The Viscount Meets his Match: A Regency Romance Read online

  “Oh it doesn’t have to be like that,” Harriet said passionately.

  Having been immersed in her thoughts, to her chagrin, Josephine realized she’d forgotten Harriet. “If you say so.”

  “It doesn’t, Josephine, do not roll your eyes like that. I love John and he”—Harriet blushed—“he says he loves me.”

  “Good, then let us hope your papa says yes,” Josephine said briskly, tired of all the angst. “Are you going to sit with me until you know your fate?”

  “Jo…seph…ine,” Harriet wailed. “You are incorrigible. You have not one romantic bone in your body.”

  “I know, good in’t it,” Josephine said cheerfully. “Romantic bones sound most uncomfortable. I intend to stay that way. Emotionally unencumbered, free and single. I will grow my own vegetables, keep chickens and have cats. And a dog. Wear disreputable clothes and worn-out, comfortable boots. Be the old maid who everyone loves…or hates, who knows.” She laughed at Harriet’s aghast expression and patted her friend on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, it will suit me perfectly, and I promise not to be too disreputable. No corset, though. They will be the first things on my bonfire. Come on, I see two chairs by the potted ferns. A good place to see and not be seen.”

  “Incorrigible,” Harriet repeated. “What is the point of that?”

  “The bonfire? Everything, especially burning my corsets.”

  Harriet snorted. “I meant the chairs where they are, but you do have a point about corsets.”

  “I can hide from my parents, men and Lady F. in those seats. Watch who is making sheep’s eyes at whom and how the recipients respond. See the beginnings of new scandals and the end of old ones. Great fun.”

  That, Josephine decided, was the only possible way to get through the rest of the evening. Even after Lord Goffrey very punctiliously found them and asked Harriet to dance, with such an affectionate expression Harriet beamed and Josephine blinked and stifled the pang of something unknown, she stayed where she was.

  It may work for others, not for me.

  Unaccountably saddened, Josephine tapped one foot in time to the music and watched between the leaves of the ferns as couple after couple swept by. Some looked happy, others uncomfortable and several bored. She was so engrossed with one couple who, although married, albeit not to each other, looked ready to commit murder, she didn’t notice anyone approach until a familiar booming voice hailed her.

  “So this is where you are hiding. Never mind, we’ve found you.”

  We? She looked up and silently groaned. She might have known.

  Chapter Three

  The poor girl looked as if she were ready to vomit, David decided as Josephine swayed alarmingly on her chair and went the color of the potted fern next to her. Throw up or throw something…or both. Really, he conceded, it was unfair of him and Lady Foster to ambush her this way, but, as he often thought, needs must.

  And all is fair in love and war? That gave him a jolt. Surely this was neither, merely his sense of mischief, and a need to see if that earlier jolt of awareness when he had kissed her was still noticeable. He didn’t expect it would be. Surely it had come from the unexpectedness of his action and her reaction, nothing else? David accepted that, for whatever reason, he had a deep-seated need to understand her and find out more about her, even as he wondered why he had never felt this way earlier. It was true, in general he paid very little attention to debutantes, but this stunning blonde-haired beauty had always registered, even before that last brief encounter.

  He bowed and studied her features as she stood and curtsied very correctly, a wary expression on her face. Not as young as he’d first thought, but still no old maid. A coltish figure he discovered he wanted to trace, to imprint her lines firmly in his mind. Her unlined skin was a soft creamy color, her lips ripe and lush and her bosom firm and… Good lord, I sound like one of those awful novels Lyddie read aloud to me that made me want to heave. The orchestra struck up a waltz and she paled. His godmama, bless her, didn’t give Josephine a chance to think of any reason to object to their presence, or what was about to happen. She indicated him with a languid wave of her hand.

  “Lyttlethorp here will accompany you in a waltz. You both need to make an effort so you might as well make it together. Off you go.” She dusted her hands together and beamed at them as David held out his arm.

  “As we are directed, shall we?”

  “I wonder who put her up to this,” Josephine muttered sotto voce with a suspicious glance at his hopefully bland features as they walked to the edge of the dance floor. At least, once there, he held her very properly. “She knows fine well I do not want to draw attention to myself. Dancing with you? I might as well stand on a street corner with the town crier shouting, ‘Look at me, look at me.’ So damned annoying. And why call you Lyttlethorp and not Lord Suddards or… Oh, now I’m vexed.”

  David regarded her closely. She means it. It was a novel situation to be seen as an irritant, not a coveted dance partner. “She is trying to emphasize my status, not any perceived shortcomings.”

  Her eyes sparkled with temper. “She need not bother. I’m not interested.”

  “You really mean that, don’t you?” Brushed off and dismissed by God.

  “Well, of course? Why else would I say it?” she asked, puzzled by the question. “All I want is a quiet life and to get this dratted season over and done with. It is never-ending.”

  Her skirts swished around his legs as he drew her closer—but not so close as to cause scandal—as they moved in time to the music. Her perfume teased his nostrils as her silks teased the rest of body. She kept her gaze on his cravat and David knew his lips twitched. “The knot is my own. The perfection, also, but the pristine starchiness is down to Felix.”

  “Pardon?” She stumbled and recovered. “What are you talking about?” she asked in an astonished voice. “Are you bosky?”

  “My valet.” David held her steady—and a little closer. “You seem mighty interested in my cravat so I gave you chapter and verse. Now I, you understand, am still interested in why you want the season to end. Because you have no offers?” The glare she gave him made a certain part of his body want to shrivel and hide. How could he have been so insensitive? “My apologies,” he said in a hurry. “I am not bosky, just rude and crass.”

  “Very true. Thank you for your vote of confidence,” Josephine said tartly. “I now fail to see why I should share my reasoning with you.”

  “Because I will keep asking you until you do?” David suggested. “I’m persistent.” He very deliberately moved one hand lower, just to see if his memory of the luscious curves of her bottom held true.

  It did.

  How tempted he was to pull her closer and caress those globes and…

  “Stop that,” Josephine hissed. “We are on a dance floor.”

  “So it would be acceptable elsewhere?” he teased her and was rewarded by a brief flash of temper and something indefinable in her eyes. His body tightened and he hoped to hell she couldn’t feel just how she affected him. A certain part of his anatomy was very interested in her and showing it. “I’m happy to go wherever you so desire.”

  “Do not be ridiculous, of course it would not be acceptable anywhere.”

  But her sensual shiver and the way she licked her lips told him different. However, he needed to be gracious. “I’m sorry, I’ll wait and touch you somewhere we can’t be seen, shall I?” Her hand tightened on his shoulder and, for a brief second, hot temper showed in her eyes as her nails dug into his skin through his clothes. Without that protection he was sure he’d have had scars to show her annoyance.

  “You really are a rake.”

  “No, I really am not. I’m sorry, that was quite irresistible. And you still haven’t answered my question.”

  She sighed, long and deep. “You are a pest, there is no doubt about that. I wish I was not dancing with you, and that the season had ended, for a very simple reason. I do not want any offers of any kind. I want
to retire from the ton and live my own life.”

  Now he was interested. Surely that was not the norm for young unwed ladies of the ton? “No marriage?” he asked, fascinated to hear her reply. David essayed a turn with smooth confidence, enjoyed the experience of her silk-clad leg brushing his evening-breeches-covered one, and decided to play with fire. “Surely all young ladies want marriage?”

  “Not at all. Some are more discerning.” One of those, her tone intimated, was herself. She did her best to add a few inches of space between them. With a swift maneuver and turn of hand, he foiled her with ease. He returned her suspicious look with a bland expression on his face. This dance was turning out to be so much more than duty.

  “Dancing with me will spoil your plans?” David was intrigued. “How?”

  “If not spoil them, it is likely to put them back. My mama will be in alt, and see me as the next viscountess. And, of course,” she continued gloomily, “if she does not see us, someone else will then remark on it. Life is not going to be easy. Almost, no not almost, most definitely, I prefer it when she ignores me.”

  “I promise I’m not going to offer for you,” David said. “It is but one duty dance.” Not strictly true, but the small lie would serve its purpose if it gave her some relief. He couldn’t explain his motives when he wasn’t really sure of them himself.

  “Thank goodness for small mercies. Will you explain that to my mama if necessary? No, do not even think of a polite demur. She would not listen.”

  Could he say Lady Bowie sounded even worse than the woman his own mama had become? Perhaps not a very polite rejoinder. He maintained a discreet silence as they executed the perfect turn and danced back up the ballroom. Josephine was as light as thistledown on her feet and their steps matched perfectly. David realized he hadn’t enjoyed a waltz so much for an age. “Do you care to explain more?” The imp of mischief was likely to get him into trouble one day. “Let me in on your thoughts?”

  “Not really. All I will say is that whatever sort of marriage anyone has, children are expected to be part of it.”

  David nodded. “That makes sense. All men wish for an heir if it is possible. Therefore when a man chooses a wife, he expects her to acquiesce. What is wrong with that? I had thought all women wished to be mothers.”

  “Not at all,” Josephine snapped. “Some want to be seen as people in their own right.”

  That told him. “Can’t you be all?” he asked, perplexed. “A wife, a mother and, well, yourself?”

  “I could, but I know fine well I would not be allowed to. Therefore I’ll stay single. Now can we end this waltz please, before my mama decides you are interested in me and either tries to inveigle you into giving me more attention or refuses to let me bow out before Brighton?” She sighed. “I do not want to be a wife or a mother, so why marry? Selfish of me, I don’t want to have to think of others before myself.”

  The words did not ring true. However, before he had time to question her further, the music stopped and she curtsied.

  “Thank you, my lord. Most…”

  “Annoying?” David suggested as he held on to her firmly and escorted her off the dance floor. “Irritating?”

  “Both of those.”

  “At least it got you five minutes nearer to your goal,” he said as he avoided the eye of his mother—he’d had no idea she was there—and Josephine’s mother, who Lady Foster had let slip was sitting with the dowagers, and tended not to pay a lot of attention to her daughter.

  “My goal?” she asked in a puzzled voice. “What do you mean?”

  “The time when you can go home.”

  “Ah yes, of course,” she said, sounding relieved. “That is true.”

  “So as I have aided you, now you can help me.”

  “I can? Over what?” she asked in a bewildered tone. “I can think of nothing where I could be of any help to you. Me, a mere woman?”

  “Only you, my dear,” he confirmed. “Help me with regards to my puzzlement as to why you do not want children.”

  “Ah. That.” Josephine looked around furtively and turned into a side corridor.

  Intrigued, for he was sure she didn’t intend an assignation, David followed her. She stopped by an alcove, half curtained off from the passageway, and took a step back so she would be hidden from anyone who walked nearby.

  “We should be private for a few moments here.”

  David followed and waited to see what she would do or say next. It was a novel situation for him. To be so semi-private without a hint of dalliance was something he hadn’t encountered before. At that moment he wasn’t sure he liked the thought that he couldn’t let his hands wander, just a little, just to discover if what her body hinted at was indeed true.

  “It is quite simple.” Josephine bit her lip, and let it go with a quiet plop.

  That sent his interest—and a certain part of his anatomy—soaring once more. Why when it wasn’t, or he thought it was not, intended to arouse him, did that gesture have the effect? Strange. She coughed deliberately and he wrenched his thoughts from sex and seduction to what she was about to say.

  “When a couple of our…shall I say standing, have children, whatever the circumstances, the children suffer,” Josephine said in a flat ‘believe me I know’ tone. “Tell me one family where the children come first. Where their needs and wants are more important than anything else? When their parents, both parents, are there for them come what may? Let them learn what is right and wrong, and blossom in the knowledge their parents love them and want what is best for them, even if that best goes against their own ideals.”

  He felt his mouth drop open. Oh yes. David understood perfectly what she meant.

  She nodded, although he comprehended that what she alluded to gave her no satisfaction, just the opposite. “Exactly. In our circles it is rare. I would never countenance having a child and then handing them over to others to cherish. It seems to me, people of our class are selfish or unthinking a lot of the time. You marry for convenience, or for so-called love. You have children, also for one of the above reasons, and more importantly to ensure there is an heir. Pity the poor wife if she only has girls. For that matter, pity the girl who is expected to grow up and do the same thing.” She took a deep breath. “However, I digress. The children appear. Then life changes. Either the parents are still so besotted with each other the children take a poor second place, or the parents had married for convenience and are not interested in any offspring. Even worse, one parent is interested and the other is not, the poor child has no idea why and is made to feel unwanted except for continuing the line or marrying well.”

  David considered how best to reply. He understood her reasoning, but surely it wasn’t the only answer? “There are also a couple of other scenarios,” he said quietly. “One, where the child is smothered by their parents and not given the chance to have an opinion of their own, or to learn to grow up and stand up for themselves.”

  Josephine looked at him for a long moment. “Very well, I thought I’d said that, but no matter, I agree. What else?”

  “A happy medium. Where both parents nurture, encourage, love but do not smother.”

  He counted to five before she gave any indication she had heard him. Then, very daring, she put her palm on his forehead. “You do not feel overheated, or seem deranged, but where on earth did you get the idea that anything like that would ever happen?”

  * * * *

  The evening had been an eye opener—one she could have done without.

  That dance. That damnable, everlasting, but oh so arousing, dance. Where her body had responded to his maleness once more and left her tingling and ready for something further. When he’d held her tight and looked at her as if she were the most important thing in his life. All rubbish, of course, it was a duty dance, no more, but what an unsettling one. When he touched her derrière, even through layers of silk, satin and lace, it seared her. If his handprint were outlined on her skin, it wouldn’t surprise her one jot. Eve
n the thought of that swift caress made her breath hitch and her heartbeat speed up.

  Strange and unsettling.

  Josephine sighed and put her hand to her throbbing head. The flickering lamps outside made her eyes hurt and she closed them thankfully. At least her mama had waited until they were in their coach before she’d bombarded her daughter with questions. Her papa, recalled from the card room, had stayed silent and just given his wife encouraging looks as she’d shot questions at Josephine so fast it was enough to make one’s head spin. Josephine held up her other hand. She didn’t need to glance at her mama to know what that lady would be doing. Darting pleading glances at her husband and leaning forward to emphasize her point, until her silk-clad knees brushed against her daughter. Sure enough, within a second, Josephine noticed the gentle pressure.

  “Mama, enough. I told you it was a duty dance, no more,” she said in a ‘this should be the end of it’ voice. As ever, Josephine thought with an inward sigh, her mama would no doubt choose to ignore her. “We danced. He bowed, I curtsied. He went off to wherever, and I to the ladies’ withdrawing room. One duty dance.”

  “He doesn’t do such things,” her mama said emphatically. “You must have caught his eye. Now to capitalize on that. You could be betrothed and perhaps even wed before the season ends.” ‘And off our hands’, her tone intimated.

  “Not at all,” Josephine said wearily. The ache in her head had begun to make her feel nauseated “Lady Foster insisted on it. You know what she is like.”

  “Ah, but why?” her mama asked triumphantly. “Why insist, if not because he’d asked her to.”