The Merry Viscount

by Sally MacKenzie

Her expression gentled, her eyes filling with . . .

  Oh, bloody hell. That looks like pity.

  “Your, er, friend Livy told me about your problem.”

  “My p-problem?” His heart—and a lower organ—cringed. So, Livy had been talking to Caro, or, if she hadn’t been talking to her directly, Caro had been in the room where the horrible words had been said. Caro wasn’t deaf—or stupid.

  Though she was unmarried. She couldn’t know what Livy had meant by limp, could she?

  She did have all those brothers. Worse, she’d said she’d had to fight off a male attacker. . . .

  “Yes.” She glanced at his lap.

  He crossed his legs.

  Bloody, bloody hell.

  “Since I know I have nothing to fear from you—”

  Because, for all my sins, I don’t attack women, not because there is anything wrong with me.

  Though of course, he couldn’t say that.

  He took a steadying sip of brandy.

  “I’m happy to play the role of your besotted lover.”

  He sprayed the brandy that didn’t shoot up his nose over his breeches.

  “L-lover?” He pulled out his handkerchief to mop up the mess.

  “Yes.” Caro smiled at him as if he were a bit slow-witted. “And you will pretend to be besotted with me. We will be inseparable.”

  “Ah.” Inseparable.

  Do not think of her naked. In bed. On her back, legs—

  Too late.

  But he would not act on that thought. Unless she invited him to. Which she was not going to do.

  Also, unfortunately.

  “I think it will work splendidly, don’t you?” She grinned, clearly pleased with her plan and expecting him to fall in with it with equal glee. “No one will bother me if you’re by my side. And once we’ve persuaded everyone we are involved in a torrid, passionate affair, I should be safe even when you aren’t right next to me.”

  His mouth had gone too dry for speech, so he just nodded and reached for his brandy, took a sip—

  “And you’ll benefit, too, of course. I’ll make it as clear as I can that you are satisfying my every need. No one will think for a minute you’re impotent.”

  There went the brandy again, up the nose and over the breeches.

  He put the glass back down. Obviously, drinking was hazardous while Caro was going on in this vein.

  “This is not a topic I am prepared to discuss,” he said firmly, “but I’m not . . . incapable of, er, anything.”

  She actually patted his arm as if he were a distressed child. “It’s all right. I don’t think any less of you.”

  He opened his mouth to argue, but nothing came out—if one didn’t count the peculiar sort of gasping growl he emitted.

  “I’ve observed enough lovesick fools to have a good idea how to go on,” she said, “but you may have to give me pointers if we’re stranded here very long.”

  “Gah.” Pointers. He glanced down to be certain his cock wasn’t pointing anywhere. No, thank God, though it felt as thick and tall—and obvious—as the Monument to the Great Fire of London.

  “You can put me in the viscountess’s room. That will save either of us having to traipse through the corridors at night to keep up the fiction.” She grinned. “Everyone can just imagine for themselves what we are doing behind closed doors.”

  He was trying very, very hard—ha! He shifted his position to take some pressure off his hardest organ. He was trying very diligently not to imagine anything about the matter—and failing miserably.

  He would call her bluff. “With the servants coming in and out to attend to the fire and such, you will probably have to spend some time in my bed to make the charade believable.”

  That would scare her off.

  It didn’t—though she did look a little uncomfortable. “Very well.”

  Now what? He cleared his throat. He should tell her he’d been joking—except it was true that the plan would work perfectly if her goal was to convince this Weasel beyond a shadow of a doubt that they were engaged in a heated affair.

  “Er, won’t it ruin your reputation and require a brisk trip to the altar?” Why wasn’t he appalled by that thought? He should be breaking out in a cold sweat—and yet, he wasn’t. If anything he felt rather . . . excited.

  Perhaps snorting brandy up one’s nose disabled rational thought.

  Or perhaps his cock was the disabling agent.

  Caro waved away his concerns. “Don’t be ridiculous. No one in Little Puddledon cares about my reputation—except my reputation as a brewer and an honest businesswoman.” She shrugged. “I’m thirty, long past the age when one thinks of marriage.”

  He was two years older and, while he didn’t think of marriage, he thought quite a bit about the activities of the marriage bed. He was thinking about them now. With Caro. In rather too much detail.

  And yet nowhere near enough detail. If only I could get her out of that drab frock . . .

  He jerked the reins on his unruly imagination. He could not travel that road, no matter how much he wanted to.

  It was a shame that a woman as passionate about life outside the bedroom as Caro seemed to be couldn’t experience passion inside it, in bed, sprawled hot and needy and welcoming on—

  He jerked his imagination’s reins again.

  He might need to jerk something else later.

  Yes, he could use Livy to find his release, but that felt wrong when his mind and emotions were so focused on Caro. Livy might be a whore, but she was more to him than a convenient female body. She was a friend.

  And his cock might humiliate him again and refuse to play with Livy.

  But he couldn’t engage in sexual congress with Caro, even if she was willing and naked in his bed. She wasn’t a professional light-skirts. He’d be shocked if she knew how to prevent conception, and he was not about to risk bringing a child into the world outside of marriage. A child needed a father as well as a mother. Look at poor Mrs. Dixon. He didn’t know her situation, but the fact that she was traveling in a snowstorm without the protection of a husband—or of the children’s father—made him think she was on her own.

  No, more to the point, look at me.

  Yes, he was legitimate—he didn’t have that burden to carry. He’d had a father and a mother for eleven years, but then they’d died. He’d been alone, stripped of his parents’ warmth and support, forced to live with a stern, cold uncle. If he were ever to have a child, it would be in a family.

  Which would mean he would have to marry.

  Which he was not going to do.

  Why? Are you really going to sentence yourself to a lonely life of pleasant but superficial encounters just to spite a dead man?

  Put that way, it did seem beyond stupid.

  “We just need to come up with a plausible story,” Caro said, tapping her finger against her lips.

  Her very lovely, very kissable lips.

  Stop!

  No. He could admire a woman—even entertain lascivious feelings about her—without trying to seduce her. He wasn’t a randy youth.

  “There’s no need to fabricate any sort of story to explain my infatuation,” he said, trying to sound amused instead of lustful.

  She gave him a wary look. “What do you mean?”

  He forced a grin. “Every man here needs only to look at you to know why I’m besotted.”

  She scowled at him. “That’s ridiculous.”

  “No, it’s not.” He waggled his brows. “And I suppose the reason for your interest in me couldn’t be as obvious?”

  That made her laugh, as he’d hoped it would.

  “I am not so swayed by a pretty—that is, a handsome face.”

  “And enticing figure?” He pulled back his shoulders, puffing out his chest theatrically.

  She laughed again, but only briefly, her thoughts clearly moving on. “Yes, yes. You are the model of male beauty as I’m sure more than one female has told you.”

  He
felt a flash of pique. He wanted to hear her tell him that. He wanted to see if he could—

  No, he’d already admitted he couldn’t try to lure her into sexual congress.

  Zeus, it was going to be devilishly difficult to play the role she was assigning him.

  “We knew each other as children—that part’s true,” she was saying. She bit her lip, obviously running a plan or two through her head. “It would be nice if we could pretend to a long, er, passionate correspondence, but I doubt anyone would believe that. Your friends know we didn’t immediately recognize each other.” She shook her head. “I thought you were the butler, for heaven’s sake.”

  True. “So we hadn’t exchanged miniatures.”

  She looked hopeful for a moment, but then shook her head. “I would think we would have if the correspondence was passionate, wouldn’t you?”

  “Y-yes.” He grinned. “We’ll just say we fell madly in love with each other’s minds so neither of us cared what the other looked like.”

  She rolled her eyes just as he expected she would.

  “We did know each other as children. It’s not as if we had no idea of the other’s appearance.”

  She snorted. “Right. Just not enough of an idea to recognize each other.”

  She had a point. He shrugged and then smiled a bit salaciously. “We’ll just have to be so convincing as to our current passion that people will not question our story. It’s not as if we have to maintain the charade for weeks. The snow should stop and the roads clear in a few days.”

  She sighed. “Yes. I think that is what we will have to hope.” She frowned. “And I imagine I should know why you are called Lord Devil.” She looked at him a bit sternly. “Why are you called that?”

  He spread his hands as if to hold off her implied criticism. “Not because of my sins, I assure you.” Well, he should be honest. “Or not just because of my sins. My uncle was dubbed Lord Pious. I swear he could make ale freeze in its tankard just by stepping into a room.”

  “Oh.” She seemed very shocked at that, but then she was a brewer.

  “I do not make ale freeze,” Nick assured her.

  “I should hope not. I—”

  An insistent scratching on the door to the corridor interrupted her.

  Nick frowned. Was something amiss—something beyond having a motley assortment of guests dumped on his doorstep? “Come.”

  Mrs. Brooks burst in, Edward behind her.

  Nick surged to his feet in alarm. “What is it?” He glanced at Edward and then back to Mrs. Brooks. Edward looked much calmer than his housekeeper, but there was only one reason he could think of for the boy to be here. “Is Mrs. Dixon all right?”

  “And the baby?” Caro asked, going over to Mrs. Brooks. She looked as if she’d like to shake the answer out of the poor woman.

  She managed to restrain herself, at least for the moment.

  “Yes. Well, no. That is . . .” Mrs. Brooks actually wrung her hands and moaned. Nick had never seen her so distressed.

  Of course, since he never came to Oakland if he could avoid it, he hadn’t seen her more than a handful of times since she had assumed the duties of housekeeper.

  “Mrs. Brooks, please. You are not making much sense,” he said. “Take a deep breath and compose yourself.”

  “It’s just that . . .” She bit her lip.

  “It’s just that Mr. Simpson is Grace’s papa,” Edward said.

  Chapter Six

  “Felix?” Nick asked. “Are you certain?”

  Simpson had mentioned in passing that he knew the area, but he hadn’t said anything about having a son and daughter nearby.

  No, not a son and a daughter—a daughter only. Edward had called Simpson Grace’s papa.

  Edward nodded. “Yes, I’m certain.”

  Anger blinded Nick briefly. If Simpson were going to have an ongoing relationship with Mrs. Dixon, he’d bloody well better be prepared to be a father to Edward, too.

  Edward was even younger than Nick had been when he’d been orphaned.

  He knew many people would say Edward was none of Nick’s concern. That Edward’s mother would look out for him. That Nick shouldn’t get involved. All that was true, but made no difference. Nick would involve himself because he knew what it felt like to be fatherless.

  Though saying anything to Felix would likely be as productive as spitting into the wind. The man could be an amusing companion when one was up for a lark or, like this excursion, wanted to engage in a bit of scandalous behavior, but he lived very much in the present moment. Nick would be shocked if Felix had ever given the future a passing thought.

  Unlike you who are so determined to deny the future you refuse to live fully now—all to settle a past score with a dead man.

  Zeus! Is that what I’m doing?

  No, of course not. His decision about marriage and procreation had nothing to say to the matter. This was Edward’s present he was considering—and Felix’s. Not his.

  The sad truth was, Felix was not a man Nick would choose for anything like fatherhood that required responsible behavior. And yet Felix was a father. He’d chosen to take Mrs. Dixon to bed. He should have foreseen the consequences.

  Hell, it wasn’t a question of foreseeing but of seeing. Mrs. Dixon had been a mother when Simpson bedded her. Had the fellow ignored Edward completely?

  “I thought his name was John Thomas,” Edward said. “That’s what he called himself when he visited Mama. We were going to Marbridge to meet him so he could see Grace and have Christmas with us.” Edward’s narrow shoulders slumped. “Except I don’t think he was going to Marbridge at all.”

  Curse Simpson to Hades! The bloody—

  Wait....

  Nick thought back to London. Felix had been at his party—that’s how he’d ended up coming to Oakland with him. Nick would swear the man had never mentioned a newborn daughter, but had he said anything about leaving London for Christmas?

  He might have, actually. Nick’s memories of that night were hazy—he’d been drinking rather a lot. And then the dog had wreaked havoc—havoc that reeked so badly Nick had had no choice but to flee to Oakland at once.

  It was possible Felix had been planning to come this way all along and had just been swept up in Nick’s uproar. Then, when the snow had started falling so heavily, Felix might have concluded Mrs. Dixon wouldn’t make the journey to Marbridge—that was certainly a reasonable assumption—and so had decided to stay at Oakland to enjoy the orgy.

  But he’d swear Felix hadn’t mentioned a baby. That he would have remembered, drunk or not.

  He was getting ahead of himself. Perhaps there was a perfectly simple explanation.

  “Do you think you might have mistaken Mr. Simpson for this Mr. Thomas, Edward?” Though it would be just like Felix to use a nickname for cock if he wished to hide his identity. “People sometimes look very much alike. I’ve made that error many times myself.”

  Edward shook his head vigorously. “I know he’s Mr. Thomas. He’s got that hairy mole on his cheek.” Edward wrinkled his nose. “Mama always laughs and calls it a beauty mark. It matches the one on his arse.”

  Ugh. Nick did not want to know how the boy knew about the lower mole, but it was true. Felix did have a distinctive mark on his face and—as Nick had discovered from too many raucous nights with the likes of Livy and Polly and Fanny—one on his rump as well.

  “Is he with them now?” Caro asked, urgency in her voice. She glanced from Edward to the housekeeper and back as if she were choosing which of them to shake the information out of.

  Mrs. Brooks nodded. “As far as I know. That is, he’s with Mrs. Dixon. I know he’s not with little Grace. Miss White’s got her.”

  Some of the stiffness left Caro’s body. “Well, thank God for that.” She looked at Nick. “We should check on Mrs. Dixon.”

  She didn’t spell it out in so many words, likely because of the boy, but Nick got the distinct impression Caro was worried about the woman’s safety. />
  “Where do you think we can find them, Mrs. Brooks?” he asked.

  The housekeeper frowned. “I’m not certain, milord. When last I saw them, they were on the third floor of the east wing—near the room where I’ve put Mrs. Dixon and the children—heading toward the servants’ stairs.”

  Caro grabbed Nick’s forearm, her voice tight with anxiety again. “We have to hurry, Nick.”

  Mrs. Brooks’s brows shot up at Caro’s use of his Christian name.

  Ah, well. If we’re going to pretend to be lovers, I suppose we should begin at once.

  “The blackguard—” Caro glanced at Edward and changed tone. “That is, I don’t trust Mr. Simpson not to, er, injure Mrs. Dixon.”

  “Oh, you don’t have to worry about Mama,” Edward said. “Mr. Simpson won’t hurt her.”

  Nick’s and Caro’s and Mrs. Brooks’s attention snapped to the boy.

  “Why do you say that?” Nick asked.

  Edward shrugged. “Mama knows how to tell if a man’s bad. She said, after my papa, that she was never going to let a man hit her again.” He smiled. “And she hasn’t.”

  Each calm, matter-of-fact word fell like another rock on the growing pile in Nick’s stomach.

  “How old are you, Edward?” Nick managed to ask, hoping the boy was merely small for his age and not as young as he looked.

  “Seven—but I’m almost eight. My birthday is next month.”

  Seven! Good God.

  And Nick had thought he’d had a horrible childhood. At least he’d had eleven good years. When he’d been Edward’s age, he’d still had his mother and father and his happy life in warm, sunny Venice. He’d been blissfully carefree, spending his days playing ball, sailing toy boats, running races with his friends, or just exploring. He’d not given his parents much thought, mistakenly assuming they’d be with him forever—or at least until he was grown with children of his own.

  He hoped he was managing to keep his dismay off his face.

  “And Mama was chasing Mr. Simpson,” Edward said, “not the other way round.”

  Nick looked back at his housekeeper and lifted a brow in inquiry. He didn’t trust his voice.

  “Mrs. Dixon wasn’t precisely chasing Mr. Simpson, milord,” Mrs. Brooks said. “She was . . . Well, I’d just stopped by her room to see if she needed anything more when Mr. Simpson walked by with Miss White. When Mrs. Dixon saw them”—Mrs. Brooks pressed her lips together—“she was not pleased.”