Texas Viscount

by Henke, Shirl

  “No, ma'am, I reckon I learned that on my first trip to New York...to talk to some banker fellows about investing my money.”

  He was flaunting his wealth. This lout was not only a peer of the realm by the accident of a very indirect succession; but filthy rich in his own right, while she had been born into a good family and labored diligently all her life with very little to show for it, Suddenly Sabrina felt shabby in her one remaining decent day dress. Life was simply not fair, but that was that and she had a job to do, she scolded herself. “Discussing money during social occasions is considered déclassé. ”

  “Oh, what should we discuss, then?” he asked.

  “That would depend upon those present at a dinner. Social events, the weather, music and the arts are always suitable topics. Literature is an excellent choice. If you are engaged in conversation with an M.P., you might discuss issues pending in Parliament. But, of course, first you must begin reading so that you may grasp the complexities of modern society.”

  “You have a reading list in mind?” he asked innocently.

  Sabrina nodded. “Certainly. For history, I would suggest Thomas Carlyle and Sir George Trevelyan.”

  Josh nodded. “Seems like I've heard a thing or two about them.”

  “I would also suggest a few of Mr. Shakespeare's plays. Perhaps The Merchant of Venice might be to your liking.”

  “I got more of a boot out of Macbeth. Now, his wife was a woman after your own heart. Portia's too tame.”

  Sabrina blinked, too startled by his revelation to acknowledge the implied insult in his remarks. “You've read Shakespeare?” she managed to ask.

  “I liked Lear and ole Julius Caesar, but Hamlet, he was a little wishy-washy to my way of thinking. Carlyle would approve of the general but not the prince.” He positively loved the way she stood with that delectable little mouth rounded in a small ”O” of amazement. Only by exercising the greatest restraint was he able to keep from planting a kiss right on it.

  “It would seem, my lord, that you are concealing a surprising amount of erudition behind a crude unlettered facade,” she finally managed tartly. “It was my understanding that you never attended university.”

  “Shucks, ma'am, I never attended grade school. But one of Gertie's girls...er, employees, Miss Cynthia, had a fair amount of book learning. She taught me to read and do sums and such. After that, well, it sorta came natural to start picking up books here and there. Sam Bixby was a traveling peddler who came through Pecos every few months. He'd always bring me some books he took in trade. Not much call for history and playwritings in west Texas. ‘Sides, I'd always sneak him a bottle of whiskey from Gertie's liquor cabinet in return. She knew I did it but she didn't care.”

  Sabrina digested what he was telling her, noting the faraway expression on his face as he spoke of what must have been a ghastly childhood. Yet he smiled fondly at the memories. Those green eyes were not mocking. Wistful, perhaps? What kind of man are you, Joshua Cantrell? For the first time since she had met him, she sensed an intelligence and a vulnerability she would never before have imagined.

  “Then the newspaper accounts of your childhood are accurate?” she blurted out.

  “You mean, was I raised in a bordello?” A harsh scowl replaced his softened smile. “Yes. I never knew my ma or pa. Gert and her girls were all the family I had, but they were good enough for me.”

  “I didn't mean to imply—”

  “Let's just get on with dining like ‘people of consequence,’ ” he interrupted, striding into the dining room and plopping down on the chair at the side of the table.

  He looked for all the world like a petulant little boy who'd just been spanked for saying a bad word. She was not certain whether to be charmed by his protectiveness toward the unfortunates who'd raised him or chagrined at her own gaffe in asking about them. Sabrina couldn't believe she was having such unprofessional thoughts.

  You are the tutor and he is your pupil, nothing more, she reminded herself. “We can only have our dinner lesson if you first act like a gentleman and seat me. And remember,” she added in her most pedagogical tone, “since you are the viscount and I your guest, you will sit at the head of the table.”

  Grudgingly he scooted back his chair, stood up and held it for her, muttering something about wishing for Aphrodite and getting stuck with Athena.

  “My, even Greek mythology. I am impressed, Lord Wesley. Now let us proceed with dinner. First the soup course...”

  Josh had learned enough by watching his uncle and the other men at his club to know how this exercise in dirtying dishes went. It was, after all, simple enough to watch which utensil and glass everyone else picked up and follow suit. But her curiosity about his childhood with Gertie and the girls bothered him in ways he did not want to admit. He was lucky Gert had taken him in, and he'd never be ashamed of the madam. What gave so-called “good women” like Miss Sabrina Edgewater the right to look down their noses at as fine a human being as Gertie Greer? And why the hell should he care what Miss Edgewater thought of his upbringing anyway?

  When the young dark-haired maid Sally ladled out two servings of consommé, he couldn't resist. He'd act just the way Miss High 'n Mighty Sabrina expected him to. After all, he hated to disappoint a lady.

  Sabrina watched in utter stupefaction while he picked up the bowl in both hands, pinkie fingers carefully raised as if he were holding a Sevres teacup, and swallowed a giant gulp of clear broth!

  “Now, that's tasty.” He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “But you might mention to the cook that adding a few beans and a chili pepper or two might give a little body to it. Know what I mean?” he said conversationally to the maid, who stood rooted like a sapling to the floor.

  The young woman nodded dumbly, sending a pleading look in Sabrina's direction.

  “Lord Wesley,” Sabrina said in her most teacher-stern voice, “one never drinks one's soup!” She raised the soup spoon and dipped it carefully in the liquid, waiting for him to do the same.

  “Aw, that way I'll drip on my shirt. Oh, well,” he added in resignation, plucking his napkin from the table and tucking one corner into his cravat. “Uncle Ab told me not to do this, but if you insist on the spoon—”

  “Please place your napkin on your lap. A man approaching three decades should have better dexterity than a boy of three years,” she said in a dulcet tone.

  Innocently he shrugged and complied.

  After the remove, an aspic of salmon was brought out. Josh eyed it suspiciously. “This is one fancy notion I'll never cotton to,” he said, shoving the jiggling platter back toward the maid, who again looked helplessly at Sabrina.

  “Don't you care for salmon?” Sabrina asked, perplexed. Did Texans eat nothing but those horned cows?

  “It isn't the fish, it's the jelly stuff it's smothered in. Where I come from, folks make it a practice never to eat anything that moves faster than they do.”

  “This isn't where you came from. This is England. And you will learn to appreciate aspic.” By this time her toe was tapping beneath the table.

  Josh could sense her agitation and fought the grin that was itching to break out like sunrise. Lordy, he was starting to get a real kick out of deviling this female. Manfully he used the right fork and took a few bites, after scraping away as much of the gelatinous coating as he could.

  He was disappointed when the vegetable course did not contain peas, but in luck when he glanced at the glass Sally was filling with yet another variety of wine—red wine. Then she carried in the meat course, a crown roast of lamb with chop frills covering each rib bone. Carefully the maid placed the crown roast at the side of his plate for him to carve.

  “I never much cared for red wine,” he said, scooting back his chair. “That's why I keep something that goes better with a hunk of meat.”

  Sabrina watched as he stepped over to the sideboard and opened a polished door, taking out a half-empty bottle with a cork shoved into it. After using his strong wh
ite teeth as an opener, he walked back to the table and sat down with the bottle by his side.

  “Now, let's see about this meat. No offense to the cook, but it looks kinda bony. That why they put these little mittens on the bones sticking out?” he asked Sally, who by this time just nodded dumbly, not daring to look in Sabrina's direction.

  Sabrina watched in stunned horror as he ignored the carving knife and used his hands to tear apart the rib bones, separating the juicy meat of the chops into dripping hunks. He placed one three-rib slab on her plate, liberally sprinkling the tablecloth with pink splotches in route, then took another four ribs and plunked them on his own plate.

  He looked at her and winked, then used the napkin on his lap to wipe his hands, saying, “Thought I'd forget, didn't you?”

  Before Sabrina could form a response, he picked up the bottle labeled “Who Shot John” and took a generous pull, after which he replaced it by his side and tore into the rare lamb. He separated one rib from the others and tossed the frill on his plate, then began to gnaw the meat from the bone.

  How dearly Sabrina wished to leap across the table and use that hateful napkin to strangle the life out of him! Better yet, seize that bottle of vile-smelling spirits and break it over his Neanderthal head! Suppressing those exceedingly unladylike although comforting visions, she said in the iciest tone she could muster, “You have made sport of me and this young woman quite beyond enough, my lord. We shall leave you to drink yourself insensate in solitude, since your company is too barbaric to be endured by anyone with a modicum of decent manners. When you are prepared to resume your lessons in earnest, you may apologize and perhaps—perhaps I shall return.”

  With that, she stood up, dismissed the red-faced servant, who went scurrying into the kitchen, and stormed toward the door.

  Chapter Seven

  “Now don't take on like this. I was only funning, honest.” Josh tossed down his napkin and stood up as Sabrina stomped out the door. Muttering an oath, he quickly followed.

  “Your idea of humor would disgust the emperor Nero, my lord,” Sabrina said when he overtook her in the foyer, blocking her path to the front door. “And you nearly gave that poor maid the vapors.”

  “Aw, Sally'll be all right. She knows how to take a joke. Only thing is, she was afraid to laugh because she thought you might fire her.”

  Sally. The chit was young and quite pretty. “Obviously, I have no authority to dismiss any of Lord Hambleton's staff and Sally knows it,” Sabrina snapped, appalled at her sudden twinge of jealousy. She immediately quashed it. “As to my sense of humor,” she quickly continued, “when something is genuinely amusing, I shall laugh. Perhaps the customs are different in Texas, but here one does not find amusement at the expense of another. You were making sport of me.”

  Oh, I'd love to make sport with you, he thought, but he said, “That wasn't what I was doing. I was poking fun at myself. Well”—he hesitated and grinned— “maybe I was funning the way I thought you expected me to act, too,” he confessed. “I apologize. Will you give me another chance?”

  When he looked at her with that earnest schoolboy expression on his all-too-handsome face, those green eyes seemed to pierce right down to her soul. How could she refuse? You need the money. She assured herself that was the only reason she would agree. “If I do, I insist on your word as a ...Texan that you'll try no more such shenanigans, but be a diligent pupil.”

  Josh put up his hands in mock surrender. “You nailed me, ma'am. Since I'm no gentleman, I could welch on that, but my honor as a Texan...well, that's another matter. I give you my word. No more jokes...at least none on purpose.”

  Sabrina looked uncertain for a moment, but the smile twitching at the corners of her mouth gave her away. She had bested him. And enjoyed it. “Very well. However, consider yourself on probation from here on.”

  He nodded. “Fair enough. We could go back and finish that lamb. I promise to use my knife and fork.”

  “I believe you've placed sufficient strain on the kitchen staff for one day. The afternoon might be more profitably spent working on drawing-room conversation.”

  “You mean you're going to give me another list—this time of things I can't talk about in front of womenfolk?” he suggested with a grin.

  “Among other things, yes. Your manners in the presence of ladies must be impeccable. For example, you must always see that a lady is seated before you take your own seat,” she began, ticking off things on the fingers of her hand. “You should immediately rise when a lady enters a room, a matter about which you are not in the least attentive. When no servant is present to do so, you must always open a door and hold it for a lady. If the weather is cool, you should assist her in donning her cloak before going outdoors and in removing it when you reach your destination, if it is indoors.”

  Visions of “assisting” her in the removal of considerably more than a coat flashed through his mind as his eyes swept down her diminutive, curvaceous body. Josh could imagine the velvety feel of her pale English skin, flowing like silk beneath his caresses. He had to get a grip on his fancies or she'd be storming out of here again, mad as a rattler with the piles.

  He extended his arm to her gallantly and said, “I reckon bowing and scraping for ladies is pretty much like eating dinner. Just watch how the other fellows do it and follow suit. I picked up a few things on business trips to New York and Chicago. Of course, even the richest Yankees can't match the English as gents, so I'll have to practice...”

  His smile was enough to reduce her to a puddle of porridge. Gingerly she placed her hand on his arm and allowed him to lead her toward the front parlor. Sabrina knew she was treading on dangerous ground with this man. He was not only a foreigner but a member of the peerage, the likes of whom she had never before met. He was self-educated and proud, highly intelligent and possessed of a most unpredictable sense of humor.

  And he exuded an aura of...what to call it? Untrammeled maleness? Wicked virility? No mere words did justice to the effect he had on her, always keeping her off balance. It must simply be his alien background. The more she learned about him, the better she could understand what made him behave as he did. Then she could deal with him as if he were any other man.

  You know that is pure rubbish.

  If the Texas viscount felt the faint tremor that passed from her hand through his coat sleeve, he did not reveal it as he ushered her through the door.

  Instead, he smiled as he offered her a seat on the settle, hoping to join her there. Sabrina shook her head and sat instead on a chair across from it. “A lady and gentleman who are not affianced do not sit side by side,” she said primly, struggling to keep her tone formal and instructive. But she knew he wanted to sit next to her, and that simple fact flustered her as she struggled to gather her scattered thoughts and begin another lesson.

  If only he didn't fold himself into his seat with such negligent ease. His long legs stretched beneath the low table between them as he leaned back and grinned at her. She was so acutely aware of him. Each time he walked into a room, it seemed to grow smaller, filled with his Texas-sized presence.

  And sexual aura. Sabrina felt her skin tingle as she suppressed the thought.

  “Now, Miss Edgewater, what shall we talk about? Or maybe I should say, what shouldn't we talk about?”

  The sly insinuation was not lost on her, but she stiffened her spine and ignored it. “I think it best if we simply begin conversing. I shall correct you as we proceed.”

  “Oh, I'd bet my best Santa Gertrudis stud bull on that,” he said dryly.

  “Perhaps when in an agricultural setting, the mention of...stud bulls would be appropriate, but not in a drawing room.”

  He nodded, not in the least chastened. “Well, it surely is a beautiful afternoon.” He looked to her for confirmation. When she nodded approval, he continued, “The sun's shining to beat all, and the breeze is enough to cool the sweat—”

  “Perspiration is not acceptable,” she interjected.
>
  Josh sighed. ‘This is harder than herding cats.”

  “We could discuss literature. Who is your favorite poet?”

  “Ladies first. Who's yours?” he countered.

  Sabrina smiled. “That is a difficult decision. Shakespeare's sonnets, Shelley, Wordsworth, Tennyson...but perhaps most of all Matthew Arnold. I particularly admire ‘Dover Beach.’ ” Sabrina waited, wondering if in his eclectic readings he was familiar with this favorite of hers.

  “A dark view of life and love. In fact, downright depressing.”

  “But the poet's words are vivid...and accurate.”

  He studied her with open curiosity. “A beautiful woman like you must've had lots of chances to marry. But you didn't. Why, I wonder?”

  Sabrina cursed her errant tongue. She'd betrayed too much, mentioning that poem. This man was far too keen an observer of human nature. “That is a most personal question, and a gentleman never comments on the marital status of a lady,” she replied.

  He nodded at the rebuke. “You're right. None of my business. As to my favorites...well, on this side of the pond, I'd have to go with Browning.”

  “I assume you mean Robert, not Elizabeth Barrett,” she said.

  “Most women swoon over her love poetry. You don't fancy it?”

  “She's far too emotional. Maudlin.”

  Josh shook his head and grinned at her. “You're a hard woman, Miss Edgewater.”

  Sabrina could not resist returning his smile. “One who'll teach you to act like a gentleman yet.”

  They continued discussing various topics, with Sabrina interjecting corrections to his colorful speech wherever she deemed it appropriate. He accepted her instruction with good grace, finding that beneath her starch propriety she did indeed possess a sense of humor and bright wit. That combined with the delicious little package it was wrapped in made him even more anxious to lure her into his bed. She was unique. Independent.