A Pearl for an Earl

By Will Forrest

By tragedy has Lionel Jameson become the sixth Earl of Westborough. By his own self-destructive appetites will he be the last of his line, for no woman deserves to be burdened with a man so dissolute. To prove it, he wagers on bedding the angelic Clarisse Helmsford, absent from London for nearly two years.

A girl when first they met, now returned to Society in the full bloom of her womanly beauty, Clarisse has never stopped longing for Lionel Jameson. Returning after a long convalescence abroad, her passion reignites at the first sight of his stern face. Now woman enough to claim his love, she must convince him to discard his anguish and accept what she always has longed to give him: her heart, her body, her soul.

A boldy erotic MF romance from the peak of Victoria’s Empire.

~~~~~

Tori Fehr writes sizzling hot historical erotica bursting with forbidden desire, sly men with secret cravings, spirited women who long to run wild, and the daring souls who blur every line between. She has a bad habit of changing careers, life goals, and continents. She lives with three lovely humans and a succession of martyred houseplants in a very warm part of Canada. She hates writing bios.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Will Forrest
• Release date: Oct 10, 2020
• ISBN: 9781990115028

Will Forrest

Author, blogger, and general nuisance Will Forrest writes unusual (and usually queer) Historical and Paranormal Romances with a dash of mischief and mayhem, and grew up on a steady diet of Douglas Adams and classic 90s bodice rippers.Will has a diploma of fashion design, a degree in social theory, and a bad habit of changing careers, life goals, and continents. Currently Will lives in a very warm part of Canada with three lovely humans and a succession of martyred houseplants.

Book preview

A Pearl For an Earl

A Daring Victorian Romance

WILL FORREST

HARDCASTLE BOOKS

Publisher Information

Copyright © 2020-2022 Will Forrest

All rights reserved.

This work has been published without DRM.

ISBN: 978-1-990115-62-2

Please Note: A version of this book was previously published in 2020 by the author Tori Fehr under ISBN: 9781990115011. This edition has been substantially revised from its original publication.

Cover design by Hardcastle Books

Cover image licenced from Depositphotos

First edition published by Hardcastle Books 2020

hardcastlebooks.com

Contents

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

FIVE

SIX

SEVEN

EIGHT

NINE

TEN

ELEVEN

TWELVE

THIRTEEN

About the Author

A Pearl for an Earl

ONE

LIONEL JAMESON, LATELY become Earl of Westborough and once a sterling example of moral fortitude, stood in the foyer of the opera house, looking over the intermission crowd for women he might like to fuck. Looking over being the term, his several inches height advantage giving him a stellar view past nearly everyone’s heads and straight down any décolletage in range. His friend Will Pomeroy passed him another Pimm’s and they toasted in silent condemnation of the dreary opening acts of a very bad libretto.

Would it really be so scandalous if we left now? Pomeroy sighed.

Lionel sniggered behind his raised glass. Are you suggesting we leave a premiere halfway so you might get your eggs sucked at a ringer house?

Who’d know?

"They’ll know. D’you remember Swann?

Pomeroy snorted a laugh at the memory of their former peer. Who?

Precisely.

Served him right. Imagine, waiting about when Mrs Owen rings her little bell. Speaking of… Pomeroy sighed, as a tinkling chime announced the end of intermission.

Less wanting the booze than needing the distraction, Lionel drained his glass, intending to wait until the crowd dispersed as the men’s seats were towards the rear of the mezzanine. The fewer heads that turned on his honorable entry, the better. Nobility sat ill on him, having been gained too recently and at such a terrible cost, his own life spared by nothing more or less than carelessness, a matter of his missing a train. Of not being where he ought to have been. Soon enough Death would have its due, and Lionel was doing what he could to hasten the process.

The bare minimum appearance of civility was all he owed the world. Appear at events, mouth the right words, bow to the right people and ignore those beneath him, which was beginning to feel like everyone, not merely physically but intellectually, spiritually…

Morally, he was no better than his companions, the sort of social climbers and gadabouts he’d avoided with intent while younger but in whose company he now found himself routinely, given the places he frequented, the gin shops and gambling halls and certain narrow streets populated by fungible women. The other sort of woman, the kind one had to woo, cajole, deceive, even marry if one wished to bed, were simply more work than any sane man ought to take on in the name of pleasure. Or cried and were awful, if they were one’s servants, which even Lionel found a sin too bold when so many other bodies could be had for a handful of coins. No, it was a weak man whose randy instincts overcame his common sense. Like Swann, who’d been balls deep in a fruit-seller’s wife’s arse when the raid had rolled through Owen’s grimy row of houses. If only Swann had been up her cunt, or several hundred pounds per annum richer, the fool might not have got done for sodomy.

Lionel was no such fool. With the opera house foyer nearly empty he and Pomeroy joined their other unmarried friend Atherton by the staircase. Partway up, they paused behind the Wilson family, while Mr Wilson aided his widowed mother-in-law in climbing one doddering step at a time.

Standing by the balustrade above was a young woman. Amid bright silks and soaring plumes, she was dressed in a wine-dark damask in an unfashionable cut, long sleeves trailing from her delicate elbows, the neckline a square frame for her angelic face. More than different from all others, she was oddly familiar, the effect growing stronger as Lionel mounted the stairs. There was something in her eyes, in the honeyed glow of her skin.

Look up, he murmured to Pomeroy on the step ahead. Do you know her?

The Spaniard?

Is that where she’s from?

She doesn’t look English.

But who is she?

The bird in red? Atherton said from behind. "That’s