my lord. I shall accept your father’s generous invitation and—woe is me!—my abigail has run off with my clothes!”
Riding in the earl’s fine coach should have been enjoyable, for the weather was fine, the vistas lovely, the coach well sprung and the seats upholstered in thick silk damask and cushioned with horsehair. Nell had a whole side to herself and, with Lord Bromwell across from her, the journey could even have been quite entertaining. She’d always liked to read histories of Britain, and she was sure a learned man like Lord Bromwell could tell her even more about this part of the country, and the Roman settlement and spa so close to Stonehenge.
Unfortunately, Lord Bromwell’s father was also in the coach. Worse, he apparently felt silence in a coach some kind of sin, so he talked the whole way while they were forced to listen, trapped like flies in a web. He complained about the sorry state of the roads, the exorbitant cost of building supplies, the inefficiency of the mail, the generally terrible government and the difficulty in finding good servants.
Once she caught Lord Bromwell’s eye and gave her companion-in-captivity a sympathetic smile, but that proved to be something of a mistake, for his eyes brightened and his full lips began to lift, instantly reminding her that he was a very attractive man who kissed with passionate, consummate skill.
Blushing yet again, ashamed yet again of her wayward, lascivious thoughts, she turned her attention back to the boastful earl, who had now moved on to the subject of the renovations to his estate and his hall.
“The very finest situation in the county since I’ve rebuilt the house,” the voluble earl noted, as if he’d personally laid every brick. “The gardens were designed by Humphrey Repton. Cost a fortune, but worth every penny, I think you’ll agree.
“Nothing but the best for the earls of Granshire and their heirs, my lady. Yes, it’ll be a lucky young woman who marries my son, provided he can be persuaded to stop gallivanting all over the world after those insects.”
“As I’ve explained to you before, Father,” Lord Bromwell said with an air of long-suffering patience, “spiders are not insects.”
“All right, spiders,” the earl said. “Disagreeable things they are, too.”
Lord Bromwell opened his mouth, then closed it again and gazed silently out the window.
“While they can be a little unnerving up close,” Nell said, coming to their defence for his sake, “I understand most of them are harmless—and I’d rather come upon a spider than a wasp.”
She had her reward when Lord Bromwell looked at her as if she’d just announced she was Mother Nature and going to provide him with a sample of every spider in existence.
His father’s expression was only slightly less impressed. “So, you like spiders, my lady?”
While she was happy to help Lord Bromwell, or at least defend his interest, there was a significance in his father’s look and manner that was all too easy to understand, and that ought to be nipped in the bud.
“I can’t say I like them as much as your son,” she admitted with a bland smile, “but I suppose most people don’t like them as much as your son.”
“No, they do not,” the earl replied, as if Lord Bromwell wasn’t there. “He’d spend hours staring at them spinning webs in the stable or outbuildings when he was a boy. His mother and I thought he’d ruin his eyes.”
“Obviously he didn’t,” she said.
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