Free The Viscount and the Virgin by Annie Burrows

would never have purchased it for her.
    It was not long before she was standing before the mirror, staring in shocked awe at the exposed mounds of her breasts and the shadowy outline of her legs through the diaphanous skirts. She flicked open her fan and looked at her reflection over the top of it, in the coquettish way she had seen other girls employ. Could she really bring herself to simper up at some poor un suspecting gentleman like that?
    Bother the viscount for forcing her into a situation where she felt obliged to resort to such strata gems! She snapped her fan shut and tossed it onto the bed as Pansyheld out yet another brand-new pair of evening gloves. The ones she had worn the night before had been beyond repair. Ladies’ gloves, she sighed, were just not designed to with stand bouts of fisticuffs.
    Only Rick’s response, when he saw her descending the stairs, managed to ease her con science somewhat.
    â€˜You look as pretty as a picture!’ he declared, bussing her cheek.
    â€˜Really?’ Imogen flushed with pleasure. The gown could not be too revealing, then, or her brother would have certainly let her know. Of course, she did not really believe she was as attractive as he had implied. She was not a beauty, like her mother. But she knew she was not an antidote, either. She smiled wryly. By the end of the evening her hair would most likely have escaped the bandeau into which Pansy had re strained it, and would be rioting all over the place. But at least she could start the evening out feeling as though she looked like a fashionably eligible young lady.
    â€˜Here, let me help you on with your cloak,’ he said, taking it from the footman who was hovering with it over his arm.
    â€˜Your aunt about?’ he murmured into her ear as he draped the fur-lined mantle round her shoulders.
    â€˜She will be down shortly, I expect.’ Her con science niggled at her again. Would she be feeling so glad to be covered up, if her gown was not verging on the indecent?
    â€˜Good. Wanted a word.’ He tugged her into the drawing room and pushed the door to. ‘It’s like this.’ He looked briefly uncomfortable. Then he took a deep breath and plunged in. ‘Glad you’ve made an extra effort tonight. With the dress, and the fancy thing in your hair,and all that. Because, you see, I was talking to Monty last night, and the upshot is, he’s willing to help you. Find a husband that is. The fellows he’s rounded up for tonight are both on the lookout for the kind of wife who would accept they have careers in the Army.’
    â€˜He…what?’ She sat down quickly on the nearest chair. ‘Are you r-roasting me?’
    â€˜No! Would not make a jest of a thing like that! He said he feels as though he knows you, through all those letters you used to write to me, and that you deserve to find hap pi ness with a man who will appreciate you, rather than some fashionable—’ he broke off, looking guiltily towards the door, through which her aunt might enter at any moment. ‘You ain’t angry with me, with us, are you? Just trying to help.’
    â€˜No, oh, no, I am not in the least angry,’ she ex claimed as she gave him a fierce hug. ‘How can I thank you! Best of my brothers!’
    His cheeks flushed. ‘It is nothing. Sure Gerry would do some thing, if he were here. So would Nick, if you could get his nose out of his books long enough to alert him to the fact that all’s not right with you.’
    No, she sighed. Neither of them would ever be likely to stir them selves on her behalf. Rick was the best of her brothers. He had always been the one to check her over for broken bones when she fell out of a tree, while Nick would cluck his tongue impatiently and Gerry would roar with laughter.
    Before either of them could say another word, they heard her aunt coming down the stairs. They went to join her in the hall, and embarked on the kind of