Page 76

T obias Powell, fifth Earl of Overton, smiled faintly at the brush of his mistress’s fingertips along his shoulder.

He didn’t open his eyes. Instead, he pressed himself into the bedclothes as if he could hug the cozy softness of the bed.

He was particularly tired today, but then it had been a viciously late night.

“What time is your ward arriving?” Barbara, his soon-to-be-former mistress, asked from behind him.

Bloody hell, his ward. His eyes shot open as he pushed himself to a sitting position, the bedclothes falling away from his nude body. “What time is it?”

“Three.”

“In the afternoon?” Of course, in the afternoon. They hadn’t even come back to Barbara’s lodgings until the sun was rising over London.

Tobias scrambled from the bed and ran about plucking up his carelessly tossed clothing. Foregoing smallclothes since he couldn’t seem to find them, he pulled his breeches on. Then he threw his shirt over his head and haphazardly tucked the ends into his waistband.

From the bed, Barbara held up the missing smallclothes, her wide red lips parting in a teasing smile. “Don’t you need these?”

“You kept those from me on purpose.”

She shrugged, her elegant shoulders arching, which made her rather large breasts also move.

Tobias groaned. “I have to go. My ward could already have arrived.” This was not how he’d intended things to happen.

He was supposed to be on his best, non-scandalous behavior, both to support his ward’s debut and to find his own wife.

“You are far too tempting, Barbara.” He narrowed his eyes at her as he tugged his waistcoat on.

“Your buttons are not aligned.” She laughed softly as she leaned back against the head of the bed, making no attempt to cover her exposed upper half.

Tobias looked down and saw that she was right. Cursing softly, he started over. “This is your fault. You’re a terrible distraction.”

She stretched one arm up over her head, which again accentuated her breasts. “You like me that way.”

“I like you every way, but you know this is our final meeting. It has to be.”

Lowering her arm, she at last pulled up the bedclothes to cover her chest. Pouting, she said, “Because you must marry. Immediately. ”

Flinging himself into a chair, Tobias began to don his stockings and boots. “Within the next five or so weeks, yes.” Because his father had decreed it in a surprising change to his will before he’d died in December.

Tobias had to wed within three months of the former earl’s death, or he’d lose the one property that was not entailed—Tobias’s mother’s house, the only true home he’d ever known. He would do anything to keep it in his possession. Which meant he had to find a wife with nearly impossible haste.

And it was only nearly impossible because of his own behavior the past two years. While there were many who would gleefully accept an earl’s suit, he didn’t want just anyone. He wanted a wife of sophistication and wit, one who was kind and caring.

Someone he could love, even if he didn’t at the outset.

Because he had no bloody time to fall in love.

He needed to find a suitable woman, settle the betrothal, have the banns read, and complete the marriage ceremony within five weeks.

All while any woman worth having would likely turn her back to him.

Reformation was the plan, and so far, he was failing. He’d tried to break things off with Barbara the other day, but he’d encountered her last night, and she’d been incredibly persuasive.

Finishing with his boots, he stood and drew on his coat. His cravat was also lost, apparently. No matter. It would have been a horribly wrinkled mess. He grabbed his hat and gloves from the top of her dresser and went to the bed.

“This really was the last time, Barb. You know it has to be.”

She exhaled, her dark eyes meeting his with a shadow of sadness. “I’ll find someone else, but they won’t be you. They’ll be serious and boring, and they won’t know me at all.”

Tobias brushed a dark blonde lock from her cheek and bent to press a kiss to her temple. “They’ll come to know you, and you’ll cure them of their dullness.” He straightened and set his hat atop his head.

“Perhaps I’ll take your generous settlement and just wait for you to change your mind.” She smiled up at him, and Tobias suffered a moment’s regret. He didn’t love Barbara, but she made him feel good and that was a lovely thing.

He turned and left her rooms, then practically sprinted down to the street where he hailed a hack.

Three in the afternoon! He really hoped his ward had not yet arrived.

It was a long journey from Shropshire, and the winter weather could have delayed her.

Yes, he’d hope that was the case. Hadn’t that been one of the arguments Barbara had used the night before to persuade him to go home with her?

She’d cooed that his ward was likely stuck somewhere due to a washed-out road.

Not that it had taken much to sway him. He’d fallen eagerly and completely into debauchery without a shred of regret.

That his behavior would have frustrated his father—and did while he was alive—only made it more attractive.

After Tobias had failed to wed two years ago, his father had harassed him incessantly about taking a wife.

Hence, his dying decree that Tobias marry or suffer—by losing the one possession that meant something incredibly dear to him.

And so his father would win as if this had been a game the past two years. It hadn’t been, not to Tobias. He thought he’d fallen in love, only to have the lady in question turn on him and make him doubt everything he’d felt. Was it any wonder he was not inclined to court anyone else?

It was, however, time he did.

The hack stopped halfway down Brook Street, and Tobias leapt from the vehicle. He dashed through the gate and up the steps to his house, rushing inside as Carrin opened the door.

He stopped abruptly, facing the butler. “Is she here?”

“Miss Wingate?” Carrin shook his head. “Not yet, my lord.”

The stress rushed out of Tobias’s frame, making him feel as if he might slide down to the marble floor. “Thank God. I’m going to take a quick bath.” He removed his hat and strode through the archway into the staircase hall.

“I believe she’s just arrived, my lord,” Carrin called just as Tobias put his foot on the stair.

Closing his eyes, he gripped the railing. “Bollocks.”

“Oh my goodness, that’s Hyde Park!” Fiona Wingate pressed her nose to the window of the coach, her pulse racing.

“How do you know?” Mrs. Tucket said without opening her eyes from beside Fiona.

“Because I do.” Fiona had studied maps of London for as long as she could remember.

Indeed, she’d studied every map she could get her hands on.

“It’s so big and wonderful.” She splayed her gloved palm against the glass as if she could somehow reach through and touch the trees, their spindly limbs still bare.

Mrs. Tucket leaned against her, and a quick look showed she’d opened one eye long enough to peer past Fiona at the park. “Harumph. You can’t see anything of import.”

No, she couldn’t see Rotten Row or the Serpentine or any of the ton’s ladies and gentlemen who would be out and about during the fashionable hour.

She doubted they’d be out today anyway. It was quite early in the Season, with Parliament just starting their session a few days earlier. And it was too cold to promenade.

At that moment, raindrops splattered the window. Certainly too rainy.

Fiona didn’t care. She’d take London in the rain, the snow, even in a hurricane, if such a thing were possible.

The point was, she didn’t care about the weather or that the park was not yet in full bloom.

She was in London . Most importantly, she was no longer in Bitterley, where she’d spent the entirety of her almost twenty-two years.

Mrs. Tucket exhaled loudly as she worked to push herself into an upright sitting position. She’d slumped rather far down in her seat since their last stop some miles back. “I suppose I must rouse myself from the travel stupor.”

Fiona kept her face to the window until they reached the corner of the park.

Even then, she craned her neck to look back at it, marveling at the archway leading inside.

She would get to promenade there or mayhap even ride.

Perhaps her guardian would drive her in his phaeton.

Assuming he had one. Surely all earls had phaetons.

The coach continued along a bustling street—Oxford Street, if she recalled the map correctly. And she was certain she did. Shortly they would turn right down Davies Street into Mayfair, the heart of London’s most fashionable neighborhood.

They passed stone and brick-faced houses, some with elaborate doorways and others with wide windows. Some were narrow while others were twice as wide. When they turned left onto Brook Street, the houses became quite elegant, with fancy wrought iron fencing and pillared entrances.

At last, the coach drew to a halt in front of the most glorious house yet.

An iron gate with a large O worked into the design at the top guarded the walkway leading to the front door where a pair of pillars stood on either side.

The door of the coach opened, and a footman dressed in dark green livery rushed through the gate to help her descend.

Fiona tipped her head back and counted four stories stretching into the gray sky. A raindrop landed on her nose, and she grinned. Then she glanced down at the part of the house below the street. Five stories in all.

“I think my legs have completely gone to sleep,” Mrs. Tucket said, grasping Fiona’s arm to steady herself.