The Viscount and the Virgin

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 luckygirl. 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.

It would not be the match they had hoped for, but surely her aunt and uncle would prefer to tell people she was married, rather than working as a governess in some rural backwater?

And most of Rick’s friends, she suspected, would be younger sons from the kind of families that were not likely to care very much about scandals that had happened twenty years ago.

It might work! If only, she thought despondently, she could induce one of them to propose to her. She did not have much confidence in her own powers of seduction. But she only had to drop a hint to Pansy that there was likely to be a special gentleman at the theatre that night for the girl’s eyes to light up with missionary zeal. She pulled out the evening gown whose bodice was so low, Imogen had never agreed to wear it before. Even now, she eyed it with some trepidation. Then lifted her chin. Desperate straits called for desperate measures. Besides, the gown could not be as shocking as she considered it, or her aunt would never have purchased it for her.

It was not long before she was standing before the mirror, staring in shocked awe at the exposed mounds of her breasts and the shadowy outline of her legs through the diaphanous skirts. She flicked open her fan and looked at her reflection over the top of it, in the coquettish way she had seen other girls employ. Could she really bring herself to simper up at some poor unsuspecting gentleman like that?

Bother the viscount for forcing her into a situation where she felt obliged to resort to such stratagems! She snapped her fan shut and tossed it onto the bed as Pansy held out yet another brand-new pair of evening gloves. The ones she had worn the night before had been beyond repair. Ladies’ gloves, she sighed, were just not designed to withstand bouts of fisticuffs.

Only Rick’s response, when he saw her descending the stairs, managed to ease her conscience somewhat.

‘You look as pretty as a picture!’ he declared, bussing her cheek.

‘Really?’ Imogen flushed with pleasure. The gown could not be too revealing, then, or her brother would have certainly let her know. Of course, she did not really believe she was as attractive as he had implied. She was not a beauty, like her mother. But she knew she was not an antidote, either. She smiled wryly. By the end of the evening her hair would most likely have escaped the bandeau into which Pansy had restrained it, and would be rioting all over the place. But at least she could start the evening out feeling as though she looked like a fashionably eligible young lady.

‘Here, let me help you on with your cloak,’ he said, taking it from the footman who was hovering with it over his arm.

‘Your aunt about?’ he murmured into her ear as he draped the fur-lined mantle round her shoulders.

‘She will be down shortly, I expect.’ Her conscience niggled at her again. Would she be feeling so glad to be covered up, if her gown was not verging on the indecent?

‘Good. Wanted a word.’ He tugged her into the drawing room and pushed the door to. ‘It’s like this.’ He looked briefly uncomfortable. Then he took a deep breath and plunged in. ‘Glad you’ve made an extra effort tonight. With the dress, and the fancy thing in your hair, and all that. Because, you see, I was talking to Monty last night, and the upshot is, he’s willing to help you. Find a husband that is. The fellows he’s rounded up for tonight are both on the lookout for the kind of wife who would accept they have careers in the Army.’

‘He…what?’ She sat down quickly on the nearest chair. ‘Are you r-roasting me?’

‘No! Would not make a jest of a thing like that! He said he feels as though he knows you, through all those letters you used to write to me, and that you deserve to find happiness with a man who will appreciate you, rather than some fashionable—’ he broke off, looking guiltily towards the door, through which her aunt might enter at any moment. ‘You ain’t angry with me, with us, are you? Just trying to help.’

‘No, oh, no, I am not in the least angry,’ she exclaimed as she gave him a fierce hug. ‘How can I thank you! Best of my brothers!’

His cheeks flushed. ‘It is nothing. Sure Gerry would do something, if he were here. So would Nick, if you could get his nose out of his books long enough to alert him to the fact that all’s not right with you.’

No, she sighed. Neither of them would ever be likely to stir themselves on her behalf. Rick was the best of her brothers. He had always been the one to check her over for broken bones when she fell out of a tree, while Nick would cluck his tongue impatiently and Gerry would roar with laughter.

Before either of them could say another word, they heard her aunt coming down the stairs. They went to join her in the hall, and embarked on the kind of light-hearted chatter suitable for a party bound on an evening of pleasure. All the way to the theatre, she felt as though she was floating on air. This was the first stroke of good luck she’d had in an age. Even if the gentlemen she met tonight did not take to her, it sounded as though Monty would be prepared to help her find the kind of man she could enjoy being married to. Perhaps, he might even take one look at her, and…Her heart skipped a beat. How wonderful it would be if Monty himself, the hero of all her girlhood dreams, took a shine to her. If he proposed and whisked her away from London, just when she was most in need of rescue!

She could not stop smiling, all the way up the stairs to the upper tiers. Though her heart was beating so fast that it made her feel a little shaky. By the time they reached the door to Monty’s private box, she was clinging to Rick’s arm for all she was worth.

And it was just as well. For the first person she saw, when the door swung open, was none other than Viscount Mildenhall. He was lounging against one of the pillars that supported the gilded ceiling. Very soberly dressed, for him, in a dark coat, plain waistcoat and only one ring adorning his little finger.

The castles she had been building in the air came crashing down about her in ruins. However much Monty might want to help her, the Viscount would prevent any man he considered a friend from getting entangled with her!

Viscount Mildenhall met her horrified gaze with lowered brows. Then he looked at Rick. Then at the way she was clinging to his arm. Then back at Rick.

‘Rick,’ he drawled, pushing himself off the pillar and coming forward with his hand outstretched. ‘Welcome. And this is?’ His eyes flicked to Imogen again, his features now fixed in an expression of polite enquiry.