It’s been over a year since Emma Clark’s no-good husband left on an expedition. The Countess of Dearborn has played the abandoned wife, but people are beginning to presume the earl is dead, which doesn't suit Emma at all. Emma likes being head of household in Albert’s absence and does her best to keep his family believing he is alive and well. She’s thirty years old and finally having some fun. If the earl is in fact dead, his family is waiting in the wings to swoop in and throw Emma out, leaving her destitute.
Then along comes Luka Olivien, the Weslorian Earl of Marlaine. He’s traveled all the way from Egypt, duty-bound to return to the countess her deceased husband’s precious pocket watch—only to discover she doesn’t know he’s dead… Or does she? It’s hard to tell. Luka catches glimpses of the desperate vulnerability beneath the party girl exterior and can’t help being drawn into the beguiling countess’s ruse.
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CHAPTER ONE
Butterhill HallEngland, 1871
Emma Clark was thinking of taking a lover. She had an itch that could not be scratched, one that was causing her to look at men—all men, whether short or tall, lean or round, old or young—with lust.
A sinful, and probably unpardonable, but undeniable fact.
After surveying the nearest candidates, she settled on Mr. John Karlsson, the new stablemaster at Butterhill Hall. He looked to be somewhere in the vicinity of her thirty-two years, had flaxen blond hair, arms as big around as her thighs, and an easy smile that sparkled in his blue eyes.
She’d made a habit of going down to the stables to watch him exercise the horses. She would call out to him. “That mount is full of vinegar today.” He’d laugh. “Toby would run straight to the sea if I let him.” Or she would note the excellent grooming of the horses’ coats. “They’re so shiny,” she would say approvingly, and he’d say proudly, “Aye, ma’am, I’ve a new lad in the stables.”
Sometimes, when one of the stable hands was putting a horse through its paces around the paddock, Mr. Karlsson would stand with his back to the fence, his elbows propped on the railing as he watched. He would remove his hat and drag his fingers through his hair. He smelled of horse and sunshine and salt.
On the opposite side of the fence, Emma liked to step onto the bottom rail and lean over the top one beside him. She’d attempt to make small talk. She’d run through various scenarios in her mind, different ways she might ask him if he would like a lover. She dismissed most of them as impractical or cringe-inducing. Propositioning a man didn’t come naturally to her, and she continued to be bewildered by what might be considered offensive versus what might be considered enticing. She’d even thought about consulting her very married sister, but she imagined Fanny would be appalled and spend an entire afternoon lecturing her why she could never ever do such a thing.
Then Emma decided that it ought to be his idea and mulled over ways to lead him to it.
After days of chatting about horses, she’d decided it would never come to fruition if she didn’t take the reins. Ironically. She came up with a scheme that seemed the least egregious of all she’d imagined—she would ask him to saddle a horse for her. She was not the best rider, but she was competent enough, and she thought she could manage to dislodge herself from the horse and fall—Lord knew she’d done it before—but in a manner that would necessitate her rescue.
She just hoped it didn’t hurt. Or that she didn’t break an arm or leg. Worse yet, her head.
On the day she was set to carry out her plan, she made her way to the stables. But Mr. Karlsson was in the company of a young girl, perhaps seven or eight years old. She had the same flaxen hair as he, the same lean build. Emma watched as he picked the girl up and swung her around so that her braids flew out like wind streamers. That laughing girl was the spitting image of him. Which meant, with a high degree of probability, that he was married.
Alas, so was Emma.
Ah, well. She changed course and walked away, leaving behind her dashed hopes of taking him as her lover.
Granted, there had been other obstacles besides marriage that she’d not yet established how to overcome. For example, the cumbersome business of her being the Countess of Dearborn, and thus, Mr. Karlsson’s employer. Ethics and morals were probably involved in a way she preferred not to think about.
She trudged on in disappointment. What was a woman of her age to do when her estranged husband was in Africa or some other far-flung place for months on end with no sign of ever returning? Not that she wanted that intolerable human being to return. But that didn’t mean she’d given up personal desires.
Emma hadn’t always thought Albert intolerable. Years ago, when he was wooing her, he’d been the perfect gentleman. He and his mother would come for supper, and he’d charm her and her family by reading a sonnet after the meal or singing along with Fanny to some tune. He escorted her to church and back and picked wildflowers for her along the way, which he would insert into her bonnet or her hair. He would call on her and Fanny with his friends and they’d play cards and laugh.
It had all been cordial and exciting and precisely the sort of thing Emma’s mother had promised her love would be.
Her parents were thrilled when Albert Clark, the Earl of Dearborn, asked for her hand in marriage and had happily trundled her off to holy matrimony unto death with a modest savings in the event she ever needed money of her own. Emma had been so sure of her and Albert’s mutual affection that she believed she would never need it. The sum had been tucked away, quietly collecting a small interest.
She’d expected marital bliss with Albert. She imagined evenings spent with him reading sonnets as she quietly did her needlework. She imagined they would entertain on occasion but would catch each other’s eye across a crowded room and realize they preferred their own company to anyone else’s. She imagined they would take long walks around the lake and travel to London and spend long winter nights tucked away in bed, making love.
The problem with expectations, she discovered, was that they rarely lived up to reality.
Curiously, from the start, Albert had seemed indifferent to their intimate relations. Which was precisely the opposite of what Fanny had said she might expect. Fanny said she’d spent the first few months of her marriage fending off her husband several times a day. Not Emma. At times, Albert had seemed downright annoyed with the prospect of it. And when he did perform his marital duty, he was not a man to take his time—he wanted it done as quickly as possible. Emma had tried everything she knew to make it more pleasant for him, which, in truth, was not a lot. And when she attempted to make things better, or more pleasurable, he said she made them worse.
And yet, Albert was obsessed with producing his obligatory heir. Unfortunately, human biology required that he have a working appendage, and increasingly, he did not. Every time he failed, he grew angry and verbally abusive. Every month that Emma didn’t conceive, he blamed her. Every month they tried again, but the coupling was rougher and devoid of affection. She’d begun to feel like a cheap vessel, misused and unappreciated.
He soon began to blame her for everything inside and outside of the marital bed. He belittled her and dressed her down in front of family and friends. Everything she said was open to ridicule. He avoided her presence and told others he found her company unendurable.
Emma sincerely believed she’d tried as hard as one might, but she came to loathe her husband. On the day he announced he was going on expedition to Africa, she could not have been happier. He said he needed to go and “clear his head” and didn’t know how long he’d be gone.
Emma secretly rejoiced and imagined being widowed in the event he was gored by a rhinoceros. His family, on the other hand, was distraught. What of the estate? Who would manage his wife? How could he leave them there alone with her?
His older sister Adele was a spinster who looked after his fourteen-year-old brother, Andrew. The boy needed Albert, Adele said. And really, wasn’t it Albert’s duty to remain in England until he’d sired his heir? “Your wife has passed her thirtieth year, Albert,” she’d said. “You haven’t long before she’s no longer any use to you.”
“She’s no use to me now,” he’d said sharply.
“I’m sitting right here,” Emma had reminded the siblings. “You do know that I am a person and not just a womb, don’t you?”
She’d received a tongue-lashing for mentioning her supposedly barren womb.
In the end, Albert turned a deaf ear to the pleas of his sister and prepared to leave. Emma was secretly giddy with happiness. She said she hoped the wind would always be at his back and privately hoped the winds would blow him all the way to China and he’d never return.
And indeed, it had been a beautiful ten months since Albert had left. Emma had begun to feel herself again, free to be who she was without fear of disparagement. She didn’t miss him in the slightest or wish for his return. What she wanted was love—physical, emotional, consuming love—and she would never have that from him.
She was beginning to fear love would not be hers to have. She was biding her time, waiting for her husband, wandering through her life, playing the role of countess and, in her husband’s absence, estate manager. She dined alone, slept alone, spent nights before the hearth alone. And while that was infinitely more desirable than spending that time with Albert, it did make for loneliness.
She reached the hall in something of a mood and tossed her hat carelessly onto a console as she walked into the foyer. Feeney, the butler, appeared from another corridor to take her hat. “You’ve a caller, my lady,” he said. “Mr. Victor Duffy.”
She so rarely had callers. “Who is that?”
“He did not say. He said he has news for you.”
News for her? How odd. It probably had something to do with the town house in London. A tax or something like it. “Thank you, Feeney. Whatever it is, I’ll dispose of it quickly and send him on his way so do stay close by.”
“Very good,” Feeney said.
The man standing in the receiving room was wearing a coat that had faded, the sleeves and hem frayed. His collar appeared to have a ring of dirt around his neck. His waistcoat strained across his paunch, and he’d combed his thinning hair over as much of his head as he could. He coughed as she entered, obviously trying to swallow it down, but as coughs were wont to do, it escaped him. “Lady Dearborn,” he said, and coughed again.
Emma unthinkingly took a step back. “Good day, sir. How may I be of help?”
He suffered a fit of coughing and removed a crumpled handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed at his mouth. “I do beg your pardon. I am perfectly well, but I think I’ve gotten a bit of the road in my throat.” He dabbed at his forehead, which, Emma noticed, had broken out with perspiration. “I’ve have come from Egypt.” He coughed again. “With news of your husband,” he rasped.
“Albert?” Just her luck. “And how does he fare?”
Mr. Duffy reached into the interior of his coat and withdrew an envelope and held it out to her. From where she stood, she could see her husband’s distinctive handwriting. She didn’t move to take it straightaway. “That’s from Albert?”
He nodded.
“You’ve come from Egypt to deliver it?”
He nodded again.
Emma sighed. “He might have posted it and saved you the trouble, Mr. Duffy.” She gingerly took the letter from him.
Mr. Duffy suffered another short fit of coughing. “Unfortunately, madam, I am the bearer of distressing news. You may want to sit.”
Well, now he had her attention. What could be more distressing than the news Albert was coming home? “I’m sturdier than I look. What news?”
He coughed again. He was starting to look a little gray.
“Would you like some water, Mr. Duffy?”
“No, no. Please don’t trouble yourself. I do beg your pardon. As I was saying, it is my solemn and distressing duty to inform you that your husband has…died.”
Emma froze. She was certain she’d misheard him. “Died?”
“Died. Yellow fever.”
She was stunned. So stunned that she didn’t believe him. “What?” Could it possibly be true? Could Albert really be dead? “Are you certain?”
“Quite.” He reached into his pocket again and withdrew a small leather pouch. He opened it and out dropped Albert’s signet ring. “He was buried immediately, as is the custom there.”
“Buried?” She was gaping at this man, her mind racing. Albert was dead? Her belly began to churn with confusion and sorrow and joy all at once. “Have you been to his sister?”
“No, ma’am. I have come to you first.” He tried to stifle another cough.
“Oh my,” she said, and turned away from him, her mind struggling to comprehend.
Mr. Duffy coughed and said hoarsely, “Shall I ring for your butler? Someone to help you?”
“No, no. I… I will manage.” She pressed a hand to her forehead. Would she manage? She stared at the wall, thinking. What did this mean? How would they memorialize him? What would happen to her? Had he left a will? How ridiculous of her to never have asked.
A sudden and tremendous thud startled her, and she whipped around. Mr. Duffy was lying face down on the rug. “Mr. Duffy!” she cried and rushed to his aid. It took all her strength to roll him onto his back. His eyes were bulging, and his face was turning a shade of blue. Emma shoved the letter into her pocket and ran to the door, shrieking for Feeney.
The butler came running. Then came two footmen. One of the footmen fought with the knot of Mr. Duffy’s neck cloth to release it, but it was no use. Mr. Duffy was dead.
They carried the man to a bedroom and laid him out there until they could determine what to do with him.
In the chaos and days that followed that untimely death, no one asked why Mr. Duffy had come to call. Emma was grateful for it, because it gave her a chance to breathe, and when she did, she realized that had Mr. Duffy made it to Adele’s house, or had he gone there before he’d come to Emma, Albert’s little brother would be the earl now.
And she’d be…what? Out on her arse, that’s what, with nothing but her savings to lean on. She had no illusions about Adele’s regard for her or what she’d force Andrew to do.
And then it occurred to her: she was the only person who knew Albert was dead. No remains of her husband were going to suddenly appear, and apparently, his sole personal effect was in that leather pouch.
If everyone assumed Albert was alive, Emma could carry on as she had for the past ten months, living life on her own terms.
The letter Mr. Duffy had delivered had been one Albert had written presumably before he’d taken ill. He curtly informed her he’d be home by Christmas.
Emma tucked the signet ring where no one could find it. She burned Albert’s letter in the fire in her room. She said nothing to no one. Not even Carlotta, her lady’s maid and friend.
Emma was very good at keeping secrets.
Excerpted from An Inconvenient Earl by Julia London. Copyright © 2023 by Dinah Dinwiddie. Published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
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