Page 13 of An Unexpected Earl

Her blood turned cold.Because I am a woman…and banks wouldn’t let unmarried women open their own accounts or sign leases. They had to have the cosignature of a man. She’d had no choice three years ago but to ask for Frederick’s help to start the shop. She’d always believed he’d done it because he knew how important it was to her and how much she needed the purpose it gave her. At the very least, how much it kept her busy and out of his way.

But he’d never before held it over her head like this.

She whispered, unable to prevent the fear from creeping into her bones, “You wouldn’t dare.”

“To save us? In an instant.” He slapped the letters down, his hands flat on the desk, and leaned toward her. “If I don’t put these last three men into some kind of appointments—anykind of appointments—my career is over. I’ll be publicly exposed, most likely arrested—I’ll be thrown into prison. Is that what you want?”

“No! Of course I—”

“If that happens, then your charity shopwillclose, and you’ll find yourself out on the street with all those war widows who work there.” His eyes flared as brightly as the coals in the fireplace behind him, reminding her of the devil himself. “So you need to make a choice, Amelia.” A devil who was attempting to take her soul. “Either support me in this trust, or lose everything, including your charity.” His red eyes fixed on hers, and what she glimpsed in their dark depths frightened her. “Which will it be?”

Damn him for putting his mess upon her shoulders! Afraid her voice would break beneath the churning fear and anger inside her, she said quietly, “Forcing me to place Bradenhill into the trust won’t do you any good. You know that.” She folded her hands behind her so he wouldn’t see them shaking. And so she wouldn’t be tempted to scratch his eyes out. “You might have both our properties then, but that small stretch won’t make for a turnpike.”

“That’s where you’re wrong.” He straightened to his full height. “Joining your share of Father’s property to both mine and to the property abutting it puts us over halfway across the county. Parliament will see the wisdom of constructing a turnpike across the rest and gladly enact a trust.” He smiled and clawed at his cravat to pull loose the knot at his throat. “And tonight, I spoke to the neighboring landowner. He’s willing to listen to my plans. Seemed very interested, in fact.”

She tensed with dread.Thatwas why Freddie had been at the masquerade. Not because of the blackmail. Not because he’d caught wind of her plans to speak to Varnham.

“You knew him once.” He sank into the chair behind his desk, most likely too far into his cups to remain on his feet. “A man I think you should get to know again, and well enough to convince him that a trust is a brilliant idea.”

Her heart slammed violently against her ribs. Because she knew, even before he spoke the name—

“Brandon Pearce.” He leaned back in the chair and closed his eyes. “Your old friend.”

No. If Pearce agreed to the trust, then he was her new enemy.

Four

Pearce slammed the metal door closed behind him with a teeth-jarring clatter.

The Armory needed a better—and quieter—way inside, but Marcus Braddock, former general with the Coldstream Guards and now Duke of Hampton, insisted that the two sets of metal doors remain in place. Because he wanted to pay homage to the building’s previous life as a true armory. Because the doors rattled loudly enough to wake the dead in St. Paul’s crypt, notifying everyone within that someone was entering.

“Because he wants to drive me into Bedlam,” Pearce muttered and winced as the inner door clanged shut.

He passed beneath the archway and the shield bearing the Armory’s motto…Ubi malum timet calcare.Where evil fears to tread. A reminder to all who entered this place of the purpose for which it existed and the new life’s purpose it gave to its men.

But tonight, Pearce came here seeking solace of another kind.

He rubbed at his nape. Amelia Howard. After all these years.

He could hardly believe it. But the woman in red was her. He’d have bet his life on it. Those green eyes, that golden hair… He remembered her smile, too, even though a sadness lingered behind it that hadn’t been there before. Now he knew why she’d seemed so familiar, why the locket had jarred a memory. Because he’d given it to her. For God’s sake, she’d even kept the blue ribbon he’d used to tie up the box.

But what the hell was she doing at one of Torrington’s masquerades? And why on earth would she need to speak to Sir Charles Varnham from behind a mask?

None of it made sense. Including why she’d fled.

True, they hadn’t exactly parted as friends. Gordon Howard had nearly killed him after finding him in his daughter’s bedroom and on the verge of compromising her. Pearce had been unable to fight back—oh, he could have dropped the old man with a single punch; God knew he’d won enough fights back then to pulp him with barely any effort. But that would have destroyed Amelia, and Pearce couldn’t have lived with himself if he’d brought her any kind of pain. Which was why he hadn’t attempted to contact her after he’d been tossed from the house, for fear that her bastard of a father would make good on his promises and force her into marriage with a man she didn’t love. Worse—a man who might treat her with the same contempt as her father.

But the past was long dead, and they were no longer the children they’d once been. Certainly not Amelia. Not with the way she’d looked in that dress.Sweet Lucifer.

Shoving down a fresh ache, he strode into the main room of the Amory to the sound of clashing sabers.

Clayton Elliott and Merritt Rivers slashed in fierce strokes as they chased each other through the octagonal central room. Their blades flashed beneath the blazing light of the gas chandelier that hung from the medieval-looking tower overhead, and each strike of metal upon metal echoed against the stone and walnut-paneled walls. The fencing match must have started in the adjoining training room, then run amok to encompass the rest of the old building that had been turned into a gentlemen’s club of sorts by Marcus Braddock.

Pearce ignored them and strode straight through the room toward the sideboard and its dozens of liquor bottles. The two men fought around him, with Merritt using him as a shield at one point to change his feint into an attack that had Clayton retreating over the brocade sofa.

Pearce shrugged out of his greatcoat and tossed it aside with his hat and gloves onto one of the leather chairs, just missing the end of Merritt’s blade.

“His shoulder drops before he lunges,” he called out as he snatched up a crystal tumbler from the silver tray on the sideboard.