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

She put a gloved fingertip to her cheek and quickly wiped away a tear that had escaped her long lashes. “I don’t know what to say.”

“I am offering you my help,” he said and his voice was utterly sincere. “Say yes.”

CHAPTER SIX

* * *

Averil was having difficulty seeing into Lord Southbrook’s heart. At least, she was having no difficulty at all, and that was what was puzzling her. Because what was a man like him doing, helping her find her sister? What possible reason could he have, apart from using her as a distraction, as he claimed? Averil was inclined to trust people and her intuition was telling her to trust him, but she was no fool, and she knew the earl was someone beyond her usual experience.

He was the sort of man women fantasized about, herself included, but in real life, up close, he was so much more . . . more of everything. The way his hair fell about his lean, masculine face, and his hooded eyes, staring down into hers, not to mention his scar. She imagined herself reaching out and touching that savage line of destruction, as if her fingers could somehow heal him.

Was this how her mother had felt, before she bolted with her mystery lover? Was Averil going to be as poor a judge of the opposite sex as Anastasia?

The thought sobered her. She would not make a fool of herself by imagining there was more to this than appeared. He was offering to help her, and for Rose’s sake she couldn’t afford to reject any offers of help.

“Lord Southbrook.” Gareth was back again, having shaken off the baroness. “I do hope you will have time to visit the Home for Distressed Women? Once you see what we are trying to do for those unfortunate women, you may consider making a donation.”

The earl looked annoyed at the interruption, but he could hardly say so when the Home for Distressed Women was supposedly the reason he was here. He considered Averil with his brooding gaze and then asked in a clipped tone, “Would tomorrow morning at ten be suitable?”

Gareth was taken aback by the promptness of his reply but was not about to refuse a potential donor. “Yes, of course, my lord. Tomorrow morning would be perfectly suitable.”

“I hope Lady Averil will join us?” he added questioningly, and gave her a meaningful look. “I’d like to discuss matters with her, too.”

Averil knew they had matters to discuss. He had been to St. Thomas’s and he might know something about Rose, and she was eager to hear it. She met the waiting expression in his eyes. She wanted to say yes but something made her hesitate, some niggling warning at the back of her brain. She had the sensation that once she allowed herself to be drawn into Southbrook’s orbit she might never be free again.

“I had planned to donate a sum to cover the care of another two girls,” he said, his deep voice vibrating inside her in a most unnerving manner, “but . . . there are plenty of other charities, Simmons.”

It was a cruel thing to say. Averil narrowed her eyes at him.

“Of course Averil will attend!” Gareth burst out, all but hopping on the spot in his anxiety to please. “She has no other engagements. Have you, Averil?”

The Home for Distressed Women meant a great deal to Averil, and to Gareth. His offer was too good to refuse. But his manipulation of her made her cross and uneasy.

Gareth was staring at her like Hercules at a bone, willing her to say yes.

And indeed what could she say, but, “It seems I do not have another engagement, Lord Southbrook.”

Her gray eyes sparked as she met those dark ones—his uncle was right, he was a bully!—and she couldn’t help the spurt of rebellious anger that set her nerve ends tingling. She had a temper, and although she managed it well, sometimes it crashed through her defenses. He must have seen. In fact the twitch of his lips told her he had, and far from causing him discomfort, her temper amused him.

“Then we shall meet at ten o’clock? As you have no other engagements?” Lord Southbrook insisted, brushing a speck of imaginary dust from his cuff.

“No, my lord. And I will be pleased, eh, honored to show you about.”

He held out his hand and automatically she gave him her own. He lifted her fingers to his lips, and she could feel his smile against her skin.

“I particularly like the ‘honored,’” he murmured.

Averil glanced sideways at Gareth but he appeared not to have noticed, or if he did then he chose to pretend otherwise. A donation was a donation after all, and she’d noted before that Gareth, for all that he was such a moral man, had the ability to set aside those rigid standards if he felt that the end justified it.

It was over. A beaming Gareth led the earl away from her, introducing him to other people, some of whom appeared to wish he’d rather not. Averil didn’t care. She breathed a sigh of relief. Now he was gone she felt herself again, and yet she was aware of him, even at a distance. Dear Lord, that was a memory to keep her tossing and turning at night! The earl of Southbrook kissing her hand as if she were the most desirable woman in London.

She would need to be very calm and collected tomorrow morning at ten o’clock. Just as well she wasn’t someone Southbrook could bowl over with his dark charm, she told herself firmly. No, she was meeting Lord Southbrook to benefit the women she so much wished to help, and for the sake of her sister, Rose. No matter what her senses—and his smile—would have her believe, this was a matter of business, pure and simple.

Southbrook strode through the fog, hardly noting it as it swirled about his legs and clung like cold arms.

He wondered what he thought he was doing.

He was twenty-nine years old and a widower. He’d lived his life very much as he pleased until recently, when he’d began to take seriously his responsibilities to his son and his name. Eustace’s treatment by his nanny had been like a dash of cold water in his face. It was as if he’d woken from a long sleep, and seen so clearly that he must spent more time with his son, that he must put aside his own selfish desires and become a good father. Eustace should have been at school by now, but Mrs. Slater had set him back, and it seemed better to wait another year or two, to employ a tutor instead.