Changing the Earl's Mind (The Lords of Whitehall Book 3) Read online

  “And what if they become her enemies instead?”

  “We shan’t let that happen,” she said soberly. “We must conduct this with tact.”

  “Tact,” he repeated flatly. The words themselves were logical. We must conduct this with tact. Obviously. The way she had said it was what had him narrowing his eyes a fraction. It was the same way in which Parliament would say, we need cooperation from Egypt, when what they meant was, we need you to make the Turks, the Egyptian Mamluks, and the Albanian mercenaries see reason and cooperate with us in a civilized fashion.

  In short, someone was expecting a miracle.

  “I suppose it would be a waste of breath to remind you that she does not belong amongst the ton. They will never accept her. She has no money, no noble blood, and she is foreign. They have a hard enough time accepting their own kind.”

  “Francine has made up her mind.” She lifted her chin. “As have I. She speaks and carries herself well enough. All that is wanting is for her to dress the part.”

  “She’s not only foreign, Mother, she’s American,” he reminded her. “She grew up on a farm. They will shred her to bits, and no amount of silk and muslin is going to save her.”

  “They will do no such thing with the highly influential Earl of Saint Brides at her side,” she said, determination sparking in her eyes.

  “Even with me at her side, there is very little we can do about her reputation,” he said. “Her picture has been posted on every street corner in England with murderess plastered across it. Not to mention, she and I were posing as husband and wife.”

  “Oh, dear, Drake.” She grimaced. “Even so, with a great deal of strategic gossip, we can handle that.”

  Drake almost laughed. “How the devil do you intend to do that?”

  His mother blinked up at him as though she didn’t quite comprehend his question. “Why, with you, naturally.”

  He stared blankly and then gestured to himself. “Me?”

  “We shall mention, of course, the connection between Francis and Lady Umberton,” she said with the patience one would expect to use with a child. “Everyone knows Lady Umberton and I are close friends, so when Francis passed and his wife was mistakenly accused of his murder, it’s only natural that I sent for you to straighten things out and accompany Mrs. Tindall, Lady Umberton, and myself to London. Altogether, very properly.”

  “Do you truly believe the ton will settle for your rational lie when the truth is so confounded titillating?”

  “They will when it comes from your lips,” she said, smiling like a cat caught in the cream bowl. “You are one of the most powerful men in England, and your character is beyond reproach, a true gentleman. No one will question you.”

  Drake let out a controlled breath, clenching his hands at his sides. “You want me to lie?”

  “Of course I do.”

  Of course she would. And he ought to lie. It would protect them all. Unless he choked on it. Then no one would believe him.

  “I am an awful liar,” he admitted evenly.

  “All you have to do is nod when anyone asks you if it’s true. The lie, that is.”

  He didn’t like it. It wasn’t honest. If only he could think of a better way of making sure Sarah could avoid trial, but his mother was right; England needed a villain. If he somehow couldn’t produce one, they would choose their own, and the obvious choice would be Sarah Tindall.

  He nodded.

  “You are a good boy, Drake.” She smiled hesitantly, patting his arm. “Although, if anyone does learn of the two of you traveling alone together, it would complicate matters.”

  Drake clenched his jaw. “If anyone learned any of the truth, it would complicate matters.”

  She nodded. “What will you do if she is ruined for being alone with you?”

  Beat his head into a wall until he bludgeoned this entire week from his brain.

  “Nothing at all,” he said. “I have no claim on her.”

  “You would feel no responsibility for her?”

  The walls in this room ought to do nicely.

  “I acted appropriately in the capacity of my office,” he returned.

  She nodded hesitantly, and Drake thought she might speak again, but then she leaned in to kiss his cheek and walked away, leaving his insides in utter turmoil.

  Chapter 8

  The next morning, Drake did not wake, because in order for one to wake, one must have first fallen asleep. Instead of sleeping, he had been up writing orders to mobilize a small army of agents and arranging a separate residence for himself in London. Then he was thinking about her, the source of all his frustration. He was thinking about how she felt underneath him, how she tasted, and the inexplicable things she did to his brain locker and his every cell. The result was a very cross breakfast companion, and three cups of coffee had not improved his mood in the slightest.

  He sat in the private dining room, guzzling hot coffee half an hour before the sun dared crest the horizon. Just as the first blinding rays were peeking through the only window, turning his eyes to ash—or very nearly, at any rate—the first brave traveler slipped into the room and poured herself a cup of coffee. She sat across from him, he knew, though he could not for the life of him see her.

  “May I draw the curtain for you?” Mrs. Tindall asked, sounding immensely amused.

  Drake growled. He knew he was acting abominably, baldly staring the sun in the face rather than forcing himself to make the effort to close the bloody curtain, then growling like a beast when someone offered to do it for him. Even so, a few seconds later, the curtain swung over the glass and, though he still couldn’t quite see, he was no longer in a staring contest with a huge ball of fire and gas.

  “Thank you,” he grunted.

  By slow degrees, his sight miraculously returned, and Mrs. Tindall sat staring back at him as she slowly sipped her coffee.

  “What are you doing up so early?” he asked irritably, as though her mere presence forced him to speak, and he was resentful. He was too tired to correct that misinterpretation. Or to even ascertain if it was, indeed, her interpretation.

  In fact, he was rather pleased she had come when she had, and not only because she had saved him from being permanently blinded.

  “I slept poorly,” she said. “I can’t remember how many times I woke and managed to drift back to sleep. Too many times. I decided to break the pattern and stay up.”

  He rubbed his eyes with his fingers and grunted. So, he hadn’t been the only one sleep had eluded.

  “I suppose you are always up so early?” she asked.

  He shook his head, then nodded, then shook his head again. Yes, he was often up early, sometimes hours before the sun would rise, but he slept late often, too. It depended on whether or not he’d had to stay awake half the night deciphering an especially tricky case.

  She chuckled. It was a beautiful sound, and he felt his mouth curl up in an answering smile.

  “You must keep strange hours,” she said.

  “I do.”

  “You look awful,” she said after a long pause.

  He ran a hand through his mess of curls self-consciously, certain he looked worse than awful. “That isn’t a very ladylike thing to say. You will give a gentleman a complex.”

  “I’m not a lady.”

  “You are now,” he said, pausing to sip the steaming coffee. “Or, you soon will be. Lady Umberton intends to marry you off to some title-bearing aristocrat who will sweep you off your feet and whisk you off to his castle.”

  “Where I shall live happily ever after?”

  He grunted, a noncommittal guttural sound she apparently took as a confirmation.

  “How preposterous.”

  Yes, how preposterous. What was more preposterous was that he could imagine that man being quite happy with her in that castle. Not Drake, obviously. Not his castle. But another man. Another castle.

  She had her beauty to recommend her, and the support of his mother and Lady Umberton. I
t wouldn’t be difficult for her to find that man with a castle to marry her. Several of them, in fact. No doubt they would swarm about her the instant she arrived in London.

  Why did that thought sour his stomach? No, it couldn’t have been the thought. It must be all this black coffee he was pouring down his throat.

  “I may agree to be carted about London,” she said, pausing to take a sip of her coffee, “but I shall not agree to marry. Never again.”

  He looked up at her, a small glimmer of hope warily budding inside him.

  “The last time did not work out so well,” she continued with a cocked brow. “What kind of man would want to marry a murderess, anyway?”

  “You are not a murderess,” he pointed out.

  “I might as well be.”

  “Not if you can manage to be cordial long enough to enchant every heart in London. You could even manage a smile.”

  “Like this?” She smiled widely, tilting her head and batting her thick lashes in a mockingly coquettish manner.

  “I said enchant them, not frighten them to death,” he muttered.

  She laughed, filling the room once again with sunshine. Blinding sunshine and warmth.

  “Will you go back to your parents when all this mess is cleared up?” he asked, convincing himself he wanted her to take her sunshine to the other side of the world and leave him to his grim, rainy days and big, empty castle.

  It was better that way.

  “I don’t know,” she said pensively, a small line forming between her brows. “I was so happy there when I was a child, but now I’m not sure I could go back. It’s so… small.”

  “Must I remind you I live on an island?” he returned flatly. “America is enormous.”

  She smiled. “I meant the town I grew up in.”

  He nodded, ignoring the way her smile warmed him. “Where will you go, then?”

  “New York, perhaps,” she mused. “Or Paris, Vienna, St. Petersburg, Barcelona, Venice, Athens, Cairo—”

  “Well, don’t limit yourself,” he muttered.

  She laughed again, and he felt a smile pull at his mouth. It wasn’t that he didn’t like to smile; he simply rarely had cause for it. He had to admit it felt good. Strange, but good all the same.

  “I very much want to travel,” she said.

  “I would never have guessed.”

  She grinned, and he chuckled.

  Gad, he hadn’t chuckled in ages, not without it dripping with sarcasm.

  “Have you ever been outside England?” she asked after a short pause.

  “Oh, yes,” he said. “Though not for pleasure, I’m afraid. Always official government business.”

  “Where have you been… officially?”

  He smiled. “I have never been to New York.”

  Her eyes grew, and her full mouth made a small O. “Do you mean to say, you have been to all the other places I mentioned?”

  He nodded, and her eyes lit from somewhere deep inside. He wasn’t sure if he should be enchanted or frightened out of his wits. She was more beautiful than he had ever seen her—or anyone else—and the fascinating glint in her eyes could easily mean ungodly amounts of trouble.

  “Tell me about them?” she asked hopefully.

  He leaned back in his chair and watched her. She was like a child, eager for stories of adventure. He regretted having to disappoint her in that respect. He saw very little adventure.

  “I shall bore you with the details another time,” he said, noting the footsteps and high-pitched chatter quickly approaching.

  Her countenance fell only for a moment. Then his mother and Lady Umberton arrived with breakfast, and she seemed to recover. They spoke of London over eggs, ham, and toast. No detail was left untouched. They went on and on about ball gowns, hats, gloves, and a myriad of other feminine trappings. It was a conversation of which Drake contributed very little, and was still in full swing when the ladies were handed up into the carriage.

  “We shall see you in London, dear,” his mother said, waving a gloved hand out the window at him. “Don’t you dare step foot in your office until we make plans.”

  Drake reluctantly agreed, and when his eyes met Mrs. Tindall’s, he found himself smiling his encouragement. He suspected she would need some sort of support to survive an entire day’s journey with talk of nothing but the tribulations she would be expected to endure coming out into society.

  He had elected to take his other carriage rather than send it back to Barrington Park, which allowed the women to speak in private of the tortures of the Season while Drake enjoyed the peace and quiet of an empty carriage.

  An hour after the vehicle rumbled out of the inn yard, Drake was still waiting for the usual sense of peace to come over him. Instead, he was restless. There was not one irritating word uttered, no glares, or chasing runaways, or bruises on his shins. Only his own intelligent thoughts in a big, comfortable, empty carriage. It was as he had always preferred it.

  And he was miserable.

  In a private room at Holbert’s Gaming House in Barnsby, Sam stretched his legs out before him, a satisfied smile splitting his face. Soon, William and George will return from that old hag’s gilded cage with five large ones. It had been a long time since he’d had appropriate funds. Decades, in fact. That was why he had treated himself this evening.

  Joanna, his favorite blonde, lounged across his lap, her bountiful charms spilling from the insufficient fabric meant to hold them in. When he skimmed his hands over her, she practically purred, reaching up and feathering her fingers through his black hair.

  “Soon, my dove,” he murmured. “I await good news. After that, we shall have our fill of each other, I promise you.”

  She smiled, a cat’s smile, and he instantly hardened for her. She was vicious, almost as vicious as he, and he would have her. Once he had the gold in his hands, he would take her as his mistress. She wouldn’t care that he was edging on fifty, if the price was right… and it would be. She loved money almost as much as he did.

  For her sake, she had better not love it as much as Frank did. That bastard would steal from the devil himself if he were carrying a heavy purse, which he would immediately lose after one night at the tables.

  He snorted. Frank’s stealing days were over. Sam had made damn sure of that.

  A quick rapping sounded at the door, and he called out for them to enter.

  William and George stepped into the room and closed the door, both wearing far too sober of expressions for someone who had just been made quite wealthy.

  “What did you muck up this time?” he asked, shoving Joanne off his lap.

  She gasped and muttered insults as she pulled at her dress to cover herself.

  “Well?”

  William and George exchanged glances, then looked pointedly at the whore scowling beside him on the settee.

  “Go,” he ordered her without taking his gaze off his two bacon-brained minions.

  She huffed, but was not so stupid as to argue as she stalked out, shutting the door loudly behind her.

  “What did you do?” he asked again in a dangerously soft tone as he fingered the blade in his pocket, wondering which of the two useless sods he could do without. “Where’s my money?”

  George stepped forward, his hat in his hands. A volunteer. “We do not have it. The old bird left for London before we arrived.”

  Sam’s thumb stung as the blade sliced into flesh. “You don’t have it?” he repeated, the words repeating in his brain. Already left for London. Which meant he was still broke. “When did she leave?”

  “Yesterday.”

  He balled his hand into a fist and came down hard on the table in front of him, knocking two ales to the floor. Then he stood and advanced around the table, coming toe-to-toe with George.

  “And why has she gone to London, do you suppose?”

  A muscle ticked in George’s jaw. “To hire someone else to find the ring.”

  “Smart lad,” Sam ground out. “But she wo
n’t, will she?”

  “No, Sam,” George agreed. “I would recommend she not.”

  “And what will happen to Lady Umberton if she decides to go against your recommendations?”

  George glanced at William before answering, “I expect she will experience a terrible accident of some kind.”

  “Fatal!” Sam hissed. “I hope you convince her not to be foolish.”

  George nodded. Without hesitation, both he and William turned and quit the room.

  As soon as the door shut, a vase sailed through the air to shatter against the wall, followed by two ashtrays and a silver snuffbox. When that didn’t satisfy, his fist made three large holes in the wall and destroyed a full-length mirror. Still, he was furious and needed a fight.

  He couldn’t leave through the front door without paying, and he still hadn’t a sixpence to his name, so he opened the window and hopped down.

  Someone in Barnsby was going to get in Sam’s way tonight, he would make sure of it, and they would never get the opportunity to regret it. Not in this life, at any rate.

  Chapter 9

  London was bigger, busier, and louder than Sarah could have ever dreamed. Carriages and horses filled the streets, while smartly dressed men and women strolled along the sidewalks, wandering in and out of the many shops and fine establishments. The city seemed to go on forever, a complicated maze of streets, circles, and squares, shops, homes, and government buildings.

  “Just wait, my dear,” Lady Saint Brides said. “Tomorrow, we shall visit Bond Street, and you will truly be enchanted.”

  Sarah stopped gaping long enough to turn to find the older woman smiling at her.

  “And utterly overwhelmed, I’m sure,” Lady Umberton added. “The modistes and milliners will trip over themselves to dress you. Trample you. You will scarcely be able to breathe. But don’t you worry. Elisabeth and I shall be with you to the finish.”

  “You are frightening the girl needlessly, Francine,” Lady Saint Brides admonished. “It isn’t as though she has never been shopping before. Is it, Sarah?”