The Viscount and the Virgin (6 page)

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! Be cause she could not resist the thrill of Kit Hebden's wicked brand of love making!

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, experi
enced 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 wit nesses she man aged 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 child birth, you will feel like a murderer,' he had said. ‘And if she proves faith less, 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 ad vantages. 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 waist coat, 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 retelling looking a little ridiculous. But he would think of some thing.

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 under stood 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 under tone 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 friend ship 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 Ked din ton 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 some thing 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, in auspicious meeting, she had revised her opinion of him. For he had demonstrated the friend ship 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 be come 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 Ked din ton 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 some where as a governess. And deal with her uncle's objections. It would mean confiding in him some thing of what had happened. And her fears of creating havoc in the Herriard house hold. 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 inter view with Lord Ked din ton, 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 break fast 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 back water?

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. Des per ate straits called for des per ate 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 un suspecting gentleman like that?

Bother the viscount for forcing her into a situation where she felt obliged to resort to such strata gems! 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 with stand bouts of fisticuffs.

Only Rick's response, when he saw her descending the stairs, managed to ease her con science 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 re strained 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 con science 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.'