More or Less a Countess

by Anna Bradley

  “You’ve a headache because you spend all your time in that dreary schoolroom, you silly child.” Lady Chase’s gaze narrowed on her, assessing her from head to toe, but to Violet’s surprise her grandmother’s expression softened, and the scold Violet expected never came. “Well, go on to your bedchamber for a rest, then. Hyacinth and I will make your excuses to Iris. Come along, Hyacinth.”

  Violet quivered with impatience as her grandmother and sister sailed forth, but at last they were comfortably settled in the carriage, and it was rolling down the drive.

  She peeked out the window until she was certain it had disappeared, then she turned and darted back up the stairs to fetch her sketchbook and cloak. It was time to get on with the business at hand—becoming London’s most notorious spinster bluestocking. She had sketches to do, and they wouldn’t get done by languishing in her bedchamber.

  She crept back down to the entryway and threw a nervous glance over her shoulder before easing the door open. Eddesley, the butler, had been steadfast in his disapproval of her since she’d first set foot in her grandmother’s Bedford Square townhouse. Violet wasn’t certain what she’d done to offend him, but she was anxious to escape his disapproving eye.

  For once, fate was on her side. No one was about. The entryway was still and silent.

  That was one problem solved, but she had another. Lady Chase and Hyacinth had taken the carriage. Her grandmother had a barouche as well, but Violet couldn’t ask for it without alerting Eddesley, who’d gleefully report the request to her grandmother at the first opportunity.

  No, she couldn’t risk it. She’d have to take a hack, but that presented its own set of problems, the main one being she’d have to secure it herself, and ride all the way to Islington unaccompanied.

  Well, it couldn’t be helped, and fortune was said to favor the bold, wasn’t it?

  Freedom was in short supply in Lady Chase’s household, but here was an entire afternoon of it dropped right into her lap, and Violet didn’t intend to squander it. A little cry of glee bubbled up in her throat as she darted through the door, cleared the top step with one exuberant leap, and…

  Slammed right into a solid, masculine chest.

  “Miss Somerset!” Strong arms closed instinctively around her to keep her from toppling down the remaining stairs.

  Violet’s first panicked thought was that it was Eddesley, but she discarded it at once. If she’d careened into Eddesley with such force he would have collapsed into a heap like a stack of wooden blocks, and whoever’d caught her had a chest like a stone wall.

  “My God, are you all right?”

  A large hand settled on the back of her neck, and for a single, delirious moment Violet let her eyes close and her head rest against the hard, warm chest under her cheek. Goodness, whoever he was, he smelled divine.

  A low rumble vibrated under her cheek. “Well, I’m pleased to see you as well. I confess I didn’t expect quite so warm a welcome, given you practically tossed me out of your drawing room when I called yesterday.”

  Violet’s eyes flew open.

  Oh, no. Not him. Not again.

  But of course it was him. Who else but Lord Dare could contrive to smell as if he’d just emerged from a bath warmed by a smoky fire, then walked through a forest of pine and cedar trees? For pity’s sake, no other gentleman smelled like amber and freshly cut wood. Why should he be permitted to run about London, smelling so intoxicating?

  She jerked free of his arms and looked up to meet his amused gaze. Lord Dare seemed always to be amused over one thing or another. Violet resented being the source of his unending glee, but she couldn’t deny the glimmer of humor did wonderful things for his eyes.

  They were gray, but not a common, dull sort of gray. No, of course not, because nothing so ordinary would do for a paragon of masculine beauty like Lord Dare. His eyes were a distinctive silvery-gray, with a black ring around the irises, and he had the longest black lashes she’d ever seen.

  “How extraordinary,” she murmured, forgetting herself as she stared up at him. Perhaps she’d have to make the tiniest adjustment to her drawing to make his eyelashes longer and thicker.

  A slight smile tugged at his lips. “I beg your pardon?”

  Her face heated with mortification. “I—nothing. That is, what are you doing here again, Lord Dare?”

  She had tossed him out of her drawing room yesterday. She’d tossed him out the day before, as well, and the day before that, and yet here he was again, like a weed that kept reappearing after one was sure they’d yanked it out by the root.

  “I came to call on you, and it seems I’ve arrived just in time to save you from falling down the stairs.”

  His warm palm was still wrapped around her neck. Violet twisted free of his touch and stepped backward, stumbling a little on the stair behind her. Yes, that was better. She had some chance of gathering her wits now that he was no longer touching her.

  “Nonsense. I don’t need saving.”

  Why did he persist in appearing on her doorstep? It was most troublesome, not only because he kept turning up when she’d forbidden it, but also because she’d been dealing him a rather dirty trick since the night of Lord Derrick’s dinner party.

  He’d mistaken her for Hyacinth that night, and she’d never corrected him. She didn’t intend to, either, but if he kept calling at Bedford Square it was only a matter of time before he discovered the truth, and he’d made it clear he would keep calling, no matter what she did to try and dissuade him. Indeed, much to Violet’s horror, he was behaving very much like a man embarking on a courtship.

  It was bad enough a rogue like Lord Dare was pursuing her shy, vulnerable sister, but to make matters worse, he hadn’t the least idea who he was courting. Violet had assumed he’d discover sooner or later that she wasn’t Hyacinth, and would abandon his pursuit after being so ungentlemanly as to mistake one sister for the other.

  It was what a decent gentleman would do.

  Not that she couldn’t understand how he’d confused the two of them. She and her sisters all had fair hair and blue eyes, and one of them was often mistaken for another, especially Violet and Hyacinth, who were only a year apart in age and shared their mother’s delicate features. Violet was more petite than Hyacinth, but otherwise it was difficult to tell them apart, and they had been wearing a similar shade of blue on the evening of Lord Derrick’s dinner party.

  If he’d been anyone else, Violet might have been inclined to excuse his mistake, but she had no patience for fashionable rakes like Lord Dare, and in any case, surely a lady had a right to demand her suitor be able to distinguish her from another lady in a similar gown.

  It was all nonsense, of course. Whatever reason Lord Dare had for marrying, they had nothing to do with the lady, and Violet didn’t intend to let him anywhere near Hyacinth.

  She eyed him now, her arms crossed over her chest. “I specifically asked you not to call on me again, my lord.”

  He shrugged, then gave her a crooked and utterly charming grin. “I felt certain once you had a chance to think about it, you’d change your mind.”

  Violet glared at him. Dear God, he was arrogant. It amazed her any lady could tolerate him, even with those lovely gray eyes and absurdly long eyelashes. “I suppose you think that smile assures you a welcome wherever you go.”

  His grin widened. “It always has before.”

  “Not this time. I already told you I’m immune to your charms, Lord Dare. Why not go bother some other lady, instead of wasting your time on me?”

  “No, I’d much rather bother you. I came to invite you to accompany me on a drive this afternoon, but it seems I’ve caught you on your way out.”

  “You have, and even if you hadn’t, I wouldn’t…” Violet trailed off into silence as she looked over his shoulder and caught sight of a neat phaeton standing in the drive.

  Sh
e bit her lip. No, it was out of the question.

  Wasn’t it?

  Yes, yes—of course it was. He was awful, and didn’t deserve her consideration, but then she would be just as awful as he was if she took advantage of his error.

  Wouldn’t she?

  Then again, a man who couldn’t even bother to correctly identify the lady he’d invited for a drive didn’t truly merit her concern, did he?

  Perhaps not, but careless behavior on his part didn’t excuse reprehensible behavior on hers, and if she did go for a drive with him, it would only encourage him to call on Hyacinth again, and Violet didn’t want the scoundrel who’d, ah…entertained Lady Uplands in Lord Derrick’s library prowling after her precious little sister.

  “Come, Miss Somerset. A drive around the park won’t do you any harm.”

  But if she did go with him, mightn’t it have just the opposite effect? It wasn’t as if gentlemen enjoyed her company, or ever fell in love with her, and a gentleman such as this—a rake, with such a winning smile and such lovely gray eyes—was even less likely than most to find her at all desirable. Why, one day with her, and he’d likely never call on Hyacinth again. Really, she’d be doing it for Hyacinth’s own good, and—

  “I advise you to stop gnawing on your lip like that, Miss Somerset. You’ll make it bleed. Now, will you come for a drive, or not?”

  She gazed longingly at the phaeton, her fingers digging into the smooth leather of her sketchbook.

  Fortune favors the bold…

  “Well, Miss Somerset? There are only so many hours of daylight left.”

  That made up Violet’s mind. “Very well, my lord. I’ll come for a drive with you.”

  His eyes lit up with ill-concealed triumph. “Wonderful. Do you prefer Hyde Park, or Richmond?”

  She stepped around him and made her way down the stairs. “Neither,” she tossed over her shoulder as she climbed into his phaeton. “I want to go to Islington.”

  Chapter Five

  Unusual. That’s what Lord Derrick had said about Hyacinth Somerset—that she was unusual. He hadn’t said a word about her being the most irritating young lady in London.

  “Did you know, my lord, this burial ground is rumored to have been a plague pit? Bunhill Fields has quite a history. During the thirteenth century they brought cartloads of bones from the charnel houses at St. Paul’s Cathedral and dumped them here.”

  Here. Nick blinked again, but no matter how many times he did, he was greeted by the same sight each time he opened his eyes. Weathered gray headstones, half of them tipped crazily on their sides in the mud, gnarled tree branches on bare trees, and, in the midst of this desolate landscape, Miss Somerset, a sketchbook tucked under her arm and a glowing smile on her face.

  She’d taken him to a burial ground.

  When she’d asked him to take her to Islington she hadn’t said a word about burial grounds, but here they were at Bunhill Fields, and there she was, her hat straggling down her back and her hair falling from its pins, looking as pleased as if she were parading down Rotten Row with a crowd of besotted suitors on her heels.

  “No, I didn’t know that. How…”

  Morbid? Distressing? Chilling? If he could judge by the fascinated expression on her face, Miss Somerset didn’t seem to find it anything of the sort, and Nick was determined to treat everything she said as the most extraordinarily precious pearls ever to drop from a pair of feminine lips. In other words, this wasn’t the moment to refuse to share her interest in the, ah…cartloads of corpses.

  He forced a pleasant smile to his lips as he floundered for the right word. “Interesting?”

  She turned and beamed at him, heedless of the rain soaking her cloak. “Isn’t it? Only they didn’t bury them properly, you see.”

  “No?” As far as Nick knew there was only one way to bury a corpse, but he did his best to sound enthralled.

  “No. They just tossed them on the ground and covered them with a thin layer of soil.”

  Good Lord, was he trampling upon some poor devil’s skeleton? Nick’s gaze shot to his feet and he instinctively jumped back, half-afraid he’d find a skull crushed under his heel, but all he saw was a ruined pair of Hoby boots.

  His Hoby boots.

  But as bedraggled as he looked, Miss Somerset wasn’t precisely the picture of ladylike modesty he recalled from Lord Derrick’s dinner party. She was wandering among the crooked stones, dragging her hand over their damp, mossy surfaces as if she didn’t notice that her slippers were splattered with mud and her hems a sopping mess.

  Every now and then she paused to prod at the mud with her toe, as if she hoped to turn up a bone or two. “Why, I imagine they were tripping over piles of bones for ages afterwards. Oh, I wish I could have experienced it, don’t you?”

  Oh, yes. Of course he did. Didn’t every Englishman long to have been alive to experience the joys of the great plague? “Do I wish I could have seen cartloads of bones, or shallow graves? No, Miss Somerset. I can’t say I do.”

  Nick winced at the irritation in his voice. He’d called on her every day for nearly a week only to have her toss him out on his ear each time. Now he’d at last persuaded her to an outing and secured an opportunity to gain her affections, and his legendary charm seemed to have dissolved in the downpour.

  But damn it, how was a gentleman meant to embark on a courtship when the object of his pursuit was half-drowned in mud and so preoccupied with the skeletal remains of plague victims she hadn’t even noticed how utterly delightful he was?

  He wasn’t accustomed to being overlooked by ladies, but Nick was getting the distinct impression he might be here or not, and it wouldn’t make the slightest bit of difference to Miss Somerset. If a discontented spirit happened to rise from the ground and snatch him away to the underworld, he doubted she’d even notice.

  “Do you ever wonder, Lord Dare, if you can determine something about the grave’s occupant by simply touching their headstone? It’s a fancy of mine, that one can sense echoes of the dead.”

  Nick pressed his lips together to smother a derisive snort. Next she’d be trying to persuade him to believe in ghosts. “No, but I confess I don’t spend much time in burial grounds.”

  By choice.

  “Oh, well. I find them quite fascinating. The history, you know. From what I’ve read, the plague pit rumors are unsubstantiated. No one knows what happened to all the bones from St. Paul’s, either.” She shook her head with a regretful sigh.

  For God’s sake, he’d never met a lady more preoccupied with bones. “Perhaps we should dig about in the dirt, and see if we can find some.”

  Despite his vow to be pleasant and charming, Nick’s voice was heavy with sarcasm.

  But Miss Somerset didn’t seem to notice, and she seized on the idea at once. “Can you imagine if we actually found some old bones? How fascinating that would be! But we can’t do it today—we didn’t bring anything to dig with.”

  “Yes, because of course that’s the only reason we wouldn’t muck about in the dirt for skeletons—because we neglected to bring a shovel,” Nick muttered.

  “I beg your pardon, my lord. Did you say you have a shovel?”

  Did he even own a shovel? “No, I’m afraid not, Miss Somerset. My apologies.”

  “Oh.” She looked crestfallen for a moment, but then she brightened. “But perhaps you have something else we could use? Not a shovel, but something else that might serve? A walking stick, perhaps?”

  Nick leveled her with a hard stare. Did she truly think he’d allow her to scratch about in the dirt with his silver-handled ebony walking stick? “No, nothing. Had I known I’d be visiting a burial ground when I called on you, I might have brought something, but as it is, I’ve left all my grave digging tools at home.”

  “Oh, well. That’s all right. Perhaps next time.”

  Next time? He ga
ve her an incredulous look. This was his first and last visit to Bunhill Fields Burial Grounds. “I don’t anticipate a second visit, Miss Somerset, and I think we’d better go back now. Your gown and hat, your hair…” He waved a hand toward her. “You’re already soaked, and you look a—”

  Fright. Nick managed to snap his mouth closed before the word could escape, but it was a near thing. Damn it, this wasn’t going at all well. There wasn’t a lady in existence who’d encourage a suitor who called her a fright.

  She raised an eyebrow at him. “Yes? What were you going to say, Lord Dare?”

  “You, ah, you look cold, Miss Somerset. I’d never forgive myself if you should take a chill because of my neglect.” There. At last, an appropriately gallant speech.

  Miss Somerset didn’t look the least impressed with his chivalry, however. She shrugged, then turned away from him to wander down a row of headstones, pausing every now and then to peer curiously at the inscriptions. “Yes, all right. As soon as I’ve got my sketch. It won’t take a moment, once I find the right vantage point.”

  “Sketch? What sketch?” Good Lord, did she intend to keep him out here all day? Nick shivered as a trickle of cold water dripped from his hat brim down his neck.

  “Oh, didn’t I mention that? I wanted to come today so I could take a sketch of the part of the grounds rumored to have been a plague pit, and—oh look, Lord Dare! It’s Susanna Wesley.”

  Nick stared at her. “Susanna Wesley? You mean the Mother of Methodism? Susanna Wesley is dead, Miss Somerset. Nearly seventy-three years now, I believe.”

  She turned to look at him, her expression something between exasperation and pity. “Yes, I’m aware she’s dead, my lord, and thank goodness for it. Otherwise it would have been a grievous mistake to bury her, wouldn’t it? I meant her gravesite, of course. Her son, Charles Wesley, wrote her epitaph. Did you know? No? Oh, well. I won’t be a moment.”

  She sank to her knees in front of a weathered headstone, heedless of the fact her skirt would be ruined with mud, but then she shook her head and rose to her feet again. “No, that won’t do. It’s too low. Perhaps I’ll sit on Mrs. Wesley’s headstone. I’m sure she wouldn’t mind, particularly since my purpose is a scholarly one.”