Scandalous Miss Brightwells [Book 1-4]

So, what could pleasure entail in such a scenario?

Bertram Brightwell had rolled the word across his tongue with such salacious pleasure suggesting a far lewder interpretation than Sylvester’s. But was Miss Brightwell the innocent she appeared? Sylvester had recently been treated to a comprehensive summation of the Brightwells’ collective virtues—or lack of—and indeed, pleasure was high on the family agenda. He’d heard it from many sources.

The Brightwells, Mr Bramley had told him, were like glorious weeds, climbing inexorably over walls while strangulating the more gently reared blooms that stood in their way, in order to push their beautiful heads ever closer to the sun.

Miss Thea Brightwell might be a shyer version of her bold and beautiful cousins but she was just like they had been barely a season before: penniless and no doubt seeking to reclaim the once exalted position lost by her father through carelessness. By no means was that her fault but Sylvester did wonder whether the knowledge she had only six months to live would make her more amenable to taking risks.

Bowing as he excused himself, he made his way towards the card room as he went over his recent conversation with the doctor. Sylvester would never manage to contrive a meeting with the girl if her aunt was always in attendance, but if he could get poor Miss Brightwell’s personal physician onside to encourage gentle outings that did not include the old gorgon, Sylvester imagined he could anticipate the following few weeks in Bath with a great deal of hope.

Chapter 6

THE following evening, Dr Horne was still shaking his head over his extraordinary exchange with the friend of his patient’s anonymous but nevertheless unlikely admirer as he was ushered into the venerable Miss Brightwell’s drawing room.

One of his regular patients and his wife had uprooted themselves from the country to take the medicinal spa waters, and had paid for Dr Horne’s removal to Bath for the next few weeks. Of course, Miss Brightwell was far too cheese paring to fund her physician’s relocation but she certainly enjoyed his daily attendance.

Less enamored of the prospect of attending his most difficult patient on a daily basis, Dr Horne acknowledged a certain frisson, almost thrilling, at tending to the exacting and impossible Minerva Brightwell while she was resident at Lord Quamby’s rambling estate just outside the town.

As usual, the fire was crackling, heating the room to almost insufferable temperatures, as was Miss Brightwell’s wont, even on such a warm evening. Reclining in an armchair and wearing a round dress of Pomona green with a matching bejewelled toque, she was snoring gently while her young companion stitched quietly in the corner.

He glanced at the niece and felt a pang of sympathy, for the girl was a beauty. He knew she’d been orphaned several years previously and had been left financially vulnerable until the formidable Miss Minerva Brightwell had obviously seen it was to her advantage to offer the girl a roof over her head. From his daily observances, it appeared there was little respite for the poor unpaid companion.

“Dr Horne,” Miss Thea exclaimed softly as he was shown in. “How glad we are that you could come so quickly. Aunt Minerva is asleep now, as you can see, but not twenty minutes ago she quite had it in her head that her dying hour was upon her.”

Dr Horne pulled at his moustache, ridiculously gratified at the pleasure he’d clearly precipitated in the young niece’s breast, his cheeks suddenly burning, though not from the heat of the fire. “It’s always a fortuitous thing to bring good tidings to one’s patient, so perhaps Miss Brightwell’s constitution will be fortified at the knowledge that her untimely demise would cause great sadness to a certain…gentleman,” he murmured with a wink.

“What’s all this whispering behind my back? Why, it’s the height of rudeness! What nonsense is this you’re muttering about, doctor?”

There was nothing to suggest the ailing invalid about Miss Brightwell as she leaned forward and cast her fulminating gaze upon her personal physician. “Playing games, are you? How dare you encourage him, Thea!”

Dr Horne held up his hand to defend himself; or rather to defend the poor young lady, who was no doubt a regular recipient of such accusations.

“Pray calm yourself, Miss Brightwell. I was merely alluding to a conversation with a certain…ah…admirer of yours. Had I known you were awake, I would have approached the matter with more consideration for your delicacy. I certainly would not wish to see you overset…and nor would the gentleman in question, who seeks reassurance of your good health.”

Miss Brightwell looked suspiciously at him. “A gentleman, you say? Seeking reassurance of my good health?” She stroked her whiskered chin as she looked first at the doctor and then into the merrily crackling fire. “If he’s sincere, it assuredly is not my nephew, who is in daily contact to gauge how soon or likely it is he will be in receipt of my fortune. Greedy, money-grubbing slug,” she muttered. She jerked her head round. “So why would someone wish for my good health if he has nothing to gain by it?”

Dr Horne stepped further from the fire. Sweat prickled the back of his neck and he noticed that the heat was affecting Miss Thea too, judging by her flushed cheeks and décolletage. The sight was curiously affecting and he struggled to return the young woman’s guileless smile with no indication of the sinful thoughts chasing themselves round his head. “At the Assembly Rooms yesterday evening,” he managed, returning his attention to his patient, “I was approached by a gentleman who wished me to pass on the felicitations of an old admirer of yours who—”

“An admirer?” Miss Brightwell’s eyes widened before she assumed a pose of glorious abandon. Her fat ankles resting on the footstool were now crossed and her incredible chest thrown forward, offering him an unimpeded view down the valley between her enormous bosoms; a disturbing sight, which immediately conjured up an image of Miss Brightwell’s unfortunate admirer gasping his last in her smothering embrace.

Adopting a languid air, Miss Minerva Brightwell went on, “And why should I not have an admirer? Beauty is timeless and I was considered a rare beauty in my day.” She raised an eyebrow at a noise from Miss Thea, who appeared to be struggling to keep a steady hand as she worked the needle through the white linen of her embroidery project.

When Dr Horne caught the girl’s eye in a sudden moment of conspiracy, he was unprepared for the charge of sensation that nearly unbalanced him. Why, for months he’d been in almost daily contact with Miss Brightwell’s niece as required by her demanding benefactress but tonight it was as if he noticed her for the first time. He cast another surreptitious glance in her direction. There was a definite bloom to her cheeks he’d not noticed before, and a dewy tenderness in her expression when she looked at him. She’d changed as if overnight, he thought.

Shocked that he, widowed for twenty years, should be visited by such inappropriately lustful fancies, he forced his attention back to his patient.

“Clearly your admirer retains an image of you untarnished by the passage of the years,’ he murmured. He reordered his expression into one of suitable solemnity and tried not to allow Miss Thea’s sweet profile to distract him. “Indeed, I have been charged with the task of acting as his emissary in order to ascertain whether the, er…inimitable Miss Brightwell would receive his attentions.” He cleared his throat again, still reeling from the unlikely possibility that Miss Brightwell’s admirer was not motivated by something other than his patient’s tenuous claims to beauty and grace.

For a long moment Miss Brightwell appeared lost in wistful contemplation of the dancing flames. Suddenly she swung round, her bulbous

brown eyes fired with the savagery of a bull dog as she demanded, “Why has he not come himself?” And her tone so bristled with aggression that Dr Horne wondered if he had sufficient reserves of tact to convey Miss Brightwell’s response in the proper manner to the interested gentleman. Or should he indeed make it clear that Miss Brightwell’s admirer was in danger of having his throat torn out if he put a foot wrong in the event that he followed through on his dangerous amorous impulses?

Bravely he stood his ground, saying evenly, as he’d promised, “Your admirer is aware of your delicate constitution, Miss Brightwell. Indeed, it is his fear that his attentions might compromise your health that he solicited my advice.” He paused. “I assured him that if he took matters…gently, then your health would only be improved.”

“Good man.” Miss Brightwell leaned back and looked at him approvingly. With a coquettish smile, she twirled around her finger a chestnut curl which Dr Horne, on closer inspection, suspected was the squirrel’s tail hairpiece of which she was so fond. Indeed, she refused to be seen without it, even during examinations, when his entrance was clearly preceded by a hasty donning of the said appendage, and not always quite straight.

Daringly, he darted another glance at the lovely Miss Thea, whose plight he found curiously affecting. Poor child. To be subject to the shifting vagaries of such an old tartar would try the patience of a saint. Yet throughout all, Miss Thea had maintained a calm and dignified demeanour, punctuated by a charmingly girlish response to the most extreme of her aunt’s retorts. The young woman must have patience in abundance. As she quietly stitched away at her tambour he contemplated her plight. This was no life for a pure and beautiful young woman, though of course with little or no dowry it might well be her lot for many years to come with the older Miss Brightwell’s supposedly palpitating heart looking likely to carry her into her ninth decade.

So captivated was he by the graceful movement of Miss Thea’s slender fingers as they plied her needle and thread that he lost all sense of where he was, imagining those same fingers massaging his brow at the end of a long day, tracing the line of his jaw, trailing the length of his chest.