Page 64 of How to Tempt an Earl

She donned her wrapper, took up a candlestick, then opened the door. Her footsteps were silent on the carpet runner as she headed down the hall, passing doors until she came to one on the opposite end from her bedchamber. She’d spent most of her late-night visits here with Ian, and she knew precisely which door interested her. Opening it, she swept inside the library.

The table where she’d instructed Ian about table manners that fateful night was no longer there. The large oak desk remained along with the magnificent shelves of books.

A perfect escape.

She set her candlestick on an end table and helped herself to Ian’s French brandy from the sideboard. She could spend hours here reading until she was too sleepy to keep her eyes open. She walked to the bookshelf closest to the desk when a flash of red from the corner of her eye caught her attention.

She froze. A stack of red, leather-bound ledgers rested on the desk. Spread open on the blotter beside a bottle of ink was one of the ledgers. She recalled seeing them on his desk on her first visit to the library. Her bookkeeping work for the milliner had aroused her interest in business, and her fingers had itched to open one of Ian’s books and learn his true worth and that of the Raven Club. She nervously glanced around the room as if someone would appear from behind a bookshelf or the furnishings and surmise her intent.

A peek couldn’t hurt, would it?

Don’t be ridiculous, she thought. Ian isn’t coming home tonight.

Hesitating for only a heartbeat, Grace placed her glass and candlestick on the desk and walked behind it. She ran her hand over the luxurious leather grain of Ian’s desk chair, then sat and reached for the open ledger.

An hour later, she was shocked and horrified at what she’d discovered.

Good God.

Her husband wasn’t just wealthy. He was filthy rich. More than she’d ever imagined. If he knew, the Prince Regent would be green with envy. The Raven Club was an endless source of income. But what was shocking was what he did with the money.

She leaned back in the leather chair, propped her feet up on the edge of the desk, and scanned the tiny rows of figures. Her husband donated to charities. Almost a dozen of them. He didn’t spell them out but used an abbreviated notation. The Orphaned Children’s Relief Society was one of them. She recognized the initials and the precise amount donated. She recalled the charity’s last meeting where an anonymous donor had made a significant contribution—enough to purchase coal for the braziers for the entire winter and refurbish the headmaster’s quarters. Ian was the anonymous donor.

There were others as well. Almost all the charities benefitted children or women. There were other notations as well—ones she couldn’t decipher. Was he making notes of the names of his most frequent gamblers, the pugilists who were the most successful, or something else?

Her analytical mind continued to scan the figures and notations. All the entries were in the same handwriting. A bold, masculine script. Only Ian handled the books. No secretary or assistant.

Interesting.

She understood firsthand that it was time-consuming and tedious work. Her accounting for the milliner was simple and on a small scale in comparison. Ian must spend hours at the task.

She studied the tiny figures in the rows and columns. He wasn’t perfect, and she spotted an error. She didn’t want to use ink, so she rummaged in one of the desk drawers until she found a pencil and made a note in the column.

Setting aside the ledger, she reached for another, then another. The candle burned low and she found and lit another. The brandy soothed her nerves as she worked. She grew drowsy, but she wasn’t ready to return to her room. Her very empty bedchamber. She rested the book on her chest and leaned even farther back in the leather chair. Her eyelids fluttered.

“First eavesdropping, now helping yourself to my private ledgers. I didn’t realize I married a spy.”

At these words, her eyes flew open to see her husband standing by the desk, his dark eyes staring down at her.

Chapter Eighteen

Ian had come home to claim his bride. Grace had insisted that she’d never willingly come to his bed, but Ian had never agreed not to try to seduce her, to change her mind, one sweet kiss at a time. Passion was a tantalizing form of persuasion.

When he saw that her bedchamber was empty, he’d experienced a pang of panic. Had she left him? No, she wouldn’t. She was too proud, too stubborn to flee. He’d pushed his fears aside and searched for her. After looking in the dining room, drawing room, and study, he’d found her in his library.

He halted at the vision before him.

She was sitting in his desk chair, nestled in the supple black leather. She had changed from her wedding gown into a garment designed to tempt a man and make him lose his mind. Soft cotton caressed the curves of her breasts and hips, and the hem had ridden up to reveal a fair amount of shapely leg. She had removed her stockings and her bare feet were propped on the corner of his desk. Her hair was loose and slightly disheveled. Dark locks brushed her shoulders and the tops of her breasts. Even more surprising than when he’d found her asleep at his desk was finding one of his ledgers open and resting low on her hips. Other open ledgers were spread out across his desk in a haphazard manner.

She’d been busy in his absence.

He should be concerned, even angry, at her invasion of his privacy. Instead, he grew hard and tight in his new tailored trousers. He’d bathed at the club and had come home to his bride, but he’d never expected to find her like he had. The sight of her asleep, dressed in the tantalizing shift was as unexpected as it was arousing.

He wanted to make love to her in his chair. On his desk. On the thick Aubusson carpet by his prized books. He’d known his fair share of temptation at the club. He understood the illicit draw of the crack of the dice across the green baize of the hazard table, knew the mesmerizing spin of the little white ball in the roulette wheel, even recognized the alluring innuendo of a masked woman’s invitation for dalliance. But the sight of his wife here…now…was beyond compare. She was a siren’s call to lure any red-blooded man to her side.

She blinked, focused her gaze, then struggled to sit upright in the chair. “Ian, what happened to your face?”

He touched his swollen eye, his black-and-blue chin. No doubt Brooks’s handiwork would appear worse before it improved.