Page 9 of An Unwilling Earl
“A thing? What is athing?” Jacob’s heart beat erratically.
Armbruster waved his hand lazily in the air. “You know.”
“I do not know. Please explain thisthing. Good God, man, not a ball. Please tell me not a ball.”
“I don’t think it would be asgrandas a ball.”
Jacob covered his face with his hands “Why?”
“She thought it would be a good way for you to enter Society as the Earl of Ashland.”
His hands dropped as if they were weighted, and he glared at Armbruster.
“You have to acknowledge it at some point, and really, it’s getting a bit odd that everyone knows but you haven’t said anything. I think Mother’s idea is a good one.”
Armbruster’s mother loved everything about Society. She was both admired and feared by other matrons, and her balls were second to none. Jacob knew he had no choice, especially if she’d already made up her mind.
“Oliver, if you are any sort of friend, you will dissuade your mother from this terrible idea.”
Armbruster laughed, a true humorous laugh. “Come now, Jacob. We both know one doesn’t merely dissuade her. It’s best just to go along with her plans. Besides, you owe her, and don’t think she won’t make you pay with your presence at your own ball.”
Jacob’s heart sank. This was the price he was to pay for the favor he had asked.
Charlotte Morris’s disappearance had sunk its ugly claws into Jacob’s imagination. There was only one person who could get the story on Lady Morris and hopefully, Miss Charlotte Morris as well.
Oliver’s mother, the Dowager Lady Armbruster.
He had not thought she would stoop so low as to force him to attend a ball as payment.
“Your note only asked me to find out what I could about a Baron and Baroness Morris and their niece, the lovely Miss Charlotte Morris,” Armbruster said. “But your note failed to tell mewhyyou needed this information.”
With a reluctance that Jacob was surprised to feel, he pulled the sketch of Charlotte Morris from his pocket and handed it to Armbruster, then shifted in his seat, not liking how closely Armbruster scrutinized the picture, nor the look of appreciation in his eyes.
“Very fetching, but why do you have a sketch of her?”
“Upon the advice of a mutual friend, Lady Morris asked me to find her niece. Said she was missing.”
“But you don’t take missing person cases.” Armbruster laid the sketch down on the small table between them.
“The baroness did not seem to care.” Jacob’s gaze strayed back to the sketch—the high curve of Miss Morris’s cheek, the delicate shell of her ear peeking out from the riot of curls falling across her shoulder.
“From the way you’re looking at that picture, I surmise that you haven’t been able to stop thinking of the lovely Miss Morris. She’s a very becoming young lady.”
“Looks don’t matter to me.” Jacob pulled his gaze away, realizing he’d revealed too much. He did not want Oliver to suspect that he was interested in Miss Morris. Because he was most assuredlynotinterested other than to find out what had happened to her.
“It’s been five years,” Armbruster said softly.
“And?”
“And that’s a long time to be alone.”
“I’m not like you, Armbruster. I can be without female companionship for more than forty-eight hours.”
Armbruster’s steady gaze bored into Jacob, making him shift in his seat. “Your wife—”
“Cora. Her name was Cora.”
“I remember her name, Ashland.”
