Texas Viscount (27 page)

      
She sighed. “I feel so foolish. But I also feel like riding.”

      
Josh was certain that a woman as sophisticated as a prima ballerina who toured Europe would know about German luxury automobiles. She was not stupid like Eunice. No, Natasha was playing with him. But why? There was only one way to find out. He took her arm and said, “I'd be happy as a speckled pup with two tails to take you for a ride, Madame Samsonov.”

      
“Tasha. My friends call me Tasha,” she purred as they headed for the door.

      
As they turned, Josh caught sight of “Tasha's” brother scowling at them darkly from behind one of the palms. “Your brother looks like he's just run across a hornet in the privy.”

      
She shrugged dismissively. “Nicki is always brooding about something or other. Forget him. The sun shines. The fresh air calls to me. Let us ride.”

      
“Not much fresh air in London,” Josh replied as a footman held open the huge brass door of the red granite hotel.

      
“Then you shall drive me to the country where there is fresh air,” she said slyly.

      
As they drove through the busy streets, she studied him with intense dark eyes. He was a magnificent barbarian, no doubt of it. And Hambleton's heir. Her cabal was receiving more information now from her new source than from Albany's pale son, but both men bored her in the extreme. Poor sots. This Texan would be good in bed—she could always tell. He was as wild and reckless as she. Soon her assignment here in England would be complete and she'd be sent elsewhere. Tasha decided she was entitled to a bit of pleasure before that happened.

      
Neither the Russian nor the Texan saw Sabrina as she stood dumbly at the edge of Russell Square, watching the pair speed past. Trying to take her mind off her troubles, she'd spent the afternoon gawking at antiquities and was in route home. The wonders of the British Museum could not rid her mind of Edmund's gambling debts, or of the night she'd spent in Josh's arms. The last thing she expected was to see him with another woman, least of all the prima ballerina.

      
But she should have expected it, she thought bitterly. Had he not said to Drucilla that Natasha Samsonov was tall and beautiful? And she was. While Josh kept his eyes on the traffic, the raven-haired woman had her gaze fixed on his handsome profile as they laughed and talked. Oh, he was a charmer, probably heading to some trysting place where he would...

      
No, she could not finish the thought. It made her feel used and cheap.
Can you blame him? After all, you were no virginal miss when he seduced you,
she scolded herself as tears threatened. Sabrina blinked them back and kept on walking resolutely. She would go to the earl first thing in the morning and terminate her employment. If he chose not to bestow the munificent reward he'd promised for “civilizing” his nephew, so be it. She simply could not endure one more moment in Josh's presence.

      
Sabrina should have felt angry and humiliated, and she did. But she also felt betrayed...far more betrayed by her Texan than she ever had by Dex.

* * * *

      
When the daunting butler Nash announced that she would be allowed to speak with the earl, Sabrina felt her stomach clench with an ache that had not left her since yesterday afternoon. She'd spent the night dreaming about Josh, seeing his green eyes dance with laughter, feeling the whisper-light caress of his mouth on hers, hearing the slow, intimate drawl of his voice as he crooned love words in her ear. Now it was over. So quickly, before it had scarcely begun.

      
Even though she knew that the breakup was for the best, she had secretly hoped for a few more nights in his arms before they were separated by station and...temptation. She knew how women responded to his exotic background, his charm and handsome face. There had been many before her and would be many after her. Even the glamorous ballerina was only a temporary diversion. Josh would marry a woman of rank and most probably continue having dalliances.

      
Especially if he ends up with one such as Lady Eunice,
she thought with spiteful anger as she followed Nash into the earl's office. The elderly gentleman rose and smiled at her warmly.

      
“Good morning, Miss Edgewater. What brings you out so early? I'm afraid my rapscallion nephew is away from the house and not expected home until later in the day. I do hope he didn't forget a lesson you'd arranged?”

      
“No, we made no plans,” she replied as she took the seat he offered her. Although Sabrina would have preferred to stand and quickly say what she'd come to say, it would have been rude to expect the octogenarian earl to stand while she did so. “But I did come to discuss my tutorials with the viscount,” she said as she carefully arranged her skirts.

      
She's nervous and unhappy
, Hambleton thought with a sense of foreboding. “What ever is troubling you, my dear young lady?” He leaned forward against his desk and studied her as she began to speak.

      
“I wish to terminate my employment, my lord. If you choose not to fund my school, I shall understand fully.” She waited for the ax to fall, but was puzzled by the slow smile that turned up the corners of his mustache.

      
“Ah, so you've had your first lovers' spat,” he said. “Not to worry. Joshua can be a trial, but—”

      
“Lovers' spat?” she squeaked with dawning horror. Surely he could not know...

      
As if reading her mind, the earl nodded. “Please, don't take offense. I could see by the way you and my nephew began that—”

      
Sabrina started to jump to her feet, ready to storm from the room, when the door burst open and the mysterious man she'd seen with Josh yesterday appeared. The viscount's arm was draped over the fellow's shoulder.

      
“You'll need to call a physician,” the man said calmly as he gave the bleeding Josh a fulminating look. “The stubborn Texan refuses to go to hospital.”

      
“It's just a nick,” Josh said as he looked from his uncle to Sabrina. He removed his arm from Michael's shoulder and used the back of her chair to steady himself. “You do have the most incredible way of surprising a—”

      
She was out of the chair and on her feet in an instant, reaching out to him as the stranger caught him while he started to slide into unconsciousness. There was blood everywhere. “What's happened to him?” she asked as the man lowered Josh to the carpet.

      
"I told the pigheaded fool he needn't be there, that we could handle it," Michael said to the earl, ignoring her question. "But being one of those wild and woolly Americans, he had to be in on the hunt."
 

      
The earl's face had turned ashen as he jerked the bell pull to summon help.
 
"How bad is it, Michael?"

      
Sabrina knelt beside the man the earl called Michael as he pulled a small knife from his pocket and began to cut the sleeves of Josh's jacket and shirt, slicing upward until he revealed a long, ugly gash that had soaked his jacket in blood. “Must have nicked a big vein,” he said as if discussing the weather. “I wanted to take him to St. John's after everything was finished, but he insisted it wasn't serious.”

      
“You'll need to stop the bleeding at once,” Sabrina said, reaching over and taking the knife from him. She used it to cut a long strip of her soft cotton petticoat and applied pressure with a wad of cloth. “Hold this while I wrap it,” she commanded, placing Michael's hand over the pulsing wound.

      
“How did you learn medicine?” the earl asked just as Nash came scurrying into the room to announce that he'd already sent for a physician, having seen the condition of the viscount when he was brought in.

      
“I was second eldest of seven children, three of them boys, not to mention my very accident-prone young cousin,” she replied as if that were explanation enough. “This looks as if it came near shattering bone. Although Gerard, Donald and Jeffrey did grievous injury to themselves growing up, I've never seen such an ugly, deep furrow. What happened?” she repeated, leveling piercing blue eyes on Michael.

      
From behind her, the earl replied wearily, “It would appear, my dear, that he's been shot.”

Chapter Thirteen

      
“First I puke in a woman's hat, then I faint dead away. Some damn fine way to impress a lady,” Josh groused as Sabrina leaned over him with an expression of concern. He looked around and realized he'd been moved into his room and lay on his bed. Someone had removed his clothing and bandaged his arm, which ached like hell.

      
“I hardly think passing out from loss of blood would qualify as fainting, my lord,” Sabrina replied soothingly, placing her hand against his uninjured shoulder to keep him from sitting up.

      
“Hell, I've been shot a lot worse and managed to stay awake.”

      
“So I noted by the plethora of scars adorning your body,” she said tartly, then could have bitten her tongue when a lazy grin replaced his chagrined expression.

      
“Did you now?” he drawled.

      
“Dr. Maynard asked that I remain to assist him when he examined your injury. His examination was more extensive than I'd bargained for. You've led quite an active life, Lord Wesley,” she replied primly as she pulled the sheet higher, trying to cover more of his disturbingly enticing chest. Whenever she was around this man, she blurted out things far better left unsaid.

      
“Oh, so now I’m bein’ ‘lordshiped’ again, even when we're alone together.” His voice was low and intense. He'd make her get over her protective sense of decorum, one way or the other.

      
“You are a viscount and I am a teacher. The differences in our stations will never change.” It came out more like an excuse than a statement of common sense as she’d intended it.

      
He treated it that way. “The hell with stations. I was raised in a bordello and made myself a millionaire. Titles be damned. I desire you, no one else. I thought after Saturday night you'd be convinced of that.”

      
Sabrina drew back. “You need not dissemble, my lord. I saw you with Madame Samsonov.” Heavens, that sounded jealous! His grin widened once more, indicating that he knew it. “I have no claim whatever on you. If you wish to cavort with every dancer and actress in London, it's of no moment to me.”

      
“Now, why don't I believe that?” he asked rhetorically. “You have my word that I'm not in the least interested in that female—at least not in the way you think,” he added, wondering how he was going to soothe her ruffled feathers and at the same time conceal his true reason for associating with the icy Russian beauty. “I'd sooner mate with a praying mantis. Did you know the females eat the males after?”

      
“After?” She jerked back, appalled at what he was suggesting.

      
He nodded solemnly, trying to divert her. “Gospel truth, Sabbie. I read it in a science book.”

      
“That does not make it appropriate as conversation between gentlemen and ladies—and do not call me ‘Sabbie.’ I saw you following—”

      
Josh decided that actions were probably better than words. Before she could frame the question he could not answer, he seized her hand, rubbing tiny circles around the racing pulse of her wrist with his thumb. He'd always found that a good gauge of a woman's feelings. “Forget about that damnable toe dancer.”

      
Sabrina tried to jerk her hand free but he pulled her closer, using his good arm to force her to perch on the edge of the bed. “I'm not in the least interested in your new inamorata, praying mantis or no,” she lied. “In fact, I was just giving my notice to your uncle when you interrupted bleeding all over the carpet. Did some jealous lover shoot you?”

      
“You're the one who's jealous, and there's no reason.”

      
“Oh?” She succeeded in pulling her hand free and fairly jumped to her feet. Damn the man, he was beguiling her again. What she needed to do was place some distance between them...and find out what on earth was going on. “Then who shot you? And why were you skulking around my cousin's lodgings yesterday?”

      
Josh sighed, trying to shift his fuzzy brain into a higher gear, but it was stuck somewhere between first and second and he was too tuckered out to engage the clutch. He tried to reach up to her, but when he shifted his weight on the mattress, his injured arm shot fiery pain all the way to his fingertips. He muffled an oath as he fell back against the covers.

      
“Now look what you've done. If you're not careful, you'll start the bleeding again,” she scolded, examining the wrappings on his arm.