The Viscount's Kiss (23 page)

“Are you sure about the expedition? What if you get with child on the voyage?”

She turned in his arms so that she was facing him. “There'll be a physician on the ship, won't there?”

“Yes. Dr. Reynolds is a very competent, open-minded fellow who wishes to learn about native medicines.”

“And if we're in the islands, there are midwives, are there not?”

“Yes.”

“Then since you will be with me, too, what need have I to fear? I will be in the best possible hands, and so will any children we may have.”

“You are the most amazing woman I've ever laid eyes on. Such a pity you don't appreciate spiders.”

“I don't hate them anymore,” she protested. “I'm even beginning to like them.”

Bromwell smiled broadly. “I knew you were different from the moment you landed in my lap.”

“I knew you were different the moment you told me you'd put that spider in your hat.” She caressed his cheek. “I also thought you were the most handsome man I'd ever seen.”

In his evening dress, he looked as comely as any man in the ballroom, and given what else he had accomplished, he was superior to most. “I still find it hard to believe such a clever, famous, handsome man wants to marry me.”

“Believe it, Nell,” he whispered as he pulled her into his arms, “and believe that you are the one blessing me by accepting my hand, for that is the truth.”

His lips met hers with the same gentle, wonderful tenderness of their first kiss, and then, as always, desire unfurled within her, fueling the undercurrent of passion between them.

She guided him back into the shadows and the vine-covered walls, out of sight, away from the illuminated windows and the people inside.

He laughed softly. “This is hardly the time or place for an intimate encounter.”

“I only want to be alone with you for a few moments,” she replied with bogus innocence. “Not so long we'll be missed.”

“I may not be able to tear myself away.”

“Oh, very well,” she said with a disappointed sigh. “After all, we'll have the rest of our…”

He was staring at something over her shoulder and she twisted to see what it was. “What are you looking at?”

“There's an
Araneus diadematus
starting to build a web in the vines,” he admitted sheepishly, nodding toward thin white filaments barely visible among the green leaves. “There's the bridge line, and the start of the spokes.”

Smiling, happier than she'd ever been, looking forward to the future and the adventures yet to come, she slipped her arm through that of the famous Lord Bromwell and leaned her head on his broad shoulder. “Let's watch it together, shall we?”

Plymouth, 1825

“M
ake way there! Demme, let me through! I want to see my grandson!” the Earl of Granshire cried as he pushed his way through the crowd of seaman, navvies, families and friends of arriving passengers at the Dover wharf.

His wife, holding a scented handkerchief to her nose to cover the odors of tar, hemp and sweating men, followed in his wake. Despite the crowd and the stench, however, she was no less excited than her husband.

Lord Granshire halted and pointed at the small boy in the bow of an approaching longboat. “There! There he is!”

Shouting hellos, the earl took off his hat and waved. “And there's Justinian!”

He turned to his wife, who was jumping up and down trying to see over his shoulder. “He looks very healthy and so does Nell and—good God! Is that a baby in her arms?”

With an excited cry, Lady Granshire shoved past him, nearly sending the earl over the edge of the wharf into the water below. “It
is
a baby! And look at little Douglas—how sturdy and brown he is!”

“Buggy!” the Honorable Brixton Smythe-Medway shouted from among the crowd a few feet closer to the end of the wharf. “Nell! Charlie!”

“Watch what you're about, Brix,” Drury warned as he moved away from his friend and nearly collided with Edmond beside him. “Sorry, Edmond, but our friend is a little overenthused.”

Edmond gave Drury a sardonic smile. “Just imagine if our wives were here. It's a fortunate twist of fate that they're all expecting again. Otherwise we'd never have been able to convince them to wait for us at the earl's town house.”

“It looks like Buggy hasn't been remiss in that aspect. Did
you
know they'd had another baby?”

Drury shook his head. “They must have wanted to surprise us.”

“They've succeeded,” Edmond replied.

The longboat reached the wharf and a general hubbub ensued. Charlie, sun-browned and showing some gray at the temples, was the first over the thwarts and onto the wharf. Buggy handed his son over to him, then turned to take the baby from Nell's arms while Charlie helped her onto the wharf. Once Nell was on the wooden platform, Buggy gave her the baby, then climbed out to stand beside them.

The countess got to them first and she threw her arms
around her son. “Oh, my boy! My blessed, blessed boy! You're home and you're never leaving again!”

“No, I'm not,” he assured her before turning to another older man in the longboat, his face deeply tanned by the sun, his slender frame and gaunt face hinting at years of deprivation, as if returning from long and weary exile. The old man rarely took his gaze from Nell unless it was to look at her children. “This is Nell's father, Edward Springley.”

“Delighted, I'm sure,” the countess murmured, barely looking away from her son.

“Hello, young man,” the earl said to the little boy standing with his arms crossed, surveying the chaos as if he found it fascinating until the earl interrupted his study. “Can you guess who I am?”

“My other grandfather?” the lad replied warily.

“Other grandfather?” the earl repeated.

“Yes, that's my Mama's papa there. He's been in Australia. It's a marvelous country. I'm going back when I'm older.”

“I sincerely hope not,” the earl muttered.

“You're also the Earl of Granshire and a very important man, Papa says,” the little boy added, which brought a beaming smile back to the earl's face.

“As clever as his father, by God!” the earl proudly exclaimed to everyone within earshot.

“And a fine healthy child he is,” Bromwell said as he managed to disengage himself from his mother.

“As is his sister,” he finished with a nod and a smile at the baby cradled in Nell's arms.

“A granddaughter! Let me see her!” the countess cried.

Nell gently moved the blanket away from the slumber
ing infant's face and exchanged happy and proud smiles with her husband and father as the countess and his male friends clustered around.

“My God, she's a beauty!” Brix declared as he studied the slumbering infant with dark brown curling hair and plump cheeks. “I claim her for my Harry.”

“If she's anything like her parents, I think my Brom might do well to consider her when the time comes,” Drury mused aloud, “but don't any of you tell Juliette I said so.”

Edmond leaned close. “Such a charmer will break a lot of hearts,” he said gravely, “although being Buggy's daughter, she's bound to be a bluestocking. If so, she'll never do for my rascal D'Arcy, or his brother, either.”

Nell laughed heartily. “She's only a baby! Let her grow up and she shall make her own choice—and it may be none of your sons.”

“May I hold her?” the countess asked, reaching out eagerly.

“Of course,” Nell said. “I haven't got my land legs yet.”

“Papa says you have lots of horses,” little Douglas said to the earl. “Can I ride one?”

“Certainly!” the earl replied. “And one of my best bitches just had a litter, so you shall have a puppy, too.”

“Papa, did you hear!” Douglas cried with delight. “A
Canis lupus familiaris!
He's going to give me a
Canis lupus familiaris!”

“Yes, Douglas, I hear you, and so can the whole wharf. Now, where's Charlie got to?” Bromwell asked, looking around. “He said something about not coming for dinner and I…oh, isn't that…? Egad, it is!”

They all stared at Charlie, who was over by a stack of barrels kissing Lady Eleanor Springford as passionately as
any of them had ever kissed their wives, which was very passionately indeed.

“Yes, well, I suppose we can leave him here,” Bromwell said, turning to lead the way from the wharf to the area of the docks where carriages could wait.

“You and the children shall come with us in the barouche,” his father announced, taking his grandson by the hand.

He glanced at Nell's father and gave him a smile. “Mr. Springley, too, of course.”

“As you wish. And you'll come to call tomorrow?” Bromwell asked his friends.

“On the contrary,” Brix merrily replied. “We're following you, for our wives are already there, anxiously waiting and probably complaining about all our faults.”

“The children are there, too,” Edmond added, “the ones already born and the ones who will be within the next few months.”

“Oh, how wonderful!” Nell exclaimed as she gripped her husband's arm to steady herself as she also took her father by the hand. “I have so much to ask them—and tell them, too. I'm thinking of writing a book about our voyage, but unlike Justinian's, mine will be a romantic novel.”

“Excellent!” Edmond cried. “Diana will be pleased. She's been saying you should be a writer ever since your first letter arrived. She found it delightful.”

Nell beamed with pleasure and Buggy's face shone with pride as they all followed the earl to the waiting carriages, until the countess came to an abrupt halt and turned to her son and his wife. “You haven't told us her name! What is my granddaughter's name?”

“We named her after the woman the goddess Minerva turned into a spider,” Nell said.

As the younger men and Mr. Springley smiled, the earl and the countess looked baffled.

Viscount Bromwell, known as Buggy to his friends, grinned from ear to ear. “Her name is Arachne Juliette Diana Francesca.”

“Well now,” Sir Douglas Drury said gravely, “
that
is what I call a name.”

“Here, here!” his friends agreed.