Font Size
Line Height

Page 30 of Only Earl in the World (Taming of the Dukes)

When everything was said and done, and the dust had finally settled, the official report was that Viscount Sackley had been dispatched by the Metropolitan Police for attempting to murder a peer.

The scandal surrounding his obsession and kidnapping of two women had made the rounds in the gossip rags with much speculation as to the viscount’s proclivities.

It was curious that the people invested in shaming others usually had the most dreadful secrets.

As Vesper had discovered, Penelope, as it turned out, was an enthusiast of Lady Ivy.

Apparently, the viscount had come upon the volumes she had collected and threatened to expose her so-called perversions, unless she did what he asked.

Much to Penelope’s delighted shock, a large package featuring signed copies of Lady Ivy’s adventures had been recently delivered to her home.

So, Briar’s secret alter-ego was safe.

She knew that Minthe would never say anything, though the woman had interrogated her like a seasoned investigator in the carriage on the way back to London.

The girls, even Effie, had been relieved that both she and Minthe had escaped mostly unscathed after the ordeal.

Briar and her friends had wept and hugged, clutching each other like the unbreakable sisterhood they were.

Then Vesper had somehow gotten it in her head that Minthe and Levi seemed to be exchanging looks of desperate yearning, according to Vesper at least, and she’d had to be steered away immediately from resorting to her meddling, matchmaking ways.

Briar had chuckled. If it were meant to be, it would be.

Minthe was a few years older than her brother, but if they could make each other happy, then that was all that mattered.

After they had both been seen by Dr. Garrett and pronounced healthy and hale, things fell back into a quasi-normal routine.

Briar spent most mornings with the London National Society for Women’s Suffrage, her afternoons at Lethe, and her evenings at balls and parties for the remainder of the season with the rest of the Hellfire Kitties, keeping her eye out for influential supporters as well as those who might welcome earnest new employees looking for a chance of a better life.

In her spare time, she continued to write.

Well, she tried .

Despite Theo’s shortened stint in prison for distributing illicit literature—Viscount Sackley’s word was worthless—which Theo had assured her hadn’t been the first time nor would it be the last, the demand for more of Lady Ivy’s stories remained high.

And not just from the ladies either. It seemed that her readership was growing, thanks to more open-minded Englishmen who wanted to keep their wives happy .

As long as she was willing to pen the books, Theo was happy to publish them and continue their very profitable arrangement. Though in truth, Briar wasn’t sure what Jasper’s feelings were on the whole thing, which was probably what was obstructing her muse.

The viscount’s ugly words still lingered in her head.

As a lady who carried her husband’s name, it was her marital duty to represent him well in society. She knew the earl liked her work, but it would never be considered a ladylike pursuit, nor an appropriate vocation for a future countess.

Perhaps the discussion would be better had sooner rather than later.

With that in mind, she knocked on his office door at Lethe. There was a scuffling sound before his deep voice said, “Come in.”

“Am I disturbing you?” she asked, frowning slightly at his flushed face as he sat with one hip propped against his desk.

Dressed in charcoal trousers, a blue waistcoat, and shirtsleeves with the cuffs rolled to display those thick veiny forearms that always made her insides fray, he looked wickedly handsome and entirely too pleased, like a cat who just devoured an enormous saucer of cream.

“Never. You were just the woman I hoped to see.”

Strolling into the room, she glanced around, seeing nothing out of the ordinary, but he looked like he was up to something. With him, one could never be sure. She narrowed her eyes. “Why do you look like you’re bursting at the seams? Jasper, what have you done now?”

He gave her a breathtaking smile; the real one she loved that made his eyes crinkle and those blue irises shimmer like the sea on a summer evening. “Because I have a surprise for you. Two surprises, actually. But first, you look like you’ve something on your mind. What is it?”

Oh, of course. Lady Ivy .

Briar inhaled a deep breath. “I need to talk to you about my writing,” she said before she could lose her nerve.

Smile diminishing at her serious expression, he cocked his head. “What about it?”

“Since we are to be married, I was wondering if I should stop,” she rushed out. “It’s not the kind of thing that a lady should be writing about and?—”

“Does it make you happy?” he asked.

She blinked. “Well, yes, I enjoy writing her stories. I discover more about myself every day, and I think she also brings joy, courage, and intimate agency to many other women. And men, too, I suppose.”

“Then, keep doing it,” he said with another of those heart-melting grins. “And I can wholeheartedly agree about the more joy part.”

Her cheeks went hot at that—supposedly, he was obsessed with reading past iterations for inspiration . “But what if?—”

Jasper dragged her toward him and pressed a finger to her lips.

“But nothing, Sweetbriar. I want my countess to be happy doing whatever she loves. And it is my honor and privilege to support you in any calling you choose. I will give jobs to anyone you feel needs a second chance. If you continue to bring petitions to Parliament for women’s suffrage, I will be your keen and faithful voice until you have your own.

” He winked. “And as far as Lady Ivy, well, we both know what she does to me. ”

“Jasper.” She flung her arms around his neck and kissed him, drinking in his scent and the appreciative sounds he made. “How I love you!”

“Wait until you see these surprises; you will love me more.” He grinned with a soft kiss to her forehead. “It’s my goal to make you fall so deeply in love with me that I am imprinted upon your heart for all eternity.”

“I suppose it’s working,” she said, heart squeezing at his playful sweetness.

Kissing her again as if he couldn’t stop touching her, he turned to his desk to retrieve a document. It looked like something official, complete with stamps and signatures. Briar perused the length of it, catching sight of the address of her family home in Bath. “What is this? My dowry?”

“Not exactly. The property is in a trust with your name on it. I bought it from your father, and this way, until English marriage laws change, it will belong to you.”

“Jasper, I—” Her jaw went slack as she stared at him. “You did this…for me?”

“It’s yours,” he said simply. “Just like everything I have will be yours, including this wonderful facility, even if English law does not explicitly say that. Yet .” He shrugged and wrapped his arms around her again, tucking her head under his chin.

“This way, you know that your childhood home will always be yours.”

This. Man.

Briar felt her throat clog and her nose sting with emotion. “Stop being so wonderful. It’s extremely unbecoming of a dangerous rogue. You do have a dastardly, wicked reputation to maintain, don’t you know?”

“Do I?” His lip curled in that smirk that never failed to make her heart race. “Well, suffice it to say, that part of me only makes an appearance when anything of mine is threatened.” His voice dropped. “Or when my favorite brat needs a new lesson.”

Briar shivered. “Oh.”

He swooped in to gather her up into his arms, and she gasped. He seized the opportunity to claim her mouth in a messy, voracious kiss, making her senses spin. When she was sufficiently bemused, he set her down. “Allow me, Prickles, to get to my second surprise.”

He walked to the office door and locked it, which instantly made her breath come faster, and then he strolled over to a small storeroom at the back of the office.

Briar swallowed hard as he removed what looked like a decent-sized bench from the space, lifting it back toward where she stood in the middle of the room, huffing from the effort. It must have been heavy.

“What is that?” she blurted, wide-eyed.

“Guess,” he said. “Look familiar?”

The waist-high, oddly constructed contraption resembled something she’d researched and written about. The bench-like shape had carved legs and was fitted with handles and stirrups, including an angled padded top and side with cleverly placed cutouts. Her cheeks flamed.

“You made me a Berkley Horse ?”

Jasper smirked. “With some Lady Ivy improvements. I took some creative liberty for comfort but mostly followed your descriptions. Shall we try it?”

She shook her head, unable to contain her laughter.

“You are the strangest, most amazing man I have ever met. You are quite possibly the only earl in the world to buy a girl property, tell her she can do whatever makes her happy, even if it’s to write bawdy fiction, and then you build her an intimate bench based on what she invented in a fictional story. ”

“I am rather exceptional,” he preened. “Now get in position and lift your skirts.”

The low command fell like hot honey on her senses.

“Jasper, it’s the middle of the day,” she whispered, scandalized, though the idea was unreasonably titillating. “Anyone could hear us.”

“Then that all depends on how quiet you can be,” he said. “Skirts, Briar. Now .”

And that was how, as it turned out, Briar discovered that she could be very, very quiet with the right incentive while the love of her life took her to indescribable new heights, folded over a piece of naughty furniture she’d cooked up in her very imaginative mind.

When he finally joined her in the throes of rapture and they collapsed in a sweaty, delirious mess, Briar could only smile happily.

“So,” her very talented fiancé said, tucking her into his chest, after he’d ferried her boneless body over to the divan in the corner of the office. “What’s the verdict?”

Briar chuckled. “If you ever decide you don’t want to be Duke of Harwick or the owner of Lethe, you could become a carpenter.

We would be so rich ! London is full of curious couples who would welcome a Lushing Horse of their own.

” She grinned. “Lushing Trestle? Lushing Loveseat? The possibilities are endless.”

“It’s an excellent prototype,” he agreed, nodding sagely. “But I think we need a few more physical experiments to be absolutely, positively sure of our design. ”

Unable to hide her smile, Briar pretended to think. “I think you’re right. Straps and buckles might be a nice touch.”

“I knew I loved that brilliant mind of yours,” he said, kissing her soundly. “We didn’t even try the other side.”

“There’s another side?” She stared at him and then the contraption, her eyes rounding with renewed interest. Suddenly, she wasn’t so fatigued anymore.

Giggling, she stood and dragged him toward it, though by the already erect state of him, he wouldn’t be protesting too much. “No rest for the wicked, my lord.”

And that was the reason servants reported the sounds of unhinged laughter coming from the office of the Earl of Lushing for a good few hours that afternoon.

Much later on, when a well-loved and starry-eyed Briar caught up with her friends at the last ball of the season, she couldn’t help seeing a similarly joyful rapport between the couples.

It was incongruous and yet utterly unsurprising that something as small as joy could have an impact that was so powerful and far-reaching. Perhaps it wasn’t such a revolutionary concept that pleasure was pervasive. Happier, healthier bodies meant happier, healthier minds.

All the Hellfire Kitties were proof of that, whether it was between a stone-hearted grump of a duke and a sassy French ballerina, or a scholarly paleontologist-turned-peer and an impulsive high-society darling, or a caber-tossing, uncivilized Scot and an unsociable animal lover.

Or even Lushing and her: a rakish, dangerous earl with a heart of gold and a suffragist-heiress who wrote subversive literature.

They had each found meaningful unions with their partners who adored, respected, and desired them, and vice versa.

The journey for each of them hadn’t always been easy, nor was success ever assured.

But it was in choosing to make that journey, no matter the outcome, that was the whole point.

Love was a choice…one that they all made every single day.

In the words of the illustrious Jane Austen, it was half agony, half hope.

And in the words of Lady Briar Fairview, it was always worth fighting for.

Ad If ads affect your reading experience, click here to remove ads on this page.