The Worthington Wife

For a fleeting moment, Julia saw the American’s expression change. The confident smile vanished and a look of hard anger came to his eyes.

Was this evidence of his bitterness? Or perhaps these were all the clothes he had and their shock had hurt him.

Julia helped the countess down to the settee, next to her grandmother.

Then she realized the silence had stretched from awkward to insulting.

No one seemed to know what to do with the earl—Cal—so she smiled at him and stepped forward. She curtsied. “How delightful to have you arrive and I do hope your journey was not too taxing. Shall I have one of the footmen show you to your bedchamber so you can change for dinner? Perhaps you would care to freshen up.”

Stubble graced his jaw, as if he had not shaved for days. Up close, she saw how different he looked from Anthony. He looked too challenging, too bold.

At her small speech of welcome, his golden brows lifted. “My journey wasn’t ‘taxing’ as you put it. I know you aren’t the countess. Are you one of my cousins?”

“No, I am a friend of the family. We are neighbors. I am Julia Hazelton. I was engaged to be married to Anthony, who was your cousin, but Anthony was killed at the Somme.” She rushed through that bit, giving herself no time to dwell on the words. “Allow me to do the introductions—and if there’s a name you forget, don’t hesitate to ask.”

“Aren’t you the sweetheart, Julia?”

The countess made a horrible pained sound. Julia heard her grandmother, the Dowager Duchess of Langford, sputter in outrage.

The mocking tone in his voice made her wary, but she made the introductions of all those in the room. The eligible bachelors had not yet arrived, so it was just the Carstairs family—the countess, Diana and the two other daughters, Cassia and Thalia. And Julia’s family.

Zoe greeted Cal with open American charm, welcoming him. Nigel accepted his handshake. Her mother and Grandmama threw looks of sympathy toward the Countess of Worthington. Diana and her younger sisters curtsied.

Julia struggled to not stare at Diana’s waist beneath her gold dress. She feared if she did, everyone would read her mind and know her friend’s secret. It might be 1925, but to bear a child out of marriage meant a woman was ruined forever.

Would Diana really marry Cal and keep her secret? Julia turned her gaze to Cal. Would her friend really marry him on such an enormous lie?

Goodness, she had looked at him for far longer than was polite—and he was staring right back at her. With anger crackling in his blue eyes. She smiled calmly at him, though inside her stomach fluttered with shock.

She had grown up around Englishmen—they either showed no emotion at all or they clumsily displayed it. But the energy and emotion—and fury—that seemed to sizzle around this man stunned her.

Was Lady Worthington right? Did he mean to hurt them? Julia would never stand for that. She simply wouldn’t.

He still held her gaze. “I’d better go and get dressed,” he said.

Wiggins, the butler, moved close to him. “If you need to avail yourself of evening dress, I do believe there are clothes belonging to the late earl that would fit you—”

“I don’t need them. I’ve got my own sets of fancy duds.” The anger seemed to abate. His unhurried, naughty grin dazzled again. “I like dressing like this, because I don’t need to impress anyone with what I wear. I don’t judge a man by his suit. I judge him by his actions.”

Julia saw her grandmother lift her lorgnette. “Appropriate dress is an action,” the dowager pointed out haughtily.

“I suppose it is.” Cal turned his stunning smile onto Grandmama. “But I know how to clean up when I want to.”

Then he was gone. Julia’s heart was pounding. For some reason, the man set her pulse racing.

“He is awful, isn’t he?”

The whisper by her ear startled her. Diana stood at her side, and bit her lip. “He’s so rough and uncouth and common. I don’t want to marry him, but at the same time...I can’t help wanting him.”

“Wanting him?” Julia echoed, confused.

“You know...in bed.”

“Diana!” Julia exclaimed in a horrified whisper.

2

The American’s Revenge

As the butler led him to his bedroom, Calvin Urqhart Patrick Carstairs—now the 7th Earl of Worthington—remembered the shock on Lady Worthington’s face when he walked into the drawing room and grinned.

A month ago, he had been woken from a hangover, hauled out of his bed in his apartment in Paris and told by a pale, nervous young lawyer named Smithson that he had inherited a title, three estates and the contents of four modestly invested bank accounts from the family who thought he wasn’t good enough to lick their boots.

The lawyer who tracked him down had stammered and blushed throughout the meeting. Cal’s latest model, Simone, had been walking around the room half-naked. She liked to feel sunlight pouring through the window on her bare breasts, and she liked to keep Cal looking at her. The lawyer had looked like his eyes were going to leap out of his head.

Cal had poured himself a glass of red wine to clear the hangover, then he’d let the lawyer explain his supposed good fortune—

“The master’s apartments have been prepared, my lord.”

The snooty tones of the Worthington butler brought Cal back to the present. The man had his hand on the doorknob of the room, but wasn’t opening it. Maybe he hoped to learn it was all a joke before he let Cal across the threshold of the earl’s bedroom.

It was a double door, so Cal shoved the other door open and walked in.

His trunk and his case were already in the room. The butler pointed out the bed, probably assuming he had no idea what a bed looked like if it wasn’t a dirty mattress on the floor. The man opened the doors to the bathing room and the dressing room, as well as a small room with large windows where the earl would traditionally retire to prepare his correspondence.

“It’ll do,” Cal said indifferently.

Haughtily, the butler tried to look down his nose at Cal—though his eyes came up to Cal’s shoulders. “Is your manservant traveling with you?”

“Don’t have one,” Cal replied, and he laughed at the look of smug satisfaction on the butler’s face. “I’m bohemian. Wild and uncivilized. If you think you’ve been proven right about me because I don’t have a valet, wait until I start holding orgies in the ballroom.”

The butler turned several fascinating colors. His cheeks went vermilion, his forehead was puce and he developed an intriguing blend of violet and scarlet on his neck.

It gave Cal the itch to create a modernist portrait of an English butler, done in severe blocks of color. Red, purple, yellow-green and stark white.

“When should I tell the countess you will return downstairs?” the man asked, sounding as if his windpipe wasn’t drawing air. “I will send a footman to unpack.”

“I won’t stay up here long. The footman can finish that job while I’m at dinner.”

“Very good.”

The butler turned away and stalked toward the door, but before he reached it, Cal called, “Wait.”

The man turned, lifting his brow self-importantly.

“The dark-haired woman with the pretty blue eyes—Julia Hazelton. Was she really my cousin’s fiancée? Anthony died at the Somme, isn’t that so?”

“Yes. We lost Lord Anthony to that battle. Indeed, Lady Julia Hazelton was his intended. It was a tragedy, devastating to us all.”

Yeah, Cal imagined it would be, since he was standing here now. “Why is she here?”

“Her family was invited to dine, and she is a close friend of the family.”

“Did she find someone else—after my cousin died?”

“Lady Julia is still unmarried, my lord. If I may ask, what is the purpose to these questions, my lord?”

“I’m curious,” he answered easily. “And if you’re going to ask a question anyway, don’t waste time asking permission to do it.”

The butler, whatever the hell his name was, glared snootily. “Very good, my lord.” Bowing, he retreated.

The door closed behind the butler’s stiff arse.

For the hell of it, Cal jumped on the bed, landing on his arse in his dusty trousers. He crossed his ankles, his boots on the bed.

He could just hear how his mother would berate him for that, so he slid off.

He went into the bathroom to wash and shave. Showing up scruffy had been his plan and it had served its purpose. The Countess of Worthington, his aunt, had looked like she was going to faint. She would expect him to show up at dinner looking equally bohemian and she would expect that he would have the table manners of an orangutan.

His family had stared at him with suspicion. He’d seen condescension on the countess’s face, resentment on the faces of his cousins. His family had all glared at him, sullen, angry...and scared.

Lady Julia had been the only one to welcome him. She had been the perfect English lady to him, polite and unflustered.

Traits he should have hated, given how he knew the aristocracy really behaved. She was likely no different than the rest of them. Masking her disdain behind a polite, reserved smile.

But she had been nice to him. And his mother would say that she didn’t deserve to have him judge her—and dislike her—just because of who she was.

Cal opened the bag that contained his straight razor and he filled the small sink with some water—

Hell. That was freezing cold. He ran the other tap, but it didn’t get any warmer. Cold-water shaving it would have to be.

He drew the sharp blade along his cheek, slicing off dark blond stubble. He had been looking forward to this ever since that morning when he’d been drinking while the lawyer was outlining the meaning of his new position.

At first he’d wanted to tell the young lawyer with the slicked-back hair to go back to the damned countess and tell her where she and her snobby family could stick their title.

They had disowned his father; they had rejected and vilified his mother for the sin of being an honest, decent woman from a poor family. His mother, Molly Brody, had gone into service to a rich family on Fifth Avenue; his father had been a guest. The usual story. Except his father, Lawrence Carstairs, had been idealistic. He’d fallen in love with the maid he seduced and married her.

Then his father had died. And his mother had gotten sick...

Cal had been fourteen years of age, with a younger brother who was eleven. That was the only reason he’d swallowed his pride and begged the damn Carstairs family for help. He’d been a desperate boy trying to save his mother’s life. And they’d refused. To them, he and his mother and his brother, David, didn’t exist.

Clearing his throat, the young lawyer had asked him when he would like to book passage back to England.

Cal had been ready to laugh in the face of Smithson Jr. of Smithson, Landers, Kendrick and Smithson. Go to England? He liked painting. He liked Paris. He’d finally found a place where he felt he belonged. He was happy in Paris whether he was sober or drunk, which he felt was a hell of an accomplishment.

“When you take up residence at Worthington Park, there is a dower house available for the countess,” Smithson had explained, after pulling at his tie. Simone had come into the kitchen and stood in front of the window so the sunlight limned her naked breasts. Blushing, the lawyer had said, “Should I relay your instruction to have it made ready?”

“For what?” he’d asked.

“For the countess to move into, when you take up residence in your new home.”

At that moment, Cal got it. He understood what he’d just been given.

Power.

Now, Cal sloshed the blade in the water and shaved the other side of his face. He patted his skin with a wet cloth, then slapped on some witch hazel. He got dressed in his tuxedo, tied the white bow tie, put on his best shined shoes.

From his trunk, he took out a faded snapshot. It was seven years old. He didn’t know why he’d brought it with him. He should have burned it a long time ago. It was a picture of a pretty girl with yellow-blond hair and a sweet face. Her name was Alice and she had nursed him when his plane had been shot down in France. His brother, David, had ended up in the same hospital, three days after Cal got there.

Alice had taken care of David when both of his legs had to be amputated below the knee. Cal had fallen in love with her. The problem was David fell in love with her, too, but without his legs, he wouldn’t propose to Alice. And with his brother being in love with her, Cal wouldn’t propose, either.

Cal tucked Alice’s photograph into the corner of the dressing table mirror.

David had wanted to come here, too. He supposed David had a right to see the house their father had grown up in. He would bring his brother over from America.

The problem was, David was a forgiving kind of man. He was a stronger man than Cal. David wasn’t going to like what he planned to do.

But Worthington Park was Cal’s chance at revenge.

* * *

The Countess of Worthington was shaking. Julia had only seen the countess like this twice—when the telegram had come with its cold, direct message that Anthony had been killed, and the day John Carstairs, her second son, had died in an automobile accident.

“You must have a sherry. Or a brandy. You look very ill.” She looked up to summon a drink, but Wiggins was already there. The butler must have almost run at undignified speed to return, and he now presented a delicate glass of sherry on his silver salver.

The countess stared blankly at it, as if she didn’t know what to do. Julia took the drink and pressed it into Lady Worthington’s hand. The countess’s pallor terrified her. She looked more gray than white and quite severely ill.

Julia felt panicked—Lady Worthington had been very ill after Anthony’s death. No one had known how to bring her out of grief. Julia had tried very hard to do it. She’d promised Anthony she’d be there for his mother and sisters should anything happen to him, and she always kept her promises.

“The boy is going to destroy us,” Lady Worthington moaned.

“He is going to do no such thing,” Julia said firmly. She would not allow it. Her mother, Zoe, Nigel and Isobel were conversing with Diana and her younger sisters. The younger ones kept glancing over, looking nervous and curious.

“Have the drink, Sophia,” Grandmama insisted. “You will need it.”

At Grandmama’s firm words, Lady Worthington suddenly took a long sip. “I know what he is going to do,” she whispered. “He wrote a letter.”

“A letter? What did it say?” Julia asked.

“He threatened us. Simply because he had asked for money and we had the good sense to refuse him. His mother was a grasping, scheming creature. She is the reason my husband’s younger brother is dead.”

“Goodness, what happened?” Julia asked. “What did she do?”

The countess put her hand to her throat, to rest on the large diamond that sat there. At fifty, the countess wore a fashionable gown—blue silk with a loose, dropped waist, covered in thousands of tiny turquoise and indigo beads. The Worthington diamonds—huge, heavy and square-cut—glittered on her chest. “I can’t speak about it. It is enough to know he is a danger.” The countess grasped Julia’s hand. “You must not listen to a word he says.”

But the plea made Julia uneasy. She remembered Diana’s words—that the countess had reason to feel guilty. But the look in the woman’s eyes was pure terror. “What is it that you fear he will say?”

“He will tell you lies! Everything that boy says will be twisted and untrue. He will try to make you believe—” Lady Worthington stopped. Her hand clutched the center diamond of her necklace, as if clinging to it gave her strength. “That is not important. You, Julia, should have loyalty to us. Do not welcome him. Do not show him friendship. He will use you to destroy us. Do not forget that. You must be on our side.”

“Of course I am.” But the countess’s words seemed so...extreme. Surely the countess was too upset to go into dinner. Excuses could be made. Julia leaned toward her grandmother. “Perhaps I could take her upstairs—”

“No,” the countess cried. “I will not run and hide from Calvin Carstairs. I will protect my family from him. When you have children, you will understand...you would do anything on earth to keep them safe.”

And Julia understood. The countess had lost both her sons. She would not allow anyone to hurt her daughters.

“As soon as the boy is downstairs, we will go in for dinner.” The countess lifted her chin. Julia was amazed by the woman’s strength and spirit.

Until the countess directed a sharp gaze at Diana, standing across the room. “Sometimes you must do something rather terrible to protect those you love.”

Julia didn’t understand. She had never seen the Countess of Worthington like this. Lady Worthington was usually so gracious, so kind. The tragedy she’d suffered in losing both her sons had broken the hearts of people on the estate, for she was so well loved. When Julia had lost her brother Will to the influenza outbreak and her own mother had sunk deeply into depression, Lady Worthington had been like a mother to her and Isobel.

She had never dreamed Lady Worthington would push anyone into marriage—despite Diana’s warning that her mother would scheme to do it. She had thought Diana was exaggerating. Diana had always been dramatic. They had been such opposites—it was why they had always been great friends. “You can’t mean to force Diana into marriage—”

“I will do what must be done.”

“But not that. You cannot force Diana to be unhappy for the rest of her life—”

“Better that than poverty. Julia, this is not your concern.”

The sharp words stung. But the raw fear in her ladyship’s eyes startled her.

Yet it was wrong that both the countess and Diana wanted this marriage—it would be a disaster. It was something she felt she could not allow to happen, because it would only cause pain.

Yet, how did she stop it? It might be true that she had no right to interfere, but she also couldn’t stand aside and watch a disaster unfurl—

Wiggins’s stentorian voice suddenly cut over all sound. “The Earl of Worthington.”

From where she stood, Julia could see the entrance to the drawing room. The new earl stood in the doorway...

Tall and broad-shouldered, he wore an immaculate tuxedo jacket, black trousers and white tie. His hair was slicked back neatly with pomade, which darkened it to a rich amber-gold. The severe hair brought out the handsome shape of his jaw, the striking lines of cheekbones you could cut yourself on. Even from across the room, the brilliant blue of his eyes was arresting.

Beside her, a feminine voice drawled, “He was right—he does clean up rather well.” Diana had moved beside her, perhaps sensing her mother’s sharp glance. But Diana set down her empty glass then glided across the drawing room toward her cousin.

Julia had put out her hand instinctively to stop her friend. But she was too late. And what could she do?

She didn’t know how to be there for Diana. To be pregnant and unmarried was a nightmare.

Diana’s silvery laugh sliced through the room. She was right at the new earl’s side, smiling into his eyes, running her strings of glittering jet beads through her fingers. Flirting for all she was worth.

“What’s wrong, Julia?”

Zoe, looking lovely in a beaded dress of deep green with an emerald-and-diamond choker around her slim neck, came to her side.

She couldn’t talk about Diana’s secret, not even to Zoe. She smoothed her face into a look of ladylike placidity. “It’s nothing.”

“Do you really think Cal is the vengeful monster the countess paints him to be?”

“I don’t know.”

“It’s not stopping the countess from pushing her daughters at him,” Zoe observed.

Julia watched Diana move so close to Cal her bosom pressed to his bicep. Cassia, tall and blonde like Diana, but only twenty-one, had approached him, too. She smiled demurely at him—Cassia was always gentle and sweet. The youngest daughter was Thalia: eighteen and bookish. And when Thalia looked as if she wanted to escape, her mother propelled her to talk to Cal.

Then Julia realized Cal was watching Lady Worthington. Just for a moment, then Diana ran her finger along his sleeve and got his attention again.

But Julia had seen the cold, hard rage that seethed in that one fast look.

“I think the countess might be right,” Julia said softly.

Zoe looked at her surprised.

Wiggins stepped in the drawing room and cleared his throat. “May I announce His Grace, the Duke of Bradstock. His lordship, the Earl of Summerhay. His lordship, Viscount Yorkville.”

Nigel immediately moved to greet his good friend Summerhay.

“Oh no.” Julia swallowed hard. At least it would be easy to keep track of the three of them—Bradstock had black hair, Summerhay was blond, Yorkville had auburn waves. Other people arrived also—members of the local gentry, and an older gentleman to make appropriate numbers.

“Don’t worry. I’m on your side,” Zoe promised. “I don’t think you should marry a man you don’t love for his title.”

It wasn’t the right time to speak of it, but Julia suddenly felt she needed to take charge of something. “Zoe, I want to ask if you would consider lending me money.”

Her sister-in-law stared in surprise. “Whatever for, Julia?”

“For war widows who have been left destitute. I would like to loan money to the women. They will pay me back over time. All they need is a few pounds to start them on the direction of a new and better life. I asked Nigel for a loan against my dowry, but he refused.”

“Did he?”

“He thinks my work is too scandalous and it will ruin my marriage prospects.” She couldn’t help it—she glanced at Nigel, who was talking to the three peers who’d just arrived. For all she knew, he was pleading with them to propose to her.

“I would be happy to loan you the money, depending on the amount and the terms,” Zoe said. “Is there a great chance these women will default?”

Zoe was never foolish. She was smart and shrewd. “I don’t think so,” Julia said honestly. “But I will start with modest amounts. If a woman defaults, I will be able to repay out of my pin money and my dress allowance.”

“Your dress allowance.” Zoe shook her head, obviously amused.

“Do you agree with Nigel?”

“I love my husband, but when it comes to what should be considered scandalous for a woman, we never agree. I am happy you are helping these women.”

“You don’t fear for my marriage prospects?”

“I already know who you should marry. Noble Dr. Dougal Campbell.”

“Zoe...” Julia swallowed hard, aware of the sharp jolt of pain in her heart. “He just wrote to tell me he is engaged to someone else. I have lost him forever.”

“Then it was not a great loss, Julia, my dear,” the dowager duchess declared.

Julia jumped at the firm, autocratic tones of her grandmother. She turned to find the dowager duchess had walked up beside her and looked ready to deliver advice. Julia dearly loved her grandmother, but as Grandmama looked pointedly at the Duke of Bradstock, she swallowed hard.

“It is if Julia and Dr. Campbell were perfect for each other,” Zoe pointed out, sipping her drink and toying with her long string of beads.

Her grandmother linked arms and swept her away from Zoe. “Bradstock keeps watching you,” Grandmama said bluntly. “Why do you think he has never married? He is waiting for you. You could be a duchess with one simple word. And that word is yes. Julia, you must be settled. Where shall you live, if you end up a spinster?”

“Grandmama, I won’t say yes to a man just to have his house. There’s absolutely no reason I couldn’t have a flat in London and have a job—”

She had to stop. Grandmama staggered back with her hand on her heart. “If I find you behind the counter at Selfridges, my dear, it would be the end of me. You wouldn’t want that on your conscience, would you?”