helpless during a storm at sea and the men he’d been sure would flee at the first sign of trouble had stayed and fought for their companions’ safety.
“I’ve got yer wine, my lord,” Mrs. Jenkins declared behind the door, taking him out of his brown study or, as his father would say, “another of your damn daydreams.”
“Come in,” he called as he rolled down his wrinkled sleeves.
The woman entered the chamber with the force of a strong wind, a wineglass held out to him.
“It’s a miracle and a mercy nobody was killed,” she declared, her buxom body quivering with indignation while Bromwell downed the excellent wine in a gulp. “I’ve been telling Jenkins for years some of them coaches weren’t fit to be on the road. You ought to get your friend Drury to sue. He never loses, I hear.”
“Drury only handles criminal cases,” Bromwell replied as he set down the glass and picked up his jacket. “This was an accident, caused by a stray dog and Thompkins’s decision not to run it over. I won’t go to court over that.”
He put on the soiled jacket that his former valet would have wept to see. Not knowing how long he would be at sea, or if he would even return, he’d given Albert a well-earned reference and paid him an extra six months’ salary before dismissing him. Since his return, he hadn’t bothered to hire another, much to the dismay of Millstone, the butler at his father’s London town house, even though Millstone had to admit Bromwell had learned to tie his cravat like an expert, having spent several hours practicing when there was nothing else to do at sea.
What would Millstone make of this latest mishap? Probably he’d just sigh and shake his head and comment that some men led charmed lives, although his lordship really ought to buy a new carriage. He could certainly afford it.
So he could, if he wasn’t planning another expedition.
If he told Millstone about kissing the young woman, the poor man would likely drop down in a faint, as shocked and surprised as his friends would be—as shocked and surprised as he had been when it finally dawned on him that he shouldn’t be kissing a woman he’d only just met.
Perhaps, as his father complained, he’d been too long away from England.
“Are the horse and carriage ready?” he asked Mrs. Jenkins, who seemed rather keen to linger.
“They should be by now, my lord.”
“Good.” He looked out the window at the sky gray with thickening clouds. “If you’ll excuse me, Mrs. Jenkins, I must be on my way.”
She smiled. “Always the perfect gentleman, my lord!”
Not always, he thought as he hurried past her.
Not always.
Bunching the cravat tighter in her hand, Nell glanced up at the sky. The gray clouds were definitely thickening, and moving closer.
“Never fear, lass,” the driver said, wincing as he shifted. “Lord Bromwell’ll be back with help soon. That lad can ride like the wind.”
She gave the driver a smile, but her eyes must have betrayed that she wasn’t completely reassured, for he patted her hand as his eyes drifted closed. “I’ve known him since he was six years old. Might not look like it, but he’s the finest horseman I’ve ever seen. Brave, too.”
“But not, perhaps, a competent mail coach driver?” she suggested, trying to keep Thompkins awake.
To her relief, he opened his brown eyes again. “Well, to be sure, that wasn’t his finest hour, but he was only fifteen at the time.”
“Fifteen? He could have been seriously hurt, or even killed!”
The driver frowned. “Don’t you think I knew that? O’ course I refused the first time he asked, and lots o’ times after that, but he wouldn’t let up till I gave in. And he had his reasons all worked out, logical-like, beginning with his skill and how far he’d go—only a mile or so. But that wasn’t why I finally gave in. I knew he wanted something to brag about when he got back to school, so his friends would think he was as good as they were—although he’s worth the lot of them and always has been and I said so at the time. But he got this look in his eyes, and well, miss, I didn’t have the heart to refuse him. We didn’t have any passengers that day and if the road hadn’t been so slick in that one place, it would have been all right.
“Should have seen him at the start,” Thompkins continued, grinning at the memory. “Like one of them Roman charioteers, standing up and working the reins like an old hand until we hit that slick spot and went into the ditch. But no damage to the coach and we was only a little late. Not that it made a mite of difference to his father, though, when he found out what’d happened.”
Thompkins sighed, then frowned. “You should have heard the way the earl carried on. Any other man might have been proud of the lad for wanting to try and getting that far, but not him. You’d think young Lord Bromwell’d lost the family estate or murdered somebody.
“The viscount, bless him, told his father he’d forced me to agree to it by saying he’d see I lost my job if I didn’t. Well, that was a lie, but he was cool as you please, and damn—pardon me, miss—if his father didn’t believe him. And then not another word did young Lord Bromwell say. He just stood there covered in mud from head to toe, and his lip bleeding, too, like the earl was giving a speech in the House of Lords that had nothing to do with him.
“Oh, he’s a rum cove, all right, even if he’s a nobleman. Have you read his book?”
“I’m sorry to say I haven’t,” she replied, wishing that she had.
“To be honest, I ain’t read it, either, since I can’t read at all,” the driver admitted, “but I heard all about his narrow escape from them savages and the shipwreck, too. And the tattoo, o’ course.”
Nell paused in her ministrations. “Lord Bromwell has a tattoo?”
Thompkins grinned and lowered his voice. “Aye, but he ain’t never told anybody what it is, or where. Just that he got one. Some of the nobs have made a bet on it and put it in that book at White’s, but so far, nobody’s collected.”
Nell was aware of the famous betting book at that gentlemen’s club, and that men who belonged would—and did—wager on almost anything.
Thompkins looked past her and pointed down the road. “Thanks be to God, here he comes.”
Nell looked back over her shoulder. There was indeed a horse and rider coming toward them, and it was Lord Bromwell. He still wore no hat, so his slightly long hair was ruffled by the ride, and his coat was as muddy as his formerly shining boots.
“Mr. Jenkins of The Crown and Lion is sending his carriage and a doctor. They should be here soon,” Lord Bromwell said as he drew the brown saddle horse to a halt and dismounted.
Nell discovered she couldn’t meet his steadfast gaze as he came toward them. The memory of those moments in his arms and especially of his kiss were too vivid, too fresh, too disturbing. Instead, she continued to wipe Thompkins’s forehead, even though the bleeding had stopped.
Lord Bromwell’s boots came into her line of sight. “I trust the patient is resting comfortably?”
“Aye, my lord,” Thompkins replied, “although my head hurts like the devil.”
“You’re not dizzy or sleepy?”
“Not a bit, my lord. The young lady and I have been having a fine time.”
The toe of Lord Bromwell’s boot began to tap. “Have you indeed?”
“Aye. I told her about the time you drove the coach, and we talked about yer book.”
She risked a glance upward, to discover that Lord Bromwell looked even more rakish and handsome with his hair windblown and his shirt still open and the hint of whiskers darkening