Taming The Viscountess

by Ruth Ann Nordin

  Celia put her hand on her stomach. “I’ve heard enough.” Truly, if she had to listen to Loretta talk about her brother in such a way, she just might lose her breakfast.

  “What does Sebastian look like? Do you find him pleasing to look at?”

  “You’ve never seen him?”

  “No. I’ve only heard of him.”

  “Oh, that’s right. You weren’t there when my brother had him over at a dinner party. That was shortly after he brought Damara to London.” After a moment, Celia added, “It’s hard to think of Sebastian in the way you want me to. I had my heart set on marrying Corin all this time. He was the only one I found the least bit appealing.”

  “I know, but even so, you can say whether Sebastian is attractive or not.”

  Realizing that her friend wasn’t going to give up, she reluctant admitted, “He’s handsome in his own right.”

  Loretta clapped her hands, surprising Celia with her excitement. “I want your marriage to be like the kind I have with Tad. Celia, you have no idea how wonderful it is to be consumed by a gentleman’s complete devotion. It’s one of the best things in the world. My hope is that you’ll have that with Sebastian.”

  Celia didn’t know if she’d ever share her friend’s enthusiasm for her own marriage, but she couldn’t deny her friend’s heart was in the right place. She honestly did want her to be happy.

  “Everything has happened so fast,” Celia said. “I have to get used to the fact that I won’t ever marry Corin before I can process anything else that happened to me.”

  “You’re right. Things have changed so fast in a short amount of time.” Then, as an afterthought, she added, “For both of us. We aren’t where we thought we’d be last year.”

  “No, we’re not.” Nothing had gone the way either one had expected.

  “I’m glad we’re still friends,” Loretta said.

  Celia’s gaze met Loretta’s, and she smiled. “I am, too. No matter what happens, we’ll always be sisters in spirit.”

  “Yes, we will.”

  “Should I have the butler bring in something to eat and drink?”

  “Yes, that would be nice. I wouldn’t mind some fruit and tea.”

  “I’ll tell him right away.”

  Celia watched as her friend hurried to summon the butler. It was nice that, despite all the hectic changes that had been forced upon her, she could depend on Loretta to be a steadfast friend. Even with everything that had transpired between them, Loretta’s loyalty had never wavered. For the first time in her life, Celia felt tremendously blessed.

  Chapter Eight

  “You’re still alive?” Ethan called out as soon as Sebastian entered White’s.

  “Of course, I’m still alive,” Sebastian replied, aware that all of the gentlemen had stopped to look at him. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

  “Because you married a shrew,” one of the gentlemen replied.

  The others laughed.

  Sebastian hid his amusement. A shrew. Celia was nothing of the sort. But let them think it. It would make the wager that much more interesting.

  “Is there anyone here who’d like to make bets on how soon I will or will not be returning my darling wife to her brother?” Sebastian asked.

  Another gentleman snorted. “Darling wife.”

  “There’s nothing darling about Miss Barlow,” one of the others said.

  The gentleman who had tried to get Sebastian to leave the establishment last time approached him, so Sebastian told him, “I was invited to make a wager at this place. Lord Edon and Mr. Robinson extended the invitation.”

  “Yes, we did,” Lord Edon hurried to say as he and Mr. Robinson rushed over to Sebastian. “We have a very interesting bet to make.” Lord Edon turned to the other gentlemen, some of whom had left the other rooms to see what was going on. In a voice loud enough for all to hear, he said, “Who would like to wager how soon Lord Erandon is going to return his shrew of a wife to her brother?”

  To Sebastian’s pleasure, about half of the gentlemen seemed eager to participate.

  “Just so everyone understands the terms of the wager,” Sebastian began, “I am betting that I’ll keep her with me. I will not live apart from her at any time. And more than that, in six months or less, I will turn the shrew into a sweet lady.”

  To this promise, the gentlemen murmured amongst themselves over whether or not they believed he could perform, as he overheard one gentleman tell his friend, “such a miracle”.

  “We’ll make the details of the wager in that room,” Mr. Robinson said, gesturing to the large room nearby.

  As Sebastian headed in that direction, a gentleman he didn’t recognize intercepted him. He stopped and looked up at him.

  “Forgive me for interrupting,” the gentleman said, “but I wanted to make sure I understood this correctly. Is the lady you’re going to make this wager about Miss Celia Barlow—Lord Worsley’s sister?”

  “Yes, though she’s now a viscountess,” Sebastian replied.

  “Lord Erandon was the only one brave enough to marry her,” Mr. Robinson added with a pointed look.

  “I’m the Duke of Lambeth,” the gentleman told Sebastian, ignoring Mr. Robinson. “I don’t know if your wife mentioned me, but I happen to be married to a lady who is her friend. Her name is Loretta.”

  “I only married Celia yesterday,” Sebastian said. “I haven’t had time to get acquainted with who she does and doesn’t know.”

  “I wouldn’t think so with the way she barges into rooms and orders him around,” Lord Edon commented.

  “Did that really happen?” one of the gentlemen asked.

  “Yes,” Mr. Robinson answered. “Ethan and I were both there. She came in and demanded to have what she wanted. She was like a bull heading straight for a matador in Spain.”

  “Or a determined hound sniffing out a fox,” Ethan added. “She let Lord Erandon know that he was going to talk to her right then and there, and there was nothing he could do about it. Right, Christopher?”

  “He told her to wait, but she didn’t listen,” Christopher said. “She was going to make him do what she wanted whether he liked it or not.”

  Around him, most of the gentlemen broke into laughter.

  Sebastian nearly dropped the crutch. Was that what they thought happened yesterday? That Celia had managed to pin him down and do what she wanted? That he was so weak that he wasn’t going to stand up to her?

  Well, the matter of the bet had been amusing before, but now it was altogether different. He had his honor to save. He couldn’t let everyone think he was a sniveling coward. He was going to prove he was the one in control of the marriage, and he was going to get wealthy while doing it.

  “Forgive me if I seem like I’m telling you what to do,” the Duke of Lambeth told Sebastian over the laughter, “but I don’t think it’s appropriate to be betting on a lady this way.”

  “That’s because you have nothing to prove,” Sebastian whispered so the others wouldn’t overhear. “A captain who becomes the laughingstock of his crew isn’t worth his ship.”

  “You’re Captain Egan?” the duke asked.

  “I’m no longer addressed as such, but yes. Do I know you?”

  “No, but I’ve heard great things about your ability as a captain.”

  “I assure you the boast was not in vain.” Even if Sebastian didn’t have a ship anymore, he would always be a captain. “I also don’t make promises I can’t keep.”

  Turning from the duke, he hobbled over to the room where a long table, a ledger, and a decanter full of brandy waited. He went directly to the decanter and poured himself a glass of brandy as the other gentlemen came into the room. He slid his glass to the nearest chair and pulled it out so he could take a seat.

  About fifteen gentlemen sat down, and Ethan grabbed the ledger and opened it. Sebastian didn’t know if Ethan was appointed to handle all wagers that took place here or if he was doing it for this particular one, but the others accepted his ro
le easily enough.

  Sebastian took a sip of the brandy and glanced at the unfamiliar faces. Minus Ethan, Christopher, and the five gentlemen he’d paid back from his brother’s loans, he didn’t know any of them.

  Ethan grabbed an inkwell and waited for everyone to quiet down before he spoke. “There are two rules to making wagers here,” he told Sebastian. “One, if we pull our money out because we change our minds, we lose half of the money we put in. The money we lost will go to the running of this establishment. Two, we don’t mention a word of this outside of White’s. A wager is a serious matter, and only those in this establishment are privy to it.”

  Oh. Sebastian hadn’t been aware of that. “What happens if someone tells a person outside of White’s about the wager?”

  “Then the wager became null and void,” Ethan replied.

  That was exactly what he didn’t want to hear. He had hoped there would be a penalty to pay for spreading gossip. He had told Celia about the wager already. Would she be willing to keep the secret? He sure could use the money this would give him. A good portion of Celia’s dowry had gone to the gentlemen his brother had been indebted to. He would feel a lot better if he had more. He would have to discuss this matter with Celia when he returned home.

  “All right,” Ethan said. “We’ll start the wager with Lord Erandon.” He gestured to Sebastian. “What do you think you can manage when it comes to your wife?”

  “Six months from now, my wife will be living with me and she’ll be a sweet lady,” Sebastian replied.

  Ethan wrote his answer in the ledger then glanced around the table. “Do we want six months to be the standard of the wager, or would someone like to bet that Lord Erandon will send her to her brother’s sooner than that?”

  “I give it no more than a month,” one of the gentlemen said.

  “Then I’ll mark Lord Asheley down for one month,” Ethan replied as he wrote in the ledger.

  “Put me down for five months,” Christopher called out. “She might be horrible, but Lord Erandon isn’t afraid of anything. He did lose a leg, after all. In five months, he’ll return her to Lord Worsley.”

  Ethan marked that down. “Anyone else want to wager five months?”

  Two hands went up, and he wrote that down as well.

  “Who says Lord Erandon will last four months with his wife?” Ethan asked.

  Three hands went up, and he marked those gentlemen down.

  From there, each of the gentlemen voted, and before long, all of the bets had been recorded in the ledger. Sebastian mentally calculated up how much he would stand to win if Celia didn’t tell anyone about the wager.

  Thirty-six pounds.

  He couldn’t believe these gentlemen were willing to wager so much. He knew they believed Celia to be the most impossible lady in London, but he had no idea what little faith they had in him. When they lost their money, they were going to deserve it. It would be good for them to learn that they shouldn’t underestimate the ability of a captain to be able to handle his own crew.

  They had such little faith in him because they were weak. All of them would have cowered under Celia’s foul mood within the hour. Was it no wonder Ethan and Christopher ran as soon as she entered the room? They wouldn’t have managed one full day at sea. So, really, it would do all of them some good to learn that they should not take a captain’s ability to do the impossible for granted.

  ***

  Celia returned to the townhouse right after she visited Loretta. She wouldn’t say she felt better about Anthony forcing her to get married, though she held no ill will toward Sebastian. He’d seen an opportunity to acquire a sizable portion of money, and he’d taken it. She would have done the same thing if she’d been in his position. Money was money, regardless of how one got it.

  And honestly, it didn’t bother her all that much to be coming home to Sebastian. Sure, he wasn’t the gentleman she’d spent a year hoping to marry, but he really wasn’t all that bad.

  She bypassed the footman as she entered the townhouse and was ready to head up the stairs to her bedchamber when Sebastian called her name. Stopping, she turned her attention down the hallway and saw Sebastian standing at the doorway of the drawing room.

  “I have something I need to discuss with you,” Sebastian told her.

  “Can’t I change clothes first?” she asked. “I’ve been wearing this old thing since I ate this morning.” She gestured to her gown.

  “You can change after we talk. Besides, there’s nothing wrong with wearing the same gown all day.”

  She gasped. Surely, she hadn’t heard him right! “A lady of my high esteem wouldn’t dare stay in the same gown for an entire day.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it’s not done. Only poor ladies stay in the same clothes an entire day. And I am not poor.”

  “No, and that leads me into something I want to talk to you about.” He nodded her to the drawing room. “I need to discuss something with you at once.”

  She shook her head. “You’ll have to wait until I change gowns. I should only be an hour.”

  “An hour?”

  “It takes time to look presentable.”

  Sebastian gave the footman a look that prompted the footman to take her by the elbow.

  “I can go by myself,” she snapped, shocked the footman was actually leading her to the drawing room. All Sebastian had to do was look at him, and the footman instantly did his bidding?

  “I’ll have him carry you instead if you wish,” Sebastian said.

  Noting the warning tone in his voice, she relented and went to the drawing room without the footman’s help.

  She plopped down on the settee and crossed her arms. She waited until the doors were shut to the room before she muttered, “I can’t believe I let you see me and touch me in ways no one else does.”

  He smirked as he headed in her direction. “You didn’t come into this marriage as the pure young virgin. Granted, you didn’t do everything, but you did enough.”

  “Only once. Gentlemen engage in far more than that before they ever marry.” Well, maybe except her brother. Her brother had lived the life of a monk before he married Damara. But he was odd.

  Sebastian reached the settee and sat beside her. “You’ve done more than I ever have. But,” he set the crutch next to the settee, “that doesn’t bother me. And,” he leaned toward her and shot her a wicked grin, “I think it was well worth it for both of us since you took the lead and showed me how to pleasure you.”

  Despite the warmth in her cheeks, she said, “I found it…entertaining enough.”

  “Well, I certainly had an enjoyable time. I knew from the moment I saw you that you would be passionate. You’re also highly attractive without any clothes on. Some gentlemen like tall and thin, but I prefer curvy and busty. You’re exactly my kind of lady.”

  Though she was loathe to admit it, the compliments came as a very pleasant surprise. She was so used to overhearing gentlemen discussing how tall and thin ladies were their preference. It was nice to hear Sebastian actually say her body type was more appealing to him. But, of course, he could be saying that because he was stuck with her. No, that didn’t make sense, either. Why would he bother complimenting her? He was already married to her.

  “You really find me attractive?” she asked, just to hear it again.

  “I do.” Then he shot her a smile that made her heart give a flutter she thought she’d only ever experience with Corin. “I had no idea what you looked like when I agreed to marry you, but I’m very happy with the match.”

  Was it a betrayal to Corin to be excited by Sebastian’s words? Corin had cared for her. She was sure of it. Even though he’d been pressured to say otherwise because others around them didn’t approve of the match, she was convinced he had harbored a love for her.

  She supposed it didn’t matter what Corin thought, one way or the other. She’d never be with him. Corin was with Lady Hedwrett, and she was with Sebastian. Nothing would chang
e that.

  “Do you mind if I ask where you went today?” Sebastian asked, interrupting her thoughts of how Lady Hedwrett was going to end up falling in love with Corin once she got to know him.

  “I went to see my friend, Loretta,” she said.

  “You didn’t go to your brother to scream at him or slap him?”

  Noting the humor in his voice, she felt a smile tug at her lips. It was difficult not to smile when someone had such wit. “No. Anthony was fortunate this time. I’ll have to save those things for another day.”

  He chuckled. “I’d be tempted to go along to watch. You had him baffled yesterday. He looked like he had no idea what to do with you.”

  “He knew exactly what to do. He pinned me down until the vows were exchanged and then ran off.”

  “Yes, but he looked like a crewman who’d never set sail before. Lost and confused.”

  “That’s how he looks all the time. If it weren’t for me, he wouldn’t be where he is today. When we first came to London, he was far too shy to approach anyone. I had to teach him how to make friends.” She shook her head and sighed. “People have no appreciation for everything I had to go through so he could be established in the Ton.”

  “I have a feeling if you had been born a gentleman, you would have made a good captain. Not afraid to take command. Not afraid to instruct others on what should and shouldn’t be done. Not afraid to let others know what you’re thinking. But it’s to my advantage you’re a lady.”

  Catching the way his gaze swept over her body, her heartbeat picked up. Perhaps he’d brought her in here to remove her clothes. Maybe he wished to touch her again. He might even insist she touch him. Had she not experienced the most wonderful orgasm she’d ever had in her entire life that morning, she might not have been so excited by the prospect.

  He leaned toward her, and she held her breath. Would he kiss her first, or would he reach for her?

  To her dismay, he did neither. Instead, he looked her straight in the eye and asked, “How did your visit with your friend go?”