The Viscount's Kiss

by Margaret Moore

  “Then the specimens are well lost,” Bromwell replied, not regretting their destruction if it had helped her. “Nell, you hold the dart while I tie the knot. All those hours at sea have made me quite proficient in that art.”

  Nell did as he asked, gingerly taking hold of the weapon.

  “It’s not really poison,” he said, his ire once more under control, and giving her the ghost of a smile when he saw her expression. “The only danger is its sharp point—which I would gladly have shoved into his neck,” he finished truthfully, “if he’d succeeded in his disgusting quest.”

  Sturmpole emitted a moan, which Bromwell ignored as he started to frog march his prisoner outside. He halted when Drury appeared on the threshold.

  The attorney couldn’t have looked more surprised if he’d been told Nell was the Queen of England. “Good God, what’s happened?”

  “This oaf attacked Nell. I want him arrested and charged with attempted murder.”

  Drury’s shock was swiftly mastered, replaced with his usual cool composure. “Of course.”

  Drury started to come inside, then realized what was on the floor. “Bring him here and I’ll take him back to the hall.” He turned to address Juliette, who had arrived behind him. “Juliette, would you help Miss Springley?”

  “I’ll do that,” Bromwell said at once while wiping his hands on his trousers. Miraculously, he wasn’t badly cut. “Juliette, perhaps you wouldn’t mind going ahead and alerting the servants that we’ll require assistance? And the apothecary should be sent for.”

  Juliette immediately hurried away, while Drury took charge of the damp, scowling Sturmpole, holding him firmly by the arm.

  “Don’t get any ideas about trying to get away, my lord,” Drury said as he pulled him out the door. “My hands may not look strong, but I assure you, I am quite capable of incapacitating you and that prospect is far from disturbing.”

  When they were gone, Bromwell closed the door, went to Nell and took her in his arms.

  “If you hadn’t come…” she murmured, leaning against him.

  He held her close, all too aware of what might have happened. “I’m so sorry I wasn’t here sooner.”

  “You came before it was too late,” she said, choking back her tears. “I was so afraid!”

  “But not too frightened to defend yourself—and very well, too,” he said, stroking her damp, matted hair, cherishing her, relieved beyond measure that she was safe. “You truly are the most remarkable woman.”

  Her body began to tremble, a natural reaction to the attack and the shock and the vital energy she’d summoned to fight Sturmpole off.

  “We had best get you to the hall and see to that cut. Have you any others?”

  “I don’t think so…but Justinian, I’ve destroyed your collection!”

  “Never mind that,” he said, truly not caring as long as she was safe. “I’ll get others. My father’s agreed to fund the rest of my expedition—and I suspect his change of heart is due to a most remarkable young woman who championed me.”

  “Oh, Justinian!” she cried. “That’s wonderful!”

  And then she began to sob in earnest. Loving her, adoring her, cherishing her, he gathered her up in his arms to carry her to the hall, holding her close to his heart.

  Where she belonged.

  Where she would always belong.

  Justinian carried Nell back to the hall and up to her bedroom, calling for the servants as he went and issuing orders like the aristocrat he was. She was too exhausted to protest, although he must be tired, and she didn’t care what the servants thought. Dena came rushing up the stairs after them, all but ordering Justinian to let her take care of her.

  Bromwell didn’t stop until he set her gently on the bed. Ignoring the anxiously hovering Dena, he quickly looked at Nell’s bruised, cut hands and even lifted her alcohol-scented, muddy skirts to look at her knees.

  “I’ll have to clean these abrasions later,” he said, turning her hands over and kissing the back of them. “Fortunately, they aren’t deep and there’s no glass embedded that I can see. I’ll use my magnifying glass to be certain, though.”

  “My lord, leave her to me,” Dena said. “I’ll look after her. She needs a bath and a hot cup of tea and some clean clothes. You can tend to her wounds later.”

  “I shall,” he promised as he stepped back and Dena quickly ordered another maid waiting by the door to bring a bath and plenty of hot water.

  “I’m going to make sure Sturmpole’s under lock and key,” he said, “then I’ll return.”

  His pointed gaze silenced whatever protests Nell or Dena might have made.

  When he was gone, Nell wrapped her arms around herself. He was going to leave her soon, for much longer. Now he would have even more reason to go, because she’d destroyed his collection.

  “Let me help you out of those clothes,” Dena said. “We’ll get you washed and then you’ll feel better.”

  Having no strength to refuse, Nell silently submitted until she was naked beneath a dressing gown and the bath was ready by the hearth. Another maid had carried in enough clean linen for the entire household, some of which now cushioned the tub, and Mrs. Fallingbrook herself had brought in two pitchers of water for rinsing her hair.

  At Nell’s request, only Dena still remained to help her.

  “Thank you, Dena,” she said wearily, more tired than she’d ever been in her life.

  She let the robe fall and stepped gingerly into the bath. Her knees were bruised, and she smelled terrible, of alcohol and blood and sweat, so she was glad of the chance to get clean. With a sigh, she laid her head upon her knees.

  How close she had come to what she’d prevented before! What might have happened if Justinian hadn’t arrived when he did and her strength was failing?

  “You may leave, Dena.”

  Nell’s eyes flew open at the sound of Justinian’s voice. He was standing by the door, looking marvellous and healthy, slightly damp hair brushing his shirt collar. Although she was happy to see him, she could unfortunately guess what Dena would make of this.

  Yet she didn’t ask him to go, or Dena to stay. Instead she watched as he closed the door behind the reluctantly departing maid and started toward the bath.

  “Feeling better?” he asked.

  “Now that my hero is here.”

  He stopped a few feet away. “You’re going to give me an exaggerated sense of my own worth using such terms.”

  “Impossible,” she replied.

  He once again began to approach the tub.

  “You might wish to reconsider,” she warned, although her heartbeat quickened and that familiar yearning invaded her body. “I smell terrible.”

  “I’m quite used to the smell of that particular type of alcohol,” he said. “It’s like perfume to me.”

  Every ache caused by the attack began to diminish, while another sort grew. Well aware that he was watching her with the same intensity with which he studied his spiders, she reached for the lump of lavender-scented soap on the stool Dena had set nearby for that purpose, moving with slow deliberation. The warm water washed over her breasts and droplets fell from her outstretched arm. “I should wash my hair. Would you like to help?”

  Justinian was immediately beside the tub, stripping off his jacket and rolling up his sleeves. “I hope your knees aren’t too sore,” he said as his gaze swept over her.

  “Only a little,” she said, looking up at him and smiling at the thought that if the tub were larger, he could join her.

  He paused as he finished rolling up the second sleeve. “What are you thinking about with that devilishly sly look on your face?”

  “That is for me to know, my lord, but I will say that it involves a tub. A larger one.”

  His eyes widened, making him look delightfully shy. “I see.”

  He knelt beside the tub. “Unfortunately, we shall have to make do with this,” he said as he began to unpin her hair.

  “Bend over, please,
” he said when he was done, reaching for the pitcher that was on the towel-covered floor beside the tub.

  She did, gripping the sides of the tub, then gave a little yelp as cool water cascaded over her head.

  “I’m sorry,” he said as he began to soap her hair, massaging her scalp with his long slender fingers. “The other pitcher is likely to be just as cold.”

  “It’s all right, as long as my hair gets clean,” she said, leaning back with a sigh. She would put up with worse than that to have him wash her hair.

  After what seemed a very little while, he picked up the other pitcher to rinse her hair. “Brace yourself,” he warned before the cold water descended this time.

  Spluttering and shivering, she put out her arm. “Towel, please.”

  He gave it to her, kissing her hand as he did. Smiling, she swiftly dried her face and rubbed her hair, then wrapped her head in the towel.

  “You look nice in a turban,” he remarked when she was finished. “But then, I’d think you looked nice in anything…and especially in nothing.”

  The water in the tub was much cooler; nevertheless, her body warmed. “Perhaps you should leave and let me finish my toilette in peace, before I do something that will really make the servants talk.”

  “That sounds promising,” he remarked as he got to his feet and held open a large towel. “What did you have in mind?”

  She gave him a wicked, wanton smile as she rose, naked as Venus, from the tub. “Come closer, my lord, and I’ll show you.”

  “That cut on your lip might start bleeding again,” he warned.

  “I wasn’t intending to use my mouth.”

  “My lord,” Fallingbrook called from the other side of Nell’s bedroom door sometime later, “supper will be served in half an hour.”

  “We’ll be downstairs shortly,” Bromwell answered as he finished buttoning his trousers. He gave the blissfully sated Nell a rueful smile. “I wonder how he knew I was here?”

  “A fortunate guess?” she suggested from where she lay naked beneath the rumpled sheets of the bed. What had started as one thing, intended only to satisfy him, had soon enough become another, although they were more careful than they’d been by the stables. “Or perhaps a logical conclusion.”

  Justinian pulled his shirt over his head. “I believe my feelings for you had not escaped the servants’ notice prior to this, and I suppose Dena told him where I was.”

  Nell sat up and brushed her dishevelled hair from her face. “Dena once thought I was trying to seduce you into marriage. I hope she won’t think she was right—although of course she’s quite wrong.”

  He frowned as he walked over to her dressing table and ran her brush through his hair, and she instantly regretted mentioning marriage.

  She got out of the bed and hurried to put on her chemise. “How soon before the magistrate’s men can come from Bath, do you think?”

  “They should be here before dark, but only just, even if they come at a gallop, and I’m sure Drury would make sure they did. They’ll have to stay the night and keep Sturmpole under guard in the stable, then take him to Bath in the morning.”

  She went to the wardrobe and selected a gown, a simple one of light blue wool trimmed with brown piping. She stepped into it and pulled it up, then hurried to put her hair up in some semblance of a style. “Will you lace me, please?”

  “Gladly, now and every chance I get,” he replied, coming behind her and doing as she asked, his deft fingers swiftly tying the knot.

  She rose and turned toward him when he finished.

  He reached out to take her hands gently in his. “Nell, you must know I love you,” he said softly, the truth of that even more apparent in his eyes than in his voice and words. “So much so, I can scarcely believe it. For so long, and especially after my friends fell in love, I’ve feared something was missing in me, some capacity to feel deeply. That I was incapable of experiencing love and desire as they so obviously did.

  “I told myself it was no great matter, because I had my work and that was more than enough to content me. Even so, I planned to marry someday. I believed I would simply select a woman whose temperament was the most compatible with mine, and one who wouldn’t be jealous of my devotion to my work.”

  His grip tightened ever so slightly. “And then I met you, and discovered that it wasn’t that something had been lacking within me. I simply hadn’t met the right woman. Now I have, and I believe you love me, too, because I don’t think you would ever have come to my bed otherwise.”

  “No, I would not,” she whispered in confirmation.

  He went down on one knee. “Then, Nell, would you do me the very great honor of marrying me?”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  There is much fluttering among the petticoats as the time draws near for the Earl of Granshire’s hunt ball, especially as it has been confirmed by the earl that his son, the notable naturalist and author, will be attending.

  —from the Social Circle column of the Bath Crier

  A host of emotions ran through Nell at his softly, intently spoken request—joy, hope, fear, dismay, concern—while she gazed into his questioning face.

  There was no doubt, no hesitation, in the eyes that regarded her so steadily. No worry, no concern, only love. Sincere, deep-seated love.

  “I know this must come as a shock to you after all I’ve said about not marrying before I sail,” he continued just as ardently and sincerely, “but seeing Sturmpole attacking you, I realized how very much I love you, need you and want you to be my wife. Nobody understands me, or loves me, the way you do. If we hadn’t shared the same coach, if it hadn’t overturned, I would still be thinking myself incapable of deep, devoted, passionate love. I would still be alone, and lonely.”

  Oh, how his words stabbed at her and made her long to ignore the world and all its restraints and conventions! If she could think only of herself, if she didn’t truly love him, she might have been able to.

  Since she did love him, she must think of him, and his future without her, because with her, he would suffer. Not at first, perhaps. But later. And she would not have him resent her for anything.

  Not even his hand in marriage.

  So she pulled her hands free and did what had to be done, even if it broke both their hearts. “No, Justinian, I won’t marry you.”

  The dismay and disappointment in his eyes nearly weakened her resolve, but as he could be strong for what he believed necessary, so could she.

  “I don’t doubt that you love me as much as I love you,” she said, “but I’m still the penniless daughter of a convicted felon. Such a marriage will make you a pariah to your friends and family, as well as other important, influential people who can aid you in your work.”

  “If it does, so be it,” he returned, desperation furrowing his brow. “I would rather have you. Look at Drury, who married a seamstress—and a French one, at that. His legal career hasn’t suffered. Surely to God I can marry—”

  “Whoever you like, because you are famous, too? I’d like to think so. I’d like to believe that we may do as we wish with no thought to how it will change our lives, save for the better.

  “But we both know that’s not so. We aren’t marooned on a deserted island, just the two of us.

  “There is your work to consider—and we must—as well as your family. We can’t ignore them, or pretend they don’t exist.

  “And there is something else to take into account. You’re going to be gone for a long time, Justinian, and as strong as our love is now, I fear it will weaken with time and distance. Or worst of all, that you won’t come back at all.”

  She put her fingertips on his lips to silence his protests. “I don’t think it would be wise to bind ourselves in a marriage when you are leaving soon, and for so long.”

  “What if you’re with child?” he protested just as fervently as he’d proposed. “We weren’t careful before I went to Bath.”

  “I would not have you bound in a marriage you
no longer wanted even under those circumstances. If that happens, your friends will help me, will they not?”

  He nodded mutely, but his eyes were so full of anguish she couldn’t look him in the face.

  “My lord!” Fallingbrook called out from behind the door again. “Will you please come down? The countess is getting upset.”

  Still without speaking, his expression cold as stone, immutable as a rock, Justinian held out his arm to escort her from the room. “Since there is no more to be said, we had better go.”

  As she took his arm, she swallowed hard and choked back her tears, although she really wanted to throw herself on the bed and cry until she could cry no more.

  Then run away and never look back.

  “Sturmpole! By God, I went to school with him!” the earl was all but shouting as Bromwell and Nell reached the threshold of the drawing room. “He was a fine fellow, so whoever would have guessed…?”

  Standing beside the hearth, arms crossed over his chest puffed out like an enraged rooster, Lord Granshire fell silent when he saw Nell and his son. Juliette sat on the Grecian couch beside the countess, and Drury was by the windows, his ruined hands clasped behind his back.

  The countess immediately got to her feet. “What is it? What’s wrong?” she demanded, glancing uneasily from her son to Nell.

  In that instant, in that precise moment, as his mother looked at him with worry, as Nell’s grip tightened on his forearm, Bromwell knew what he must do. And in that instant, that precise moment, he was equally certain it was the right, best, only thing to do.

  “Be happy, Mother,” he said, smiling at her and everyone else gathered there. “I’m not going on another expedition.”

  “What?” Nell cried, her hand dropping as she turned to stare at him.

  “What?” his father roared as if Bromwell had lost his mind.