Earl of Gold (Lords of Scandal 7)

“I love you,” she said as she pulled back, looking up into his eyes.

“I love you too,” he said, motioning for the girls to join him. Natty, Fran, and Ethel raced forward. Clarissa followed behind.

As the three girls careened into their new parents, Penny had no doubt this was the beginning of a bright and shiny future.

Earl of Baxter

Wicked Earls’ Club

Lords of Scandal

* * *

Tammy Andresen

* * *

July, 1815

* * *

War was glorious, Mason thought as he lay in the dank basement of some seaside church on the very edge of death. They didn’t tell one that, of course. That one was about to die. No, they said one was nearly better, recovery any day now.

He was too sick to tell them that they needn’t lie. He was prepared for death. He’d welcome it, in fact. Hell, he’d pushed so hard on the front because, and this wasn’t something a man ever said out loud, he’d wanted to die.

If he were honest, he should have never lived. Hadn’t his father told him that over and over on the rare occasions when he bothered to visit his bastard son? “You shouldn’t have survived. Should have died with your mother.”

Mason shook his head. He’d done his absolute best to make his father’s wish come true.

“There now,” a soft feminine voice crooned close to his ear. “No need to fret, you’ll be all right.”

“I won’t,” he answered, raising a heavy hand and swiping at his eyes. When he dropped his hand, he blinked open his scratchy eyelids to look at the woman who had such a sweet voice.

And his breath caught. He hadn’t thought himself capable of such a movement. His lungs expanded with the breath, drawing a deep gush of air—leading him to wonder if he’d died already and this was, in fact, heaven.

She had a halo of blonde hair, twisted back from her face with just a few soft tendrils falling about her cheeks, highlighting her large blue eyes and the soft pink tint that flushed her skin. She looked like the angels he’d seen in paintings in his father’s house, the one time he’d been allowed to visit.

“You’re beautiful,” he murmured, drawing in another long breath. He tried to raise his hand again and touch her face, but his arm wouldn’t work.

“Thank you.” She smiled at him, the look indulgent and amused. “But you’re a bit old for me.”

He might have laughed, if he could get the sound out. “How old are you?”

“I’m twelve.” She took a wet rag and wiped down his face with a gentle touch, light as her soft fingers brushed back his hair to make way for the damp cloth. No one had touched him like this in ages. “How old are you?”

“That is young,” he answered, closing his eyes again. This time in pleasure. It would be nice to die with such a tender hand at his face. “I’m twenty and one.”

“Twenty and one?” she said, undoing the ties at his chest, bathing his neck and then collarbone. “You’re young too. At least, that is far too young to die.”

He shook his head. “I watched men far younger lose their lives,” he said to himself, then wondered if he should have shared such darkness with someone so young.

S

he ceased bathing him. The words were on the tip of his tongue to ask her to begin again but then the soft bristles of a brush touched his hair and he nearly groaned aloud the brush felt so good on his scalp. She was exquisitely gentle, and his fever-ravaged body reveled in the touch.

She sighed in answer. “I’m sure you did. I’ve had to watch that too, I’m afraid. You and I, we don’t get the luxury of naiveté, do we?”

He wished he could cry out in protest. He was a man after all. The world was meant to be hard on him. But she, she was still just a girl. Her blue eyes should dance with delight, not death. “It isn’t fair.” His fists clenched in the sheet at his side and some measure of strength returned to his body. It was as though she were breathing life into him. “A girl as innocent as you should not have to see the darkness of the world.”