Page 1 of Enticed By an Earl
One
LONDON – JUNE, 1838
It was a nightmare. Kit marched as swiftly down the streets of Mayfair as he could, his scented handkerchief held to his face, trying in vain to get the sight of so much blood and the scent of sweat and smoke out of his nose. He could still hear the rough shouting of the men who had crammed and crowded around him in the stuffy, sweltering hall and feel their elbows and shoulders as they’d jostled him while cheering on their vicious, chosen champion.
“This will make a man of you if nothing else will,” his father, the Duke of Bedminster, had growled in his ear as one of the beefy pugilists had struck the other, jerking his head to the side and sending blood from his nose and spit from his lips across the shouting men closest to the dais. “See? Your brother loves every moment of it.”
Indeed, Kit’s younger brother, George, had moved as far forward in the cluster of titled gentlemen as propriety would allow him so that he could cheer on the boxers, his own fistsclenched, as if he wished to be the one inflicting damage on another man himself.
“Do not cower away from it,” Kit’s father had demanded, grabbing the back of Kit’s head and forcing him to watch as one of the pugilists was dealt a blow that knocked a tooth from his mouth. “I will not allow my eldest son and heir to shy away from violence like a woman. You are a man, dammit, and an earl. Find the stomach for fighting, like a man should.”
Instead of finding it within himself to behave like George and find any sort of enjoyment in two brutes beating on each other, Kit had squeezed his eyes shut and let out a sob. He detested violence in all of its forms. He detested his father and brother, if truth be told. But more than anything, he detested the way they constantly attempted to mold him into a form that was simply not meant for him.
“Weakling,” his father growled, pushing Kit away so hard he knocked into the uncomfortable gentlemen standing near them, who eyed him askance with a look of distaste. “You milksop. You disgust me. George should have been my eldest and heir. Instead, I’ve been cursed with a foppish waste of time. You’ll never be a duke.”
Kit was used to the insults. His father had called him names and sneered at him for being gentle and passive his entire life. Truth be told, those comments were well-deserved. Kit had never quite lived up to the title of “male” that had been thrust upon him at birth. It was the more recent comments that he would never make an adequate duke, or rather, that he would never become a duke at all, that chilled Kit to the bone.
His father was as bloodthirsty as the men pummeling each other, and of late, Kit worried about all that implied. One way or another, he could not stay where he was, feelingsick to his stomach as the terror of rough men roared around him.
He’d escaped from the hall as soon as the bout was over, slipping away from his father and brother as one pair of fighters was moved on to make way for another. While he did not announce his departure to his father, he believed the man was aware that he’d fled. His disappointed sire had done nothing to stop him, but had leaned over to whisper something to the hulking man beside him.
It had taken a walk of nearly half an hour for Kit to calm down enough so that he was not in danger of embarrassing himself by bursting into tears on the street. The part of the city that he walked through at first was rough, and in his fine clothing he stuck out far too much. Somehow, he managed not to be accosted by pickpockets or ruffians before reaching the outskirts of Mayfair. Rather than going home to his unsympathetic mother and risking his father’s wrath once he and George returned home, though they would likely go to some pub first, Kit turned onto Berkeley Square and marched straight up to the door of one of his dearest and safest friends in all of London.
“Is the Dowager Countess Everly at home?” he asked the countess’s butler as soon as the man opened the door.
Horner took one look at Kit’s state of distress and stepped back immediately, eyes going wide, to let Kit into the house. “Yes, of course, my lord,” he said, his voice warm with compassion. “For you, she is always at home.”
“Thank you, Horner,” Kit said. Once safe inside his friend’s home, as Horner shut the door on the harsh world behind him, Kit realized he was shaking. “You’ve no idea how much this means to me.”
“Are you well, my lord?” Horner asked, genuine concern in his eyes.
“A bit out of sorts,” Kit confessed as the man gestured forhim to walk deeper into the house, to where Kit knew the countess’s private parlor was located. “My father has just attempted to instill values of masculine fortitude in me by insisting I attend a pugilistic event with him and my brother.”
“Understood, my lord,” Horner said with a grave, disapproving air. Horner did understand. As far as Kit knew, the middle-aged butler shared that unique and distinct twist of character with him that made them the opposite of what society told them they were meant to be.
Another wave of relief washed through Kit when he was introduced to the parlor and found not only Lady Everly, but his two other closest friends in the world, Lady Georgiana Fulham and Lady Alice Halisham taking tea with her.
All three of the ladies noticed him as soon as he entered.
“Good Lord, Kit, you look a fright,” Lady Everly said, setting down her teacup and standing. “What has happened to you, dear boy?”
It took every ounce of will Kit had not to run to his friend, throw his arms around her, and burst into tears, as if he was a lad of five who had skinned his knee. He’d done exactly that sort of thing when he was a boy. Lady Everly had been the closest friend of his beloved grandmother and had known him for as long as there was a him to know. She’d been far kinder to him than his own mother, and in many ways, she occupied that role in his heart.
“It is nothing,” he attempted to dismiss his anxiety, now that he was in safe company. “Father took it into his head to bring me to a boxing match as a way to impress masculinity on me.”
Georgiana and Alice both hummed, as if they knew precisely what that had entailed and how difficult it had been for him. They understood him better than anyone, aside from Lady Everly.
“How utterly dreadful,” Georgiana said, standing and rushing over to embrace him like a brother.
“Your father is horrid,” Alice commented, getting up as well and taking a turn at hugging him once Georgiana was finished.
It was entirely inappropriate and beyond the pale of the sort of behavior that would be expected of him, but Kit sank into their embraces, his misery falling away, now that he was in the company of true friends.
“You seem a bit disheveled,” Lady Everly said once the hugs were finished, as the maid brought in another tray of tea things. “Why do you not freshen up and join us? We were just discussing the Queen’s upcoming coronation.”
Kit let out a sigh of relief. “That is a far more preferable topic of conversation than fights and wagers, and even the vagaries of politics.”
With a smile that grew more confident by the moment, Kit excused himself to the small chamber off of Lady Everly’s private parlor. He was well-acquainted with the room and was one of the few who had leave to use it as if he were a member of the household.
