The Viscount Meets his Match: A Regency Romance

by Raven McAllan

  “You can rely on me.”

  Josephine inclined her head. “Thank you.” It was time to change the subject before she began to blubber. “Which direction?” They had come to the end of the bridleway.

  “Left and hold on… Stay here.” He dismounted, threw his reins to her and strode toward the thorn hedge that separated the common land they were on from the field to one side. Josephine grabbed the reins and soothed both horses as she watched him bend down and wriggle under the wicked-looking thorns. His torso, his rear—which she couldn’t help but notice was nicely rounded and firm—and the top half of his legs disappeared from view and she contemplated the soles of his hessians for several seconds before he began to emerge. When he finally stood up, to her surprise he held a squirming bundle in his arms.

  “A puppy?”

  “A puppy,” he confirmed. “It was in a sack. I saw the sack move and knew it wasn’t here when I rode by here yesterday. Some bastard, excuse my language, couldn’t do the decent thing and ask around if anyone wanted a dog—they had to try and kill it this way. Well, when I get my hands on them, they will wish they’d thought differently.”

  “You’ll find out who it was?”

  “Of course. It’s a close-knit community. Easy to find whose dog has had pups, where not all the pups are accounted for. Godmama will also add her mite, and that, believe me, is a lot scarier than anything I can do.” He examined the shivering pup carefully. “Nothing broken, just hungry and thirsty. We’ll soon sort it out once we get back. Can you hold her until I remount? We’ll catch the other two up and get it some food and water at the inn. They might even have an idea whose dog whelped.”

  “To find out who needs whi—given what for is an incentive to hurry.” Josephine bit back her first thoughts and altered her statement. She checked her mount was settled, passed David his reins and made sure she had a hand free. “Give him, or is it her, to me.” She hadn’t had a chance to look.

  “Her.” David lifted the liver-and-white bundle into her waiting arms. “Only just old enough to leave her mama. Someone will pay.” He mounted in one fluid motion Josephine envied—side saddles and skirts had a lot to answer for—and held both his hands out. David squirmed in the saddle to face Josephine.

  His horse never moved as he maneuvered himself to the position he wanted. How she envied that.

  “I’ll take her,” David said. “It will be easier for me.”

  As much as she would have loved to have said she could manage, it would have been a lie. “Very well, but I reserve the right to first cuddles.”

  David settled the pup on his lap, held her steady with one hand and gathered his reins with the other. “And first widdles no doubt.”

  She giggled. “And that. But she could be easily trained. If someone offers to have her, of course.”

  David looked at her suspiciously. “Are you suggesting…?”

  “Me?” She opened her eyes wide as she urged her horse to match the easy pace of his. “What makes you think that?”

  “Elementary, my dear. The look of innocence, the lack of pleading, the sighs and, when you think I am not looking, the longing in your eyes.”

  “Oh dear. Am I so transparent?” She supposed she was. How she envied him. She had always yearned for a puppy. Something to love and be loved by in return.

  “’Fraid so,” David said cheerfully. “You want her.”

  “Of course I do, but I can’t. So will you? If no one comes forward to claim her? Will you keep her? Because if you don’t, what will happen to her? I would be so grateful if you do.”

  David sighed. “You know I will, and without even asking how grateful. Not even mentioning betrothal grateful, or a kiss grateful. But if you married me she would be ours.”

  “I am not getting married just to be joint owner of a dog, even one as entrancing as this.”

  “Of course not. Whatever gave you that idea?” He winked. “I suppose you’d like to name her. If I keep her.”

  “Of course you will keep her,” Josephine said with confidence. “No one else deserves her. And I will name her Gaia, which means earth, I believe. I do appreciate you not asking for something from me to show how grateful I am.”

  “I thought you might,” he grumbled. “I should have been less accommodating.”

  “Don’t be a crosspatch. Is that James and Lydia ahead?” Two horses with riders waited beneath the crag.

  “Yes, they will have wondered what kept us.” David urged his horse into a faster walk.

  “Where on earth…ah…David the animal rescuer,” James said as the four of them became reunited. His animation seemed forced to Josephine, and Lydia looked stonily ahead. Evidently, things were not happy between them. Josephine felt for the couple but held her counsel. It was up to them to sort their problems out. She had enough of her own.

  “What have you there?” James asked.

  “A puppy,” David replied. “Tied in a sack and thrown under a hedge. I am informed that she is now mine, and her name is Gaia.”

  “Her owner? Or should I say ex-owner?”

  “No idea. Let’s head to the inn and discover if Riggot knows anything about her.”

  “Riggot?” Josephine queried. “Who is that?”

  “The landlord. A wily old bu—soul who is not averse to a bit of poaching, but would never stoop to this. He has his finger on the pulse of all that goes on in this part of the county. If this is down to someone local, he’ll know who it is.”

  As one, they headed toward a long, low, stone building in the distance. The sun went behind a cloud and the crag became dark and menacing.

  Josephine shivered as she averted her eyes from the dark gray screes and slopes. “It’s eerie.”

  “It’s Wylane. Around here, they say it has a mind of its own. It can be storms here and sun in the village not half a mile away. At night, it gets dark earlier and stays that way longer.”

  Josephine could well believe it. She wouldn’t want to be here by herself during daylight, let alone at night. “And you played in the caves around here? You must have been crazy.”

  “Not crazy,” David corrected her cheerfully. “Ripe for adventure. Three boys with too much energy and imagination.”

  “Whatever. I still think you were foolhardy.”

  “Oh undoubtedly,” David agreed. “But don’t worry, I’m older and wiser now.”

  They reached the inn as a stout, gray-haired man bustled out. He took a step back when he saw whom his potential customers were. “My lord? You’re about early.” He blinked as he saw the bundle in David’s arms. “What have you there?”

  “An abandoned dog, callously left in a sack under a thorn hedge. I could easily have missed it, which is what, I suspect, the person who abandoned her hoped for. Plus three thirsty friends. Ale, watered wine”—he winked at Josephine—“plain water and perhaps something puppy suitable, and anything easy and swift to eat. We are later than I’d hoped.”

  “Ordinary wine for me, please. Not watered,” Josephine said firmly. “Or I will have cider.” She laughed at David. “Even ale, for I enjoy ale once in a while.”

  “Of course, my lord, my lady, at once. I have my own cider and Mrs. Riggot has a nice raised pie just out of the oven, and some fancies as well.” Riggot waited until David had swung down from his horse. “It’s a spaniel, eh? I don’t know anyone around here with a dog that just whelped. Where did you find it?”

  “Not far from Wylane, where the bridleway ends. Can you hold her a moment whilst I help Lady Josephine down, please?”

  Josephine chose not to mention that she’d been dismounting unaided for years. She rather liked the idea of his hands at her waist. What a contrary creature she had become.

  David passed the puppy to Riggot. The man’s dour countenance softened. “What a beauty. What are you going to do with her? I’ll take her off your hands if you want. The missus sore misses our old Shep who passed three months back.”

  Josephine cast an agonized glance at
David as he helped her to the ground. His hands did feel good around her waist, but she was far too agitated to give the experience the attention it deserved.

  David smiled at her reassuringly before he turned his attention back to the landlord. “I’ve promised the lady that the pup will be mine, but if you do hear where she might have come from, I’d be obliged if you would let me know. Someone needs to learn how to respect all creatures, be they big or small.”

  If her heart hadn’t melted just a little before, it did then.

  * * * *

  David tied his cravat for dinner and looked down at the slumbering puppy at his feet. “You are happy to turn my life around, aren’t you?” he mused as Felix his valet helped him into his jacket.

  Gaia yipped and her nose twitched. “Chasing rabbits in your sleep? As long as you don’t bring them indoors half mangled, we will cope. Not you, Felix. Gaia. No doubt she will howl the place down, but she cannot come to dinner.”

  Gaia opened one eye and emitted a doggy sigh.

  “You have had food,” David said and did his best to aim for a no-nonsense tone, although he felt somewhat uneasy lecturing a dog. “And a bone, which I believe is under my bed.”

  Felix smiled. “No need to worry, my lord, the bone is now in your sitting room, along with her bed. I’ll take her out to do her business, then I’ll make sure she’s comfy. I’ve taken the liberty of putting your worn shirt in her basket. A day shirt, my lord, not an evening one. That’ll make her feel better. I wouldn’t suggest you try to put her in the scullery. She’s fair taken with you. A one-man dog, I would say.”

  The one-man dog shut her eyes again and rolled close enough to put her head on the tip of David’s house shoe.

  David nodded. One less shirt. He might need to make a visit to the nearest town for a couple of daytime garments, if Gaia took charge of much more. Naturally he had clothing for a month or more with him, but he would hate to be caught out for any reason.

  “And, of course,” Felix went on as he gathered up used towels, “I’ll be around for a while.”

  “Thank you, Felix. What would I do without you?”

  “Mangle your cravats and have a howling pup?” the valet said with a smile.

  “The pup I agree with, the cravats I do not. When have I ever mangled one of those?”

  Felix raised his eyebrows, very much in the manner of an old and beloved retainer, and David laughed. There were only a few years between them, but Felix and he went back a long way and didn’t stand on ceremony when they were alone. “All for show, I assure you. My love life has not been very active these last years. Very few ladies to crease it to perdition as they strove to get me naked.”

  “I know, my lord, so I wondered why you tried to show me different.” He bowed and went into the bathing chamber.

  David shook his head in amusement as he checked his appearance in the cheval mirror his godmother had obtained from France as a young girl. He’d long admired the sheer elegance of the piece and, with a laugh, she’d arranged for it to be put in his room. “The darned thing shows me as I really am, not at all flattering,” she had said. “I prefer one that slims me and forgets to acknowledge my age.”

  He, on the other hand, was glad it showed him as he really was, and he was satisfied with the result. With a final tweak to his shirt cuffs and a mental prayer of thanks that ruffles were no longer in fashion, David carefully moved Gaia off his foot and put the pup in her new basket. Gaia snuffled and let out a tiny howl.

  “Now that is enough. You have my shirt, that will have to do for now.” David smiled as the pup let out a big loud sigh and closed her eyes. He left his room just as Josephine closed the door on hers. She looked at him with suspicion.

  “Were you waiting for me?”

  “Strange as it may seem, no, I was not,” David replied. “I was ensuring Gaia was happy snuggled up with my second-best shirt and a large bone. Felix is in charge and she will be spoiled. Although it is fortuitous because now I can escort you to the drawing room for sherry before dinner.” He held out his arm. “Shall we?”

  “I hate sherry.” Josephine put her hand very properly on his arm and they walked to the top of the stairs. “It tastes like the linctus the doctor used to give me for a chesty cough. Horrid.”

  “Then feed the pot plants.”

  She shot him a swift and astonished glance and giggled as they descended the wide shallow-stepped staircase to the lower floor. “They’d die.”

  “Not at all, my godmama does it regularly. She says they thrive on it.” David paused until Josephine looked at his face, and winked. “She hates sherry as well.”

  “Then why on earth does she serve it?”

  “She says to remind herself she is not the only person in the world she has to please. Plus, she adds, it leaves more port and brandy for later.”

  Josephine made a noise somewhere between a snort and a snigger, and changed it to a hasty cough as they approached the drawing room door. “I find myself liking your godmother more and more with each passing hour.”

  “She says she is getting rather fond of you as well. Now brace yourself. Smile sweetly at anyone who looks interested about us, and if your parents are so crass as to query how we came to enter together, pass them over to me with one of those stupid comments silly young debs make.”

  “I’m not a silly young deb. I never was.”

  “No, but I bet you’ve heard it said often enough. The”—he changed his voice to a falsetto—“ohh, I really couldn’t say. Perhaps you better ask his lordship…” He chuckled at her astonished expression and reverted to his normal deep tone. “Or some such thing.”

  Chapter Nine

  To her pleasure and surprise, several hours later, with her hair down and a warm shawl around her shoulders, she saw David had remembered the brandy. As he entered her sitting room—presumably as he came from her bedchamber, via their bathing chambers and the servants’ corridor—she saw he also carried a wriggling bundle that woofed and tried to lick Josephine’s face as he put it on her lap.

  “Gaia missed you,” he said as he kissed her cheek and proceeded to pour them each a drink. “Your bathing chamber reminds me of you.”

  Josephine stroked Gaia’s silky, baby-fine hair. The puppy wriggled in ecstasy. “Damp?”

  He chuckled. “No, it is redolent of your scent. Roses and something else.”

  “Mr. Pears soap.”

  “Ah, it can’t be something so simple, surely? I was thinking of all sorts of exotic things.”

  “Sorry, Mr. Pears it is.” She waved him to a seat next to her. Gaia immediately slid off her lap and did her best to climb David’s legs.

  “Behave and do not snag the knit of my unmentionables with your claws, dog.” He lifted the pup into his lap. “Well, I will have to thank him. Along with the roses, it suits you.”

  Josephine laughed and indulged in a swift sideways glance at the unmentionables he’d mentioned. A contradiction in terms, surely? They fit as snug as a glove and outlined every contour and… Oh no, no more of that. Goodness knows what her wayward mouth would utter if she let her mind dwell on all the garment covered. Not that she knew, exactly, but even so…

  “Thank you, I think.” She dragged her mind back to perfumes and soap. “I have never been told a bar of soap suits me before. It is a novel compliment, if indeed it is a compliment.”

  “Oh it is, and don’t forget the roses.”

  “As if I could. Or this.” She sipped the brandy. “I watched Lady Foster. She poured two glasses of sherry away. What a waste.”

  “If you like the stuff. How many did you discard?”

  “Just the one. I sipped, tipped and nursed what remained until dinner was called. Then I forgot the glass and left it on the mantel. Or so I hope people think.”

  “Clever. So on another subject, did you enjoy the day? Was my company acceptable?” David regarded her over the top of his goblet. “Did I behave as you preferred?”

  “You know you d
id.” She sipped her brandy with appreciation for its velvet smooth taste and the way its fiery warmth spread through her. “I enjoyed our time together. Then when you disappeared to play billiards, Lady Foster saved me from my mama’s inquisition and bore me away to admire her rose garden, where she regaled me with stories of your youth and untruths of your adulthood. It passed an interesting hour or two, which could have, if I hadn’t already accepted a lot of what is said about you is a pack of lies, put you in a whole new light.”

  “Enough to accept my offer?”

  “Ah, sadly no.” Oh how she wished she truly knew her own mind. It would have been so easy just to say yes, and wonder if she had done the correct thing. If nothing else, she had no intention of doing that to herself, or David. “We have two more days left, and I intend to use them to decide my response to you.” She leaned forward and fondled Gaia’s ears. “If I said you are the only person who has ever made me think I might change my mind, it is true. But only might. It’s a big decision, and one that will affect both of our lives, whatever it is. It behooves me not to make it lightly. And, I must add, I have certain things to ponder over.”

  “I can see that. I do hope, though, that Janie…Lady Foster didn’t sway your decision in the wrong direction.”

  “So do I— What?”

  A peremptory knock on her bedroom door had made her jump. David put his finger over his lips, stood up and gathered goblets, decanter and dog together. “Are all the doors to the corridor locked?” he asked in an undertone.

  Josephine unscrambled her wits. “Yes, why?”

  “Because I need to get me and the pup out of here, and I’ll have to go via the bedchamber.”

  She nodded and led the way. The knock came again. “Josephine? If you are asleep, wake up, I need to talk to you.”