Penniless Until the Earl's Proposal, page 1
“I trust you’ve had an edifying look, Lord Ashleigh. Not satisfied with tracking down poachers, you also ride about the countryside on the lookout for defenseless ladies.”
White teeth gleamed in a reckless smile as he responded. “You? Defenseless? Now you do exaggerate. Something tells me you are afraid of no one.”
His voice was a lazy drawl, his manner calm, deliberate. His light blue eyes were cool, his wide, beautifully shaped mouth held in a stern line. The skin was stretched tautly across his high cheekbones, and his rich dark hair was ruffled from his ride. He was wearing brown boots, snug tan breeches and a thin lawn shirt beneath his dark green jacket.
His sudden appearance only seemed to exacerbate Juliet’s temper. “Have you nothing better to do with your time?” she said, going to where her dress was draped over a bush and then beginning to pull it on over her sodden petticoat.
“I suppose I could find something to occupy me,” he replied easily, seemingly amused as she struggled to put on her dress, “but I can’t think of anything more pleasurable just now than looking at you.”
Author Note
I always enjoy both reading and writing stories that blend history and romance, featuring enigmatic heroes and audacious heroines.
Penniless Until the Earl’s Proposal is a Regency romance, featuring Lady Juliet Sinclair and Marcus Cardell, the Earl of Ashleigh.
Juliet’s life is in turmoil and her future far from secure. Due to her brother’s persistent gambling that has resulted in debts they are unable to pay, she has to deal with challenges no lady should. On the brink of losing the family estate, she agrees to wed the Earl of Ashleigh—an answer to their prayers. Juliet needs what he has to offer; he needs a wife and mother for his daughter. There is attraction between them from the start—until the past reappears and threatens their future happiness.
PENNILESS UNTIL THE EARL’S PROPOSAL
HELEN DICKSON
Helen Dickson was born and still lives in South Yorkshire, UK, with her retired farm-manager husband. Having moved out of the busy farmhouse where she raised their two sons, she now has more time to indulge in her favorite pastimes. She enjoys being outdoors, traveling, reading and listening to music. An incurable romantic, she writes for pleasure. It was a love of history that drove her to writing historical fiction.
Books by Helen Dickson
Harlequin Historical
Lucy Lane and the Lieutenant
Lord Lansbury’s Christmas Wedding
Royalist on the Run
The Foundling Bride
Carrying the Gentleman’s Secret
A Vow for an Heiress
The Governess’s Scandalous Marriage
Reunited at the King’s Court
Wedded for His Secret Child
Resisting Her Enemy Lord
A Viscount to Save Her Reputation
Enthralled by Her Enemy’s Kiss
To Catch a Runaway Bride
Conveniently Wed to a Spy
The Earl’s Wager for a Lady
Cranford Estate Siblings
Lord Lancaster Courts a Scandal
Too Scandalous for the Earl
Scandalously Bound to the Gentleman
Visit the Author Profile page
at Harlequin.com for more titles.
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Epilogue
Excerpt from A Wager to Win the Debutante by Eva Shepherd
Chapter One
It was a glorious May day. The sun had risen out of a broad expanse of opal mist, and scraps of cloud floated like spun gauze in the sky. Oak, ash, sycamore, cherry and lilac trees were bursting into full flower, and trumpet-headed daffodils and clusters of primroses were scattered throughout the park that belonged to the Sinclair family of Endcliffe House.
This was the day Lady Juliet Sinclair first set eyes on Marcus Cardell, the younger brother of the Earl of Cranswick. Seated in the trap, she slowed her pony to a more sedate trot. The park stretched out in shades of green and brown and grey. Stabs of sunlight between the clouds edged the colours in bright gilding. For those few short minutes as she travelled along, there was just her and her pony—no duties, no expectations, just a wonderful forgetfulness of all the trials and duties that awaited her back at Endcliffe House.
Juliet had set out to take Mrs Ruskin some freshly baked bread. With three children to feed and her husband unable to find employment, Rose Ruskin struggled daily to give them sustenance. A movement to her right caught her attention. She glimpsed a rider and horse galloping with exhilaration some distance away. Halting the pony, she paused to watch with interest the sheer might of the large bay horse and the energy of the claret-jacketed rider, seemingly at one with his mount. Directing her pony beneath some sheltering trees, she continued to watch until he had disappeared from sight.
With a flick of the reins, Juliet continued on her way, having a strong inkling as to the identity of the rider. He belonged to the gentry, that was for sure. She had heard that Marcus Cardell had taken up residence at Mulberry Hall, a property passed on to him by his mother, the dowager Countess of Cranswick. The house had been occupied by the Countess’s widowed brother, Lord John Sutherland, the Earl of Ashleigh, who had died when he had taken a tumble from his horse during a hunt two years back. Without offspring, the property had passed to his sister, whose eldest son was to inherit the Cardell ancestral estate in Sussex. The dowager countess handed over Mulberry Hall to her second son, Marcus Cardell, a military man. The title went with it, and Marcus Cardell had become Lord Cardell, the Earl of Ashleigh. Juliet assumed the gentleman she had seen must be him.
Rose Ruskin, a small brown-haired woman in her thirties, welcomed her warmly and invited her inside her spotlessly clean cottage. Juliet placed the basket of bread with the addition of some cold meats on the table, which was immediately scrutinised and exclaimed over by her three young daughters with great excitement.
‘Thank you, Lady Juliet,’ Rose said, gently shoving her daughters aside. ‘I am pleased to see you, and I am always grateful for the food you bring. Things are—difficult just now, with Joe unable to find work.’
‘I know that, Rose, and I like to think what I bring alleviates the difficulties you face. When my brother decides to come home, I will try and persuade him to find your husband some kind of employment on the estate.’
‘I can’t pretend that I won’t be pleased if you could do that. Joe’s at his wit’s end not knowing where to turn next—and now he’s been accused of poaching on the Mulberry Hall estate. I fear he is to be arrested at any time.’
‘And has he, Rose? Is there any truth in what he is accused of?’
Rose lifted her chin, and her voice when she spoke was adamant. ‘No, there is not. My Joe knows the punishment for poaching. He’s a proud man and knows it’s more than his life is worth to steal from another man’s property.’
‘That’s just as I thought.’ Juliet knew Joe Ruskin as a fine, upstanding and honest man, and she could not imagine him doing anything that was against the law. ‘Try not to worry, Rose. I will do what I can. I promise.’ Stepping outside, she was stopped in her tracks when she came face to face with the gentleman she had seen riding through the park striding across the yard, having tethered his horse to the gatepost. He presented a dark, forbidding figure, his grey breeches moulding to his muscular legs and thighs, his claret coat fitting his physique without a crease. His white shirt was open at his tanned throat, and his hair was as black as a panther’s pelt.
‘Can I be of help, sir?’
He looked at Juliet with cool disdain, his eyes, as they passed over her, condescending. ‘I am here to speak with Mrs Ruskin. It concerns her husband.’
Juliet was unsure whether to take this as information or an instruction to move out of the way. There was an authority and assuredness of his own infallibility in his look and his manner that she did not like. She thought she had never seen such a dark and dangerous face in her life. His eyes were light blue to be almost silver, glittering beneath scowling dark brows. His nose was straight and haughty, and those hooded eyes with their thick lashes were mesmerising. They seemed to glow, seemed to promise future delights. He exuded sensuality and animal magnetism, and she could well imagine that women would vie for his attention.
‘Mrs Ruskin is inside. I do so hope you don’t bring bad news, sir.’
He glanced at her and looked away again, as if she were a person of no consequence. ‘And you are?’
‘Juliet Sinclair,’ she answered amiably, though it almost choked her to be polite in the face of so much rudeness.
‘Well, Miss Sinclair—’
‘Lady Juliet Sinclair.’
This caught his attention and he looked at her again, one dark brow cocked.’
‘My, my,’ he remarked with an underlying sarcasm. ‘This just gets better and better. You are a relation of Richard Sinclair?’
‘He is my brother.’
‘Yes, of course he is. I remember meeting him in the long and distant past when I visited my aunt at Mulberry Hall. On the demise of your father, he is now Earl of Endcliffe, I believe.’
‘Yes, he is.’
‘Of Endcliffe House—although I hear he spends most of his time in London, squandering his time at the card tables, while the running of his estate is left to his steward. His tenants feel at liberty to poach game on my estate—while, it would appear, his sister plays lady bountiful,’ he said, eyeing the basket on the table, visible through the open doorway.’
Juliet’s face was a mask of indignation, her hands clenched, but when she spoke, she kept her anger in check, knowing she had to placate this insufferably arrogant lord if she was to plead Joe’s case and keep him out of the lock-up to await the magistrate’s pleasure.
‘If that is how you see me, then, yes, that is what I am. I do what I can, Lord Cardell.’
‘I do not recall introducing myself, yet you know who I am.’
‘You accused Mr Ruskin of poaching game on your estate, sir, so I assume you must be Lord Cardell.’
‘How perceptive you are, Lady Juliet.’ He looked at her hard for a moment longer before turning his attention to Mrs Ruskin, his gaze resting briefly on the three children standing as stiff as little soldiers in a row, their eyes wide and their mouths agape with fear in the face of this new threat in the shape of the all-powerful Lord Cardell to their young lives.
Juliet felt anger rising inside her on seeing the confusion and fear on the children’s young faces. Lord Cardell approached Mrs Ruskin.
‘May I speak with you, Mrs Ruskin?’
Rose bobbed an awkward curtsy. ‘You may, sir. Please step inside—but if it’s Joe you want to speak to, he isn’t here just now.’
‘That’s unfortunate,’ he said, stepping over the threshold into the kitchen. ‘Have you any idea as to his whereabouts? Apparently, he was seen by one of my keepers running off, having bagged a couple of hares.’
‘That would not be possible,’ Juliet said, quick to contradict him.
‘Oh?’ he said, turning his head to look at her once more. ‘And you would know that? Why not, pray? You are accusing my keeper of lying, are you, Lady Juliet?’
‘I’m afraid I am, Lord Cardell,’ she replied, facing him squarely. ‘You see, Mr Ruskin lost a leg in the Peninsular War. I imagine it is rather difficult trying to run on a wooden leg, wouldn’t you agree? So, either you have a very slow-moving keeper, sir, or he is lying. Which is it to be?’
Lord Cardell’s gaze remained fixed on her while he digested this piece of information and then looked back at Mrs Ruskin, clutching her youngest child to her skirts. ‘Lost a leg, you say?’
‘No, I say,’ Juliet countered firmly. ‘Mr Ruskin has been unable to find work due to his disability.’
‘He is your tenant, Lady Juliet. If, as you say, Mr Ruskin’s disability has prevented him finding work—’
‘Not prevented, Lord Cardell. He has tried. No one will employ him.’
‘Then as an act of generosity, could you not find some employment on your estate to suit his disability?’
Furiously, Juliet found her cheeks turning red. How she would like to tell this arrogant lord to go to the devil and mind his own business, but it would do Joe no good in the long run if she were to lose her temper. One of the girls had picked up on the mood inside the room and started to cry and shrank into the girl next to her.
‘Don’t cry, Mary,’ Juliet said gently. ‘Everything will be all right. I’m sure Lord Cardell doesn’t mean any harm to come to your father, and that it’s all one big misunderstanding.’
‘It most certainly is not,’ Lord Cardell stated coldly.
Juliet glared at him. ‘Do you have to do this in front of the children?’ she remarked haughtily. ‘Can you not see that your very tone and accusation against their father frightens them?’ She saw his shoulders stiffen and his eyes sliced over her. She could almost feel the effort he was exerting to keep his anger under control. The man had a ramrod posture and an aura of exacting discipline as he irritatingly slapped his boots with the crop in his gloved hand. She glanced at it as it tapped out a rhythm. ‘And do you have to do that? You act as if you are about to set about us all with your crop for some misdemeanour reported to you by your incompetent keeper without knowing the true facts.’
‘Might I remind you that neither do you, Lady Juliet.’
‘No, I do not, but unlike you—who was so quick to jump to conclusions and think the worst of Mr Ruskin, I am willing to give both men the benefit of the doubt until I have been made aware of them.’
Lord Cardell returned her gaze steadily, studying her as though she were some strange creature he had just uncovered. At least six feet four inches tall and with amazingly arresting light blue eyes he was a strikingly handsome man. Rugged strength was carved into every feature of his bronzed face, from his straight dark brows and nose to his firm and sensually moulded lips to the square, arrogant jut of his chin. To Juliet at that moment, he was also formidable, every line of his face set with disapproval.
Turning her back on him, Juliet settled her attention on the quietly weeping child. ‘Hush now, Mary. Lord Cardell will do you no harm—is that not so, Lord Cardell?’ she said, hoping for confirmation without looking at him.
‘Of course not. Don’t be ridiculous.’ Looking at Mrs Ruskin, his expression softened slightly. ‘I apologise if my coming here has upset your daughters. That was not my intention. They are children—I have a daughter of my own, and I would not dream of harming her or frightening her in any way.’
‘Of course not, Lord Cardell, but they are sensitive souls. Anything that is said against Joe distresses them,’ said Rose.
‘Precisely,’ Juliet said, ‘and for that reason alone you should have more control over your temper.’
‘Then I will be on my way before I cause more upset.’ With a nod to Rose he went outside.
Juliet looked at the weeping child. ‘Come, Mary,’ she said as Lord Cardell strolled across the yard with a loose, confident stride, looking as though he owned the place. ‘Dry your tears. Lord Cardell did not mean to frighten you.’
Her words seemed to calm the child, not because she was able to believe them but because of the unselfish confidence of the lady uttering them. Raising her head, she smiled at Juliet, but her shoulders remained drooped in dejection. Juliet fished a handkerchief out of her pocket and went to the unhappy girl. ‘Here, let me wipe your face.’ Gently she dabbed at the cheeks of the child, who was looking up at her with solemn brown eyes that reminded Juliet of a wounded puppy.
Rose stepped forward and put her arm about her distressed daughter. ‘Don’t worry about Mary, Lady Juliet. She cries all the time since Joe came home without a leg. She’ll get over it given time.’
Juliet looked at Rose and smiled, wishing she could dispel the unhappiness and the fear she felt for her husband from her eyes. ‘I’m sure she will—as sure as I am that everything will work out, Rose. Tell Joe to come and see me when he comes home and we’ll see what is to be done about this poaching business. I don’t believe it of him for one minute—and I think Lord Cardell will realise his mistake of listening to his keeper without proof of Joe’s guilt.’
Without looking in Lord Cardell’s direction, where he was trying to calm his restless mount that was pawing at the ground, eager to be on its way, she walked to where she had left her pony and trap, surprised when he followed her, feeling his penetrating eyes on her all the time. She turned to face him.
‘Have you had an edifying look at me, Lord Cardell?’
‘Not quite. It is to my advantage that I get to know who my neighbours are. I hope this minor issue with your tenant is not going to affect neighbourly relations between us.’
‘As to that, we shall have to wait and see,’ Juliet replied tightly, finding it difficult to show leniency towards him in light of what had just occurred. ‘Where Mrs Ruskin is concerned, having her husband accused of poaching is far from being a minor issue. What are you? Some kind of monster? The Ruskins are gentle people, living their lives and troubling no one. And suddenly you come along and threaten to have Mrs Ruskin’s husband and the father of those children arrested, thrown into jail and transported to goodness knows where.’
