One Scandalous Kiss

by Christy Carlyle

  “And her sister, Mrs. Briggs.”

  Before he could perform the niceties of Pleased to meet yous and bowing and placing chaste kisses in the air above hands, Delia Ornish spoke up.

  “Lord Grimsby, I do hope you are well after last evening’s . . . Well, the dreadful incident with that . . . that horrible woman.”

  Lucius had spent the most of the evening thinking about that particular woman. Horrible wasn’t a word he would use to describe her. Lovely, inscrutable, frustrating—all that, but never horrible. He took a breath to state that he was quite recovered and that no lasting harm had been done, belying his restless night, but Mrs. Briggs preempted him.

  “You should know that my husband has taken direct action as a result of that woman’s behavior.”

  “Has he indeed? What sort of action might that be, Mrs. Briggs?”

  “Lucius, do sit down.”

  His aunt’s tone made it sound as if he’d been remiss, absolving her two guests of their rudeness in bombarding him so early in the morning.

  “Tea?”

  She didn’t wait for his reply before ringing a crystal bell that rested on a side table next to her chair. A maid entered the room in the next instant bearing a tea service. After receiving her teacup and a scone-laden plate, Mrs. Briggs didn’t bother partaking before offering her reply.

  “He’s ruined her.”

  Lucius nearly choked on the hot liquid he’d begun to sip, and the teacup and saucer rattled a moment in his hands before he got the porcelain under control. The notion of Mr. Briggs, whoever the blasted man was, ruining the woman who’d haunted his thoughts was more outrageous than anything she’d done. More outrageous than his own wicked thoughts about ruining her, certainly.

  “I beg your pardon, madam?”

  “She owns some miserable little bookshop and has incurred more debt than she can ever repay.” Mrs. Briggs fussed with her dress, sniffing haughtily as if that was an end to the matter. Lucius had the impulse to take her by her puffed sleeve–covered shoulders and shake the rest of the story out of her.

  Closing his eyes, he only just resisted pinching the bridge of his nose where his head had begun to throb—too much brandy and too little sleep were a wretched combination.

  “And how does this involve your husband, Mrs. Briggs?” he bit out slowly, giving each word its due and tempering the tone he truly wished to use.

  His aunt finally chimed in. “He owns the bank that made the loan, you see. He has foreclosed on her. Or he will do soon, according to Mrs. Briggs.”

  He could see Miss Wright in a bookshop, her wire-rimmed spectacles perched at the end of her nose. The young woman had already lost her family. He couldn’t abide the notion of her losing anything else.

  “For this? Because of some foolish nonsense that no one will remember in a week?”

  He took a swallow of tea, the flavor suddenly bitter, after barking out the words. Perhaps he’d been too loud, too vehement. It certainly hadn’t done the drumming in his head any good.

  Augusta was staring at him, her eyebrows peaked high on her forehead.

  He too wondered why he was suddenly defending Miss Wright’s actions. It most assuredly had nothing to do with that extraordinary kiss. Or at least that’s what he’d say to his aunt if she pressed him on the matter.

  Mrs. Briggs shot to her feet, and her tight-fitting, puffy-sleeved gown rustled with the effort.

  Lucius stood too. Etiquette demanded it despite his frustration with the woman’s husband.

  “My husband could not allow his bank to be associated with such a trollop! Sh-she humiliated you in front of everyone. One would think you might be pleased that Mr. Briggs acted in your interest, my lord. We all feel your embarrassment as one.” Her little speech started out on a strident note and then trailed off into an obsequious whine at the end.

  “Forgive me, Mrs. Briggs, but it seems your husband acted in his own interest, not mine.” When the woman’s lower lip began to tremble, Lucius bit back his irritation and tempered his tone. “I do appreciate that Mr. Briggs acted on his moral principles, but what of his compassion? No real injury was done to me. Certainly none that compares to what has now been done to this young woman.”

  If the bluestocking had humiliated him, he had yet to sense an inkling of it. Perhaps the pleasure he’d taken in the kiss was blinding him to the damage she’d done and he’d wake up in a week to find he was the laughingstock of London. At least he’d be in the countryside by then.

  Mrs. Briggs looked momentarily confused and then seemed to comprehend that regardless of his gentler tone, she was being chastised. She slumped back down onto his aunt’s damask-covered settee as if, with all her superiority gone, she had no strength left to hold her up.

  “No one should lose everything over one kiss.” Whatever the truth of his declaration, no one seemed to be listening. It was almost as if he’d said the words to an empty room. None of the ladies responded. Mrs. Ornish was busy fanning her sister, who seemed on the verge of tears, and Aunt Augusta looked down at her pugs with a tiny grin on her face.

  Lucius cleared his throat before standing and straightening his cuffs, settling each shirtsleeve button at precisely the same position on each wrist.

  “If you’ll excuse me, ladies. I’m returning to Berkshire and would like to make a start.”

  His aunt followed him to the foyer and spoke in hushed tones while the butler fetched his coat and hat.

  “You haven’t been in London for more than a week. And we’ve yet to discuss the list of eligible matches. Why such haste to return? Is it Maxim?”

  Lucius’s aunt was many things: clever, irreverent, and fiercely loyal. He was glad to be counted among her allies and shuddered at the thought of being her enemy. And she was loyal to no one as much as to her elder brother, Lucius’s father, Maxim Crawford, Earl of Dunthorpe.

  Lucius gave his aunt’s arm a reassuring squeeze. “No, I had a telegram yesterday from Higgins. Father is well. He’s in one of his melancholy moods.”

  “Are they more frequent? And what of his memory? I fear another spell.”

  Lucius’s father was ill, though it was a sickness of the mind more than the body. He’d always been a volatile man, but in recent years his memory had begun to fail. Names, incidents, even lifelong servants were at times as unknown to him as strangers. He had good days when he was lucid and as indignant as ever, but more often he halted in the middle of a conversation, uncertain of what he’d meant to say in the first place. On days when his memory didn’t fail him, his father’s emotions swung from energetic highs to lows when he was barely interested in rising from his bed.

  “His melancholia comes and goes and there’ve been no more spells like the last.” Lucius had grown used to his father calling him by his brother’s name or mistaking his nurse for the housekeeper, but several months before, the earl had a spell when he woke frightened and disoriented, unable to recognize those around him.

  “There are days when I’d swear he’s the same man who drove Mother and me away, as angry and bitter as he was all those years ago. But more often he’s a kinder version of that man, with his good humor and even a bit of compassion restored.”

  “That’s the Maxim I knew as a child. If only you’d experienced more of that aspect of his nature.”

  But he hadn’t. Lucius’s childhood memories were of a man embittered by paranoid jealousy and a love for his wife that consumed and twisted him. Though Lucius had lost his mother too early, he recalled her as sweet-natured and intelligent, quick to laugh and more interested in books than in entertaining—a loving antidote to his father’s wrath. Even as a child, he’d wondered what had drawn the two together and vowed never to let himself drown in the sort of love they shared.

  “It must be what my mother saw in him.”

  Augusta’s expression gave nothing away. She rarely spoke of the difficulties of his parents’ marriage.

  “Yes, I’m sure it was. Do give him my love when you re
turn to Hartwell.”

  “Of course.”

  Maintaining the estate and caring for his father had consumed the last several years of Lucius’s adulthood. Though Augusta marked the change in her brother from the day Lucius’s mother died, Lucius recalled his father’s extremes from much earlier and suspected they’d always been a part of his character. And whatever the cause of his failing memory—the village doctor ascribed it to Maxim’s age—Lucius’s one avowed goal was to keep him at Hartwell and provide whatever care he needed. Rancor aside, Maxim was his father.

  “What of our discussion of eligible young ladies?” Augusta was a master at drawing him back to the matter at hand whenever his mind wandered elsewhere.

  “Are there so many on the list?” The prospect had never seemed more daunting.

  Aunt Augusta chuckled. Matchmaking tended to make her giddy.

  “There is one young lady in particular I’d like you to meet.”

  “Is she in London?” If she was, it was only reasonable to extend his stay another day and allow his aunt the introduction. He didn’t wish her efforts to be in vain.

  “As it turns out, no. She’s in Saratoga, New York, apparently, and decided to extend her stay. She means to make a visit to Marleston Hall within a fortnight.”

  “Saratoga?”

  “A bit like Bath, I understand.”

  “Very well, send for me after she settles in, and we’ll see if your machinations are as effective as you claim.”

  His aunt loved a challenge nearly as much as a matchmaking opportunity. Where his future was concerned, she’d found both.

  Nothing in his life had ever gone as he’d planned. His late brother, Julian, should have been heir to Hartwell. Lucius had considered studying law in Scotland or joining his Scottish uncle’s shipping business in London. He’d never wished to be lord of Hartwell. And he’d certainly never expected to be in search of a suitable woman to become Countess of Dunthorpe.

  “What shall we do about the other young woman?”

  There was no doubt about to whom she referred. He hadn’t thought of Miss Wright for a handful of minutes, but his aunt’s question brought her vividly to mind—and to his senses. His mouth and other southerly parts of his body tingled at the memory of her lips. Then he recalled how they’d parted company, how she’d scampered out of his carriage as if the hounds of hell nipped at her heels.

  He cleared his throat, forcing the memory from his mind.

  “I don’t believe she wishes to continue our acquaintance. And it would hardly be appropriate for me to do so.”

  Seeing the woman again was too absurd to contemplate. Never mind that an impractical urge to meet her in the light of day ticked at the back of Lucius’s mind like an overloud clock. Never mind that he’d spent the better part of the night tormented by thoughts of her, or that she’d apparently lost her shop because of a kiss he feared he’d never forget.

  “Then perhaps I shall see about her.” With a beaming smile, Aunt Augusta lifted Pollux—or was it Castor?—as if Lucius should offer the creature some parting words.

  The butler helped Lucius into his coat and held the door open for him, letting in a breath of the unseasonably warm air. Lucius knew he was only imagining the scent of violets that hung on the breeze.

  “You will see about her? What exactly do you intend to do?”

  Pollux stared up at him with innocent eyes, but his aunt wore a grin so full of machinations and mischief that it would have made a vicar blush.

  The ticking at the base of his skull built to a crescendo. Jessamin Wright was an orphan, without family, with perhaps no other means of support than the bookshop she’d just lost. He owed her nothing. The woman had publicly disgraced him, if Mrs. Briggs was to be believed. Yet despite his aunt’s desire to see about her, he could not imagine returning to Berkshire without seeing about Miss Wright himself.

  Even if the impulse was an ill-conceived one. And it most certainly was.

  Even if it would be the last time he ever saw Jessamin Wright again. And it definitely would be.

  The distraction of donning his hat and offering Castor, or perhaps Pollux, a farewell pat on the head allowed him a moment to silence the doubts and make his decision.

  He wouldn’t be leaving London straightaway after all

  Chapter Six

  “MISS WRIGHT, THERE’S a gentleman here to see you.”

  Jess jumped at the sound of Jack’s voice. She’d been staring for nearly an hour at the faded photograph of her father she kept in the bookshop’s back office. In her mind, she was turning over what to tell their patrons, their lending library borrowers, and, mostly, what she would say to her father if he were still alive. How could she explain that she’d lost a business he’d managed to hold together, even through years of mismanagement?

  Jack’s words pulled her back to the present and reminded her explanations were unnecessary. If Father hadn’t died, she wouldn’t be in this predicament in the first place. Then again, if she hadn’t kissed a viscount on some silly woman’s whim, Mr. Briggs might have had a bit more mercy.

  But there was no use worrying over the past and what might have been. Her main task now was settling their patrons’ accounts and finding some form of gainful employment.

  “Did you tell him the shop is closed? Permanently.”

  “Seems he’s here to see you, miss.”

  Jessamin stood and arched her back, working out the stiffness the straight-back chair had caused during her pointless, dejected woolgathering.

  “Please tell me it’s not Mr. Briggs again.”

  Jack quirked a queer little grin, which only piqued her interest.

  “Well, who is it?”

  “Didn’t give a name. Just asked for you.”

  It couldn’t be good news. The way the day was going, Jess felt certain it could only get worse. After pushing a few stray hairs into pins and straightening her skirts, she took a deep breath and prepared to meet worse head-on.

  She took three steps and halted so suddenly that Jack, who’d been following behind, bumped into her and nearly knocked her off her feet.

  “It’s all right, Jack. Will you work on the borrower letters in the office?”

  Jack made a noise that reeked of disapproval, but he obediently retreated. He peeked out at her through the office door before shutting it behind him, as if to signal he’d be available should she need saving.

  Here, in the middle of her sunken business, stood the one man in England she was certain she’d never see again. It was the tall, dark viscount. The man she’d been hired to kiss—that rash and ridiculous kiss, the very reason for the second worst day of her life.

  “Lord Grimsby.” There was nothing else to say. At least nothing civil or polite, nothing pleasant. She doubted very much that he’d wish to hear how her life had just broken into pieces.

  Jess clasped her hands behind her back. In the awkward silence, she could think only of what she wished to say but couldn’t. Based on her station in life, she shouldn’t even know a viscount, let alone be familiar with the taste of his mouth.

  “Miss Wright.”

  Such a lovely voice. In the night, she’d remembered his voice and the few words that had passed between them. She’d convinced herself its deep, seductive appeal was half imaginative fancy. But, if anything, it was more seductive in the daylight. Indeed he was more extraordinary in the daylight. His hair was pitch dark, truly black, and his eyes were the lightest, clearest blue she’d ever seen. Beautiful eyes, though their color did nothing to detract from the air of coolness about him. He cleared his throat and she felt a blush heat her cheeks. She’d lost track of how long she’d stood studying him.

  “I heard some troubling news this morning, Miss Wright.”

  “Did you, my lord?”

  “Did a Mr. Briggs visit you this morning?”

  “How could you know that?”

  Why would this man know about her problems and the very changeable Mr. Briggs? Then it
struck her.

  “Did you send him here to close my shop?”

  “No. Certainly not.” His denial was emphatic and his voice almost intimidating when matched with volume. “I was appalled when I heard the news.”

  “And so you came to see the wreckage.”

  He looked away from her then, as if he couldn’t bear to meet her eyes.

  “Or did you come here to save me?” As soon as the words were out of her mouth, Jess knew it was why he’d come. In his aristocratic way, he probably believed he could throw money at the situation and it would all be neatly resolved. Perhaps he meant to pay her off—or make a much more inappropriate offer. She had to know.

  “I don’t require saving, my lord.”

  The fact that she would have no place to live within the week, owned only two decent dresses, and had approximately eleven pounds and nine shillings to her name wouldn’t make her accept the man’s charity. She’d taken Kitty Adderly’s offer of charity just last night and look where that had landed her.

  He didn’t respond to her strident declaration, but he looked at her again, watching her awhile before turning his gaze to the bookshelves.

  Jess allowed herself a moment to study his far too appealing profile before emphasizing her point.

  “I have no wish for your charity, my lord.”

  She’d been working in the bookshop most of her life, aside from the few years her parents saved enough to send her to a boarding school she loathed. The notion of work didn’t frighten her. Now it was a simply a matter of finding new employment.

  Her words failed to earn her his undivided attention. He’d turned to inspect her books more closely, tilting his head to read the spines.

  Jess lifted her hands to her hips.

  “My shop is closed, my lord.”

  He was behaving as if he’d come to pick out a new book. Yet he’d admitted knowing about Mr. Briggs and had to realize the books were no longer hers to sell.

  “How many do you have here?”

  Goodness, that voice. Her ears warmed at the sound of it. She opened her mouth and then bit her lip, trying to recall what he’d asked her.