The Brooding Earl’s Bargain (Preview)

Chapter One

The light came through the windows and cast the desk in a poorly, gray color. It was only mirroring the weather, after all, and the weather in turn matched Eleanor’s mood. She rested her elbows on the old oaken desk and rolled her eyes away from the shuffled stacks of ledgers in front of her. The leather bindings smelled old, but not rotten—just foul-smelling enough to irritate her after the hours spent by the light of a candle.

“You would think it would let up,” she murmured, running her hand through the long black hair falling past her temple.

“What was that, my lady?” her handmaiden asked from the corner.

“Oh, it is nothing Grace,” Eleanor said, sitting upright in her chair and stretching her arms out above her head. “I am just rambling to myself once again.”

“Did you find something new?” Grace asked, taking a step forward. “In the books?”

“Did you in the pages?” Eleanor asked with a short laugh, gesturing to the stack of loose paper sheets that Grace had been sorting through on the corner shelf.

“Nothing that we did not know before,” Grace replied with a half smile.

“Good Lord, sometimes I understand why all the gentlemen seem to drink so much brandy,” Eleanor remarked, flicking her quill pen back into the inkwell with her other hand and finally relinquishing the task at hand. “It is just so wearisome, all these numbers and markings, and all of these sods have terrible handwriting. How am I supposed to make any of this out, hour after hour?”

“Perhaps they were confident that they could read their own writing, my lady,” Grace said, slowly sliding onto the sofa against the far wall. She had been standing for some time, and the break of conversation gave her a moment to relax, if only for a few minutes.

“Well, they should have imagined they might eventually die, like all of us do, and someday someone might have to comb through their intelligible scribbles.” Eleanor frowned as she finished speaking, wrinkling her brow with discontent.

“My lady?” Grace asked gently, her natural kindness shining through. The women shared a closeness that had only grown stronger over the recent years, and while Eleanor might not admit it outright, Grace was the closest friend she had, despite their different stations in life.

“It is nothing of import,” Eleanor said, finally standing up and stretching her arms high over her head with a yawn. “Just me and my ramblings.”

There was a tense flicker across her eyes, and Grace could feel it as well. Eleanor’s father was like a ghost in the house. Any mention of him would bring a near immediate chilling of the room and slowing of tempo, and Eleanor shivered as the uncomfortable feelings of grief began to rear their familiar heads. She did not need any of it that day, and she did her best to brush the discomfort aside.

“I am forgetting something,” Eleanor said, stopping in front of the large window behind the desk. She looked out at the swirling gray clouds as she lightly chewed on her lower lip, trying to remember what it was that had slipped her mind over the course of the tedious morning. “Is there anything happening today?” she asked over her shoulder.

“No, my lady,” Grace answered, shuffling her loose papers into a neater stack. “There are no events scheduled.”

“I do not know what I am going to do,” Eleanor admitted abruptly, crossing her arms across her chest. She was thinner than she would have liked to be, tall and slender like a twisting tree branch, but her long dark hair tied her figure together elegantly.

“About what, my lady?” Grace asked, finishing with her papers.

“Everything,” Eleanor breathed out with a long sigh. “Staff salaries are due next week, you know that I am sure.”

“We have the money for payroll,” Grace followed up confidently. “It is all arranged.”

“But what about the next one?” Eleanor lamented. “There is simply no money left.”

“Surely there are more items we can sell,” Grace said. “The house functions halfway as a museum.”

“And eventually we will run out of baubles to pawn as well,” Eleanor replied, slowly shaking her head. “We cannot do this forever.”

“We need not do it forever,” Grace answered her while she tied the leather binding shut on the ledgers sitting on the desk. “One day at a time, isn’t that right, my lady?”

“It sounds so simple when you say it like that,” Eleanor said, letting out another long sigh. Finally she allowed herself to break from the topic of their crumbling finances, directing her irritation to the dark storm clouds that refused to let even a shred of the morning light through their veil. “It is terribly gloomy today,” she muttered.

“Oh!” Grace exclaimed, raising her eyebrows. “I have just remembered.”

“What?” Eleanor spun halfway around, nervous to hear whatever it was that Grace had to say.

“Samuel told me a new riddle,” Grace said wryly. “You will never sort it out.”

“Well go on then,” Eleanor said, flexing her eyebrows. “Out with it!”

“I die when I drink, I eat when I breathe, what am I?” Grace asked coyly, finally shuffling the last of the books back into their resting places on the shelves.

“That makes no sense,” Eleanor said with a quick frown.

“You have not even begun to think on it,” Grace shot back.

“I do not need to,” Eleanor said with a wry smile.

“Oh, never you mind it then,” Grace said, cocking her head, but she knew the riddle would drive Eleanor insane until she had figured it out. It was a fine little game they played, and it helped keep Eleanor on her toes, but it was true that she had very little capacity for finding the answer that morning. “Run along and join your cousin for breakfast.”

“Breakfast?” Eleanor scoffed. “I had hidden in here to avoid such an affair.”

“And so you have, until now,” Grace said, flashing her a quick smile. “Think on the riddle!”

“I wish I did not have to think at all,” Eleanor quipped back. Grace turned and finally left the room, her tasks there complete, and Eleanor was left alone listening to the soft patter of rain starting upon the windows while the faint smell of cooking grease wafted through the open door and called her to the table. “Fine,” she muttered to herself. “Breakfast.”

The manor house itself was old, but with good bones, and it was still standing proudly against all the dreary rain and long years that continued to bombard it. There were large swaths of ceiling trim and picture molding that needed to be replaced, or at least repainted, but those tasks had fallen so far in the list of priorities that she could not imagine completing them now.

She passed another servant in the hall who curtsied reflexively, and Eleanor felt another pang of guilt wash through her as she averted her eyes. How was she to pay all of these people? They did not make much, but it was more than she had to give, and so few of them knew just how precarious the situation was.

She took note of a few gold-leafed end tables that sat awkwardly against the east wall as she reached the center of the house. They were the next things to go, what purpose were they even serving? Her father had left her a lifetime of things like those gaudy end tables. Fine things that served no practical purpose filled the house, though there were considerably less trinkets than there used to be.

Eleanor could hear her cousin’s bubbly voice from the hallway as she neared the morning room, and she braced herself for the flurry of excitement that was sure to follow her entrance. She liked her cousin Amelia, truly they were good friends, but Amelia could talk one’s ear off, and Eleanor was not always in the mood to hear her do as such. Of course, that was not always something she had the option of ignoring.

“Good morning, cousin!” Amelia said from across the round, marble topped breakfast table. She was a touch younger than Eleanor, and more than a bit shorter, but she was so full of charm that she was universally loved everywhere she went.

Eleanor’s Aunt, Henrietta, sat at the table as well, but she was focused more on the newspaper than she was anything her daughter had to say. That was a typical-looking morning in their house since they had come to stay, and while it was not a perfect arrangement, it worked plenty well enough for Eleanor at that point in time.

“Good morning,” Eleanor answered, sliding into her chair. Grace appeared at her side with a fresh cup of breakfast tea, and slid it into place before her.

“You were up early,” Henrietta said, peering over the top of her newspaper at Eleanor.

“Just taking another look at my father’s accounts,” Eleanor replied, wrapping her hands around the warm teacup. The smell, one she experienced every morning, brought her a small, gentle comfort combined with the warmth on her palms.

“Find anything useful?” Henrietta asked dryly, knowing the answer full well already.

“Hardly,” Eleanor muttered, and a knowing, empathetic look came over Henrietta’s face as she lowered her newspaper.

“Indeed,” she said, reaching for her own cup of tea. Eleanor’s uncle had died the year before her father, and her aunt knew just how tedious a dead man’s ledgers could be. It was a bond they shared, beyond that of just being family, but neither Henrietta or Eleanor could bring themselves to reveal to Amelia just how broke they all were.

“This weather has been absolutely dreadful,” Amelia said with a dramatic huff. “It is supposed to be warming up.”

“The rain has gotten warmer, did you not notice?” Eleanor joked, looking away from her Aunt.

“Enough of that,” Amelia said with a giggle. “You know what I mean. The Season is not so far away now.”

“Yes,” Henrietta said softly, her eyes darting back to Eleanor. “Have you thought on it any more of late?”

“Of what?” Eleanor asked, her eyes widening a touch. “The Season?”

“Suitors,” Henrietta said flatly.

“That reminds me,” Amelia said, “You received another letter this morning.”

“A letter?” Eleanor balked. “Who could deliver such a thing at this time of the morning?”

“It is from Blackwell,” Henrietta said diplomatically.

“Blackwell,” Eleanor huffed his name in an echo. “Will he ever leave me alone?”

“He is a perfectly valid option,” Henrietta cautioned her. “And he knows it as well.”

“He behaves as if we were engaged as children, and tied together forever,” Eleanor replied.

“He is handsome enough,” Amelia said, contemplating the matter. “Though, there is something about his nose that I find unappealing.”

“His nose?” Eleanor could not help but laugh out at her cousin’s short remark. “It is rather ugly is it not?”

“That is enough of that,” Henrietta said firmly, shutting down their line of conversation. “It is improper to make light of one’s appearance, especially one such as Blackwell.”

“The whole of the world seems improper to me,” Eleanor muttered, and Amelia smirked.

“What was that?” Henrietta asked, always just a step behind Eleanor’s wit, if only due to her older ears.

“Nothing at all,” Eleanor said, turning her eyes back to her tea.

“The letter is on the sideboard,” Henrietta said with a flicker of a scowl.

“I shall read it,” Eleanor said, though she did not enjoy the prospect.

“Think on it as well,” Henrietta said. “Do more than just read it.”

“Nose or not,” Eleanor said, “I do not find him terribly appealing.”

“Appealing has nothing to do with it,” Henrietta cautioned. “There are only so many marriage proposals fluttering around. He may well be your final option.”

“Final option,” Eleanor repeated, and the phrase made her bristle. She did not enjoy the feeling of being backed into a corner, deserving or not. Her father had loved her, that was certain, but he had left a giant mess of things in his wake.

“My aunt exaggerates,” Amelia said with a lofty roll of her eyes. “There are a hundred balls just around the corner full of other prospects.”

“Yes, because that has worked so well in years previous,” Henrietta could not resist a light barb.

“That is enough of this talk for one morning, I should think,” Eleanor said with a brisk shake of her head.

“Suit yourself,” Henrietta said, looking back to her newspaper.

“Oh, I saw the most marvelous gowns the other day when we were out,” Amelia said, charging ahead. “I thought a light blue might be my color this year—what do you think, Eleanor?”

“I am sure you would look very beautiful in blue,” Eleanor answered with a quick smile, but the root of the thought was difficult for her, and Henrietta saw it in the wrinkling of her forehead. There was hardly any money to pay the staff, how were they to afford fresh gowns? Or the coach retainer for all the ferrying they would need throughout the Season? The social events seemed like a weight around her neck instead of something to look forward to, and her eyes drifted back to the sideboard where Blackwell’s letter sat waiting for her.

They finished their breakfast with a few more pleasantries and some small talk, but the mood had stifled already, and finally Eleanor was left alone with Blackwell’s letter. She hardly needed to read it to know the contents; they were no doubt the same as they had always been.

He was a crude man, but not evil. It was more the way he looked at the world that seemed a terrible thing to Eleanor. He thought of her as property that already belonged to him, and he demonstrated it through letter after letter in which, no doubt, he thought of himself as being charming. Only his charm was of the old world, in which a lady had no say in her suitor, and while that was still true to a degree, the fact seemed to escape him that she no longer had a father capable of brokering such a marriage. It was up to her, and she did not find his presumed ownership flattering.

Still, Henrietta was right about one thing: the money had to come from somewhere, and there was only so much furniture they could sell.

Eleanor paced the halls of her manor with Blackwell’s letter tucked beneath her arm, wringing her hands as she thought through the coming days. Gowns needed ordering, stationary needed filing, and the Season’s itinerary needed setting, but she did not want to do any of it.

And who could blame her? Getting dressed up and attending a flurry of lavish balls was a terribly exciting prospect for a young woman when she did not have to count the cost of every order and could daydream of the perfect prince charming who was just around every corner. But the Season had taken on a different tone for her now, one of stress and inevitability. Running out of money was unavoidable, and thus so was her wedding.

“But it shall not be Blackwell,” she muttered, tossing the unopened letter into waste basket she passed in the hall. “Anyone but him.”

Chapter Two

William rubbed the bridge of his nose and shut his eyes for a moment as he took in a long breath. He did not want to open them and look down at that desk in front of him. Every time he sat in that seat, he was met with a familiar sense of overwhelming despair. 

The ledgers and the papers may as well have been written in French for all he could make out of them, which would have come as a great disappointment to his tutors who never could understand why it was so difficult for him to learn the language. Everyone else spoke it, why couldn’t he? It was just another item on the long, laundry list of disappointments that he seemed to embody.

“Rubbish,” he murmured, finally opening his eyes and flicking the pages away. Leaning back in his father’s lavish armchair he looked upon the items displayed in the old, oaken study. On the far wall, in a thin glass display case, was his father’s military uniform with the saber mounted alongside it. Beside that was the globe, carefully annotated with his father’s travels, and then the shelves of books that he had never read, and never intended to.

It was not his room, it was his father’s, and that was a feeling he could never escape. Every bronze bust and elegant trinket on display drove the point home, day after day, and it wore on him. He did not like being there; pretending to be the earl his father was seemed like a fool’s errand, and yet it was his duty.

Of course to an outside eye he fit the part better than perhaps he gave himself credit for, but that did not make any of it easier. If anything, that only made it more difficult.

There was a short knock on the side of the study door, and William looked up begrudgingly. It was Mr. Thorne, the aging, rigid steward, and he stepped in with his usual grand strides.

“You sent for me, sir?” Mr. Thorne asked, his voice a steady, unwavering tone.

“I do not know what to make of any of this,” William said, gesturing to the ledgers. “It is the same today as it was the last time I looked.”

“That is what you said yesterday,” Mr. Thorne said, standing stiff like a statue of some old soldier in one of the parks.

“And my situation has not improved,” William replied, tossing his hands up in the air.

“What remedies have you attempted?” Mr. Thorne asked, and William shot him a quick, surprised look. 

“Why, Mr. Thorne,” he said, “was that a joke?”

“There is nothing funny about your predicament, my lord,” Mr. Thorne replied forcibly, but William had seen the corner of his mouth twitch involuntarily. William smiled, satisfied with the slip of the steward’s iron mask, then returned to the matter at hand.

“So it would seem.”

“Need I remind you so frequently, my lord?”

“You do, in fact,” William said. “As I have made it plain that this is all beyond me. Henry was the one good with the books, I was otherwise occupied when he was learning numbers!”

“Your brother was too good with the books, my lord,” Mr. Thorne said. “He has left you penniless, and the estate will not endure another year without more income.”

“Yes, that part I know,” William said sourly. “None of this was meant to be my job, you know, none of it.”

“So you have said,” Mr. Thorne remarked with a bob of his head. “But that does not change the fact that it is indeed your job now. And nobody else can do it for you, not even me.”

“But you can advise me,” William said.

“And my advice is the same as it was yesterday,” Mr. Thorne said dryly. “Take a wife. Once you do, your trust will be unlocked, and you can fix all of this with a few years of careful work.”

“Take a wife,” William scoffed, leaning back in the chair again. “Because that is all I am good for, following up on father’s honor, living by his code.”

“Like it or not, my lord, you are the master of this house. You will need a wife and a son eventually. You may as well do it now and make your life easier with all that money stashed away for exactly such purposes.”

“This is my father’s office,” William said, gesturing to the trinkets and mementos stashed on the far wall. “My father’s debts, my father’s money, my father’s plan. It was not meant for me, how can I so easily slide into a role I was not born for?”

“Nobody is born for anything,” Mr. Thorne scoffed, and William raised a sudden eyebrow.

“A touch of blasphemy for breakfast?” William teased.

“You are talented at lamenting your position, I shall give you that,” Mr. Thorne said steadily. “But unless you act on my advice I am no good to you. The truth remains that your brother dishonored himself and stole your family wealth, and that the only road I see available to you is accessing your late father’s trust, which in his infinite wisdom, he attached to the design of you being married.”

“Yes,” William said, looking away toward the tall window behind the leather chair. “You have told me this before.”

“Then perhaps you might do yourself the favor of hearing it, my lord,” Mr. Thorne said gently. The room settled for a moment as William took in his words. He did not want any of it, Thorne knew that. Everybody with half an ear in their direction knew it, but that did not change reality.

“You know,” Mr. Thorne said as he began to turn away, “you may not have planned for this role, but you are more like your father than you know.”

“I can hardly read his writing,” William laughed back.

“I am serious,” Mr. Thorne said. “Your brother was never in the military. Your brother never traveled the world. Most importantly, your brother did not have honor, which I know that you do, that your father did.”

“Oh, tell me more about my honor,” William chuckled, breaking his gaze away from the window.

“You are here, are you not?” Mr. Thorne asked, his voice flat and direct. “A man with no honor would not be.”

With that, he clicked his heels and turned back to the door, leaving William to stew on his turbulent emotions. As he was about to vanish down the hall, he paused and turned back, saying, “Oh, I do believe your mother was looking for you.”

“Whatever could she want?” William replied.

“You are more an expert on that than I,” Mr. Thorne said with a ghost of a grin, and then he left the study.

William stood up from his seat and bent backward, stretching out his back and his hips. The chair was comfortable enough, but he did not love sitting in it for hours at a time, and he frowned as he shuffled the papers back together.

“There is no money,” he murmured to himself, swinging the leather cover shut over the stack of loose sheets.

He looked across the room to his father’s things on display, and felt a heaviness growing in his heart. He knew the score, Mr. Thorne had been very plain about it time and time again. No matter how many times he heard it said, he still could not grapple with the idea of marrying someone just to access the trust.

He had seen that game before play out in real time. It was the story of his entire life, living silently between his estranged parents. Had they ever truly cared for one another? It was difficult for him to say, but by the time his father had died there was no illusion left to be shattered. It was a business arrangement, nothing more, and he did not want that. With all his soul, he did not want that.

William looked back down to the desk for a moment, considering sliding open the top drawer where his father’s will sat. Reading it again would not change anything, and he gave a frustrated shake of his head before marching off into the rest of the house.

It was a grand home in regards to the city, lavish beyond necessity on his mother’s insistence. She had always preferred the finer things; there was no mystery as to where Henry had inherited that particular trait.

The house rivaled that of a duke’s off of Hyde Park, but the more William walked the halls the more uncomfortable he felt there. The portraits on the wall seemed to stare down at him menacingly, judging him for things he had yet to do, or would never do.

Even the ceilings seemed to be encroaching from their lofty heights, looming over him, waiting to collapse all their ornate trim and gold-framed paintings down upon his head. He walked through his own house as if he were sneaking away, not wanting to draw any attention. Of course, that could only go on so long in the house that he shared with his mother.

“There you are,” she said, looking up from the table as he came around the corner near the great central hearth. Mary was a stiff woman, delicately arranged like a display in some shop window showcasing the most expensive jewelry and gowns available. Her face was tight and composed, her eyes sharp like a bird of prey. He loved her for being his mother, of course, but she did terrify him, and that would never change.

“I was just going over the ledgers once more,” William said, crossing to the crackling fire.

“They are the same as they were yesterday,” Mary replied, casting him a knowing look. “Nothing has changed in that regard.”

“Unfortunately,” he added. “That is correct.”

“Brooding about it does you no favors,” she said, looking up from her needlepoint. “You must take action. You know this.”

“Mr. Thorne has told me as such,” William said, not wanting to surrender outright, but he knew he did not have the ammunition to win that fight.

“I have begun looking around, you know,” Mary said. “There are just not so many options.”

“Half of the world are women, mother,” William said off-handedly.

“You think yourself so clever sometimes,” Mary said with a short click of her tongue. “But you know as well as I that any lady you marry must elevate our family, not detract from it.”

“If I marry we will be adding a family member, I can hardly see how that detracts in any way,” he went on, unable to resist a light push back. Immediately he regretted his snide remark.

“Subtract, dear,” she said coldly. “You mean subtract.”

“Fine,” he said, backing down. “Have it your way.”

“How I wish you paid more attention to the tutors,” Mary said with a shake of her head. “It does you no credit to feign ignorance, or worse, unintelligence.”

“So long as I am good enough not to detract from the family,” he muttered, and Mary tensed up, but she did not press the attack. There were bigger battles to fight.

“I mean only that your bride must meet a high bar,” Mary said. “Something you ought to think about.”

“I am sure you are thinking of it plenty,” William said.

“Of course,” she said. “But that does not mean you can ignore it. You would throw a fit if I merely presented you with a series of three options and told you to pick, would you not?”

“That is true,” William said, frowning. “I would not enjoy that.”

“So do not make me do that,” Mary scolded. “We need that trust, William, and you are the only one who can get it for us.”

“Perhaps we could sell the grounds?” William mused aloud. “And buy something smaller? Or we could withdraw to the country entirely.”

“Have you hit your head this morning?” Mary asked politely. “Or is some old war wound finally showing its damage?”

“A joke,” William said with a short smile.

“It was not funny,” Mary replied.

“Apparently not,” William said. “Was there something you wanted to see me about? Mr. Thorne said you were looking for me.”

“Oh, yes,” Mary said, sitting up a touch. “There are mailers going out this week, I would like you to take a look at them.”

“Mailers?” William asked with a raised eyebrow. “Whatever for?”

“For our events,” Mary said. “I mean to have them on the calendar before anyone else can claim the best days.”

“It is still awfully early for such things,” William said. “And we have not discussed hosting anything. Do you think it is the best idea? After Henry’s scandal?”

“We must do it, or everyone will think us weak,” Mary scolded him. “We must maintain our position, and it has never been more difficult to do so.”

“I understand,” William said. He did not have the energy to fight her on that point. “I shall look at them.”

“Good, I will have them brought round to your study.”

William limped away from the hearth, his mood rapidly collapsing. He could not fight his mother on all fronts, and he would be a fool to ignore her experience on social matters, for he had spent all his formative years running around the world and paying no attention at all to such things. But he did not want to live out this life, this dreary existence of balls and galas and dinners, to be cast like iron in an unbendable marriage to a person he had never met nor had the desire to know.

It was his eternal struggle, one that he did not think would ever be his burden. Yet there he was, master of the house, a lord in his own right, pretending like the problems of his world did not affect him, while they very much did.

He found himself wandering back to the study, and reflexively pulling his father’s will from the top drawer of the desk. He had read the pages a hundred times or more, but still he returned to it, trying to make sense of the life he had been thrust into.

The language was plain enough for anyone to understand, or at least so his mother thought. The sentence in question read: This trust shall be accessible only when my heir has married responsibly.

“Responsibly,” William repeated aloud. He knew what his mother thought that meant, but what did it mean to him? It was not something he had explored before, but the thought began to grow in the back of his mind.

“I shall show you responsible,” he murmured, looking up from the paper and settling his eyes on the old officer’s sword on the wall. “Two can play this game, old man.”

He smiled as he finished speaking, if only to himself. “I miss you,” he whispered, but the old effects on the wall did not answer him. He was alone.