The Playboy Peer: Unexpected Lords Book 2, page 1
THE PLAYBOY PEER
UNEXPECTED LORDS BOOK 2
SCARLETT SCOTT
The Playboy Peer
Unexpected Lords Book 2
All rights reserved.
Copyright © 2022 by Scarlett Scott
Published by Happily Ever After Books, LLC
Edited by Grace Bradley
Cover Design by EDH Professionals
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This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events, or locales, is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.
For more information, contact author Scarlett Scott.
www.scarlettscottauthor.com
CONTENTS
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Epilogue
Don’t miss Scarlett’s other romances!
About the Author
For everyone in need of a happily ever after
CHAPTER 1
AUTUMN, 1886
Izzy supposed it was only fitting that, after two years of endless love letters exchanged between herself and the Honorable Mr. Arthur Penhurst, he had chosen to end their betrothal in the same fashion he had conducted much of their courtship. But the familiarity of his masculine scrawl, slanted upon the page in measured, precise penmanship, provided precious little comfort. True, many of the letters had become hopelessly obliterated by the profusion of tears which had rained upon the ink over the weeks since she had received it. However, much of the terrible, soul-crushing sentences remained perfectly intact.
Darling Isolde,
I regret to say that I have found myself drawn in a different direction. It would seem that the time of preparation for our wedding, deemed far too lengthy by yourself, was instead a boon. For it granted me the opportunity to realize I harbor feelings for Miss Harcourt that I cannot in good conscience either deny or ignore…
Miss Alice Harcourt.
An American heiress who had been attending Cowes Week, where Arthur had also been spending his time. He had been taking in the sea air to aid his lungs at the urging of his physician. And apparently attending balls. And falling in love with someone else.
Betraying her.
His reticence concerning their marriage had made bitter, terrible sense when August had come to an end, then September as well, and he had made no effort to return. Instead, he had written to her, suggesting they delay their nuptials until nearly Whitsuntide.
Now, she knew why.
Was it worse that he had referred to her as his darling in the salutation? Of course it was. He might have called her anything else. Dear would have sufficed. A simple Lady Isolde would have stood as well.
“Oh Izzy, you are not reading that despicable letter again, are you?”
Isolde gave a guilty start and stuffed the hated epistle into the book she had been pretending to read before slamming it closed. She looked up in time to see her beloved sister Ellie, now the Duchess of Wycombe, crossing the threshold with a knowing expression on her face.
Sisters could always sense each other’s misery. Izzy was certain it was an innate skill they had all been born with.
“Of course not,” she lied anyway, forcing a pleasant smile for Ellie’s benefit. “I was merely reading some Shakespeare.”
“Hmm. That rather looks like a compendium of the London Society of Electricity’s journal for the year 1884,” Ellie pointed out shrewdly.
Izzy glanced down at the leather-bound volume and discovered that her sister was correct. Drat. Of all the tomes she could have plucked from the shelf, feigning an interest in this poor choice most certainly gave her away. It was the sort of nonsense only Ellie, with her love of engineering and electricity, would read. If only she had chosen a history treatise instead, her guise would have been far more convincing.
“Oh yes!” Izzy aimed for a bright, cheerful note, but it was difficult indeed when her heart was broken into a million irreparable shards and she was discreetly sniffling to keep the snot from running out of her nose.
Her vision was blurry.
She blinked furiously to chase away the fresh wave of stubborn tears pooling in her eyes. Tears she would not shed. Enough had fallen for Arthur Penhurst already. She would not allow another to—
It slid down her cheek, hot and quick, then landed with a splat on the top of her hand.
“That was a tear,” Ellie observed, settling next to her on the divan. “And your nose is rather red, my love.”
“How dreadful of you to notice,” she muttered.
“It is dripping as well.”
“My nose does not drip,” she denied.
But the snot she had been trying her utmost to withhold made a liar of her, escaping her left nostril, and then gliding down her philtrum before pooling in the seam of her lips. It was humiliating and disgusting all at once.
Ellie extracted a handkerchief and dabbed at Izzy’s nose and mouth in motherly fashion, drying up the detestable signs of her weakness. Her gaze was sympathetic, and it was all Izzy could do to hold still for her sister’s ministrations. She wanted to run away and hide. To bury herself beneath the covers in her guest bed and never emerge.
“You were reading the letter again, and you were weeping,” Ellie said quietly.
“Yes,” she admitted, for there was no point in continuing her charade.
“Neither the letter nor Mr. Penhurst are worth your time, your tears, or your heartache.”
Oh, Arthur. How could you do this to me? To us?
Izzy fought off another prickle of impending waterworks. “Tell that to my heart.”
At this very moment, she was meant to be in Paris, visiting the House of Worth, choosing the design and trimmings of her wedding gown. Instead, she was in her sister’s library in London, trying desperately to find distraction from her misery by losing herself in the social whirl.
A near impossibility when everywhere she went, the whispers and pitying looks, along with the occasional titter hidden behind a fan, hounded her. Everyone knew she had been jilted. Just as everyone knew Arthur would be marrying Miss Harcourt in the spring. The wedding of next year, the newspapers trumpeted with glee. An American princess had ensnared the youngest son of the Earl of Leeland, who had previously been promised to Lady Isolde Collingwood. The gossips were positively atwitter at the spectacle which would unfold. Details were already being reported, including the diminutive size of Miss Harcourt’s waist: an impossible, gossamer nineteen inches.
Ellie finished dabbing at Izzy’s nose and considered her solemnly. “Come to Lady Greymoor’s ball tonight, hold your head high, and show that miserable scoundrel that you are far stronger than he could ever hope to be. You do not need him. Indeed, you are far happier without him. He is a coldhearted villain and a coward for sending you a letter to throw you over for another. Truly, you ought to pitch that letter into the fire, darling.”
She sighed, fear and worry tying her stomach in knots. “You know I cannot attend, Ellie. Arthur will be there, and so will Miss Harcourt.”
It would be the first time she had crossed paths with Arthur since his defection and the first occasion upon which she had ever set eyes on Miss Harcourt. Privately, Izzy hoped the woman was larger than a stout old milk cow—even if reports of her waist suggested otherwise—and that she sported a hairy mole on her chin and brayed like a donkey when she laughed. Izzy knew such thoughts were beneath her, that she was meant to forgive Arthur, to carry on with her life.
But from the moment she had first set eyes on Arthur Penhurst, she had known in her heart he was meant to be hers. His father was her father’s oldest, dearest chum. Izzy and Arthur had met over country house parties as they grew. She had been twelve years old when Arthur had smoothed a lock of hair from her cheek when they had been climbing a pear tree at Talleyrand Park, and she had fallen in love.
Arthur, two years her senior, had taken longer to arrive at the same conclusion. It had not been until she had reached eighteen that he had begun to notice her as a woman. Even then, it had required more time for him to pursue her as a suitor. They had spent two years in stolen moments and a flurry of exchanged letters while she waited her turn to wed. As the oldest sister, Ellie had married first, securing the Duke of Wycombe as her husband, out of necessity rather than desire. However, the irony of it was that Ellie’s marriage had turned into a love match while Izzy
“Nonsense,” Ellie was saying now, slipping a comforting arm around Izzy’s shoulders. “Of course you can attend the ball. Do you think I enjoy such silly spectacles? Naturally not, but we must all endure that which we do not prefer for the greater good now and then. There is only one way to stop the wagging tongues, and that is to show everyone you are not as devastated by Mr. Penhurst’s jilting as they suppose.”
If only that were true.
“But I am, Ellie.” Her lower lip trembled against the ominous portent of more tears. “I am completely and utterly ruined. I loved him quite desperately. I do not know how I shall ever be happy again.”
To her shame, her voice broke on the last admission. Why continue the pretense that she was not utterly miserable when her sister had seen through her ploy with instant ease? She had not been beneath Ellie and her husband’s roof for one night—the rest of their family having returned to Buckinghamshire for a brief time so Papa could complete his influence machine and the twins could begin the preparations for their comeout—and she had already shown her hand. This was why she never played at cards.
“You are not ruined at all. You are merely brokenhearted, as to be expected when the man you love jilts you for another woman while you have been planning your wedding,” Ellie corrected firmly. “But there is no better way to move past your hurt than to confront your fears. You will be glad of it in the end, and you will be able to move beyond the damage Mr. Penhurst wrought. One day, you will love again. I promise.”
Never.
Izzy could never, ever love anyone the way she had loved Arthur: fully and completely, as if he were the other half of her which had been missing. But she could not bear to speak those words aloud for fear that she would dissolve into tears once more.
Instead, she swallowed down the lump of desperation rising in her throat. She would attend the ball, but only because Ellie wanted her to.
“Very well,” she relented. “I shall go.”
* * *
Lady Isolde Collingwood was completely and utterly soused.
From his place in the shadows of his friend Greymoor’s blue salon, Zachary Barlowe, reluctant new Earl of Anglesey, watched her retreat from the ballroom and knew it without a doubt. She tilted to the left, then stumbled to the right, before tripping on her hem and nearly spilling to the carpets. At the last moment, she righted herself and, with a hiccup and a bubble of laughter that sounded slightly hysterical, crossed the threshold, closing the door behind her.
He suppressed a sigh, not wishing to give away his presence just yet. Or at all, if possible. Watching over drunken innocents was decidedly not one of his proclivities. There was only one damned reason he had attended this cursed waste of his time, and it was because Greymoor’s mother had asked him to do so. Not a soul told the dragon of a woman no. Not even Zachary. Certainly not the marquess, who was hosting this elaborate affair solely for her sake.
True, there had also been the certain presence of Zachary’s preferred companion of the moment, Lady Falstone. Letitia was the lady who was meant to be joining him for a quick, forbidden tryst, not Lady Isolde. She had told him she would meet him here in a quarter hour. Given his ballroom-induced state of ennui, the prospect of her lush lips wrapped around his cock while their fellow revelers sipped champagne and danced the quadrille across the hall had been positively curative. He had not wasted a moment in finding his way here and settling in a corner-dwelling easy chair.
To say the least, the intrusion of Lady Isolde was unwanted. Irritating, in fact. He was already half-hard in anticipation of—
Ah, God. Was that the sound of feminine weeping echoing from the opposite end of the room?
Fucking hell, it was.
With great reluctance, he rose, extracting a handkerchief from his coat as he did so. Although he did his damnedest to maintain a black reputation, he was not entirely heartless. A sobbing woman was no bloody good under any circumstances, and particularly not when an eager lover would be meeting him here for an assignation in approximately ten minutes.
Lady Isolde’s back was to him, and she was too consumed by whatever doldrums were afflicting her to hear his approach. Her ebony hair was twisted into some sort of coil, her shoulders shaking. Her sob was loud and low and keening. This was deuced uncomfortable. Was she the sort of female who went bosky and then turned maudlin? Had she gone mad?
As he reached her, a modicum of remembrance hit him. She had been jilted recently, had she not? By some lesser son who was marrying an American heiress. Yes, he recalled now. The heiress had been present this evening, dripping in gems and holding court as if she were queen.
Gently, he placed a hand on Lady Isolde’s elbow.
She whirled about with a gasp, pressing a hand to her heart. “Oh, sir! What are you doing in here? I… I believed myself alone.”
Tears glistened on her cheeks and clumped on her dark lashes. Despite the low glow of a lone lamp, he could discern the pink mottling her otherwise pale throat. Her nose, too, was red.
He offered her the handkerchief. “Perhaps you have need of this, Lady Isolde.”
“I am not…” Her words trailed off as she hiccupped. “Crying.”
Belying her words, another fat tear slipped down her cheek.
“Of course you are not,” he agreed, catching the tear with the scrap of linen himself.
She swatted at his hand as if it were an errant bee, buzzing about her head. “Please l-leave me alone.”
He tucked the damp handkerchief back into his coat. Leaving her alone would not do. Letitia would be here soon. He was still very much looking forward to the wicked promises she had whispered in his ear being fulfilled.
“Shall I fetch your sister?” he offered, trying to be helpful. “Perhaps a discreet exit from this affair is in order.”
“Why should I wish to flee as if I h-have done something wrong?” she asked, listing to her left.
His hands shot out in haste, landing on her waist and keeping her from toppling sideways into a table lined with a marble bust and other bric-a-brac. “Steady, my lady. You appear to have indulged in too much champagne. There is no shame in it; I have partaken more than my fair allotment on many occasions.”
The most recent of which had been when he had learned that his two elder brothers had both been drowned, making him the Earl of Anglesey. His drunken stupor had lasted for a full three days.
“I daresay you have, my lord. Your reputation predates you.” She blinked, an adorable expression of befuddlement clouding her features. “Er, precedes you.”
“I am certain it does.”
He paused, struggling to think of which step, if any, he ought to take next.
Likely, he should remove his hands from her person. This was his good friend the Duke of Wycombe’s sister-in-law, for Christ’s sake. And yet, the warm curves of her beneath his hands felt strangely pleasant.
Dimly, he realized the reason. The pliant contours were unimpeded by boning. Lady Isolde was not wearing a corset. Scandalous. But then, perhaps that also explained the awkward fitting of her gown, which was a truly unfortunate shade of yellow silk, bedecked by an abundance of daisies and other flora. She looked as if she had wandered into a meadow and rolled about.
“Your reputation,” she said, eyes going wide, punctuating the two words with yet another hiccup. “Yes, that is precisely what I need.”
She needed his reputation?
What the devil was she—
Before he could even complete the thought, Lady Isolde’s lips were on his.
CHAPTER 2
