Texas Viscount

by Henke, Shirl

  Josh grinned. “Nope, but it surely was more fun than having that pointy little boot sole dig into my hand. I'll remember the proper way next time,” he promised solemnly.

  “Why is it that I don't trust you, my lord?” she could not resist asking any more than she could resist meeting his wicked green gaze. With that, she turned the mare and trotted sedately back the way they'd come.

  Josh swung up on Comanche and followed her, cursing horses, women and life in general. He knew he'd be well advised to pay more attention to what Zarenko was doing with that young clerk who worked for his uncle than to Sabrina Edgewater. But, damn it all, she was so much more interesting.

  * * * *

  “She's his cousin?” Josh echoed incredulously. He felt as if he'd been gut-kicked by a pack mule as he stood in Michael Jamison's apartment late that night. A glass of his own bourbon sat untouched beside the bottle he'd brought along with him.

  “Afraid so, old chap,” Jamison replied. “They were raised together like brother and sister” He outlined Edmund Whistledown's childhood history. ‘‘When I received your note this afternoon, I made a few inquiries. Young Whistledown appears to have something of a gambling problem.”

  “At what?” Josh asked.

  “Take your choice,” Jamison replied. “Cards, horses. He's even been known to bet at the spring regattas. He loses. Frequently.”

  “And he works for my uncle, but that can't be the source of his information.” Josh paced back and forth, combing his fingers through his hair. “How much would the earl know about this treaty with Japan? Parliament's not even in session.”

  Jamison knew about Hambleton's work at the Foreign Office but had been explicitly instructed not to disclose the fact to the viscount. “It's possible he may have a bit of information since he spends more of his time here in the city than he does at his seat in Suffolk,” he hedged. “He's friends with several members of Lord Lansdowne's council. He might be a source that a man desperate for money could use.”

  “Like Whistledown?”

  “I wonder if his dear cousin Miss Edgewater is involved as well,” Michael said speculatively as he sipped his brandy. “She's also been most conveniently employed by the earl.”

  “No.” Josh's voice was soft but firm. “I don't believe Sabrina'd do such a thing.”

  Jamison's eyebrow rose at the use of her Christian name, but he said nothing as his companion continued speaking.

  “She's too inherently decent, too loyal.”

  “Ah, yes, but she's lent him money. He made a payment to some rather nasty chaps at the Epsom racecourse several weeks ago. One might wonder where she acquired the funds.”

  “She's been saving to start a school. That's why she agreed to take me on—Uncle Ab agreed to pay for it if she'd teach me manners.”

  Michael almost choked on his brandy. “Teach you manners?” he echoed.

  Josh's expression darkened. “What's so damn funny about that?”

  “Nothing, nothing at all, old chap,” Jamison soothed, smothering his laughter as he watched the Texan take a gulp of that dreadful American corn whiskey directly from the bottle.

  Josh started to wipe his mouth with his hand, then stopped himself, grinning. “I reckon I am quite a tribulation to the lady.” He paused thoughtfully. “I wonder if she knows her cousin's a sporting man? No,” he answered the mostly rhetorical question. “If she knew he was doing anything so wicked, she'd skin him.”

  “Well, if she doesn't, the unsavory characters to whom he's in debt will do far worse, believe me. I imagine the money Zarenko gave him was a godsend. Now, what I need to do is lay a trap to ensnare the Russians.”

  “How do you figure we can do that?” Josh asked, still shaken to learn of Sabrina's connection to this assassination business.

  “We? No, no ‘we,’ my lord. You may keep an eye on the lady. I shall take responsibility for planting a bit of false information that will find its way to the earl...and thence to our Mr. Whistledown. If all goes according to plan, he'll soon be whistling at his own hanging. A pity the power of the Russian ambassador's office will keep the likes of Zarenko and his sister from joining our homegrown traitor.”

  “If you can't arrest them, what's the sense?” Josh asked in frustration. He hated the intricacies of diplomacy.

  “We eliminate the seepage of information from our Foreign Office and send that whole nest of Slavic vipers back to Saint Petersburg. Good riddance,” Jamison said, polishing off his brandy.

  “Personally, I'd shoot Zarenko,” Josh said, following suit with his whiskey. This time he remembered to use the glass. Sabrina was a good influence on him.

  * * * *

  Lordy, he hated the noise and soot of trains. Josh would much rather have driven his Mercedes, but Uncle Ab was adamant about the unreliability of automobiles for long-distance travel. All arguments about the craftsmanship and roadworthiness of his vehicle were countered with arguments about the condition of English roads. The earl had finally pulled rank on him. They were traveling by rail.

  Josh stared disconsolately out the window of the private car his uncle had secured for their journey to the Chiffingtons' seat in West Sussex. For the past hour or so, the countryside had grown less and less interesting. From picturesque hills and quaint cottages, it had gradually changed into flat, sandy stretches, much like the southern parts of the Texas coast. He'd never much cared for the ocean.

  But at least the view inside the plush car was much better. Sabrina opened the door and returned to her seat directly across from him. As soon as he saw it was she, not his uncle, he stood immediately. “See, I am learning my manners,” he teased.

  “I do believe you're capable of turning courtesy on and off like water from a faucet, my lord,” she replied with only minimal exasperation.

  “I'll be as well behaved as a Sunday-school teacher at a preacher's convention while we're at the marquess' place. I figure if they see you can beat some culture into an ignorant cuss like me, they'll realize you'll do just fine for their daughter.”

  She ignored the teasing light in his eyes, wishing the earl would return, but he was absorbed in a chess game with a friend in the common car. He'd urged her to return and keep his “rapscallion nephew” company. What else was she to do but agree? It would scarcely work for her to confess her shocking attraction to that “rapscallion.” Or his to her.

  “You have been a challenge,” she replied carefully. “I doubt I'll find Lady Drucilla Palmer a fraction so troublesome.”

  Josh chuckled. “It's right funny, you know.”

  Sabrina stiffened. Was he laughing at her? At what he considered the frivolity of her chosen profession? “What amuses you?” she asked defensively.

  “We're both on display, sorta like a pair of heifers at an auction. Just to see if we're worth bidding on.”

  “Your crude livestock analogies will leave those in the aristocracy quite baffled, Lord Wesley, and those not baffled will be appalled,” she replied in her best teacher's voice. She did not want to discuss why he was spending the weekend in the company of Lady Eunice Palmer, eldest daughter of the Marquess of Chiffington.

  “It appears to me we're both being looked over to see if we're up to the jobs of work they have in mind for us—you to teach Lady Dracula—”

  “Drucilla,” she corrected with a twitch of her lips in spite of the uncomfortable topic.

  “Yep, right, Drucilla. And me to measure up to being a marquess' son-in-law. Eunice.” He grimaced. “Why do folks pick such fool ugly names?”

  “You well know they are both classical Greek names.”

  “That's fine if you're a classical Greek. Plug ugly for a modern female.”

  “Drucilla means soft eyes, and Eunice means gloriously victorious.”

  He studied her with heavy-lidded eyes. “Aren't you just a fountain of information, Miss Teacher. Well, one thing I know for sure 'n certain. Lady Eunice Palmer isn't going to be victorious when it comes to catching me, gloriously
or any which way. I don't figure on being hogtied into marriage, leastways when it's all been arranged before I even set eyes on the female.”

  “What if she's a dazzling beauty with wit and charm?” Sabrina could not resist playing devil's advocate. How else to make him realize that he would have to wed in the upper class someday?

  “I don't care if she's as pretty as Lillie Langtry. I pick my own women,” he said stubbornly, a dare in his eyes as they met hers.

  “One is not always allowed to make choices in life, my lord,” she replied gently.

  “I am. Always was and always will. I was born in a bordello and raised dirt-poor, but I decided when I was a tadpole that I wouldn't spend the rest of my life drinking rotgut whiskey and cleaning out cuspidors.”

  “You still drink that awful whiskey.” She could not resist teasing him or answering his slow grin.

  “Why, ma'am, you just haven't learned to appreciate one of the finer things in life. Who Shot John isn't rotgut. It's pure bourbon.”

  “Now, there's an oxymoron if ever I heard one,” she replied.

  “Ever taste it?” he asked, leaning forward as he pulled out a flask concealed inside his jacket.

  Her eyes grew huge. “You cannot bring that disgusting stuff to the Chiffingtons. They'll expect you to partake of their fine brandy after dinner.”

  “Who'll know if I switch that perfumey stuff for real whiskey?” he asked with a crafty expression on his face.

  Sabrina found herself laughing out loud. “In all of your peregrinations across America, my lord, have you ever mastered what I believe carnival people call the shell game?”

  “I've seen it. Nowhere half as hard as learning to palm aces,” he replied with a grin.

  Outside their car, the earl overheard their blended laughter and smiled to himself. His rogue of a nephew wasn't the only one who could run a shell game.

  Chapter Ten

  The house perched like a great fat goose on a slight promontory overlooking the ocean. It was wood, painted a blinding white with the intricate scrollwork trim done in deep maroon and bottle green. Long verandas filled with bench swings and potted ferns encircled the sprawling edifice on all four sides. By the look of it, the Chiffingtons' “beach cottage” must have a minimum of a dozen bedrooms.

  “I shudder to imagine the size of their actual seat if this is but the beachside residence,” the earl said dryly as their carriage pulled up the front drive.

  Josh looked curiously at him. “I thought you and the marquess were old pals.”

  Hambleton raised one bushy white eyebrow. “We attended the same schools and vote together on most issues in Lords. Until now, our friendship has been confined to London.”

  “But you have met Mrs. Marquess—er, the marchioness?” Josh corrected himself when Sabrina gave him a sharp look. “And her daughters?”

  Noting the exchange, the earl replied, “Most certainly. Both are quite comely young women. You'll not fault the elder daughter's looks.”

  That oblique remark left both Josh and Sabrina to wonder if they would fault Lady Eunice for something else.

  They were ushered inside the house by a bevy of servants. The majordomo had footmen working like ants, carrying their baggage to the assigned rooms, as he escorted them down a long hallway toward the back of the house where a veranda faced the ocean. Over the gentle lapping of waves in the distance, they could hear voices carrying down the hallway.

  “I do not care if he is as rich as the czar! He's an American buffoon from some wild, backward place where they still scalp red Indians,” a petulant young female voice pronounced stubbornly.

  “Now, Eunice, do not take on so. I'm certain if he's Lord Hambleton's heir, he will be a gentleman,” an older voice pleaded.

  When Josh could see the two women, the mother was wringing her hands as her daughter paced, running one elegant white glove along the railing.

  “Begging your pardon, ma'am. It was the Indians who scalped us, but they haven't done much of that for the last few years,” he could not resist saying as he made a courtly bow. The startled and hideously embarrassed Marchioness of Chiffington gasped and turned to face him.

  “Oh, dear, that is...” Her words trailed away. She placed one hand to her throat, as if she could stop the deep red flush creeping up to her face. She was a thin, pale little woman with frowsy grayish-blond hair but delicate features. “My deepest apologies, Lord Wesley—you are Lord Wesley, are you not?” she asked, looking over his shoulder to the earl for confirmation as Josh took her hand and saluted it.

  “I'm afraid so, my lady,” Josh said with a wink.

  The earl nodded with a barely suppressed grin. “This young rascal is my great-nephew, Joshua Abington Charles Cantrell, now Viscount Wesley, late of Texas in America,” he added, taking the marchioness' hand. “Now, don't you take on so. We all remember how it is to be young and impetuous, don't we? Allow me to present Miss Sabrina Edgewater.”

  “Ah, yes, the deportment instructor you spoke so highly of for my dear Drucilla,” the marchioness said, seizing on anything to divert attention from her elder daughter's frightful gaffe.

  As the earl soothed her mother, Lady Eunice studied Josh the way a hungry robin might size up an earthworm. Sabrina made her curtsy to Lady Chiffington, hiding her shock at the elder daughter's appalling manners, but unable to keep from glancing at her appearance. She was a beauty, no doubt of it...and spoiled rotten. In her years of teaching, both the aristocracy and wealthy Cits, Sabrina had seen what the combination of money and indulgence could do.

  Eunice had inherited her mother's delicate features and pale coloring, but while the mother receded into the background, the daughter glowed like a polished gem. Her hair was as bright as spun gold, her eyes a turquoise more brilliant than the sea at sunrise. Each feature, from her tiny turned-up nose to her plump bow lips, was picture-perfect.

  Lady Eunice appraised Josh's tall, lean body as if expecting some structural flaws to present themselves when he walked over to where she stood by the rail. “So you're the Texas Viscount. I've read about you,” she said in an affected voice as if his wild antics had bored her in the extreme.

  “Nothing good, I'd bet.” Now it was his turn to measure her. Uppity as a cat and cold as a blue tick hound's nose. Her lips smiled but her eyes did not.

  “I daresay, you are not what I expected.”

  “Oh, and what did you expect?” he drawled lazily, leaning one broad shoulder against a support post so that he towered over the haughty young woman. He used his other hand to open his jacket. “See, no hidden scalps. But I hate to disappoint. I do pack a six-shooter.”

  Eunice stepped away from him as if he were a madman. Josh couldn't help casting a quick glance at Sabrina to see if she was watching them. She was. He smiled inwardly.

  “It is not acceptable for a gentleman to unfasten his jacket in the presence of a lady, nor is it at all acceptable to carry firearms,” Eunice said in a horrified tone. Gone was the pose of bored sophistication.

  “Well, it's real comforting that you know what's expected of a gentleman.” He leaned closer. “Now how about what's expected of a lady?” he whispered. “I'm sure your sister and you could share Miss Edgewater's services.”

  “Oooh.” Eunice's mouth dropped open as she appeared to debate the wisdom of slapping the grinning rogue. Then her outraged temper suddenly dissolved into an adoring smile. Giving Josh a wide berth, she sailed toward a tall, distinguished-looking man with windblown gray hair who was climbing the steps from the sandy beach below. “Papa! How was it?” she asked the gentleman attired nattily in sailing whites.

  “Delightful as always, kitten. Wanted to make certain everything was shipshape for tomorrow's outing.” He turned from his daughter to the earl. “How are you, Hambleton? So good that you could come and bring your nephew. Oh, and the governess, too,” he added as an afterthought, dismissing Sabrina with a glance.

  I can see where the little harpy gets it from, Josh thought as
his uncle made introductions while Eunice clung like a limpet to her beloved papa's arm. Gazing out to the ocean, Josh could see a large sailing craft bobbing on the tide. Please, God, no.

  As if in answer to his prayer, although the wrong answer, the marquess said, “I've made all the arrangements for us to have a smashing time of it. We'll take The Lady Eunice Victoria out for the day, sail over to Brighton and back, with a feast aboard fit for His Majesty himself.”

  Josh blanched.

  Sabrina looked at him curiously, recalling some passing remarks he'd made about being indisposed while crossing from America. She could not resist a tiny smile as her gaze met his.

  Witch. He mouthed the word silently to her while the others chatted excitedly about their day on the waves.

  Catching some subtle exchange between the “hired woman” and the viscount, Lady Eunice suddenly became jealous. She was used to being the center of attention—even with men she spurned, and there had been plenty of them even before her debut. “You do sail, do you not, Lord Wesley?” she inquired with saccharine sweetness. “Or is there no ocean in America?” she added as a puzzled afterthought, looking to her father for an explanation.

  “Oh, there are hundreds of miles of coastline in Texas alone,” Josh replied, wondering how anyone could be so stupid. “It's on the Gulf of Mexico.”

  “No one who's anyone goes to Mexico,’’ Eunice replied as if that settled the matter for all time.

  So much for the geography lesson, Sabrina thought with amusement as she again caught Josh's eye.

  Then a timid young woman with her father's imposing height and rather plain features came from the house, practically hiding in the shadow of her mother, shoulders scrunched as if to make herself shorter. As she was introduced, Sabrina decided that if she had the opportunity to tutor Lady Drucilla Palmer, the first thing she'd work on was the poor girl's self-confidence. It was quite obvious that, being the ugly duckling, she was used to existing in the twilight while her breathtaking elder sister held court in the sun.