Wicked Earl Seeks Proper Heiress (The Husband Hunters Club 5)

James had been watching him, probably looking for some hopeful sign. “Rufus,” he sighed, “if you don’t snap up this amazing girl then someone else will.”

“Leave it, Uncle James,” Rufus growled.

But James didn’t seem to know when to stop. “I want to see you happy, my boy.”

Rufus shot him a look. “You mean you want to see me happy so you won’t feel so guilty about being happy yourself. I’ve seen the way you look at the dragon companion.”

“I might have thought she was a dragon before I met her, but Beth is the sweetest woman.” James appeared quite flustered. “I think I’m in love, Rufus.”

Rufus shook his head in disgust and walked out of the room.

Upstairs Gregson was laying out his evening clothes. The valet opened his mouth, caught sight of Rufus’s face, and closed it again.

Good, thought Rufus. He didn’t want to talk to anyone. He knew he was being childish, and James was right, marrying Averil was the perfect solution to their problems, but there was a solid lump of obstinacy inside him that he was finding it difficult to get over. Rufus knew he was no saint, far from it, and he’d done things he wasn’t particularly proud of, but with Averil he wanted to be better. Those beautiful grey eyes looking into his, sometimes with a lurking smile and at others with a flash of temper, but always with honesty. The thought of their expression changing to disgust and revulsion . . . well, it was not something he wanted to imagine.

If he’d met her somewhere else, a place where he wasn’t the wicked earl and she wasn’t a wealthy heiress, somewhere where things were less complicated, then he’d have pursued her relentlessly. Because he wanted her. Wanted her in a way he had not felt before, ever.

“My lord?”

Gregson had worked up the courage to speak to him. He gave the man an impatient stare.

“I-I wondered if you’d spoken to Lady Averil about her mother and Percival Arnutt?”

Rufus stripped off his jacket and tossed it aside. Gregson clicked his tongue at the mistreatment of the article, and hurried to pick it up.

“Yes, I did speak to her.”

“I’ve remembered something else that my brother told me.” Gregson gave him a doubtful glance. “But perhaps you don’t want to hear it right now, my lord.”

Rufus had removed his shirt now. The scar on his chest, the matching fellow to the one on his face, stood out against his warm skin. It ran down from his shoulder and across his ribs, ending just below his hip. A bit more force and the slash might have continued down to his groin.

Perhaps that would have served him right.

“What else did your brother tell you?” Rufus said gruffly, pushing away the unpleasant memory.

“He said that the Arnutts did look for the child. Percival’s child. Not long after Percival died. They had a change of heart. They sought out Lady Anastasia.”

Rufus allowed his valet to help him on with the clean shirt. “Did they? And?”

Gregson laid out some waistcoats and Rufus pointed impatiently at one. He was not in the mood for fine dressing. He planned to go to one of the salons in the seedier part of London, ask a few questions, and see where they led him. He might be out all night.

“She refused, my lord. She said she would never let them have Percival’s child, that it was all she had left of him. And then, later, when she was dead too, they went back again. The child seemed to have vanished into thin air.”

Rufus allowed his valet to tie his cravat. “That’s interesting, Gregson. Thank you. So the little girl went missing early in the piece. Did someone want to be rid of her, or did someone want to keep her hidden? And if she wasn’t taken to St. Thomas’s orphanage then where was she taken?”

Gregson made a sound that could have meant anything.

“Is Eustace in bed? And James?”

“Yes, my lord. Both of them safe and sound.”

“Good. See if you can keep it that way.”

It had been raining and there was a rather large puddle on the floor of the marble entrance hall. Rufus sighed as he went by. The roof needed mending, as well as numerous other parts of the town house, but it was no use worrying about them now.

He had work to do.

“Averil?”