The Reluctant Viscount. Lara Temple

       Extract

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       Chapter One

      Alyssa touched her gloved finger to the stone bust of Heraclites that stood precariously on the edge of the wide desk and gave it a push back to safety. The face of the ancient Greek looked worried, which suited someone who saw the world in a state of unrelenting flux and who was known as the ‘weeping philosopher’. Or perhaps she was just reading into the rugged creases of sculpted skin a concern to mirror her own. And nerves. Right now nerves dominated even the concern that had motivated her visit.

      She glanced quickly at her reflection in the large mirror on the other side of the study, but then turned away. Even in her best afternoon dress of palmetto green she looked small and insignificant in the imposing but dilapidated study which had once been the late Lord Delacort’s.

      It had all seemed easier in her mind once the idea had surfaced. But facing the butler’s obvious surprise and consternation at her request to see Lord Delacort had been enough to make plain it was extremely foolish to come here.

      As Stebbins had led her through the large entrance hall which had been transformed into a maze of building materials and piles of threadbare furniture awaiting disposal, he had glanced worriedly back at her, as if debating whether to advise her to flee while she still could. Alyssa had kept her chin up and her demeanour calm, as if there was nothing in the least improper about calling, unchaperoned, on the scandalous new Viscount Delacort within a week of his arrival in Mowbray. She only hoped her reputation was robust enough to survive this very uncharacteristic act. Aunt Adele would be shocked if she knew what she was doing, but there was no way she could approach Adam in the staid presence of a chaperon. As risky as it was, if she meant to ask Adam for help, this was something she had to do alone.

      Right now, concerns of propriety were overshadowed by the greater concern that this was a complete waste of time. However important the issue was to her, it was ludicrous to expect Adam to be willing to help her. And he wasn’t Adam any more, but Lord Delacort, she reminded herself. Ten years and many dramatic events stood between this moment and the last time she had seen him.

      She wondered if he would even remember her. She had been little more than a child at the time of the scandal. Not quite eighteen and both younger and older than her age. Perhaps he did—after all, he had been surprisingly kind to her and to her siblings in a town where everyone had regarded them as rather unfortunate and wild encumbrances on the brilliant and reclusive poet living in their midst, whom Mowbray society was proud of, though few in the town, if any, had actually read his poetry.

      Adam had been young as well, just twenty-one, still up at Oxford, and a very serious student who had already secured a fellowship for the following year. Though he had clearly been the handsomest of Rowena’s beaus, he had also been quite poor. That was why Alyssa had been immediately suspicious when her angelically beautiful cousin Rowena, the belle of Mowbray, had begun flirting with him.

      Alyssa knew her cousin well enough to know that looks would count for little with Rowena, since the only beauty that interested her was her own. She’d had her eyes set on the wealthiest landowner in the area, Lord Moresby, who was almost thirty, and though he clearly admired Rowena, he was proving to be slow on the uptake. But Alyssa had never imagined Rowena would be quite as conniving, or daring, or brutal, as to manoeuvre Adam into believing she was about to elope with him while convincing everyone else he was trying to seduce and abduct her. Amazingly, such a melodramatic plan had achieved everything Rowena had desired, at the minor cost of Adam’s reputation and future. His own family had repudiated him and he had been forced to leave Oxford, and the next Alyssa had heard Adam had left England altogether.

      Alyssa had grown up in a flash. She had always known she could not trust her father or Mowbray society to support her, but she had not really understood their power to destroy. The day Mowbray expelled Adam in disgrace was the day she realised she could no longer afford to let her siblings, or herself, continue to be ‘those wild Drake children’. Until that day she had focused on teaching them knowledge. From that day on she focused on transforming them and herself into proper members of society. She would not let them suffer Adam’s fate. And she had succeeded beautifully.

      But it was not just fear that had shaken her little universe that day. She had been too young and naïve to realise the significance of just how much she had looked forward to the occasions when Adam would stop by their little garden on his way to or from his family’s home in the town to Delacort Hall, where he’d assisted Burford, the old estate agent.

      She often taught her siblings outside in the garden so as not to bother her father, but no one had ever taken any interest in them until Adam had one day at the beginning of that fateful summer. They were so used to being ignored they had not even noticed he had stopped by the low garden wall that separated the garden from the lane and was listening to them with some amusement. When he had taken issue with Alyssa’s interpretation of Homer she had been delighted at the opportunity to argue with someone who truly challenged her. And so, somehow it had become accepted that he could join their al fresco lessons whenever he liked. Then, by the time Rowena had carried out her coup, Alyssa had been unwittingly but very deeply in love.

      His abrupt disappearance had left her stricken with a misery she could only force deep inside until it had eventually faded to an imprint, like the lacy skeletons of long-dried leaves she and her siblings had used to collect in the woods as children. And she had learned that unlike some poets’ claims, one did not die of love or go into decline. In fact, she and her family had probably benefited a great deal from the whole affair. Her siblings were now all successfully employed or happily married and she herself had become as highly regarded in Mowbray society as any young woman. And if she had never tried to encourage any of the men who had shown an interest in her despite her lack of a dowry, it was just because none of those men had ever made her feel in the least tempted to go and live at the discretion of their whims and rules. She had enough of that with her father. Although at least he left her alone for six days out of seven as long as she helped him when he demanded and made sure no one interrupted his work.

      She shook off her maudlin memories and focused on her task. She knew it would not be easy. Simply because Adam had been kind ten years ago was no reason to expect him to act on her behalf. If even a fraction of the tales about him that had surfaced over the past decade were correct, he was a very different person.

      Still, she reminded herself firmly, she could not sit idly by without at least trying to stop Percy, and if there was even the slightest chance Adam might exert his influence, it was worth the embarrassment. For better or for worse, her reputation was sufficiently robust to withstand the possible gossip if it became known she had called on Adam. It might be considered eccentric, but then the Drakes would probably always be regarded as a little odd, despite all of Alyssa’s attempts to smooth out her family’s wrinkles.

      The sound of steps in the hallway broke into her thoughts and she turned just as the door opened. For one disorienting moment she thought she must have made a mistake, that this was surely not Adam. Even accounting for the years that had passed, there seemed nothing but a vague resemblance to connect this tall, hard-looking individual with the young man she had known. She remembered most clearly his expression of devastated hurt when he had realised the extent of Rowena’s betrayal that day at the White Hart. And his intent look when he had been explaining Homer in the small garden of their cottage. And the warmth of his quick, amused smile.

      He was still handsome, but it was almost as if all those elements had been stripped away, exposing a hewn granite core. And he certainly did not look like he was capable of smiling. He was dressed for riding like any country gentleman in pale buckskins, top boots and a dark blue coat tailored perfectly for his broad shoulders, but he looked much larger than she had remembered and there was a foreign air about him. Perhaps it was because he was tanned and his dark hair, which had once been carelessly long, was cut short in an almost military style. But the greatest difference