Mary Brendan - A Date with Dishonour

As for the viscount, Anthony had spotted him earlier with the pretty little lady he was rumoured to have recently set up in style. No sane fellow would leave Celia Chase at a loose end for too long. She was reputed to have a circle of gallants drawn from the finest Mayfair addresses. Anthony had not heard that Blackthorne was on the lookout for a wife and, when he did decide to get an heir, the fellow’s connections and bank balance would make a duke delighted to have him come calling on his daughter.

‘We have turned into a lively gathering,’ Mr Chapman greeted Elise’s arrival at his side with that cheery comment.

‘Indeed we are lucky,’ Elise said, attempting to sound sincere as her eyes glided over the saturnine features of a man who held the power to destroy her life. ‘But...it is a shame that the entertainment is drawing to a close.’ She glanced at the podium where the musicians were starting to pack away their instruments.

‘Perhaps we may have entertainment of a different sort,’ Anthony remarked with mild humour. He nodded to where a gaggle of ladies were stealthily approaching their party. ‘I could have sworn my wife told me Mrs Porter cut her dead in Baldwin’s fabric emporium the other day.’ His head vibrated in feigned surprise. ‘Yet it looks as though the woman and her friends are now desirous of catching Maude’s eye. I wonder why that might be?’

Elise chuckled—she found Mr Chapman’s amusing manner relaxing. Several young women had joined Mrs Porter and her cronies, hovering on the perimeter of their circle hoping for an opportunity to butt in and draw the viscount’s notice. Mrs Porter’s patience expired and she tapped Maude on the shoulder, then squeezed a place beside her. Her friends began delicately elbowing some space, too.

‘I imagine the hour is getting quite late,’ Elise remarked. She glanced up at a crescent moon shimmering in a starlit sky of navy blue. Despite the danger in which she had foolishly placed herself earlier she had to admit it had been an exciting evening. Viscount Blackthorne, as she now knew him to be, might forget her before he reached home that night, but she would never be able to put him from her mind, or what he’d done to her. Heat stole into her cheeks at the memory of a sensual mouth moving on hers, of cool night air on her skin as he bared her body to his hands. And tomorrow, she inwardly scolded, when you are sane once more, you will realise just how much you risked for that sordid thrill.

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