Cocky Earl - Annabelle Anders Page 0,48
we make this more interesting?”
The words reminded her of what her father often uttered while playing a hand of poker.
“It’s already interesting. How can anything be more interesting than listening to tales of masculine tomfoolery while tasting scotch from the last century?” Charley stared at his hand covering hers. Her skin felt hot beneath his but cool where her palm grasped the tumbler. The pleasure she felt at his touch ought to have been more concerning than it was.
“For every drink I pour, you tell me something about you that I don’t already know.”
Charley lifted her gaze from his hand. “Are all earls like you? I thought they’d be...”
“Stuffy?” He finished for her.
“Proper.”
He waggled his brows, eyes dancing and one corner of his mouth raised. “What is so improper about wanting to learn more about my future intended?”
It would become very tiresome if she was to correct him every time he mentioned their courtship. “What indeed?” But if they were going to play a game, she’d make certain it was a fair one. “For every drink that I take, you must answer a question that I ask and for every drink you take, I will answer one from you.” Charley licked her lips. His eyes already appeared shinier than normal. Did he not comprehend whom he’d just issued this challenge to?
In response, he lifted his glass, sipped, swirled, and swallowed. “I’ll start with an easy one.” He tilted his head slightly. “What’s your middle name?”
“You should not waste these, my lord.”
“You should not waste these, Jules,” he corrected her.
“Jules.” His name suited him. It was warm, friendly, and yet dignified. “I was christened Charlotte Arabella Jackson.” Charley sniffed her glass. “Pungent. This one will be spicier than the others.” She sipped it slowly before swallowing. It didn’t taste anything like what she and her father produced.
But it tasted… rich. And old. And something about that made it quite spectacular.
“Do you enjoy being an earl?” she asked.
He furrowed his brows. “I’ve known I would be Westerley all my life. I don’t know if I enjoy it or if I do not. I simply am.”
His answer was what she ought to have expected from him. It explained some of what she’d first considered to be arrogance on his part. Not that he didn’t still come across as arrogant, but his brand of it differed from other noblemen. His confidence came from who he was rather than who he wanted others to believe he was.
He opened another bottle and, without rinsing the glass, poured a rather generous splash for each of them. “This one,” he tapped the side of the glass, “reminds me of my grandfather. Not because he was dirty and dry but because it was his favorite.” He tilted it back and swallowed half the contents.
“What do you like most about America?”
It was a question she would have thought she knew the answer to immediately. “Mostly, that it’s home but also that there is a sense of hope there—a belief that if a person works hard enough and is smart enough, he will find some opportunity.” She swallowed hard. “A white man can make a good life for himself.”
He nodded slowly and then cocked one brow. He had not missed her use of the masculine pronoun, nor the mention of the color of his skin.
Charley sipped her drink slowly. At home, despite her normal outspokenness, she’d learned there were some opinions best kept to oneself.
“It bothers you then, that the ingredients your father will be using at his new facility will have been harvested by slaves.” This man had read far more into her statement than she’d intended. She didn’t want people to think ill of her father. She didn’t want British people thinking ill of their new president. But Jules was right. She hated it, and she hated that people she admired and loved couldn’t see the wrong of an entire system.
She simply nodded. “My turn.” She ran her finger around the rim of her glass. “What was your father like?”
“My father,” he swallowed hard, then said, “was the most honorable person I’ve ever known.”
“Did you get along well with him, then?”
“I did. But he’s dead because of me.”
Chapter 14
LOWERED INHIBITIONS
His heart stuttered, then scampered rapidly. Julian hadn’t meant to tell her about feeling responsible for his father’s death. This guilt, the pain of it rang like a mantra he played over and over in his own head. Others who knew the details that proceeded his father’s death never brought