The Viscount's Valentine (Classic Regency Romances)

by Donna Lea Simpson

  He stopped in his pacing. Knowing she would be there tomorrow and the next day . . . Those were his exact thoughts! In truth he could no longer imagine each day starting and ending without seeing her, talking to her, touching her. Twelve years ago he had stopped still in a London ballroom and gazed at the sweetest, prettiest girl he had ever seen, and he knew, instinctively, that she was someone special to him.

  If he had followed his heart that night and asked her to dance, he might have understood himself better and made a push to make her his own. Instead he had let his head rule his heart, had tried to push away the thought of her, only to find out she was married to someone else and it was already too late for that dance, that single dance.

  And now twelve years later he had not learned a thing. He had never forgotten her because she was the one. She was the one woman to whom he could give his heart and soul, and know it to be safe and cherished. Instead he had tried to seduce her. Fool! He had taken her sweetness cheaply, as if it could be discarded after a sample, like Haymarket ware.

  She was the love of his life and had been from his first glimpse of her at a crowded Valentine Ball. His physical passion for her remained unabated, but there was so much more to it than mere lust. He had recognized that she held a power over his senses that no other woman ever had, but he had passed it off, and now had lost his chance.

  Was it truly hopeless? Could she ever forgive him for the way he had treated her? He could do nothing about Nellie’s infatuation for him. That was the result, he rather thought, of his reputation, for some women found it titillating to make love to a rake. That kind of woman was either convinced she could make him over with her love or was willing to just take the experience of lovemaking with him as a feather in her cap.

  More serious to him was that he had pursued Honey with no serious intentions, willing to bed her and discard her. Although he rather thought that if he had been able to woo her into his bed he would have discovered there the secrets his heart held from him. How could he make love to her without discovering that he was in love with her?

  But what could he ever say now to convince her of that love?

  Chapter Nine

  Honey gazed at herself in the cheval glass as Virtue bustled around behind her, putting things away and bringing order back to the room. In the mirror she saw a pale young woman, her honey-blond hair piled high with long tendrils framing her oval face. Her eyes looked huge in the dim lamplight.

  She wore a clinging aqua dress of sheer floating material over an ivory satin underslip. A train of ivory and silver lace floated behind her from two diamond clips at her shoulders, and her pale arms were encased in ivory satin gloves above the elbow. She hadn’t wanted to go to the ball, but some stubborn pride made her determine that she had done nothing wrong, so let Nellie hide away, or Bron. She would not.

  As she descended the stairs alone she could hear the crowd of people who had been arriving for an hour or more. An invitation to Longmoor Abbey was unusual enough that people had gone to great lengths to accept, traveling through the afternoon with servants and luggage, for the abbey was prepared to offer them hospitality for the night.

  She had not spoken to Nellie all day, but knew from Virtue that her sister intended to go to the ball. The abigail had said, through stiff lips, that Nellie was boldly unrepentant and called Honey a prude and a puritan. Honey suspected that something very bad indeed must have happened between Nell and her husband for the girl to act in such a way. She was spoiled, but not licentious. Or at least she had not been in the past. Once she was in love with her husband.

  Honey braced herself, as she neared the public rooms, and took a deep breath before nodding to the waiting footmen to open the doors for her.

  It was a dazzling spectacle that greeted her eyes. The ballroom was actually three rooms—the withdrawing room, a formal parlor, and the largest dining room—with adjoining pocket doors slid open to make it into one long room. It was filled with brilliantly gowned ladies and dark-clad gentlemen, and the noise was a babbling wave of sound that washed over Honey, and almost physically pulled her in.

  Eleanor, her pockmarked face lit by a kindly expression, moved toward her from a circle of young ladies whom she was greeting.

  “Honey,” she said, and put her arms around the other woman. “I am so glad you decided to come down. I was afraid that after your tumble you would not feel up to it.”

  Honey gazed down at the aqua satin toe of her dancing shoes. “I almost decided not to come. Did . . . has my sister come down?”

  “She did,” Eleanor said, then clamped her lips tightly together. Her eyes said much more, though.

  “I am sorry for all of the trouble we have caused you; that scene last night was . . . was . . .”

  “My dear,” Eleanor said, taking Honey’s arm and steering her into the room. “None of this is your fault.” She spoke as well as she could over the noise. “I have seen how Bron has made a dead set for you, and then to take your sister to bed . . . it is below what I thought him capable of.”

  “I have been thinking about that,” Honey said, glancing around, relieved not to see Bron anywhere. Maybe he had decided to stay away. “It was a strange scene, and I cannot help but think that Bron did not expect my sister to come into his room. I have a feeling she crept in there when he was not aware, perhaps even while he was sleeping, and that . . . that he was trying to throw her out.”

  Eleanor gave her a pitying look. “Bron, throwing someone out of his bed? My dear, if that is what you need to tell yourself . . .”

  They became separated, as Eleanor needed to see to some emergency related to her by a footman. Honey, overwhelmed by the sight of so many people all together at one time, wondered if she had made the right decision. The orchestra, on a dais in the middle of the ballroom along one wall, warmed up, adding to the cacophony of voices, as lines formed for the dance.

  “Miss?”

  The voice made her whirl, to find Bron bowing before her. He straightened and there was an odd light in his bright blue eyes. Honey tried to harden her heart to him, but found her soul would be truthful. He was a sight to gladden her heart. But why did he call her “miss”?

  Bron gazed into the wide startled eyes and felt his heart throb and his gut ache with longing. Self-discovery had been very painful, he found, for he had to admit that he was within a day or two at the most of losing what had become so very precious to him. What were the chances that she felt for him the deep love he had discovered in himself for her? But he had determined that all he could do was to enjoy the moment, the sight of her in lovely aqua, the color of her eyes, and perhaps the feel of her in his arms. He had decided to go back in time to twelve years before, when he had the chance of a lifetime and had wasted it on caution. He had been cautious as a young man, he would learn to take his chances now that he was older.

  “Miss, I was wondering if your first dance was spoken for?”

  He smiled inside to see her puzzlement. She remembered promising him the first dance what seemed a lifetime ago now, but was less than twenty-four hours in reality.

  “It is,” she whispered, staring into his eyes. “I am promised for this dance.”

  “And has your partner shown up, or may I hope that you will be free to dance with me?”

  She frowned and he felt a rush of love and desire for her as he begged her with his eyes for the chance to dance with her.

  “I suppose . . .”

  “Good,” he said, and swept her into the line. She was silent through the dance, and he knew that she had not forgiven him. How could she when she didn’t know the whole story? And how could he ever tell her that, without impugning the character of her sister, whom she must love. But he had sworn not to plague himself with all of the things that would never be and just to enjoy her company, if ever he had the chance again.

  Nellie was there too, head held high, avoiding both his and her sister’s eyes. But her composure was brittle, Bron thought, and more than once a tear
glistened in the corner of her eye. He and Honey had just rejoined for a figure of the dance when a commotion rippled through the line of dancers.

  Honey gasped and looked down the line at where her sister stood, furiously arguing with a man in water-stained traveling garb over the strains of the orchestra. “Oh, no!”

  “What is it?” Bron said, pulling her to his side. The rest of the dancers had stopped and the orchestra tailed off, sensing perhaps that something was amiss.

  “It is Nellie’s husband, John! And they are quarreling. I think something happened between them, and that is why she came running up here to me from London, even though she has not said anything to me about it. I think that is why she . . . . why she came into your room and tried to seduce you.”

  Bron felt like a bolt of lightning had struck him. He twirled Honey around to face him, though she was tugging at his arms, trying to go to her sister. “You mean you know that was not me? That I did not invite her into my room?”

  “I suspected. Nellie has not been right since she came here, and she acted so differently. She’s never done anything like that before, you must believe me. I think she needed to prove something to herself, and that is why she so blatantly . . .” She shook her head, and tried to twist away from him. “I must go to her!”

  “We’ll go together,” Bron said, and took her arm and marched down the room to the arguing couple.

  The words became clear as they neared. The dancers had formed a circle and avidly watched the combatants, for there is nothing more exciting than a good fight between married people or lovers to fuel gossip, and Mrs. Smythe was busily whispering in people’s ears the whole story.

  “. . . how you could run off from me in this manner I do not know! Just because that idiot Lovell threw you over for another woman?”

  “John Jordan, how can you say such a thing, as if you don’t even care,” Nellie screeched. “You never challenged Lovell, never even showed any anger or jealousy . . .”

  “Because I thought that was what you wanted; a ‘civilized’ marriage, you said. Like other couples, free to go your own way.” The young man took her shoulders in his gloved hands, snow dripping off his greatcoat and onto the marble ballroom floor.

  Honey approached on Bron’s arm and worriedly circled the couple, who did not even notice her in their heated anger.

  “I wanted you to care,” Nellie screamed, wrenching one hand free and beating her husband’s shoulder with it. “You don’t care anymore, you don’t love me! You are always working, and you go away on trips without me, and you . . .”

  John Jordan yanked his wife to him and planted a hard kiss somewhere near her mouth while she struggled. Then he kissed her again and she calmed, swaying to him with a little moan. He put her from him and stood, darkly furious, before her. “Is that the kiss of a man who doesn’t care? It killed me to see you flirting with that fop Lovell, and to know you were going to his bed. I paid him to discard you, you little idiot—told him I’d kill him if he didn’t—because I couldn’t stand to see you with him anymore!”

  “Then you were a fool and paid for nothing, because I was never in his bed! I would go to Sally Becket’s place and stay, just to make you think I was cheating, but you—never—cared!” She punctuated the last three words with more blows to her husband’s shoulder.

  “You weren’t cheating?”

  “You threatened to kill him?”

  First John and then Nellie realized what the other had said. They rushed at each other and threw their arms around each other. Like the denouement of any good theater piece, the audience broke into applause, and the two sheepish lovers fell apart.

  Nellie saw Honey and Bron nearby, and shamefacedly said, “Oh, Honey, I am so sorry about last night! I didn’t really want . . . it was me who went to his room, but Lord Alvarice . . .”

  “I say,” John Jordan said, staring at Bron. “Aren’t you Blackheart . . . er, Viscount Blackthorne?”

  “In the flesh,” Bron said, suppressing his laughter over this strange couple’s manner of fighting and making up.

  “Most amazing gossip about you in town right now!” the young man said, his square face lighting up.

  “I know the gossip,” Bron growled. “And if you would keep your head attached to your body, I would not repeat it!”

  “Oh, I say! But this is good! That Spanish girl, whatever her name is, has confessed all! Seems the man of the hour was her English tutor, randy young fella, and the father of the chick she is incubating. Her da, a right fierce old gent, Don Pedro de something or other, had her in seclusion and was goin’ to send her back to Spain if he couldn’t find you, but the girly confessed. Seems she and the tutor fella had a brief courtship, anticipated the vows, and then he was dismissed. He’s the Earl of Cramdenshire’s grandson, or such.”

  Bron gazed steadily at the ruddy young man’s open countenance and felt a surge of relief. The end he had been hoping for, and had hoped to ensure by escaping London and forcing the girl to be honest, had come about. He was glad she was not trying to entrap him, but it seemed she had merely been using him to escape from the forced marriage she was to enter with the elderly German prince. Once again he had come to the rescue of a girl for the sake of a young lady named Honey, but this time it had turned very, very bad. Though not so bad in reality, for it had sent him from London and straight to Honey’s arms. If only . . .

  “And so what is going to happen?” he asked.

  John shrugged. “Don Pedro is allowing the marriage, s’long as the fella converts to their popish religion. Seems he doesn’t mind, and they’re set to wed before her . . . er, condition shows too much.”

  Gordon, who had been nearby and heard everything, clapped him on the back and pulled him into an embrace. As his friend led him away to the refreshment table to stand him a drink, Bron saw Nellie and Honey embrace, and Honey go with her sister toward the stairs.

  The ball continued, though the conversation was equally divided between buzzing about Nellie and John’s very public quarrel and reconciliation and Bron’s return to grace. Eleanor danced with Bron, a waltz.

  “I am sorry I misjudged you, but when you came here not wanting to go by your real name and title, and then I heard the story . . . I thought you had finally stepped over the line. I should have known it was just one of your romantic turns.”

  He easily forgave her, but then she gazed up at him steadily again, and said, “That does not explain, though, what you have been doing with Honey. Are you pursuing her? And for what reason?”

  “Are you her guardian of a sudden, my dear?” he asked.

  “I feel . . . responsible for her, for some reason, yes.”

  “She is a grown woman, a widow, and does not need a guardian.”

  “And yet she still seems so . . . oh, untouched. Don’t you think?”

  He gazed down into her intelligent gray eyes. They were waltzing past the doorway into the great hall, which was flung open, and he saw Honey hugging a cloaked Nellie and the tall form of her brother-in-law, John Jordan. The married couple left, and Honey, with one swift glance into the ballroom, fled down the hall.

  “She does,” Bron said.

  The dance ended, and Eleanor was claimed by her next partner. Bron had not committed himself to any other dances, and slipped from the ballroom. After the revelations that his exile was over, he felt curiously light and free. He approached a footman and whispered a question. The man nodded toward the library down the hall, and went back to duty.

  Bron made his way to the library, which was lit with lamps and candles in case anyone needed a quiet retreat for a few minutes. He entered and closed the door behind him. She was in the same big armchair she had been in a few nights before when he had found her alone. But oh, how different his intentions were now.

  She looked up at him, her pale skin glowing in the candlelight. She was not surprised to see him, he thought.

  He knelt beside her chair and gazed up at her, taking her hand in his. She had
removed her gloves, and her hand felt small and soft and cold. He chafed it and laid a kiss on the palm, then curled her fingers around his thumb.

  “I have an apology to make to you,” she said.

  “And I to you.”

  “I misjudged you. I don’t know what happened with that Spanish girl . . .”

  “Briefly, she was being forced into a marriage with an older man and was desperately unhappy. I tried to help her out of it, but she was using me to break it off irrevocably.”

  “Oh. She must have been very frightened and very desperate. When you are young your family can use so many pressures to make you fall in with their plans. That is what happened to me. My father said I would never see my mother again if I did not marry Abner Hockley. He needed the settlement money to cover our debts.”

  “You poor sweet. I wish I had known, I wish . . .”

  “But you didn’t know me. You couldn’t have helped me.”

  Their voices were a whispery echo in the dim library. In his heart, Bron was saying, Ah, but I could have, but that was not the moment. “But I know you now,” he said, instead. “Honey, I have come to understand so much more about myself this week than I have ever known before. Enough to know I want you. I need you.”

  She shuddered. He stood and gathered her up into his arms and held her close, warming her cold, bare arms with his big hands. He pulled her to him and lifted her chin. “Honey,” he whispered. “I . . .” There were no words for what he was feeling, and so he claimed her lips, his body quivering with love and desire as her slender arms threaded around his neck and her slim fingers jammed into his hair. Icy chills went down his back and he released her lips, gasping with suppressed ardor.

  Her sweet face was a mask of confusion, and she tried to pull away from him.

  “Don’t you want me, too?” he murmured into her ear, pulling her back to him and holding her firmly.

  Tears trembled in her lovely aqua eyes. “I do,” she sobbed. “That is the trouble!”

  He thought he understood and cursed himself for a clumsy dolt. She still didn’t know his intentions!