Forever Your Earl Read Free Page A

can do is be accurate. What better way than to have you come with me each day and night and record my activities? Unless you don’t feel up to the task of late-­night revelry and observing firsthand how the elite of Society fill their wicked hours.”
    This was most assuredly not the truth. But he wasn’t about to explain that Jonathan Lawson, his closest friend since childhood, had been missing for nearly a month. The situation was even more dire, because soon after Jonathan’s disappearance, his elder brother had died. Now Jonathan was the heir to one of England’s oldest and most esteemed dukedoms—­and no one could find him. Before his disappearance, he’d been seen with low, rough company. Men who slunk around the alleys of the East End and lived like rats. If the truth ever got out about Jonathan’s vanishing—­especially in the newspapers—­the family could be utterly ruined.
    But Daniel, as Miss Hawke had so thoroughly argued, was a public figure. She documented his every movement. He had to turn her shrewd gaze away from the hunt for Jonathan. Providing specifically engineered distractions was exactly the strategy that was needed. So he’d open himself up to her scrutiny—­because he owed it to Jonathan. A minor inconvenience was nothing compared to the failure to honor the unspoken promises of friendship.
    And Daniel had failed Jonathan’s friendship spectacularly.
    Miss Hawke dropped into her chair, swiveling the seat back and forth as she mulled over his offer. Her brow furrowed, and she steepled her fingers, pressing them to her bottom lip. Were he a painter—­which he assuredly was not—­he’d paint the scene and title it Study in Wary Contemplation.
    Finally, the swiveling of her chair stopped, and she faced him. “I don’t trust you,” she stated baldly.
    No one except Jonathan and his friend Marwood spoke to him so candidly. Yet Miss Hawke addressed him as if she had every right to be so blunt. As though they were equals. On every level.
    He waited to feel a hot wave of outrage or anger. None came. It was . . . refreshing. To be talked to like he was . . . himself. Not the Earl of Ashford, a nobleman that required flattery or coddling or toadying deference. But an ordinary man.
    â€œWhy should you?” he answered frankly.
    His own candor seemed to catch her by surprise, which felt like a small victory. She wasn’t the only one capable of shocking someone.
    â€œI’ve no reason to,” she replied. “We’ve clearly established ourselves at cross purposes. You’ve already observed two salient facts about me. I’m the owner of this enterprise. And I’m a woman.”
    â€œBoth facts have been noted by me, yes.” The unfortunate truth was that had he seen Miss Hawke on the other side of a ballroom, he would have sought to claim a dance—­if not more. She was distractingly attractive. Worldly, clever. Slim and curved. But his intent was too important to let something like her prettiness throw him off his course.
    She couldn’t know his motivations for being here, or what prompted him to offer up such an outrageous proposition. And if she rejected his offer . . . No, she had to accept. The reputation of an influential family depended on it. Even more important, Jonathan’s life lay on the line.
    Miss Hawke continued, “Neither condition has inclined me to have faith in others, particularly men.”
    That caught his attention.
    Before he could press her on that interesting admission, she continued, “And yet . . .” She steepled her fingers together again. “I’d be a fool to refuse your proposition. After all, what’s to stop you from going to one of my competitors with the same offer?”
    He didn’t mention that none of the other scandal sheets reported on him as regularly and with such underlying glee as The