The earl sighed. “I suppose I shall never convince you of my good intentions where your mother was concerned.”
“If your intentions were so good, why couldn’t you keep your pants fastened around her?”
“Greg seems to believe you succumbed to Lady Christina’s charms. If that’s true, you know about temptation.”
The earl’s words gave Drex pause. Yes, Lilli had taught him a lot about temptation. He’d always thought himself a man of strong will. She had proven him wrong. Had his father felt the same way about his pretty upstairs maid?
Drex sipped his brandy. “What I did or did not do with Christina is no one’s business. If you don’t want to help, I’ll find another way to marry her, maybe take her to Gretna Green.”
“And stain her name with the ton more than you have?”
Drex shifted, staring uncomfortably at the swag of blue and rose drapes.
The man was right. He had no palatable option but to remain here until he could make his bows into London society.
“I should have married Christina on Grand Bahama,” he said.
The earl nodded, his smile benevolent. “We shall remedy the situation posthaste. You’ll need to enter little season ahead. My brother’s wife, Lady Allyn, will oversee your training—”
“Training? For what?”
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The Lady and the Dragon
His father nodded. “Dance, deportment, dress, manners. Things you must know to be well received.”
Drex shook his head, absorbing the information with shock. Could he not simply make an offer for the girl on the basis of being the earl’s son? “I had not planned on entering a season. I have no desire to rub shoulders with the ton. ”
“You must if you wish to wed Lady Christina.” He shrugged. “Manchester will be soliciting a husband for the girl during the little season, or so whispers indicate, but with his money, he can be somewhat choosy, even though the girl is ruined.”
Drex drank in that information—and the realization that his father was right. The man was already proving helpful. Though he did not have to like the earl, Drex knew he would be smart to listen.
* * *
That evening, Drex sat across from his father in the drawing room. At the earl’s summons, Lord Allyn, Drex’s uncle, entered the room. He stopped in the threshold, dressed to perfection in biscuit breeches and a green silk vest, and stared.
“George,” he said to the earl, dark eyes glued to Drex’s overlong hair and dangling earring. “Who is this…man?”
“Come in, Milton.” The earl gestured enthusiastically. “Come in. Where’s Agnes? I want her here as well.”
Lord Allyn looked to the earl, then back to Drex, as if afraid he might attack. “My lady wife is—”
“Right here,” broke in a female voice.
A thin woman entered the room, dressed in a watery gray. She stood only five feet, her fragile features almost untouched by time. Her expression was as wan as the shade of her dress.
Drex shifted uncomfortably in his chair, wishing like hell his father would not try to ingrain him in the family.
“Sit down, you two,” instructed the earl. “I’ll pour drinks. Agnes, a sherry?”
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Shelley Bradley
“A word with you, brother,” his uncle said, grabbing the earl by the arm.
Allyn propelled his brother across the room, to a writing table against the window.”
“Who is this…miscreant? My God, man, he’s wearing an earring!” Allyn’s angry mutter carried to Drex’s ears.
The earl shrugged off his brother’s touch. “Get hold of yourself, Milton.”
As his father strode across the room, Drex tensed. If Lord Allyn didn’t like a miscreant in the house, he wasn’t likely to want one in the family. More puzzling, however, was his father’s behavior. Drex couldn’t see why a man with his determination to know his sons would ever have willingly cast his offspring aside.
“Milton, Agnes.” He glanced at each. “This is Drexell, one of the sons I began searching for years ago.”
Lord Allyn’s eyes dilated, turning from brown to black. “Your son? You cannot mean to take this…person in our home and treat him as if—”
“He’s flesh and blood?” the earl countered sharply.
“You—you don’t intend to make him the next earl, I hope.”
“I’m afraid so.” The earl turned away from his brother’s sputtering and faced the man’s wife. “Agnes, I’d like your help. He’ll need to be made ready for the little season, and I trust only you to teach him how to get on with the highest sticklers.”
“George, even if he has lovely manners, you know his birth will not be excused by some,” she pointed out.
The earl nodded. “Give him every other benefit possible, and money will open most doors. We’ve a very short time to prepare, three weeks, I believe.
You’ll have to work miracles.”
“Indeed,” the lady agreed, her face blank.
“You can’t mean to have my wife consort with him,” Lord Allyn protested.
“You know not what manner of person—” He huffed, fists clenched. “Clearly, he is no earl.”
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The Lady and the Dragon
Drex watched the exchange, realizing he had displaced his uncle as heir to the earldom. As for as he was concerned, Lord Allyn could have the title. Still, he let the drama play out.
“Watch yourself,” the earl warned. “I’m not dead yet.”
* * *
Journal,
I have encountered the most maddening streak of bad luck! Ashmont’s by-blow has decided to give up his privateering ways and join the family. Equally disheartening, the earl’s health improves more each day, and no matter how I try to rid myself of his misbegotten son, I fail.
I tried to poison the miscreant. At the moment, he lies abed, losing the contents of his stomach on an hourly basis. Yet with every minute that passes, I know he will live.
With the little season approaching, Drexell will be ill-prepared to mingle with the ton. Ashmont won’t be embarrassed. He is the earl, after all. But the rest of his family will suffer the slurs, and worse to contemplate, the cuts. I grant that the outlaw hardly resembles the man who first knocked on our door, but he will not do!
I must continue to make plans that will rid me of Drexell forever and allow me the dreams denied by Ashmont’s foolish ways.
* * *
At Drex’s request, Greg arrived at the earl’s town house an hour before the little season’s first major social event. Drex ceased pacing, pulled on the snug white waistcoat about his middle and turned to face his long-time friend.
Greg stopped halfway across the room. “Is that really you?”
The stupefied expression Greg wore heartened Drex that Lilli wouldn’t recognize him. “None other.”
Greg’s mouth hung open. “I would not have recognized you, had you not owned up to your identity,” he said.
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Shelley Bradley
“I look different, then?”
“I should say. Short hair, no earring or mask. You’re dressed in garments much better than serviceable clothing and boots. Your skin is no longer brown.” He laughed. “You look much like any London gentleman.”
“Truly?” Drex smiled. Perhaps his plan would work.
“Almost. I daresay you cut a better cloth than some of us more idle gentlemen.” He patted his rounding stomach. “The ladies will adore you, for both your looks and imminent title.”
“I only want one lady. What do you know of Christina?”
“She is set to be at the ball, and all of polite society is aflutter. They think Manchester rather audacious for foisting his soiled granddaughter on them in this desperate husband hunt.”