Page 44 of How to Tempt an Earl

“How?”

“Leave it to me.”

Clearly, he didn’t understand. “I’m ruined!” she cried out. “Lady Castleton is your mother, and you may hold sway with her, but not Lady Taddlesworth. Your sisters call her a dragon, Ian.”

“I’ve handled worse situations at the club and more difficult people.”

“You don’t understand. Lady Taddlesworth is a notorious gossip and holds considerable power. The scandal will be horrendous. No one will have me now.”

“Don’t talk about that.”

“I think I’m going to be sick.” She shoved him aside and leaped out of the carriage just in time to retch, emptying the contents of her stomach into a bush. Rather than leave, the stubborn man held her hair and rubbed her back until the last of the spasms had passed. She felt too miserable to be embarrassed.

Reaching into his pocket, he withdrew a handkerchief and wiped her brow and face and handed it to her. She took several deep breaths until her stomach settled and she’d regained her composure.

He helped her back into the carriage. “Please go home. I’ll send word to you tomorrow.”

Ian closed the door, and she rested her head back on the padded squabs and shut her eyes. She heard the squeak of the driver’s seat, then the carriage started moving.

She feared the swaying would worsen her condition, but it did not. By the time the carriage pulled up to her home, a cold drizzle was falling, washing out the night in a dreary blur that matched her mood. Grace crept in the back door and trudged up the stairs. Her father’s bedchamber door was open and dark. At first, she thought he must be out at one of the clubs, but then a light snore alerted her to his sleeping form in an armchair by an unlit fireplace.

“Father?” She walked into the room and halted by the chair.

He snorted, then awoke. “Grace?”

“Yes, it’s me. Why are you sleeping in your chair?”

“I called for Stevens. He must not have heard me.”

She helped him to his feet. Alcohol and tobacco wafted from him in waves. She swallowed hard.

If her father wondered why she was fully dressed and wandering the halls in the middle of the night, he stayed silent. She was assailed by a terrible sense of bitterness. Her awful night, combined with his sorry state, made fresh tears well her eyes.

She tugged off his jacket and waistcoat, slipped his cravat from around his neck, then helped him into bed. She thought he’d instantly resume snoring, but he surprised her by grasping her hand.

His eyes watered in his red face. “Ah, Grace. I’m sorry. I never meant for this. It’s just that…that I miss your mother terribly.”

A raw and primitive mix of emotions rushed through her—sympathy, protectiveness…even resentment. They left her drained and exhausted. For the first time, she understood why the baron drowned his sorrows in a bottle. She felt bereft and desolate, without hope.

He touched her cheek, and her anguish almost overcame her control. She wanted to sob for her parent and for all she’d lost in one reckless night.

Her arrangement with Ian was supposed to aid her plight. Instead, she’d made it much, much worse. She waited for her father to close his eyes before she returned to her room. She climbed into her bed, fully clothed, and cried herself to sleep.

Chapter Thirteen

“You have to marry her.” The Countess of Castleton spoke in a low, but firm tone. Her hands were folded in her lap as she sat across from her son.

Ian admired his mother’s outward show of calm, but he wasn’t fooled. Beneath the cool, proper facade, she was bloody furious. “Don’t be unreasonable, Mother.”

“Unreasonable? The girl is ruined.”

He shifted in his chair. Lady Castleton, his mother, sat across from him in his study. Cold. Reserved. Judgmental. “I just explained why Miss Ashton was here.” After weighing his options, he’d decided to tell her the true reason Grace was at his home.

“I thought you retained the services of a family friend, specifically Lord Winton, not a gently bred lady to refresh your manners. The daughter of a baron, no less!”

“You’re the one who insists I attend Lady Crowley’s ball.”

“You cannot possibly think to blame me for this scandal.”