The Earl and the Country Girl by Eva Devon

Author:Eva Devon [Devon, Eva]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Entangled Publishing, LLC
Published: 2024-06-24T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Sixteen

Alice wished beyond all wishing that she could stay with the earl.

She knew no one in London. She was completely adrift in this city, and it was a city that was as vital and as shockingly large as the ocean, surely.

The power of it reminded her of the waves that pounded the shore of Cornwall. Only it was a very different power. The cloud of coal smoke that had hung over the city had given her pause.

Felix had not been joking about the air he breathed being without superiority.

Was she truly to live in a city in which there was not a breath of fresh air? And yet the capitol loomed like a jewel. Glimmering with promise.

True, it was perhaps an unpolished stone. She thought of how diamonds came from coal. It was dirty, there were too many people, the noise was a cacophony, horses were everywhere, as were the leavings of said animals, and people darted to and fro.

The streets were crowded, choked even. Young boys and girls, women, men, they sold wares everywhere one looked.

She turned her head this way and that when they had arrived in the city, listening to the cries of every possible thing that one could purchase.

They’d wound through the streets, leading through the great city until at last they had come into a much nicer neighborhood with beautiful brick houses shoring up from the ground. The pristine houses lined the streets. Beautiful coaches raced up and down the roads.

People promenaded along the pavements in bright, stunning clothes.

“Is this where you live?” she asked, agape.

“No, actually, it’s not,” he informed her. “This is a good area of town, a very good area, but my house is close to Green Park. This is much closer to Bond Street. This is where you want to be, and I own the property that you’ll be staying at.”

She blinked. This was where she would live? This wondrous place? She had expected a rougher but acceptable place.

“This is it,” he said, glancing out the window.

She stared up at the beautiful townhouse with its blue door. “Do you ever live here?”

He smiled. “I have spent time in it before when my tastes ran to simpler living, before I wanted to fully step into the life of an earl, but now it shall be yours.”

“But surely I’m to live in a rooming house!” she insisted, her mind a tumult as she tried to make sense of all of the excitement unfolding before her.

“I will not have you in a rooming house at the risk of others,” he said. “It is simply unacceptable. Not after what happened with Bilby.”

“Nothing will happen to me,” she protested, even as she felt a rush of relief at his kindness.

“Perhaps not,” he allowed. “But I wish you to live a good life where I can make certain you are safe. I did promise your mother.”

She nodded, but then an alarming realization struck her. “I understand, but I am to live alone.”

“Does that bother you? I

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