Free How To School Your Scoundrel by Juliana Gray Page B

steps.
    “Where are we going?” she asked civilly, when the next landing passed by without a pause.
    “To the nursery,” said Lady Somerton. “I keep salves and plasters there. My son, I’m afraid, stands in constant need of patching up.”
    “Haven’t you a nurse for such things?”
    “Some do.” Lady Somerton turned at the half landing and glanced at Luisa. “Are you quite all right? You seem rather stiff.”
    “Quite all right.”
    She resumed her upward march. “I suppose he’s had you out on one of his little expeditions. Were you obliged to kill anyone?”
    “I . . . no.” Luisa paused. “Though it all might have gone vastly better if I had.”
    “There’s the spirit. I’m sure you’ll prove a tremendous success. You might even last until Candlemas, if you’re especially fortunate. Here we are.” The countess slipped a set of keys from her pocket and opened the door. She turned to Luisa and held her finger to her lips. “I’ve just got him to sleep,” she whispered. “Don’t spoil it.”
    Luisa tiptoed through the darkened room behind the graceful swaying shadow of the Countess of Somerton. To her left stood a cluster of furniture: table, chairs, desk. Evidently this was the day nursery; a door stood ajar on the opposite wall, fully black within, where young Lord Kildrake no doubt lay sleeping.
    Lady Somerton led her in the opposite direction, to the nursery bathroom. She closed the door and switched on the light. Luisa blinked furiously at the sudden brightness of the gaslight in the white-tiled room.
    “Good gracious. What a dreadful amount of blood.” Lady Somerton clucked her tongue and opened a white-painted cabinet. “You’ll want to soak that in cold water immediately.”
    Luisa watched her ladyship in astonishment as she burrowed matter-of-factly about the jars and tubes. Not even the harsh glare of the bathroom light could erase her beauty; her creamy skin remained smooth and flawless, a little pink perhaps in the apples of her cheeks, and her eyelashes swooped to sinful lengths beyond her brow. The delicate symmetry of her profile was almost mesmerizing.
    Lord Somerton’s wife. Who was she? What was she like? Did she love him?
    Did he love her?
    Well, obviously they didn’t love each other. Luisa’s own bedroom was proof of that. But how could even a beast like Somerton fail to adore such a lovely rose-scented creature, with her perfect profile and her extravagant eyelashes? One who shunned the endless social amusement of London to tuck her son in bed, instead of ordering a nurse to do it? One who drew a lowly clerk upstairs to tend his wound herself, instead of ordering a maid to do it?
    For an instant, Luisa imagined that saturnine face lowering to press a kiss on Lady Somerton’s rosy lips. His body pressed against Lady Somerton’s porcelain skin. Kissing her. Touching her.
    The image stung with unexpected sharpness. She pushed it away. Revulsion, no doubt. Somerton was an unpleasant beast, the sort of man she had always taken care to avoid.
    She glanced again at the countess, who was now biting the corner of her lower lip as she hunted among her shelves. Probably she wasn’t sophisticated enough for Somerton’s taste. Perhaps she was simply a pretty face, with nothing inside to interest him.
    Not that Luisa gave the slightest damn about the state of the Somertons’ marriage.
    “Here we are,” her ladyship said, in that melodious voice of hers. “If you’ll be so kind as to unfasten your collar, Mr. Markham. I shall dampen this washcloth with a bit of soap and hot water.”
    “I am perfectly capable . . .”
    “A young man of your age knows nothing about how easily even the most superficial of wounds can become infected with germs, Mr. Markham.” Lady Somerton returned, brandishing the white washcloth like a weapon of war. “I daresay you would go to bed without even washing.”
    “That’s not true,” Luisa said indignantly, and then “Owww!” as the