The Viscount's Kiss by Margaret Moore Page A

pleasedwith the effect. She didn’t study her reflection long; she knew she was a pretty girl thanks to the features she’d gotten from her mother—large, bright eyes and delicately arched brows over a slender nose. From her father she had inherited her chestnut hair, excellent teeth, full lips and a jaw that was a bit too strong, perhaps.
    â€œHow shall I do your hair, my lady?” Dena asked without any enthusiasm.
    Nell fetched another ribbon and suggested a simple style, with the ribbon woven through it. “Do you think you can do that?”
    â€œYes,” the maid said curtly, taking the ribbon as Nell, subduing a sigh, sat at the dressing table.
    â€œI didn’t mean to imply you were incapable,” she said.
    The maid didn’t reply.
    â€œHave you been with the family long?” Nell asked amicably, hoping to mend the apparent breach as the maid began to brush her hair with brisk, hard strokes.
    â€œTwenty years, my lady.”
    â€œSo you’ve known Lord Bromwell from boyhood.”
    The maid didn’t respond.
    Undeterred, Nell asked, “Was he an adventurous sort of child?”
    â€œI can’t say, my lady. I wasn’t the nursery maid.”
    â€œSurely you would have heard if he was.”
    â€œHe got into trouble now and then,” Dena conceded. “But how he could be so thoughtless and sail off and worry his poor mother half to death after she spent all those sleepless nights nursing him when he was sick so often…”
    Dena fell silent, her lips so compressed it was as if they were locked together to prohibit another word from escaping.
    â€œI suppose all spirited boys get into mischief now and then.”
    When Dena didn’t reply, Nell tried a different tack. “You must be proud to work for the family of such a famous naturalist.”
    Dena’s dark brows drew even closer together.
    â€œHis book was very well received,” Nell prompted.
    The maid’s expression grew yet more disapproving.
    â€œI take it, Dena,” Nell said, “that you aren’t impressed by Lord Bromwell or his field of study?”
    At last the woman spoke, and it was as if a dam had broken—or she finally felt she’d been given the opportunity to voice opinions too long held in check. “Spiders, of all things! Nasty, creeping creatures! I can’t think what God was about creating them.
    â€œAs for the viscount, he used to be a fine young gentleman but then he went on that voyage and what he did when he was with those heathens, walking about nearly naked, dancing those disgusting dances and drinking their foul brews, and no doubt doing who knows what with the native women…well, it’s enough to make a Christian woman sick!”
    However Dena felt about his adventures, Nell’s reaction was quite different. She immediately envisioned Lord Bromwell nearly naked, dancing with wild abandon in torchlit shadows under a palm tree, then slipping off into the bushes with an equally half naked woman.
    Who looked a lot like her.
    She shoved that disturbing yet exciting vision out of her mind and wished more than ever that she’d read Lady Sturmpole’s copy when she’d had the chance. “You’ve read his book?”
    â€œMrs. Fallingbrook took it upon herself to read it aloud in the servant’s hall during dinner, until I asked her to stop,” Dena replied. “It ruined my appetite to hear about an English gentleman, the son of our employer, behaving like that. I think he ought to be ashamed of himself.
    â€œIt nearly killed his poor mother, him going off like that, despite her pleading for him to stay,” Dena continued. “She took to her bed for weeks after he sailed and we were all afraid it would be the death of her and then there he is, acting like a heathen himself!”
    â€œBut he returned,” Nell noted, “and his book is a great success. His mother must be pleased