Page 1 of Avenging the Earl's Lady
Chapter 1
She ought to know better than to encourage the attentions of the most meddlesome lord in the kingdom.
Lady Jane Montfort stretched on a sofa in the small library, trying vainly to snatch a few moments of much-needed sleep.Outside, the sea crashed and pounded, the din circling this snug Yorkshire cottage and slipping in through the half open window, as relentless as the rumbling male voices floating across the parlor from the council of spies in the dining room.
When another muffled drumming joined in, she rose and pushed the wood sash higher.
A sharp wind rushed her, far too chilling for the late July morning.No one was visible on the lane leading to Gorse Point Cottage, but there was no mistaking the hard-pounding hooves.A rider was coming.
She tiptoed through the parlor to the heavy wood entrance door and paused.
“I shall have to seduce information from her myself, then?”
The Spy Lord’s deep baritone rolled out from the meeting room, the sound slithering up her spine, at once chilling and warming, sending her nerves tapping to match the other noises.
The Earl of Shaldon would casually try to seduce another woman for information, would he?Well, she supposed he’d been doing that all over Great Britain and the Continent since King Louis lost his head.
And if she had a drum—one of those small military ones would do—she’d crash it down upon Shaldon’s firm-jawed, handsome head, ripping to shreds the taut leather or linen or bloody whatever else was stretched over the hoop.
The massive front door didn’t so much as squeak when she stepped out.As she gulped in a great breath of the salty, moist air, the rider came into view, long-legged and plainly dressed.She couldn’t discern if he was a mere messenger or one more of Shaldon’s operatives galloping here at the Earl’s behest.
Anger bubbled up in her.Except for Shaldon’s daughter, Lady Perpetua, they wereallhere at the Earl’s behest.But like Lady Perry, she herself was most certainly neither servant nor operative.
No, Shaldon was a handsome, enticing, and skilled manipulator, and so here she was, caught up in his schemes and blasted temptations while she had other matters, pressing matters,personalmatters, to attend to.
She swallowed the moisture leaking down her throat.He’dkissedher mere hours ago.He’dfondledparts of her body that had been sleeping for more than two decades.Heavens, he’d all but seduced her in the stable yard, and she, an aging spinster, had been naught but a willing victim.
More fool her.
One of Shaldon’s men came around from the back of the house and took the reins while the rider dismounted and tossed his bag over his shoulder.Words were exchanged.The messenger shook his head and hurried to the front door.
He doffed his cap to reveal an abundance of glorious red hair.“My lady.”
He knew her, but she didn’t recognize him.He wasn’t one of the Shaldon House servants.She knew all of them.
Behind her the air stirred.Warmth circled around her and pressed into her back, and she had to fight the urge to lean into it.
“Ah, Ewan, isn’t it?”Shaldon said.
The Spy Lord himself had crept out of the door right behind her, and she hadn’t even noticed.
Shaldon accepted a letter from the messenger, thankfully removing his hot hand from where it had trailed dangerously close to her backside, allowing her to breathe again.
“From my son, Gibson?”Shaldon asked.
The boy—for though he was tall, he was a lean, freckled thing—shook his head.“Mr.Gibson has loaned me to Lord Bakeley.He said to bring you this in all haste.”
Jane’s heart took another lurch.Shaldon’s heir, Bakeley, and his wife, Lady Sirena, were expecting their first child.Only Shaldon’s personal request that Jane travel to Yorkshire could have enticed her away from London and Lady Sirena.
And of course, there was the matter of Jane’s dependency, living in Shaldon’s elegant, well-appointed, well-staffed London residence.It was wise in those circumstances to go when one was sent.
“Is all well with them?”she asked.
The boy’s wide-eyed look was enough of an answer to that question.If Sirena was ill, Ewan didn’t know of it.Except of course, being one of Shaldon’s men, perhaps he wouldn’t tell her anyway.
Ewan extended another letter.“My lady, I almost forgot.This one’s for you.”
The handwriting on the thick package was Sirena’s.Dread knotted up in the pit of her stomach, flurries of worry making her hands tingle.
