The Viscount's Kiss

Perhaps, as his father complained, he’d been too long away from England.

“Are the horse and carriage ready?” he asked Mrs. Jenkins, who seemed rather keen to linger.

“They should be by now, my lord.”

“Good.” He looked out the window at the sky gray with thickening clouds. “If you’ll excuse me, Mrs. Jenkins, I must be on my way.”

She smiled. “Always the perfect gentleman, my lord!”

Not always, he thought as he hurried past her.

Not always.

Bunching the cravat tighter in her hand, Nell glanced up at the sky. The gray clouds were definitely thickening, and moving closer.

“Never fear, lass,” the driver said, wincing as he shifted. “Lord Bromwell’ll be back with help soon. That lad can ride like the wind.”

She gave the driver a smile, but her eyes must have betrayed that she wasn’t completely reassured, for he patted her hand as his eyes drifted closed. “I’ve known him since he was six years old. Might not look like it, but he’s the finest horseman I’ve ever seen. Brave, too.”

“But not, perhaps, a competent mail coach driver?” she suggested, trying to keep Thompkins awake.

To her relief, he opened his brown eyes again. “Well, to be sure, that wasn’t his finest hour, but he was only fifteen at the time.”

“Fifteen? He could have been seriously hurt, or even killed!”

The driver frowned. “Don’t you think I knew that? O’ course I refused the first time he asked, and lots o’ times after that, but he wouldn’t let up till I gave in. And he had his reasons all worked out, logical-like, beginning with his skill and how far he’d go—only a mile or so. But that wasn’t why I finally gave in. I knew he wanted something to brag about when he got back to school, so his friends would think he was as good as they were—although he’s worth the lot of them and always has been and I said so at the time. But he got this look in his eyes, and well, miss, I didn’t have the heart to refuse him. We didn’t have any passengers that day and if the road hadn’t been so slick in that one place, it would have been all right.

“Should have seen him at the start,” Thompkins continued, grinning at the memory. “Like one of them Roman charioteers, standing up and working the reins like an old hand until we hit that slick spot and went into the ditch. But no damage to the coach and we was only a little late. Not that it made a mite of difference to his father, though, when he found out what’d happened.”

Thompkins sighed, then frowned. “You should have heard the way the earl carried on. Any other man might have been proud of the lad for wanting to try and getting that far, but not him. You’d think young Lord Bromwell’d lost the family estate or murdered somebody.

“The viscount, bless him, told his father he’d forced me to agree to it by saying he’d see I lost my job if I didn’t. Well, that was a lie, but he was cool as you please, and damn—pardon me, miss—if his father didn’t believe him. And then not another word did young Lord Bromwell say. He just stood there covered in mud from head to toe, and his lip bleeding, too, like the earl was giving a speech in the House of Lords that had nothing to do with him.

“Oh, he’s a rum cove, all right, even if he’s a nobleman. Have you read his book?”

“I’m sorry to say I haven’t,” she replied, wishing that she had.

“To be honest, I ain’t read it, either, since I can’t read at all,” the driver admitted, “but I heard all about his narrow escape from them savages and the shipwreck, too. And the tattoo, o’ course.”

Nell paused in her ministrations. “Lord Bromwell has a tattoo?”

Thompkins grinned and lowered his voice. “Aye, but he ain’t never told anybody what it is, or where. Just that he got one. Some of the nobs have made a bet on it and put it in that book at White’s, but so far, nobody’s collected.”

Nell was aware of the famous betting book at that gentlemen’s club, and that men who belonged would—and did—wager on almost anything.

Thompkins looked past her and pointed down the road. “Thanks be to God, here he comes.”

Nell looked back over her shoulder. There was indeed a horse and rider coming toward them, and it was Lord Bromwell. He still wore no hat, so his slightly long hair was ruffled by the ride, and his coat was as muddy as his formerly shining boots.

“Mr. Jenkins of The Crown and Lion is sending his carriage and a doctor. They should be here soon,” Lord Bromwell said as he drew the brown saddle horse to a halt and dismounted.

Nell discovered she couldn’t meet his steadfast gaze as he came toward them. The memory of those moments in his arms and especially of his kiss were too vivid, too fresh, too disturbing. Instead, she continued to wipe Thompkins’s forehead, even though the bleeding had stopped.

Lord Bromwell’s boots came into her line of sight. “I trust the patient is resting comfortably?”

“Aye, my lord,” Thompkins replied, “although my head hurts like the devil.”

“You’re not dizzy or sleepy?”

“Not a bit, my lord. The young lady and I have been having a fine time.”

The toe of Lord Bromwell’s boot began to tap. “Have you indeed?”

“Aye. I told her about the time you drove the coach, and we talked about yer book.”

She risked a glance upward, to discover that Lord Bromwell looked even more rakish and handsome with his hair windblown and his shirt still open and the hint of whiskers darkening his cheeks. However, his expression was grave, his blue-gray eyes enigmatic, and his full lips that could kiss with such devastating tenderness betrayed no hint of emotion.

She swallowed hard as she looked back to the driver.

“I wasn’t aware you were the famous Lord Bromwell,” she said, determined that he appreciate that, although what kissing him without the excuse of his fame might suggest about her, she didn’t want to consider.

“Forgive me for being remiss and not introducing myself sooner. And you are?”

“Eleanor Springford, my lord,” she lied, hoping he would mistake her blush for bashfulness and not shame.

The driver’s eyes twinkled with mischief. “We were talking about yer tattoo, too.”

“It’s a common practice among the South Sea islanders,” Lord Bromwell gravely replied, as if it was the polite thing to do, like taking tea. “Ah, here comes Jenkins’s carriage.”

With that, he strode off to meet it, leaving Nell to wonder what such a man would make of her if he ever learned the truth.

Chapter Three

I believe it is an intense curiosity and an unwillingness to simply accept the world without further explanation that separates the scientist from the general population. It is not enough to see a thing; the scientist seeks to find out the how and why it works, or in the case of the natural world, how and why a creature does what it does.

—from The Spider’s Web, by Lord Bromwell

“The supper will be served in half an hour, my lord,” Jenkins announced from the door of the slightly smaller, more cramped room Bromwell had taken when they returned from the scene of the accident so that Miss Springford could have the better one. “The wife’s glad she killed that chicken this afternoon, or she’d be in some state now, I can tell you, what with you here and all.”

“I’ve been here plenty of times before,” Bromwell replied as he reached for his brush, determined not to look a complete mess when he went below. “She should know I like everything she makes, especially her tarts. When I was stranded on that strip of sand, I would have sold my soul for one.”

“Tush, now, my lord, that’s almost blasphemy, that is!” Jenkins cried, although he beamed as proudly as if he made the tarts. “I’ll be telling the wife, though. She’ll be pleased.”

“As I am by her tarts,” Bromwell said, bringing his hair into some semblance of order, although it occurred to him that it was in need of a trim.

“Ah, here’s Johnny now with your baggage, my lord.”

“Thank you,” Bromwell said as the boy carried in his small valise.