Amanda McCabe

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have control over and does not have any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

THE ERRANT EARL

An InterMix Book / published by arrangement with the author

PUBLISHING HISTORY

Signet Books edition / June 2002

InterMix eBook edition / September 2012

Excerpt from
Scandal in Venice
Copyright © 2001 by Amanda McCabe.

No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group,

a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

ISBN: 978-1-101-57292-4

INTERMIX

InterMix Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group,

a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

INTERMIX and the “IM” design are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

To Genes, Liz, and Kells

(aka Gena Showalter, Elizabeth Branham,

and Kelli McBride)

for all your wonderful help.

Prologue

And thereby hangs a tale.

—As You Like It

“How
dare
you, Father? Running off to Gretna Green with some actress, of all women. And Mother scarcely cold in her grave.”

“How dare
you
, Marcus! How can you speak to me, your father, in such a disrespectful manner? Have I raised a viper, who will say such things to me beneath my very roof?”

The escalating, passionate voices of the Earl of Ellston and his son floated out of the half-open door of the library and spread its poison slowly across the entire house. The dark cloud of anger crept through the marble-and-gilt foyer and up the grand staircase to the ears of the young woman who huddled there, half hidden by a carved balustrade.

Julia Barclay longed to scream, to shout, to plug up her ears, to do anything to stop the noise of the argument. But it just went on and on.

“I am twenty-one years old now, Father,” Marcus, Viscount Westbrooke, said. “I am a man now, and I must protest, as a man would, these shocking actions you have taken! To bring an actress and her—her
offspring
into Mother’s house is unconscionable.” There was a pounding of a fist on a wooden surface, vibrating even in the foyer, as his anger obviously mounted.

“Barbara, God rest her soul, has been gone for over two years. It is perfectly respectable for me to marry again.”

“To marry again, yes, if to someone like Lady Edgemere or Mrs. Barnstaple. But an actress . . .”

There was suddenly a great crash, as if some object flew across the room, then smashed against the wall. Julia ducked her head onto her knees and squeezed her eyes shut.

“You will never refer to my wife in such a way again!” roared the earl. “You will show her the respect due the Countess of Ellston.”

“The Countess of Ellston is my mother,” Marcus growled. “Not some Drury Lane opera dancer.”

Julia’s fear instantly disappeared at his rude words, and was replaced by indignation at the slur to her mother. What an ignorant son her new stepfather had! Her mother was
not
an opera dancer—she was the most acclaimed Shakespearean actress in all of England.

Julia was so affronted by those words that she very nearly marched down to the library to inform him of that fact. Her stepfather’s next outburst kept her on her marble seat.

“You should be careful! You may be all of twenty-one, but I am still your father, and I can still thrash you.”

Marcus gave a contemptuous laugh. “I should like to see you try.”

There was a long, heavy silence. Then the earl sighed and said in a strangely quiet but firmly resolute voice, “I hate this strife between us, Marcus. But I must insist that you show my wife and her daughter respect.”

Julia felt a faint prickling of tears behind her eyes at this quiet pronouncement. Tears that were somehow more frightening than the fear or the indignation had been.

She blinked furiously to keep them from falling.

Marcus’s answer was a long time in coming. “And if I refuse to live by your commands?”

“Then I fear I must ask you to leave Rosemount.”

“My course is clear, then. Good-bye, Father.”

The library door opened completely. A tall figure emerged, closed the door behind him softly, and moved slowly across the foyer. His footsteps echoed hollowly in the vast marble space.

Julia shrank back into the shadows as he turned and looked up the staircase. She had absolutely no desire to be seen, to be drawn in any way into the quarrel. It had been quite bad enough to hear it.

Then a ray of late-afternoon sunlight came through the high windows, piercing the marble gloom and illuminating his face. She pressed a hand to her mouth to quiet her gasp.

Marcus Hadley was quite, quite beautiful. His face had the clean, austere lines of a young Renaissance saint, with dark, curling hair that brushed back from his brow and temples in an overlong fall.

But it was not his beauty that startled her so. It was the fact that his lovely eyes were filled with tears as he looked back upon his home. Julia longed to call out to him, to run down the stairs to his side and offer comfort. All she could do was sit there, numb.

Then he turned away, taking up his cloak from the chair where he had tossed it when he stormed in. The front door closed behind him, and he was gone.

He never noticed her sitting there.

The thick silence he left behind him was far worse than any shouting. The dark cloud seemed blacker than ever.

Julia leaned her forehead on her knees again. It was not supposed to be like this. When her mother had told her she was going to marry the earl, she had promised that their lives would be different now. There would be no more going out on tours, with different lodgings every month. Julia would not have to do her lessons in her mother’s noisy dressing rooms. They would have a true home, a quiet, safe home that would be always theirs. Anna had been so sure when she had spoken of it, so full of love for her new husband and optimism for their future.

And Julia had caught that enthusiasm. She had always enjoyed meeting the infinite variety of people to be found in theatrical life. She had liked seeing all sorts of new cities and towns. But she was fifteen years old now; as all her mother’s friends kept telling her, she would need to begin thinking of her future very soon. She was not a great beauty like her golden-haired mother. She was not a great actress like her mother. Julia drew in a deep breath and reflected that all she really wanted for her future was a nice home, a place where all of the friends she and her mother had made over the years could visit and where she could always return to.

It had seemed that with her mother’s marriage, all of those dreams could come true. When the three of them had returned from Gretna Green, and Julia had seen the glorious vision of Rosemount for the first time, she had been sure that her dreams were real. She had a home, and a dear man who loved her mother and was kind to Julia.

But no sooner had their trunks been unloaded from the carriage than the earl’s son had come tearing down the drive, hell-for-leather. And Julia had known that her precious, newfound peace was soon to be shaken.

“Darling?”

A soft hand touched Julia’s shoulder, and she looked up, startled, to find her mother bending over her. Anna’s lovely face was creased with concern.

“Darling!” she said. “You are crying.”

Only then did Julia realize that her cheeks were wet with the tears she had been trying so hard not to shed. She wiped at them furiously with her knuckles.

“Here, Jule, dear.” Anna pressed a rose-scented handkerchief into her hand and sat down on the marble step beside her. “Tell me what is the matter.”

Julia leaned against her mother’s silk-covered shoulder. Ever since her babyhood, after her father, James Barclay, the actor, had died, she and her mother had been their own little world of two. They had always looked after each other. Julia never wanted to hurt her mother, but she simply could not keep it inside or she would burst.

“Oh, Mama!” she cried. “It was such a hideous quarrel.”

Anna put her arm about Julia and hugged her close. “Between Gerald and his son?”

“Yes! They shouted so, and threw things, and then Gerald told his son to leave and not come back.”

“Oh, darling, I am sorry you heard that. Why did you not stay in your new chamber, where it’s quiet?”

“I just wanted some tea. So I thought I would go look for the kitchen. But then I heard the arguing, and I was scared to go any farther.”

“If you wanted tea, why did you not just ring the bell? The maid would have brought you some.”

Julia looked up, startled. “I-I did not think of that.”

Anna laughed softly. “Oh, Jule! I told you things will be different now. I also told you that not everyone would be welcoming at first.”

“Yes. You did.”

Anna kissed her cheek. “My dear, you do so want to make everyone happy. But I would not worry too much about young Marcus. He will come about in time. And then we will all be one happy family.”

“I hope so, Mama.”

“I know so.”

The earl emerged from the library then, and made his way slowly across the foyer. He seemed twenty years older than the robust, dark-haired man who had carried Anna across the threshold only that morning. He was pale and drawn in the dying light.

Then he looked up, saw them there on the staircase, and smiled. “Well, my dears,” he said, obviously making a great effort to be hearty and cheerful, “what are you doing sitting about on that cold staircase?”

Anna gave him an answering smile. “We were just speculating on what your cook, whom we have heard such excellent things about, might have concocted for supper, Gerald. We are quite famished!”

“Why, what do you think?” He winked at Julia, making her giggle despite her fears. “Wedding cake, of course!”

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