Page 9 of Joy to the Earl

“Your herbals have done an excellent job. Perhaps a few more dabs and a bandage, and I’ll be right as rain.”

Rosalind tilted her head and looked at him, and for one thoroughly disconcerting moment, it was if she could see everything inside him, even the things he kept buried so deep he didn’t even know what or where they were. “I’ll fetch you some clothes. And some breakfast. You wait here.”

His lips twitched. “As I am bare-assed naked under this quilt, I wasn’t planning on a tour of the property.”

She didn’t laugh. She fled.

* * *

Lifting the trunk lid with trembling hands, Rosalind blinked back tears as she looked at the men’s clothing within. Ridiculously out of style of course, but there was only one man whose belongings would even have a hope of fitting Jack.

Her father, Richard Duncan.

Slowly she smoothed a hand over the various fabrics; linen shirts, twill breeches, velvet waistcoats, silken cravats. A costume for every character, Papa had said, and heaven knew he’d played them all at the Royalty Theatre alongside the great Jack Palmer. The two men had favored the works of Mr. Shakespeare above all others, and Papa had never been short of tales of the time he’d played Banquo in Macbeth, and Tybalt in Romeo and Juliet, and Adam in As You Like It. That was why she was named Rosalind, after her father’s favorite heroine.

He’d been a giant of a man, with a booming laugh and eyes that twinkled. Except when he returned home from the high-end gaming hells with empty pockets, after being lured in with promises of patronage and friendship by various lords of the realm, then fleeced and discarded. Earls, viscounts, barons—they’d all taken their turn in applauding Papa on the stage then ruining him, until the hideous day he was found floating in the Thames. Even to this day she couldn’t stand to be within twenty feet of a lord, false, wretched bastards that they were. If Sir Markham Nelson had been anything other than a knight, she would have turned his proposal down flat.

Scooping up a shirt, breeches, thick woolen stockings, and a warm jacket, Rosalind hurried to the kitchens and piled a plate with food still heating in the warming dishes: coddled eggs, mushrooms, sliced rare beef, and fried potato. Then she returned to the guest chamber.

“Here you go,” she said with forced cheerfulness, as the sheer impact of his striking looks almost made her stumble. How could any man have such enviable cheekbones with such a strong jaw and white smile? And the fact that he sat naked in bed with only a thick quilt between them, tempted her unbearably to discard her own clothing and crawl in beside him to resume their fireside activities.

For heaven’s sake, Rosalind. Stop being a twit. You are a widow. With a child. Just because you haven’t bedded a man in eighteen months is no reason to stare at him like he is the last cream cake in the shop.

Jack’s stomach rumbled, and he shot her a rueful look. “I was just thinking about it, and I can’t actually remember when I last ate.”

“Well, eat then. Good gracious, no need to stand on ceremony. I’ll just shake out these clothes. I hope they aren’t too scented—they have been in the trunk a while.”

“Your husband’s?” he asked between mouthfuls of food, the blissful wonder on his face almost tearing her heart in two. The people of his village in North Yorkshire all deserved a kick in the pants.

“No. My father’s. He…he was on the stage.”

“Really? Did he act or sing or do comedy?”

“Act,” she said proudly. “For many years, at the Royalty Theatre in London. Shakespeare, mostly.”

Jack grinned as he set his empty plate aside. “Your name explained. By far the best of the Bard’s heroines. ‘From the east to western Ind, no jewel is like Rosalind.’”

“You know As You Like It?” she said excitedly. People always knew Romeo and Juliet or Hamlet, not often her namesake’s tale.

“I do. I can’t remember where they came from, but we always had books. About all sorts of topics. I couldn’t go out in the world, but then I’d read and I could in my mind.”

“What?” she said in confusion. “Why couldn’t you go out in the world? Was it too far to town?”

His whole face shuttered. “Can I have the clothing, please?”

Wincing at the knowledge she’d somehow said something wrong, Rosalind quickly handed him the shirt, breeches, stockings, and jacket, then politely turned her back while he dressed.

It didn’t help. Not when she knew exactly what that glorious body looked like, and the rustling and scraping of fabric as Jack dressed himself was a form of torture in itself.

“How does everything fit?” she asked eventually.

“Not bad. A little tight in places, but they’ll do very well.”

Rosalind turned. And sucked in a breath.

It wasn’t just the fact that the shirt and jacket fit him like a glove, showing his huge, powerful, muscled form to perfection. Or the breeches, which were positively indecent around his thighs and lovingly cupped the bulge of his manhood. He looked like an aristocrat from yesteryear who’d just returned from his club after a spot of drinking and cards. It was uncanny the way he wore the clothes, as if he’d been born to them.

“My goodness. You are the very portrait of a lord. If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were at least a viscount. Perhaps even an earl.”