Page 1 of Defying the Earl
Chapter One
Lady Beatrice Harrison, Bea to those closest to her, which was a very limited, almost non-existent group, hurried to do the bidding of one of her favourite, and yet most demanding people, Lady Frampton. It was challenging to hurry as she entered the crowded ballroom but as the woman’s companion, it was her duty.
Lady Frampton was sweet and kind under a layer of crust, but determined to have her way. At all times. And her way usually involved sending Bea on various mundane and convoluted errands throughout the house, village, or city, just to ensure she had the yarn, needle, tea, or what have you, that she wanted. If Lady Frampton got an idea in her head, there was no swaying her to a different option.
Who would bother trying to sway her anyway when it would require you to yell for her to hear you due to her declined hearing. Of course the lady would never admit to being hard of hearing. Which was probably why there were occasional misunderstandings.
For the most part, Bea didn’t mind. Doing the lady’s bidding gave her something to do. If she wasn’t running Lady Frampton’s errands, she would be expected to do needlework. Or watercolours. Or some other equally tedious occupation.
And then there was Lady Charlotte. Or Lady Lottie as she would like to be called but no one would agree to that. Why give her a diminutive and then try to formalize it with a title? Of course, just to make the old dear happy, Bea would do so from time to time, but it struck her as another tedious, not tedious, aspect of her life. She hadn’t yet decided if it was on the boring side of the ledger or not. And pondering the matter provided her some amusement occasionally, so she supposed she was going to have to put it in the non-tedious column.
But then her little game would be over, so she wasn’t yet ready to do that.
And really, when one looked upon it as a whole, one couldn’t say her life in general was boring in the least. Both Lady Frampton and Lady Charlotte were well enough that they came up to Town often. While their social rounds were not terribly invigorating, they were far from dull. This mattered little to Bea, anyhow. It wasn’t as though she wished to be a debutante. Not in the true sense of the word, at least.
Of course, her mother would be saddened if she were ever to find out. But with that dear woman long dead in the tiny little cemetery at Houndseith, she would certainly never know of the lack. Even Grandfather, for all his not knowing what to do with her once Grandmother died, would have been put out by her lack of a Season. But he hadn’t made arrangements for her, so that was really his fault, and Bea wasn’t going to waste a great deal of time worrying about his potential disappointment either. She wasn’t disappointed, and that was all that mattered.
It was a source of amusement to her, whenever she encountered members of theton, that no one seemed to remember or realize that she in fact was one of them. She was accepted as the Ladies’ companion and no one looked any further than that. Bea often wondered if the Ladies had doneit deliberately, keeping her true identity somewhat hidden, or if it had just been one of those misunderstandings that resulted from Lady Frampton’s poor hearing and Lady Charlotte’s forgetfulness.
Since Beatrice had yet to witness any successful Society marriages other than her grandparents’, she had no desire to wed a nobleman, so a debut wasn’t something she was missing in any case.
She had already been shown how unsavoury most people of “quality” really were and so she had no interest in subjecting herself to that social tradition if she could avoid it. All she had to do was carry on as she had been doing. When she turned twenty-five, if she so wished, she could leave the company of the Ladies and set up her own establishment. The irony was, she could then hire a companion of her own. She never would, of course. She would rather collect cats. Or perhaps adopt an orphan or something. But she wouldn’t arrange a companion for herself. It was a tediously uncertain existence.
That was the one drawback of her situation. No one ever knew if she were upstairs or downstairs – part of the servants or one of the gentry. It shouldn’t have been difficult to figure out considering she was an actual Lady, but people’s wits were so rarely sharp enough to figure it out.
Of course, there had been that one gentleman – Bea cut that thought off immediately. She did not ever think about Nathan. Not when she was awake and could control her thoughts. He didn’t matter. What he had done, said, or thought didn’t matter to anyone, least of all to her.
But no, she would rather thetonnot figure out that Lady Beatrice Harrison was actually a highly eligible, even desirable, heiress in her own right. It was bad enough that she wasapproached from time to time by marriage-minded widowers with a houseful of children looking for a new mother. She shuddered to think if the fortune hunters caught wind of her. No, she didn’t need to be active within Society. She already knew what would await her there, and she really wanted nothing to do with it.
Of course, she wouldn’t mind to be asked to dance. That was an entirely different topic, though. One she likewise wasn’t going to even consider giving thought to. Not when she was on her way to fetch punch for Lady Frampton and had to skirt the crowded ballroom to do so.
Why did the Ladies attend these sorts of events? Bea could never understand it. One would be excused for thinking they didn’t start until well past their usual bedtime. But whenever they were in Town, the Ladies insisted on attending at least a few balls, routs, and so on. They were somewhat excruciating experiences for Bea for inevitably, her presence with the Ladies would remind polite Society of her existence. And then there would be calls. At least once a month there was some gentleman asking the Ladies if he could pay his respects to their companion, much to her embarrassment.
It wasn’t that she was so terribly opposed to marriage, she wasn’t truly, but she did wish to be asked by someone she thought she could tolerate seeing over the breakfast dishes for the rest of her life, and someone who wanted her for more than her training as a companion. Beatrice could see how her position as the Ladies’ companion actually prepared her for the responsibilities she would face as a gentleman’s wife, but just because she would make a good wife didn’t mean the gentleman in question would make a good husband. And while the thought of children made the prospect much more appealing to her, she wasn’t sure if she felt up to the task of taking on an entire fleet ofmotherless children. The last gentleman who had called round with the thought of proposing to her had seven little ones. Very little ones. All his children were ten years or younger. The poor darlings’ dearly departed mother had died birthing the youngest. Bea might be a skilled companion, but she had no experience with infants. Her heart had gone out to the children, but it had been an easy decision to say no.
Beatrice sighed while she accepted the glass of punch from the servant who was carefully ladling it for the guests. What a conundrum being a lady’s companion was. Contrary to what one might expect, she loved her life with the Ladies. They were interesting, well-read, well-travelled, and always entertaining, even when they had their occasional crotchets due to their frustrations with advancing age.
It was only when their life brought them to London Society events that Bea seriously reconsidered her choices in life. But it was early enough in the Season, the ball wasn’t even truly crowded, perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad.
“Lady Beatrice?”
The timbre of that deep voice pulled her instantly back into a past she had fought valiantly to forget. Every fibre of her being stiffened, and she was dispassionately amazed that she didn’t drop the glass of punch she was supposed to be taking to Lady Frampton.
Could she brazen it out? She had less than no desire to allow the man to know he had shaken her. Bea knew her face was likely to be an expressionless mask. She was reasonably certain no one could possibly know what she was thinking.
After the briefest moment during which she willed her limbs to cooperate, she turned toward the voice that had hailedher and raised her eyebrows with what she hoped was polite inquisition.
“Have we been introduced?” Her tone was cold but steady and for that she rejoiced. It was perfect.
“Losing your touch, old boy.” One of Nathan’s, Lord Braxton, she corrected herself, unruly friends was chiding him. “Even the wallflowers don’t want to acknowledge you.”
Bea’s chin lifted ever so slightly, and for the briefest moment her intelligent gaze met that of the Earl of Braxton. He hadn’t changed in the least. Well, that was a bold-faced lie on many counts, she thought with a touch of wry amusement. It was more accurate to say he was as ridiculously handsome as ever, his wavy chestnut hair pretty much the exact length as the last time she had seen him, and his watchful brown eyes were just as clear and perceptive as they had ever been, which was always a surprise considering half the time he appeared to be slightly altered due to drink. Perhaps he ought to have taken the boards of some theatre since he was clearly an accomplished actor. Why would anyone wish to appear as though they had drunk too much when she had always been reasonably certain he never drank to excess?
But none of those thoughts mattered.
Lady Beatrice Harrison did one of the few things she had sworn she would never do. She dipped into a slight curtsy to the cur who had shattered her heart. And then she turned on her heel and strolled away as though she hadn’t a care in the world, still amazed that her competent hands had remembered their task and not spilled the punch.
Chapter Two
