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The Reluctant Countess

“If only she had a small imperfection.”

“What?” Patrick, Earl of Coulter, tore his eyes from the top of the stairs to glare at his friend.

“The countess.” Lord Sumner swept his hand in an arc that encompassed most of the assembled guests. “I was saying that some sort of imperfection would detract from her goddesslike beauty. Perhaps a lisp? Alas, no,” he added seconds later. “A lisp would merely make her sweet and beautiful.”

“Idiot,” the earl muttered, propping one shoulder against the silk-covered wall. His gaze returned to where the countess now stood. Poised on the top step of the Duke of Rookvale’s ballroom, she appeared motionless; only her eyes moved as they passed over the guests milling below.

“Perhaps a mole with several long dark hairs,” Lord Sumner mused, “on the end of her little nose?”

Patrick watched the countess descend. Tonight her raven locks were piled high and clasped with a single diamond pin; several long curls had been artfully teased to lie on one slender shoulder. Created to torment, her dress was cut low in the bodice, allowing a glimpse of the lush curves that lay beneath, and with every step she took the skirts caressed her legs in a swirl of emerald satin. Patrick dreamt about those legs—naked and wrapped around his body. Even from a distance, his muscles clenched at the thought of her lying beneath him, skin gleaming, lips red from his kisses. Bloody woman. From the first glance, she had taken up residence in his head, and he wanted her out. Patrick didn’t obsess over women—he took what he wanted when he wanted it. Usually his affairs were brief yet satisfactory for both parties and he was always the one in control. The countess, however, was another matter. Something about her reached out to him and he wanted her with a desperation no other had made him feel. Yet he would never act on that desperation because the countess was a fraud, and there was nothing Patrick hated more than people who set out to deliberately deceive others.

“Did you just growl, Coulter?”

“Don’t be ridiculous!” Patrick snapped, following the countess’s progress until she reached the bottom step. Once again she became motionless. It was as if she held her breath, yet those eyes moved in every direction, seeking, searching, but for what?

“To be her lady’s maid for just one day,” Lord Sumner sighed.

Reluctantly, Patrick pulled his eyes from the countess once more to look at the man who lounged beside him. Stephen Sumner had been Patrick’s friend since childhood, and knew him better than anyone.

“The woman’s a fraud.” Patrick was subjected to a fierce glare as he finished speaking.

“For pity’s sake, Colt,” Stephen said, reverting to the nickname Patrick had been given in his school days. “Just because she has not fallen prostrate at your oversized feet whilst declaring her undying love, does not mean she is a fraud. Surely you have tasted rejection before.”

“She has not rejected me!” Patrick snapped. Even knowing Stephen was baiting him did not ease his ire. That bloody woman always set him on edge.

“Excellent,” Stephen said. “We know how fragile your ego is.”

“I have no idea why I keep you as a friend.” Patrick shook his head. As Stephen began to speak, he lifted a hand to stall him.

“Three days before the Earl of Monmouth passed away, I paid him a visit at Monmouth Hall. He was in his bed, clearly near death, but still lucid.” He paused to make sure Stephen understood exactly what he was saying. “There was no Countess of Monmouth at that time, Stephen, no wife and most definitely no son.”

“What are you saying, Patrick? That she is some sort of imposter?” Running a hand through his golden locks, Stephen shot his friend an irritated look. “Why must you always suspect people of wrongdoing? Maybe she was away from the estate? Good lord, Colt! The old man was absent from society for years, lived like a recluse. He could have married a whole bevy of beauties and we would have been none the wiser.”

Shaking his head, Stephen continued before Patrick could interrupt. “Your investigating days are over, and for what it’s worth, I for one like the lady and cannot see her capable of treachery or deceit.”

Patrick snorted, his disbelief obvious. “You are too trusting, Sumner. There was no wife, I tell you. The old earl’s man of affairs was there, and that obsequious weasel of a nephew who was due to inherit his fortune, but there was no mention of a countess.”

“Well, good for her. If she got that old goat to marry her before he passed away, I’d say she deserved his money.” Stephen followed Patrick’s gaze back to where the countess now stood. “The woman is obviously a lady, so let it be, Patrick; no good can come of your meddling.”

“Me, meddle? I’m insulted.” The wounded expression on Patrick’s face belied the wicked twinkle in his eyes.

Laughing at the foul comment Stephen hissed in his ear, Patrick lifted both hands in surrender, his demeanor once again serious.

“All I’m saying is that I quite liked that ‘old goat’ as you so delicately put it, and because I was one of the last to see him alive I feel in some way connected to him. Something about the countess does not seem right, and if she is a charlatan I will expose her as one.”

“Well, if you want to investigate further I suggest you make haste to put your name on her dance card, as her circle is forming,” Stephen urged.

With a look of distaste, Patrick eyed the men moving to intercept the countess and then pushed off the wall to join their ranks.

*  *  *

“I feel like a piece of raw meat being hurled to the ravaging masses, Letty,” the Countess of Monmouth murmured out the side of her mouth to the lady resplendent in puce walking beside her. “Even after two weeks, my heart is thumping out of the bodice of my very low-cut dress.”

“Now, Sophie, we have been through this already. Your dress is conservative when compared with others on display, and very pretty, too.”

Sophie concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other. Lady Letitia Carstairs made small comforting noises as she guided Sophie through the crowds.

“I feel as if someone is going to scream ‘Charlatan!’ from the rooftops, while pointing a finger at me,” Sophie whispered as a familiar feeling of impending doom once again gripped her.

“Only three people know, Sophie, and one of those is dead and the other two are you and I, my dear. Surely you can see we are not about to be found out, and on that note, what we did was perfectly legal, so stop worrying.” Letty once again patted Sophie’s hand. This was a soothing gesture she did numerous times every night to her young companion.

“And the priest, Letty, we cannot forget him.”

“He is a man of God, Sophie, he will tell no one.”

“Dear lord! It’s him, and he’s coming my way,” Sophie gasped, her eyes watching the Earl of Coulter as he walked through the crowd toward her.

What was it about the man that disturbed her? Whenever he turned those dark eyes on her, she felt as if they could see right down to her very soul. Black as a starless night and fringed by thick lashes, they could make a woman swoon when they were lit by laughter. The earl moved with an athletic grace that was often lacking in tall men, and anyone in his way simply stepped aside to allow him access.

Instinctively, Sophie shuffled two steps closer to Letty. He unsettled her and she was unsure why. It was almost as if beneath that polished veneer lay the real earl, a ruthless man who would not hesitate to expose an imposter like her. Her cloak of practiced, icy civility always seemed to slip whenever he was nearby.

“So he is, my dear.” Letty patted her curls and smoothed a nonexistent wrinkle from her dress. “Smile now and remember to speak slowly and without profanity,” she chided. “Never forget that you have them all fooled, my dear. Why just yesterday, I overheard Mrs. Liversporth scolding her daughter for her deplorable lack of polish and holding you up as a paragon of bearing,” Letty said, giggling like a schoolroom miss. “It is a quite a feat, considering not a day goes by without you tripping over your feet or tearing a hem.”

“I am glad that you can find some amusement in this horrible situation. Every evening I am sure that I will fall down the stairs of whatever room we are entering and land at the feet of every affluent member of society with my skirts up over my head, showing the polite world my knickers.”

“Now, dear, you know that is not going to happen. Rather a miracle, really, you being able to hold yourself so still that it appears you barely draw breath. Quite a clever trick, considering …”

“Oh lord! He is getting closer,” Sophie interrupted Letty by grabbing the older woman’s arm—wanting desperately to run and hide.

For two years they had lived a life that she had no right to be part of, and each day she waited for someone to expose her. Lately, Sophie believed the Earl of Coulter would be that person. Staring at his elegantly clad form as he drew near, she was sure he suspected something.

“Lady Carstairs, Countess, as always it is my pleasure to see you this evening.” The earl bowed deeply before them.

His expression was composed, facial features pleasant, yet to Sophie it seemed he could see right through her to the scared, poverty-stricken girl she had once been. She looked at the top of his sable brown curls, which he wore unfashionably long, the ends brushing his large shoulders. Everything about the earl was big, thought Sophie, eyeing his hands as they reached for one of Letty’s. He stood well over six feet and his feet could squash both of hers without too much effort. Sophie shivered, suddenly feeling like a very small fly in the presence of a large spider. His cheekbones were high and wide and his nose long, but not overly so. His jaw was square and the slash of a dimple in his cheek did little to deviate from the picture of intense masculine beauty.

Patrick lifted first Lady Carstairs’s hand and then that of the countess to his lips; the telltale tremor in the latter revealed how his presence unsettled her.

“Lady Carstairs, I was just telling Lord Sumner how I had the pleasure of seeing your brother three days before his passing, and that it is a memory I will always treasure,” Patrick said, with just the right amount of respect in his voice.

“Yes, Melton told me of your visit, my lord.” Letty had a soft smile on her face. “It pleased him greatly to see you one last time; he cared for your grandmother deeply.”

Three days! Oh dear, this was not good
. Lowering her eyes to the Earl of Coulter’s slate and ivory satin waistcoat, Sophie fought for calm.

“I did not have the pleasure of seeing you there, Countess, or the current earl, your son.”

Sophie’s tongue quite suddenly seemed to swell to twice its normal size, thereby blocking anything articulate from leaving her mouth. “Ah … ah,” she stammered.

“Indeed, my lord, my sister-in-law and nephew were visiting a friend with me at that time. I am very fond of them both,” Letty said steadily, her eyes never leaving the earl’s face. Patrick had the distinct impression that he had just been warned off by Lady Carstairs, for there was a decidedly militant look in her faded blue eyes.

“Ah of course, well, that explains their absence then,” he replied in an appeasing tone, not believing a word the old lady said but choosing to leave the matter alone, for now.

Patrick once again smiled, noting that the countess had gone very still. She seemed very uncertain and gripped by a sort of fear as she drew herself inward and appeared almost statuelike.

“May I have this dance, Countess?” he asked noticing her admirers closing in from both sides.

“Of course, my lord,” Sophie said, relieved that she did not stutter.

Even her voice was pure sin, Patrick thought. She spoke in a soft little growl that made all his senses stand to attention. She did not possess the cultured drawl that others affected. Leading her onto the floor, he was pleased when the first strains of a waltz floated through the air. Swinging her into his arms Patrick used unnecessary force and was rewarded with her soft body pressing against his.

“Excuse me, my lord, I … um slipped.” Sophie placed her hands on his chest to lever herself backward. Muscles clenched beneath her fingers and she quickly drew them back. Even through her evening gloves, she could feel the heat from his solid chest.

“The fault was mine, Countess, please accept my apologies.”

Sophie lowered her head and concentrated on the shiny buttons of his waistcoat. He was toying with her—there was a knowing gleam in his eyes. The man had a way of reducing her to a mass of quivering nerves in seconds.
Find your backbone, Sophie
, she could hear Letty’s voice inside her head.

Patrick had an urge to wind one of her black satin curls around his fingers; he wanted to explore the scent and texture of it.

“How does your son fare here in London, Countess?” He could almost believe her free of treachery when she looked at him with such an innocent expression in her beautiful eyes. The deep green of leaves after rainfall, they appeared clear of deceit. He waited for her to offer a polite but singular comment in reply to his question, as was her standard response to most questions.

“He is well, my lord. His aunt and I took him on his first London adventure,” she said, offering him a wide smile. “Yesterday we visited the museum and Gunter’s Tea Shop, I fear Gunter’s, with its delicious iced delicacies, was by far the best treat.”

Patrick realized this was the first time he had seen such a look of joy on her face. It was also the first time he had noted her dimples, which told him she did not laugh freely. Rarely had he heard more than a few words spill from her lips. Obviously, the love she felt for her son was very real.

“He is very lucky to have such a caring mother, Countess.” Patrick watched the smile fall from her lips as he spoke.

“It is I who am lucky, my lord; both Timothy and Lady Carstairs are very special to me.”

Another warning;
Patrick noted the flicker of anger in her eyes. What was she hiding? He would find out—that was never in doubt. Patrick had spied for the Foreign Office and had been very good at his job. By comparison, discovering the countess’s secrets should not be overly taxing. Spinning her in a turn, he felt her evening slipper land on top of his shoe.