Page 8 of An Unexpected Earl

Her father’s plan had worked. Not one mention of scandal was ever raised about the two of them, and they never saw each other again.

Until tonight. When the sight of him had ripped Amelia’s breath away.

Twelve years… Could it truly have been that long since they’d last been together? But her heart knew it was so. The foolish thing had kept count.

He’d changed over the years. The gangly eighteen-year-old she’d known had become a man, leaving behind almost no trace of the boy he’d once been. Yet she would have known him anywhere despite the fine wrinkles that age now crinkled in the corners of his blue eyes and the wide breadth of the muscular shoulders that army life and hard work had given him. Gone, too, was the restlessness she remembered, transformed now into a confidence that radiated from him like his rich scent of port and cigars. So heady and powerful, and just as masculine.

When he’d approached her tonight, she felt as if time had folded in upon itself and those years apart had never passed. The ache in her belly came so swiftly and fiercely at seeing him that for one excruciating moment she’d been transported back to Birmingham, when her world hadn’t yet crumbled around her. When she’d still believed that she would always be with him.

An earl and a brigadier—wouldn’t her father have laughed his wig off to know that this was what Pearce had made of himself, against all odds?

But then, maybe not. Gordon Howard had never possessed a strong sense of humor. Nor did he hold any love for Pearce, a young man he’d viewed as a threat to his daughter’s proper future as the wife of an aristocrat. A worry that had proven worthless in the end.

“You’d better hope that Mr. Howard didn’t see you,” Maggie warned, “or it won’t be Sir Charles you’ll be dealin’ with but a husband. He’ll see to that!”

Amelia choked down an ironic laugh.Thatcould never happen. After all, not even her brother possessed the power to force a husband upon her when she already had one.Somewhere.

But she also couldn’t let the scandalous things she suspected Freddie might have done become known. Because if her brother’s sins ever came to light, then so would hers. And those of her absent husband.

“Help me out of this gown and into my dress, will you?” She scooted to the edge of the seat, hoping to change subjects while she changed clothes. The last thing she needed now was Maggie’s worry. Or her prying. “We’re almost to Mayfair, and Freddie’s servants cannot see me like this.”

“I’mone of his servants.” Maggie’s lips pursed in chastisement. “And I don’t think undressing in a hired hackney is at all proper, not for the sister of an MP and a respectable lady who depends upon her reputation.”

In other words, a lady who had nothing but her reputation and the good graces of her brother to survive upon.

But those graces were now under attack, and she simply wouldn’t sit by and let their lives be destroyed.

Oh, Frederick could certainly be weak-spined and self-serving, but he’d also supported her in those dark days seven years ago after Aaron Northam had wed her and then abandoned her before the ink on the parish register was even dry, stealing her fortune and shattering her heart. Freddie had hired all manner of lawyers, accountants, and investigators in a desperate attempt to find Aaron and force him to return—and to return her money. But Aaron had fled to America, and once there, he’d vanished, leaving no trace.

After two years, Amelia agreed with Frederick to give up the search. No one except the two of them—and Aaron—knew that she was married, and she’d go to her grave keeping it that way. Because Freddie had also protected her from being a social pariah by covering up all traces of her reckless elopement.

True, Freddie had also been protecting himself by helping her; even then he’d had political ambitions, and the brother of a socially ruined woman could never have a career in the Commons, especially when the seat he’d been given had been granted by influential friends who would gladly rescind it to keep his family’s tarnished reputation from tainting theirs. And true, as well, that even though he’d taken her under his roof and provided her with an allowance, he’d never let her forget how foolish she’d been.

Yet Freddie hadn’t had to help her at all. Now that he was in deep trouble, just as she’d been, how could she turn her back on him?

“Yes, you’re a Howard servant, but you’re also my friend.” Amelia’s eyes heated with desperate emotion. “And right now Frederick and I both need your help.” She presented her back to her maid. “Please.”

Maggie grudgingly switched benches to sit beside her and began to unbutton Amelia’s tight bodice.

“Thank you,” Amelia said over her shoulder as the dress loosened enough that she could shimmy out of it. “I couldn’t do this without you, you know that.”

“What I know is that both our gooses will be cooked if your brother ever catches wind of what you did tonight.”

Amelia smiled at the lack of venom in Maggie’s scolding. “Then he won’t find out. Even if he does, I’ll protect you. I promise.”

Pearce’s words flashed through her mind—So I could rescue you.

If he only knew the truth! Stripping out of a gown designed for a courtesan in a hired hackney rolling through Mayfair…she wasn’t certain that even a brigadier turned earl could rescue her from the mess her life had become.

Or if he’d even want to. They hadn’t exactly parted well all those years ago, their childhood friendship coming to a crashing end. Papa had made certain that they’d never see or contact each other again by threatening to have Pearce court-martialed and her married off immediately to any son of a peer he could find if they ever tried. Neither of them dared attempt it for fear that it would ruin the other. In that, at least, their lives had still been entwined.

And in that, she also knew that Pearce had loved her. Because he’d let her go.

Losing him had been sheer hell, but she would never begrudge him the outcome. After all, because of that night, he was given the chance for a grand life in the army, a life he deserved—or at least that was the lie she told herself in order to survive the pain. And she’d planned to marry, to have a house of her own, a family…all those things she’d hoped would replace the emptiness Pearce’s leaving had created. Only once had she attempted to rekindle their friendship. After Papa died and was no longer an obstacle between them, she’d sent off a series of letters to Pearce, confessing her feelings and asking for a new chance at a future together.

But he’d never replied. Not once. Apparently, by then he no longer wanted her.

Soon after, she met Aaron and determined to have the life with him that fate had denied her with Pearce. She’d done her best to put the past behind her and move on.