The Viscount's Kiss

by Margaret Moore

  What could she say to that? She couldn’t promise that her son would always return. “I must thank you again for your kind hospitality.”

  The countess waved a listless hand. “It’s nothing, and I do like having a young lady nearby, especially one my son so obviously cares for.”

  Nell shifted uncomfortably. Clearly she was not doing enough to hide her growing regard for Lord Bromwell if everyone here could see it. She would have to be more careful when he returned. “I hope it doesn’t cause you any trouble.”

  “Who last protected you, my dear?”

  Nell glanced sharply at the countess, unsure how to answer that, or even what she meant exactly. A woman who was a man’s mistress was said to be under his protection.

  “My parents, of course,” she said after a moment, “but I hope my godfather will come to my aid.”

  “And who might he be?”

  “Why, Lord Ruttles,” Nell answered, baffled by the question. Had Lady Granshire forgotten what she’d told them? Perhaps she really was ill…

  The countess’s expression didn’t change as she regarded Nell with her son’s eyes. “No, he is not, just as you are not Lady Eleanor Springford.”

  The breath fled Nell’s lungs and her heart started to pound as if she were before a firing squad.

  How did the countess know? Or had she guessed? Was it because of something she had said or done? And what should she do now?

  Before she could decide, the countess leaned forward and put her hand on Nell’s arm.

  “Does my son think you’re Lady Eleanor, or is he in on the ruse, too?” she asked. She didn’t sound angry; she sounded merely curious, which confused Nell even more.

  Yet one thing seemed clear—whatever she did and whatever happened next, there was no need to lie anymore. “He knows who I really am.”

  Now.

  The countess nodded, as if this was the answer she’d been expecting. “No doubt my son thought it best to pretend you were a titled woman to ensure that you could stay. Whatever the reason for that deception, however, I’m grateful you’ve come and have cause to hope I could be more grateful to you yet.”

  How could she possibly be grateful after Nell had tried to trick them?

  “How long have you been my son’s mistress?”

  “I am not his mistress!” Nell cried, aghast and determined to make that clear.

  “Please, my dear, there’s no need to deny it if you are,” Lady Granshire said with that same unexpected equanimity. “My son is comely, well educated and titled. What woman of sense wouldn’t want him? And I’ve read my son’s book, so I’m well aware that he’s a grown man and an experienced one at that. No doubt you aren’t his first lover.”

  She was probably right, and that gave Nell a different sort of pain.

  “However, my dear, you are the first he’s ever cared enough about to bring here, in any guise, which tells me his feelings for you must be beyond anything he’s ever felt for his other mistresses.”

  “We aren’t lovers,” she helplessly replied. “It’s just as he said—he came to my aid when the coach overturned and offered to help me.”

  Nell rose again, determined to leave this painful interview. The room. The house. Despite her promise to Lord Bromwell, she couldn’t stay here. “I should go.”

  “Stay.”

  Lady Granshire shared something else with her son—a tone of command that was rare, yet thus all the more impressive when utilized.

  Nell obediently perched on the edge of the sofa.

  “I’m sorry if I’ve insulted and upset you,” the countess said in a conciliatory tone. “I meant no harm or insult to you. Any woman who has earned my son’s love is no common woman, and if there is a man’s judgment I trust, it is his. So I’m predisposed to love you, too, and do all I can for you. Can you believe that, my dear?”

  A few moments ago, she might not have, but as she regarded Lady Granshire now and saw her sincerity, she could. And did. “Yes.”

  The countess smiled and looked at her with hope. “So as you’ve been honest with my son, won’t you trust me and be honest with me, too?”

  It wasn’t an easy request for her to answer, until she realized that Lady Granshire could have summoned the magistrate the day she first arrived and had her arrested for impersonating a duke’s daughter. She had not.

  Nevertheless, she still hesitated, until Lady Granshire leaned forward, took her hand and regarded her with a searching gaze that was also very like the viscount’s. “If my son loves you, that’s all I need to know.”

  After hearing the countess’s heartfelt words, Nell’s defences crumbled. She told Lady Granshire everything, just as she had told Lord Bromwell. Except for the kisses and other intimate moments they’d shared. Some things weren’t meant to be shared, especially with a man’s mother.

  “So your son has offered to help me,” she finished, “and he goes to London in part to consult with his friend, the attorney.”

  “What a terrible situation! So much worse than the other!” the countess cried, patting Nell’s hand and making her feel that it hadn’t been a mistake to trust her.

  “Rest assured, we’ll see that Lord Sturmpole makes no more trouble for you,” Lady Granshire continued. “My husband is not without some influence, too—and you mustn’t even think of leaving until your situation can be sorted out.”

  “Thank you, my lady,” Nell replied with gratitude. “You’ve all been so kind and generous to me, I don’t know how I shall ever repay you.”

  Lady Granshire’s eyes suddenly gleamed with a greedy, desperate light. “There is a way.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  At this time, the method by which spiders avoid being trapped in their own webs remains one of nature’s great mysteries. Is there something about the composition of their bodies, or is the immunity something to do with the strands themselves? This is only one of the questions regarding these fascinating creatures that has kept me watching them at work for hours at a time.

  —from The Spider’s Web, by Lord Bromwell

  “I know the power certain feelings can exert over a person, how they cause them to make decisions that they wouldn’t consider otherwise,” Lady Granshire said. “I believe you can wield such power over my son. You can succeed where my husband and I fail. You can convince my son to stay in England, where he will be safe.”

  Nell immediately and vehemently shook her head. “No, I couldn’t. I wouldn’t. Please, don’t ask such a thing of me!”

  “Think of the dangers he will face if he goes on another expedition,” the countess pleaded. “After all our kindness to you, and especially after his, is this how you would repay him? By not doing everything in your power to keep him here?”

  “Even if I had such power as you think I possess, I wouldn’t try to persuade him to give up his life’s work.”

  “Instead you would let him risk his life wandering the world looking for bugs?”

  Nell’s heart broke to think of him so far away, or dead, but she would not put her fears before his aspirations. “Because it is his heart’s desire, yes, I would.”

  The countess’s face flushed and her knuckles whitened as she clutched her crumpled, damp handkerchief. “There are plenty of spiders in England he could study. If you could get him to stay in England, I will see to it that, whatever happens, you will want for nothing for the rest of your life.”

  How far was the woman prepared to go, what would she offer, to keep her son in England? “I notice you don’t propose marriage.”

  “Since you aren’t really a lady, my husband would never agree to a marriage,” the countess grimly replied, “no matter what Justinian or I could say. And unfortunately, while the estate itself is entailed to Justinian, the income is not. My husband could cut Justinian off without a cent. If he marries a woman the earl considers unsuitable, he would.”

  “Even if your husband did as you say, do you doubt your son’s capacity to earn a living?”

&nbs
p; “Don’t you?” Lady Granshire countered. “How much do you think his passion for spiders will pay? Consider what he will lose if he marries against his father’s will.”

  “You do realize what it would make me if I accepted your offer?”

  The countess drew herself up, reminding Nell that she was a wealthy, titled lady. “Since you’ve lied so effectively to so many, you must forgive me if I thought your scruples might not be so lofty.”

  “Whatever I am, I am not a whore, my lady,” Nell replied, stung by Lady Granshire’s words and more by their truth.

  The countess pushed herself up from the sofa, her whole body shaking, her lawn cap askew, the silken folds of her black gown quivering, as she upbraided Nell. “Have you no pity? No sympathy for a mother’s love? You have not sat up all night praying for your baby’s safety, fearing he will die at the dawn. You have not waited by that same bed listening to every breath, your own matching, as if you were breathing for him. You’ve never lain alone in the dark, unable to sleep, wondering where your child was. If he was alive or dead. Or ill in some godforsaken place calling out for you.”

  Nell did appreciate the countess’s feelings, and her heart filled with pity for the woman’s worried misery. “I do sympathize, my lady,” she said, her voice gentle and quiet, although she was still firm in her resolve. “But your son is not a boy anymore. He is a man, and he has made a man’s decision.”

  She took the older woman’s thin hands in hers and looked into Lady Granshire’s eyes that were the same cloud-gray as her son’s. “When he sails, yours will not be the only heart breaking, nor you the only one anxiously praying for his safe return. But because I care, I must let him go. To hold him here, even if I could, would be to break his heart.”

  The countess leaned forward, her gaze intense. “What if you could be married to him? What if we could do away with his father’s objections?”

  “It would be no true marriage if I used a false name.”

  “No, I meant under your own.” The woman leaned closer still, her eyes burning with fierce determination. “My husband wants one thing above all—a grandson, so that he can be sure his family name will continue. If you were to get with child, he might be willing to overlook your lack of family.”

  This was the most outrageous offer yet. Outrageous and impertinent and impossible and…tempting.

  Very tempting.

  “It would have to be a clandestine marriage,” Lady Granshire continued in a rush as Nell fought the appeal of her suggestion, “but eventually, and especially if you provide the heir he so desperately wants, I think he would come ’round and forgive you.”

  Forgive her? That hadn’t been her proposal, her scheme.

  Yet more important than the countess’s offer, or her own desire, was the viscount’s happiness. Nothing else could take precedence over that, or the fulfilment of her own desire would have come at too high a price.

  So Nell shook her head. “Knowing how much he cares about his work and his feelings about leaving a wife behind, I wouldn’t marry him even if I could, just as I won’t try to persuade him to stay in England. I wouldn’t want to be responsible for the bitter resentment that would surely follow if I did.”

  Even then, the countess wasn’t yet ready to surrender. “If he had a wife he loved, and children, surely they would be ample compensation for the loss of an expedition. After all, he’s already been on one.”

  Nell refused to agree. “While he’d surely be an excellent husband and father, that lost opportunity would still be there, like a canker in his heart, so I won’t ask him not to sail even if I never have a good night’s sleep again.”

  When she finally realized Nell was adamant, the countess put her face in her hands, sank onto the couch and started to sob. “He won’t come back if he sails again. I know he won’t!”

  Nell sat beside the older woman who loved her son so dearly and put her arm around her, trying to be strong, although she, too, could easily envision shipwreck or illness or some other disaster taking Lord Bromwell’s life. “We shall have to hope and pray that he’ll return as he did before, and remember that whatever difficulties he may face, he’s a strong, brave, clever man.”

  Lady Granshire raised her tear-streaked face to look at Nell. “Will you stay here with me even after he’s gone? My husband has little patience for my fears and even when he tries, he cannot comfort me. Nor the servants, although Dena has been with me so long. They try, but they don’t love Justinian as we do.”

  Nell had never allowed herself to call what she felt for Lord Bromwell “love.” But that was what it was. She knew it, felt it in the core of her heart. She loved him as she had never loved another, and likely never would.

  “Or do you have family or friends with whom you’d rather reside?” Lady Granshire asked.

  No, she did not, and if she stayed here, as his mother’s companion, she would hear news of him as soon as she.

  Yet there was another impediment to this plan. “The earl would surely object to my presence if he learns the truth about me.”

  A resolute gleam came to Lady Granshire’s eyes. “Then we shall not tell him unless and until he needs to know, and I shall also see that you have an income befitting a lady’s companion out of my own funds.”

  The countess sank down on her knees and held out her hands. “I beg you to forgive me and forget the things I said today. Please accept my offer and stay here with me. We can comfort each other when he’s gone because, like me, you love him.”

  Her own eyes filling with tears, Nell quickly stood, then reached down to help the countess to her feet. “I’m very grateful for your offer, my lady, and while I’d like to stay, I don’t think I should make any more plans or promises until your son returns.”

  And then…?

  She would not think about “and then” until she had to.

  “Lord Bromwell to see you, Sir Douglas,” Edgar Minor announced from the door of the study of Drury’s town house.

  After arriving in London, Bromwell had come directly to Drury’s. He hadn’t even stopped to change his clothes at his father’s town house, and it looked like it.

  “Good God, what’s happened? Has somebody died?” the barrister demanded as he rose from behind his solid oak desk that was as large as a dining table for eight.

  Unlike his father’s study, Drury’s was intended to be a place for work, not impressing other men, and the furnishings and decor reflected that. In addition to the massive desk, a comfortable chair was behind it for the barrister, as well as three other wing chairs for his guests or clients. Shelves of law books lined the walls, and a cabinet for papers stood near the desk. Two well-trimmed oil lamps, a silver inkpot, sand shaker and quill pens were also on the table, although the latter were rarely used. Even if Drury was now able to write with more ease, he still preferred to prepare most of his cross-examinations in his head.

  “No,” Bromwell said as he handed his hat to the waiting butler, then closed the door so that they were alone in the room a short distance from the drawing room. “Where’s Juliette?”

  “Shopping with Fanny for fabric,” Drury replied, his voice calm but his eyes full of concern. “Is it something to do with Lady Eleanor? Have her parents returned from Italy?”

  Being an old friend, Bromwell didn’t wait for an invitation, but threw himself into the nearest chair. “No, because she’s not really Lady Eleanor.”

  For once in his life, Drury’s reaction was unmasked and plainly visible, so great was his shock as he slowly lowered himself back into his chair. “She’s not? Who the devil is she then?”

  “Her name is Nell Springley and she was using a false identity to avoid being charged with a crime she didn’t commit.”

  His composure apparently restored, although Bromwell could still see it was not by the set of his jaw, Drury folded his hands in his lap and regarded Bromwell steadily. “I await the details.”

  Bromwell was suddenly unsure how to begin, where to start and
how much to say. He rose and walked to the window hung with dark green draperies, then back again.

  “We aren’t talking murder, are we?” Drury inquired.

  “Gad, no!” Bromwell replied. “She is the victim of a crime.”

  He returned to the chair, sat and took a deep breath. Then he told Drury everything about Nell Springley, up to and including his decision to maintain the ruse that she was Lady Eleanor for the time being.

  Drury would understand that. He and Juliette had pretended to be cousins so they could stay in the earl’s town house not so very long ago, and Juliette had pretended that her maid had stolen her baggage and absconded, which was where Bromwell got the idea for the excuse they’d given his father.

  Bromwell decided to leave out the full extent of his intimacy with Nell, for that could have no bearing on Drury’s opinion of her legal predicament.

  “What will the law say?” Bromwell asked when he was finished. “Could she be arrested and brought to trial for theft?”

  The barrister nodded. “Unfortunately, yes. Her employer could bring charges—although he would have to prove them. However, under the circumstances, Miss Springley could also accuse him of attempted rape. It could be that the possibility of such a charge and ensuing scandal would be sufficient motive for Sturmpole to keep silent—or he may think the jury will take his word over Miss Springley’s. In that case, he would likely accuse her of lying to cover up the theft.”

  Drury frowned ever so slightly. “It would have been better if Miss Springley had gone straight to the local magistrate after escaping Sturmpole’s house.”

  Bromwell couldn’t disagree, but he spoke in her defence regardless. “I think she wanted to put as much distance between herself and Sturmpole as she could and as quickly as she could.”

  Drury steepled his crooked fingers. “As understandable as that may be, it does make things more difficult. However, if Sturmpole was in arrears for her wages, he is hardly in a position to complain if she took a comparable sum. As such, it becomes a matter more for a solicitor than a barrister.