Earl on fire, p.1
Earl on Fire, page 1
Praise for Earl on Fire
I have read Earl on Fire and was utterly enchanted. It is a story with real substance and many unexpected twists and turns, all of which contribute to the superb character revelation of the hero and heroine . . . . Best of all, the love story is real and gritty and glorious.
— Mary Balogh, author of The Bedwyn Saga
This book isn't just some kind of perfection; it is many kinds of perfection. Gorgeous prose, wonderful characters, blazing chemistry, deeply felt connection. I was thoroughly carried away. It is a beautiful fairy tale for grown-ups, for people who understand that the power of a fairy tale comes from its unflinching acknowledgement of life's heartbreak and injustice--and its still-wholehearted embrace of the possibility of growth, redemption, and happiness. You will find all that in here, and you will love every compact second of it.
— Sherry Thomas, author of The Luckiest Lady in London and The Lady Sherlock Series
Praise for Felicity Niven
Felicity Niven’s writing is sharp and exquisite.
— Julia Quinn, author of Bridgerton
With her complicated and lovable characters, achingly tender love stories, and scorching steam, Felicity Niven has quickly become one of my all-time favorite authors.
— Alexandra Vasti, author of The Halifax Hellions and Ladies in Hating
Anything Felicity Niven writes is a joy to read.
— Elizabeth Everett, author of A Lady’s Formula for Love
Niven is a masterful storyteller, deftly weaving beautifully drawn characters with taut, witty prose. A sensational new voice in historical romance.
— Erin Langston, author of Forever Your Rogue and The Finest Print
Earl on Fire
Henry Delamere, the seventh Earl of Ashthorpe, has built an impossibly thick wall of ice around his heart, and only his granddaughter can thaw it. He’d do anything for Mina, but she just wants two things—a new storybook and a new grandmama. Henry can’t see why either should be too hard to acquire.
Miss Susannah Beasley has no idea where the years have gone. Wasn’t it just yesterday she was a girl dancing on the green with her sweetheart? True, that fellow married another long ago, and Susannah only sees a gray-haired old woman when she looks in the glass. But her flame still burns brightly.
When the frosty Henry Delamere comes to Susannah’s village in search of a mysterious author, the friction between them makes that flame glow, flare high, become a torch. Is it a signal? A guiding light? Or will the spark of their passion set her whole life ablaze?
Susannah wants a blaze. A bonfire. An inferno. But Henry's past—and hers—could turn everything to ash.
Can she find the fuel to light her earl on fire?
Earl on Fire
Felicity Niven
Bletherskite Books
Copyright © 2026 by Felicity Niven
Publisher: Bletherskite Books, PO Box 450824, Atlanta, GA 31145
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
NO AI TRAINING: Without in any way limiting the author’s exclusive rights under copyright, any use of this publication to “train” generative artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to generate text is expressly prohibited. The author reserves all rights to license uses of this work for generative AI training and development of machine learning language models.
No generative AI was used in the writing or production of this book, including its cover.
The characters and the events in this story are fictitious.
Content warnings and notes are located at the end of the book as well as on the author’s website:
www.felicityniven.com/ContentNotes
To Alexandra Gall
reader, friend, dreamer
Contents
Prologue
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
First Epilogue
Content Warnings
Author’s Notes
Acknowledgments
Also by Felicity Niven
About the Author
Prologue
The king had always known he was dust and unto dust he would return, but he had never prepared himself for the possibility that one of his sons might turn to dust before he did.
— The Concubine and Her King. Unpublished MS.
It was a mark of the degree of estrangement between him and his offspring that Henry Charles William Delamere, the seventh Earl of Ashthorpe, did not learn he had a granddaughter until a week after his son’s death.
He first heard the news while sitting behind his desk, the same desk where his brother and his father and his grandfather and his great-grandfather et sic in infinitum had sat and where his eldest son would now never sit. Henry sat behind the slab of English oak, darkened by time and layers of varnish, and listened to the man who had just arrived from London claiming to be Hal’s solicitor.
Rather, he pretended to listen.
Everything had become pretense in the last week. Henry went through the motions of being Ashthorpe and all that that entailed, but the underpinnings of his entire life—those sturdy, unassailable virtues of honor, duty, and order—had suddenly revealed themselves to be as flimsy as the neck of a young viscount thrown from a curricle.
“—the late Lord Delamere had the foresight to arrange an annuity for the child and the child’s mother. Given that—”
The word caught Henry’s attention, pierced through his grief, dispersed a phantom battlefield and its odors of exploded saltpeter and spilled blood.
“Child.” It came out as a bark.
“My lord?”
Henry raised his chin. “Mister . . .” He could not remember the name of the man speaking to him from the other side of the desk.
“Crompton.”
“Mr. Crompton, you claim my son fathered a child.”
The solicitor’s nostrils flared. “I claim nothing, my lord, save that I drew up a will as per your late son’s specifications. A will he signed in the presence of witnesses. Since your second son, the new Lord Delamere, has not yet reached his majority, you are the executor, and, as such, it was incumbent—”
“Where—” Henry needed a moment to draw breath, slow speech, quiet the row-dow-dow that had erupted in his chest. “Tell me where the child and the child’s mother can be found.”
“I—” Mr. Crompton touched the knot of his cravat, licked his lips. “You are not aware? I thought you had been told. Miss Kirby was with your son when he perished. Like him, she was thrown from the carriage, and her injuries— She also, she—”
The earl gritted his teeth. “Died.”
“Yes.”
He had to know. “And what of the child?”
“The girl was also in the carriage—”
No, no, no. Henry could not hear this. He could not bear it. He would crack in two.
“—foundling hospital, but, because of the annuity from your son, she might have a pleasant home with a good family and eventually marry well since the annuity provides for a generous dowry—”
Another man, a different man, would have sprung over the desk and seized the solicitor’s lapels and shouted questions at him, but Henry only said, “She lives,” and, when an affirmation did not come as quickly as he would have liked, “You say the child lives,” with slightly greater force.
“Yes, she lives.”
“She is unhurt?” He was on his feet, finally betraying himself. “She is well?”
A fleck of moisture appeared on the solicitor’s cheek. Henry had sprayed his spittle on the man, but, to his credit, Mr. Crompton had not recoiled. He met the earl’s eyes bravely.
“Yes, she is well.”
Well.
Henry brought out a handkerchief and extended it over the desk. The man hesitated but then nodded and accepted the square of linen and dabbed at his face.
Henry turned and strode to a window and looked out, unseeing.
“The child’s name.”
“Wilhelmina Kirby, my lord.”
Wilhelmina. It would be a mistake to attach any importance to the name, to think it significant that his own name was Henry Charles William Delamere and his first son had also been Henry and his second son was Charles and his first grandchild bore a feminine form of his third name. The girl’s name would have been chosen by her mother, not by his son. The name was mere happenstance.
“Her age.”
The sound of papers being shuffled. “Two years, my lord.”
Two years.
“Her mother was my son’s mistress for some time.” Henry spoke the words slowly, as if he were testing the notion by saying it aloud. He had never doubted that his handsome, hale son had known pleasure with women before his death, but perhaps Hal had also known something more, something Henry nev er had.
“Yes,” Mr. Crompton answered although the earl had asked no question. “Miss Louisa Kirby. You might have heard of her? She was an actress.”
Henry shook his head. He had not been to the theater in the last twenty years. Worse, he had not spoken to Hal in the last four. Neither of his sons had wanted anything to do with him after their mother’s death.
The sun came out from behind a cloud, and a beam struck the window. Henry closed his eyes. The light warmed his face and turned the insides of his eyelids a golden-pink-orange.
“The family of Miss Kirby are making no claims on the child.” He willed it to be true.
“My lord, it is my understanding that Miss Kirby was quite alone in the world.”
Quite alone. Until she and Hal made a child. Who was now quite alone in the world, too.
No, Lord Ashthorpe refused to sit and wait in the visitors’ parlor of the foundling hospital. He would be taken to his granddaughter immediately. The earl was armed for battle, issuing orders that would brook no delay. He had not been a colonel in the 53rd Regiment of Foot for nothing.
He recognized her before she was pointed out to him. She stood in a corner of the nursery, her thumb in her mouth, watching the other children. Her brown hair and eyes must have come from her mother since the Delameres were all fair-haired and blue-eyed going back several centuries, but the dimple in her chin, the set of her ears, the broad span of her forehead were pure Hal, his beautiful boy turned dead man, rotting away in the Delamere mausoleum.
The director of the hospital said something, and one of the nurses went and took the girl by the hand and led her to Henry.
The nurse curtsied. “My lord.”
A pair of nut-brown eyes stared up at him. A pair of round cheeks sucked away at her thumb. A shiny upper lip indicated a cold or recent tears.
“Good afternoon, Wilhelmina,” Henry said.
Head tilted back, she stared, she sucked.
He stared back.
They were at a nonplus.
God almighty, this won’t do. He descended into a crouch, his knees creaking. When his face came even with hers, he said, “I am your grandfather.”
The brown eyes blinked.
“Your father’s father.”
The cheeks sucked.
“Will you not greet me, Wilhelmina?”
The thumb came out of her mouth. “Mina,” she said. The thumb returned to her mouth.
She had spoken to him, given him her name. It was a minor victory, but one deserving of fanfare and parades, so great was his relief.
“Yes. Mina. You’re going to come and live with me in a big house in the country.”
The thumb came out. “Mama?”
Henry looked up at the nurse. She bobbed another curtsy and said, “The girl has been told her mother and father are dead, my lord.”
The earl approved. Unadorned truth was best, but a little one such as Mina would not understand the permanence of death. She would still expect her mother to be waiting for her around the next corner.
Henry searched his mind for what to say. Finally, like many a hapless man before him, he resorted to bribery.
“You like sweeties.”
Mina nodded.
“I will take you to get some sweeties.” He stood, ignoring the groan of his joints, and addressed the nurse. “Gather the child’s things so that I might take them away with her.”
“Things?” The startled nurse gave yet another curtsy. “She has only this dress and her shoes, my lord.”
No one had thought to fetch the girl’s belongings. Even he—the most neglectful, the most remote, the coldest father who had ever lived, according to his late wife—knew his sons had been attached to their playthings. Hal had slept for years with his little wooden horse. Charles had nearly worn out the bindings on his favorite books. Mina surely had some beloved dollies that would have comforted her since her mother never would again.
And she had been in the same clothes since the carriage accident. That rusty stain on her frock might be his son’s blood.
Mina wrenched her hand away from the nurse and stepped up to Henry and pulled on the tassel of his boot. The thumb popped out.
“Sweeties,” she said. “Cakes.”
“Yes, sweeties,” he agreed. “And cakes. As many as you like.”
She reached up to him, and he bent over and picked her up.
He now had an armful of warm, unwashed child. Her arm hooked around his neck. The pale, wrinkled thumb went back into her mouth. Her head bobbled about loosely for a few seconds before it fell against his shoulder.
He turned his face into his granddaughter’s curls and took in a great lungful of her scent. She smelled of porridge and tears and skinned knees and scalded milk.
She stank of redemption.
One
“He fears you,” the concubine said to the king.
Her soft fingers glided over his flesh, lingered on the muscle in his sword arm. The king sank back into the perfumed water of his bath and closed his eyes. She knew nothing of sons and fathers.
“He fears himself,” he said. “As he should.”
— The Concubine and Her King. Unpublished MS.
Henry dipped his pen into the ink and wrote Charles at the top of a piece of foolscap.
In the three years since Mina had come to live at Bledsoe Park, Henry had written over a hundred letters to his son and heir. In return, the earl had received eleven letters from Charles’ solicitor, the same one Charles’ late brother had once retained. Shortly before quarter day, like clockwork, Mr. Crompton would send a request for money, and Henry would, without delay, write to his own banker in London and arrange a transfer of funds.
Of course, he had thought of withholding the money as a means to force Charles to return from the Continent, to come and speak to his father. But he hadn’t. Henry might be the villain in his own son’s life, but he was determined to be a just villain. Ashthorpe’s coffers were full only because of Diana, and she would have wanted her money to go to her son.
Besides, extortion would never lead to affection.
So Henry made no demands in his letters to Charles. Instead, he penned dry accounts of estate affairs. The new drainage ditches. The increase in rents. The thatching of a cottage here, a stile repaired there.
It was his feeble attempt to give his son lessons in how to be Ashthorpe. Like Charles, Henry had been a second son, and, despite his time in the army as a leader of men, he had very much felt his lack of preparation when he had become earl after catarrhal fever had swept through the countryside, killing his older brother and his brother’s infant son in the same week.
Henry did not want Charles ever to feel as adrift as he had in his first months as earl. He had made so many terrible decisions back then, not the least of which was marrying Charles’ mother.
But if Henry hadn’t married Diana, there would be no Charles. No Hal. No Mina. That was unthinkable.
Alongside the estate business, Henry would sometimes include a few words about Mina in his letters to Charles. How tall she had grown. How she liked to play bowls. How she thought she might like a pony if it were well-mannered and didn’t go at too fast a pace.
Pen still hovering over the foolscap, he rubbed his jaw with the soft end of the quill.
Perhaps he should write to Charles about how Mina had developed an appreciation—no, an adoration—for the Tommy Treadwell storybooks. A year ago, she had found the battered volumes of The Tales of Tommy Treadwell and The Further Adventures of Tommy Treadwell in a chest in the nursery, and now Henry had read them to her so many times, they both had all the words off by heart. Tommy’s books had also been favorites for Charles. Or had it been Hal who loved Tommy? No, no. It had been Charles.
“Grandfather.”
He looked up from his unwritten letter and saw damp, dark curls, a broad forehead, a pair of eyes peeking over the top of the desk.
“The big hand is on the six, and the little hand is between the three and the four.”
