also guardian to Elizabeth and her two sisters.
All three of the Copeland sisters had been badly shaken by their father’s sudden demise and equally alarmed on learning that, their two cousins having died at the Battle of Waterloo, the title of earl had now passed to a man who was a second or third cousin of their father’s. That man was Gabriel Faulkner. A man none of the sisters had ever met. A man, moreover, who was rumoured to have behaved so disgracefully eight years ago that society had chosen to banish him, and his own family had disowned him.
Having lived all of their lives at their father’s country estate, Diana, Caroline and Elizabeth had never been made privy to the details of that scandal and, despite having made discreet enquiries upon learning he was now their guardian, none of them had been able to ascertain the exact nature of that disgrace. The only information any of them had been able to garner on the man at the time—it had been left to the recent gossip below stairs at Mrs Wilson’s home to fill in the exact nature of that scandal—was his banishment to the Continent eight years ago, and that he had been an officer in Wellington’s army for five years, before residing in Venice these past two years.
Lord Faulkner, it seemed, had not been in any hurry to return to England and take up his duties as the Earl of Westbourne, or his guardianship of the Copeland sisters, none of them having so much as set eyes upon him when they had received a letter from that so-called gentleman some months after their father’s death, in which he had made an offer of marriage to whichever of the three Copeland sisters would have him!
No doubt, with the scandal of their own mother having abandoned her husband and three young daughters ten years ago—Harriet Copeland had fled Shoreley Park for London and the arms of her young lover, then been shot by that young lover only months later before he had then turned the pistol upon himself—Lord Faulkner had perhaps believed that one of the Copeland sisters would be so desperate for marriage they would be happy to accept an offer from a man equally as shrouded in scandal.
He had been wrong.
Her sister Caroline’s answer to that offer had been to run away from her home and sisters three weeks ago. Equally as horrified at the prospect of such a marriage, Elizabeth had followed her sister’s example only days later.
Having made her escape from the possibility of that unwanted marriage, and subsequently managing to find employment in London with Mrs Wilson, Elizabeth had then been shocked to her core when Gabriel Faulkner had arrived at that lady’s house only days ago to visit Mrs Wilson’s injured nephew, Lord Nathaniel Thorne, the two men having apparently been best friends for some years!
Admittedly the new Earl of Westbourne had proved to be exceedingly handsome, more so than Elizabeth or her two sisters could ever have guessed. But those arrogantly dark and fashionable good looks did nothing to lessen the shock she had felt upon hearing the details of that gentleman’s past scandal as the servants gossiped below stairs whilst he visited with Lord Thorne upstairs …
Only the fact that the whole of Mrs Wilson’s household was to be immediately removed to Devonshire, well away from London—and Lord Faulkner!—had prevented Elizabeth from fleeing into the night for the second time in as many weeks.
‘It was not my intention to insult Lord Faulkner,’ she dismissed coolly now, knowing from Mrs Wilson that Lord Faulkner and that lady’s nephew had been friends from their school-days; a fact Elizabeth should perhaps have realised sooner, considering that Mrs Wilson had also informed her shortly after she had taken employment with that lady of her nephew’s recent return from visiting with a friend in Venice!
‘Then perhaps the insult was directed at me?’ Nathaniel drawled softly.
She had meant to insult him, Elizabeth acknowledged ruefully. She could not imagine why any gentleman of the ton would wish to remain friends with a man as dissolute and rakish as Gabriel Faulkner was reputed to be. Unless that gentleman was equally as disreputable himself?
A fact perhaps borne out by Lord Thorne having received his present injuries in what sounded distinctly like a drunken brawl, as well as his recent un wanted advances towards her? ‘I apologise if that was your impression, my lord,’ she said stiff ly. ‘Although, in my defence, I do believe you offered me just provocation,’ she could not resist adding.
Nathaniel regarded her beneath hooded lids. At a little over five feet tall, her slender figure shown to advantage in the plain blue gown, with her ebony curls arranged in a simple if fashionable style, and her face one of delicate beauty—fine dark brows, deep blue eyes, a tiny nose above a perfect bow of a mouth—Miss Betsy Thompson somehow did not have the looks, or indeed the voice, of a paid companion to a lady of wealth and quality.
And how would he know what one of those should look like? Nathaniel mused self-derisively.
Yes, Miss Betsy Thompson was in possession of a rare and tempting beauty, and the refinement of her voice spoke of an education, but for all Nathaniel knew of such things that could merely be because she was the daughter of an impoverished gentleman or clergyman, in need of employment to support herself until some equally impoverished young gentleman took her as his wife, before then producing a houseful of even more impoverished children to continue the cycle!
Incarcerated in Devon, and so robbed of rakish entertainment as well as all news of London society—his aunt had refused to even allow Nathaniel to read the newspapers this past eight days in case he ‘became overset’ by anything printed in them!—Nathaniel had only thought to provide himself with a diversion from his increasing boredom when he’d attempted to kiss his aunt’s young companion. Certainly he had not intended engaging in a verbal exchange during which this outspoken young woman had dared to insult one of his closest and dearest friends.
He had no doubts that Gabriel would have simply laughed off such an insult, used as he was to the sideways glances of the gentlemen of the ton and the gossip behind the raised fans of their wives and daughters—along with their surreptitious and hypocritical lust for his dark and dangerous good looks. Nathaniel had never been able to dismiss those slights to his friend so easily, and never ceased to feel enraged by them.
Especially as he knew that gossip to be wholly untrue.
His mouth thinned now as he looked at Betsy Thompson beneath hooded lids. ‘The apology alone would have sufficed,’ he rasped. ‘Now, is there not some other service which you need to be busy performing for my aunt? Surely you have completed this one to the best of your ability.’
And been found wanting, Elizabeth acknowledged irritably, very aware that the laughingly flirtatious man who had tried to kiss her a few minutes ago had completely disappeared to be replaced by a gentleman who was now every inch the wealthy and powerful Earl of Osbourne, with vast estates in Kent and Suffolk, as well as a beautiful town house in London.
She gave a brief inclination of her head. ‘I believe it is time for Hector’s afternoon walk.’
‘Ah, yes.’ The earl gave a hard, mocking smile. ‘I have noticed, with my aunt’s cousin Letitia already in residence, you are more companion to my aunt’s dog than to my aunt herself.’
Yet another insult, no matter how smoothly it was delivered, Elizabeth recognised with a frown. Unfortunately, experience had shown her that with no references it was almost impossible to find employment in London. Indeed, Elizabeth had only succeeded in securing her present position in Mrs Wilson’s household because of her heroic rescue of that lady’s pampered and much-loved Scottish Terrier, after he had slipped his lead in a London park one afternoon and run amok.
As such, Elizabeth needed to maintain her employment with Mrs Wilson if she did not wish to return to Shoreley Park and that dubious offer of marriage from Lord Faulkner. A fate Elizabeth still considered— despite now knowing of that gentleman’s roguish good looks—to be more painful than death itself.
Lord Faulkner could not know it, but Elizabeth was actually doing him a great service by not accepting his proposal; she was the daughter most likened to her mother in looks, and as such had always been viewed with suspicion by neighbouring matrons of sons of marriageable age, in the fear, no doubt, that she might be like her