Excerpt of Heartless by Kat Martin

Chapter One

Surrey, England, 1800

Oh, if I could only be like you. Crouched behind the
hedgerows along the lane that led to magnificent Greville
Hall, Ariel Summers watched the ornate black carriage roll
past, the top down, the earl's gilded crest gleaming on
the door. Seated on red velvet squabs, his daughter, Lady
Barbara Ross, and her companions laughed as if they hadn't
a care in the world.

Ariel stared at them with longing, imagining what it
might be like to dress in such beautiful clothes, gowns
fashioned of the finest silk, in shades of pink, lavender,
and an almost iridescent green—each with a small matching
parasol.

Someday, she thought wistfully.

If she closed her eyes, she could imagine herself in a
gown of shimmering gold, her pale blond hair swept up in
dazzling curls, her slender feet encased in matching kid
slippers. Someday I'll have a carriage of my own, she
vowed, and a different gown for every single day of the
week.

But it wouldn't happen today, she knew, giving up a
dispirited sigh, nor anytime in the foreseeable future.

Turning away from the disappearing carriage, she
lifted her coarse brown skirts above her sturdy shoes and
raced back toward the cottage. She should have been home
an hour ago. Her father would be furious if he found out
what she had been doing. She prayed he was out in the
fields.

Instead, when she lifted the leather curtain that
served as the door of the cottage, Whitby Summers was
waiting. Ariel gasped as her fatherpainfully gripped her
arm and slammed her against the rough-textured wattle-and-
daub wall. Forcing herself to look into his puffy, florid
face, she flinched as his big hand cracked across her
cheek.

"I told ye not to dawdle. I said for ye to deliver
that mendin' and get hack here as quick as ye could. What
were ye doin'? Gawking at the ladies in their fancy
carriage? Ye was daydreamin' like ye always do—wasn't ye?
Wishin' for somethin' yet never gonna have. It's time ye
faced the truth, gel. Yet nothin' but a cottager's
daughter and that's all ye ever will be. Now get yerself
out in those fields."

Ariel didn't argue, just ducked away from the fury she
read in her father's flushed face. Outside the cottage,
she dragged in a shaky breath and shoved her pale blond
braid back over her shoulder. Her cheek still burned from
her father's painful slap, but it had been worth it.

As she hurried across the dusty earth toward the
vegetable garden, her apron flying up in the wind, Ariel
stubbornly set her chin. No matter what her father said,
someday she would be a lady. Whit Summers wasn't one of
those fortune-tellers she had seen last year at the fair.
He couldn't see into the future—especially not her future.
She would make a better life for herself, escape the
dreary existence she now lived. Her destiny was her own,
and somewhere beyond her father's dismal patch of ground
she would find it.

For now, with her mother long dead, Ariel worked from
dusk till dawn. She swept the earthen floor of their two-
room cottage and cooked the meager fare that was all the
small rented plot of ground could provide, gathered
potatoes, pulled turnips, worked at hoeing and weeding the
vegetable garden, and helped her father in the wheat
fields.

It was a dreary, backbreaking, endlessly dull
existence that she intended to escape. Ariel vowed it with
every ounce of her being.

And she had a plan.

As he did once each month, Edmund Ross, Fourth Earl of
Greville, spent the day inspecting his fields and checking
on his tenants. It was hotter than usual today, the sun a
scorching white orb burning down across the earth and
baking the rotted roads to the consistency of granite. He
usually preferred riding one of his blooded stallions, but
today, with the weather so warm, he took his light phaeton
instead, hoping the top would provide a bit of shade.

He leaned back against the tufted leather seat,
grateful for the slight breeze blowing in from the north.
At forty-five, with his olive skin and silver-tinged wavy
black hair, he was still an attractive man, especially
popular with the ladies. In his youth, he'd had more than
his share—as heir to an earldom he could pick and choose.
But as he'd grown older, his tastes had subtly changed.
Now, instead of the skills of a practiced lover, he
preferred the tenderness and exuberance of youth.

Edmund thought of his current mistress, Delilah Cheek.
the young woman he kept in London. Delilah was the
daughter of an actress he'd once known in the biblical
sense. He had been sleeping with Delilah for over a year,
and her young, tender body still excited him. Just
thinking of her small, firm breasts and long coppery hair
made him hard. At sixteen, when he had first taken her,
the girl had been a virgin. Since then, he had taught her
well how to please him.

Still, she was reaching her maturity, her body
ripening past the slender, almost boyish curves that
enticed him, and soon he would grow tired of her. He would
yearn for the youth and beauty of an innocent, the way he
always did.

God's breath, it was a troublesome predilection.

His mind slipped backward to the days of his youth,
and a foul word hovered on his breath. He'd been wed at
nineteen, an arranged marriage that had produced only
bitter memories of a cowering, frigid wife, long dead now,
and a beautiful but worthless daughter, not the son and
heir he needed.

Of course there was his bastard son, Justin, that
spawn of the devil he had sired with Isobel Bedford, the
daughter of a local squire. Isobel had been wild and
beautiful, as reckless and hedonistic as he. He might not
have believed the boy was his, but the physical
resemblance—and the enmity between them—was irrefutable
proof of the deed.

As the phaeton turned down the dirt lane that led to
his tenant, Whitby Summers's, cottage, Edmund's thoughts
swung briefly to Delilah and how he would use her young
body when he returned to the city. But at the sight of
Whit's fair-haired daughter, just turned fourteen, his
interest focused in a different direction. Ariel was tall
for her age, her body reed slender, not yet budding into
womanhood. Still the signs were all there. With her long
flaxen curls, big china blue eyes, soft, how-shaped mouth,
and heart-shaped face, the girl was destined to be a
beauty.

When he came to visit, he was unfailingly kind to her.
She wasn't ripe enough to suit him yet, but Edmund always
liked to keep the doors to opportunity open.

Ariel watched the earl's sleek black phaeton roll up in
front of the house. She had known he was coming. The earl
always came to visit on the same day of the month.

Checking her appearance, she smoothed her plain blue
skirt and clean white blouse, freshly washed last night
for the occasion. Unconsciously she rubbed the welt on her
thigh where her father had taken a switch to her. She'd
been flirting with Jack Dobbs, the cooper's youngest son,
he had said. It wasn't the auth. Jack Dobbs was over-the-
top for Betsy Sills, the butcher's daughter, Ariel's best
friend, but when Whit Summers had been drinking, as he was
last night, the truth didn't matter.

And in a strange way, Ariel was glad it had happened.
It was the final nudge she needed to set her long-thought-
out plan into motion.

The carriage robed up in a swarm of dust. The earl set
the brake and jumped down. He was handsome, she supposed,
with the silver in his thick black hair and those odd gray
eyes, at least for a man of his aging years.

"Mornin', milord," she said, making him a deep,
respectful curtsy. She had been practicing for days and
was pleased as she executed the difficult maneuver that
she didn't lose her balance.

"Indeed it is a fine morning, Miss Summers." His eyes
ran over her in that admiring way he had. It made her feel
like a woman instead of just a girl. "Where is your father
this fine day?"

"He had an errand to run in the village. He musta
forgot you was comin'." And Ariel hadn't bothered to
remind him. She had wanted him gone so she could talk to
the earl alone.

"I'm sorry I missed him, but I suppose it doesn't
matter." He glanced out across the fields, his expression
warm with approval. "I can see the crop is faring well. If
the weather stays good, you ought to bring in a very good
harvest this year."

"I'm sure we will." The earl turned away from her,
started back toward his carriage, but Ariel caught his
arm. "Excuse me, milord, but there's somethin' I been
wantin' to talk to you about."

He smiled as he turned to face her. "Of course, my
dear. What is it?"

"Do you ... do you think I'm pretty?" She thought that
he did, since he always seemed to stare at her in that
strange, assessing way, but still she held her breath. Her
plan was doomed to fail if the answer was no.

A slow, appreciative smile curved his lips. He studied
the shape of her mouth and the line of her jaw, let his
eyes drift down to her breasts. She wished they were round
and full like Betsy's.

"You're very pretty, Ariel."

"Do ... do you think a man ... someone like
yerself ... do you think—in a few years, I mean—that a man
like you might be interested in a girl like me?"

Lord Greville frowned. "There are different kinds of
interest, Ariel. You and I are not from the same social
circles, but that doesn't mean I wouldn't find you
attractive. I believe—in a few years' time—you'll grow
into a beautiful young woman."

Her heart kicked up with hope. "If that is so, I was
wonderin' ... I've heard stones, milord ... about the
ladies you keep in London."

The frown reappeared, mixed with a look she couldn't
quite read. "Exactly what sort of stories have you heard,
my dear?"

"Oh, nothin' bad, milord," she hastened to assure
him. "Just about the girls ... that you treat 'em real
good and buy 'em pretty dresses and all."

He didn't ask where she'd heard the tales. It was
common knowledge in the village that over the years the
earl had kept a number of young women as his mistresses.

"What exactly are you asking me, Ariel?"

"I was hopin' maybe you and me could make some sorta
bargain."

"What sort of bargain?"

It all rushed out in a single long breath, as if a dam
had suddenly broken. "I wanna be a lady, milord—more than
anything in the world. I want to learn to read and write.
I wanna learn to speak right and wear pretty clothes—and
put up me hair." She swept the long mass up on her head to
demonstrate her words. When she released it, it tumbled
back down past her waist. "If you would send me to school
so's I could learn all those firings ... if I could go to
one of those fancy finishin' schools where they teach you
to be a lady, then I'd be willin' to be one of yer girls."

She watched the surprise in his eyes turn to
speculation, rather an unholy gleam; she thought, and felt
the first faint stirrings of trepidation.

"You want me to pay for your education—is that what
you're saying?"

"Aye, milord."

"And in return, you would be willing to become my
mistress."

She swallowed. "Aye."

"Do you understand what that word means?"

A beet red flush stole into her cheeks, as she knew it
meant sleeping in the same bed with the man. What else it
might entail she wasn't completely sure, but it didn't
really matter. She was willing to pay whatever price it
took to escape her father and her wretched life on the
farm. "Mostly, milord."

He studied her again, his pale eyes raking her from
head to foot. She felt as if he were stripping away her
clothes piece by piece, felt the ridiculous urge to fling
her arms up to cover herself. Instead, she endured his
scrutiny and stoically lifted her chin.

"That's a very interesting proposal," he said. "There
is your father to consider, of course, but knowing him as
I do, perhaps something might be arranged that he would
find satisfactory." He reached down and caught her chin,
turned her face from side to side, studying the hollows
beneath her cheekbones, the slight indentation in her
chin. He traced a finger over the curve of her lips, then
nodded as if in approval.

"Yes ... an interesting proposal indeed. You shall
hear from me soon, my dear Ariel. Until then, I suggest
you keep this conversation between the two of us."

"Aye, milord. That I will." She watched him climb into
his carriage, watched him slap the reins against the backs
of his glossy black horses. Her heart was beating
fiercely, her palms slightly damp.

Excitement pumped through her, the knowledge that her
plan might actually succeed. Uncertainty followed close on
its heels. Ariel couldn't help fearing that in return for
the chance at a better life she might have just traded her
soul.