Earl of Baxter (Lords of Scandal 8)

A soft knock came at her door.

“Who is it?” she asked, working the elaborate row of buttons on her dress.

“It’s me,” Penny called. “May I come in?”

“Of course,” she said, crossing the room to open the door.

Penny didn’t say a word as she began to do Clarissa’s buttons for her. When the dress was all buttoned, Clarissa caught her friend’s gaze. “You should be in bed with your new husband.”

Penny touched her cheek. “I was worried about you.”

Clarissa’s heart lurched. She hated to worry Penny. “Thanks to you, I am fine. Look at where we live. What our life has become.”

Penn nodded. “Did the Earl of Baxter scare you yesterday?”

Clarissa dropped her chin. How did she explain that the one who frightened her most was herself? This was the man that had been the object of her fantasies for years. And then he’d arrived like a fierce storm with an intense gaze and a handsome façade claiming never to have forgotten her. That he’d been searching for her for all this time and that he wanted to help her.

He was also the person who knew more about her past than anyone. She supposed it wasn’t just society from which she hid the truth. And she didn’t keep secrets just because of the money for the orphanage. She kept them even from herself.

She was ashamed.

Penny patiently waited, taking a seat on the bed.

Swallowing, she tried to explain to Penny. “No. He’s not scary. Just…” Her words faltered as she rubbed her temples. “He just knows things and—”

“Things I don’t know?” Penny clutched her hands in front of her chest.

“Well, you know far more about me than anyone, but I thought he was going to die and so I told him about—” She stopped. Clarissa didn’t even want to confess that her secrets involved her father’s suicide and his gambling debts.

Penny paused. “You’ve never shared much about your life before I brought you to the orphanage.”

Clarissa’s back stiffened. “There isn’t much to say.”

“You can tell me anything, you know. I’ll always love you.”

Clarissa looked at Penny again before she crossed the room and wrapped her friend in a quick hug. “Thank you.” But she didn’t share. How would Penny feel about trusting Clarissa with the lives of children if she knew that Clarissa had allowed a man to swindle her entire future right out from under her? Or how she’d financed their return to London? Or that her past was awful enough to allow for blackmail? Clarissa barely trusted herself.

Penny narrowed her gaze. “You’re not going to tell me anything, are you?”

Clarissa sighed, looking out the window. She couldn’t look Penny in the eye and lie. “There is nothing to tell.”

She heard Penny give a soft gasp. Likely her friend knew that Clarissa was lying. But it was better that Penny suspected rather than knowing for certain that Clarissa was no good.

Penny crossed her arms over her chest, her foot tapping on the floor. “Clarissa. Haven’t we been together long enough that you know you can trust me?”

“I do trust you,” she cried, looking back at her friend. It’s me I don’t trust, she wanted to say. But she held her tongue.

Penny let out a quick huff of frustration. “I love you. And you’re very strong, but you’d do well to let a few people in once in a while to share your burden.” Then Penny spun about and left without a backward glance. Clarissa slumped back down on the bed. She was driving the only person she trusted away. Was she making a mistake in guarding her past? But what if sharing her secrets only made things worse?

Chapter Five

Mason sat at his desk at the Wicked Earls’ Club and stared at the polished mahogany that surrounded him. It was a beautiful room in a very masculine way.

The club was located on the East End of London, just as the streets grew narrower and more crowded. They were close enough to let respectable London slip in and out unnoticed but far enough out of the swankier streets to keep their activities quiet.

Not that Mason was a man with a great deal of illicit activities. He left most of those for his brother.

The club was less of a place of debauchery for him and more of an access point to all of respectable society. With every connection he made, he grew more able to control the world around him.