The Viscount and the Virgin

How on earth her aunt expected her to find out enough about a man to decide she wanted to marry him, when nobody spoke about anything that mattered, she had no idea!

As soon as they entered the house, Imogen understood why she had been invited. Lady Carteret was obviously one of those women who would enjoy boasting that her event had become a sad crush, even though the Season had not yet properly begun. The rooms were already crowded and hot, but since it was only just February, nobody dreamed of opening any windows. All she could do was ply her fan as energetically as she dared.

‘Midge!’ cried a beloved voice, making her glance up from her perusal of her so-far-empty dance card. ‘I thought it was you! My, don’t you look splendid!’

Imogen ignored the reference to her appearance, which was entirely due to her aunt’s generosity and good taste. Tonight’s white gown, the debutante’s uniform, had been lifted above the ordinary by the addition of a silver gauze overdress. The material was so delicate that Imogen was scared to sit down, never mind fling her arms round her brother, which was what she really wanted to do.

‘Oh, Rick! How glad I am to see you.’ She smiled. ‘You won’t mind dancing with me, just the once, will you?’

‘I should love to,’ he replied gallantly, ‘And I am quite sure Monty will do the same. He is here tonight, you know. That is how I come to be mixing in such exalted company. Hanging on his coat-tails!’

‘Really?’ Imogen’s heart lifted still further at the prospect of finally coming face-to-face with her brother’s friend.

‘Really,’ Rick assured her. He scanned the crowded room rapidly, a frown darkening his features. ‘Can’t think where he has got to, though. Was stood just over there a minute or so ago. Tell you what, Midge, you wait here, while I go and find him.’

‘Even better, Rick, why don’t I go and wait out on the terrace and you can bring him to me there. I need some fresh air.’

‘Yes, dashed stuffy in here,’ he agreed, running his finger round the inside of his rigid stock. ‘Tell you what, I will fetch you a glass of champagne, while I am at it. In fact, that is probably where Monty’s gone—to get a drink. He was complaining about the crush and the heat himself.’

Imogen smiled at the sight of Rick shouldering his way through the throng. It was amazing how heartening it was to have a gentleman eager to fetch her a drink. And to know there was another one, to whom she would shortly be introduced, who was already kindly disposed towards her.

Having enquired of a footman how she could make her way outside, she ambled along the corridor that led to the back of the house, picturing to herself what Monty would look like. He would be neatly and soberly dressed, she was sure. Even though he was now quite well off, according to Rick, she could not see a man who had been a serving soldier ever leaning towards dandyism. She pushed open the door that led outside, deciding he would definitely be slightly portly by now. After the deprivations of campaigning, he would probably make the most of having as much food as he wanted. She would not mind that at all. He would be…cuddly, she decided, trailing her way dreamily across the flagstones to rest her hands on the balustrade. He might have a limp, given the number of times he had been wounded. Not, of course that Rick had ever told her the specific nature of any of those wounds. But he would definitely have scars upon his person. He might be a little self-conscious about them. But she would tell him they did not make him any less attractive to her. She would tell him they were his badges of courage…

A slight movement from the garden below alerted her to the fact she was not alone outside.

‘Why, if it isn’t the girl who ambushed me with a champagne glass,’ a hated voice drawled, as Viscount Mildenhall emerged from the shadows and made his way up the steps to her side. ‘How very persistent you are.’

‘Persistent? Oh!’ She gasped as it dawned on her that the viscount had assumed she had come outside in pursuit of him. ‘How dare you!’

‘I dare because women like you will stop at nothing!’ He came right up to her, his eyes flashing green fire. ‘Set up one more scene like this, just one—’

‘I have not set up any scene, you arrogant pig! Are you so vain you think the whole world revolves around you?’

‘So, what is your excuse for coming out here, not two seconds after I left the ballroom?’ He laughed mockingly. ‘Discovered that you show to advantage in moonlight, have you? But it is too late to attempt to charm me with those starry eyes and that dreamy air. You may think you look like some kind of romantic vision in silver tissue, Miss Hebden. But I have seen you watching me with a calculating gleam in your eyes—’

The only thing she had been calculating was how to right the wrong impression he had gained of her. But since her drive with Rick, she had decided she no longer cared what the arrogant fop thought of her.

‘I wanted,’ she replied, drawing herself up to her full height, ‘to get some fresh air. If I looked starry-eyed, it was because I was thinking of another gentleman. Had I known you were out here, it would have been the last place I would have come. All you have to do, if you do not wish to remain in my presence, is to return to the ballroom.’

He took one pace in the direction of the doors, then stopped and whirled back to her with a face like thunder.

‘And I suppose you will come in right behind me, with your gown disarrayed, telling tales that I have taken advantage of you. Hoping to force my hand…’ The only way Miss Hebden was going to get a husband was by utilising such unscrupulous means. It infuriated him to think she had made him her target. That she had somehow sensed, in spite of the pains he had taken to conceal it, that she might have some chance of success. Because, even though he despised her methods, he could not deny that she was never very far from his thoughts. And that those thoughts were, invariably, highly salacious.

Imogen had taken all she could stand. The accusation, coupled with the expression of contempt on his face was like a bellows, fanning her simmering antipathy into searing flame. She lashed out at him, her open palm cracking across his cheek with a noise like a whiplash.

It silenced him, but only for a second. ‘You vicious little…’ His hand went to his reddening cheek. ‘You will pay for that.’

Before she could make a move to stop him, Viscount Mildenhall pulled her into his arms and kissed her. Her cry of protest was swallowed under the insistent pressure of his mouth. His arms clamped her own to her sides, so that although she struggled with all her might, she was quite unable to break his hold.

At first she was far too angry to feel scared. Then after only a few seconds, she discovered that there was something wickedly fascinating about being kissed, thoroughly kissed, by an utterly determined man. She stopped struggling as some essential, deeply buried aspect of her femininity came leaping to life in acknowledgement of his masculinity. Her lips softened and parted. With a low growl, Viscount Mildenhall plunged his tongue into her mouth, taking the experience onto a whole new level.

Her mind reeled. Her heart pounded. Her stomach did an excited little flip.

And Viscount Mildenhall, sensing her capitulation, brought one hand round to the front of her gown and cupped her breast.

His audacity shocked her.

‘What are you—’ She gasped, her eyes widening in dismay. ‘You cannot—’

‘It is what women who pursue men get,’ he sneered. ‘Exactly what they deserve. Since the night you made a play for me at Mrs Leeming’s, I have made it my business to find out about you. Did you know that men are making wagers about how long it will be before you follow—’ he delved inside her bodice ‘—in your mother’s footsteps?’

Then he fastened his lips to her neck.

Imogen felt as though she was splitting in two.

She hated the scathing way he had spoken of her mother. She knew the casual way he was fondling her breast, as though she was a light skirt, was grossly insulting.

Yet the sensuality of that caress was sending rivers of desire coursing through her veins. Her body wanted to arch into his, entwine itself around him.

‘Please, please,’ she heard herself moaning. ‘Kiss me again.’

The viscount raised his head and smiled at her. With such contempt it roused what remained of her pride.

When he lowered his mouth to take the kiss she had begged for, she bit him.

‘What the—!’ He reared back, and Imogen, who had been taught well by Rick, struck him in the face, first with her right fist, and then her left.

There had not been room for her to take a really good backswing. It was shock, she expected, that sent him reeling backwards. And a stroke of luck that his shoulder slammed into an ornamental urn—that turned out to be full of sandy loam. Which cascaded all over him as it rocked on its plinth.

She made good her escape while he was still struggling to prevent it from toppling onto the flags below the terrace.

She had only just got inside when she careered full tilt into Rick, who had a glass of champagne in each hand. He did not spill a single drop when she crashed into him, she noted somewhat hysterically as she clung to him. He merely raised his arms in the air, absorbing the impact of her body with a slight grunt.

She felt him turn and put the drinks down, then put his arms round her as he asked, ‘What the devil has happened?’ He put her from himself, then looked down at her with concern. His eyes snagged on the front of her gown, and narrowed. ‘Has some man tried to take advantage of you?’

For the first time, Imogen noticed that the flimsy material was torn. It must have happened when she wrestled herself out of the viscount’s hold.

His face darkened. ‘I shall kill him,’ he growled, making for the outside door.

‘No, Rick! Don’t say such a thing!’ She grabbed his arm and hauled him round. ‘If you get into a fight over this, everyone will say I am just like my mother, luring good men to their doom! Don’t you see?’

His eyes flicked from her to the door and back again.

‘Dammit, Midge,’ he growled, ‘it’s my job to bring the fellow to book.’

‘No,’ she countered. ‘It is your job to protect me. And you won’t do that by making a fuss about…about…’ she swallowed down her outraged pride ‘…a mere trifle. All you will do is stir up even more gossip.’

She glanced over her shoulder then, fearful that the viscount would come storming into the house after her. He would be bound to act in such a way that nothing she could say would stop Rick from murdering him!

‘It won’t be just my chances for a good marriage I will lose. I won’t even be able to get employment in a respectable household. Oh, please, Rick, can you not just take me home and pretend this never happened?’

He reached out and, with one gloved finger, touched a spot on her cheek.

‘I say, is that blood?’ he hissed through gritted teeth. ‘If the fellow has really hurt you, Midge, no matter what you think, I will have to call him out!’

‘Blood?’ She blinked, bewildered for a second. ‘Oh, I should think that is probably his. I bit him.’

‘You…bit him?’ Rick looked startled.

‘Yes, and then I hit him, both hands, just as you taught me. One—two!’ She mimed the punches for his edification.

He looked a little mollified. ‘Don’t suppose you laid him out, by any chance?’

‘No,’ she admitted ruefully. ‘Though I have put a mark or two on his face, and ruined his coat.’ She remembered the look on his face when soil had rained down on him, and couldn’t help smiling. She had hit his most sensitive spot. His vanity. No wonder he had not come indoors yet. He would not want anyone to see him covered in dirt!

She came out of her daze to find Rick rearranging her shawl so that it concealed her torn bodice.

‘Come on then,’ he said, putting one arm comfortingly about her shoulders. ‘I shall take you home.’

It was only then that she realized she was going to have to give an excuse for leaving so suddenly.

‘My aunt!’ she cried, stopping dead in her tracks. ‘I cannot go back into the ballroom looking like this!’

‘Don’t you worry,’ Rick said, ushering her inexorably along the corridor that led towards the front hall.

‘I shall tell her you have a headache or something. Females are always falling ill at events like this, aren’t they?’ Rick pressed Imogen into a chair, and strode across to a footman who was eyeing them indolently. ‘Hi, you, fellow! Take a message to Lady Callandar, will you? Tell her I’ve had to take Miss Hebden home. Sudden indisposition.’ He lowered his voice. ‘And tell Viscount Mildenhall I will catch up with him later, at Limmer’s. Had to escort my sister home.’

‘Lady Callandar that Miss Hebden is indisposed,’ repeated the footman, pocketing the coin Rick pressed into his palm. ‘And Viscount Mildenhall that you will be at Limmer’s, after taking your sister home.’

Satisfied he had the message correct, Rick hurried back to Imogen’s side.

She barely registered him shepherding her out of the front door and into a waiting cab.

Oh, how right her mother had been to warn her to beware of exchanging furtive kisses with rakes by moonlight! She hated the viscount. She really did. And yet, when he had swept her into his arms, the emotion that had been uppermost had not been revulsion at all. But excitement.

The feel of Viscount Mildenhall’s tongue sweeping into her mouth had been as intoxicating as champagne. Exhilarating bubbles had fizzed through her whole body, bringing it to life in a way she had never imagined could be possible.

She raised her fingers to her mouth, suddenly understanding her mother’s downfall in a way that had always, until tonight, completely baffled her.

Because she had never experienced the power of desire before. This was why Amanda had turned down the chance of a match with her worthy suitor! Because she could not resist the thrill of Kit Hebden’s wicked brand of lovemaking!

She shivered, suddenly scared. For it was not only her mother’s blood that ran through her veins. She was Kit Hebden’s daughter too. Kit, who never once tried to subdue that side of his nature, but had given it full rein. Kit, who was never content with one woman, especially not the one he had married.

Were the gossipmongers right about her, after all?

She reached for Rick’s hand across the seat, and grasped it.

Now that she was exposed to handsome, experienced rakes like Viscount Mildenhall, would it only be a matter of time before everyone found out that she really had inherited Kit Hebden’s lascivious nature, after all?

Once Viscount Mildenhall had finished brushing the dirt from his jacket he sat down on the stone coping of the balustrade. It was over. He surrendered. When Miss Hebden came back outside, no doubt with her chaperon and any other witnesses she managed to round up, he would inform anyone who cared to listen that yes, he would marry the hussy.

It scarcely mattered what he thought of her. It had not been the behaviour of a gentleman to half ravish an unmarried girl. He pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket, keeping his eyes fixed on the door through which Miss Hebden had fled, and dabbed at the blood seeping from his lower lip. Now he must pay the price for letting the base side of his nature get out of hand.

He grimaced. It would serve his father right. The earl had given him a lengthy lecture about the type of female he wanted him to bring back to Shevington as his bride. Though his father, with three abysmally miserable marriages under his belt, was the last person qualified to dish out marital advice.

How ironic it was that his father had already specified that on no account was he to marry for love! ‘If she should die in childbirth, you will feel like a murderer,’ he had said. ‘And if she proves faithless, it will break your heart. Just pick a woman with the right connections that you feel interested in bedding. And then, once you have got her pregnant, you may leave her here, return to town and reward yourself by taking a pretty mistress. Or two.’

Well, he was interested in bedding Miss Hebden all right! Yes, it would serve his father right if he did bring her into the family. He would positively enjoy flaunting that scandalous creature under his father’s nose!

He shifted his weight as the cold from the stone parapet seeped through his silken breeches. Where was the girl? It could not have taken her this long to round up reinforcements, could it?

He got to his feet, and began to pace up and down. He did not like the feeling of being played like a fish on Miss Hebden’s line. But in a way, it would be a relief to get the issue of marriage settled. Once he had her name on the marriage lines, he would have reason to return to Shevington, and this time, he would brook no nonsense from his father’s steward. He would let the man know that he knew what he was up to. He would visit every single tenant on all his father’s vast holdings and let them know that things would change once he was in the saddle. That until that time, he would do his damnedest to see that none of them suffered unnecessarily. And as for the matter of his brothers…

Yes, marrying Miss Hebden would have its advantages. Not least of which would be getting her flat on her back, where she belonged.

But he was damned if he was going let her think he would dance to her tune! He cocked his ear to listen to the strains of the music filtering out onto the terrace; if she did not get herself back out here by the time the minuet was finished, he was leaving! Why should he freeze to death, awaiting her pleasure? He had given her a sporting chance to get the matter resolved tonight.

The last strains of the minuet faded away, and Viscount Mildenhall strode to the door, his face set. He had an appointment to meet Rick at Limmer’s. He would enjoy one last night of freedom, and then, in the morning, he would make an appointment with her guardian, when he would offer to make an honest woman of her.

If such a thing were possible.

Imogen passed a restless night.

She may have escaped Lady Carteret’s house with nobody any the wiser, but the vile viscount was bound to want to exact some form of revenge for his waistcoat, his jacket and his lower lip. She could not see him doing it by simply telling everyone what had passed between them on the terrace, since he might come out of the re-telling looking a little ridiculous. But he would think of something.

She would never dare show her face at any Tonnish gathering again!

But she could not just sit back and wait for the viscount’s next move.

She had not fully appreciated, until he had hauled her into his arms, just how close to the brink of disaster she stood. But now she understood her nature better. She would have to take drastic steps to prevent herself from tipping over the edge.

It would mean leaving London. To protect her uncle and aunt. Because, while she resided under their roof, everything she did reflected on them.

She could, she eventually decided, seek Lord Keddinton’s help. He had, after all, made a point of taking her to one side, not long after she arrived in London, and telling her in an undertone that if ever she found herself in difficulties, she could apply to him for assistance. He explained that this was because he felt a particular fondness for her, on account of the close friendship he had enjoyed with her father.

She had not, she recalled ruefully, been all that grateful for such an assurance at the time. For one thing, she had felt offended at his assumption she would get into the kind of trouble her aunt and uncle might not be able to deal with. For another, his claim to have been a friend of her father had set her back up. She had never heard anything good about the man who had sired her. And then again, if Lord Keddinton was such a good friend, why had she never even heard of him before arriving in town?

She had mouthed all the right words, but had not been able to repress a shiver as she had shaken his long white fingers from her arm. There was something so very…dessicated about the man. His smile had held no warmth. She had not been able to look straight into his cold, pale eyes for more than a fleeting moment. On top of everything else, his faintly supercilious air had made her aware how very gauche and countrified and ignorant she was.

But since that first, inauspicious meeting, she had revised her opinion of him. For he had demonstrated the friendship he claimed, by instructing his daughters to include her in their social set. Which, considering her reputation, was a risk in itself. And while she had never warmed to either Penelope or Charlotte, there was no denying that they had become frequent callers. The fact that all their ‘helpful hints’ made her feel wretched was hardly their father’s fault.

And he had not exactly been a friend of her father’s either.

‘I expect,’ her aunt had explained, ‘he began to feel responsible for your welfare after he worked with Lord Narborough to smooth things over after the Dreadful Tragedy. Robert Veryan, as he was then, only held a junior post in the Home Office when your father was called in to help with some mystery that others were finding hard to solve. Say what you like about Kit Hebden—’ she had nodded sagely ‘—his mind was exceptionally sharp. As is Lord Keddinton’s. He has risen to his present exalted office solely due to the brilliance of his mind and the energy he devotes to his work. It is whispered—’ she had lowered her voice conspiratorially, though there were only the two of them in the room ‘—that he is soon to receive an earldom. If he declares he is your friend, Imogen, you may think yourself a very lucky girl. Just a hint from him, in the right quarters, and, well…’ She had spread her hands expansively.

Yes, Imogen decided, just as dawn was breaking, she would take Lord Keddinton up on his offer of assistance. With all the connections he was supposed to have, he was bound to be able to find her a post somewhere as a governess. And deal with her uncle’s objections. It would mean confiding in him something of what had happened. And her fears of creating havoc in the Herriard household. But somehow, she sensed that he was a man well used to receiving—and keeping—secrets.

She was not sure exactly when she would be able to arrange an interview with Lord Keddinton, though. She yawned. Nor how long it would take him to arrange for her departure from London.

The next morning, when she found a note from Rick beside her breakfast plate, her heart leapt into her throat. Had he challenged the viscount to a duel after all? With trembling fingers, she broke the seal, and discovered that all he wanted to tell her was that Monty was arranging a trip to the theatre for that very evening. With immense relief, she passed the note to her aunt.

‘A trip to the theatre?’ Her aunt regarded her doubtfully while Imogen fiddled nervously with her teaspoon. ‘Are you sure you are quite up to it? You had to leave Lady Carteret’s early last night. And you still look a little wan. If your head is still paining you…’

‘I am feeling much better, thank you, Aunt. And providing I have a rest this afternoon, I am sure I shall be quite well by this evening.’

She so wanted to see Rick and assure herself he was not going to get mixed up with the vile viscount. And he was not going to be in the country for very long.

‘This Monty person, whose box it is, does he come from a good family?’

‘Rick says so, Aunt. It was his curricle Rick borrowed to take me driving in the park.’

‘Must be well-to-do, if his family has a box. And his address?’

‘Hanover Square.’

‘Hmm. I suppose it can do no harm, so long as I accompany you.’

Imogen exhaled the breath she had been holding. If she had to go out anywhere tonight, she would feel far safer in the theatre, with Rick and his friends, than at some Ton gathering where she might run into the viscount again! And as the day wore on, she began to wonder if Rick’s notion—to match her up with a serving soldier who could remove her from England altogether—might not have some merit.