Texas Viscount

by Henke, Shirl

  The younger man paled as he peered at it, holding it as if he'd never let it go.

  “Amazing resemblance, wouldn't you say?”

  The face staring into the camera was his very own. Dark, slightly curly hair, square jaw, prominent nose and heavy slashes of eyebrow framing deep-set eyes that studied the world with heavy-lidded amusement. The wide mouth was sculpted, its smile revealing almost perfectly straight teeth whose only flaw was one slightly turned incisor.

  “Any lingering doubts you're Charles James Justin Cantrell's son?” the earl asked dryly.

  “How did they die—my mother—”

  “I have the whole of it here,” Hambleton said, touching the bound tome of reports. “But this isn't the time to digest so much.”

  “You know I was raised in a whorehouse in west Texas.” It wasn't quite a question, more of a challenge.

  “After your father was killed in a shooting incident, your mother was destitute and in failing health. She turned to the only place where she could find shelter for you.”

  “Gertie.”

  “Just so. The Golden Garter, I believe Miss Greer's establishment was called. You've risen far beyond such...er, humble beginnings.”

  “I'd never be ashamed to acknowledge Garter Gertie or any of the women who worked for her. They raised me,” Josh said with quiet defiance in his voice.

  “I assume that was the reason for this morning's incident at the wharf,” the earl said, showing Josh several of the headlines: “Hambleton Heir Battles for Whore's Honor.” “Texas Viscount Rides to Rescue.” “Lord Wesley Truly is Westerner.”

  “I knew what she was. Where I come from, it doesn't give a man license to hit a woman.”

  “Admirable. I agree.”

  Josh blinked. “You do?”

  The earl smiled again. “We English may appear rather too formal at times, but we aren't ogres, I assure you. I rather imagine you could do with a hot soak to ease your battle wounds, and a change of clothing.” He eyed his nephew's swelling eye and raw knuckles as well as the torn jacket. “After you're settled in, we'll talk more over a quiet dinner. Just the two of us.”

  “That sounds good, sir,” Josh replied with a grin.

  “Oh, Joshua, if you please, would you mind leaving the firearm in your room when you return? If it should discharge in the house, my staff would all die of fright, and good help is dreadfully difficult to come by.”

  * * * *

  “Well, I would say your position is quite safe, to judge by this,” Sabrina crowed delightedly as she perused the note bearing the Hambleton crest.

  “What does it say, Coz?” Edmund asked. He'd been trembling with dread from the moment the note had been delivered by the earl's footman. Was it his dismissal because the viscount had told the earl he'd failed to meet him at the dock? But why send it to his cousin's lodgings instead of his own? He breathed a sigh of relief when she beamed at him.

  “The earl wishes to employ me!” she said. “I'm to meet with his secretary tomorrow morning at ten in the rose garden.”

  “Employ you how?” Edmund asked, puzzled.

  “Eddy, what have I been doing to earn my living for the past seven years? He must want me to teach deportment to some kinswoman of his, although he does not say whom.” Sabrina considered for a moment. “I have it!” she said with a snap of her fingers as her nimble brain quickly turned through the list of eligible young ladies coming of age for the spring season. “Sophia, I believe her name is.”

  “Oh, you mean his lordship's niece, Isadora's granddaughter? A perfectly horrid child,” Edmund said with a shudder.

  Sabrina laughed. “She can be nothing compared to that Liverpool steel magnate's daughter I tutored before her presentation at court last year. At least Sophia's of the peerage and has some idea of what's expected of her—and the knowledge that no amount of wealth will augment her status.”

  “Rich Cits are worse than the aristocracy?” Edmund asked. He'd witnessed enough snobbery and arrogance among the peerage to doubt her claim.

  “Some are. The very worst thing is when someone who has made an excess of money believes a fortune entitles him to do and say whatever he wishes. Things simply are not done that way in proper society.”

  Chapter Three

  Damn! Where does King Arthur sit?

  The table was longer than the one in his dining room in Fort Worth. Amazing how much larger the earl's home was than it appeared from outside. The effect was elegant and intimidating at the same time. Light winked gently from a sterling candelabrum, and the fine china place settings were positioned so Josh would sit next to his great-uncle. A bewildering array of enough sterling flatware for a platoon of Rough Riders was arranged beside the plates. Half a dozen dazzling crystal goblets were carefully positioned, too.

  But the size and opulence of the table and the room's furnishings were not what daunted Josh. The antiquity did. He sensed instantly that history had been made around this dining table. Sometimes such insights came to him out of nowhere, just like “blue northers” boiling up on the horizon. Normally he knew how to use the bizarre talent to his advantage; but here, so out of his element, he was not at all certain what to make of it.

  Did the old man do more than play cards at his club, attend balls and spend weekend at his country estate? From what little he knew of the British aristocracy, those were the pastimes of most of them. The exceptions were those who chose government service; but other than his hereditary seat in the House of Lords—not much work there in recent years—the earl was not involved in anything more serious than smoking fine cigars and drinking perfumey French brandy, as far as Josh knew.

  He stood for another moment by the wide arched doorway, peering into the room. The odd feeling would not leave him. Shrugging off the mystery, he walked across the hall to his uncle's library He knocked and was bid to enter.

  As he walked in, the earl greeted him, smiling broadly as he took in his heir's appearance. “A bit of a facer you received there, but the swelling's already going down.” Hambleton eyed Josh's clothing and made a mental note to send for his tailor posthaste.

  “One of the servants was kind enough to fetch me some ice. It takes down swelling and soreness,” Josh replied, flexing his knuckles.

  “And you'd be an authority on such injuries?” the old man inquired with an amused lift of one eyebrow.

  Josh's face reddened slightly. “A fellow once said you can't fry an egg without cracking it first. Same's true in the cattle business. The damn fools won't listen unless you crack a few heads now and then.”

  “Your president has said something to the same effect regarding politics, I believe,” the earl replied dryly. “Shall we have a brief libation before we dine?”

  He walked over to a long sideboard set with crystal decanters. “What would you prefer? French cognac? Scotch? I have an excellent claret from—”

  “Much obliged, sir, but I never much cared for anything but good old American bourbon.” He patted his jacket pocket, pulled out a slim flask and unscrewed the cap. “Who Shot John. Oh, that's the brand name,” he explained. “Strong enough to peel the first couple layers off your toenails. Great stuff.”

  “I see,” replied the earl, reaching for an empty glass as he poured himself a splash of cognac.

  Before he could offer Josh the glass, his great-nephew upended his flask and took a long pull. “Ah, good stuff.” He started to wipe his mouth with the back of his hand, but something in the earl's expression made him quell the gesture.

  Startled by Josh's behavior, Hambleton raised his snifter in what he hoped was the universal signal for a toast. “To a new beginning here in England,” he said gamely. Josh clinked his silver flask against the crystal and they both drank again. Perhaps he'd take a second splash, the earl decided as he drained the brandy in a single swallow. Miss Edgewater will certainly have her work cut out for her, he thought wryly.

  “Dinner is ready whenever you wish it served, your lordship,” the but
ler intoned gravely from the door.

  As they filed into the dining room Josh had been inspecting a few moments earlier, he stuck his flask into his jacket pocket, not trusting to leave his small supply of the only drinkable alcohol in England unattended. He made a mental note to wire his agent in Fort Worth and order a shipment of several cases.

  “I'm glad there's just the two of us tonight,” Josh said as the butler and a footman pulled out chairs and they took their seats.

  “I thought it best for the two of us to dine simply on our first night,” the earl replied, motioning for the consommé to be served.

  “Mighty relieved you didn't have them seat me at the foot of the table or we'd have to yell to hear each other.”

  Hambleton chuckled. ‘True, but from what I understand about the home you built for yourself, the dining accommodations are...commodious as well.”

  “That's a horse of a different color, sir. See, Texans always yell at each other,” Josh replied with a grin. “And it's smart not to let 'em get too close together when there's cutlery handy.”

  “Well, I'm happy to dispense with yelling, since my lung capacity isn't quite what it used to be,” the earl replied with a chuckle, picking up his soup spoon and pausing to see if his nephew would follow suit.

  “If you're wonderin' if I'll drink from the bowl, don't worry,” Josh replied. “Got my mouth burned something fierce last time I tried it.”

  Hambleton resisted the urge to ask how old he'd been when that occurred. Instead he threw back his head and laughed. His nephew's table manners were not appalling, the earl decided as the meal progressed. Just a bit...inventive. Peas with the dessert spoon, bread torn in pieces to sop up the béarnaise sauce. Practical ideas? American table decorum?

  Somehow the earl doubted it. He also doubted that Josh lacked the wit to copy his use of utensils, he simply chose not to. Instead of draping his napkin across his lap, Joshua tucked one corner under his shirt collar. “Cuts down on the washing and ironing,” he said by way of explanation, although he spilled not a speck of anything on it. Nor, the earl knew, had his nephew had to worry about doing his own washing and ironing for many years.

  By the time Josh had plucked a ladyfinger of sponge cake whole from his serving of charlotte russe and used it to spoon up the Bavarian cream filling, Hambleton decided to call the young pup's bluff. “I realize, Joshua, that you were not overly...enthusiastic, shall we say, about coming to England. I understand it took an appeal from your old comrade the president to convince you to do so.”

  Josh pulled his napkin from beneath his chin and wiped his lips neatly, then grinned. “The colonel made it seem like you were at death's door and I had to ‘do my duty’—those Harvard fellows are real big on duty.”

  “And you weren't the least bit curious about meeting your family?”

  Josh eyed the flask he'd placed on the table, wanting a drink, but somehow deciding it would be strategically unwise to show such weakness at this moment. “Well, I had my business to consider. The livestock exchange in Fort Worth is a pretty busy place come fall. And...” he hesitated, then gave in and took a drink of Who Shot John before continuing, “I couldn't rightly believe I was related to an English earl. I thought it was some kind of mistake.”

  “And you're testing me by behaving as much the wild Texan as you think possible without getting yourself committed to the asylum or the zoo. Are you trying to provoke me into disowning you even after seeing that photograph this afternoon?” There was both warmth and amusement in Hambleton's eyes.

  Josh cursed beneath his breath. “The colonel told me I was afraid. Maybe he was right.” He let out a frustrated breath. “Hell, I don't know, sir.”

  “I'm here to inform you in no uncertain terms, Joshua Abington Charles Cantrell, that I will not disown you if hell freezes over.”

  The old man's voice sure sounded strong enough for a Texas yelling contest. So much for the old devil being “too sick to travel.” “Abington? The Charles is after my father, but—”

  “The Abington is after me,” the earl said, his stern tone of a moment ago now softened by a chuckle. “I suspect your father was trying to sweeten me up when he sent word from America that he was to become a father and a son would bear my name.”

  Thank the Lord I wasn't saddled with that moniker as a first name. “Why not name me after my grandfather?”

  “Unlike you, my boy, your father was...how to put this delicately...”

  “A remittance man?” Josh supplied, using the term applied to a young man who was such a social embarrassment that his family paid him a remittance to leave the country. The word left a bitter taste on his tongue, but it fit what he knew from Gertie about his mother's destitute straits when she'd come to the Garter. “I heard he was a gambler.”

  “And not as proficient as you at it,” the earl added regretfully. “Nonetheless, you come from good stock. Never forget that.”

  “My father was the lone black sheep. What about my mother?”

  “Her father was a vicar, the second son of a baronet from Surrey. A fine and honorable family, the Kingsleys. I'm afraid they've all died now, but she was a lovely and loyal young woman who followed her husband on his ill-conceived adventures.”

  “I'm sorry I never knew her. Are there any Cantrell cousins?”

  “I have two nieces by my now-deceased sister Alice, and they've married well. You'll like them and their husbands and children. Good girls, but only direct male heirs may inherit.”

  “So you're stuck with me,” Josh said glumly.

  “I'm considerably more than pleased with you, you young whelp, so do not assume I am offering you charity or scraping the bottom of the barrel to find one last Cantrell male! You've made a tremendous success of yourself with no help from anyone—and acting like a barbarian won't fool me for one moment. I know that any man who can acquire a fortune can learn drawing-room manners.”

  Josh grinned broadly. “You've never met Jim Hill or Jay Gould, else you wouldn't say that.”

  Ignoring the retort, the earl continued, “And do not assume either that you are doing me a favor because you've interrupted your business affairs to come here. Your president is quite correct about a man's duty, as I'm certain you're aware, else you wouldn't have volunteered to fight alongside him.”

  “What you're trying to say is that you're calling my bluff. But what if I'm not bluffing?”

  The earl's smile was faintly amused now. “Oh, allow me to venture that I have every confidence you'll remain in England...at least for a while,” he replied cryptically. “And while you're here, you'll require a few of the accoutrements of civilized society. My tailor will be here at eight sharp to take your measurements.”

  “You don't like my suit?” Josh asked, looking down at the chocolate-brown jacket trimmed with silver studs and dark green beadwork. “It's the latest thing in Fort Worth.”

  “No doubt,” Hambleton replied dryly.

  “But it won't do here?” The question was purely rhetorical. He knew his wardrobe as well as his manners had been a test of sorts to see if the old man would really accept him. Not that he was quite willing to confess as much at this stage of the game. But damn if he wasn't starting to actually like the old goat!

  The earl eyed the flask sitting on the table as he rang for after-dinner cigars and cognac. “We'll have to see about smoothing over a few of your...rough edges. Indeed, they are egregiously jagged. I've employed a lady of impeccable credentials to teach you every aspect of drawing-room deportment. She has quite an excellent reputation, according to my niece Alvina.”

  “Deportment?” Josh grimaced as the earl selected an expensive Cuban cigar from the mahogany humidor a servant was holding. He recognized the aroma of his favorite smoke. With a grin, he took a cigar and allowed the footman to light it. “Beats the hell out of a chaw, I'll have to agree. Especially since I haven't seen any cuspidors around this place,” he added with a grin.

  “You and your teacher shall hav
e a most...fascinating relationship, I suspect,” Hambleton said with a chuckle.

  Josh envisioned the old harridan as he blew out a stream of fragrant smoke. He'd met a few female reformers in his day—even faced down Carry Nation in a saloon in Pecos a few years back. That one had ended in a draw. Hell, after an ax-wielding six-foot Amazon with the strength of Hercules, how bad could one pale, scrawny ole English spinster be? He'd send her hightailing it in nothing flat.

  * * * *

  Josh had been pinned and poked and had places on his anatomy measured in ways a Texas bordello madam wouldn't have dared try. After several hours and a small fortune spent with his uncle's tailor, he needed some fresh air and sunshine. Those were two things in real short supply around London. But in spite of the usual overcast of coal soot and phosphorus fumes, the sun, such as it was this far north, did its best.

  He had time to spare before his first meeting with Michael Jamison, the agent from the British Foreign Office. The message had been delivered late last night just as he was drifting off to sleep. A fellow who was not one of his uncle's employees actually climbed in the second-story window of the sitting room off his quarters. Josh had nearly shot the damn fool before he identified himself and handed over a message from Foreign Secretary Lansdowne.

  Rather melodramatic. He would not have thought the English would indulge in that sort of thing. At any rate, he was to ride in Hyde Park at one o'clock and this Jamison fellow would make contact. A ride sounded like just the thing, and he knew that Comanche, his prize blood bay stallion, would be as eager as he for a run. The crossing had not been easy on the horse...or for that matter on him either, although for vastly different reasons.

  Suppressing memories of his wretched seasickness, he strolled toward the mews, taking a detour to view the gardens at the side of the house, where he could hear the soft burbling sound of a fountain. Being raised in dry country, the lure of free-running water had always fascinated him. He chuckled, remembering his first trip to New York and the champagne fountain Jay Gould had set up at a private party for his investors. Hell, he and that fancy piece Gould had fixed him up with had damn near drowned in the thing!