Her Wicked Earl by Lisa Torquay

Author:Lisa Torquay [Torquay, Lisa]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SEVEN

Otilia stifled a sigh of relief as she entered the front hall after giving her gloves and cloak to the footman. The servant vanished with their pieces of clothing while she hurried to the stairs.

Even ten minutes in a cramped carriage with Edmund’s masculine overload proved to be a task that got more difficult by the minute. Only the refuge of her bedchamber would provide a very wished-for reprieve. Imaginary, however. The silence and the dark of the night served only to bare her rambling memories or steamy fantasies, transforming her body in a mess of unfulfilled longing. Perhaps, she ought to insist on returning to Thornton Manor until she found a position. His presence overwhelmed her with everything wicked.

“So is he coming to ask permission to court you?” The nutmeg and syrup coated her ears with lure.

Five feet from the stairs, she twisted to him, wide eyes quizzical on the tall, broad man. “Who?” Of course, she knew who he was talking about, but she did not want to have this conversation here. Or now.

Powerful legs braced, long thumbs hanging from the black waistcoat’s pockets, the view of him scattered her sensible intentions. “Carlton.” Those jet orbs studied her every move and caused unwelcome reactions in her insides.

For goodness’ sake, she needed to get miles from him. Right away.

Making a show of lifting her chin and narrowing her eyes on him, she retorted. “Why would he? You are not my guardian or anything.”

Those jet orbs blazed with contrariness. “I am your nearest kin.”

Too near for her threadbare composure, she would point out. She breathed a derisive snort. “Kin is a rather ample concept, is it not?”

“Answer the question, Otilia.” The command came hoarse and final, provoking a scalding shot to cut through her and pool where he never failed to awaken her senses.

Her whole frame turned to him as she crossed her arms with a defiant stance. “I said no,” she emitted clear and definite.

She and Oliver stayed in that corner debating the matter from the time they had met in the drawing room until the overbearing Earl came to decree the end of the discussion. The Viscount had tried to change her mind with every inducement under the sun. He went to the extreme of proposing a contract where her monthly settlement would be worth a phaeton—a costly men’s toy. Not even this convinced her to give up her freedom of choice. The idea of the arrangement held a fickle effect and sowed melancholy in her. She understood her friend’s plight, she really did. And she wished she could help him in this, but to invest the rest of her life in a lie seemed too much.

Edmund’s rugged features crumpled. “You refused a Viscount?”

Why these deuced noblemen regarded their own titles like some sort of promised land escaped her. After how Edmund and the other lords treated an orphaned miss, she was beginning to hate nobility. She wanted employment, any employment to turn up so she might break free from this whole tasteless comedy.

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