Compromised with Her Forbidden Viscount
Autor
Diane Gaston
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24
A spicy Regency Romeo and Juliet–inspired story with a twist! To escape scandal… She must elope with the enemy! Anna Edgerton and Viscount Willburgh were raised as sworn enemies. But when they're caught in a seemingly compromising position at a Vauxhall masquerade, she has no choice but to accept his dutiful offer of marriage to save herself from ruin! When they're in the close confines of the coach to Gretna Green, their hostility gives way to a forbidden passion Will never imagined. But their newlywed bliss is short-lived once they return to society… Confronted by their feuding families, can they forge a love strong enough to heal the rifts threatening to tear them apart?
Chapter One
Viscount Willburgh wandered through throngs of shepherdesses, harlequins, Roman gods and goddesses, kings and queens of old, clergymen and devils, and dominos of every colour, all under a blaze of a thousand lamps hung in the trees of Vauxhall Gardens. Even if the revellers of the pleasure garden had not worn masks and half masks, it still would have been impossible to tell a servant from a lord from a pickpocket. Anyone could pay a shilling to be a part of Vauxhall Gardens’ masquerade.
Unfortunately his companions, lacking imagination like Will and the majority of men in attendance, had seen fit to don black dominoes with white masks. The two of them had disappeared into the throng of dancers in the Grove and Will had given up searching for them.
Why the devil had he agreed to this escapade in the first place? Attending a raucous masquerade at Vauxhall Gardens did not suit Will’s nature at all. Vauxhall was all illusion and decadence, but life’s reality was hard work and weighty responsibility.
Even so, there was much he could see—The Cascade. The rope walkers. The Chinese temple. He could even seek out the hermit in the farthest corner of the Gardens. None of it held much appeal. Affairs of state were plaguing his mind, especially after the Prince Regent’s message to the Lords advising the continuance of the seditious practices.
Should Parliament approve suspension of habeas corpus? There was certainly unrest throughout the kingdom, but was that not to be expected? The price of bread was high. People were starving. Should not the Lords be doing something about feeding the people instead of taking their rights away?
The festive music of the orchestra and the crowd’s gaiety did not sit well with such thoughts. Will edged his way to the relatively quieter Grand Walk, but a group of drunken carousers annoyed him even more.
Maybe a visit to the hermitage would do. At least it would be quieter down the Dark Walk, darker this night, because clouds covered the moon and stars, and the air carried the scent of impending rain.
The lamps in the trees that flanked the walk grew fewer in number, as did the promenaders, couples mostly, probably looking for a secluded nook for a private tryst. A wave of envy jolted Will. He’d never had much time for dalliances and, unlike his friends, had eventually concluded that amorous affairs of the temporary kind merely left him empty.
He ought to turn back. Find a boat to take him across the river. Avoid the rain.
He was about to do that very thing when he suddenly had the Walk to himself. Until some distance ahead of him a woman jumped from the trees. A man followed and seized her from behind. The woman cried out and struggled to get free, but the man covered her mouth and pulled her back into the darkness of the wood. Vauxhall was not all merriment; danger also lurked there.
Will sprang into action, entering the woods where he saw the man and woman disappear. The man was dragging her into a shelter, a private supper room designed for assignations.
Will charged the man, wrapping an arm around the man’s neck, choking him. The man, dressed in a domino and mask like himself, released his prisoner. She fell to the ground. A fist to the man’s face and a kick to his groin sent the fellow fleeing for his life. Will turned to extend his hand to help the woman to her feet.
‘Are you injured?’ he asked.
‘Shaken a bit, is all.’ She looked down at herself and gasped. ‘Oh, dear!’ The bodice of her dress was torn, revealing her shift and stays. Her hands flew to her chest.
‘Come into the shelter,’ Will said. ‘We can put you back to rights.’
A lamp lit the shelter enough for Will to see she wore a red hooded cape and a plain blue cotton dress covered by a pinafore. Or it had once been covered by a pinafore. The pinafore and dress were torn at one shoulder and now were held in place by the woman’s hand. Her eyes were a startling light brown, lighter than her hair, a warm brown shot through with gold where the lamplight caught it. She wore it down, as if she were a girl, not a woman. How old was she? Still masked she could be anything. A maid, a shopgirl, or even a harlot—although a harlot typically would not be struggling to free herself.
The shelter held a chaise-longue and a table upon which sat the lamp and a bottle of wine with two glasses, apparently arranged ahead of time.
The woman—girl?—turned away. ‘I—I am remiss in not thanking you right away, sir. I cannot imagine what I would have done had you not assisted me.’
Will could well imagine what the man had planned for her.
But he focused on the practical. ‘Do you have pins with you? To pin up your dress?’
‘I do.’ Still with her back to him she let go of the torn dress and lifted her skirt slightly to retrieve pins concealed in her petticoat. She set to pinning the bodice in place. ‘If only I could see...’
‘Turn this way,’ Will said. ‘I’ll help you.’
She’d managed to cover herself. Will needed only to straighten the fabric to make it appear as if it had been stitched. He stood close to her, close enough to feel the warmth of her body and the scent of her—lavender and mint and sunny summer days. Of one thing he was certain—she was a woman, not a young girl. He had not been so close to a woman in a long time, certainly not in such an intimate situation.
‘How do you know how to pin a dress?’ Her words were breathless.
His breath accelerated, heating up the inside of his mask.
‘I have a younger sister.’
The confounded mask. It made it difficult to breathe and even to see.
With an annoyed grunt, he pulled it off.
The woman jumped back. ‘You!’
Will was puzzled. ‘You know me?’
Her voice trembled. ‘Oh, yes. I know you, Lord Willburgh.’ She removed her own mask.
‘The devil...’ Will glared at her. No. Not the devil. ‘A Dorman.’ The name was poison on his lips. ‘The Dorman whose father killed my father.’
She bristled. ‘Your father killed my father! It was your father who challenged my father to a duel!’
He countered. ‘It was your father who seduced my mother!’
She lifted a brow. ‘Was it?’
This animosity had not begun with Will’s father’s death. The Dormans had feuded with the Willburghs for generations, purportedly over ownership of disputed land. It had really started three generations ago, when Will’s great-great-grandfather and that generation’s Lord Dorman fought over a woman, the woman who became Will’s great-great-grandmother. After that event the discord over the disputed land heated to a fever pitch. The fire was further fuelled by more romantic rivalry—Will’s great-grandfather’s affair with that generation’s Lady Dorman, and most tragically for Will, the seduction of Will’s mother by the current Baron Dorman’s ne’er-do-well brother, who knew precisely what he was about. Will’s father challenged that younger Dorman to the ill-fated duel.
They killed each other in that duel, a duel that changed everything for Will. At seventeen, he suddenly inherited a title, all its responsibility, and all the scandal that engulfed the family as a result. From then on—ten years now—Will’s carefree life as a young man had ceased. Life became nothing more than Duty. Duty. Duty.
Staring at this Dorman woman brought it all back. All his grief. All his anger.
Her eyes lit with fear and she backed farther away.
He did not usually allow that part of him to show. ‘Do not worry. I’m not going to kill you.’
Her voice turned low. ‘What are you going to do?’
Will took a deep breath and slowly released it. ‘I am going to finish pinning your dress and escort you back to wherever you should be.’
Will damped down his emotions and finished pinning the pinafore. She leaned as far away as possible as he did so. Even in his anger he experienced the allure of being so close to her.
He stepped back. ‘That should pass, if no one looks too closely.’
Without another word he walked to the door and put his hand on the latch. She followed. As he opened the door, a bolt of lightning lit up the sky, followed by a crack of thunder.
And pouring rain.
Damnation.
He closed the door. ‘We’ll wait out the storm. With any luck it will pass quickly.’ He inclined his head to the chaise-longue. ‘You may as well sit.’
She hesitated, looking wary, but she had nothing to fear, even if she was undisputedly lovely. He wanted nothing but to be rid of her.
She perched on the edge of the chaise as if ready to escape at any moment.
He walked over to the table and poured himself a glass of wine. ‘Would you like wine?’
Again she hesitated, but finally responded by holding out her hand.
He placed the glass in it and retreated to a corner to lean against the wall.
Will’s emotions waged a war within him. Again he remembered galloping across the land to try to stop the duel, arriving just in time to hear the loud report of their shots and see the smoke from their pistol barrels before both men fell. He rushed to his father. Blood poured from his father’s chest which heaved with every struggled breath.
‘Your duty now,’ his father gasped before his eyes turned sightless and his body went limp.
Will gulped down the whole glass of wine and poured himself another. His father had often warned Will he’d be Viscount one day and his father must train him for it. But his father never had the time.
Never took the time.
Instead his father died foolishly and Will had to learn everything on his own at seventeen.
Rain battered the roof of the shelter and thunder continued to rumble. Will concentrated on the sound until the wine and the weather lulled him back to a semblance of calm.
He glanced at the Dorman woman, sipping her wine and patting her hair.
‘Your hair stayed in place,’ he said, breaking their silence and remembering how he’d admired it.
Her hand returned to her lap.
‘Who are you supposed to be, anyway?’ He gestured to her costume.
She glared at him. ‘Red Riding Hood.’
He laughed. ‘And you were almost caught by the wolf.’
She straightened. ‘Or perhaps you are the wolf in disguise.’
‘Not the wolf. Not your grandmother either.’ He poured himself the last of the wine.
She pursed her lips, disapproving.
Disapproving his drink and accusing him of being the wolf? Who does she think she is?
Oh. Right. She was a Dorman.
He tossed back a defiant look. ‘So what the devil were you doing alone at Vauxhall? That was flirting with danger surely.’
‘I was not alone,’ she countered. ‘I was with my cousin and she met with—with—gentlemen of her acquaintance. Then we became separated.’
It was his turn to be disapproving. ‘Two young ladies unchaperoned, then?’
She glanced away. ‘I was the chaperone.’
Will laughed. ‘That was a hare-brained plan, was it not? Like two sheep to the slaughter. I daresay there is more than one wolf prowling around Vauxhall.’
She gave him a direct look. ‘I undoubtedly failed, did I not?’
‘Undoubtedly,’ he agreed, taking a sip of wine. ‘Do you and your cousin often come to Vauxhall alone?’
‘We were not alone. Lord and Lady Dorman and Lucius came, as well. They will wonder where I am. And I really must find Violet.’
He scoffed. ‘Cannot the gentlemen of her acquaintance be trusted to keep her safe?’
Anna took another sip of wine.
She certainly was not going to tell him that Violet had tricked her into a meeting with Mr Raskin, the Season’s most notorious rake, and his vile friend, the man who’d tried to carry her off.
Where was Violet? Was she in a shelter like this with Raskin? If so, Anna feared Violet needed no force to go with the man.
It had been Anna’s responsibility to keep Violet from doing anything foolish. Lord and Lady Dorman counted on her for that and would blame her for Violet’s behaviour.
Willburgh broke into her thoughts, his voice scathing. ‘And where was your cousin Lucius while you two young ladies met gentlemen of your acquaintance at a Vauxhall masquerade?’
Lucius and Willburgh had been schoolmates at Eton, Anna knew, and briefly at Oxford. Until the duel. Lucius returned to Oxford then. Willburgh had not.
‘I was not meeting any gentlemen!’ she snapped. ‘Lucius...’ Wait. Why should she tell him what happened?
He made a derisive sound. ‘Let me guess. Lucius abandoned you as soon as he was able.’
‘He didn’t abandon us,’ Although Lucius had pretty much disappeared into the crowd as soon as they were out of sight of Lord and Lady Dorman.
Anna ought to have insisted they all stay together as Lord and Lady Dorman expected, but would Violet and Lucius have listened to her? They’d probably planned to abandon her all along without a thought about leaving her unprotected.
A familiar ache returned, the ache of being alone in the world, belonging nowhere to no one. She could almost hear the words of her father, Bertram Dorman, her beloved papa, after her mother died—‘It is just you and me now. And I’ll never leave you.’
Thanks to Willburgh’s father, that was a promise her papa could not keep.
Anna’s eyes stung with sudden tears. She’d loved him so.
And he was not even really her father, merely the only father she’d ever known. Her mother, on her deathbed, had confided that her real father had been an officer in the East India Company army, killed when she was a baby. Her mother married Bertram Dorman not even a year after and he was the only father Anna could remember. She’d adored him and he doted on her as if the sun rose and set upon her.
Anna blinked her tears away. She was lucky the Dormans became her guardians and allowed her to live with them. Otherwise she’d have been sent to an orphanage.
As they often reminded her.
She glanced at the man who was her rescuer. He leaned casually against the wall, his long legs crossed at the ankles, his arms across his chest. He was taller and more muscular than she’d thought, but then, she’d never before seen him up close. She caught the scent of bergamot and sandalwood that clung to him as she had done when he pinned up her dress. He’d been so gentle pinning her torn dress, although there was no doubt of his strength. He’d displayed it by easily dispatching her assailant. He’d frightened her only briefly when his anger flared.
The Dormans hated him and the other Willburghs because of that silly family feud, so Anna had never been this close to him. She’d spied him occasionally in the village and glimpsed him at some of the Season’s society balls, but she’d given him a wide berth. Lucius had gone to school with him and perhaps something there made him particularly detest Willburgh, but Anna hated him because his father had killed her beloved papa.
This man was not responsible for that, of course. He’d been little more than a youth at the time. But his was the face her anger settled on.
At the moment Willburgh’s head was bowed, as if he were pretending she was not even there. That certainly did not help appease her anger. To be thought of as being of no consequence to anybody only angered her more.
She’d make him see her. ‘Where were you bound when my—my problem—detained you? Did I interrupt some important plans? Or were you merely wandering the Dark Walk in search of damsels in distress?’ Or was he planning to meet some woman in a shelter like this?
He raised his head as if he had indeed forgotten her presence. ‘I was on my way to see the hermit.’
‘Alone?’ She raised her brows.
He gave her a direct look. ‘Like the hermit, I was seeking escape from the crowds and the noise.’
Anna hated the crowds and the noise, as well. Indeed, she was not overly fond of London and all the delights of the Season. Ordinarily being caught inside during a rainstorm would have been a pleasantness.
‘You—you do not like Vauxhall?’ she asked him.
‘I do not,’ he responded.
‘Then why come?’
He shrugged. ‘I was talked into it.’
‘Oh, really?’ She let her voice drip with scepticism. As if a man like him truly could be talked into anything he did not wish to do.
Perhaps he’d been spurned by a lady companion—although somehow that idea did not fit him.
He shifted his position and took a step towards her. ‘I was separated from my companions, as were you.’
She doubted he’d been left on purpose as she had been.
He laughed dryly. ‘Perhaps it was fate. So I could rescue you and be stranded here.’
She lowered her lashes. ‘I am grateful to you.’
When she raised her head again their eyes met and their gazes held.
Until he took a breath and walked over to the window and looked out. ‘I think the rain has stopped. I’ll escort you back.’
She rose and gathered her red cape around her. Neither of them bothered to put on their masks. They reached the door together, brushing against each other as Willburgh turned the latch and opened the door.
Only to see Lucius and Lord Dorman, also unmasked, standing right outside.
‘Willburgh!’ Lucius reeled back as if struck in the chest. He recovered, leaning forwards again to glare at Anna. ‘You are with him? Him? How shameless can you be? With him!’
