To Tame a Highland Earl (2 page)

“
Plan?” she repeated. “I
feel certain I can convince the magistrate of self-defense. After
all, you broke into my room.”

“
Think again.” Erroll
reached into his pocket.

“
Beware,” she
said.

He slowly withdrew the key from his pocket
and held it up. “The innkeeper was very obliging. He feels nothing
should stand in the way of true love.”

She frowned, then comprehension cleared her
expression. “I should have guessed. You think you can browbeat me
into helping you avoid the marriage vows. You, sir, are the worst
sort of knave.”

“
So we do understand one
another.”

“
You are a fool,” she
muttered.

He’d had enough. “You are the fool if you
believe I will marry you.”

“
Marry me?
What—”

Erroll started toward her.

She took a faltering step backwards and he
lunged. She gave a startled cry. He seized the hand holding the gun
and shoved it upward in their tumble backwards. They landed on the
bed, him on top of her. Her lush body yielded beneath his hard
planes—his stiffening cock in particular. To his surprise, she
didn’t struggle, but released the pistol. The weapon bounced off
the mattress and struck the carpet with a thud.

“
Is this how you described
my having ravished you?” he demanded.

Shock registered on her face. He blew out a
frustrated breath. He’d come ready to battle the vixen and she was
already crumbling. Moisture appeared in her eyes. Ah, there it was.
She was simply moving onto another tactic.

“
Lies, pistols, tears,
and…” He moved suggestively against her breasts and felt the rigid
nipples beneath his shirt. “Your arsenal of weapons is impressive,
madam.”

“
I tell you, mamma, I heard
a scream.”

A woman’s voice penetrated the door on the
right wall. Erroll jerked his gaze in that direction as the door
swung open. Two women stood in the doorway staring, one young—in
her second season, he would guess—the other, the mamma the girl had
addressed.

Erroll looked at the woman lying beneath him.
“I thought that was a closet.”

*****

Panic streaked through Eve and she struggled
to push Lord Rushton off her, but he continued to stare in shock as
her mother fainted dead away.

Her sister’s wail split the deadly silence.
“He’s mine!”

The earl looked at Eve, a strange sense of
understanding in his eyes. “She’s Miss Crenshaw?”

Eve wasn’t sure if his confusion was due to
the fact he’d accosted the wrong woman, or that the woman he was
supposed to have compromised was beautiful enough to rival
Aphrodite. He wouldn’t be the first man struck dumb at first sight
of Grace.

“
He’s mine!” This time
Grace’s wail became a banshee cry.

She hurled herself at them and landed on the
earl’s back with a force that seemed impossible given her small
stature. Eve winced when his hardened shaft dug into her pelvis. He
grunted and she fleetingly wondered if it was Grace’s weight
landing on top of him or the fact that even a steel rod could be
crushed by the force of such an assault. It would serve him right
if he never sired an heir.

Eve caught sight of his jaw tightening and
realized he’d broken from the spell. Grace seized his head and
shoved. His face mashed into Eve’s breasts. Her breath caught and
she clutched at his shoulders. Muscle bunched beneath her fingers
as he tried to push upward in unison with her shove, but Grace was
like a rogue elephant pounding them with all her weight and might.
The hall door flew open and Eve glimpsed their father in the
doorway.

Lord Rushton jerked his head in an obvious
attempt to look up, but Grace shoved harder, slamming his head
deeper into Eve’s soft flesh.

“
What the bloody hell?”
their father roared.

An instant later, the weight lifted. Eve
vaguely understood her father had pulled Grace off them, then she
suddenly felt light as a feather and realized the earl had shoved
off of her. He whirled, swinging a large fist that cracked against
her father’s jaw. Eve jumped from the bed and tripped. She hit the
floor shoulder first. Pain radiated up her arm. Her father rammed a
fist into the earl’s stomach. Lord Rushton stumbled back a step,
but jerked straight and sent a hard jab to her father’s ribs.

“
Stop!” she shouted, but
the earl struck again.

Her father blocked the blow, but the younger
man was too fast and pounded a fist into his stomach. Eve spotted
the pistol lying on the carpet and grabbed it. She aimed and pulled
the trigger.

*****

For an instant, Erroll was sure the roar he’d
heard wasn’t a pistol shot, and the pain that seared across his
left calf wasn’t a bullet wound. A yank to his boot sent him
sprawling onto his backside, with the pistol now inches from his
face.

He looked at the woman who knelt beside him,
pointing a gun at him for the second time that night, and said,
“You used your one shot.”

She blinked in confusion, then dropped her
arm and fell onto her rump beside him. “This, sir, is a prime
example of why a man does not enter a lady’s bedroom
uninvited.”

Erroll scanned the room. The mamma still lay
on the floor where she’d fainted. The other lady stood, perfect
breasts heaving beneath the white cotton of her nightgown, and
green eyes blazing. The older man stood, hand braced against the
wardrobe, drawing in deep breaths. And, glory be, the innkeeper and
two maids stood in the doorway, mouths agape. His father would hear
of this escapade before the doctor finished tending his gunshot
wound.

Erroll looked at the lady. “For once, madam,
I would have to agree.”

*****

“
Have you lost your mind?”
Eve asked her sister for the dozenth time after their arrival home
in Manchester early that morning.

Grace reclined beside her on the couch in the
parlor. Their mother sat in a nearby chair, and the two sipped tea
as serenely as if they entertained visitors on a Sunday afternoon.
Eve couldn’t help a glance at the closed door. Her father and Lord
Rushton had been sequestered in the study for over an hour. What
could be taking so long?

Eve cast Grace a thin-lipped look. “How could
you possibly think you would get away with such a lie?”

Grace gave a careless shrug. “He is a rake of
the first order. The only thing stopping him from being guilty of
the crime is opportunity.”

“
For heaven’s sake, Grace,
he hasn’t married a one of the women who claimed he compromised
them. Why would he marry you, the daughter of a baron with no
fortune to speak of—and sight unseen, no less?”

Grace’s eyes narrowed on her. “But if he were
caught in bed with you he would have no choice but to marry
you?”

“
Grace,” their mother
admonished.

Ire flared through Eve. “He mistook me for
you.”

“
No one could possibly
mistake you for me.”

Before last night Eve would have agreed.
Grace’s raven black hair and emerald green eyes alone separated
them by miles. “
He
did,” Eve said. “All because he never
laid eyes on you before today. My God, even a rakehell such as Lord
Rushton doesn’t deserve to be trapped so deceitfully.”

“
He will do well with me,”
Grace replied. “I’ll give him an heir, then he will go about his
business as any man in his position would.”

Eve eyed her sister critically “The perfect
Society
wife?”

“
Of course.”

“
And if his father won’t
let him marry you?”

“
Why wouldn’t he?” Grace
asked.

“
Don’t pretend ignorance,”
Eve said. “You know full well we do not run in their circles. A man
of his station will not marry a baron’s daughter.”

“
That is ridiculous,” their
mother said. “Grace is as good as any other girl—better, in
fact.”

“
That makes no difference,
as you know well, Mother,” Eve said.

Grace waved a dismissive hand. “Just because
that’s what happened to you, doesn’t mean it will happen to
me.”

Eve should have felt pain at the reminder
that the man she eloped with allowed himself to be paid off not to
marry her—along with anger that Grace was so unfeeling as to point
it out. But Eve had long ago come to terms with the nature of the
man she had made the mistake of falling in love with.

“
It is because it happened
to me that I can speak with certainty,” Eve said. “I would not wish
the same fate for you.”

“
News already reached
Manchester that we are to wed,” Grace said. “That means his father
must have commanded him to marry me. Just as I planned.”

Despite her cavalier tone, Eve detected what
she felt certain was a hint of doubt. Grace, even with her
exceptional beauty, had no better chance of marrying into the
circle in which Lord Rushton moved than did Eve. Had Grace captured
the eye of an earl, their parents would have been ecstatic. But a
very rich earl next in line as a marquess wasn’t something to have
dared hope for. Grace, however, had obviously harbored hopes that
such a family would overlook her lower birth.

“
Grace,” Eve said more
gently, “even if the marquess allowed it, you failed to take into
account Lord Rushton’s nature. He told me that if he is forced to
marry you, he will abandon you in Scotland while he goes about his
pleasures as he always has.”

“
Rubbish.”

Eve shook her head. “Lord Rushton isn’t
English. He will exile you to Scotland and no one could stop him.
He isn’t the sort of man you are accustomed to.”

Grace laughed. “His mother is English, if you
recall. I daresay, he is more English than Scottish. What do you
know of men, anyway, Eve?”

“
Enough to know this one
will not give into your whims like other men.”

“
Of course he will. I will
make certain of it by giving him everything he wants.”

“
Men want more than an heir
from a wife.”

“
For a time,” Grace agreed.
“And he shall have it to his heart’s content.”

Eve gave a disgusted snort. “You’re a fool.
He will take what he wants, then discard you as he has all the
others—wife or not.”

“
Girls,” their mother
reprimanded, “you shouldn’t speak of such things. Your father will
deal with the earl. Really, sneaking into a lady’s room in the
middle of the night. What is this world coming to?”

Eve agreed, but couldn’t half blame him. She
could only imagine her own desperation should she find herself
trapped into marriage by a man she’d never met.

The door opened and their father entered with
Lord Rushton behind. Eve noted that the earl favored his injured
leg. His wrinkled coat and cravat bore testament to the hurried
ride from the inn to Manchester. Guilt washed over her. The long
ride couldn’t have helped his wound. She glimpsed the shadow of a
bruise on her father’s jaw and the guilt vanished.

“
Father,” Grace
began.

“
Not a word,” he cut her
off.

“
But—”

“
I warn you, Grace, be
silent.”

“
My lord,” their mother
said in a horrified voice as Grace’s eyes widened.

Eve, too, was surprised. She couldn’t recall
the last time her father had censured Grace for anything.

He halted a few feet from the couch and
clasped his hands behind his back. Lord Rushton stopped beside him.
The drawn look in the earl’s dark eyes startled Eve.

“
Your actions—both your
actions—leave me in a quandary,” her father said.

Eve snapped her gaze onto him. “I suppose I
should allow a man who breaks into my room to have his way with
me?”

He gave her a thin-lipped scowl. “What you
should do is not sleep with a pistol under your pillow. But you
have no more need of a gun. Lord Rushton will obtain a special
license and the wedding will take place three days hence.”

The earl’s startled gaze jerked onto her
father—then his glare turned onto her.

She flashed a sweet smile. “You should have
left well enough alone, my lord. Grace’s deception would have come
to light. As it is, you sealed your fate.” If his father agreed, of
which she had her doubts.

“
Indeed, he has,” her
father said. “As have you. Eve, you will marry Lord
Rushton.”

Shock rolled across her.

Lord Rushton lifted a brow. “Not so smug now,
are we, madam?”

“
This is wrong,” Grace
cried. “He is to marry me!”

Her father turned his narrow-eyed stare onto
her. “Madam, your actions in this matter are reprehensible. I have
yet to decide how to deal with you, but I warn you, commit any
further mischief, and I will send you to a convent.” Eve gasped
along with Grace and their mother, but he ignored them and said to
the earl. “Three witnesses saw you lying on top of my eldest
daughter—in her bed.” The deadly chill in her father’s voice sent a
shiver of apprehension down her spine. “By now, they have alerted
all of England that you compromised another Crenshaw woman in the
worst way possible.”

“
I have no doubt you are
correct,” the earl said.

“
But Lord Rushton didn’t
compromise either of us.” Eve’s head spun. It never occurred to her
that she was in danger of a forced marriage.

“
He compromised you by
entering your bedchambers,” her father said. “The fact he obtained
the key from the innkeeper is enough to ruin you beyond
redemption.”