skin. Heeded none of the shouted greetings as he strode purposefully down the muddy lanes of his village, past the smithy where his father had labored until his death, beyond the small inn welcoming wayfarers on the road to Edinburgh. He started across the expanse of the green with scarcely a thought … apart from one: Alison. She would be his wife.
An apprentice no longer, he was now worthy of a journeyman’s wages, and while his mother might think him a lad, he was in every measure a man: He had become a craftsman, perhaps not yet of similar renown as McFadden, but one who worked and earned his way. He could support a wife. Perhaps a bairn or two.
Additionally, lads were small. He was taller and larger than anyone in the village—anyone he had ever seen pass through the village, for that matter. The width of his shoulders forced him to both stoop and sidle through narrow corridors.
And last, but by no means least, he had already lain with a lass.
His
lass.
Three times.
He’d not torn her asunder, as he’d feared. No, he had found pleasure beyond compare. And his saucy, earthy Alison had found her own as well, if her moaning and carrying on were an indication.
His smile returned. He could not wait to see her again.
The shorn grass had gone flat and soft beneath the onslaught of rain, making the ground slick and slowing his progress. Urgency thrummed in his blood. Perhaps Alison would let him touch her again. His palms tingled with the possibility.
“… Jamie!”
He would start by kissing her. If he hurried, he would no doubt catch her behind her father’s dairy, waiting for him beneath the stout oak tree, her ready smile gleaming a welcome.
“Slow doon,” a feminine voice echoed behind him. “I canna run in these skirts.”
He glanced over his shoulder to see his sister straining to catch up with him, the brim of her bonnet a nearly solid fall of water. “What are ye aboot, Nellie?” he called across the thirty feet she struggled to close. “Ye should be helpin’ Mam prepare dinner.”
Finally, she reached him, one hand settling on her abdomen as she struggled for breath. His only sibling was two years older, tall for a female, and while they shared the same dark-blond hair, her features were thankfully much more pleasant to look upon than his.
Only recently, Patrick Abernathy had come by the workshop dressed in his humble finest, asking permission to court her. Jamie had scoffed at the man’s lofty airs—Patrick was a blacksmith’s son, just as Jamie was, not an Edinburgh knab with a fancy neckcloth and false courtesy—but Patrick had insisted Nellie deserved such consideration.
Right enough,
he’d thought dryly.
Nellie is surely the finest flower in the field with her blunt mouth and managing ways.
Although he had granted his permission, he’d struggled to keep from rolling his eyes at Abernathy’s earnest regard.
Jamie’s delicate rose petal of a sister now slapped his upper arm with her usual hard blow. “Mam sent me to fetch ye. I’ve been chasin’ ye through this accursed rain since ye left the workshop. Did ye no’ hear me callin’?” Her straight, blond brows lowered in displeasure, Nellie craned her neck and tilted her round chin.
Shrugging, he replied, “Nae time fer a chat.”
“Blethers. Ye’ve more important matters tae tend than meetin’ that dairyman’s daughter again. I warned ye that one’ll spring her trap sooner than ye can—”
He sighed, irritation slithering down his nape like relentless rain. “What dae ye want, Nellie?”
“A man has come tae see ye. Mam wishes ye tae return. Now.”
“What man?”
“His name is Mr. Hargrave. From England. Insists on speakin’ wi’ ye.”
The chill of Jamie’s rain-soaked clothing saturated his skin. He’d been hoping for an hour in Alison’s arms to warm him, but it appeared no such comfort was imminent.
Bluidy hell.
“Come now,” Nellie said, her voice edged with mockery. “Yer dairy lass will be waitin’ again tomorrow, nae doubt.”
He scowled his annoyance. But she had already turned north, striding toward their cottage. Glancing briefly eastward to where his bonnie Alison waited beneath a sheltering oak, he followed his sister’s sodden-hemmed skirts, his steps considerably more plodding than before.
In minutes, they came within sight of his family’s stone cottage, stout and gray upon a small, green rise on the outskirts of the village. On either side of the red door, his mother’s delphiniums had not yet bloomed. Spring had soaked the spear-shaped plants until their leaves drooped, sparing and despondent. He wondered how an Englishman would view his tidy but humble dwelling.
“What does he want with me, Nell?”
His sister cast him a brief glance from beneath her bonnet and shrugged. “Canna say. Perhaps he wishes tae hire ye.”
Doubtful. Jamie had not the reputation yet to attract inquiries from wealthy Scotsmen, much less a knab from south of the Roman wall. Automatically, he bent his head as he followed Nellie through the red door and into the darkened interior. Since one entered directly into the parlor, his first glimpse of the Englishman was the man’s narrow back clothed in refined, blue wool and a head of brown hair heavily salted with white.
“Jamie,” Mam said, her blond brows arched into the ruffle of her mobcap. Her hands smoothed her apron as she stood. “Mr. Hargrave has come with news fer ye.”
The man turned, a black hat in one hand and a thick bundle of papers in the other. The bundle was contained inside a leather cover bound with twine. His face was narrow, his nose sharp, his chin long. “James Kilbrenner?”
“Aye.”
Bending at the waist, the man presented Jamie with the top of his salted brown head. Jamie blinked, wondering if this odd, narrow Englishman had dropped something. Then, he watched as the man straightened and met his eyes.
“Allow me to be the first to greet you properly,” Hargrave said quietly, his speech cultured and discreet. “My lord.”
If Jamie had not glimpsed his mother’s face in that moment, he would have taken a handful of Hargrave’s blue wool coat and promptly tossed him out into the squall. But Mam’s eyes were deadly sober and leveled on Jamie. She’d worn the same expression the day his father had been burned badly enough to produce a lingering death. Bess Kilbrenner was not one to raise a hue and cry unless the matter was grave.
“I fear ye’ve the wrong end of things, Mr. Hargrave,” Jamie replied. “I am nae more a laird than ye’re a sheep.”
Hargrave cleared his throat and waved his hat toward the chairs near the fire. “Perhaps we should sit.”
Jamie crossed his arms over his chest. “Nae need.” He nodded toward the bundle of papers clutched in the man’s hand. “Whatever ye’ve brought wi’ ye, if there be a claim that I am anythin’ other than a blacksmith’s son, ye’re best off tossin’ those papers intae the fire.”
“Are ye daft, Jamie?” hissed Nellie from behind him. “Listen tae the man. What will it harm?”
Serious eyes above a sharp nose met Jamie’s gaze. “You will wish to hear what I have come to say, I promise you.”
Jamie glanced to his mother then briefly to Nellie, whose jaw remained agape, her gaze fixed upon Hargrave as though the man would soon perform spectacular feats with his fancy hat.
“Verra weel,” he said, gesturing to the rough wooden chairs his mother had covered with neat green pillows.
Mam cleared her throat and muttered something about preparing dinner. She grasped Nellie’s arm on her way to the kitchen and dragged Jamie’s sputtering sister from the room. Thankfully.
Jamie hung his hat on the iron hook beside the door and ran a hand through his hair before striding slowly to the bigger of the two chairs. He sank down into a sit, all the while eyeing Hargrave’s careful motions as the Englishman placed his hat upon the plank floor and loosened the twine on this bundle of papers.
“Your father was a blacksmith, indeed, my lord—”
“Dinna call me that.”
Hargrave paused and nodded solemnly. “I understand. All of this is rather … unexpected.”
Jamie simply held the man’s stare for long seconds, waiting for him to come to the point.
A narrow throat rippled on a swallow. “As I was saying, your father was a blacksmith. John Kilbrenner. His father was James Kilbrenner, a ship’s captain in His Majesty’s navy.”
“Till he lost an arm. Then he was a sour old sot who drank half my father’s earnin’s.” Jamie gripped the sides of his chair and leaned forward. “Why have ye come, Mr. Hargrave?”
A lean hand settled atop the papers. “Your father was a blacksmith. Your grandfather a naval captain. But your great, great,
great
grandfather was an earl, my lor—er, Mr. Kilbrenner. An English peer. Specifically, he was the first Earl of Tannenbrook.”
Cold seeped from his sodden shirt into his chest. A shiver blew over his skin, despite the low fire. He curled his fingers into his palm. They’d gone numb. “What should it matter now? Sae a man long in the grave was a lofty lord. I am a stonemason. Just completed my apprenticeship. Yer fancy title means nothin’ tae me.”
“I am afraid it does.”
Jamie glared at the narrow man. “Why?”
Hargrave held his gaze, steady and plain. “Because my employer, William Kilbrenner, the fifth Earl of Tannenbrook, has died. And his only son unfortunately preceded him in death. Which means the title now must ascend the first earl’s lines to that of your great-grandfather—”
“Nae.”
“—of whose progeny, you are the sole surviving male.”
“Ye’ve made a mistake.”
“There is no mistake, Mr. Kilbrenner. You are the rightful heir. The title and the estate in Derbyshire are yours.”
“I hammer bluidy stone. My place is here.
No’
bluidy England.”
Now, it was Hargrave’s turn to lean forward. The blue wool tightened across the man’s narrow shoulders, but the finely sewn seams neither puckered nor strained. “Apologies, Mr. Kilbrenner. But you are, in fact, the sixth Earl of Tannenbrook. Whether you accept it or not, that fact remains.”