Page 7 of An Unexpected Earl
She closed the door. As the carriage jerked into motion, she rested her head back against the cracked leather squabs and shut her eyes.
Of all the men to run into this evening, and dressed like this, no less—what a nightmare! Even now, her heart pounded a fierce tattoo because he’d seen her face, because he remembered her…
But then, why wouldn’t he? After all, she’d never forgotten him.
“What happened?” Her maid’s concerned voice reached out to her in the darkness. “What’s wrong?”
Unable just yet to squelch the shock of seeing Pearce again and open her eyes, Amelia simply shook her head.
“Oh, I knew coming here was a bad idea!”
Her maid, Maggie, who was almost ten years older than Amelia, had refused to let her venture out alone tonight and insisted on waiting in the carriage. Now guilt prickled in Amelia’s belly that she’d upset the woman.
“Nothing’s wrong,” Amelia assured her, finally finding her voice.Except that I saw a ghost…
“You spoke to him, then?”
She meant Sir Charles Varnham. Amelia’s purpose for going to tonight’s masquerade. “No.”
Her shoulders sagged at her dashed plans. She’d borrowed the red dress and mask so she could speak to Charles Varnham without any servants or society gossips—and especially her brother—knowing. After all, there was no proper way for an unmarried lady to talk privately to a bachelor gentleman of Sir Charles’s rank and the leading member of the House of Commons’s Committee of Privileges, no less. No way to send him a message without risking that servants or his secretary would read it. And no way to keep Frederick from finding out. So when Freddie had mentioned that Sir Charles would be at the masquerade, Amelia had seized the night as the only opportunity she would have to approach him.
But it had turned into a complete disaster.
“I couldn’t find him in the crush,” she admitted in defeat.
Her maid unleashed a string of curses beneath her breath. “Then we’re back to where we began.”
“Yes.” With no more information than the little she already knew. That her brother, the Honorable Frederick Howard, Member of Parliament for Minehead, was being blackmailed.
By whom, over what, why—she had no idea. All she had was a note of extortion that mentioned Sir Charles Varnham’s name and a brother she couldn’t confront about it, who was behaving even more erratically than usual. More suspiciously. More…desperately.
She’d discovered it all by accident. A crumpled note had been forgotten in the pocket of her brother’s jacket, one he’d been so foxed while wearing that he’d gotten sick on himself—or one of his cronies had—leaving the garment too soiled ever to be worn again. Maggie had given it a last once-over before tossing it onto the pile for the rag-and-bone man, found the note, given it to Amelia…
She had no idea what her brother had done—the unsigned note wasn’t specific. But if he didn’t continue to cooperate, then he would be exposed…You can be assured that I will reveal everything you have done, and the consequences will be far worse for you than if Charles Varnham learns of your illegal activities. Please do not force me to destroy you…
If Freddie’s recent behavior was any indication, the threat was very real.
She pressed her hand to her belly. Just thinking about it made her sick! But she hadn’t dared speak to Freddie yet. What good would it have done? She loved her brother and knew him well, which meant she knew his character. Moral fortitude, unfortunately, wasn’t part of it. If she confronted him, he’d simply deny everything, accuse her of meddling where she didn’t belong, or outright lie, just as he had to his prefects at school whenever he’d been caught breaking the rules and to Papa whenever he’d done far more than that. Worse, because if he suspected that she was stirring up trouble—or if hehaddone something illegal that he didn’t want her to discover—he had the power to close down her charity shop.
She could never let that happen. The war widows who worked there depended upon her for their livelihood, and she depended upon them for giving her a reason to rise from bed every morning. Her throat tightened. What would she have left to live for if she lost her charity?
Eventually, she would have to confront Frederick, she knew. But not yet. Not until she had more facts, at least enough to force him into telling the truth. Even if it meant having to dress like a courtesan to hold anonymous conversations about blackmail in order to get them.
Sweet heavens,howhad her life come to this?
“So why were you running?”
“I—” She bit down the sting of guilt at lying to the woman who had been with her since she was eighteen. “Frederick saw me.”
A new string of Irish curses poured from Maggie, even more creative than the ones before. “Did he recognize you?”
“He only saw me in my mask, only for a moment.” And mostly as she was running away. “No, I’m certain he didn’t.”
But the other man who’d seen her had recognized her immediately. Brandon Pearce… Good heavens, what washedoing there?
It had been over a decade since they’d last seen each other. Since that horrible night of her sixteenth birthday when he’d come to her bedroom, crawling in through her window just as he’d always done since they were children to give her his present—a little gold locket that he’d saved up all his money to buy. The same night when he’d come close to taking her innocence.Veryclose. She would have let him, too, if Papa hadn’t burst in upon them.
Even now her cheeks heated with the humiliation of it, their friendship abruptly over and both of them banished—Amelia to school in Scotland by her father and Pearce into the army by his cousin, the Earl of Sandhurst, who’d called in favors to quickly purchase an officer’s commission for him. Neither man wanted the scandal that would befall both their families if anyone learned of what happened. Or risk the possibility that it might happen again.
