Regency Rumour: Never Trust a Rake / Reforming the Viscount. ANNIE BURROWS

him—and it had been so sweet a feeling that he’d prolonged it as long as he could. It had been just punishment for the damage she’d unwittingly caused his pride.

      ‘The most important people in the land? Oh, dear!’

      ‘They only think they are,’ he said with contempt. ‘But never mind the conversation you interrupted. I am far more interested in learning what has occurred to induce you to abandon that fierce pride of yours and come to me as a supplicant. Not that I object, you understand.’

      ‘Sometimes,’ she said, observing the smugness of the smile that curved his lips as he referred to her as a supplicant, ‘I really, really, dislike you.’

      He took one step sideways. ‘The key is in the lock. You may turn it and leave, if you so wish.’

      ‘You aggravating man,’ she seethed. ‘You know very well I’m not going anywhere. Do you have to make it so hard for me?’

      ‘Make what hard?’ His smile was positively predatory now.

      She glowered at him.

      ‘To tell you that I have changed my mind. That if you would be so kind, I should like to take you up on your offer.’

      ‘My offer?’ His smile froze.

      ‘To make me the toast of the ton,’ she snapped. ‘They are all going to gossip about me. I cannot stop it now. And at least if you … I don’t know … do whatever it is you had in mind to make them think I’m … fascinating … then at least my brothers won’t be ashamed to own me.’

      A strange look came over his face. ‘You are doing this for your brothers?’

      She’d done something very like this before. When Lady Chigwell had been berating her, she’d borne it all with weary indifference. It had only been when the old harridan had cast aspersions on her family that she had flung up her chin and answered back.

      Because she loved them.

      Love was the key that he’d been searching for. If she believed she was in love with him, he would have it all. Her compliance to his wish she should marry him and, most of all, her loyalty. He didn’t know why he hadn’t seen it before. But now he had, he couldn’t see her marrying anyone unless she fancied herself in love with him.

      And once she’d made the commitment, she would remain loyal to the bitter end. No matter what she thought of him once she knew him well enough to realise he was not the kind of person anyone could really love, she would remain loyal. He might have mocked her for that streak of Puritanism she so frequently displayed, but that very morality would spare him many of the distasteful aspects of marriage that had made him avoid it for so long. She would not be the kind of woman to take a lover the moment she’d presented him with an heir. On the contrary, any children she bore would undoubtedly be his.

      Just think of that. Having two or even three sons that were indisputably legitimate. It was far more than he’d ever dared to hope for. But with Henrietta as his wife …

      He sucked in a deep breath as he imagined married life, with Henrietta Gibson as his countess.

      Their marriage would not be in the least bit fashionable. She would be unfashionably loyal, unfashionably faithful and, most likely, with her open, honest nature, probably given to unfashionable displays of affection in public. Which would be a tad irritating, particularly as people would mock her.

      Still, he had never imagined marriage would be without problems, and at least having a wife who was a bit gauche in public was far preferable to enduring one who played the whore.

      He made a decision. Not only would he not reprimand her, should she be demonstrative towards him in public, he would actually defend her. It would be a shame to crush those traits of honesty and openness that made her unique. Any affection she felt for him initially would wither away and die eventually anyway, but he could at least not do anything to hasten her disillusionment. By the time she realised that love was a fairy tale, that it had no place in the real world, they might have reached a state of understanding which would enable them to at least present a united front to their children. He would do whatever it took to ensure that his own offspring would not become casualties of the kind of bitter war that had raged between his own parents.

      All these thoughts flashed through his mind in less time than it took him to breathe in and out a couple of times.

      That was all the time it took to decide that he would have Miss Gibson at his side, and on his side, no matter what he had to do to ensure he won her.

      Completely oblivious to the fact that Lord Deben was undergoing something of an epiphany, Henrietta had turned away and flung herself on to a convenient sofa.

      ‘For Hubert and Horatio, to be precise. When they come home on leave I don’t want them to hear the kind of gossip that Miss Waverley says will go round if I just sit back and do nothing. Oh, how I wish I’d never come to town. In doing so I’ve already let Humphrey and Horace down. I should have been at home when they had their school holidays. Mrs Cook is a very capable housekeeper, and very kind in her own way, but one cannot expect her to play cricket with them.’

      She slumped forwards and buried her face in her hands. ‘I’ve made such a mull of it all.’

      Her despair over not being present during her brothers’ school holidays only proved that he’d just made the right decision. Miss Gibson would make an exemplary mother. He could just see her playing cricket with his own sons on the East Lawn, not caring about ruining the turf. And more than that, he could see her protecting all the children he would get upon her with the ferocity of a tigress guarding her cubs. Unlike his own mother who, once she’d whelped, had scarcely looked over her shoulder as she returned to her relentless pursuit of selfish pleasures.

      A lesser man might have blurted it all out, there and then, perhaps claiming to have been struck by a coup de foudre. His upper lip curled in contempt as he considered the outcome of speaking such fustian to Miss Gibson while she was so upset and angry. Particularly since some of her anger was directed at him. She resented having to apply to him for aid. Especially since, now he came to consider it, he had not been all that gracious about it.

      And then, something about the term coup de foudre niggled at the back of his mind. Hadn’t he, on that drive round the park, warned her that he was not the kind of man who would suffer from that complaint? He had.

      In fact, he had been less than tactful with Miss Gibson on several occasions. And brutally honest about his views on love and romance.

      He would have the devil of a job getting her to believe he was now receptive to the whole idea of love, within marriage, especially as he only expected her to be the one ‘falling in love’. He could just picture how it would go, should he commence a courtship after the accepted mode. If he presented her with posies, started making pretty speeches, or gave her respectful yet meaningful glances across the set as they danced with each other, she would simply laugh at him. Frustrate him at every turn. In short, make him look like a fool.

      There followed what he found a slightly awkward pause as it occurred to him that he could not have made a worse start with his intended bride.

      To cover the awkwardness, and to give her something to think about while he grappled with a solution to the dilemma he’d caused himself, he said, ‘Your parents gave you all names beginning with the letter H?’

      If he appeared to be interested in the family she held so dear, that might at least start to smooth her ruffled feathers.

      She looked up at him sharply. ‘That has nothing to do with anything.’

      ‘On the contrary,’ he said, making a swift recovery and making damned sure he would not let her glimpse his true state of mind, ‘I utterly refuse to do anything at all until you have divulged the reason behind such an eccentric example of parenting.’

      ‘It was a bit of a joke between my father and mother, if you must know,’ she said mulishly. ‘Since their names both started with the letter G,