The Viscount and the Virgin by Annie Burrows Page A

before he found out her name was Hebden, though. She shook her head, saying firmly, ‘I am not at all the kind of girl a future earl ought to marry.’ As if to prove her point, the flounce parted from both her heel and the body of her skirt simultaneously.
    â€˜Well, that was what I thought at first,’ Rick mused. ‘For he only said he was going to help you find a husband. But once he clapped eyes on you, he did not let any of the other fellows come near you!’
    No, he had not. But it was not because he felt anything like admiration for her! With fingers that were shaking with chagrin, she tied the trailing length of lace into a knot so that it would not trip her up when she got out of the coach later.
    â€˜You know, Midge,’ Rick persisted, ‘since your aunt has had the dressing of you—’ he ran his eyes down her slender frame ‘—you look far prettier than you used to.’
    Imogen managed to raise a wan smile. In truth, hisblind refusal to look at her as other men did warmed her to the core. ‘When I was running about the fields in your cast-off breeches, with my hair in plaits, you mean?’
    Rick grinned. ‘With your front tooth missing and a black eye from falling out of a tree. Monty should have seen you then!’ He laughed.
    Imogen laughed too, but she could not think how Rick did not hear how false it sounded.
    He would be so disappointed if he ever found out what his friend really thought of her.
    But then, she sighed, slumping into the corner, Rick was only the latest in a long line of people she had disappointed, one way or another. Before she had become such a trial to her aunt and uncle, she had proved unworthy of inclusion in Hugh Bredon’s will. But worst of all, the deepest hurt she had to live with was knowing that she had not even been of any great comfort to her own mother.
    Amanda had spent all her life in mourning. She had found some compensation in nurturing Hugh’s boys, but now it dawned on Imogen, on a fresh wave of pain: Imogen had survived babyhood, grown and thrived, yet had never been any consolation at all. Having a mere daughter had never made up for Amanda’s loss of her sons.
    Imogen rubbed at a tension spot forming between her brows. Seeing how much her mother had loved Hugh’s sons, had she tried to be just like them, so that her mother would love her too? Not that it had done her any good. Her mother had focussed all her attention on them, even making Imogen promise, while she hadnursed her during her final illness, that she would take care of them in her stead.
    And now here she was, dressed by her aunt to resemble a young lady of fashion. With everyone expecting her to marry well. While inside she was still that girl Rick had just de scribed. A scruffy, grubby, unwanted by-product of a loveless marriage. Desperately hoping somebody might take to her just as she was.
    She almost groaned aloud. She had spent so long trying to prove she was just as good as a boy, that she had never learned properly how to be a girl. It was not just the viscount she repelled. She had already learned, from the year she had spent observing the interaction between the sexes in polite Society, that no man would want to marry such an awkward female. She may as well accept it. She had always been a misfit, and now it looked as though she always would be.
    Her aunt bustled up to the carriage then, so Rick was obliged to stand aside.
    â€˜What a stroke of luck!’ her aunt beamed as soon as the door closed and they were on their way. ‘That Viscount Mildenhall should turn out to be a friend of Captain Bredon’s. And that he is prepared to take you out for a drive tomorrow. Only think what this will mean!’
    â€˜Aunt, please, do not get your hopes up too high. It is just a drive in the park—’
    â€˜Yes, but with Viscount Mildenhall! Everyone will know he has forgiven you for the Champagne Incident. If he could,