Married to the Viscount

Chapter One

Even the finest butler may blunder when announcing a surprise guest, but he should use the occasion to learn the correct styling. One never knows when a surprise guest may become important in his employer's household.

Suggestions for the Stoic Servant, by the Butler to a Very Important Gentleman

London

April 15, 1822

The bride-to-be was here. The groom-to-be was two hours late. As betrothal dinners went, this one qualified for fiasco of the season. Spencer, reluctant host of the fiasco, surveyed the immaculately appointed dining table in his London town house and sighed. How soon could he call an end to this painful ordeal and retreat to his study and his cognac? Probably not for at least another hour. Anything less would rouse suspicion among his twenty-six guests.

Thanks to his quick thinking and talent for lying, they didn't even know the dinner was a fiasco. And until he found out why Nat had disappeared, he had no intention of letting them in on the secret.

He glanced over at Lady Evelina, the bride-to-be. Thank God she'd apparently accepted his far-fetched tale. Like a china doll, she perched on her chair in cultivated perfection, blond ringlets framing her flawless brow, her cheeks pink but not rouged, and her gown the ideal hue for her porcelain skin. Only her sparkling eyes hinted at the sweet-natured girl Nat and Spencer had teased while she was growing up.

Catching his eye, Evelina dabbed daintily at her cupid-bow lips with a damask napkin. "I do hope they don't detain poor Nathaniel at the police offices all night. Did his note say how long it might be?"

That damned fictitious note. "No, but they'll probably keep him awhile," Spencer lied with all the practiced ease of a former spymaster. "He'll have to give testimony against the ruffian he caught snatching that woman's reticule."

"It was so brave of him to run off after the villain all alone," she said. "And then to insist on carrying that man to the police himself -- how noble of him!"

"Yes, Nat is nothing if not noble." That lie came harder in the face of young Evelina's starry-eyed loyalty.

Not that Spencer had any other choice. Engaging in a manly pursuit of justice was an acceptable excuse for not attending one's betrothal dinner; abandoning one's bride-to- be was not. Until Spencer knew the reason for Nat's apparent defection, he had to keep lying. Otherwise, Evelina and her widowed mother, Lady Tyndale, would suffer public humiliation. Which Spencer refused to allow.

Where the hell was he? When Spencer had last seen Nat an hour before dinner, his brother hadn't mentioned any plans to dash out. And although Spencer's butler McFee had seen Nat receive a message shortly after that, no one had seen the man leave. But no one could find him, either, not in the house or at any of his favorite London haunts.

Nat had simply vanished, and it looked deliberate. After all, how much trouble could one man get into in only a few hours?

Spencer sighed. Nat had acted strangely ever since his return from America a month ago -- he was inordinately interested in the mail, came and went at all hours, had mysterious meetings, and in general acted like a man still sowing wild oats instead of preparing to marry.

Now this. For God's sake, where was he?

"Well, I for one am surprised Nathaniel even had the presence of mind to send a note at all," Evelina's mother commented. "But the man is always so considerate."

"And noble, too," the woman sitting next to her added with a hint of sarcasm. "Let's not forget 'noble.'"

Wonderful. Now Lady Brumley was putting her nose in it. Why in hell had Evelina's mother invited a woman popularly known as the Galleon of Gossip? He should have paid closer attention to the guest list.

But with England's chaotic political situation occupying him, he'd had no time to plan the betrothal dinner Lady Tyndale had expected him to host. So he'd unwisely given that to her, his designated hostess for the evening. Somehow the intimate little affair he'd suggested had exploded into this assembly of London society's most prestigious -- and chatty—members. That's what he got for trusting a woman with the intelligence of a pea.

And there was still a betrothal ball to get through two nights from now. Fortunately, Lady Tyndale was hosting that at her home. Spencer shuddered to think what sort of production it would be. She'd probably invited half the ton to her ball.

If there was a ball. Given Nat's disappearance tonight, that was no longer certain.

He scowled. He wanted to see Nat settled, damn it. Twenty- nine was a good age for marrying, and twenty-year-old Evelina was perfect for him. Insane as it seemed, she'd apparently been in love with the idiot from girlhood, which was all a man could ask for.

"That note from your brother," Lady Brumley commented. "Might we see it for ourselves, Ravenswood? I shall have to write about the event for the paper, and I want all the details of Mr. Law's noble act."

What the nosy woman wanted was to uncover scandal. Clearly she hadn't believed his tale. Just what he needed -- the shrewd Lady Brumley voicing her suspicions in that infamous column of hers.

"I thought you had your own sources." Spencer sipped his claret with a carefully cultivated air of boredom. "Or have you grown tired of checking your facts?"

The woman answered his sarcasm in kind. "I suspect that if I wait until tomorrow for that, I'll hear only the official story. Since the London magistrates report directly to you at the Home Office ..