Page 11 of The Earl Takes All
It might have, he thought, if that had indeed been what they were discussing. While he hoped to minimize his lies to her, he couldn’t eliminate all the little white ones. “A little.”
“Share something with me.”
If I could sip on your mouth whenever I wanted, I could do without wine.“Such as?”
“Something about Edward. A pleasant memory. We never really spoke much about him except when you expressed your worry that he would come to an untimely and unpleasant end, or when I lost patience with his... questionable activities.”
Albert had worried over him? He knew his brother had not been happy with the way he led his life, but he hadn’t known he actually worried over him. Whenever Albert had taken him to task, he’d simply viewed it as an older brother being disappointed or needing to control a younger one. Yet, he’d promised Albert if he took the journey to Africa with him, that when they returned he would settle down, marry, and seek a position in Parliament. He hated that he couldn’t be certain it was a promise he would have kept. He would have said anything to get Albert to go with him. That truth pained him now: that he might not have been completely honest with the one person who had always been absolutely forthright with him.
She was waiting expectantly for him to tell her something about a man she disliked, and for the first time that he could recall, he wanted her to have a favorable impression of him. “Edward didn’t like being the second son.”
“I suspect most second sons don’t,” she said gently, no disapproval in her tone.
Before he left on his trip with Albert, she’d only ever spoken to Edward with disapproval threaded through her words. He didn’t like that he now enjoyed the soft tenor of her voice, that he was suddenly finding it very easy on the ears. “Ironically, though, he had no desire whatsoever to be earl.”
“Too much work,” she said with a smile.
He found himself returning it, only a slight lift of one corner, but it was more than he’d ever thought he would experience again. “Exactly. You knew him very well.”
“Not really. I regret that now. But we digress. Something pleasant.”
Something pleasant. The fish definitely didn’t fit that category, and while he’d only managed a few bites without gagging, he set his plate aside and snatched up his wineglass while he still had an excuse for indulging. “At first we didn’t like living at Havisham Hall. It didn’t take us long to determine that something wasn’t quite right. None of the clocks worked, not a single one ticked. The manor was as large as Evermore, but there were only half a dozen servants. We were forbidden from entering a good part of the manor, many of the rooms locked. So Edward began plotting our first expedition.” He smiled at the memory, the seriousness of it. In this story at least he would be himself.
“You told me once that the marquess had stopped all the clocks when his wife died.”
Edward’s smile withered. Damnation. How was he to know what Albert had shared and what he hadn’t? Surely she would give an indication if she knew this story. “The marquess stopped a lot of things when his wife died. Living, mostly.”
“I can imagine that. I don’t know what I would have done had it been you who died in Africa.” She shook her head. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for us to go there. We’re at Havisham Hall.”
Still, her words merely confirmed that his present course was truly the only one open to him if he wished to honor the vow he’d made to Albert. While he might not have been a man of his word before, he damned well planned to be one now. “I don’t know why we got it into our heads that we could go exploring only at midnight. It wasn’t as though anyone was truly about during the day to interfere.”
“More forbidden at night, after you all were supposed to be abed, I imagine. That’s when I would have gone,” she said with a tantalizing wicked upturn of her lips.
He fought not to stare. At that tempting luscious mouth and at the sparkle in her eyes that hinted she’d have been right there alongside them, sneaking down dark corridors with only a single candle to light their way. He didn’t much like discovering that she was comprised of unexplored facets. He liked even less that he found himself wanting to explore them. He merely wanted to walk in his brother’s shoes until his heir was born, walk cautiously forward without taking any side jaunts. Getting to know Julia better had not been part of his plan. Still, he had to acknowledge she had the right of it. “More adventuresome as well when we were in danger of getting caught, as the marquess roamed the hallways at night. I often heard his soft footfalls going past my bedchamber door, so the thrill of escaping back to our beds unscathed was a driving force,” he admitted.
Her smile blossomed into something that caused a tightening in his chest. “And did you?” she prodded.
“Do you want me to spoil the story by giving you the ending to our adventure?”
She reduced her smile a fraction. “Now you sound like Edward with his obsession for storytelling.”
Damnation. He’d slipped. He’d always enjoyed weaving tales. Albert always preferred a more direct approach, never taking the time to enhance the narrative.
“He was always so good at it,” she continued.
He blinked, wondering if he’d heard correctly. “I didn’t think you noticed.”
“I loved listening to his stories. It’s the reason that I always held a dinner party when Edward and the others returned from one of their adventures. I knew he would never bother to share his exploits with me, but he would weave a mesmerizing tale for others, for an audience. It didn’t hamper his storytelling to know I was in the back of the room, although I tried not to let on how much I was enjoying it, lest he decline the next time I invited him.”
“I didn’t know.” He’d assumed she’d always done it for the attention it brought to her. The Countess of Greyling managing to provide London Society with a night of entertainment courtesy of the Hellions of Havisham—as the four of them were often called.
She lifted a delicate shoulder. “I have a few secrets.”
He found himself wanting to uncover every one, although he suspected for the most part they were innocent, trivial, while the one he now held from her was horrendous. “He thought you had no interest in his trips. If you had merely asked—”
“He’d have said no. You know he would have. Edward had no wish to please me, to please anyone other than himself. It inflated his self-esteem to have an audience, and so I provided it. And in return, I got a little something for myself. Hearing about the adventures.”
She was wrong. Had she asked, he would have woven the tales for her, just for her. How was it that they managed not to know each other at all, when Albert had been so important to both of them?
