Page 2 of The Inconvenient Compromise
“You will not hit me again!” Fiona stated firmly.
Charlotte jerked her hand away. “I will do worse. So much worse. Did you know about your mother’s gambling debts, Miss Trimble? That her jewels are paste, and your father breaks into a sweat every time she goes to a card party?”
Fiona felt her cheeks heating with shame. Of course, she knew those things. How could she not? They all lived in fear of those sordid details becoming common knowledge.
Charlotte continued, “And your younger sister, not yet out in society, but that certainly hasn’t halted her romantic escapades, has it? Was it a captain or a lieutenant she behaved so scandalously with at Brighton?”
Fiona stared at her, horrified at the lengths Charlotte would go to. Her sister had not behaved scandalously at all, but she had been attacked by a young man from the regiment. Only quick thinking and the intervention of a kindly gentleman had spared her the worst of indignities. It didn’t matter, of course, that Francesca was an innocent victim. Even the whisper of impropriety could ruin her chances, regardless of its lack of foundation in truth. “How long? How long have you been hoarding these dirty little secrets to use against me?”
Charlotte smiled smugly, “Oh, Miss Trimble, I knew them before I ever cultivated our acquaintance. I only ever surround myself with people who can be useful to me. And secrets make one very amenable to being used.”
Fiona was filled cold fury. She longed to wipe that smug expression from Charlotte’s face and march out with her head held high! But Francesca’s face hovered in her mind’s eye—not the smiling girl everyone knew, but the terrified, pale young woman who had been spared a terrible fate only luck and the bravery of an unknown man. “You are a wretched, vile creature. I regret ever making your acquaintance.”
Charlotte smirked. “Regret it all you like. But now, you’re going to slip quietly across the hall, let yourself into the earl’s room, strip yourself naked, and climb into his bed. When the innkeeper arrives with our refreshments, I will tell him how concerned I am that my cousin hasn’t come to check on us, and we will go to his chamber and discover the pair of you in bed together. You’ll be married. Miss Stamford, if she lives, will be ruined. And I’ll have a countess at my right hand.”
Fiona struggled with herself. Ultimately, it was a choice between her pride and her sister’s future. Which meant there was really no choice at all. A single tear rolled down her cheek, not out of fear but frustration and futile fury. She’d have scratched Charlotte’s eyes out if she thought it would do any good. Knowing how petty and vindictive Lady Bruxton could be, Francesca would not be safe until she was married and beyond Charlotte’s reach.
ONE
Friday—the wee hours…
After a bruising ride in a poorly sprung carriage whose better days were decades past, Lucian Maxwell, the newly named Earl of Rathmore—an obscure Scottish title inherited from a distant relative of his mother—had fallen into bed completely exhausted. The journey to Rathmore House to meet with the solicitors, discuss the terms of the will and sign the necessary documents to claim his unexpected inheritance had been completed. He was now en route back to London, where he would be tasked with carrying out the terms of that will.
Those terms were partially responsible for his current state of misery. They’d prompted him to imbibe heavily, and he was paying for it in spades. His head ached abominably. For the better part of the day, every bump on that pocked goat path that had been generously called a 'road' had nearly had him casting up his accounts. Naturally, he’d been beset by such unbearable thirst that he could well have drained a river dry and still felt parched.
All he wanted, the thing he’d been thinking longingly of for the past four hours, was a bed. The innkeeper had shown him to what he assured him was the largest and most well-appointed room in his fine establishment. In all honesty, Lucian could not have cared less. He’d have slept in the stables so long as it meant spending more than ten minutes on a horizontal surface with his eyes closed.
As it was, he’d stripped off his dusty clothes the moment the innkeeper had departed and had all but thrown himself onto the blessedly clean, warm bed. Lying on his stomach, one arm tucked beneath his head and the other sprawled out across the vast surface of the bed, he smiled slightly in his sleep. Warm, soft, and undeniably feminine skin rested beneath his callused palm. The innkeeper’s hospitality was apparently boundless.
“Just sleep, pet,” he muttered softly. “You’ll earn your coin in the morning.”
“I’m not your pet, and you must wake up, or we shall both be utterly ruined!”
Lucian frowned, his face scrunched against the clean, freshly laundered sheets. Generally speaking, serving wenches who entertained customers for a bit of coin did not snap at a man so. Nor did they worry overmuch about being ruined as, typically, that ship had both sailed and sank.
Forcing his eyes open, he could see the outline of a woman silhouetted by the silvery moonlight that filtered through the window. She was half under him in the bed. Apparently, exhaustion had not robbed him of all amorous urges as she clearly had not put herself there. It was instinct, he supposed, for a man to pull a naked woman closer in the night, regardless of how exhausted he might be.
He could not make out her face, just gently curved shoulders, rounded hips, and a mass of hair that hung in thick, heavy waves. There was so much hair that they both seemed to be surrounded by it. In the darkness, the color was indistinct, but something told him it was a fiery red. He’d always had an affinity for redheads—all temper and ivory skin that flushed with it. All in all, it was not the worst way he had ever been awakened.
Levering himself up onto one elbow, he demanded, “Who the devil are you?”
“Miss Fiona Trimble, and you certainly are not the Earl of Kenworth,” she said, clearly quite dismayed and very perturbed. She tugged at the bedclothes, trying to cover as much of her delectable skin as possible.
“Never claimed to be. Kenworth is all right, but the man could certainly stand to have a bit more fun,” Lucian grumbled. Given the way the woman was squirming under him, he was currently having more fun than he could recall in quite some time. But then what she said penetrated the lustful haze that had seized his brain. “Trimble… not the chit who has been chasing after Kenworth all Season long? Surely not!”
But of course, it would be her, he thought. She was in his bed because she thought that prig Kenworth would be there instead of him. She was naked as a newborn babe, and no doubt there would be some extremely helpful, prodigiously gossipy sort to come to her ‘rescue’ and see that Kenworth did right by her.
“Who’s set to discover us?” he asked.
“What?”
“What gossipy old bat is ready to knock on that door with some pretext or other to find us in this very inconveniently compromising position?” he clarified.
Miss Trimble turned her head, looking toward the said door. It allowed him to see her face in profile. She had delicate features, her lower lip quite full and turned out in a slight pout that was rather appealing. In truth, her only really striking feature was her hair, which was a deep, vibrant red and thick enough for three people. She was pretty but not a great beauty, and the company she kept had made him steer clear of her.
“Lady Bruxton will be here with the innkeeper any moment,” she murmured. “And when she discovers that you are not Kenworth, she will be completely livid.”
The note of fear he heard in her voice gave him pause. Was she so frightened of Lady Bruxton? “Do you even want Kenworth?”
