The Earl of Benton: Wicked Regency Romance (Wicked Earls' Club) Read online

  HIS ACTIONS COULD BE TREASON...

  Alistair Johnstone’s days of running whisky come to an abrupt halt when he inherits an earldom. After years of living in Scotland and denying his English heritage, he now must return despite his mother’s bitter contempt and his own lack of desire. When his mother’s attempt to run whisky goes awry, Alistair is forced to step in and save her by doing one last whisky run – however, if he’s caught, he will face a traitor’s death.

  SHE IS RUNNING FOR HER LIFE...

  Emma Thorne’s uncle is trying to kill her and so far has failed, thank goodness. But with only one month until she reaches her majority, inherits her fortune and is released from his guardianship, she knows she is not safe. Emma escapes to a nearby estate where she stumbles upon a house party being held by the Wicked Earls’ Club and finds herself at the mercy of the most extraordinary earl. One who could save her or see her condemned.

  PERHAPS THEY CAN SAVE EACH OTHER.

  When innocent lies become reality and danger follows them every step of the way, could love be the answer to both their problems, or will their passions be their undoing?

  WICKED EARLS CLUB

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously.

  EARL OF BENTON

  Copyright © 2018 Madeline Martin

  Excerpt from EARL OF PEMBROKE © 2018 Lauren

  Smith

  Cover design by Jaycee DeLorenzo with Sweet ‘N Spicy Designs

  Cover photo by Period Images

  Vector images by Zhaolifang on Vecteezy

  All rights reserved. The author has provided this book for personal use only. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  For information, address Madeline Martin at http://madelinemartin.com

  Dedication

  To Tracy

  I couldn’t have done this book without you. Thank you so much for your knowledge, support and incredible friendship!

  PROLOGUE

  May 1816

  London, England

  London was dismally gray with rain the day Alistair Johnstone attempted to decline his inherited earldom. It did little good for him to bother, he knew, save for Madge's sake. Yet, try he did, and had been promptly met with the unamused blinking of the solicitor. Dejected and titled, Alistair gazed out the window where puddles of mud reflected a gray sky. A dog with jutting bones rummaged with desperation and skittishness through the rubbish piled in the alleyway.

  Madge always did have poor taste in lodgings.

  The door slammed closed. She had returned, and yet he was not ready to face her. Outside, the miserable creature drew a piece of waste and hunkered over the prize in a protective gesture.

  “Well, how did it go with the solicitor? What was it all about?” Madge's thick Scottish burr cut through the intensely silent room.

  “My grandfather has passed on.” Alistair continued to watch the poor beast.

  Madge scoffed. “Good riddance to that bastard. Were it no' for him, yer da and I could've been happy. He put us against one another.”

  Alistair bit back a long-suffering sigh. He didn't want to hear the story of it again, not today. “I've inherited his earldom.”

  Madge coughed out a wheezing laugh. Finally, Alistair put his back to the window and faced his mother. Though age and hard years had left her face creased, her hair was the same shade of luminous red that had caught his father's eye. Her cheeks were flushed with mirth and her blue eyes sparkled with it. “Ye canna be serious.” The smile wilted somewhat and she straightened her skinny frame. “Well, ye said no, aye?”

  “I did. But as anticipated, I have no choice.” Alistair steeled himself between the clash of his own blood which ran in equal parts English and Scottish and said the truth of it for the first time since he'd spoken with the solicitor late that morning. “I am now the Earl of Benton.”

  The blue of his mother's eyes went sharp with reproach. “One can always say no.”

  “This is not one of those instances.” Alistair folded his hands behind his back and resisted the urge to let his attention go to the window once more. “Were I to say no, I would face the wrath of the king.”

  “An English king,” Madge hissed. “I dinna care a fat toad what the English king wants.”

  “This will be of great benefit to you,” Alistair continued, intentionally ignoring her treasonous remark. Time had taught him reprimands for such things fell on deaf ears with Madge. “It affords us the opportunity to repair Lochslin Castle, which sorely requires a great many things. Whisky smuggling doesn't provide nearly enough—”

  “The whisky smuggling.” Madge snapped upright. “Ye'll still be doing it, aye?”

  Somewhere down the hall, another inhabitant of the rickety inn slammed a door and stomped away. If only Alistair could be so lucky as to readily escape. Instead he drew a deep breath in the hopes of bringing in some patience with it.

  “I cannot run whisky any longer, Madge. It is considered treason.”

  “By the bloody English king,” she muttered.

  “And I could lose my life for it.”

  “So ye'll give up one of yer grandda's legacy for the other?” Her lips puckered as if she had something bitter lodged in her mouth. “Yer Scottish ancestry for yer English.”

  The final threads of Alistair's tolerance were shredding under his mother's insistent refusal to listen. “I do not have a choice,” he said through clenched teeth.

  “We'll see what can be done when we get back to Scotland.” Madge stopped speaking abruptly and slowly angled her face to Alistair. “Ye will be coming home to Scotland, aye?” Her tone was softer, hesitant. If he didn't know Madge so well, he might have even assumed she was frightened.

  His chest drew tight. For all Madge's prickly exterior, within she was a fierce mother set on protecting her only child. And what he would say next might possibly break her heart.

  “I will not be going to Scotland.”

  The proud stance Madge had displayed crumpled. “The bastard has won,” she whispered. “He tried to steal ye from me when ye were but a lad. I insisted ye come home despite yer da's protest because he dinna see it. He dinna see it. But I did. That English whoreson meant to take ye from me, to sway ye to yer English side. And now he's won.”

  Alistair inwardly cringed at her words. His grandfather had wanted what was best for him. In truth, those years at Eton had afforded him friendships he would have never been able to find in the wilds of Scotland at Lochslin Castle. Those would be integral in his assuming the earldom smoothly and entering the ton. “It was not a battle, Madge. He—”

  “He made ye full English is what he did.” She waved a bony hand at him. “Look at ye, with yer fine English coat and yer crisp speech and yer unaffected demeanor. And in an instant ye’re an English earl, living on English soil.” She sniffled. “Ye're lost to me, son. I've lost ye.”

  Alistair handed his mother his handkerchief, which she deftly pushed away. “Madge, I am still Scottish.” He gestured to his kilt with exasperation. “I proudly wear the Munro colors. I will eventually be home to assist you in overseeing the repairs to Lochslin and ensure you are well.” Outside the window, a small group of urchins circled the dog. The creature had curled in on itself with its tail tucked between its legs.

  “Leave me,” Madge
said with wounded vehemence. “I'll smuggle the whisky without ye. I'll repair Lochslin without ye. I'll live my life without ye.”

  Alistair twisted from the window, pulled by the weight of his heavy heart. “Madge, I—”

  A vase flew past his head and slammed into the wall where it shattered. Alistair jerked to the side as another article hurtled toward his face, narrowly avoiding being struck.

  “Leave me.” Madge snatched up a metal cup from the bedside table and drew it back.

  Alistair knew too well how her tantrums went and strode across the room at a clipped pace. He opened the door and paused. “I'll always be your son, Madge.”

  He didn't know what made him say it. Some deep childhood memory for the woman who would rock him in her arms when he had night terrors, and had fought for him with the force of a lion. He was aware that in her own twisted way, this rage was driven by the fear of losing him. Madge never did deal well with hurt.

  Perhaps that was why he'd taken the time to say it, risking the integrity of his face as the cup came hurtling through the air at him. He closed the door in time for the weight of the projectile to thunk solidly against it.

  A scream sounded from the other side, wild and raw. It tore into his heart, but there was no reasoning with Madge. Not when she was like this. He treaded down the narrow stairs, ignoring the wobbling banister which had more possibility of upsetting one's balance than solidifying it, and remembered the dog.

  He quickened his pace and exited the building to find the boys tossing rocks in the direction of the beast. It did not snarl and snap at them as others might have done. No, it merely cringed deeper into itself as if attempting to make itself disappear. Alistair was well acquainted with that feeling, one of wishing to simply become invisible.

  “Get on with you,” Alistair said in a low, warning tone. “Leave the creature be.”

  A boy with a mop of shaggy brown hair surveyed Alistair up and down. “We'll do what we want.” He sneered, revealing a missing front tooth, and lobbed a stone at Alistair. The bit of rock sank into the mud at Alistair's feet.

  “I said get on with ye,” he snarled, the Scottish burr of his youth thickening his accent in his rage. For it was not only the boy who he was angry with, it was the injustice of the starving beast, the cowardice of children pitching stones at a defenseless animal, and it was Madge and her damned stubbornness.

  The boys scowled and ran from him, scattering in multiple directions like vermin. A soft whimpering rose from the ground and a pair of liquid brown eyes gazed imploringly up at Alistair.

  He reached down and patted the dog's wet, matted head. The beast nestled closer to him, desperate for affection. Alistair looked up the front of the inn to Madge's window where all had gone quiet.

  At least with the beast at his side, he could help. Madge was too obstinate to listen to reason.

  “Come on, then.” He made his way down the muddy street to the better part of town. A glance confirmed the dog had not moved. Alistair whistled and the creature cocked its head, the pink of its tongue protruding from the side of its mouth.

  “Come on,” Alistair repeated and waved his hand.

  This time the beast did not hesitate. It sprinted to him at full tilt, its muddy brown ears flapping about its head. And together, the two of them, neither one cut from the fine cloth of London society, made their way into a world that would otherwise have cast them readily aside.

  Chapter 1

  June 1817

  Bedfordshire, England

  Emma Thorne’s maid was dead. It was obvious based on the awkward angle of her neck, in the trail of blood drawing a vivid line down her chin and the pool of it welling from underneath her.

  Emma remained at the young woman’s side, holding the still-warm body. Shock had kept her scream silent thus far, but the pressure of its insistence blossomed in the back of her throat. A hand clapped over her mouth and her scream fled on a gasp.

  Emma's uncle had asked her to replace a book on the shelf in the library as she'd left the room. Jenny, her lady's maid, had offered to do it as she was off on her way to visit her parents in the village. The offer of kindness had been the young woman's demise.

  “Don't make a sound, my lady.” A familiar male voice murmured in Emma's ear.

  She tried to swing around, to meet the eyes of Hammonds, the butler she'd known for the whole of her life, for what could possess him to tell her to keep from screaming?

  “Blink to show you understand what I'm telling you,” he said in a low voice. “It's a matter of life and death, you see.”

  Emma blinked and his hand came away.

  “Come to the kitchen.” He stood with a furtive glimpse into the hall. “With haste, my lady.” He softened his tone. “If you please.”

  “And leave her here?” Emma whispered in horror.

  Hammonds grimaced and nodded.

  Emma hesitated, her fingers curled in the damp fabric of her maid's gown. It was of a pretty sprigged muslin Emma had given to her the prior year.

  “Do you not notice she looks similar to you?” Hammonds asked.

  True, the maid wore the frock once belonging to Emma and her brown hair had been twisted into a series of braids at the nape of her neck, the same way Emma often wore hers. A terrifying jolt of ice-cold fear shot down Emma's spine.

  She drew away in horror, releasing the maid and allowing Hammonds to help her to her feet. Blood streaked brilliant red down the front of her gown. Jenny's blood.

  Oh God, Jenny.

  Hammonds pulled at Emma with surprisingly strong arms, hauling her to the kitchen. “Your uncle,” he said. “He's been unhappy with your decision not to wed his son. As he’s become more insistent, you’ve been more resistant.”

  Emma’s brain worked to process what she'd seen, what Hammonds was saying, what it all meant. The cloying odor of gore clung in her nose, metallic with fear and death.

  Hammonds thrust her into the warmth of the kitchen. The cook looked up sharply, his hands buried in a ball of dough.

  “Already?” Monsieur Dubois drew his hands free and wiped the excess flour onto the front of his apron.

  “Jenny is dead.” Hammonds released his hold on Emma and raced across the large room to a series of pots stacked neatly against a back wall.

  Dubois uttered a curse and moved around the table. He stopped short and went wide-eyed with horror at Emma’s gown.

  “What happened?” he demanded.

  “She fell from the ladder in the library.” Emma twisted the delicate emerald and pearl bracelet around her wrist, the one that had belonged to her mother before her death nearly two decades prior. “She's dead.” Her voice clogged with emotion and tears burned in her eyes.

  The Frenchman loosed a fresh string of curses.

  “Cease your blasphemy and be useful,” Hammonds said in an uncharacteristically impatient tone. “It will not be long until they discover the body is not that of Miss Emma.”

  The butler pushed a velvet bag into her hands. “Take this and leave. Go as far from here as you can and do not return for another month.”

  In a month, she would be five-and-twenty, of age to no longer require the guardianship of her uncle. The wealthy life to which he'd grown accustomed when her father died not long after her twentieth birthday would cease. She’d refused to marry her cousin, his son. Apparently, he had devised other means to secure her wealth.

  The bright streak of crimson on her gown called her attention once more. He had meant to kill her, only he'd taken Jenny’s life by accident instead.

  “Take this as well.” Dubois thrust a misshapen sack into her free hand. A knot at the top secured the contents within. “In case you need food. It will last a few days if you use it sparingly.”

  “And this?” she asked, regarding the velvet bag.

  “It is the money we have been able to save for you.” Hammonds lowered his head reverently. “And includes our own personal savings.”

  She shook her head, not un
derstanding and certainly not willing to accept. Before she could refuse, Hammonds set a hand over hers, securing the bag in her palm.

  “Miss Emma, we would pay that amount a thousand times over to ensure your safety.” Hammonds cast her a beseeching expression. “Please take it. Stay safe for the next month and—”

  “Hammonds,” a voice from somewhere in the home bellowed with rage.

  Emma started at the sound, her nerves on high alert as much as they were raw with emotion - with loss, with love, with fear.

  “Get you gone and Godspeed, Miss.” Hammonds bowed low and left, taking time to carefully close the door.

  “You must go.” Dubois gently pushed her in the direction of the servants’ entrance at the rear of the kitchen. “To the stables, away from here.”

  The heavy fall of boots on the carpeted ground came from outside the kitchen within the house.

  “Now,” he hissed and shoved her outside.

  Emma stood, dazed by the radiant sunlight and by the whirl of what had transpired. She gritted her teeth. They had sacrificed everything for her.

  It was that thought which spurred her and made her run to the stables, as Dubois had suggested.

  She ran on legs she could not feel, legs which did not seem strong enough to support her. And yet they carried her to the elegant row of stables along the rear of the property.

  While chaos reigned in the house, the stable was impossibly silent and still. Emma's ragged breath rasped from her throat, loud in the quiet.

  The stable boy was not about, and for that she was glad. She would not want more of her servants implicated. Not after what they'd already done to aid her. Surely what they had done put them in considerable danger. The very notion gave her pause. She slipped the purse into her pocket.