More or Less a Countess

by Anna Bradley

  Nick grinned. He hadn’t even thought of that, but he liked it very much that she had. Damn, how is it he’d never before realized how engaging bluestockings were?

  But perhaps it wasn’t all bluestockings.

  Perhaps it was just her.

  Either way, it was damned difficult to regret today’s outing, despite his decision to end this friendship between them, especially when she was smiling at him with those lovely pink lips. He’d dreamed about her lips, but even in his dreams he couldn’t conjure such a sweet smile.

  “I hadn’t considered the stress on his skeleton, Miss Somerset, but I’m glad you mentioned it, because now perhaps we’ll notice something when we view it. Some buckling about the knees would be my guess. Cracks around the knee bone, perhaps. What do you think?”

  Nick waited with far more impatience than he’d ever imagined he could possibly feel to hear a bluestocking’s opinion about an eight-foot giant’s stress-related knee injuries.

  She tapped her lip as she considered it. “Yes, I would think the knees would take the brunt of it.” Without warning, she hopped across the carriage, plopped down next to him—right next to him, so his thigh was touching hers—and flipped through the pages of her sketchbook until she reached a blank page. “Like this, perhaps?”

  She moved the sketchbook between them, drew out one of the drawing pencils she seemed to always have tucked into a pocket, and began to sketch a series of long lines on the page. “It wouldn’t fall on his hips, I don’t think, because—well, simple gravity, you know, but there’s better weight distribution in the pelvic region than the knee area.”

  She continued to draw, and Nick continued to stare stupidly at the page, but he’d lost track of what she was saying the moment she sat down beside him. She was pressed against him, so close, the smooth top of her head level with his shoulder. If he leaned down just a bit, he could rest his cheek against her hair. He could bury his face in those heavy curls, and press his lips to the soft skin of her temples.

  No cobwebs today. Her hair was in the same simple knot it had been in yesterday, but today he was close enough to notice the smooth, pale skin of her neck, and once he did, he couldn’t tear his gaze away from it. She smelled crisp and clean, as if she used a soap with a mild vanilla fragrance. In a daze he leaned over her, his lips parting, his head lowering toward hers—

  “What do you think, Lord Dare?”

  I think you smell delicious.

  “Lord Dare?” She turned to look up at him.

  Nick jerked his head back. “Ah, what do I think about what?”

  She tapped the pencil against the paper. “His knees.” She’d drawn a rough sketch of a skeleton with a very long torso and legs, and now she cocked her head to the side, studying it. “I haven’t got the proportions right, but even so, it’s plain to see all the weight would have fallen in his knees and ankles. We’ll have to have a look at his ankle bones, as well.”

  Nick, who was too distracted by the weight in his breeches to string a coherent sentence together, could only stare dumbly at her.

  He’d almost kissed her neck.

  If she hadn’t turned at that moment, his lips would even now be brushing against that soft, vanilla-scented skin. He’d taste that delectable pulse hidden under her ear, feel it quicken against his tongue. He’d trail his parted lips across her cheek until he reached that tempting pink mouth, then he’d catch her lower lip gently between his teeth.

  What would she do if he kissed her? Would she tremble and sigh in his arms, open her lips under his, or—

  No. It was far more likely she’d hit him over the head with her sketchbook, then demand he take her home at once. Nick often enjoyed the attentions of a certain kind of lady, but proper young ladies like Miss Somerset tended to give him a wide berth, and for good reason.

  Not that Miss Somerset had given him a wide berth—no, after her initial hesitation she seemed more than happy to receive his calls, but even so, she hadn’t ever shown the slightest hint she thought of him in a romantic way. Her gaze didn’t linger on his. She never flirted with him, and she didn’t go out of her way to touch him.

  Which was just as well, of course. She wasn’t the sort of lady he fell into fits of passion over, and he didn’t wish to lead her on. She might smell lovely, and have the smoothest, finest skin he’d ever seen, but she was a bluestocking, for God’s sake. Rakes didn’t desire bluestockings, any more than bluestockings desired rakes.

  In that sense, at least, they were perfectly matched. After all, more than one happy marriage had been built on a solid foundation of mutual indifference.

  “Well, we’ll just have to see when we get there, I suppose.” She closed her sketchbook with a sigh, but she continued to sit contentedly next to him rather than moving back to her seat, as if she wasn’t even aware how close he was, and didn’t notice the length of his thigh pressed against hers.

  Which was, again, just as well, because it wasn’t as if it mattered one way or another to him. A rake who regularly enjoyed ladies’ bare thighs wrapped around his hips wasn’t likely to fall into a panting froth of lust over the touch of a single curved thigh buried under five layers of thick wool.

  The very thought was absurd.

  And yet Nick edged toward the window, away from the disturbing limb that had shattered his peace, and leaned back against the squabs, strangely exhausted for some reason.

  He’d just begun to relax again when he felt a small hand slip into his. He looked over at Miss Somerset, startled, and found her gaze on him.

  “Thank you for taking me with you today.” She squeezed the tips of his fingers tightly enough he could feel the warmth of her hand through her glove.

  Without thinking, and without any hesitation, Nick squeezed back. “It’s my pleasure, Miss Somerset.”

  A far greater pleasure than he’d ever dreamed it could be.

  Chapter Twelve

  It never occurred to Violet to scream, not even when she paused to peer into a tall, cylindrical jar and discovered it contained preserved monkey heads.

  “How curious. They look rather peaceful, don’t they?”

  Lord Dare tapped his finger against a jar containing a monkey’s skeleton. “That one doesn’t, and I can’t say I blame him.”

  He’d stayed close beside her as they made their way through the cavernous main hall, as if he expected her to swoon at any moment and was determined to catch her when it happened. Under normal circumstances it might have annoyed Violet—she was not the type of lady who made a habit of swooning—but, well…she had swooned after the footpad attacked her, and Lord Dare had been obliged to carry her to his carriage, so she could hardly complain.

  To be fair, most proper ladies would swoon at the sight of a monkey’s head floating in some clear liquid of undetermined origin. But even if that hadn’t been the case, Violet still wouldn’t have complained. In truth, she was having a difficult time keeping herself from throwing her arms around his neck and rising onto her tiptoes to kiss him on the cheek, right here next to the floating monkey heads.

  Her burst of affection had nothing to do with how handsome he was, of course, or the fact that his dark blue coat turned his eyes an even more remarkable shade of silvery-gray. Violet had seen many handsome men before, after all, and she’d never wanted to kiss any of them, not even Lord Derrick.

  Not even Lord Derrick?

  She came to a halt next to a row of glass tubes displaying anatomical sections of human ears, a surprised frown forming on her lips. How odd she should be so madly in love with Lord Derrick, but never imagine what it might be like to kiss him.

  But then Lord Derrick had never taken her to the Hunterian Museum.

  Whereas Lord Dare, well…after only a week of knowing her, he’d somehow understood nothing could give her more pleasure than this visit today. A tiny shiver of awareness slid down Violet’s
spine as she watched him lean over a wooden case to study a collection of human finger bones.

  She’d meant to keep her promise to Iris and refuse any future calls from him, but every one of her good intentions fled the moment she’d entered the drawing room and found him waiting for her there, his lovely gray eyes alight, tempting her with tickets to the Hunterian.

  But she could just as easily refuse his call tomorrow, couldn’t she? It was only a single day, after all. What possible difference could a single day make?

  He stopped beside her as she paused next to another glass jar, this one holding a dissected frog. “Good Lord, he looks like he’s grinning at us.” A large flap of skin had been cut from the frog’s stomach and pinned neatly back for display purposes. He leaned closer to study the creature’s circulatory and reproductive systems. “Though I can’t think what he has to grin about, considering his present circumstances.”

  Violet peered at the frog, her brow furrowed. “I think this one’s a female frog.”

  Lord Dare abandoned his study and turned to her with a raised eyebrow. “How in the world would you know that?”

  “Oh, um…” Violet bit her lip. It didn’t seem quite the thing to discuss frog ovaries with his lordship. Perhaps she shouldn’t have said anything at all, but he was waiting for a response, his gray eyes alert with interest, and she didn’t like to withhold knowledge from an inquisitive mind. “Well, you see, this one has…she’s…ah, the reproductive organs…”

  “Never mind, Miss Somerset.” Lord Dare grinned at her flushed cheeks, then took her arm and guided her past the frogs to the next display. “I can see by your blush there’s no delicate way to explain it.”

  “Yes, well…I’ve never seen so many skeletons in one place in my life!” she blurted out to hide her confusion. They approached a case with three skulls displayed side by side on a set of wooden platforms. “Or skulls. Dr. Hunter seems to have been rather enamored of skulls.”

  “Especially those ravaged by disease.” Lord Dare leaned over the display to get a closer look at the skulls and shuddered. “See those cavities where the bone has been eaten away? To be fair to Dr. Hunter, though, he wasn’t simply interested in grisly curiosities. The collection taken together shows his fascination was with anatomy, surgery, and medicine.”

  “Yes, of course you’re right.” Violet was rather impressed with this observation, and relieved to be back on familiar footing. She turned away from her study of the case to smile at him. “A great deal is made of Charles Byrne’s skeleton, and while it’s undeniably fascinating, the rest of the collection has greater medical significance. It’s not as fantastical, though, and Londoners do like their curiosities, I suppose.”

  “Did you take a sketch of Charles Byrne’s skeleton?” Lord Dare held out his hand for her sketchbook. “May I see it?”

  “It’s nothing so impressive, I assure you—just a rough sketch. Once we arrived I became distracted with the other displays, but I did take a close look at his joints, and I fancy I do see some deterioration at the knees and ankles.”

  He took the sketchbook and turned the pages until he found the sketch. “Yes, I see just what you mean.” He tapped a finger on the page. “You’ve put in the tiny fissures here, just at the knee bone. It’s very good.”

  Lord Dare paused to study her drawing, while Violet walked on further, her footsteps echoing across the wooden floor. A flat case containing a small, rectangular box was beside the display of the syphilitic skulls, and Violet stopped to peer inside.

  The small box contained what looked to be several long, translucent pouches. A few had been removed from the box and laid out lengthwise beside it, and she could see each little pouch had a red ribbon fixed to one end.

  She’d seen something like these pouches before, in a rather vulgar black and white drawing she’d come across in one of her readings. It was a caricature of the infamous rake Casanova, and it depicted him blowing into an object of a similar shape to these pouches—the caption had referred to them as English riding coats—apparently to test its efficacy.2

  Violet had gathered from the drawing the pouch didn’t function properly if there was a hole in it, but she hadn’t been able to make much more sense of it than that, so she leaned over the case to read the brief description on the card at the corner of the display, hoping it would offer more details.

  Barrier device, of the dried gut of the sheep, worn by men in the act of coition, to prevent venereal infection, d. 1776.

  Well, that didn’t properly explain the thing, did it? The caricature of Casanova hadn’t made much sense to her at the time, and a closer view of the pouches did nothing to dispel the mystery. She knew what coition was, of course, and she had some vague ideas regarding a gentleman’s anatomy, but how did the pouches come into the business? How was a gentleman meant to wear them, and how, precisely, could they prevent disease? She’d like to know the answer—it seemed rather an important detail, medically speaking—but there was only one person she could ask, and he…

  “What have you got there, Miss Somerset?”

  He was striding toward her now, an engaging smile on his face. “You look a bit pale. I almost shudder to ask, but what is it this time?”

  Oh, dear. Whatever the mystery regarding the pouches, Violet was sure she wasn’t meant to discuss it with Lord Dare. She may not be a conventional sort of lady, but she’d have to be dim indeed to question a gentleman on anything related to the act of coition.

  “It’s not the canine tooth embedded in the cockerel’s skull, is it? I read about that. Dr. Hunter maintained that the tooth grew its own blood supply once it was implanted, and…oh.” Lord Dare came to an abrupt halt when he saw what she was looking at. “Oh.”

  They stood shoulder to shoulder and peered down into the case, neither of them saying a word, until at last Lord Dare cleared his throat. “That’s not…those aren’t canine teeth.”

  “No. They’re…” Violet glanced back down at the card. “They’re barrier devices.” She hesitated, then, “I’ve also heard them referred to as English riding coats.”

  Lord Dare didn’t reply, but he made a strangled noise, and Violet wondered if perhaps she should have kept that last part to herself.

  Then again, she’d come this far. “Have you ever heard of them before?”

  He darted a sidelong glance at her, then looked quickly away. “Yes, I’ve heard of them.”

  My goodness, was he blushing? “Have you, ah…have you ever seen one?”

  He made another choked sound, either a strangled laugh or a grunt of distress. Violet wasn’t sure which.

  “Yes, I’ve seen them.”

  Well, how fascinating. Lord Dare had heard of the pouches—that is, the barrier devices—and he’d seen them before, too. It stood to reason, then, that he…

  Violet’s teeth sank into her bottom lip, but no amount of biting was going to keep the next question from escaping her mouth. “Have you ever used—?”

  “For God’s sake, Miss Somerset!” This time there was no mistaking the dull red color flooding his cheeks. “I refuse to answer that.”

  That was as good as a yes, because if he hadn’t ever used them he would have just said so. But he didn’t seem keen to discuss it, so it would be best if she let the matter drop.

  “I only ask, my lord, because, well…the thing is, I don’t quite understand how it works.”

  Oh, dear. That wasn’t letting the matter drop, was it?

  He gave her an incredulous look. “Well, I certainly hope you don’t think I’m going to explain it to you. Ask your sister, if you must know the details.”

  “My sister? But that doesn’t make any sense. How should she know how they work? The card says ‘worn by men in the act of coition,’ my lord.” She tapped a finger against the glass. “My sister is a woman. It stands to reason I’d ask a gentleman, doesn’t it?”

/>   Lord Dare ran his hands down his face. “Well, ask your brother-in-law, then.”

  Finn? Good Lord, she couldn’t think of anything worse than quizzing Finn about such a thing. “You want me to ask the Marquess of Huntington about English riding coats?”

  Lord Dare pinched the bridge of his nose between his fingers. “Bloody hell.”

  Another lady might have been shocked at the curse, but Violet found herself stifling a laugh. It was rather amusing, seeing Lord Dare put to the blush and at a loss for words. “It’s not as if you need to explain it in great detail, you know. Just give me a vague idea of it, without going into anything inappropriate.”

  He threw his hands up in the air. “It’s all inappropriate!”

  “Is it, indeed?” That was even more reason to solve the puzzle, then. Inappropriate things were always much more interesting than appropriate ones, and they tended to be the kinds of things kept secret from proper young ladies.

  This was just the sort of information she wanted for her book. She needed more of the sort of content that would be edifying for young ladies who would otherwise be left dangerously ignorant.

  She had that chapter on rakes and debauchers, but that sketch she’d done of Lord Dare as The Selfish Rake was meant to be the centerpiece of it, and she would never use it now she realized how horribly unfair it was to him.

  But if she could persuade him to tell her a bit more about the mysterious pouches, perhaps she could include a chapter on those instead, and if there was a medical component to the business, so much the better.

  “How inappropriate?” Violet couldn’t quite hide her eagerness.

  “You needn’t sound so thrilled about it.”

  He scowled at her, but Violet could sense him weakening, and she was quick to press her advantage. “I’m thrilled about any opportunity to gain knowledge. Come now, my lord. My interest is purely scientific.”

  Mostly scientific, anyway.

  He ran a hand over the back of his neck. “It’s…it goes over the gentleman’s…appendage. You, ah…you understand what I mean by ‘appendage,’ don’t you?”