Taming The Viscountess

by Ruth Ann Nordin

  “All right. I accept those terms.”

  Surprised it’d been that easy, she glanced up at him as she brought the breeches up to his waist. “Really?”

  He nodded. “I am a captain, and a good captain gives the crewmen a chance to prove their word is their bond.”

  Well, when he put it that way, it almost seemed like she had to come back because it was the right thing to do. She’d never concerned herself with such matters before, but it seemed important that she do so with him.

  Forcing aside the observation, she began to button his breeches. “You have no need to worry. I might do many things, but not following through on my word isn’t one of them.”

  She finished with the buttons, pretending she didn’t notice the erection that was pressing against the soft fabric. An erection, as it just so happened, that was distracting her from being able to remember why she was so opposed to being married to him.

  The moment he began touching her in the tub, she’d lost her wits. All she’d been able to think about was how wonderful he had made her feel. Her body, unlike her mind, had absolutely no trouble yielding to him. And she didn’t like that. It made her lose control. No one had ever been able to break through her defenses before. What was it about him that was different from everyone else?

  “Your hands feel good in that spot,” he whispered.

  Realizing she was still touching him, she lowered her hands so she couldn’t feel his erection anymore. Drat, but she had been enjoying her subtle exploration. There was something fascinating about a gentleman’s penis. Maybe her fascination stemmed from the fact that she didn’t have one, so she couldn’t help but be curious about it.

  She took a step away from him, but he wrapped an arm around her waist and drew her up against him. She thought he was going to kiss her or do some other scoundrel type behavior, but he only said, “Don’t be shy with me. I like it when you touch me.”

  Despite his bold speech, she felt the need to change the topic to something—anything—else. “Why don’t you have a valet help you dress?”

  “I’ve been dressing myself since I was a child, and I’m not about to stop now.”

  “But you could use the help, given the situation with your leg.”

  “I’m not an invalid.”

  Noting the sharp tone in his voice, she studied him. She’d hit a nerve without realizing it. “I didn’t mean to imply you were. Most gentlemen have a valet. I have a lady’s maid help me dress.”

  His expression softened. “Forgive me. I might not have all of my right leg, but that doesn’t make me less of a man.”

  “I know it doesn’t.”

  A moment of silence passed between them. She expected him to let go of her, but he didn’t. His touch wasn’t demanding. It was gentle. But it felt as if she had no choice but to remain close to him. She wasn’t sure what it was about him that made her feel as if she had to do his bidding, but that was exactly how she felt. He had such a commanding presence about him. Never in her life had she encountered anything like it. Then again, he was the only captain she’d ever met.

  “What did you do to trick Lord Durrant into getting undressed?” he softly asked.

  Of all the things he could have done or said to her, he had to ask about the ill-fated scandal? “What does it matter? It didn’t work.”

  “I wouldn’t be so sure about that. Your brother said Lord Durrant was in a state of undress.”

  “Yes. That part did work. It’s just that it was another lady who ended up with him in the room instead of me.”

  “So how much of his clothes were you able to get off of him?”

  “I didn’t get his clothes off myself. I paid someone else to spill a drink on him and talk him into removing the clothes so a maid could clean them.”

  “Really? Who?”

  She groaned, and in her aggravation, she was finally able to wiggle away from him. “What does it matter? The gentleman I paid betrayed me. He said he would stand guard outside the room and make sure I was the lady he caught Lord Durrant in the room with. But he let someone else go in before I could show up, and now I’m married to you instead of him.”

  “I had to pay Lord Durrant back right after I made an arrangement to marry you. He didn’t mention anything about a scandal.”

  “I’m sure it’s all in the Tittletattle. You can find all the sordid details in there.” Not that she’d had a chance to read the scandalsheets yet. In fact, she wasn’t sure she even wanted to. The whole evening hadn’t turned out the way she’d planned.

  “Cheer up, love,” Sebastian said as he tucked the crutch under his arm and stepped toward her. “Lord Durrant doesn’t have what it takes to appreciate a lady with your kind of passion. He’s too weak. You would have grown bored with him within a year if you had succeeded.”

  She didn’t know if she liked the way he was talking about Corin or not. Corin had been her first love—her only love—for well over a year. She had invested all of her heart and soul into him. To hear anyone refer to him as weak and to suggest she would get bored with him seemed almost like a sacrilege, even if, deep down, she had a nagging suspicion he was right.

  “What if I get bored with you?” she asked, deciding to turn things around on him.

  His lips curled up into an arrogant smile. “You won’t. I’m willing to do things gentlemen like Lord Durrant aren’t. I guarantee he never would have slipped into your bedchamber while you were bathing and then taken advantage of the situation.”

  Her face warmed at the reminder. Just the memory of the things he’d done to her made her pulse race in excitement. Hoping he didn’t notice her flushed face, she cleared her throat and straightened her gown. “Lord Durrant was born and raised to be a gentleman. He doesn’t have a captain’s morals.”

  He came right up to her, looked her in the eye, and said, “Someday you’ll be glad I’m not a gentleman.”

  He leaned toward her, and she thought he might try to steal a kiss. But then he brushed her chin with his hand, gave her a wink, and headed for the door.

  Her eyebrows furrowed. Was she relieved or disappointed that he hadn’t kissed her?

  “I should be back in a couple of hours.” He stopped at the door, opened it, and turned to her. “Do you have any idea when I can expect you home?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know if my friend will want to talk to me, but if she does, then I probably won’t return until it’s time to get ready for dinner. If not, then I’ll be back within the hour.”

  “I hope she’ll want to talk to you.”

  She watched him as he left the room. It was nice of him to say such a thing. She had no reason to doubt he meant it. He hadn’t been one to hold back in telling her exactly what was on his mind before. There was no reason why he’d start now.

  She blinked. What did she care what he thought? The only thing that mattered was that he was willing to let her go out of the townhouse without the butler. Giving the whole thing no more thought, she returned to her bedchamber to get ready to visit Loretta.

  Chapter Seven

  Celia sat in the carriage outside of her friend’s townhouse. The footman patiently waited to help her onto the sidewalk, but so far, she hadn’t made a move to leave the safety of the vehicle.

  Celia hadn’t spoken to Loretta since the day she confronted Loretta about staying out of the scandal she was planning. Loretta had told Damara about it, and Damara had convinced Anthony to cancel the ball he was going to host. And that led Celia to making an alternate plan, which, somehow, had gone wrong.

  She released her breath. It was almost humiliating to see her friend after things had turned out the way they had. What if Loretta laughed at her? What if she said, “I told you so”? Loretta had thought it was a mistake for Celia to try to marry Corin. She thought they would be better off marrying other people. And now that each had, Celia had no idea what to expect from her friend.

  Gathering her courage, Celia got up and let the footman help her down from th
e carriage. There was only one way to see how things were going to transpire between her and Loretta, and that was to pay her a visit. She wasn’t even sure if Loretta was here. Maybe she should have sent her a missive to let her know she wanted to see her. But then, what if Loretta had said no? With everything that hadn’t gone to plan, Celia had no idea what to expect anymore.

  She paused for a moment and then straightened her back and marched up the steps to the townhouse. If she was going to do this, it was best to get it over with. When she reached the door, she knocked and waited, only realizing after she did so that her heart was pounding loudly in her chest.

  She never thought she’d be nervous about seeing Loretta. The two had been more like sisters than friends over the past couple of years. But so much had changed since Loretta married Tad. She heard that Loretta had even withdrawn her membership from Ladies of Grace, something Celia never thought her friend would do, given how important it was to her. And if Loretta was willing to do that, then who knew what else Loretta was doing differently these days?

  The footman opened the door, and she asked, “Is the Duchess of Lambeth receiving visitors?”

  He nodded and waved her in.

  Well, at least she had gotten the timing right. She followed him to the drawing room, and at once, her gaze went to Loretta who was penning a missive at the desk. Loretta glanced up, and before the footman could speak, she ran over to Celia and wrapped her in a warm embrace. And all at once, the frustrations over the last few days departed, and Celia started to cry. She wasn’t sure why she was crying, except that the strain of everything that had happened to her since they last spoke gave way to relief.

  “Celia, I’m so glad you came,” Loretta whispered.

  “Nothing has gone the way I thought it would,” Celia replied, her voice breaking.

  Loretta released her, hurried to close the doors to the drawing room, and then returned to her. “I heard your brother forced you to marry Captain Egan. Well, that is, Lord Erandon.”

  “You did? But how? I only married him yesterday.” Celia wiped away her tears as Loretta took her to the settee.

  Loretta encouraged her to sit and then patted her shoulder. “Just a moment. I’ll get you a handkerchief.”

  Celia sniffed back a few more tears while Loretta hurried to retrieve one from the drawer in her desk. When she came back to the settee, she gave it to Celia.

  “News of your marriage is all over London,” Loretta told her as she settled beside her.

  “It is?” Celia asked.

  “It made the front page of the Tittletattle.” She winced. “I’m sorry, Celia.”

  Celia gasped and stopped wiping her tears. “My marriage was mentioned in the Tittletattle?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “What about the whole scandal with Corin and Candace? Is that there?”

  “It was, but your marriage made the first page.”

  How was it possible her marriage to a captain was more important than the scandal?

  “I thought you knew you were in the Tittletattle. It said your brother sold you off to the first gentleman who was willing to take you.”

  Celia gagged. Is that what London was saying? “No. I haven’t picked up the Tittletattle ever since we joined Lady Eloise’s group. She forbade us to even touch it.”

  “Yes, I know, but I’m not in the group anymore so I can do whatever I want.”

  Forgetting about her worries for the moment, Celia lowered her handkerchief and focused on her friend. “How is that possible? You married Tad so you could stay in it, and I could tell Lady Eloise was very impressed with you.”

  “Lady Eloise wanted Tad to go to her bed.”

  Celia’s jaw dropped. “She didn’t!”

  Loretta shot her a pointed look. “She did.”

  “What did Tad say?”

  “He said no. And I decided I wanted nothing to do with Lady Eloise or her group anymore.”

  “I can’t believe Lady Eloise did that to you. One thing we should depend on is the loyalty of the other members in the group. I never thought she would try to be with any of our husbands.”

  “I never thought it, either, until Lady Eloise propositioned him the way she did. It was during that dinner party she invited me and Tad to.”

  “Oh, Loretta, that’s just awful.”

  “It wasn’t the only awful thing that happened that evening. Lady Eloise gave me and Tad the wrong time to show up at her dinner party. We arrived a half hour later than everyone else.”

  Celia’s eyebrows furrowed. “Why would she do that?”

  “I don’t know. I never found out, and I’m not about to ask. Lady Eloise is not the proper lady she makes herself seem.”

  “I suppose not,” Celia said, still shocked by everything she was learning about her. Never in a million years would she have expected all of this.

  “Lady Eloise’s dinner parties are boring anyway, Celia. Be glad you didn’t go. Not that I hadn’t wanted you to go with me. After our conversation about Corin, I wasn’t sure you wanted to talk to me, so I didn’t ask you to come along.”

  Her mind going back to Corin, Celia sighed and waved the handkerchief in frustration. “A lot of good all that planning for the scandal did. Lady Hedwrett ended up in the room with him instead of me. I really wanted to marry him, Loretta. And before you say it, I already know what you think. But I’m still sure he wanted to be with me. Not that any of it matters. He’s married to Lady Hedwrett. You remember her, don’t you? The one who said she’s very happy as a widow and had no intention of ever getting married again?” She shook her head. “I wish I knew how she ended up in the den with him before I could get there.”

  “And after that, your brother forced you to marry Lord Erandon?”

  “Yes. He didn’t even give me a choice in the matter. He just took me to Sebastian’s townhouse yesterday morning and dropped me off as if he couldn’t get rid of me fast enough. Me! His own sister. If it weren’t for me, he never would have come to London and established all the contacts he did. He had no idea what to say or how to act because he’d spent his entire life in the country. Well, I did, too, but that didn’t stop me from going out and meeting people.” She turned to get a better look at her friend. “Would you believe when we first arrived here, I had to help him know how he should introduce himself to others? He was the most socially inadequate person I’d ever seen.”

  “I believe you,” Loretta replied. “I think you did a lot for him.”

  “I did! It’s because of me he even knows Mr. Jasper and Lord Steinbeck, and they’re his most prominent leads when it comes to what to invest in.”

  “Still, it wasn’t right of you to try to get Corin trapped in a scandal. I didn’t say no to helping you because I wanted to be mean. I didn’t want you to get hurt.”

  Celia considered her friend’s words as she studied her face. Loretta had gotten much more bold in her speech ever since she married Tad. No doubt, some of this ordeal with Corin was Tad’s doing. But Loretta honestly believed Celia would be better off with someone else. The realization stung because if Loretta was right, then it meant Celia’s judgment wasn’t as good as she thought it was.

  “Well,” Celia began as she wiped the last of her tears away, “there’s no changing things. I’m not married to Corin. Instead, I’m married to Sebastian.”

  “What do you think of your husband?” Loretta asked. “Is he a good gentleman?”

  She had expected that once the conversation went around to what she thought of Sebastian that she would feel her anger over being forced into marriage to return. But she didn’t. She wasn’t sure what she felt. She just knew it wasn’t anger. Yes, she was mad at Anthony, but she wasn’t mad at being married to Sebastian.

  With a sigh, Celia shrugged. “I don’t know what I think of Sebastian.”

  “You don’t know?”

  “I’ve only been with him for a day. I haven’t had enough time to get to know him.”

  “Su
rely, you have an impression of him, either good or bad.”

  “He’s all right,” Celia finally decided after a long moment. “I think he finds the whole marriage amusing. Apparently, there are a couple of gentlemen in London who find me intimidating.” She rolled her eyes. “Can you believe that?”

  “Well, you do have a way of being scary if you want to be.”

  “You’re jesting.”

  “I am not. Sometimes it’s difficult for me to tell you what I really think for fear of what you’ll say to me.”

  Celia couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “You’re my most trusted and dearest friend. We’ve known each other for years. We’ve shared things with one another that we haven’t told anyone else. How could you find it difficult to tell me what you think about anything? Especially after what you said about Corin.”

  “I’m not sure how to explain it. You have this…quality about you that tells others you will have whatever you want no matter what they think. It’s why your brother does so much of what you want.”

  Celia snorted. “If that was true, I wouldn’t be married to Sebastian. I didn’t agree to—”

  “I think Sebastian and Celia sound nice when said together,” Loretta blurted out.

  Celia stared at her friend. Had she lost her wits? Who cared how the names sounded together?

  “Is he handsome?” Loretta asked.

  “What does it matter how he looks?”

  “It matters immensely if you want to be attracted to him.”

  “Loretta, what has gotten into you? You never concerned yourself with such odd things before.”

  “Of course, I did. I thought your brother was attractive when I wanted to marry him.”

  Celia nearly gagged. Her brother? Attractive? To ladies? Sure, she thought her brother was fine, but she’d never thought of him as being sexually appealing.

  “Don’t mistake me,” Loretta hurried to add. “I find Tad attractive, too. It’s just a different kind of attractive. Tad has a masculine beauty about him that is highly sexual in nature. Anthony’s good looks are more of a boyish kind of charm.”