The Viscount's Kiss Read Free

was a doctor on a vessel.
    The driver started to sit up. “Maybe I’d better—”
    â€œNo, you should rest,” the young man ordered. “Enjoy having such a charming and pretty nurse, Thompkins, and leave the horses to me. Tell her about the time I tried to drive your team and we wound up in the ditch.”
    The driver grinned, then grimaced. “Aye, my lord.”
    My lord? A noble physician? That was very interesting…except that she should be thinking about how they were going to get to Bath and what she should do when they got there.
    â€œFirst, I need a few words with your nurse,” the nobleman said, taking her arm and drawing her a short distance away.
    Concerned the driver was more seriously injured than he had implied, she ignored the impropriety of his action and tried to ignore the sensations it engendered, like little flames licking along her skin.
    â€œIs the driver seriously hurt after all?” she asked anxiously.
    â€œNo, I don’t believe Thompkins has a serious concussion,” he said, to her relief. “However, I’m not a doctor.”
    â€œYou’re not?” she blurted in surprise. His examination had certainly looked like that of a medical man.
    He gravely shook his head. “Unfortunately, no. I have a little medical training, so I know enough to be aware that he should be kept conscious, if at all possible, until we can fetch a physician. Can you do that while I see to the injured horse and ride to the next inn on one of the others?”
    â€œYes, I think I can keep him awake.”
    The young gentleman’s lips flicked up into a pleased smile that again sent that unusual warmth thrumming through her body. As she returned to the driver and tried to soothe her nerves, he started toward the guard holding the horses.
    She heard the nobleman ask the guard where the pistols were as she began wiping the blood that had slowed to a trickle.
    â€œUnder my seat,” the man nervously replied, glancingat the high backseat at the rear of the coach, for mail coach guards generally carried pistols as well as a blunderbuss, to fend off highwaymen.
    â€œI’ll hold the horses while you put that poor beast out of its misery,” the young gentleman offered.
    â€œWhat, you want me to shoot it? I couldn’t!” the guard protested. “I can’t be destroyin’ government property! It’d be my job. Besides, I’m to look after the mail, not the animals.”
    â€œSurely an exception can be made if a horse has broken its leg,” the young man replied.
    â€œI tell ya, I’m supposed to guard the mail, not take care o’ the horses!”
    â€œI will not allow that poor animal to suffer.”
    â€œ You won’t? Who the devil are you?”
    â€œShut yer gob, Snicks,” the driver called out. “Let the viscount do what has to be done.”
    He was a viscount? A viscount had kissed her?
    â€œI’ll pay for the horse if need be,” the young nobleman said as he marched toward the overturned coach with such a fiercely determined look on his face, he hardly seemed like the same man.
    The guard scowled but said no more as the viscount found the pistol which, like the blunderbuss, looked as if it had been made early in the previous century.
    With the gun behind his back, murmuring something that sounded like an apology, the viscount approached the injured horse. Then, as the guard moved as far away as he could, the nobleman took his stance, aimed and shot the horse right between its big, brown, limpid eyes.
    As the animal fell heavily to the ground, the viscount lowered his arm and bowed his head.
    â€œCouldn’t be helped,” the driver muttered roughly. “Had to be done.”
    Yes, it had to be done, Nell thought as she returned to dabbing the driver’s wound, but she felt sorry for the poor horse, as well as the man who had to shoot it.
    The viscount tucked the pistol into