Chapter Nineteen
The loss was a severe one, and may set back the study of arachnology for years to come.
—The Bath Crier
“Ah, Bromwell, here you are at last!” his father cried from an upper window of The King’s Arms when his son rode into the yard beneath the high arched gate. “Hurry! The banker has been waiting for over an hour.”
Bromwell did as his father bid and soon entered a wainscoted, comfortably appointed upper room where the remains of a large luncheon sat upon the table. A man who looked every inch the prosperous, if somewhat unfashionably attired, middle-aged man of finance and who’d been seated by the fireplace, rose when Bromwell entered. His father, meanwhile, assumed his usual commanding pose by the fireplace, one arm draped over the mantel.
“This is Mr. Denby, my banker,” the earl announced.
“I’m honored to meet you, my lord,” Mr. Denby said, bowing. “Your book was wonderful, quite wonderful!”
“Thank you.”
“Sit down, Mr. Denby, and you, too, Justinian,” the earl commanded.
Bromwell obeyed, and when he did, he saw a copy of the Bath Crier near the bucket of coals on the tiled hearth, obviously intended to be used to help light the fire. It was open to the society column.
Then it was as if the bottom had fallen out of Bromwell’s chair, for there, in the bottom paragraph, he read, “Lately returned to London and reputed to be coming soon to our fair city, the Duke of Wymerton and his family. His musical daughters are sure to be a welcome addition to social gatherings in the weeks to come.”
Had his father seen that?
He couldn’t have, or he surely would have said something at once, Bromwell realized with relief. He immediately and surreptitiously shoved the paper beneath the bucket with his foot. His father would never stoop to lighting a fire, so as long as the paper was beneath the bucket, he wouldn’t see it…although his father was going to have to learn the truth about Nell soon. After all, she was going to be his daughter-in-law.
Of course he must and would marry her now. He had asked her to wait and she had agreed. How could he expect her to do that unless they wed? And she must have the protection of his name and rank if she got with child. He would never leave her here to bear his child out of wedlock.
And yet leave her in England he must. He couldn’t take her with him, no matter how much he loved her. A voyage such as he planned might be the death of her, and he would die himself before he would put her in such danger.
“Well, Denby, give my son the documents,” his father impatiently ordered.
The earl gestured at the table beside the hearth. In addition to several papers of legal size, there was a jar of ink, a quill pen, and some sand for blotting. Clearly his father had been signing papers of some sort, or preparing to.
“If you will be so good as to sign here, my lord,” Mr. Denby said, presenting Bromwell with a raft of papers and pointing to the bottommost line, beside the current date.
“What is this?” Bromwell asked, flipping the pages held together with ribbon.
“Your father is giving you ten thousand pounds for your expedition, on the understanding that you will avail yourself of certain expertise I possess. I deal with many merchants who ship goods all over the world.”
Bromwell couldn’t quite believe what he was hearing. He turned his questioning gaze to his father. “You’re giving me ten thousand pounds for my expedition? And all I have to do is avail myself of your banker’s experience?”
“I’d rather be spending it purchasing a London establishment for you and a wife,” his father growled, “but since you seem resolved to sail off again, you might as well go as soon as possible, so you’ll be back all the quicker.”
Bromwell put down the papers and faced his father. “Thank you,” he said, overwhelmed and grateful—but not as happy as he thought he’d be.
As he would have been before he met Nell.
“However, no matter what reason you give for your generosity,” he continued, determined to remind himself of the reason he had to leave her, “you aren’t just helping me, you’re contributing to the understanding of—”
“I’m upsetting your mother, that’s what I’m doing,” the earl declared, scowling. “She’s going to faint when she hears what I’ve done.”
“I’ll try again to make her appreciate why I must go,” Bromwell vowed, “and I’ll send letters home whenever I can.”
“Just come back safe and healthy,” his father said gruffly. “And when you do, for God’s sake, get married and make us grandparents.”
“I will,” Bromwell promised with every intention of fulfilling that vow. “Thank you.”
Even as he said it, the vocal expression of his gratitude seemed far too cold and formal, so Bromwell did something he’d never done in his life.
He went to his father and embraced him.
Even more surprising, his father hugged him back.
After a moment, Bromwell pulled away and cleared the lump from his throat while, swiping at his eyes, his father strode to the window.
“I’d like to ask Mr. Denby to make an addition to the papers, if I may,” Bromwell said.
His father, once more composed, turned to look at him.
“I want the funds to be a loan, not a gift, and one that I’ll gladly repay.” He addressed the banker. “Can we not set up a system whereby some of the royalties from my book can go to my father as repayment?”
Bromwell held up his hand when his father looked about to protest. “I insist, Father. And don’t think it’s going to be so very much. I daresay it won’t even be enough to pay for the new fountain you want to put by the terrace.”
He thought of something else Mr. Denby could do with another portion of the income from his royalties.
But that must wait until later, after he’d asked Nell to marry him.
And provided she said yes.
The next day, in her pelisse and with her shawl wrapped around her for extra warmth, Nell walked briskly along the fern-bordered path from the garden to Justinian’s laboratory. Overhead, a wren flitted amid the branches of a lichen-coated ash surrounded by birch and alder trees. The day was cool, but no clouds threatened rain and the air was still, unlike her tumultuous mind. She wanted to be alone, away even from Sir Douglas Drury and his wife.
It was not that they were unpleasant, and it had been tempting to ask all sorts of questions about Justinian, but she found their mutual happiness and obvious love difficult to endure. It was too much a reminder of what she couldn’t have with Justinian.
She wouldn’t think about that, she told herself. She would think of something else. His father’s summons, for instance. Justinian had clearly been taken aback by the earl’s request for consultation.
She still couldn’t understand how his father could have had so little regard for his son’s intelligence in the past. On the other hand, she had never known Justinian as a child, and it might be difficult for some parents to see their child as an adult.
Her parents had only ever known her as a child. What would they think of the woman she’d become? What would they say if they knew she’d been so intimate with a man who was not, and never would be, her husband?
She’d accepted that as part of the price for being with him, and while she’d been thrilled he’d asked her to wait for him and she had every intention of doing so, there had been no talk of marriage.
They would be apart for so long, and there would be many days she would never know how he was, or if he was well, or if he was even still alive. More and more she was sympathizing with the countess, and more and more she was tempted to beg him to stay.
“Well, well, well, who have we here?”
Nell’s breath froze in her lungs as she spun around, to see Lord Sturmpole standing on the path.
How had he come there? Why had she not heard or seen…?
“You don’t look happy to see me, my dear.”
“I’m not,” sh
e retorted, backing away toward the laboratory. “What do you want?”
“Why, you, of course. It wasn’t very sporting of you to run away like that.”
“Sporting? You attacked me and then locked me in a room.”
“Attacked? Ye gods, that’s a bit strong for the demonstration of my affections.”
She desperately wondered where Billings and Brutus were, and if they were within call. The gardeners wouldn’t be so very far away, either. “If you don’t leave, I’ll scream!”
“I don’t think so, not unless you wish to appear before the magistrate in Bath. There is the matter of the money and clothes you stole, not to mention impersonating Lady Eleanor Springford.”
Of course if he knew where she was, he must have learned who she was pretending to be.
“So unless you wish to be arrested, you will do exactly as I say.”
“How did you find me?”
“I was approaching the house on horseback to see if my suspicions were correct when I saw you cross the garden and come this way. You certainly didn’t waste any time enticing another man after you left me, did you?”
His lips curved up in that familiar, terrible leer. “You can stop staring at me like that, milady. I wouldn’t dream of preventing you from playing whatever game it is you’re playing with that fool of an earl and his no doubt equally foolish son.”
“Then what do you want?”
“What you wouldn’t give me before, that’s all. Just once, and I’ll be satisfied, and we can call what you took payment for services rendered.”
“That’s…?” She couldn’t call it all; to let him do what he would with her was very far from nothing.
His thick lips curved up. “Yes, my dear, that’s all. Just once, and then I’ll be on my way back to Staynesborough.”
“Why?” she cried. “Why do you want me? What am I to you?”
“You’re the little whore who dared to say no—to me!”
“But there are other women!”
“You underestimate your appeal.”
“Or is it because I wounded your pride? I got away, so your arrogant conceit demands you come after me.”
“Who do you think you are, to refuse me?” he retorted. “You are nothing—little better than a servant!”
Yet she was enough for Lord Bromwell to love, and that gave her confidence and the determination to stop Sturmpole from ever attacking another woman in his employ.
“Have me arrested if you will, but if you do, I shall charge you with attempted rape and assault.”
His eyes flared with anger even as he laughed with scorn. “Who do you think the authorities will believe?”
She put on a smile as false as his laugh. “Me, because I shall have Sir Douglas Drury as my advocate, and he never loses.”
To her surprise and growing dread, Sturmpole didn’t look impressed. “You speak as if I would have the case tried in London. It would, of course, be heard in Staynesborough, and there I own the magistrate.”
It was possible that he did, at least in a sense.
Her throat dry, Nell could think of only one thing to do—she had to get help. Find Billings or Brutus, or run back to Granshire Hall.
Shouting for the gamekeeper and his dog, she broke into a run, heading for the garden.
But Sturmpole had anticipated her flight and he caught the back of her pelisse, then jerked her back to him.
“I don’t think so,” he growled as he roughly grabbed her arms and spun her around to face him, his breath reeking of stale wine. “One way or another, I’ll have you. I didn’t come all the way from Staynesborough for nothing.”
“You did, you disgusting degenerate!” Nell cried, hitting him.
Holding her tight, he started dragging her toward the laboratory. “No woman says no to me. No woman refuses and robs me!”
“Billings! Brutus!” she shouted as she dug in her heels.
His face contorted with rage, Sturmpole struck her hard across the mouth, knocking her to the ground. Regardless of the pain, she scrambled to her feet, trying to run, but the ground was damp and muddy and she slipped.
“Shut your mouth!” Sturmpole ordered as he pulled her to her feet. “If you’re calling the gamekeeper, he’s on the far side of the estate. I saw him.”
“You didn’t—you’re lying!” Nell retorted, hoping she was right, her cut lip throbbing as blood trickled down her chin and onto her torn and muddy pelisse. “Lord Bromwell will kill you if you hurt me!”
“When he finds out the trick you’ve played, he’ll be calling for your head,” Sturmpole charged as he shoved open the door of the laboratory with his shoulder.
She grabbed the door frame with both hands. He pulled hard, forcing her to let go. Holding her with one hand, he raised the other to strike—then stopped and stared as he caught sight of the jars upon the shelves.
For that brief instant, his hold relaxed. She pulled away and grabbed one of the heavy glass jars. He realized what she was going to do and knocked it from her hand. The jar shattered on the floor, spilling its contents.
Nell tried to rush past him to the door, but Sturmpole grabbed her shoulders and threw her toward the sofa. She slipped on the wet floor and fell hard on her knees. Ignoring the pain and broken glass, she scrambled to her feet, aiming for the table and the candleholder there.
Again he saw what she intended and stepped in front of her to block her.
She moved sideways and grabbed another jar. She threw it at him, hitting him on the shoulder. She grasped another and threw it, too, narrowly missing him but making him duck before it, too, shattered. Another hit the side of his face before breaking on the floor.
The air reeked of alcohol, her eyes watered and her lip still bled; nevertheless, Nell kept throwing jars of preserved spiders, aiming for Sturmpole’s head or chest, making him keep his distance as she worked her way back toward the hearth and the cupboard where Justinian kept the cutlery, including all the knives.
Chapter Twenty
My dear Buggy, what are you trying to do? Give your old friends attacks of apoplexy? Drive us to early graves? Is it not enough that we have to live in fear you’ll be bitten by some exotic insect and die in fearful agonies, or that you’ll be the main item on a cannibal’s menu, that you must put yourself in harm’s way in England, too?
—from a letter to Lord Bromwell, written by the Honorable Brixton Smythe-Medway
It was breaking glass, Bromwell realized as he broke into a run along the wooded path. Breaking glass in the woods, where his lab was, and his spiders.
And Nell? God help him, was Nell there, too?
She hadn’t been in the garden when he’d returned with the news of his father’s unexpected generosity; he’d sought her out at once, while his father went to speak to his mother, as they’d decided in the carriage on their return from Bath. When he’d asked Fallingbrook where he could find Lady Eleanor, he’d said she’d gone out for a walk.
His heartbeat quickening at the louder and undeniable sounds of a struggle, Bromwell rushed into the building. He nearly slipped on the floor slick with alcohol and crushed specimens, and crunching with broken glass. A man he’d never seen before stood in front of Nell, who was by the hearth. Her lip was cut and bleeding, her gown torn and splattered with mud, and she held an upraised knife to protect herself from that lout who was obviously attacking her.
With a roar of pure animal rage, he launched himself at the attacker and tackled him to the ground, regardless of the broken glass. Straddling the man who did his best to buck him off, Bromwell got his hands around the brigand’s throat and squeezed.
He was no chivalrous gentleman now. He was a primitive warrior prepared to kill to protect the woman he loved.
“Stop, stop!” Nell cried. “You’ll kill him!”
The man’s face was purple, his eyes bulging, as Nell’s shouts brought Bromwell back to civilization—but only just. Spotting something lying on the ground amidst the ruin of his collection,
he let go of the ruffian’s throat with one hand and reached for it.
“This is a blow dart coated in the venom of a Phoneutria nigriventer, the most lethal spider yet discovered,” he said, his voice hoarse with his barely suppressed rage. “I have only to break your skin with it to see you die in agony or, if you do not die, be painfully rendered impotent for life—a more fitting punishment, perhaps, for the likes of you.”
Drawing in great rasping breaths, his eyes wide with terror, the man finally went still.
“Do you know who is this, Nell?” Bromwell demanded, glancing sharply at her.
Her face was palely aghast, the knife still clutched in her trembling hand. “Sturmpole,” she breathlessly replied.
Bromwell moved the dart a little closer to Sturmpole’s mottled skin.
“He came upon me in the woods,” she continued. “He…he wanted me to….”
“I can guess what he wanted,” Bromwell said, his voice slightly calmer, although he was even more tempted to put an end to this rogue’s life. Or at least prick him with the dart so priapism would set in. “He’s going to be arrested and charged with attempted murder.”
“I wasn’t trying to kill her!” Sturmpole protested, spittle on his lips.
“Whatever you were trying to do, you struck her and could have killed her. The evidence is there on her face. And there’s the attempted rape at Staynesborough. You had better reconcile yourself to a long stay in a cold, damp prison, my lord.”
Still holding the dart near Sturmpole’s neck, Bromwell got up and pulled him to his feet. “Nell, perhaps you’d be so good as to tie his hands with that length of rope near the door. Be careful. The floor is slippery.” He scowled at the nobleman, who kept his frightened, sidelong glance on the dart. “I’m going to charge you with destruction of property, too.”
“I’m sorry about your specimens, Justinian,” Nell said as she took hold of Sturmpole’s hands to tie them. “I threw the jars at him to keep him away.”
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