The Viscount Meets his Match: A Regency Romance

by Raven McAllan

  “Now you are talking in riddles.” Josephine couldn’t work out what to say to satisfy her parent. She suspected nothing short of a betrothal notice in the Times would do that. “It was a duty dance, no more, and if I had known it would cause so much trouble, I would have pleaded the headache I now have and refused. Seriously, Mama, it was one dance, nothing else.” She tamped down how much she had enjoyed it. How for once in her life she had forgotten for a few moments where they were, who she was and what the consequences of whom she danced with could be. “I wager the minute the music stopped, he breathed a sigh of relief that he had satisfied his godmother, and retreated to the card room.”

  That silenced her mama for a full thirty seconds. “I still think you could have made more of an effort to keep his attention,” the countess complained petulantly. “You do not make enough of yourself. You can appear quite, well, attractive, if you put your mind to it. Never a beauty, I’ll own, but a perfect wife-to-be. Really, at times I despair of you.”

  When have you ever not? “Made more of an effort? Why on earth?” Josephine asked. “What would be the point?”

  “Oh come along, Josephine,” her mama snapped. “Do not be so naïve. He must need to marry soon. His title is a courtesy one and not as high as ours, of course. Well, until he inherits. Let’s just say ours is older, but even so, what a catch.”

  “Of course,” Josephine said under her breath. “Ours is older, and that matters to you, but not, it seems, in this case.”

  “However, as the heir to a dukedom he will need his own heirs,” her mama rattled on. Luckily she seemed not to have overheard Josephine’s mutters, or if she had, she’d chosen to ignore them. “You could do worse. You need to think about your future. We can’t be here for you forever, you know.”

  You have never been here for me, and I doubt you are going to change the habits of a lifetime. “As you say,” Josephine replied with more patience than she’d thought she could muster. “And I have my future sorted. Northumberland and my cottage. I am holding you to your promise. Before long you will no longer have to worry about me, as I will be happy in my new life. I’m sure his grace will be delighted you worry over him and his potential wife and children. Nevertheless, I will not be the person to supply them. Now please, Mama, I have such a headache, and the sway of the carriage isn’t helping. Let me get home in peace and retire.” And perhaps think up some more excuses to fob you off with. This sudden interest in her future was not pleasant, and worried Josephine. She’d needed their attention twenty-four years earlier. It was now much too late. And, she suspected, not true interest. More as to how they could use David’s interest to their own ends. A horrible but, she suspected, true scenario.

  “Very well, but we will continue this tomorrow,” her mama decreed. “Perhaps we ought to buy you a new riding habit. In case…you know. It could be money well spent. After all, any woman should be honored to be his duchess, and it might as well be you as anyone else. I’m sure your antecedents show us in a good light.” ‘Even if you choose not to’, her tone inferred.

  Josephine sighed and closed her eyes. This conversation was going around in circles and contributed nothing to her throbbing head, and it wouldn’t be polite to say that to spend money on a riding habit that would be cut down to something more wearable before that long was ridiculous.

  “Please, Mama, no more.”

  “Make sure you take a powder.”

  We will continue this discussion tomorrow,” her mama said again. “Make sure you take a powder.”

  Did the elder woman think if she repeated herself ad nauseam it would make it sound more palatable to Josephine? If she did, she was wrong.

  “I rather thought we would,” Josephine said wearily. “Even though there is no more to be said.” All this unwanted attention was unnerving, to say the least. She thought she preferred to be ignored. Josephine gritted her teeth, wedged herself into a corner and prayed they would soon be home. She staggered up the stairs to her room and stood passively as her maid undressed her, slipped a nightrail over her head and pushed her into a chair. Then Mary unpinned her hair and gently massaged her scalp, and Josephine sighed with relief as one layer of tension was released.

  “Blissful.”

  “There now,” Mary said in a motherly, comfortable way that amused Josephine as Mary was no older than she. “I’m not going to tug at it. You just get into bed, drink the tisane I’ve left for you and sleep in. You’ll feel better in the morning.”

  “I hope so.” Josephine let herself be helped into bed and tucked in like her nursemaid used to do when she was a child. Sometimes it was good to be cossetted.

  * * * *

  It was the only cossetting she got. After a restless night, where her dreams were full of a certain viscount who kept dancing with her and telling her it was her duty to amuse him, she wasn’t surprised to find all the covers in a tangle when she was woken what seemed to be only minutes later by an apologetic-looking Mary.

  “Mary?” she asked, groggy from lack of sleep. “What now?” She blinked as the shutters were opened and light flooded into the room, and waited for her headache to reappear. Except for a slight thickness she could put down to her less than restful slumbers, she felt fine. “What time is it?”

  Mary shook her head as she plumped up pillows and handed Josephine a mug of chocolate. “It’s past twelve, and there’s a note from that Viscount Lyttlethorp. He’s calling in an hour to take you for a drive. To help your headache, it says. Be thankful, your mama has left to go to Richmond with Lady Pugh and Countess Derringham and your papa is, at a guess, in his club. He left with Mr. Martin an hour ago. I did say I’d let you sleep, but this is so exciting, eh?”

  No wonder she was still tired—she’d not had more than four or five hours of broken sleep.

  “If you say so. I’d class it as an annoyance myself. Do I have to go?” Josephine asked plaintively. “Can I not make my apologies due to this terrible headache?” Why she asked she had no clue because Mary’s response was a foregone conclusion.

  “My lady,” Mary gasped, aghast. “He’s the heir to a dukedom.” If she had said ‘the heir to the Holy Grail’ she couldn’t have sounded more reverent. “Of course you must go. Think how happy it will make your mama. She will be in alt.”

  “I know,” Josephine said in a doom and gloom tone. “That is one reason why I do not want to. Remember, Northumberland soon. Leading my own life. No ton, no irritating rakes, rogues, or peers. No parents to upset. Anything that makes Mama think it might not happen, when I am determined it will, is just going to complicate things. Drat the man. I was better off when he, and she, ignored me. At least I knew where I stood. Now? I’m at sixes and sevens and have no clue as to what might happen, and rue the day he decided to annoy me. He and my mama are each an unstoppable force in their own right, but together? Lord almighty, what chance do I have? It was better when they paid no heed to me.”

  “Ah but surely this is preferable?” Mary opened the wardrobe and took out a smart riding dress in a deep cherry red that suited Josephine’s fair coloring. “I can’t think of a finer man to court you. After all, he is one that most look up to. Now I’ve drawn you a bath and, once you are ready, I think this is the one. With the hat with the two feathers, and your new kid half boots. Perfect.”

  “Not from my point of view it isn’t.” Josephine pushed the bedcovers back and swung her legs over the edge of the mattress. The words ‘court you’ put a nasty taste in her mouth and a disagreeable flutter in her stomach. Or she told herself it was that and not pleasant anticipation of what might come to pass on the outing and afterward. “None of it is,” she added, more to convince herself than Mary. “It is too bad. I was going to walk in the garden, then have a leisurely afternoon visit to Hatchards before I prepared for yet another boring and uncomfortable evening, this time at Lady Salmonds’ musicale. The only good thing about that is few men attend, it is seen as too tame for them. Now you have upset it all.”

&n
bsp; “Not me—his lordship,” Mary said as she shook out the riding habit and laid it on the bed. “And it is an honor.”

  “You have a point with regards to his meddling and not with regards to the honor.” Lord, why was all his attention directed at her? Why not at someone who would appreciate it? “Very well, as it seems I have no option.” Josephine sighed deeply. “I suppose the red will do.”

  * * * *

  David wondered what his reception would be. He understood how high-handed he had behaved and had debated as to how she would respond. At least it hadn’t been a note saying ‘Go to Hades’, which, if he were honest, he had half expected. Instead, a terse ‘Thank you, I would be delighted’ intimated more in what it didn’t say than in what it did. He suspected delighted was the last thing she would be, but his mind was made up. Lady Josephine Bowie deserved more attention from him. It had been a long while since someone had intrigued him as much as she, and it behooved him to act on that. If it annoyed her, so be it. As he was certain the interest would decrease once he got to know her better, she would not be inconvenienced for long.

  Hold on… This is all me, my and me. The fact he might hurt her had never occurred to him, she was so adamant she wasn’t interested. No, she would curse him to the devil, show her impatience and no doubt do her best to ignore everything she chose to, and merely heave a sigh of relief when his attentiveness waned as it surely would. Which led to the knotty subject of why he was doing what he was. Surely this heightened inquisitiveness was due to two things. One, he had acquired all his un-entailed inheritance without his parents’ knowledge, and secured it—and his future—and two, he had not pursued a woman in an age.

  With that sorted out to his satisfaction in his mind, David tossed his reins to his tiger and took the steps to the Bowies’ front door two at a time. It opened as he approached it and Josephine swept out, clad most elegantly in a deep red riding habit and a matching hat with two jaunty feathers over one ear. She looked, he decided, ravishing. Why had he never seen how alluring she was before? He looked her up and down and grinned. The glare she gave him made him bite his lip to ensure he didn’t laugh out loud. She certainly looked as though someone—no doubt him—had ruffled her feathers. He couldn’t resist ragging her.

  “A sight for sore eyes indeed, my dear.”

  She harrumphed and stepped past him. “And you are not a sight for a sore head. In fact, you are more likely to increase the pain. Can we go before anyone sees you here?” She stood by his curricle and tapped her foot impatiently on the pavement. “That would at least alleviate one of my worries.”

  “Why? After all, they will see us in the park.” He bowed very extravagantly and chuckled. “This is where I say your carriage awaits, my lady.”

  “That is another thing set to annoy me. You are,” she said as he handed her up and moved around to take the reins, “so very trying. Stop attempting to be pleasant. You are also one of the most aggravating, irritating people it has been my misfortune to meet.”

  “One of the nicest things ever said to me.” David waited until his tiger jumped up and set the vehicle in motion. “You, meanwhile, are one of the few who are not sycophantic.”

  “Well, why on earth should I be— Hold on…” Josephine thought over his words. “You said the park?”

  “Yes?” He glanced at her. “It is the perfect temperature.” He raised one eyebrow in interrogation, even though, of course, he knew exactly what she was getting at. “Are you cold?”

  Josephine rearranged her skirt until not even one boot-shod toe was visible before she tutted and gave him a disgusted look. “Of course I’m not cold.” She looked up at the sun. “That is not what I’m talking about.”

  “No?” He hid his grin and checked the horses as a stray dog took exception to their presence and rushed toward them snapping and snarling. His tiger jumped down and shooed it away until a grubby urchin grabbed it by the scruff of the neck and dragged it away. Henry, the tiger, re-boarded and David turned the equipage in the direction of the nearest entrance into the park. “Five minutes and we will be free of this traffic.”

  “And into the gossiping type. Why, oh why are you doing this, my lord?” Josephine demanded. “You do not take up young ladies for rides in the park. It is well known.”

  “Didn’t. I’m a reformed character,” he said in a complacent voice. “Well, to the extent that I now will take up one certain lady to ride in the park, no one else. I look forward to discovering what it all means.”

  “For goodness’ sake.”

  Her tone didn’t inspire confidence in him that she was about to be an amenable and interesting companion. Anything but.

  “Why reform with me?” Josephine asked in a voice full of long suffering. “Why not pick someone who appreciates it?”

  The verbal sparring was more than enjoyable. It made David wonder how she would cope with sexual badinage. Probably thump him as she had done Lord Percy. That was not the scenario he aimed for. His privates clenched at the thought they might be attacked.

  Even so…he had to say it.

  “The thrill of the chase,” he said as they approached the queue of traffic waiting to enter the park. Already, interested glances were being thrown their way. He wondered if Josephine had noticed. “And the result, of course.”

  “So just to appeal to your jaded senses, you will mess with my intended future. I am not a pheasant for the plucking,” she said sotto voce. “And people are staring.”

  “I know, but you are so much fun to rile.” They maneuvered through the gateway and began to move steadily up the track. “No, do not pucker up or make a fist like that, you’d break your fingers if you used it on me.”

  Her fingers uncurled and then re-curled in a different way, and he chuckled. “Much better. Smile at Lady Jersey, she is on your right.”

  Josephine gritted her teeth and made a facsimile of a smile. She dipped her head and Lady Jersey, with a knowing grin, responded similarly.

  “Now she will tell the world and his wife, including my mama, we were here together. My papa will be deciding how to word the notice to the papers. You are an unmitigated nuisance.”

  That told him. “Really? All you are doing is taking a turn around the park. Perfectly respectable and the perfect day to do it on.”

  “Pshaw.”

  He’d never heard it expressed so perfectly or by someone so young. “If you say so.”

  “My lord, please, do not patronize me. Perfect? Not at all. For some reason you have decided to single me out. I have no idea why unless it amuses you to upset other people’s lives. If so, why the—why on earth did you have to choose mine?”

  David steadied the horses as they came to the end of the track and all the carriages in front slowed to execute the turn and go back the way they’d come. He followed the others and they picked up speed again. Should he be honest?

  Why not? What have I to lose, apart from my manhood? “You interest me. I need a wife. I feel we could suit.” Now where on earth had that come from? His subconscious? He examined his mind. His father would hate the partnership, and think her not suitable. He would expect a curvaceous diamond of the first water, who would defer to her husband, give him an heir and do as she was told—or someone who would defer to him, the duke, and make sure David did so as well. Not a slim, pretty, albeit alluring blonde with a mind of her own. Perfect. However, there was a lot more that drew him to her. A lot more. None of which he was able to voice at that moment. Not if he didn’t want his face—or worse—rearranged. “Shut your mouth, my dear. You look like a fish.”

  “I feel like one,” Josephine muttered. “One you are very skilfully reeling in. But remember, between reeling in and catching, a lot can happen. Now take me home.” She glared at him, smiled sweetly at a young matron in a garish green dress and dipped her head at a bosom-bow of her mama’s. “Now,” she snapped. “Or next time we meet, my hat pin will be in my hand and aimed at you.”

  Her expression decided it for
him. As he had suspected, she was in no mood to listen to him or his other reasons for his behavior. “Your wish is my command.”

  “If it was, we would not be here,” she said tartly and rolled her eyes. “That’s really done it. Mrs. Sedgefield is over there in that dark brown barouche. She is a particular friend of my mama’s. The gossipmongers will be at it immediately, all vying to be the one to share the news. You are a nuisance and a menace and I am sick of you.”

  “Oh, why not tell me exactly what you mean.” David was rapidly losing his temper as well. Did she not know the honor he had bestowed on her? To break his rule and drive her in the park and to intimate he wanted her to be his wife? And all she could do was rail at him.

  Oh my, listen to me. What do I sound like?

  “Careful,” he warned. “If you are not on guard, you will get a reputation as a viper.”

  “Better that than to be known as someone you are dallying with,” Josephine stated. “Who wants to be seen as your light skirt?”

  “Hell’s teeth, woman,” he hissed as they exited the park and drove away from the all-knowing eyes of the ton. “I am not bloody dallying with you. I want you to be my wife, though why on earth I do, heaven only knows. You are the most infuriating woman I have ever met.”

  She sniffed. “I’m so glad heaven does, because I have no idea either. Let me get this straight and into your thick mind. We. Would. Not. Suit.”

  That wasn’t what he thought. Not even after that exchange. David held his tongue, and they drove back to her parents’ house in an uneasy silence. Once there, he gave the reins to Henry and moved around to assist her to alight from the curricle. It was like holding a lump of wood as he helped her down and she punctiliously took her leave.

  David watched until she entered the house and climbed back into his curricle. Time to plot the next stage.

  Chapter Four

  “What is this I hear?” Lady Bowie burst unceremoniously into her daughter’s bathing chamber as Josephine tried to relax before dressing for the soiree. “Why didn’t you tell me? Oh my goodness, a ride in the park. Why, it is as good as a declaration. You will soon have your own establishment. When will he call on your papa?”