Free The Viscount's Kiss by Margaret Moore Page A

me, my lady.”
    Â 
    â€œJustinian, my boy!” the Countess of Granshire cried, holding out her arms as her son entered her sitting room.
    It was a small chamber, well-appointed and comfortable, beside her bedroom on the main floor that opened onto the terrace and formal garden—or as Bromwell always thought of it, nature made unnatural.
    As he’d expected, his mother was reclining on the chaise longue, with a gilt pedestal table close at hand bearing a lamp and what was clearly pages of correspondence.
    Bromwell knew enough of medicine to realize his mother wasn’t seriously ill. He’d tried to tell her so many times, until he realized that his mother used poor health as a means to get and keep his father’s attention, as well as his own.
    He embraced her and sat on a delicate harp-back chair beside the chaise. “You’re looking rather better, Mother,” he said, as he always did.
    â€œA bit, perhaps. Dr. Heathfield has given me some marvelous new medicine.”
    â€œOh? What is it?”
    She waved her hand feebly. “I don’t know. I didn’t ask. But it doesn’t taste bad.”
    Bromwell clenched his jaw and said no more about her medicine, although he would try to find out what it was as soon as possible. Dr. Heathfield wasn’t a quack, but he wasn’t the most learned man of medicine either, and his mother might be better off without his latest potion.
    â€œIt’s so good to see you,” his mother said with a sorrowful smile. “I was so worried when we got the message about the accident.”
    â€œDidn’t Father tell you that I was quite all right? I said so in my note.”
    â€œOh, yes, of course, but a mother always worries, even when her son’s in the same county.”
    He understood exactly what she was not saying—that she worried even more when he was at sea. However, since she hadn’t raised the subject of his next voyage directly, neither would he.
    His father burst into the room and came to a halt, feet planted, arms akimbo, as if he were a military man, which he was not and never had been.
    â€œSo, has he told you?” he demanded of his wife. “He’s been travelling with a woman .”

Chapter Six
    In nature’s kingdom, nurturing is primarily the responsibility of the female of the species. The male may possess the finer plumage or coloring and may be the larger, heavier and more muscular sex, but over and over again I saw that it was the mothers who were the fiercest when their offspring were threatened. At such times, the fine plumage, size and weight of the males counted for very little against the determination of the protective females.
    â€”from The Spider’s Web , by Lord Bromwell
    H is father made it sound as if his association with Lady Eleanor was illicit, not merely coincidental, and the earl wasn’t so much scandalized as shocked and, beneath that, proud.
    Bromwell wasn’t overly surprised by his father’s reaction. He suspected his father was even rather relieved to think his son had a mistress. It was no secret to Bromwell that his father had doubted his inclinations when it came to his sexualproclivities. Certain passages in his book should have reassured him in that regard, if his father had ever read it.
    He doubted his father had done more than glance at the title page.
    â€œShe’s Lady Eleanor Springford, the daughter of the Duke of Wymerton,” he clarified, “and we aren’t travelling together as you imply. We happened to be in the same coach, that’s all. We are mere acquaintances.”
    The earl’s eyes narrowed. “Mere acquaintances, eh?”
    â€œYes, Father, mere acquaintances,” he confirmed, even if she was an acquaintance he’d kissed more than once, that activity arousing such a primal passion in him, he could still hardly believe it.
    â€œWhat’s a duke’s daughter doing travelling in a mail