The Viscount and the Virgin

‘To you, perhaps, but not to men on the hunt for a bride. Anyway, enough talk about marriage. I will probably never get married. It was not my first plan, you know. I told Nick I would rather look for work. And that is what I shall do.’

‘You would rather work than marry?’ said Rick, aghast. ‘And what as, might I ask?’

‘Oh, as a governess, I expect. I…I like children.’

‘Yes, but you should have your own, not get paid to mind somebody else’s! Midge, have you got some aversion to marrying? Have your mother’s experiences frightened you that much?’

Imogen wondered if that could be true. It struck her that whenever the question of her having a Season had cropped up, she had always declared she would rather stay at the Brambles and look after her family. But after a moment’s reflection, she shook her head. ‘It is not marriage itself I am afraid of. Mama was content with Hugh. As content as she could have been with anyone, after what she went through.’

Imogen sighed. Amanda had been grateful, all her life, for Hugh’s willingness to offer her the protection of his name, in return for a generous settlement from Grandpapa Herriard. She always felt that he had rescued her from an intolerable situation. Her world had been lying in ruins. The shock of having her lover arrested for murdering her husband had caused her to lose the baby she was carrying. She had lost her independence, too, when Imogen’s grandfather had hauled her back to the house in Mount Street when, to cap it all, somebody had broken into the Framlingham residence and ransacked part of the ground floor. She could not show her face in public, for the gossips were tearing her reputation to shreds. Almost out of her mind with grief and guilt, Amanda had submitted to the family doctor who had administered copious quantities of laudanum.

Imogen thought that it was probably during those days that she had been left for such lengthy periods in the nursery. It was certainly about that time when her baby brother, Thomas, contracted the illness that killed him.

The doctor’s response was to sedate her mother even more heavily.

That was when Grandpapa Herriard had taken the drastic measure of writing to his widowed friend Hugh to beg him to get his only daughter out of town.

‘He had three young sons,’ Amanda had often told her, her eyes welling with tears, ‘for whom he had little time and even less patience. They missed their mother, and I missed my boys. We all comforted each other.’

‘She was a wonderful mother to us,’ said Rick, as though completely attuned to her thoughts, ‘and I know you would be too. The way you took us all on after she went…’

‘I did not take you on, as you put it. I just love you all. You are my brothers,’ she declared, lifting her chin mutinously.

‘How would you like it if your brother took you to Gunter’s for some hot chocolate?’ He smiled down at her. ‘Would your aunt think that was improper?’

‘I expect so.’ Imogen grinned sheepishly. ‘But I should love it above all things. What will you do with the curricle, though?’

‘Oh, Monty’s groom can take it back. You won’t mind walking home, will you?’

‘Not with you,’ she smiled. ‘I know you will set a spanking pace. I have not had a good brisk walk for months!’

‘Ah, Midge,’ said Rick. ‘What was Nick thinking, to send you to live with a parcel of relatives who seem to want nothing more than to crush you?’

‘He did not have a lot of choice. They were the only ones who would have me. Oh, don’t let’s talk about such gloomy things. Tell me what you have been up to.’

So he spent the rest of their time together regaling her with anecdotes of his time with the forces occupying Paris.

‘You would like Paris, Midge,’ he said reflectively. ‘Pity we cannot find you a serving officer to marry while I am over here, and then you could come back with me.’

‘I should love that! But—’ her face fell abruptly ‘—I do not think my uncle would grant me permission to marry a soldier.’

Rick let the subject drop, but a thoughtful frown creased his brow as he made his way to Monty’s house in Hanover Square, after escorting Imogen home.

A footman took him straight upstairs to a dressing room, where he found his friend lounging on a sofa, a valet on a low stool before it, buffing his nails.

‘Ah, Rick!’ Monty smiled, nodding towards a side table that held a selection of crystal decanters. ‘You won’t mind helping yourself, while my man finishes?’

Rick made for the table, but then paused, fiddling with one of the stoppers, his frown deepening.

‘Not had a pleasant afternoon with Midge?’

‘Not entirely,’ Rick scowled, pouring himself a small measure and then walking with it to the window. ‘I need your advice.’

Monty dismissed his valet. ‘How may I be of service?’

Rick flung himself into a chair and gazed moodily into his glass.

‘My family has left Midge in a pickle. Up to me to get her out of it. Thought I could trust Nick to handle things, but what must the stupid cawker go and do but tell her the truth. You know our house had to be sold to cover my father’s debts? Well, anyone with an ounce of sense would have split the proceeds four ways and let Imogen think she was entitled to it. It isn’t as if the money makes all that much difference to us. We all have our careers. We can make our own way in the world. But no. Nick had to tell her that father left her with next to nothing! Then packed her off to a set of starchy relatives who seem intent on crushing all the spirit out of her. And now she says she’s too long in the tooth to attract a decent sort of husband with such a paltry dowry, and she’s thinking about becoming a governess!’

‘A fate worse than death,’ Monty agreed, only half joking. ‘My brothers have seen off three of the poor creatures since I sold out, and the Lord alone knows how many they dispatched before that!’

‘Midge would be wonderful with boys like your brothers, I should think. Probably thoroughly enjoy taking ‘em birds—nesting. That’s half the problem. Grew up following us around like a little shadow…well, you know that’s how she got her nickname. Nick said she was like a cloud of midges you just couldn’t shift no matter how many times you swatted them away!’ He chuckled. ‘Plucky little thing, she was. Gerry said she must have rubber bones. Why, when I think of the trees she fell out of, and the horses she fell off and the streams she fell into…and never cried! That was why, when she burst into tears all over me yesterday…well, it shook me up, I can tell you.’

Monty poured himself a brandy, and took the chair opposite Rick’s.

‘Well, I am not going to let her become a governess. Going to find her a husband myself! That is why I came to you.’

‘Indeed?’ said Monty coldly.

‘Well, her aunt’s not going to succeed, not by throwing her in the way of society types who want a wife to be a decoration to hang off their arm.’

‘I take it you are warning me that Midge is not very decorative.’

Rick looked affronted. ‘She is pretty enough. In her own way. It is just that she doesn’t go in for all that fluttery feminine nonsense. You know, batting her eyelashes and sighing up at you and so forth. She would never do anything that smacks of insincerity. Straight as a die, she is.’

‘Let me get this straight,’ said Monty. ‘She has no dowry to speak of, she is past the first flush of her youth, and is happier climbing trees than dancing quadrilles. Is that it?’

Rick grinned. ‘That just about sums her up!’ Then his expression grew serious. ‘Monty, you have been in town for a while now. You know who is about. And you said you were bored. Well, this will give you something worthwhile to do. Dammit, Monty, you know what a warm, sweet, loving girl she is. We need to find her someone who will appreciate her for what she is.’

Monty gave him a peculiar look.

‘Are you suggesting that I should fill the role?’

‘You!’ Rick’s jaw dropped. ‘Absolutely not! Not now you’ve sold out. A bit above our touch now you’ve stepped into your brother’s shoes. Your family will want you to marry somebody with money and connections, won’t they? And I’m sure you will be holding out for a diamond of the first water. All Midge has to offer any man is a warm heart. No, no, the kind of fellow that would suit Midge would be a serving officer. You would never hear her complaining about the hardships of following the drum. She would just fling herself into the role of taking care of her household on the march, and relish every challenge.’

Something about the set of Monty’s shoulders altered. ‘Forgive me. For a moment I thought you were trying to set me up with your sister.’

Rick burst out laughing.

Monty grinned sheepishly. ‘I know. It is just that recently, I have begun to feel…’ he shivered ‘…hunted. You have no idea the lengths some females will go to in order to hook a viscount on their line. The most mousy, unkempt of creatures fling themselves in my path…’

Rick looked very pointedly at Monty’s silk knee breeches, then at the rings that sparkled from almost every finger. ‘If you will dress so extravagantly, what can you expect?’

‘Oh—’ his expression soured ‘—for people to show their true colours, of course.’

Monty had still been seething from the interview he had endured with his father, when he had first arrived in town. He had spent months trying to prove that he was well able to take up his position as his father’s heir. But nothing he did or said had made any difference. Nor would his father listen to a word of criticism against the steward, who was bleeding the tenants dry to line his own pockets. So far as he could see, it would take only one more bad harvest to have the lot of them rising up in protest at their lot.

‘You have spent too long abroad.’ The earl had sneered when he had voiced his concerns. ‘This is England, not revolutionary France. Your brother knew these people, and he never noticed anything amiss.’