An Eye for an Earl Read online

  An Eye for an Earl

  Jean Wilde

  Copyright © 2018 Jean Wilde

  All rights reserved

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  To my mother, who instilled in me a love for reading and handed me my first Georgette Heyer novel. While most would say this book falls under the “Not Your Mother’s Romance” category, this one is for you.

  “And We ordained for them therein a life for a life, an eye for an eye, a nose for a nose, an ear for an ear, a tooth for a tooth, and for wounds is legal retribution. But whoever gives [up his right as] charity, it is an expiation for him.”

  The Holy Quran 5:45

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  About The Author

  The Scarlet Salon

  Prologue

  London, 1816

  Isabelle Beaumont slunk deeper into the shadows, never taking her eyes off her quarry. Her heart sped in excitement and trepidation. For six years she’d dreamed of this night. Countless months of meticulous planning and working herself to the bone were finally about to pay off.

  She watched the drunken man stagger on the other side of the street, leaning heavily against a lamppost. The gentleman appeared to be around forty years of age, his clothes mussed but fashionably cut, and his long red hair was tied haphazardly in a knot at the nape of his neck. He looked back and forth, squinting through the fog. He whistled in a vain attempt to find a hackney.

  He wasn’t going to find one. The men she’d hired were posted at both ends of the street. Nobody was coming. Nobody was going to save this wretched man’s soul.

  A shadow peeled away from the wall, mere steps from where the man was slumped.

  The drunk stepped back and slurred, “You there, best keep your distance. I’m a baron, you know, a member of the peerage. You don’t want to get into trouble with the law now, do you? I’m protected by the Crown.”

  The thick fog hung ominously over the street. It fueled her quarry’s terror and muffled her dark chuckle. His arrogance amused her. The man was alone on a dark, foggy street at three in the morning. He was drunk and hadn’t even bothered with a cane.

  Defenseless and alone, just like she had been.

  The shadow paid no heed to this words and just continued toward him.

  “Stay back!” yelled the drunk, his voice quaking in terror. He turned and stumbled as he tried to flee the dark specter. The light from the street lamp showed the glint of a knife just before the baron cried out in pain and dropped to the ground moaning.

  Isabelle emerged from the shadows and crossed to where the man lay dying.

  ***

  Charles Howard tried valiantly to push himself off the pavement. He whimpered and fell back to the ground. The world spun, and there was a metallic taste at the back of his throat. He lay clutching at his stomach as the blood soaked through his shirt and vest.

  An angel appeared above him, her golden hair glowing in the streetlight. But there was no warmth in her blue eyes. Surely an angel would look kindly upon a dying man.

  “I’ve been attacked. Help me...please!”

  She crouched next to him. She lifted his hand off of his stomach and examined his wound.

  “Does it hurt?” she asked.

  His breathing grew ragged. The air burned his lungs, but he was able to croak out, “Yes.”

  She leaned closer to him and smiled.

  “Good, I’m glad it hurts.”

  Her answer shocked him. He stared in confusion and horror at the beautiful angel of death. Then, his brain slowly tugged on a memory.

  “Isabelle? By God…is it you?

  “I was wondering if you’d recognize me, Uncle Charlie. Yes, it’s me. I’ve come to see that justice is served: justice that is six years overdue.”

  Shame and guilt welled up inside him. Secrets and regrets that he’d locked away for so long surfaced. Overcome by emotion, he started to weep. He wept for the life he would no longer live, and for the niece he had so deeply wronged.

  “I’m sorry, Izzy-bear. I’m so...so very sorry,” he said with a wheeze.

  His niece sneered at him.

  “Do you think that makes it right then? That you’re sorry?” she hissed at him.

  “I...I...”

  He wanted to say more. He wanted to absolve himself of his sins, but the night grew quiet and everything turned black.

  ***

  Isabelle glared at the corpse that was once her uncle. She slapped his still face and growled in frustration. She felt no satisfaction, no joy from his quick demise.

  The shadow returned and pulled her up to her feet.

  “Best get going, miss. It’s done. He won’t be hurting no one no more.”

  She nodded and allowed herself to be led away from what would soon be an official crime scene.

  There were others that needed to be punished. She’d make sure that each and every one of them paid for their sins.

  It wouldn’t be the same next time, she promised herself. Next time she’d feel whole again.

  Chapter 1

  Dorset, August 1819

  Bindon Abbey, Country Seat of Viscount Howard of Bindon

  There was an unusual sense of excitement in the air at Bindon Abbey. Whispers and hushed conversations broke the morose atmosphere that so often engulfed the house. The Viscount was a harsh master, who ruled over his domain with an iron fist. Even in his current state of decline, no one dared put a foot wrong. On that day, however, something was different.

  Mr. Simmons, the butler at the Abbey, surmised that this shift had come about some time after breakfast, when an unmarked envelope was delivered to Viscountess Bindon with the morning post.

  While the butler was not privy to his employers’ secrets, he had ways of finding out the intimate details of their lives. For instance, he’d recently learned that the Viscount’s eldest son, Matthew, had an actress set up in a fashionable home in London. While the younger son, Oscar, had been suspended from Eton and sent home with his tail between his legs. The letter from the school had conveniently gone astray, but not before Simmons had gotten wind of it.

  In spite of these insightful bits of information, he was unable to discover what the contents of this enigmatic letter were, or why the Viscountess had locked herself in the study along with her two sons.

  He was busy mulling over the different possibilities of this mystery when he heard a carriage pulling up.

  An odd time for visitors, he mused. All the local
gentry knew that his lordship was indisposed and that her ladyship wasn’t receiving any callers.

  The carriage stopped, and shortly after a knock sounded on the door.

  The butler waited a full thirty seconds before making a production of opening the front door.

  A beautiful young lady stood before him. She wore a fashionable blue morning dress with a pale yellow pelisse, a matching bonnet, and gloves. She grinned and walked right past him into the house.

  “Good morning, Simmons,” she said, removing her bonnet and gloves. “Is the Viscount dead yet, or have I arrived just in time?”

  Despite his years of training, Mr. Simmons was unable to hide the look of astonishment on his face. He recognized her. It had taken him a minute, but there was no mistaking the Honorable Isabelle Howard.

  “Miss Howard—” he began.

  “It’s Beaumont now, everyone knows that. Miss Howard disappeared nine years ago. Please don’t feign ignorance, my good man, that’s quite beneath you.”

  He clamped his mouth shut and nodded. He took the bonnet and gloves from her. “Her ladyship and her sons are in the study at the moment. Shall I announce you?”

  She turned on her heel and went toward the main staircase, calling over her shoulder, “Don’t bother, this isn’t a social call. I’m here to see the Viscount, and then I’ll be gone.”

  “But…my lady will want to know you’re here,” he called in a beseeching voice.

  She paused on the stairs and looked at him.

  “You may tell her if you wish, but I won’t linger for a moment longer than necessary.”

  ***

  Isabelle looked about her as she made her way toward the master wing. She hated to admit it, but she’d missed her childhood home. A deep sense of nostalgia had gripped her as she’d driven up the driveway to Bindon Abbey.

  The house wasn’t actually an abbey but had been built on the grounds of one. It used to be a modest Tudor manor at one point, until her grandfather inherited the estate. He’d been an ardent admirer of the Gothic Revival movement—much to his neighbors’ dismay—spending an exorbitant amount of money in expanding the east and west wings, while adding narrow lancet windows to the main level of the house. Only, he hadn’t stopped at that. A couple of years later, he’d hired an architect to incorporate latticework and hood moldings into the structure of the Abbey. Pointed arches adorned the hallways in the new wings, while the outside of the house featured battlements and steep-sloping roofs. All that was missing was a pair of gargoyles.

  Growing up, Isabelle often had the whimsical feeling that she was stuck living in the Middle Ages. And with a tyrannical father like hers, it wasn’t a completely inaccurate picture.

  The door to the master suite was left ajar. She pushed it open and waited for her eyes to adjust to the gloom. She could see the weak sunlight pouring through the half-curtained window.

  Swallowing, Isabelle ran her suddenly clammy hands down her dress. It was too late to change her mind now. Squaring her shoulders, she stepped into the room and shut the door behind her.

  Thomas Howard, 4th Viscount of Bindon, sat propped up in his bed with his writing desk on his lap in the midst of composing a letter. The quill hung suspended in midair as Isabelle strolled leisurely into the room. She made a show of going to the window and looking out, before returning slowly to stand at the foot of the bed.

  Isabelle looked down at the sickly Viscount. Her father! The man who sired her, disciplined her throughout her childhood, and then made her life a living hell. The thin, pale man before her was merely a shadow of the tyrant he’d once been.

  “Well, Lord Bindon, you’ve asked Matthew to summon me, and in spite of my better instincts, here I am. What is it that you wish to say to me?”

  “Isabelle,” he said quietly. He scanned her face and looked her up and down. “You’re all grown up.”

  She glared at him, wishing she could smash the writing desk on top of his head. Instead, she took a steadying breath and replied coolly, “Yes, that does tend to happen when you live on the streets. After scrounging for food and shelter for a few days, I learned to grow up quickly.”

  The Viscount visibly cringed and shook his head. “I didn’t mean it. I never intended for things to go that far.”

  “You didn’t—mean it,” she repeated slowly. “Well, if ruining my life in a single stroke was unintentional, I shudder to think what you might have done had you actually set your mind to it!”

  “It was not my fault, what happened to you all those years ago. It was not an easy decision for me, you should know. But I’m the head of this family, I have a responsibility…I had to do everything in my power to protect the family name.”

  “What you did was just as bad as what your brother did,” she snapped, her voice rising. “For goodness’ sake, I was fourteen years old.”

  “You were vain and sinful,” he hissed at her. “Tempting the men the way you did, and you weren’t even out of the schoolroom. You called to them like a siren, leading them to their doom.”

  His words felt like a slap to the face.

  Why did she allow his words to hurt her so? Did she honestly expect him to change or to be the least bit contrite?

  She drew herself up and gave him a piercing stare. “You failed to protect me, Father, in the eyes of God and in the eyes of this family. I was in your charge, and you failed.”

  That seemed to affect him. The zealot gleam died out from his eyes, and he suddenly looked very old and tired.

  “I had to protect the family,” he repeated feebly. “What happened to you would have destroyed us all. The scandal…it wouldn’t have just ruined your chances of a good match, but it would’ve destroyed the entire family name. It was incest. Your mother and your brothers would have all been shamed.”

  She curled her lip in disgust. “I didn’t care about the family name or my bloody chances of marriage. I was hurt in the worst way imaginable by a man I had trusted my entire life.”

  “I cut him off,” he insisted, his hands raised in a placating manner. “I removed him from my will, and he never set foot in Bindon Abbey again.”

  Isabelle scoffed. “Oh, what a terrible loss for Baron Lumley to be out of your good graces.”

  Silence stretched between them, both recalling the events from nine years past.

  Sighing wearily, she asked, “What do you want, Lord Bindon? Why did you ask to see me?”

  The Viscount sat back against his pillows and eyed his daughter searchingly. Finally, he said, “I was hoping you’d be agreeable to some sort of arrangement.”

  Her brows drew together. “What kind of arrangement?”

  “You may have heard that George, the Earl of Digby’s son, passed away last year. It was a terrible blow to the Gilberts, since he’d only recently come into his title and not even wed yet. Since he had no brothers, the estate passed on to an estranged cousin. A nobody really, but he was educated as a gentleman and amassed a small fortune in India. I’ve met him a few times and find him to be a capital fellow. By all accounts, the current Earl of Digby wishes to purchase Bindon House. You remember the hunting lodge on the east end of the property? It’s a modest home with a small plot of land, but the land itself is extremely fertile, and it’s strategically situated by the river.”

  “Yes, I recall the property,” she interjected. “It was to be part of my dowry when I came to marry George.”

  The Viscount beamed at her. “Precisely, I’m glad you remember it. I plan to bequeath it to you upon my death, as well as a generous stipend to allow you to live comfortably.”

  “How generous of you,” she replied drily. “But you said this is to be an arrangement. What do you want from me in return?”

  This time, his searching gaze turned shrewd. “You always were a sharp one. Much cleverer than that dolt you shared a womb with. Very well, I want you to fulfill what has always been your destiny, child. To put it plainly I want you to marry Digby.”

  Isabelle let out a peal
of laughter. “Oh my word, but that’s priceless. Does the good Earl know that you wish to marry him off to London’s most notorious courtesan?”

  His eyes hardened, and his lips flattened into a disapproving line. “You’re of noble birth. You’ve been bred and educated as a lady. Digby is a man of the world—he only just returned from India a year ago. He’s hardly spent any time in the capital, and would be completely ignorant of the gossip. If you both avoid London for a while, I’m sure he’d be willing to overlook your indiscretions.”

  “Indiscretions?” Isabelle snorted. “That’s doing it much too brown. I’ve welcomed dozens of men into my bed, from the lowest of classes to the echelons of London society. He’d be made the laughingstock of the town! Your new Earl would gladly take me to his bed, but as his mistress, not his wife.”

  “You are my daughter! Digby will wed you and be grateful for the opportunity.”

  “What a high opinion you have of me, or rather of your own consequence.”

  “He’s a good man and worthy of your hand,” he cajoled. “I’ll see to it that you become his countess.”

  Isabelle bit back a scathing rejoinder. Did the old fool honestly believe she’d jump at the opportunity he dangled before her? As if she’d ever feel any gratitude toward him, the arrogant bastard!

  “I thank you for the offer, Lord Bindon, but I’m afraid I must decline.”

  Her father’s face turned purple, and his voice shook with suppressed rage. “Don’t be daft, girl. I’m giving you the chance of wealth and position. You can go back to being a lady, a countess no less. You’d have your own household, a husband, and children to follow. Would you say no to that just to spite me?”

  She tilted her head slightly and gave him her sweetest smile. “Why, yes…I believe I will. You see you have no power over me. There’s nothing you can offer me that I want, and you can’t bully me into doing your bidding. I’m not yours to command anymore.” With that, she curtsied and turned to leave. “Goodbye, Father,” she called over her shoulder as she reached the door.