Texas Viscount (9 page)

      
All during their conversation he had unobtrusively been studying Josh's bruised eyes. When Josh finally looked directly at him, he reddened. “A souvenir from that set-to at the wharf yesterday?” he dared to ask.

      
“Only the right one. The other...well, I'd as soon not go into that.” Now it was Josh's turn to feel his face flush beneath his tan.

      
“We'd probably be best advised to discuss the matter at hand before someone remarks on our being seen together,” Jamison said briskly. He glanced quickly around the crowded park and then nodded to a wooded copse several hundred yards distant. “I'll meet you at the opposite side of those trees at half past the hour. Watch you aren't followed.”

      
Muttering about tomfool secrecy and cow smashers, Josh meandered around the woods, returning the curious nods of fancy-dressed folks in carriages and dudes on horseback. He'd read the newspaper accounts of his arrival and would have bet the people expected him to incite another riot...or take a scalp or two before he left the park. Of course, playing the role of a wild and woolly dime-novel Westerner was what he was supposed to do. But being the resident yokel was getting to be a real pain in the...eyes.

      
“Reckon that fracas at the pier gave me a good head start on it,” he mused with a chuckle as he rode to his rendezvous.

* * * *

      
“You cannot be serious!” Sabrina almost dropped the teacup she was handing to Mr. Hodgins.

      
The secretary had sent word that he still wished to speak with her about the position in the earl's household. He'd asked permission to call at her home that afternoon and apologized for any inconvenience caused by the unfortunate accident at the fountain. Mollified and relieved, she had immediately responded that she would be delighted to receive him.

      
Until this. Steadying her hand, she managed not to spill the hot tea all over his pristine suit as she handed him the cup. “You wish me to tutor that...that is, Lord Hambleton's nephew?”

      
“That is correct, Miss Edgewater,” Hodgins said, dabbing nervously at his brow with a handkerchief. He did not look pleased with her reaction, but the expression of disappointment quickly gave way to a placating smile. “Your credentials are quite impeccable, and Lady Rushcroft speaks highly of you.”

      
I'd sooner teach a baboon to ride bareback in hell.
“But I instruct young ladies in the social graces. I've never worked with a gentleman. It simply isn't done.”
And he isn't a gentleman!

      
“His lordship understands your reluctance after the incident this morning, but it was a most regrettable misunderstanding. He urged me to assure you that the viscount will never behave in such a fashion again. He is an American, after all, and lacks, er, discretion.”

      
He said it as if that explained everything. Perhaps it did...at least as far as Americans from Texas were concerned. Sabrina did not know, nor did she wish to find out. “Please convey my regrets to Lord Hambleton. I was led to believe it was his niece, not his nephew, for whom he wished to engage my services. While I should be happy to instruct Miss Sophia—”

      
“No. As of now, Miss Standish is studying at the Wilton Academy. Perhaps after she graduates in the spring, your services might be of use,” Hodgins said unctuously.

      
Blackmail. Sabrina would have none of it. She shook her head. “I hate to disappoint, but I do have my other clients to consider. If I were to begin working with young gentlemen, well, you must understand how mothers might feel about employing me to instruct their daughters.”

      
Hodgins was not happy. He was used to succeeding in any task the earl set him, but one look into Miss Sabrina Edgewater's stern blue eyes convinced him that this time he would fail. Perhaps Hambleton had an ace or two up his sleeve. He rose and bowed smartly to the squire's haughty daughter. “I shall convey your regrets to the earl. If you should reconsider,” he added, thrusting a card into her hand, “you have only to inform me.”

      
It will snow in the Congo first,
she thought as she closed the door forcefully behind the pompous little man.

* * * *

      
“Our worry is Albany's second son, George Clarence. Being King Edward's nephew makes his liaison with the Russians most...embarrassing for the government,” Jamison explained as the two men strolled in a small glade hidden by overgrowth while their horses grazed at opposite sides of the natural concealment.

      
“George is the son of the Duke of Albany, King Edward's youngest brother?” Josh asked.

      
Jamison studied the Texan with surprise. “Why is it that you seem to be one thing and are really quite another?”

      
“Just call me an enigma,” Josh replied dryly. “Tell me about Georgie's Russian friends.”

      
“You know about the Great Game?”

      
Cantrell nodded. “Britain versus the Russian Empire. Been going on ever since you fellows acquired real estate in India. You want to maintain the status quo, with the Royal Navy dominating the oceans. You've got the Russians blocked on the Bosporus. All you have to do is keep their ambitions in Manchuria and China in check. The Japanese can help you do that.”

      
“I say, you are well informed.” Jamison appeared delighted.

      
“I've read a book or two. Even polished up on recent English history during the voyage over.”
When I wasn't hanging my head in a slop bucket.

      
“Well, dear 'Georgie'—an apt name, by the by—is enamored of a Russian woman named Natasha Samsonov. Quite a beauty.”

      
“Seems I recall that one of the king's other brothers is married to a Russian princess. What you folks have is too much inbreeding. Tends to produce stupid stock.”

      
Michael threw back his head and laughed heartily. “You're nothing if not direct—and truthful. All the royal houses of Europe have married their first cousins far too often.”

      
Josh decided he could learn to like this shrewd Englishman. “For one of those stiff-upper-lip fellows, you're pretty outspoken yourself.”

      
“When it suits me,” Jamison replied cryptically. “Here's the dilemma in a nutshell. The Samsonov woman is quite a famous ballerina, employed by an English stage company here in London. But we've learned that she's involved right down to the tips of her red satin ballet slippers with a band of Russians who've supposedly run afoul of the czarina and been banished. They live lavishly in London.”

      
“Sort of Russian remittance men?” Josh supplied grimly, thinking of his father.

      
“Not a bad analogy, but most Englishmen who find their way to America aren't dispatched to assassinate anyone—at least not by our Foreign Office. These Russian chaps are virulently expansionist. Nikolai Zarenko's father is a major shareholder in the Trans-Siberian Railroad. Sergei Valerian has a brother active in trade with China. They all pretend to be indolent aristocrats living as high-flyers here, but their real mission is to put a period to our negotiations with Japan.”

      
“The president told me there'd been an attempt to assassinate this Hayashi fellow. I imagine if the Russians succeeded and could blame a member of the British royal family for the whole shebang, it would end any Anglo-Japanese cooperation in the Far East.”

      
“Quite so.”

      
“I still don't see where I come in.” Josh scratched his head and winced again.
Damn Sabrina Edgewater.
He couldn't concentrate worth shucks, and it was all her fault.

      
“You're new to the London scene and will be invited everywhere. A Texas viscount is, after all, rather a novelty. Can you hold your liquor? We were informed you could.”

      
Josh snorted. “I can imagine who told you, too. On the best day of his life the colonel couldn't hold more than two beers before he'd fall asleep. Not to brag, at least not much, but I can drink any dozen men under the table and walk away standin' straight.”

      
“Perfect. That's your entree to the Russians. They swill vodka like watered ale. Carouse with them. You might even find an opportunity to dally a bit with Madame Samsonov.”

      
“Can
she
hold her liquor?”

      
Jamison shrugged and grinned. “Rumor has it, prodigiously I suppose you'll just have to find out if you can keep up with her.”

* * * *

      
Jamison had been right about the invitations. They'd already started to pour in by the time he returned home that afternoon. Teas and balls, recitals and salons. Everyone who was anyone in London society wanted to meet the infamous Texas Viscount, Hambleton's scandalous heir. He began sorting through the heavy velum notes, discarding those that sounded too tame for the Russians' tastes, selecting several where he felt he might encounter them.

      
Although Jamison had told him the Russians had virtually colonized the Metropole Hotel on Northumberland Avenue, he decided that meeting them on neutral ground first might be the most natural way to infiltrate their inner circle. As he was making his choices, his uncle ambled into the room.

      
“I say, you don't look half as bad as you should, for a man who narrowly escaped drowning this morning,” the earl said with asperity. “What the devil possessed you to treat a woman such as Miss Edgewater so abominably?”

      
Josh looked up. “Let's just say we had a little misunderstanding. So, she really is a teacher and you were going to hire her for one of my cousins.”

      
“You young scamp, I was going to hire her for you!”

      
Josh dropped the invitations...and his jaw. “For me?”

      
“Is there an echo in here?” the earl snapped. “If you'll recall from our conversation last night, I said I had employed someone to teach you sufficient manners so you could be received in polite society.”

      
“You hired that...that girl? I was looking for some ancient crone with a stick up her ass wearing a frown to match. Come to think of it, except for the age, that description does sorta fit her,” he muttered as an afterthought.

      
Hambleton allowed himself an ironic smile. “I imagined you'd have that preconceived notion, which was precisely why I allowed the two of you to meet informally. I was hoping you'd use some of that crude Texas charm on her. I fear she's been far too well apprised of the herculean efforts civilizing you will require. If I had the slightest notion you'd end up dumping her in the fountain—”

      
“She did a hell of a lot more damage to me than I did to her,” Josh shot back, pointing to the fresher of his two black eyes and the lump on his head. “And she wasn't the only one who ended up in the fountain.”

      
Hambleton rubbed his hands together and chuckled with self-congratulation. “The gel's half your size, boy. If she continues to hold her own this well, I cannot imagine anyone better suited for the job. It would appear I've made the perfect choice.” Yes, the perfect choice indeed!

      
“Do they grow loco weed in London?” Josh asked in exasperation. “A female like that one is the worst choice on God's green earth for me. Anyways, she'd sooner eat a bucket of worms and turn up her toes than lay eyes on me again,” he said glumly.

      
The earl's silver eyebrows rose as he studied his young nephew. “Then we shall both have to see to it that she changes her mind, shan't we?”

* * * *

      
The ballroom was crowded, filled with ladies in brilliantly colored silks and bedecked with jewels that sparkled in every color of the rainbow, reflecting from the Duke of Chitchester's massive crystal chandelier overhead. Music and laughter wafted gaily on the warm autumn air as Sabrina inspected her charge behind the cover of a large potted fern in one corner of the ballroom.

      
“Now remember, Miss Forsythe, you are to dance no more than twice with Mr. Chalmers, no matter how he importunes you,” she instructed firmly as she tucked an errant curl back into place and wiped a trickle of perspiration from one plump cheek. With soft brown hair and wide gray eyes, Esther Forsythe could be a pretty girl...if she would forsake bonbons and clotted cream long enough to shed twenty pounds of baby fat. But all the subtle hints and suggestions about ladylike portions had fallen on deaf ears so far.

      
“But I like Mr. Chalmers. His father is a marquess,” Esther replied petulantly, sticking her lower lip out, another thing Sabrina had attempted in vain to change.