The Viscount's Kiss (6 page)

Once she caught Lord Bromwell's eye and gave her companion-in-captivity a sympathetic smile, but that proved to be something of a mistake, for his eyes brightened and his full lips began to lift, instantly reminding her that he was a very attractive man who kissed with passionate, consummate skill.

Blushing yet again, ashamed yet again of her wayward, lascivious thoughts, she turned her attention back to the boastful earl, who had now moved on to the subject of the renovations to his estate and his hall.

“The very finest situation in the county since I've rebuilt
the house,” the voluble earl noted, as if he'd personally laid every brick. “The gardens were designed by Humphrey Repton. Cost a fortune, but worth every penny, I think you'll agree.

“Nothing but the best for the earls of Granshire and their heirs, my lady. Yes, it'll be a lucky young woman who marries my son, provided he can be persuaded to stop gallivanting all over the world after those insects.”

“As I've explained to you before, Father,” Lord Bromwell said with an air of long-suffering patience, “spiders are not insects.”

“All right, spiders,” the earl said. “Disagreeable things they are, too.”

Lord Bromwell opened his mouth, then closed it again and gazed silently out the window.

“While they can be a little unnerving up close,” Nell said, coming to their defence for his sake, “I understand most of them are harmless—and I'd rather come upon a spider than a wasp.”

She had her reward when Lord Bromwell looked at her as if she'd just announced she was Mother Nature and going to provide him with a sample of every spider in existence.

His father's expression was only slightly less impressed. “So, you like spiders, my lady?”

While she was happy to help Lord Bromwell, or at least defend his interest, there was a significance in his father's look and manner that was all too easy to understand, and that ought to be nipped in the bud.

“I can't say I like them as much as your son,” she admitted with a bland smile, “but I suppose most people don't like them as much as your son.”

“No, they do not,” the earl replied, as if Lord Bromwell
wasn't there. “He'd spend hours staring at them spinning webs in the stable or outbuildings when he was a boy. His mother and I thought he'd ruin his eyes.”

“Obviously he didn't,” she said.

“And then he just about gets himself killed sailing off around the world looking for bu…spiders.”

“As I've also explained, Father,” Lord Bromwell said, and it was clear his patience was wearing thin, “there are things to be learned from nature and I want—”

His father waved his hand dismissively. “I'm not saying discovery isn't all well and good, but leave it to those better suited to such deprivations, I say.”

Lord Bromwell's ears turned red. “Perhaps we can discuss this later, Father. In private.”

The earl once more addressed Nell rather than his son. “He's no doubt going to try to convince me to give him more money for his next expedition. We'll just have to try to persuade him to stay in England, though, won't we, my dear?”

As if she could
, she thought.

And now, having met his father, she could more easily understand why Lord Bromwell might want to sail to the far ends of the earth.

“Father, why don't you tell Lady Eleanor about the grotto?” Lord Bromwell suggested.

“Ah, yes, the grotto!” the earl exclaimed. “The latest thing, you see. Very charming and rustic. I've got a hermit, too. You'll have to go and see him. Plays the pipes. Infernal noise, really, but very picturesque.”

Nell glanced at Lord Bromwell, who was looking out the window the way a prisoner in a dank cell might gaze at the sky through the bars, longing for freedom.

“I suppose, Lord Bromwell, that spiders like the grotto?”

With the suggestion of a smile on his face, he turned to address her. “As a matter of fact—”

“Spare us another lecture, my son,” the earl said as the coach turned off the main road and down a long, sweeping drive. “We aren't the Royal Society—and soon you shall see something worth talking about, my lady.”

Lord Bromwell wasn't the only occupant of the coach whose patience was wearing thin. “Many people are talking about your son's book, my lord.”

Instead of looking proud or pleased, Lord Granshire frowned darkly. “Some parts of it anyway. Have you read it?”

“I'm sorry to say I have not.”

“Nor should you. Why Bromwell put in that nonsense about those savages—”

“
Those savages
are in some ways more civilized and humane than many a supposed gentleman I could name,” Lord Bromwell snapped, his tone so brusque and sharp, it was like a slap—something he seemed to realize at once. “Forgive me, my lady, but I fear too many ig—too many people have made similar comments, and I feel I must speak up for the maligned native peoples. Granted some of their customs may be difficult to understand, but many of ours are equally baffling to them. The handkerchief, for instance. They don't understand why one would wish to collect—”

“Bromwell, have the goodness not to discuss bodily functions in mixed company!” his father ordered.

“I only wished to point out that—”

“Never mind that now,” his father dismissed. He gestured grandly toward his left and beamed at Nell. “Here is Granshire Hall.”

Nell looked out the window to see the drive curve in front
of an imposing mansion of gray stone. It was indeed built in the latest style, with several tall windows and three stories. It had, she guessed, at least thirty bedchambers and who could say how many rooms on the main floor. There was also likely an army of servants to clean and maintain it.

“What do you think of it, my lady?” the earl asked proudly.

She wanted to tell him exactly what she thought of
him,
but instead answered his question. “It's very lovely. I don't think I've ever seen a more splendid home.”

The earl fairly purred with satisfaction as the coach rolled to a stop and a footman jumped down to open the door. Lord Bromwell got out first and extended his hand to help her.

The earl got down beside her, then, brushing aside his son, took her arm and led her into the magnificent country house. She managed a quick glance over her shoulder, to see the viscount speaking to the coachman as if he wasn't a bit disturbed by his father's behavior.

He was, she supposed, used to such treatment.

Inside the hall, she discovered more evidence that the earl's boasts had not been empty bragging. The builders had used beautiful materials—Italian marble on the floors, and mahogany inlaid with lighter oak in the grand entrance hall and staircase. Ornate plasterwork on the ceiling surrounded an elaborate painting of a classical scene that quite took her breath away. She'd never seen so many half naked, fighting men depicted anywhere.

“The Battle of Thermopylae,” Lord Bromwell explained as he came up behind her. “My father admires the Spartans, although you'd never know it from his hall.”

“Fallingbrook!” the earl bellowed just as a stout man who had to be the butler came to stand almost at his elbow.

“Welcome home, my lord,” the butler said, after nodding a greeting at Lord Bromwell and giving him a grin that disappeared the instant the earl turned to him.

“See to my son's baggage, Fallingbrook, and that of our guest, Lady Eleanor Springford, the daughter of the Duke of Wymerton. Tell Mrs. Fallingbrook her ladyship will be staying and requires the services of a maid, her own having absconded with most of her baggage.”

The middle-aged butler's sandy brows rose. “Indeed, my lord?”

“Indeed. Servants are going to the dogs in this country, just like the government.” Lord Granshire turned to Nell and was just as suddenly all sweetness and light. “Fallingbrook will show you to your room.”

He turned back to the butler. “The green room for Lady Eleanor. Where's the countess?”

“In her sitting room, my lord. She asked that Lord Bromwell come up as soon as possible.”

The younger man nodded and bowed to Nell and his father before trotting up the staircase and disappearing from view.

Nell tried not to feel abandoned, or afraid. After all, thanks to her education, she need have no fear she wouldn't know how to conduct herself in a stately home or among the nobility.

“If her ladyship will follow me,” the butler said, “I'll take you to the green room.”

“She'll need clothes, Fallingbrook,” the earl called out as he hurried up the stairs ahead of her. “Tell your wife to find her something in my wife's dressing room. The countess has scads of gowns she never wears.”

“As you wish, my lord. Please, follow me, my lady.”

 

“Justinian, my boy!” the Countess of Granshire cried, holding out her arms as her son entered her sitting room.

It was a small chamber, well-appointed and comfortable, beside her bedroom on the main floor that opened onto the terrace and formal garden—or as Bromwell always thought of it, nature made unnatural.

As he'd expected, his mother was reclining on the chaise longue, with a gilt pedestal table close at hand bearing a lamp and what was clearly pages of correspondence.

Bromwell knew enough of medicine to realize his mother wasn't seriously ill. He'd tried to tell her so many times, until he realized that his mother used poor health as a means to get and keep his father's attention, as well as his own.

He embraced her and sat on a delicate harp-back chair beside the chaise. “You're looking rather better, Mother,” he said, as he always did.

“A bit, perhaps. Dr. Heathfield has given me some marvelous new medicine.”

“Oh? What is it?”

She waved her hand feebly. “I don't know. I didn't ask. But it doesn't taste bad.”

Bromwell clenched his jaw and said no more about her medicine, although he would try to find out what it was as soon as possible. Dr. Heathfield wasn't a quack, but he wasn't the most learned man of medicine either, and his mother might be better off without his latest potion.

“It's so good to see you,” his mother said with a sorrowful smile. “I was so worried when we got the message about the accident.”

“Didn't Father tell you that I was quite all right? I said so in my note.”

“Oh, yes, of course, but a mother always worries, even when her son's in the same county.”

He understood exactly what she was
not
saying—that she worried even more when he was at sea. However, since she hadn't raised the subject of his next voyage directly, neither would he.

His father burst into the room and came to a halt, feet planted, arms akimbo, as if he were a military man, which he was not and never had been.

“So, has he told you?” he demanded of his wife. “He's been travelling with a
woman
.”

H
is father made it sound as if his association with Lady Eleanor was illicit, not merely coincidental, and the earl wasn't so much scandalized as shocked and, beneath that, proud.

Bromwell wasn't overly surprised by his father's reaction. He suspected his father was even rather relieved to think his son had a mistress. It was no secret to Bromwell that his father had doubted his inclinations when it came to his sexual
proclivities. Certain passages in his book should have reassured him in that regard, if his father had ever read it.

He doubted his father had done more than glance at the title page.

“She's Lady Eleanor Springford, the daughter of the Duke of Wymerton,” he clarified, “and we aren't travelling together as you imply. We happened to be in the same coach, that's all. We are mere acquaintances.”

The earl's eyes narrowed. “Mere acquaintances, eh?”

“Yes, Father, mere acquaintances,” he confirmed, even if she was an acquaintance he'd kissed more than once, that activity arousing such a primal passion in him, he could still hardly believe it.

“What's a duke's daughter doing travelling in a mail coach?”

“I was in a mail coach.”

“Because you sold your carriage. Her father has at least two coaches and twice as many carriages.”

Trust his father to remember a detail like that about another nobleman. “Perhaps she prefers to travel with people of another class. One can have some very interesting discussions with people of different backgrounds.”

His father looked at him as if he had just announced that he believed himself the king of Tahiti, while his mother murmured something about contagious diseases.

“Mail coaches are faster than a post chaise,” he truthfully added, hoping his father would find that simple statement of fact enough of an explanation.

“If she'd been in one of the duke's coaches, her maid probably wouldn't have run off with her clothes,” his father said.

“She has no clothes?” his mother asked, looking as if
she thought they meant Lady Eleanor was wandering about as naked as a newborn babe.

“A few,” Bromwell quickly assured her.

He then repeated the lie he'd suggested to Lady Eleanor. His parents hadn't been staying at the London town house when that excuse had been used before.

“Oh, the poor woman, to have so many catastrophes at once!” his mother cried, moving as if she were going to get up, until his father threw himself into the nearest chair covered in emerald-green and gold brocade.

“That's why I invited her here,” his father said. “Your son would have had her going to some hotel in Bath, despite the riffraff she might meet there. Besides, her father was one of my best friends at school.”

“Really?” Bromwell said, not able to hide his skepticism. “I've never heard you speak of him.”

“Maybe if you paid attention to dinner conversation once in a while, you would have,” his father retorted.

Maybe if you conversed about something interesting, I would, Bromwell thought. Instead of voicing that thought aloud, however, he said, “I didn't realize we had a connection to the family. I've never met them, have I?”

That question didn't increase his father's opinion of his son's intelligence. “You probably had your nose in a book the last time they were here. They've been in Italy for the past five years. I thought they were still there.”

Bromwell racked his brain, but for the life of him, he couldn't remember meeting Lady Eleanor.

“She must make free of my wardrobe, if my clothes will fit,” his mother offered, “or they can be made over if they don't.”

“Thank you,” Bromwell said, pleased by her generosity.

“I've already directed Mrs. Fallingbrook to select some garments for our guest,” her husband said. “I'm sure the duke will be grateful for any assistance we can render his daughter.”

Bromwell was quite sure the duke's response would not be favorable if he ever learned they'd given sanctuary to his daughter as she fled a marriage they were keen to promote. Unlike his father, however, he didn't care what the Duke of Wymerton—or anyone else—thought of him for helping her.

All that mattered was that she was safe, and free.

“Her looks have improved considerably, I must say. She's grown into quite a beauty,” his father noted with an unmistakable significance that made Bromwell want to roll his eyes with frustration. “I've told you, Father, that I've no intention of taking a wife anytime soon.”

“Well, you should!” his father growled, glaring at him. “I'm not going to live forever, you know, and it's your duty to provide an heir, or this house, this estate—all that I and your ancestors have worked for—will go to that tosspot second cousin of mine in Jamaica. I won't stand for it, Bromwell!”

“Now Frederic, must you quarrel?” the countess pleaded. “Justinian's only just arrived and—”

“No, Mother, we shan't quarrel,” Bromwell said as he got to his feet. No doubt this visit had been a colossal waste of time and effort, except that he'd made his mother happy, and met Lady Eleanor. “I'm well aware of Father's opinions, as he should be of mine. I know my duty, as you call it, but I also have a calling that I consider at least as important.”

“You call studying bugs a
calling?
” his father demanded.

Bromwell ignored that question and addressed his mother as well as his father. “I'm not opposed to the idea of marriage, but I won't leave a wife behind in England while I'm on my expedition. Now if you'll excuse me, I'd like to rest before supper, provided you'll allow me to stay even though I have no interest in Lady Eleanor as a prospective bride.”

His mother reached out and took hold of his hand, then looked beseechingly at her husband.

“Of course you can stay,” his father muttered.

“Thank you, my lord,” Bromwell said with formal politeness and a bow before he turned and left the room.

 

Nell looked out the window at the beautiful gardens laid out below and wondered how soon she could get away.

To be sure, this bedroom, with its lovely flowered wallpaper of roses and vines and delicate mahogany furnishings, was absolutely charming and more comfortable than she would have expected. Given the grand entrance hall, she'd been anticipating a vast, chilly chamber with a huge curtained bed from the Elizabethan age. Instead, because it faced south, the room was bright and warm and even cozy. Everything was spotless, from the linen on the washstand to the silk draperies. There wasn't a speck of dust, not even in the crevices of the ornately carved wardrobe, suggesting that the chamber was cleaned daily whether anyone was using it or not. A thick Aubusson carpet covered the floor and a gilded cheval glass stood near a screen painted with an oriental scene that hid the washstand.

A knock sounded on the door, and in the next moment, a tall, thin, middle-aged maid glided into the room with some gowns over her arm. “Mrs. Fallingbrook said you
were to have these, my lady,” the maid intoned, her voice as sepulchral as her manner.

“Thank you,” Nell replied, thinking it was a relief that a lady didn't owe a servant any explanations for anything, whether it was her presence or apparently missing garments, while wondering how Lord Bromwell's meeting with his mother had gone.

Surely better than any encounter with his father, who clearly didn't appreciate his son's intelligence or accomplishments.

“I'm to be your maid while you're here. My name is Dena. Shall I help you change, my lady?” the woman asked as she laid the gowns on the bed.

There was a light green one of silk that was very pretty, a scarlet one of soft wool with gray trim that was more suitable for an older woman, and a pretty sprigged muslin with a square neckline she could hardly wait to try on. “The muslin, I think, please.”

The maid didn't reply as she took Nell's pelisse, then helped her change her simple gown of light brown wool for the muslin.

Fortunately, Nell had no cause to be ashamed of her chemise or pantelettes. Although it had been an extravagance, she'd purchased new ones before she'd gone to the Sturmpole estate in Yorkshire, suspecting that life as a lady's companion was going to permit few luxuries.

She had not expected it to be dangerous.

Soon enough Nell was dressed in a gown that, if it didn't fit perfectly, fit as well as the blue silk she'd worn the night before. She had no jewellery, so she tied a ribbon she retrieved from her valise around her neck.

Looking at herself in the cheval glass, she was pleased
with the effect. She didn't study her reflection long; she knew she was a pretty girl thanks to the features she'd gotten from her mother—large, bright eyes and delicately arched brows over a slender nose. From her father she had inherited her chestnut hair, excellent teeth, full lips and a jaw that was a bit too strong, perhaps.

“How shall I do your hair, my lady?” Dena asked without any enthusiasm.

Nell fetched another ribbon and suggested a simple style, with the ribbon woven through it. “Do you think you can do that?”

“Yes,” the maid said curtly, taking the ribbon as Nell, subduing a sigh, sat at the dressing table.

“I didn't mean to imply you were incapable,” she said.

The maid didn't reply.

“Have you been with the family long?” Nell asked amicably, hoping to mend the apparent breach as the maid began to brush her hair with brisk, hard strokes.

“Twenty years, my lady.”

“So you've known Lord Bromwell from boyhood.”

The maid didn't respond.

Undeterred, Nell asked, “Was he an adventurous sort of child?”

“I can't say, my lady. I wasn't the nursery maid.”

“Surely you would have heard if he was.”

“He got into trouble now and then,” Dena conceded. “But how he could be so thoughtless and sail off and worry his poor mother half to death after she spent all those sleepless nights nursing him when he was sick so often…”

Dena fell silent, her lips so compressed it was as if they were locked together to prohibit another word from escaping.

“I suppose all spirited boys get into mischief now and then.”

When Dena didn't reply, Nell tried a different tack. “You must be proud to work for the family of such a famous naturalist.”

Dena's dark brows drew even closer together.

“His book was very well received,” Nell prompted.

The maid's expression grew yet more disapproving.

“I take it, Dena,” Nell said, “that you aren't impressed by Lord Bromwell or his field of study?”

At last the woman spoke, and it was as if a dam had broken—or she finally felt she'd been given the opportunity to voice opinions too long held in check. “Spiders, of all things! Nasty, creeping creatures! I can't think what God was about creating them.

“As for the viscount, he used to be a fine young gentleman but then he went on that voyage and what he did when he was with those heathens, walking about nearly naked, dancing those disgusting dances and drinking their foul brews, and no doubt doing who knows what with the native women…well, it's enough to make a Christian woman sick!”

However Dena felt about his adventures, Nell's reaction was quite different. She immediately envisioned Lord Bromwell nearly naked, dancing with wild abandon in torchlit shadows under a palm tree, then slipping off into the bushes with an equally half naked woman.

Who looked a lot like her.

She shoved that disturbing yet exciting vision out of her mind and wished more than ever that she'd read Lady Sturmpole's copy when she'd had the chance. “You've read his book?”

“Mrs. Fallingbrook took it upon herself to read it aloud in the servant's hall during dinner, until I asked her to stop,” Dena replied. “It ruined my appetite to hear about an English gentleman, the son of our employer, behaving like that.
I
think he ought to be ashamed of himself.

“It nearly killed his poor mother, him going off like that, despite her pleading for him to stay,” Dena continued. “She took to her bed for weeks after he sailed and we were all afraid it would be the death of her and then there he is, acting like a heathen himself!”

“But he returned,” Nell noted, “and his book is a great success. His mother must be pleased about that.”

“She would be if he'd settle down and marry and not go sailing off again for who knows how long.”

Nell was sure Lord Bromwell didn't plan his expeditions as a means to upset his mother; his zeal for his chosen field and his belief in the necessity of learning about the natural world made that quite clear.

And after all, he wasn't the only man who travelled far from home. Mothers, sisters and wives of whalers and other seamen must get used to their sons and brothers, fathers and husbands being gone for years at a time.