The Viscount and the Virgin by Annie Burrows Page B

thing!’ She grabbed his arm and hauled him round. ‘If you get into a fight over this, everyone will say I am just like my mother, luring good men to their doom! Don’t you see?’
    His eyes flicked from her to the door and back again.
    â€˜Dammit, Midge,’ he growled, ‘it’s my job to bring the fellow to book.’
    â€˜No,’ she countered. ‘It is your job to protect me. And you won’t do that by making a fuss about… about…’ she swallowed down her outraged pride ‘…a mere trifle. All you will do is stir up even more gossip.’
    She glanced over her shoulder then, fearful that the viscount would come storming into the house after her. He would be bound to act in such a way that nothing she could say would stop Rick from murdering him!
    â€˜It won’t be just my chances for a good marriage I will lose. I won’t even be able to get employment in a respectable house hold. Oh, please, Rick, can you not just take me home and pretend this never happened?’
    He reached out and, with one gloved finger, touched a spot on her cheek.
    â€˜I say, is that blood?’ he hissed through gritted teeth. ‘If the fellow has really hurt you, Midge, no matter what you think, I will have to call him out!’
    â€˜Blood?’ She blinked, bewildered for a second. ‘Oh, I should think that is probably his. I bit him.’
    â€˜You…bit him?’ Rick looked startled.
    â€˜Yes, and then I hit him, both hands, just as you taught me. One—two!’ She mimed the punches for his edification.
    He looked a little mollified. ‘Don’t suppose you laid him out, by any chance?’
    â€˜No,’ she admitted ruefully. ‘Though I have put a mark or two on his face, and ruined his coat.’ She remembered the look on his face when soil had rained down on him, and couldn’t help smiling. She had hit his most sensitive spot. His vanity. No wonder he had not come indoors yet. He would not want anyone to see him covered in dirt!
    She came out of her daze to find Rick rearranging her shawl so that it concealed her torn bodice.
    â€˜Come on then,’ he said, putting one arm comfortingly about her shoulders. ‘I shall take you home.’
    It was only then that she realized she was going to have to give an excuse for leaving so suddenly.
    â€˜My aunt!’ she cried, stopping dead in her tracks. ‘I cannot go back into the ballroom looking like this!’
    â€˜Don’t you worry,’ Rick said, ushering her inexorably along the corridor that led towards the front hall.
    â€˜I shall tell her you have a headache or some thing. Females are always falling ill at events like this, aren’t they?’ Rick pressed Imogen into a chair, and strode across to a footman who was eyeing them indolently. ‘Hi, you, fellow! Take a message to Lady Callandar, will you? Tell her I’ve had to take Miss Hebden home. Sudden in disposition.’ He lowered his voice. ‘And tell Viscount Mildenhall I will catch up with him later, at Limmer’s. Had to escort my sister home.’
    â€˜Lady Callandar that Miss Hebden is in disposed,’ repeated the footman, pocketing the coin Rick pressed into his palm. ‘And Viscount Mildenhall that you will be at Limmer’s, after taking your sister home.’
    Satisfied he had the message correct, Rick hurried back to Imogen’s side.
    She barely registered him shepherding her out of the front door and into a waiting cab.
    Oh, how right her mother had been to warn her to beware of exchanging furtive kisses with rakes by moon light! She hated the viscount. She really did. And yet, when he had swept her into his arms, the emotion that had been up per most had not been revulsion at all. But excitement.
    The feel of Viscount Mildenhall’s tongue sweeping into her mouth had been as intoxicating as champagne. Exhilarating bubbles had fizzed through her whole