Page 1 of Vanquishing the Viscount

Chapter One

St George’s Day, April, 1821

Old Wessex, England

Her mind buzzing with speculation about the new life she was about to begin, Miss Emma d’Ibert wasn’t prepared for the jolt that shook the wagon in which she was traveling. As she struggled to avoid being hurled onto the road, she heard the scream of a horse, followed by an ominous thump.

Heart racing, she steadied herself and peered through the rain to find out why Carrier Marshman had pulled his team to a halt with such violence.

“Sorry, miss,” Marshman said. “There was a rider tearing through the crossroads. Don’t think he saw us coming and got a bit of a shock.”

Evidently. A glossy-coated thoroughbred was bolting off in the direction of Bath—minus its rider.

Horrified, Emma scrambled down, hampered by her sopping skirts. As Marshman jumped to the ground to calm his team, she squelched toward the fallen rider.

The man lay supine, staring up into the leaden sky with a glazed expression, his beautifully cut riding coat spattered with mud and his arms flung out to either side as if welcoming the rain into his embrace. He groaned and tried fruitlessly to rise.

“Oh, sir, are you all right? Let me help you up.” She reached for his hand, but the instant their fingers touched, a pulse of awareness shot up her arm, and she pulled away.

Was there a thunderstorm brewing now? Or was that powerful charge something else entirely?

His blue-gray eyes flickered toward her. “I doubt you have the strength, girl.”

He’d be surprised. But she detested being called girl and was briefly tempted to leave the fellow lying there and tell Marshman to drive on. She was already late for her arrival at her new home and was bound to get a tongue-lashing from her employer, Mrs. Keane.

That touch had set her nerves on edge. Not on fire. “I’m stronger than I look,” she stated briskly, “and I know all about anatomy and medicine—my brother is studying to be a doctor.”

The man rolled his eyes. “Heaven protect me from females armed with thirdhand knowledge. I don’t need mending—just a hand to get me upright.” His accent was crisp, as befitted a member of the Quality, but she didn’t think she’d ever seen him before, despite having moved in such circles when she was younger. How far had he galloped, she wondered. It must be a very important errand to make him ride out in such a downpour.

“Mr. Marshman!” she called. “Can you leave your horses now and help the gentleman?”

“I’ll just put a chock under the wheel, miss, to stop my cider kegs heading off without me.”

Between them, they managed to get the man sitting upright on the grassy verge. Again, an unsettling sensation fizzed through Emma’s veins as she touched the stranger, something that filtered even through the leather of his riding gloves.

“Where are you headed, zur?” drawled Marshman in his thick Gloucestershire accent.

She crouched by the horseman’s feet and noted a worrying pallor in his square-jawed face. When he frowned and said, “For the moment, my exact destination escapes me,” she wasn’t at all surprised.

Concussion. He shouldn’t be allowed to ride any farther until he’d recovered.

As Marshman waited patiently for an answer, she watched as the gentleman pushed his bedraggled hair out of his eyes, revealing his face properly. He was fine featured, his complexion fresh and pleasing. His square chin was clean-shaven, and his cravat was tied in a knot of such intricacy, her brother George would be green with envy. The bronze buttons on the man’s caped coat and his Hessian boots had been polished and buffed to within an inch of their lives. Wherever he was bound today, he clearly meant to look his best.

However, not even the most handsome of men could look good after a tumble in the mud on a sodden spring morning.

No more groans escaped him, so she decided it was safe to examine him gently. She prodded at his chest, but her finger just sank into soft layers of wool.

Bother. “I can’t tell if you’ve any ribs broken under such a thick coat,” she told her patient. “We must take it off.”

“I’m none too keen, considering the weather, ma’am,” he responded.

Awkward creature! “To move about with a fractured bone could turn a hairline crack into a full break,” she said decisively. “The coat must go.”

“Oh, very well. Do your worst.” He stuck his arms behind him while she and Marshman divested him of the coat, heavy with rain.

My, but his chest was broad and his shoulders wide. The man was not only handsome of face, but he had a magnificent figure, as well.

Not that she should notice such things, being a female bound for certain spinsterhood.