When an Earl Meets a Girl Read online

  WHEN AN EARL MEETS A GIRL

  LAUREN ROYAL

  February 2022 Edition

  FORMERLY TITLED “AMETHYST”

  CONTENTS

  More Chase Family Books

  Prologue

  1. One

  2. Two

  3. Three

  4. Four

  5. Five

  6. Six

  7. Seven

  8. Eight

  9. Nine

  10. Ten

  11. Eleven

  12. Twelve

  13. Thirteen

  14. Fourteen

  15. Fifteen

  16. Sixteen

  17. Seventeen

  18. Eighteen

  19. Nineteen

  20. Twenty

  21. Twenty-One

  22. Twenty-Two

  23. Twenty-Three

  24. Twenty-Four

  25. Twenty-Five

  26. Twenty-Six

  27. Twenty-Seven

  28. Twenty-Eight

  29. Twenty-Nine

  30. Thirty

  31. Thirty-One

  32. Thirty-Two

  33. Thirty-Three

  34. Thirty-Four

  35. Thirty-Five

  36. Thirty-Six

  37. Thirty-Seven

  38. Thirty-Eight

  39. Thirty-Nine

  40. Forty

  41. Forty-One

  42. Forty-Two

  43. Forty-Three

  44. Forty-Four

  45. Forty-Five

  46. Forty-Six

  47. Forty-Seven

  48. Forty-Eight

  49. Forty-Nine

  50. Fifty

  51. Fifty-One

  52. Fifty-Two

  53. Fifty-Three

  54. Fifty-Four

  55. Fifty-Five

  56. Fifty-Six

  57. Fifty-Seven

  58. Fifty-Eight

  59. Fifty-Nine

  60. Sixty

  61. Sixty-One

  62. Sixty-Two

  63. Sixty-Three

  64. Sixty-Four

  65. Sixty-Five

  66. Sixty-Six

  67. Sixty-Seven

  68. Sixty-Eight

  69. Sixty-Nine

  70. Seventy

  71. Seventy-One

  72. Seventy-Two

  73. Seventy-Three

  74. Seventy-Four

  75. Seventy-Five

  76. Seventy-Six

  77. Seventy-Seven

  78. Seventy-Eight

  79. Seventy-Nine

  80. Eighty

  81. Eighty-One

  82. Eighty-Two

  83. Eighty-Three

  Epilogue

  Books by Lauren Royal

  Contact Information

  BOOK DESCRIPTION

  When an Earl Meets a Girl

  was formerly titled Amethyst

  Descended from generations of jewelers, Amethyst Goldsmith loves her craft nearly as much as she loves her family. But she hates that her wedding is mere days away. Amy is promised to her father’s small-minded apprentice, the last man on earth she could ever love, honor, or especially obey. But the date is set, the dress is ordered, and there’s no way out—until the devastating Great Fire of 1666 sweeps through London, shattering her workaday world and recasting her fate…

  Colin Chase, the Earl of Greystone, doesn’t believe in fate. He believes in hard work and securing his family’s future, which means marrying the wealthy, high-born Lady Priscilla Snobs—er, Hobbs. When he rescues a lowly jeweler’s daughter from the inferno, he’s only taking pity on a broken young woman. But as the pieces begin to mend, Amy emerges. Beautiful, passionate, playful Amy, who maddeningly captures his family’s hearts. Soon Colin fears that if he lets his guard down for even a moment, he might find his own heart held hostage as well…

  Snowed in together at empty, crumbling Greystone Castle, an earl and a common girl can’t help surrendering to desire. But when the dream is over and reality catches up with them, can they find a way to make their two worlds one?

  MORE CHASE FAMILY BOOKS

  CHASE FAMILY SERIES

  When an Earl Meets a Girl

  How to Undress a Marquess

  If You Dared to Love a Laird

  A Duke’s Guide to Seducing His Bride

  Never Doubt a Viscount

  The Scandal of Lord Randal

  A Gentleman’s Plot to Tie the Knot

  A Secret Christmas

  A Chase Family Christmas

  * * *

  CHASE FAMILY SERIES: THE REGENCY

  Tempt Me at Midnight

  Tempting Juliana

  The Art of Temptation

  A MESSAGE FROM LAUREN…

  I LOVE TO KEEP in touch with my readers! Please join my email newsletter to receive new release bulletins and handpicked free and 99¢ book recommendations.

  I’d also be thrilled to see you in my Readers Group on Facebook, where my daughter Devon and I share sneak peeks and gather suggestions from our favorite readers—our honorary Chase cousins. And just for joining, we’ll send you a gift: a free copy of our historical cookbook!

  I so hope you’ll enjoy Colin and Amy’s story.

  Happy reading!

  CHASE FAMILY TREE

  To see a larger version of the Chase Family Tree, click here!

  For my husband, Jack,

  because I couldn't write about true love

  if he hadn't shown me what it means

  PROLOGUE

  London

  April 22, 1661

  THE LAST TIME Amethyst Goldsmith saw her king, she was five years old and he was about to have his head severed from his body. Now, twelve years later, she sincerely hoped his son would have better luck.

  She shouldered her way through the crowd, her parents and aunt murmuring apologies in her wake. “Here, there’s room!” Finally reaching a few bare inches of rail, she clasped it with both hands and turned to flash them a victorious smile. “Come along, it’s starting!”

  Hugh and Edith Goldsmith joined her, shaking their heads at their daughter’s tenacity. Hugh’s sister Elizabeth squeezed in behind. Ignoring the grumbling of displaced spectators, Amy spread her feet wide to save more room at the front. “Robert, over here!”

  Robert Stanley tugged on her long black plait as he wedged himself in beside her. She shot him a grin; he was fun. Although he’d arrived just last week to train as her father’s apprentice, Amy had known for years that she was to marry him. So far they seemed to be compatible, although he’d been surprised to find she was far more skilled as a jeweler than he. Surprised and none too pleased, Amy suspected. But he would get over those feelings.

  She might be female, but her talent was a God-given gift, and she’d never in this lifetime give up her craft. Robert would have to learn to accept that.

  With a sigh of pleasure, Amy shuffled her shoes on the scrubbed cobblestones. “Look, Mama! Everything is so clean and glorious.” She breathed deep of the fresh air, blinking against the bright sun. “The rain has stopped…even the weather is welcoming the monarchy back to England! Have you ever seen so many people? All London must be here.”

  “These cannot all be Londoners.” Her mother waved a hand, encompassing the crowds on the rooftops, the mobbed windows and overflowing balconies. “I think many have come in from the countryside.”

  A handful of tossed rose petals drifted down, landing on Amy’s dark head like scented snowflakes. She shook them off, laughing. “Just look at all the tapestries and banners!”

  “Just look at all that wasted wine,” Robert muttered, with a nod toward the fragrant red river that ran through the open conduit in the street.

  Amy opened her mouth to protest, then decided he must be fooling. “Marry come up, Robert! You must be pleased King Charles will be crowned tomorrow. Twelve years of Cromwell’s rule was enough. Now we have music and dancing again.” She felt like dancing, like spreading her burgundy satin skirts and twirling in a circle, but the press of the crowd made such a maneuver impossible, so she settled for bobbing a little curtsy. “We’ve beautiful clothes, and the theater—”

  “And drinking and cards and dice,” Robert added.

  “That too,” Amy agreed, turning back to ogle the mounted queue of nobility parading their way from the Tower to Whitehall Palace. Such jewels and feathers and lace! Toying with the looped ribbons adorning her new gown, she pressed harder against the rail, wishing she too could join the procession.

  “Where did they possibly find so many ostrich feathers in all of England?” she wondered aloud, then burst into giggles.

  Her aunt laughed and wrapped an affectionate arm around her shoulders. “Where do you find the energy, child? You must come to Paris. Uncle William and I could use your happy smiles.”

  Feeling a stab of sympathy, Amy hugged her around the waist. Aunt Elizabeth had lost her three children to smallpox last year.

  “We need her artistry here,” Amy’s father protested, poking his sister good-naturedly. “Your shop will have to do without.”

  “Ah, Hugh, how selfish you are!” Aunt Elizabeth chided. “Hoarding my niece’s talent for your own profit.” She aimed a mischievous smile at her brother. “No wonder we moved to France to escape the competition.”

  Amy grinned. Aunt Elizabeth and Uncle William had been forced to move their shop when business fell off during the Commonwealth years. But they’d flourished in Paris, becoming jewelers to the French court, and wouldn’t
think of returning now.

  “I’m glad you came for the coronation, Aunty. It wouldn’t be the same without you.”

  “I wouldn’t have missed it,” Elizabeth declared. “Old Noll drove me out of England, so my home is elsewhere now. But it’s God’s own truth that no one here is happier than I.”

  “Listen!” Amy cried. A joyous roar rolled westward toward them, marking the slow passage of His Majesty in the middle of the procession. “Can you hear King Charles coming? There are his attendants!” The noise swelled as the king’s footguards marched by, their plumes of red and white feathers contrasting with those of his brother, the Duke of York, whose guard was decked out in black and white.

  All at once, the roar was deafening. Amy grasped her mother’s hand. “It’s him, Mama,” she whispered. “King Charles II.” Glittering in the sunshine, the Horse of State caught and held her gaze. “Oh, look at the embroidered saddle, the pearls and rubies—look at our diamonds!”

  Amy didn’t care for horses—she was terrified of them, truth be told—so she paid no attention to the magnificent beast himself. But three hundred of her family’s diamonds sparkled on the gold stirrups and bosses, among the twelve thousand lent for the occasion.

  “Oh, Papa,” she breathed, “I wish we could have designed that saddle.”

  Aunt Elizabeth’s hand suddenly tightened on Amy’s shoulder. “Charles is looking at me,” she declared loudly.

  Amy’s father snorted. “Always the flirt, sister mine.”

  Amy’s gaze flew from the dazzling horse to its rider. Smiling broadly beneath his thin mustache, the tall king waved to the crowd. His cloth-of-silver suit peeked from beneath ermine-lined crimson robes. Rubies and sapphires winked from gold shoe buckles and matching gold garters, festooned with great poufs of silver ribbon. Long, shining black curls draped over his chest, framing a face that appeared older than his thirty years; the result, Amy supposed, of having suffered through exile and the execution of his beloved father.

  But his black eyes were quick and sparkling—and more than a little sensual. Some women around Amy swooned, but she just stared, willing the king to look at her.

  When he did, she flashed him a radiant smile. “No, Aunty, he’s looking at me.”

  Before her family even stopped laughing, the king was gone, as suddenly as he had arrived. But the spectacle wasn’t over. Behind him came a camel with brocaded panniers and an East Indian boy flinging pearls and spices into the crowd. And then more lords and ladies, more glittering costumes, more decorated stallions, more men-at-arms, all bedecked in gold and silver and the costliest of gems.

  Yet none of it mattered to Amy, for there was a nobleman riding her way.

  It wasn’t the richness of his clothing that caught her eye, for in truth his garb was rather plain. His black velvet suit was trimmed with naught but gold braid; his wide-brimmed hat boasted only a single white plume. He wore no fancy crimped periwig; instead his own raven hair fell in gleaming waves to his shoulders.

  Deep emerald eyes bore into Amy’s, singling her out as he angled his horse in her direction. His glossy black gelding breathed close, but she felt no fear, for the man held her safe with his piercing green gaze. It seemed as though he could see through her eyes right into her soul. Her cheeks flamed; never in her almost-seventeen years had a man looked at her like that.

  He tipped his plumed hat. Flustered, she turned and glanced about, certain he must be saluting someone else. But everyone was laughing and talking or watching the procession; no one focused their attention his way. She looked back, and he grinned as he passed, a devastating slash of white that made Amy melt inside.

  Long after he rode out of sight around the bend, she stared to where he had disappeared.

  “Amy?” Robert tugged on her hand.

  She turned and gazed into his eyes: pale blue, not green. They didn’t make her melt inside, didn’t make her feel anything.

  Robert smiled, revealing teeth that overlapped a bit. She hadn’t really noticed that before. “It’s over,” he said.

  “Oh.”

  The sun set as they walked home to Cheapside, skirting merrymakers in the streets. Her father paused to unlock their door. Overhead, a wooden sign swung gently in the breeze. A nearby bonfire illuminated the image of a falcon and the gilt letters that proclaimed their shop Goldsmith & Sons, Jewellers.

  There came a sudden brilliant flash and a stunned “Ooooh” from the crowd, as fireworks lit the sky. Amy dashed through the shop and up the stairs to their balcony.

  Gazing toward the River Thames, she watched the great fiery streaks of light, heard the soaring rockets, smelled the sulfur in the air. It was the most spectacular display England had ever seen, and the sights and sounds filled her with a wondrous feeling.

  If only life could be as exhilarating as a fireworks show.

  When the last glittering tendril faded away, she listened to the fragments of song and rowdy laughter that filled the night air. Couples strolled by, arm in arm. Robert stepped onto the balcony and moved close.

  His voice was quiet beside her. “This is a day I’ll never forget.”

  “I’ll never forget it, either,” she said, thinking of the man on the black steed, the man with the emerald eyes.

  Robert tilted her face up, bending his head to place a soft, chaste kiss on her lips. It was their first kiss; she was supposed to feel fireworks.

  But she felt nothing.

  ONE

  Five years later

  August 24, 1666

  “ARE YOU TELLING me you made this bracelet? A girl? This shop is Goldsmith & Sons, is it not?” Robert Stanley puckered his freckled face and made his voice high and wavering. “Where are the sons?”

  From where she stood by the stone oven, Amethyst Goldsmith’s laughter rang through the workshop. “Lady Smythe! A perfect imitation.”

  “Well done, Robert.” Her father smiled as he brushed past them both and through the archway into the shop’s showroom.

  Robert’s pale blue eyes twinkled, but he stayed in character, cupping a hand to his ear. “Imitation? Imitation, did you say? I was led to believe this was a quality jewelry shop, madame. I expect genuine —”

  “Stop!” Amy fought to control her giggles. “You’ll make me slip and scald myself.”

  Robert’s gaze fell to Amy’s hands. As he watched her pour a thin stream of molten gold into a plaster mold, his expression sobered. “I like Lady Smythe,” he muttered. “At least she buys the things I make.”

  “Oh, Robert.” She sighed. “Why should it matter who made something, as long as we’re selling a piece?”

  “I’m a good goldsmith.”

  “You’re an excellent goldsmith,” Amy agreed. Although she also thought he was a bit unimaginative, she kept that to herself. “What does that have to do with anything?”