Page 83 of Their Brazen Countess
“Excellent. Well, I am going to go have some breakfast and I shall alert the staff to our plans for tomorrow. Perhaps I can even wrangle Arthur to join us.” Jo smiled at her son, her heart in her throat.
She would absolutely drag Arthur along—and if she had her way, Linc, as well.
Jo was done being avoided.
Later that day, Jo went in search of Linc. The connecting door to his home remained locked, so she sailed out the front door, down the front steps of Arthur’s home and up the front steps of Linc’s. She knocked on the front door and waited for it to be opened.
When his butler appeared, she walked in the open door and right past the gaping man. “Good afternoon, Mr. Powel. Is Lord Lincolnshire in his study?”
The butler sputtered and followed her down the hallway, since she had yet to stop. “I… I… I believe so, my lady. But I don’t think he wishes—” Jo would not be stopped and opened the door of the study “—to be disturbed.”
She just caught the last part as she closed the door firmly behind her. There, across the room, slouched in a wing chair before the fireplace, was the very man she was looking for.
“There you are.”
Linc looked up in confusion as she crossed the room to stop before him.
“Well, you certainly look and smell like a veritable mess.” Jo sniffed delicately. “And just when was the last time you bathed?”
Linc blinked as though he was trying to determine if she was real or not. “Wha day isth it?”
His words were slurred and rather disjointed, but she got the gist of what he was saying. “It is Tuesday. I feel certain based on the smell in this room and your general state of drunkenness that you have not, in fact, bathed since the ball on Saturday.”
“I can’t remememember.” He continued to slur his words, but he at least attempted to sit up.
“Well, I think we need to rectify that situation immediately before we speak. Perhaps by then you will find yourself in a more sober state.” Jo turned on her heel and marched out into the hall to find Powel hovering nearby. “Oh good, you’re still here. Please have a bath drawn for Lord Lincolnshire, then return and help me get him upstairs.”
Powell bowed smartly and disappeared with a grin on his face. Before long, he reappeared with a footman in tow. “I believe your stitches are still healing, my lady, so I suggest Burns should help me get his lordship upstairs.”
“Very well, that’s probably for the best.” Jo followed them upstairs where a steaming hot bath awaited Linc.
Once there, the men stripped him down and then guided him into the bathtub. Jo stood by directing servants to bring soap and towels. Once the man was finally in the bath and there was just her and Powell, who acted as Linc’s valet, she looked at the man and smiled. “Be a dear, and please dump one of the remaining pails of water over his head.”
Linc was lolling in the bathtub as if every bone in his body had been liquified. He was still not coherent enough to hear her message. He might not be until he sobered up a great deal more, but she had to get through to the man.
His valet picked up the pail with steaming water in it.
“Not that one. I think the cold pail will do nicely.” Jo wanted to cause him a little discomfort, considering all the discomfort he had caused herself, Arthur, and most of all Matthew the last few days.
“My lady!” The valet seemed shocked.
“Do it,” Jo said sternly, unwilling to relent.
“Very good, my lady.” The man did not look pleased, but then he had not seen Linc when she’d found him. Clearly Powel agreed with her directions since he had seen to it everything was prepared.
The butler/valet dumped the cold water over his master’s head.
A soaked and sputtering Linc shot up halfway out of the bathtub. “What the bloody hell Powell!” He exclaimed before spotting her and sinking back down in the tub. “Oh, I see. Wood Sprite.”
“Don’t you Wood Sprite me, you unfeeling ogre,” Jo all but snarled at him. Turning to Powell, she smiled sweetly. “Please put a bit of the hot water in the tub now, if you please. I don’t want my husband catching his death of cold.”
Powell nodded and then added some hot water to the tub, at which point Linc sank down into the water until just his head poked out.
“That will be all, Powell. I shall let you know when he requires your assistance.” She dismissed him with a nod and he left the chamber.
“What is the meaning of all this?” Linc asked as he glared balefully.
“This is what happens when you disappear from my life, from our lives, like a ghost,” Jo glared back at him.
