The Viscount and the Virgin Read Free

fortunate than them selves!
    Well, if that was what it meant to be a young lady,she was glad her new guardians thought she was not one! She would never sink to the kind of unkind, sneaky behaviour those cats indulged in!
    â€˜And when I think of the lengths,’ her aunt went on, ‘Mrs Leeming went to, to get him there at all! She will be furious with me! He has only recently come into his title, and is up in town for the express purpose of finding himself a bride with all due speed to ease the last days of his poor dear father, the Earl of Corfe. And Mrs Leeming has two daughters she particularly wished to bring to his notice.’
    No wonder he was a bit conceited, thought Imogen, if he was the son of an earl on his deathbed. Especially if he was used to females flinging them selves at him because they all knew he was in town in search of a wife. But to bracket her in their company, just because she had waved her arm about… why, she had not even known he was standing behind her! What, did he think she had eyes in the back of her head?
    He might be breath takingly handsome to look at, but if he could not tell a genuine accident from a deliberate ploy to attract his notice, he obviously had the brains of a peacock, as well as the strut ting gait of one!
    â€˜What were you thinking?’ her aunt continued. ‘No—’ She closed her eyes, and held her hands up in a gesture of exasperation that had become all too familiar to Imogen over the past year. ‘On second thoughts, it is point less asking you that! Not after the constant stream of excuses you have come up with ever since Lord Callandar brought you into our home on the death of your step father.’ She opened her eyes, eyes that were now filled with such sadness it brought a lump to Imogen’s throat.
    â€˜It is such a pity my husband did not remove you from—’ she took a quick breath, and mouthed the words ‘That House,’ before continuing in a normal tone ‘—much sooner. You should have come to us the moment your mother died. Or even a year or so later, when it was the proper time to bring you out. Then I might have been able to do some thing with you. You were young enough then , perhaps, to have had some of your faults ironed out.’
    She heaved a sigh. ‘Of course, although one can sympathize with your poor dear mother, for she never really re covered from—’ she pursed her lips and squeezed her eyes shut again ‘—that Dreadful Tragedy, nevertheless—’ her eyes snapped open ‘—she should not have permitted you to run wild with those Bredon boys.’
    â€˜My brothers,’ Imogen could not help blurting. She knew that girls were not supposed to argue with their elders and betters. But some times she felt so strongly that she simply could not hold her tongue. Her uncle had informed her, less than one week after taking her in, that it was her most deplorable fault.
    â€˜Properly reared young ladies,’ he had said, the corners of his mouth pulling down in chagrin, ‘should never set their own ideas above that of any gentleman. In fact, they should not even have them!’
    â€˜Not have ideas?’ Imogen had been astounded enough to reply. ‘How can that be possible?’ She and her brothers had been used to having the liveliest of conversations around the dining table when they were all home. Even her step father had enjoyed what he termed a stimulating debate from time to time. ‘ Step brothers,’ her aunt was firmly correcting her. ‘They are not blood relations.’
    Imogen flinched. When Hugh Bredon—the scholarly man she had grown up to regard as her father—had died, his second son, Nicomedes, had done his utmost to disabuse her of the notion she had any legal claims on him.
    â€˜My father never adopted you,’ he said coldly. ‘In the eyes of the law, you are not my sister. And there fore it would be