His Brother’s Viscount
Synopsis
As a baron’s youngest son, Hector Somerville has no real prospects. He will not inherit, and he’s overshadowed by two perfect brothers. While searching for ways to improve his situation, Hector finds respite in an invitation to a country estate—and has a second chance at rekindling his illicit affair with Viscount Wentworth, captain of HBMS Dragon. The upcoming fortnight could be everything Hector dreamed of since their disastrous parting.
Wentworth has forsaken love, and yet, memories of guilt and heartache resurface. He loved a boyhood friend once, Hector’s older brother William, until the man left him, trampling his heart in the process. Years later, he wonders if he ever fell out of love. Is his heart bound by William, or can he create a life with Hector?
His Brother’s Viscount
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His Brother’s Viscount
© 2021 By Stephanie Lake. All Rights Reserved.
ISBN 13: 978-1-63555-804-3
This Electronic Original Is Published By
Bold Strokes Books, Inc.
P.O. Box 249
Valley Falls, NY 12185
First Edition: January 2021
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
Credits
Editors: Jerry L. Wheeler and Stacia Seaman
Production Design: Stacia Seaman
Cover Design by Tammy Seidick
eBook Design by Toni Whitaker
By the Author
Second Chance Series:
His Midshipman
His Second Chance
His Pirate
His Brother’s Viscount
Florian’s Garden
Thom’s Desires
Acknowledgments
Thanks to our fantastic beta readers, Jules Radcliffe and Andrea. Special thanks go to Keren Reed, and to the BSB team: Jerry, Stacia, and Tammy—it was a pleasure working with you for the first time on what hopefully will be many stories to come.
To our fans, who make writing worth the time, toil, rewrites, and more rewrites! Hugs!!!
Prologue
Summer 1790, Kent
“You bloody, cowardly, worthless cur!” Baron Forsythe yelled, the slurred words so loud they spilled from the imposing Forsythe country home.
Tyler jumped. He heard the raging storm from the front door, where he waited for at least a minute before the blasted red-liveried footman opened the door a few inches. He pushed the man aside. The next outburst could be heard from the adjoining county, as he ran down the hallway.
“Get back here, you worthless Satan spawn, and drag your sniveling brother out from under that damn table!”
How fortuitous. He’d arrived in time. Apparently, the baron hadn’t caught the boys, so he could not have beaten them. Yet. Tyler flung open the library door and heard eleven-year-old Will defying his drunkard of a father.
“Stay where you are, Heckie,” Will yelled at his four-year-old brother, Hector, who scurried from one side of the table to another when his father stretched out a fat, beringed hand beneath in an attempt to catch him. The small, dark-haired boy darted as quick as a pony each time the tottering baron reached for him.
Will, standing on a ladder next to one of the bookshelves, looked for all the world like a black-haired pirate. His coat was missing, and his white shirt billowed loose about his hips. Tall boots and tan breeches completed the image. The only thing lacking was a parrot on one shoulder. He yelled when his father barely missed Hector’s coat, and he lobbed book after book at the screaming, lard-filled gas bag.
The old man changed tactics and lumbered to the ladder. “Down from there, you scoundrel. If you think being my spare will save your skin from a thrashing, you can think again.” The afternoon sun glared through the tall windows, momentarily blinding him as he moved closer to Hector.
Tyler bellowed, “Enough!” in an imitation of his grandfather’s resounding authority, and the baron turned his small eyes on him.
“You’re Wentworth’s whelp, aren’t you? Don’t think because your grandfather’s a viscount, I won’t thrash you as well.” Lord Gas Bag paused, grunted, and turned slowly toward Tyler. “Now I have a third impudent rascal to thrash.” Another grunt and a snarling smile that revealed a row of yellow teeth.
Even though Tyler was not full grown, only two years older than Will, he had inherited his grandfather’s daring. So he held his ground and stiffened his shoulders.
“Leave, young Wentworth,” Lord Gas Bag said. “This matter is none of your concern.” The man didn’t approach Tyler, but he did stop his progress toward Will.
“I believe my grandfather would disagree, don’t you, Lord Forsythe? After you broke William’s arm, he will not overlook any more abuse. I do believe he told you so himself, did he not? My grandfather won’t take it lightly if you lay a hand on one of his grandsons.” Tyler drew himself up to his newly gained sixteen-year-old height, hoping to intimidate. “You’re only a baron, after all,” he added with a bold insolence.
Lord Gas Bag’s piggy eyes glared. “I told you to leave, lordling. This matter is none of your concern. Your grandfather will not care about you. After all, you are not the heir, nor even the spare.”
Lord Forsythe had broken Will’s arm when he’d tried to stop him from beating Hector. He’d thrown Will, who fell and hit a marble step. Tyler, in London at the time with his family, was not here to help. He should have been here to protect them against the unpredictable baron. He’d neglected his friend, so he blamed himself that Will couldn’t play outside for almost two months.
Gas Bag waved a hand. “As you can very well see, your grandfather is not here.”
“Nonetheless, I will make certain to tell him.”
Lord Forsythe turned, glared at all of them with his evil eyes, then stumbled to the door. He growled over a broad shoulder, “You overstepped your bounds this time, young man. See that you do not do so again.”
The door slammed so hard, the windows rattled and a leather-bound book fell to the floor from the highest shelf.
Tyler’s legs buckled under him as he dropped into a plush blue velvet chair. His head bounced on the stiff, straight back.
Will stayed on his perch, perhaps afraid his father would return, perhaps too shaken to move. “Blast it, Ty. I thought Father would murder you for sure this time.”
Tyler shook his head. “No, he won’t hurt me.” Fortunately, his words sounded braver than he felt. “He is too afraid of Grandfather to do anything, but I think the two of you should stay with me at Wentworth Manor for a few days until he forgets what he is angry about.”
With large brown eyes open so wide they were almost round, Hector slipped out from under the table and ran to Tyler. Then the impetuous boy jumped onto his lap, put both hands on Tyler’s face, and kissed his cheek repeatedly with sticky, soft lips that smelled like baked apples.
Tyler laughed. “Hector, what…?”
“Love you, Tyler. Goin’ to marry you when I grow big.”
Will and Tyler giggled, their fear put behind them as simple as that. Tyler ruffled Hector’s dark, curly hair. The mop puffed a
round his head like an unruly bird’s nest. “Sprout, you are a silly, romantic child. Boys cannot marry boys. When you grow up, you will have to marry a girl.”
Hector scrunched up his lips and kissed his cheek again. “Don’ like girls. They bite.”
Tyler hugged him, then stood and set him down. “Not all girls bite, silly. Just Mary Ann Pope. Now, let’s pack a few things and go to my home in time for tea. Mildred is baking plum cake.”
Will and Hector grinned from ear to ear as the three of them dashed out of the library and tore up the wide, curving staircase. Less than fifteen minutes later, they were running across green summer meadows with a bag full of toys and purloined sweetmeats from the kitchen.
A few times, Hector fell. Each time, Tyler helped him up, and the boy never cried. “You are a tough little man, Sprout. Perhaps you will be a soldier when you grow up.”
Hector smiled at him and then ran down a hill.
“He’s learned to be tough, Ty. Has to with all the things Father has done. And with Stephen off at school, Father has gotten worse.”
Tyler looked at Will, realizing he was tough and brave, and for the very same reason. Damn their father to Hades.
“Thank you for coming to our rescue for the hundredth time.”
Tyler rolled his eyes at the exaggeration.
“I shall pay you back someday.”
“No need, Will. I’ll always be there to help you. You know that.”
Hector had reached the bottom of the hill and threw his little arms into the air. “I won. I won.”
Will muttered under his breath, “Little urchin cheated. I didn’t even know it was a race.”
“Come on. Let’s show him what big boys can do.” They were off like a powder blast.
That night all three of them squeezed into Tyler’s bed.
Tyler felt Hector smashed up against his back, holding tight. It was a little uncomfortable, but Will was the one who kept him awake all night. Will was on his back, and Tyler could see his perfect features from the moonlight streaming in the open windows—straight nose, sooty long lashes, wide mouth, ebony hair rumpled in sleep.
Tyler watched Will breathe and then swallow. Occasionally he would tense his lips into what almost looked like a smile.
That night, with new and very pleasant sensations tingling through his body, Tyler wondered why men couldn’t marry other men. It seemed a pity.
Chapter One
Eighteen years later, late spring 1808, a few miles east of London
Today’s journey was a fool’s errand. Fourth Viscount Tyler Wentworth was not even certain why he was on this hill at this moment. Was he motivated by revenge or simple lust? Lust certainly played a part, but how much?
“My lord?” His footman had climbed from the back of the gleaming black carriage and proffered a spyglass.
He dismounted his warmblood mare, tossed the reins to the footman, and took the spyglass, given to him when he had gained midshipman status. The cool metal felt good in his hand, like it belonged there. But even that bit of comfort could not calm his riotous thoughts.
Why had he agreed to this trip? He had sworn never to be in the same county as any of the Somervilles until his cold body was safely stored in the family vault—because unfortunately, his family’s crypt was adjacent to theirs.
Yet here he stood, and if all or part of his decision was motivated by revenge, then who was the target? William, Hector, himself?
All he knew was that he had been dead inside for two years. This journey would change that, for better or worse.
Given his history, things would likely get worse. The third son should never have inherited, but typhus cared not for rank. Now shouldering the title he never coveted, having lost most of his family seven lonely years ago and everyone else he loved five years later, he realized he possessed very bad luck. Very bad luck indeed.
He surveyed the verdant hills. A church spire stabbed the sun-bleached sky, a distant village smudged purple like a bruise against the landscape, and the dreariness of a skeletal gray manor house disturbed the countryside’s beauty. Wentworth was close enough to the manor to distinguish a bustling crowd of garishly dressed partygoers on its vast lawn. They looked like multihued blemishes on the earth.
One of those in the party would leave with him today. The man’s trunk, which arrived last night, now rested safely in the luggage compartment of the carriage. Early this morning, he’d patted the trunk’s battered oak and leather surface, smiling in anticipation like a schoolboy on the first day of Christmas vacation. Now the sight of it made his stomach churn. Was he making a mistake?
He’d brought two of his finest horses for the holiday. He and his guest could travel with ease on horseback to his estate in one afternoon, but he’d also brought the coach in case they felt an urgent need for privacy. He forced away the stir of impatience.
Wiping perspiration from his brow, he raised the spyglass. The sun’s angle sent harsh rays directly into his eye, momentarily blinding him. A novice’s mistake he had not made in a decade. He shaded the lens with one hand, and the small round view came slowly into focus.
As bad luck would have it, he immediately spied the one person in the world he wished never to set eyes on again. Dropping the spyglass, he closed his eyes, but it was too late. The lidded darkness showcased one potent mental image that would haunt his sleep once he laid his head to a pillow.
He remembered a closeness lost. His knees buckled, but he righted himself with a hand on the large wheel beside him. Hollowness sucked at his cold heart, jerking it back into the land of feelings, of pain. He swallowed the bile crawling up his throat and lashed out with a quick turn and a snapping left jab to the side of his carriage.
The punch landed true, but the wood proved faulty. His hand slid through a weak section, one jagged piece of pine veneer slicing his skin from thumb to wrist.
“Damnation!”
He extracted his bloody hand from the broken wood. It would hurt later, but it was surprisingly numb now.
Well, hell.
His coachman jumped off the driver’s seat. “M’lord. Ye all right, m’lord?”
He waved the man aside while he stripped off his cravat. “Might as well tie Grey to the back with Dash. Difficult to hold the reins with a bandaged hand. Lot of bloody good it did to pick my best horses for the trip. The poor beasts will be choking on dust for hours.”
His driver nodded, looking grave.
The irony of the situation being, in his current foul mood, there would be no need for privacy and no reason to show off by bringing his best horses.
Wrapping the cravat around his wound, he climbed into the conveyance, stewing over the image of a handsome couple kissing with babe in arms. “Bloody hell.” He spat the curse with great force, as if the words alone could incinerate his misery.
✥ ✥ ✥
Hector raised his face to the warm spring sun. The gods had worked together to make this a perfect day. Well, he had a small part in making all the components align correctly, of course. He smiled, looking forward to what lay ahead.
Flourishing spring-green grass spread all the way to the surrounding forest, the manor house stood bright against a vibrant sky, and a light breeze cooled the air and carried the scent of woodbine.
He admired the spread of food arrayed on large linen-covered tables. One dish containing meat in a dark gravy filled the air with a savory fragrance that started his stomach to rumbling. The crystal, which sparkled in the sunshine, was filled with the best wines from France, and delicate porcelain tableware was arrayed for the guests’ use.
Youngsters chased one another about. The light giggles of two young women and the hearty laughter of young men added to the festive air. Yes, it was a glorious day, brimming with joy, but the party alone could not explain the gale-force euphoria surging through his body.
In fact, he could not remember life ever being this enjoyable. Especially not in the past eighteen months. Certainly not in the past eig
hteen months.
His favorite—well, his only, but he knew she would always be his favorite—niece’s christening had progressed along wonderfully. But his attention wandered to things other than the party. Even with the warm sun, he shivered thinking about the night to come. If he wasn’t careful, he might even sport wood. Now wouldn’t that be a shock to old Aunt Dorothea?
“Well, don’t you look like the man who stole the raspberry tart?” Will slapped him on the back with a bit too much enthusiasm.
Hector winced but would not let sibling rivalry ruin his day. He’d always been smaller than his two older brothers, and Will’s mere presence reminded him of his deficiency.
“Careful, you might drop Pug in your attempt to collapse my left lung.”
“I’d never drop my precious girl,” Will cooed to the babe in his arms. “And stop calling her Pug.”
He looked up at Will—two inches up, to be exact. Two very important inches. Two inches and a scar that changed common, everyday looks into the dangerously dashing Dr. William Somerville. It wasn’t only size that distinguished the two of them. Will had his jaunty black hair, black eyes, and a swarthy complexion. Hector had washed-out mud brown, faded mud brown, and light mud brown.
But today it didn’t matter that he was small and forgettable. Today, Hector felt like Apollo himself.
“’Fraid I cannot stop calling her Pug, old man, not until she grows into those ears of hers.” He laughed at Will’s puckered expression. “By the way, the celebration is going well. All the work your wife forced us into this morning paid off outstandingly.”
The early hours they spent tacking up decorative paper in the high-ceilinged grand hall and around the stone balustrades made the inside and outside of the manor rather festive. They’d rearranged furniture and pinned up paper decorations for his brother’s first child’s first party. Margaret Harriet Philadelphia Somerville. What a designation. Will had taken leave of his senses when he labeled the poor girl with that name. But even with that taint, Pug was a sunny child with her mother’s fawn-colored hair and her father’s rambunctiousness. At just three months, she managed to grab everyone’s attention, a little sun at the center of whatever room she occupied. It’d taken Hector two months to decide he really quite liked the girl even though she was an unsightly pink, wrinkly thing that smelled of curdled milk.
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