The Merry Viscount

by Sally MacKenzie

  But if Nick wished to hide his, er, problem, her scheme would suit far better than the one he’d devised. He certainly couldn’t pretend he was an enthusiastic orgy participant if Livy was going to tell everyone about his affliction. And if she’d told Caro within moments of meeting her, she would tell anyone.

  Caro studied his profile as he poured their brandy. Now that she knew who he was, she could see the soft curves of the boy’s face under the hardened planes and angles of the man’s. His jaw hadn’t been outlined by stubble when he’d been young—even at fifteen, he’d still had a boy’s smooth skin—but his dark brown hair had tumbled onto his forehead just as it did now. And while his eyes hadn’t changed, the skin around them was more weathered, with faint lines and creases.

  It was his distinctive dark brown eyes that had given her the feeling of familiarity when she’d stood in the entry, thinking he was the butler and ranting at him to mount a rescue.

  He turned toward her then, offering the brandy glass and smiling.

  Ah! She’d forgotten the dimples. They’d been attractive enough in the boy’s face, but in the man’s . . .

  They were devastating. Her insides did an odd little fluttering dance.

  It was really too bad Nick was impotent. He could seduce any woman he wanted with those dimples.

  Though not me, of course.

  Er, right.

  She released the unsettling feeling in a long breath and smiled back at him. It was time to negotiate.

  “So, am I safe then? You aren’t going to use that marble statue to bash my head in?” Nick’s voice was teasing.

  “Not this time,” she teased back. It was so . . . freeing not to have to worry he’d take her tone as encouragement and attempt unwanted liberties. Even the light of male admiration she saw in his eyes didn’t alarm her, since she knew he was incapable of acting on any amorous feelings.

  Though it’s a little disappointing, too . . .

  No, it wasn’t. Other women might find male attentions enjoyable, but she didn’t. They were uncomfortable—painful, really—and embarrassing.

  “But I put it here on the table just in—oh!” She’d finally looked at the thing. Had Nick known what he’d handed her?

  No, apparently not. His eyes held confusion rather than suppressed glee. She’d grown up with too many brothers not to be very familiar with that expression.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  Some things had to be shown rather than told.

  She handed him the statue. He gave her a puzzled look and then glanced down—

  “Whoa!” His eyes widened, brows shooting up.

  Whoa, indeed. The statue was of a shepherdess—or at least, that’s what Caro guessed she was, given the crook she was inexplicably straddling and the devoted sheep gazing up at her. A very buxom, oddly blissful shepherdess who had misplaced most of her clothing.

  “To think old Uncle Leon had this in his room.”

  “You’ve not seen it before?”

  Nick shook his head. “Well, I must have seen it. I can’t imagine Mrs. Brooks or one of the other servants would have put it out especially for this visit. But I’ve never actually looked at it before.” He glanced at the mantel, frowned again, and walked over to inspect the other statue. “Gah.”

  “What is it?”

  “You don’t want to know.” He grabbed the statue, shoved it and the shepherdess into a cabinet, and firmly closed the door.

  “Perhaps I do.” She did not appreciate being treated like a child.

  On the other hand, she didn’t really wish to examine lewd sculptures either.

  “Trust me, you don’t. I wish I hadn’t seen it.” He dropped into the other chair and stared at the fire, stretching his legs out toward it as if he wanted to be as close to the warmth as he could.

  Ah, yes. She remembered how he’d always tried to stay near the hearth when he’d come home with Henry. Her mother had said Nick’s blood was thin because he’d been born in Italy.

  He let out a long breath. “I just cannot believe it.”

  Wasn’t he overreacting? Obscene statues and drawings weren’t that uncommon among the men of the ton. Even her father had had a book of salacious prints that he’d hid on the top shelf in his library—and which her brothers had quickly discovered.

  She opened her mouth to tell Nick that—and then bit her tongue. Something about the bleakness of his expression suggested this wasn’t really about the statues.

  “My uncle was a harsh, puritanical zealot,” he finally said, his voice rough. Tight. “He hated the fact that his heir was the product of his younger, easygoing, artistic brother and a wanton”—he glanced at her—“in his view”—he looked back at the fire—“hot-blooded, emotional Italian woman. Not that my uncle ever met my mother. His opinion was built solely on narrow-minded prejudice.”

  Nick’s jaw flexed as if he were clenching his teeth.

  “Um.” Caro didn’t know what to say, so she just nodded and made what she hoped were encouraging sounds. “Mm.”

  “He tried his best to cure me of any influence she’d had, any scrap of fun or joy I’d managed to hold onto, and turn me into a cold, hard-hearted replica of himself. He’d have drained my mother’s blood out of me if he could have. I hated him.”

  He said “hated” with such an intense, controlled violence, it made her both shiver with unease and ache with compassion.

  “I’m sorry.” She remembered now that she’d sensed sadness in him even when he was a boy, but she’d never asked him about it.

  Asked him? Boys didn’t talk about feelings, at least not the boys in her family. . . .

  You don’t talk about feelings either, do you?

  Oh. She blinked. Perhaps not. Well, what was the point? Talking never got things done.

  Nick shrugged off her sympathy and smiled again, though this time the dimples were absent and the expression didn’t reach his eyes. “Perhaps you can see now why I so enjoyed spending school holidays with Henry. Your house was full of life.”

  She snorted. “I’d have called it full of chaos.”

  That made him laugh, bringing back the dimples. “What boy doesn’t like chaos?” He glanced at the mantel and frowned again. “I thought my uncle an unpleasant, self-righteous, mean-spirited man, but I’ve always given him credit for living by his wrongheaded convictions.” He shook his head. “Now I discover he was also a colossal hypocrite.”

  She heard the bitter anger in his voice and again felt a pang of compassion. She wanted to make things better. . . .

  Are you mad?

  Nick was a man, a peer with the money and power that went along with that position. He didn’t need her sympathy. Need it? Ha! He’d laugh at her should she be bold enough—or totty-headed enough—to offer it.

  And yet sympathy still tugged at her heart.

  Nick shook his head as if that would free him from his unpleasant memories and then looked back at her. “How is Henry? I’m afraid I lost touch with him once he married.”

  “I assume he’s well.” Henry and the rest of her family had cut ties with her—and she with them—after her disastrous time in London, but there was no need to share those details now, or ever. “He’s not the best correspondent, at least not when it comes to writing his sister.”

  Especially since he has no idea where I am.

  “And, frankly, I’m not much of a letter writer myself.” She should be fair and not lay all the blame on Henry.

  Nick’s brows rose in a look of shock and surprise. “I can’t imagine your losing touch with your family like that. If I—” He paused. Frowned. “Well, yes, I have lost track of my Italian relatives, but that’s largely because my uncle wouldn’t let me write them when I was a boy. And I suspect if they wrote me, he threw their letters on the fire.”

  “You’re not a boy any longer. You could write them now.” Perhaps it was rude of her to point that out, but....

  But you aren’t a girl any longer, either. You could write t
o Henry. It’s possible he and even Papa and the rest of them would forgive and forget.

  Possible, but unlikely.

  Nick was nodding. “I’m sure you are right, but after a while, my life in Italy seemed no more real than a pleasant, hazy dream.” He took a swallow of brandy and smiled at her. “I did envy Henry his, as you say, chaos. There was always someone at hand to play with.”

  “Or fight with.”

  He laughed. “That, too.”

  Caro had loved her brothers, but there had been so many of them. Almost every year had brought a new baby boy. For the longest time, she’d desperately wanted a sister, and then she’d just wanted time alone—an impossible feat with so many people, so many boys, crammed into one house. So, she’d taken to escaping outside, to the fields and woods, to find peace—and, yes, to avoid some of the childcare that fell to her as the family’s only female besides her mother.

  Her father had soon put an end to her solitary ramblings, though. It wasn’t appropriate or safe for her to wander the countryside by herself, he’d said. Her mother had agreed.

  To be honest, Caro had agreed, too, if grudgingly. Even though her father was the local squire, and she had an army of brothers to defend her, she’d no longer felt safe by herself. Grown men had started to stare at her—especially at her bosom—and to whistle and catcall. It had been maddening, but there’d seemed to be nothing she could do to change matters.

  “And how have you been?” Nick asked.

  Did she hear a note of false heartiness in his voice? She looked at him.

  He looked at the fire. “I—” He cleared his throat. “I think Henry told me years ago that you were coming to London to be a nursemaid.” He glanced back at her. “I’m sorry I never looked you up to see how you went on.”

  Was that . . . Did she see pity in his eyes?

  Dear God! He doesn’t know what happened, does he? He can’t. If he does....

  No. She couldn’t think about that now.

  She took a deep breath and forced herself to smile. To speak calmly. Briefly.

  The less said about her stay in London, the better.

  “I was a nursemaid for a very short while, but I found the position didn’t suit me. Now I live in the village of Little Puddledon at the Benevolent Home for the Maintenance and Support of Spinsters, Widows, and Abandoned Women and their Unfortunate Children.”

  “The . . . what?” Nick’s brows furrowed.

  She did hope he wasn’t trying to puzzle out if she were a spinster or an abandoned woman, though if he did know the sorry tale of her time at Dervington’s. . . .

  Shame and guilt, feelings she’d thought she’d long cured herself of, twisted in her stomach.

  She ignored them.

  “Jo—the former Baron Havenridge’s widow—started the Home after her husband died. We have over two dozen women and children living there now. We depend on the Duke of Grainger’s support—and now the Earl of Darrow’s also.” Might as well be bold. “You are welcome to contribute, too, if you have the interest.”

  She smiled and swept on. No need to pick his pocket at this precise moment—it was enough to have planted the seed.

  “We do try to support ourselves as much as we can. A few years ago, we hit upon the idea of selling ale. We got the manor’s old brewhouse working, and we now supply the village tavern and a few other local establishments with Widow’s Brew, the ale I developed. I’m the brewer, you see.” She smiled—persuasively, she hoped. “I discovered I’d much rather tend ale than babies.” Or dodge randy fathers.

  Though, to be painfully honest, she hadn’t done enough dodging. That had been the worst of a bad story.

  “That’s why I was in London. I went up to see if I could interest a tavern keeper there—a man whose brother carries Widow’s Brew in his establishment in Westling, near Little Puddledon—in adding our ale to his offerings.”

  “Oh.” Nick was clearly struggling to keep up. “And how did that go?”

  Horribly. “I’m afraid he decided against taking any at this time.” And since she was never going to darken his door again, this time meant ever.

  She shrugged. “It’s just as well. I hadn’t focused on how far London is from Little Puddledon. It would be very difficult—likely impossible—for us to keep any London tavern adequately supplied.”

  Nick nodded. “Even without the distance, I can’t imagine your operation would be large enough to compete with the London breweries. A vat in one of them gave out a few years ago, and the force of the escaping beer broke through the back wall, flooding the surrounding neighborhood and killing several people. It was the talk of London for quite a while.”

  Caro nodded. She’d read the newspaper accounts of that disaster when it had happened—or at least when the London papers had finally found their way to Little Puddledon.

  “And there might be laws or regulations or other sorts of official red tape that would give you problems,” Nick said, “even if everything else was in your favor.”

  Caro let out a long, discouraged breath. Oh, blast. Getting Widow’s Brew into the London market had been a mad dream. She’d known it all along, she supposed—she wasn’t a complete cabbagehead—but she’d refused to admit it.

  And, yes, Pen had pointed out the plan’s impracticability again earlier this year. That had only made Caro more determined. Growing up with so many brothers had—possibly—encouraged her to obstinacy.

  She would just have to come up with some other scheme to increase the Home’s income. Perhaps she could learn something from how things were managed at Oakland.

  “Do you mind if I talk to your brewer and look around your brewhouse?”

  Nick stared at her for a moment and then shook his head. “As far as I know, the brewhouse has been turned over to storage. My uncle was very much against the consumption of alcohol, even beer”—he glanced at the mantel—“or at least I thought he was. He certainly ranted at me enough times on the subject.”

  “Oh.” Perhaps she shouldn’t be surprised. Most of her Widow’s Brew went to pubs. The Home’s residents drank tea, coffee, and chocolate.

  Of course, the Home’s residents were women and children.

  “Any beer or ale we have, I suspect we get from those large London breweries, but you may quiz Mr. Pearson, the estate manager, if you like. He would know the details.”

  “Thank you, I will. When would be the best time to—”

  Hold on. She’d let herself get distracted. She hadn’t intended to discuss Widow’s Brew or her past. No, it was the immediate future she needed to address.

  Best get to the point before his housekeeper got back. Even if Mrs. Brooks was aware of Nick’s affliction—and from Caro’s short stay in a peer’s home, she’d discovered the servants usually knew everything that went on within its walls—Caro couldn’t see Nick wishing to have the matter discussed in front of the woman.

  Well, he likely didn’t wish to discuss it with Caro, either, but there was no help for that.

  A sudden case of nerves caused her to use his title. “Lord Oakland—”

  Nick raised his hand to stop her. “Please, call me Nick. My friends do.” His lips twisted. “I rather loathe being called by my uncle’s title. I feel his soul-sucking ghost hovering over me whenever I hear it.”

  She felt another tug of sympathy.

  “Oh, yes. I see.” She’d never considered what it would be like to set aside the name you’d grown up with and answer to something totally different.

  Of course she hadn’t. She spent very little time pondering the peerage—with the exception of the time she’d spent this summer plotting how to persuade the Duke of Grainger to continue his support for the Home.

  Nick was smiling now. “I don’t know how long we’ll be stranded here together, Caro, but at a minimum it will be several days. We may as well dispense with the formalities.”

  Right. They were stranded here. She was stranded here with the Weasel and other assorted men who she feared
would be eager to dispense with all formality.

  Dispensing with formality with Nick was precisely what she’d thought might solve her problems and his.

  “And we were childhood friends of a sort, weren’t we?” he said.

  “Yes. We were.” Of a sort.

  Perhaps she could play upon that sentiment. She leaned toward him as if being physically closer would help persuade him.

  Caro would admit that, once or twice, she’d resorted to a little flirting to sway a wavering male into trying Widow’s Brew. But she was always careful to do so only when she had a clear path of escape in case the fellow misunderstood and thought she was offering something more than ale.

  Fortunately, she didn’t have to worry about that here.

  “I need your help, Nick.”

  Chapter Five

  “Of course you may count on me,” Nick said. “What do you need me to do?”

  Concern—an admittedly foreign emotion—swirled through him, mixing with regret. It sounded as if Caro had broken off all contact with her family and had banished herself to the country. Perhaps if he’d done something all those years ago when he’d first heard the Dervington rumors. . . .

  And yet, what could he have done? He wasn’t Caro’s relative. She had a father and brothers.

  But none of them are members of the ton or even frequent visitors to London. They know very little about Society.

  And, well, much as he appreciated Caro’s father welcoming him into his home all those years ago, he’d always suspected part of the reason for his hospitality had been that Nick would one day be Viscount Oakland. There’d been an undeniable whiff of toadyism about Mr. Anderson. Would he have taken his daughter’s part against a marquess?

  I should have written Henry.

  Except . . .

  He frowned. They’d all been more than a little judgmental, hadn’t they? Not as bad as Uncle Leon—that would be well-nigh impossible—but bad enough that they might blame Caro for whatever had happened.

  He suddenly wondered if it was not he but Henry who’d broken the connection between them.

  He’d admit some of—a lot of—his own behavior was offensive, but he was in an entirely different league than Caro.