The Viscount's Valentine (Classic Regency Romances) Read online

  And it was that chivalrous impulse that led to his trouble in late 1819, and the necessity to get out of town quickly shortly after he spent Christmas with his mother in Bath.

  Chapter Two

  1820

  January

  Yorkshire

  Thirty. In two weeks, on Valentine’s Day, she would be thirty years old, Honey Hockley thought, sitting by her parlor window working on some household linens that required mending. It was the kind of job a housekeeper could be expected to take care of, but since her last had been pensioned off after Mr. Hockley died three years ago, Honey had decided not to replace her.

  After all, what did a woman who lived alone need with a large staff? She did not even keep a butler, preferring the informality of a maid answering the door. As well, since Abner died she had much more free time, time that used to be taken up with her nursing duties to him. It was good to keep busy, she had learned, through the long cold winters of Yorkshire.

  But still, mending a tear in a bedsheet did not keep her mind occupied, and it returned as it often did to that long-ago time laughingly referred to as her season.

  One ball. That was the entirety of her recollection. She gazed out the window at the snow-covered landscape, the hills behind dotted with sheep, outcroppings of gray rock the only relief to a harsh view. Life since that night had taken on a monotonous quality that made that one night a shining beacon and an unalloyed pleasure.

  That night she had not known her father’s intentions. That night she had believed that yes, she would need to marry, but that she would be able to engage someone’s affection, someone kind, someone good, and live a happy life out of her father’s house.

  Instead her hand had been given to a hunched, evil-smelling old man who even then was ill, though he refused to admit it. She had endured five years of his meanness before he became bedridden. But even then, her sense of what was owed to the man who raised her family from penury was too strong to abandon him to a hired nurse. She did it herself for four long years, until one night as she sat at his bedside he just faded from life. She had no children.

  And for three years now she had sat at this window, watching the life of the moors and heaths of Yorkshire pass by her window. She snipped a thread, and rethreaded the needle, holding it up to the gray light that came in the window.

  Again her mind returned to that ball, the Valentine’s Day ball where she celebrated her eighteenth birthday. She had been besieged by admirers, to her surprise. She had never expected such success, and it had heartened her. The evening had flown by. So many kind, nice men! William Conroy, stout and out of breath, but so gentle and complimentary. He would have made an exemplary husband, she thought. And in vulgar cant, he was well to grass, rich enough even for her father’s avarice. She had thought that though her father intended to choose her husband for her, it would be from among men who had shown interest in her.

  But the very next morning, after an extraordinary dream of a pair of cobalt blue eyes that burned in a pale face—she remembered those eyes still, though she would not be able to place the man in a crowd—her father had announced his decision.

  No point in all this season folderol. Going to hitch you with Abner Hockley. Got plenty of blunt, and willing to spend it to buy a pretty trinket to decorate his home and look after his collections.

  That was all her father said, and how she found out about her impending marriage. She hadn’t understood at first. The full horror of what her father had done did not sink in until later that day when all of her admirers from the previous night were turned away and their offerings of flowers tossed after them. He had already signed the marriage settlements, he told her, and she would be married within the week.

  She had rebelled. Never before had she refused to do anything her father had told her, but she did this time. And when he commanded her to comply, she had run away to her aunt in Bath, her mother’s sister. Her mother had helped her pack, horrified by what her father was doing.

  But he learned where she was and came after her, hauling her unceremoniously back to their rented rooms in London. For two days she was locked in her room with no food and a guard at her door. Her father would alternately badger and wheedle, but still she refused. Finally, though, he lost what little patience he had ever possessed. If she refused to follow his orders, she would be sent to an uncle of his in Scotland. Never again would she be allowed to see her mother, nor her younger sister or brother. Nor would she even be allowed to correspond with them.

  At eighteen, knowing her father was capable of such a deed, she had felt the full sting of that threat. Her family was all she had, and to be sent from them, never allowed to see them again . . . She had capitulated. Two days later, on a dreary, snowy February day, she was married in a dismal chapel to a man who collected her as he did his enamel snuff boxes. He took her immediately north, not wanting anyone else to see her, hiding her away as he did his collection, for his own greedy perusal. So dismal and frugal was her household that she rarely saw her family anyway. And Lockworth, where Mr. Hockley made his home, was almost at the Scottish border; perhaps she should have held firm and risked her father’s sentence, for life was not so very different after her marriage than in his dreadful edict.

  But there was no point in moping. Her marriage and the money that came to her family had allowed her brother to study at Oxford and her sister to marry decently. Nine years after her marriage she was widowed, at last, and felt the perfect hypocrite in black, for she did not mourn. It was a kind of freedom that she looked forward to, freedom from the petty tyranny that Abner had practiced even from his bed.

  Her father was dead too, having died even before the frail Abner Hockley, the result of too much wine, his doctor said. Her mother now lived in Bath with her sister, Honey’s aunt, the one she had run to twelve years before. Her brother, Roderick, had become a respected cleric and scholar, and Nellie, her younger sister, had been married for six years now.

  So, good had come from bad after all, and she could not regret that long-ago decision she had been forced to make. But still, Honey felt restless, like there was some kind of change coming, something that she could not control. She loved her village, Lockworth, and Lockworth Moor, the long, wild hill that rose above it. Her own home, the finest in the small community, was at the high end of the village, so she had a view of the village from her breakfast room and of the moors from her parlor. Her delight was her rose garden in the summer. But winter had set in, and it would be long, she knew from experience. There must be more than this hummed through her brain like the refrain from a song. She sighed and broke off her thread after setting the final, fine stitch.

  • • •

  At least there was still dancing, Honey thought the next night, her toes tapping to a lively polka as she stood arm in arm with her sister, Nellie, who had arrived unexpectedly that very morning for what she promised would be an extended visit. Maybe this was the change she had foreseen, she thought, glancing over at her sister’s pretty face.

  Nell, as blond as Honey and a full five years younger, was gazing around herself at the gathering, the monthly assembly at the Lockworth Ballroom, though the grandiose title was overwhelming for the humble space occupied by three fiddlers and a piano player. “Not exactly a tonnish gathering,” Nell said, her pert nose held high.

  “It does fine for us,” Honey said, cheerfully. “We are not tonnish people.” She knew her sister, living in London as she did, was used to more elegant surroundings, but she had always suspected that Nell exaggerated the company she kept in London. Her husband, John, was a nice fellow and not badly off, but he had no aristocratic pretensions, nor did he move in those circles.

  The dancers were a mix of farmers, lawyers, the local doctor, landowners, and whoever else desired to attend. They drank punch, ate sandwiches, danced, talked, played cards, all to the tune of the only locals who could play instruments.

  Honey accepted the outstretched hand of Mr. Fold, the draper, and stepped i
nto the line of dancers with a merry smile. She returned after the tune out of breath and laughing, to find herself the object of a steady gaze from across the room. A tall, lean man with brown skin and eyes that stared out of the dark like azure fire, stood next to a local landowner, Sir Gordon Tern. Breathless now from more than the dance, Honey returned to Nell’s side.

  “Who is that very good-looking man?” Nell asked, nudging and pointing toward Sir Gordon and his friend.

  “I . . . I don’t know. I’ve never seen him before.” She didn’t for a moment think her sister spoke of Sir Gordon, not when the other man was next to him.

  “He is staring at me in the most familiar way,” Nell said and giggled. “P’raps he shall ask me for a dance.”

  Honey did not mention that it seemed to her that the gentleman was staring at her, not Nell. Maybe her sister was right, for she was very pretty, as well as being more modishly dressed, and living in London must be more used to the attention of men. The two gentlemen started over toward them, circling the energetic dancers who had started up a polonaise.

  Finally, Sir Gordon bowed before the two women.

  Honey was always uneasy with Sir Gordon, for the man had, on more than one occasion, intimated that he would like to take the widow Hockley as a mistress. He had stayed just within the bounds of civility, but the implication was there and no amount of snubbing by Honey had turned him away.

  “Mrs. Hockley, charmed to see you looking so festive,” Sir Gordon said, eyeing the bosom of her dress, a rosy confection that was daringly low-cut for Yorkshire society.

  Honey flushed, wishing she had not worn this new gown.

  “Introduce us to your friend, and I will return the favor,” he continued, bowing over Nell’s hand.

  “This is my sister, Mrs. Jordan,” Honey said.

  “And this is my friend, Mr. Black,” Sir Gordon said.

  The taller man bowed and took Honey’s hand in his own, holding it overlong, then laying a kiss on the rose satin of her glove. The candlelight glinted off his hair, giving blue lights to the darkness, echoed by the deep blue of his eyes. He was very tall, broad-shouldered, and with a bearing that could only mean he was a military man.

  Nell shouldered past Honey and smiled up at the handsome stranger. “Mr. Black! How appropriate your name, given your handsome hair coloring.”

  Honey’s eyes widened in surprise. Nell spoke familiarly, as if she knew the gentleman, and with a flirtatious lilt in her voice. At that moment Mr. Touley, the barrister’s clerk, came toward them and bowed low.

  “Pardon the interruption, ladies, gentlemen.” He turned to Honey. “May I have this dance, Mrs. Hockley?”

  “Certainly, Mr. Touley,” she said, with a sigh of relief.

  As the dance progressed, she saw that the two gentlemen had left Nell standing alone, pouting, while they ambled around the dance floor. But every time she looked in their direction, she could not help but see Mr. Black’s eyes on her, and it made her extremely uncomfortable. Why did he stare? She could no longer believe that it was Nell he had been looking at, for his eyes followed her, burning into her even when her back was turned in the figures of the dance.

  She returned to Nell, who had recovered from her fit of pique after a very young man had made a cake of himself over her. They drifted to the refreshment table, with Nell chattering at brisk pace.

  “The latest scandal,” Nell whispered about London society gossip, her favorite topic of conversation, “is about one of London’s premier rakes. Lord Alvarice, Viscount Blackthorne.” She sighed. “It is said he can seduce the most virtuous young lady just by looking deep into her eyes. It is rumored he mesmerizes them! The latest on dit is that he has seduced and then abandoned a very virtuous young Spanish lady! She was to marry Prince Schtuckhauser—you know, that German prince. She was awaiting his arrival, and attended a ball. Blackthorne spoke to her but once, during a dance, and three days later she ran away with him!” Nell looked around and lowered her voice. “Some say he abducted her. And now she is carrying his child!”

  “Nell! I do not believe in ill-natured gossip.”

  “He promised her marriage, and then after he got what he wanted, deserted her!”

  “Nell!”

  “He had to escape London or be hanged by an angry mob, it is said. He was pelted in the street with clods of mud. Isn’t that exciting? But the girl, Doña Isabel Asuncion, will not see him prosecuted! Perhaps she still loves him.”

  Honey sighed and turned to her sister. “Nell, I meant what I said. I do not believe in gossip.”

  “But just think,” Nell said, hanging on to her sister’s arm with a tight grip. Her voice was hushed but with an edge of thrilled excitement. “How black his heart must be for him to do such a dreadful thing! That is his name in London; Blackheart.”

  Honey picked up a glass of ratafia for her sister and one for herself. She hoped the drink would cool her sister’s vivid imagination and lust for scandal. “I told you I do not believe in gossip, and I have more than one reason for that. Things become so twisted in the telling that there is no saying what the truth of the matter is. And even if things are just as they have been told, there could be an explanation of it all, one to which the public is not privy. Why would the girl not allow him to be prosecuted if he abducted and . . . and forced himself on her?”

  “Why, because she fell in love with him! It is said that he is irresistible. No woman is proof against his charm.”

  “Rubbish,” Honey said, forcefully. “I will not believe that any woman, young or otherwise, could be so foolish as to fall in love with a man who would treat her so ill! We are not such irrational creatures as that.”

  Nell, her nose in the air, said, “Anyone can see that you have never been in love. You know nothing, living in this . . . this backwater! Dancing with law clerks and drapers! Peasants!”

  But Honey did not answer for she saw, with alarm, that Mr. Black, whose eyes had never left her, was walking her way. And he had the most determined gleam in his blue orbs. She looked around for an escape, but then realized how idiotic that was. She had just said how rational women were, and now she would stand by that judgment and not be scared off like a silly rabbit eyeing a fox. Calmly she turned and watched him approach.

  Chapter Three

  Was it really her? He couldn’t bring himself to believe that after all of these years the woman who had haunted his dreams would be found in a rustic backwater, and that he would find her while running from scandal in London.

  That he had been forced from the city was bad enough, but the fact that he had almost been trapped into marriage by that little trollop was unthinkable. He still did not know if that was her plan all along, or whether there was something else afoot with Doña Isabella. So now he traveled as Mr. Black, living with friends along the way. He had been wondering if he ought to leave England altogether, go someplace sunny and warm, away from dreary January in this cold and at the moment inhospitable country.

  After all, he was a man of means, rich, respectable—well, not entirely so at the moment; in fact, his reputation as a rake was well established even without this last trouble—and . . . and bored out of his mind with his life of debauchery. He shook off that thought as a dog does rainwater.

  He gazed at the object of his dreams, the woman who haunted him. Twelve long years had intervened to make his memory fuzzy and his recollection tempered by time and sorrow and trouble, through a long war and seasons on the town, wooing and bedding more women than he cared to remember. Was it really her? As Mrs. Hockley was returned to her sister’s side by her dance partner, he found himself leaving Gordon behind and moving across the floor with single-minded determination. He saw her start, and her blue eyes widened as she saw him approach. How could a woman who must be . . . well, if it was his own sweet Honey she must be thirty, or almost thirty . . . how could a woman of that age, and who had been married for many years before her widowhood, according to Gordon, be so shy?

  Fin
ally he stood in front of her. “Mrs. Hockley,” he said, bowing. The sister was moving restlessly, trying to get his attention, but he had no time for flighty, flirtatious chits. “Would you do me the honor of saving me the next dance, the one after this just starting?”

  She glanced at the program in her hand and nodded, wordlessly. He bowed again, and walked away, toward the steward of the ballroom. He could hardly wait to touch her, to hold her, even if it was only to dance. He needed to find out what it was about her, a woman he had only now exchanged fewer than half a dozen words with, that had stayed with him through many years and many more women. And to that end—to have her as close as he wanted—he took the steward aside and pressed some gold into the man’s palm, whispering to him.

  As the music played on, he watched from across the room. If it was her, she was even more beautiful now. She had been a slender, sylph-like girl, little more than a child it had seemed to him at the time, just out of the schoolroom. Now she was a lovely widow, mature, voluptuous, with a soft seductive light in her blue eyes and still the same honey-colored hair and delicate, blooming skin. And the low cut of her dress, though high by London standards, gave him a thrilling view of a lovely womanly bosom. His fingers itched to touch her, her skin, her hair, her body.

  Was that all it was? A male need to sample her charms, devour her sweetness?

  As the music for the current dance wound to a halt, he made his way to his partner and claimed her, taking her trembling hand in his own and moving out to the dance floor with the aplomb of many seasons on the town. The steward hopped up on the dais where the musicians sat and waved his hand to get everyone’s attention. He whispered to the musicians, one of them nodded, and then he cleared his throat.