Page 14 of The Viscount Needs a Wife (All for Love #2)

A nnis sent a note to the girls to say there would be no lessons for the morning and went back to bed upon hearing of the arrival of the new nanny, glad to surrender the responsibility for the children to her for a while. Annis was exhausted from the events of yesterday and overnight.

She slept until just before midday and woke hot and slightly depressed.

It took her a while to figure out why. Kicking off the sheets, she lay sheened in perspiration and let her thoughts roam over the events of the last few days.

The viscount figured prominently, and she realized with a jolt that she had derived no small degree of pleasure from his company.

Which explained her melancholy mood. The man was so sweet and so hurt, her heart was wrung for him.

His devotion to his wife and children did him credit.

Many men in his position would eschew the responsibility of the children, palming them off on servants, while losing themselves in drink or gaming, as so many dissolute peers did.

He was not a polished gentleman—his appearance was careless in the extreme.

His jackets were clearly cut for comfort not style.

His neckcloths, when he bothered with them, were knotted negligently, his boots and shoes were scuffed and dull, and his waistcoats frequently stained and unbuttoned.

He seemed to shave only every three days or so, and his hair was too long and frequently looked uncombed.

For all this, he always smelled nice, so he washed daily at the very least. It was just his clothes he didn’t care two pence for.

And under that careless attire, she had discovered yesterday, lay a firm, hard body with impressive muscles.

She blushed, recalling the feel of him pressed briefly up against her as he pulled her and little Ewen into his embrace in the water.

His body had been shockingly hot in the cold water, and the outline of his broad chest and pinkness of his flesh was clearly visible through the wet fabric of his shirt.

He might as well have been naked from the waist up.

At the time, she had been too preoccupied with Ewen to really notice, but the memory came flooding back now in vivid, visceral detail, and her whole body flushed with heat.

A twitch and tingling dampness between her legs made her catch her breath.

No! No, no, no! I cannot not think of him in those terms. I will not.

For he was far above her station. So far above that he was completely out of reach.

Viscounts did not marry bastards—which was what she was, after all—even if he wanted a wife which, given his circumstances, she was absolutely certain he did not.

But he might entertain the bastard-born daughter of a lord as a mistress?

Might he not? whispered a wicked voice in her head.

No! She had fought so hard to hide the truth. If the duke and duchess knew, they would turn her off without a reference. One baseborn such as she could not be allowed anywhere near the duke’s innocent sisters.

Exposure was what he had threatened her with. She shuddered with memory, as the dam wall she kept up between her and her past broke free.

She huddled against the wall in the darkened room, terrified out of her wits, as the figure dressed all in black, with a mask covering his face, loomed over her and rasped “You shall say nothing, you hear me?”

She whimpered and nodded, flinching as he leaned even closer, crowding her against the wall.

“Because if I get so much as sniff that you have confided in anyone—anyone!—you’ll lose more than your post, my girl! You’ll be branded a bastard and you’ll be snuffed out faster than a candle! They’ll find your body in a ditch so badly mutilated you’ll be unrecognizable! You understand me?”

She made a garbled noise of terror and nodded again.

“Tell me you understand!”

“I-I und-derstand,” she stammered.

“Good!” He straightened and moved away. She sagged against the wall, her legs so weak they threatened to give out.

He turned back, and she tried to shrink away. “Did she give you anything? Some token?”

“N-no!” Her teeth were chattering so much it was hard to get the word out. The ring was all she had; she wouldn’t give it up.

“Are you sure? If you’ve lied to me...”

“I’m s-sure. I s-wear. I have nothing!” Would he believe her? Her heart thudded so hard she thought it would jump out of her chest.

“Hm.”

She blinked, watching him as he appeared to be gathering himself for something.

Then he turned back to her, and his gloved hand seized her throat and squeezed.

She tried to say she was sorry that she lied, but then she couldn’t speak.

Couldn’t breathe. She was going to die here, now, and no one would know what happened to her or why.

Blood pounded in her head as she struggled frantically, trying to prize his fingers away from her throat, but it was a futile endeavor. As the room went dark and she lost consciousness, she thought she heard a very faintly whispered “I’m sorry...”

She had woken in a backstreet in a pile of filth, her throat bruised and her head aching.

Retching from the smell, she staggered to her feet and out into a street she recognized.

Weeping and shivering from shock, she ran, limping.

She had lost a shoe somewhere. She ran until she reached the seminary in Queen Square, Bath.

Circling to the rear entrance from the mews, she waited until she was sure there was no one about and dashed in the rear door and up the servants’ stairs to her room on the second floor.

Reaching the sanctuary of her room, she locked the door, stripped off her clothes and washed them and her body and hair, before slipping on a nightgown and sliding under the covers, where she lay shivering and shaking for a good hour before sleep finally overtook her.

Even now, after seven years, the memory made her shudder. Driven from her bed to get away from the clinging fingers of fear, she plunged her face in cold water to clear her head and sponged herself down thoroughly, enjoying the cold shock of the water on her skin driving out the past.

She put her hand to the chain round her neck where the ring hung suspended. No one knew she had it, for she always wore it hidden beneath the high necklines of her gowns. She touched the ring and tried to breathe through the tears that threatened.

She had been offered the opportunity by the owners to take over running the seminary on her mother’s death, but the incident with the man in the mask had made her so terrified, she declined it and left Bath soon after the attack, driven by terror to put the whole episode behind her.

She’d soon got another post in London with Lord Dowton’s family, quite a step-up for a Bath seminarian.

Her fears continued to plague her, though, and she sought some way to learn to protect herself.

It was a conversation overheard between two of the footmen that had given her the idea.

“How much you gonna bet on Bloody Mary to beat Saucy Sue?” asked one.

“Nothin’” retorted the other. “Saucy Sue’ll do fer ’er in five minutes flat!”

The other guffawed, “Not on yer life!”

The conversation had continued, but Annis wasn’t listening anymore, the notion of a fight between two women for money was so fantastical she couldn’t credit it.

Yet further investigation proved it to be true.

In the seedy backstreets of Cheapside, one could witness pugilistic events where the combatants weren’t men, but women.

On her day off, Annis had gathered her courage and ventured into the area to find one of these fights.

The noise, the smell, the coarseness of the audience, and the raw brutality of it all sickened her.

But she screwed up her courage and watched an entire bout, trying not to flinch.

At the end of it, she’d waited until the winner had received her accolades and payment and retired to the bar for a drink before approaching her.

The winner’s name was Brutal Betty. When she heard what Annis was proposing, she spat out her beer and laughed until the tears ran down her grubby cheeks.

But when she’d realized Annis could pay, she grew canny and demanded up-front payment.

Annis offered half before and the rest at the end of the lessons.

Much haggling later, they reached an agreement and Annis had begun visiting Betty weekly on her day off for a lesson in fisticuffs and knife fighting.

She practiced each day and slowly improved.

If her mysterious attacker came for her again, she would not be helpless this time.

After a year in the Dowtons’ employ, she saw the Duke of Troubridge’s advertisement for a governess for his sisters.

She applied for and miraculously was hired for the post with the Laynes and escaped to the country in a household that treated her with kindness and respect.

She loved her charges and began to relax and feel safe.

As safe as anyone could with her history.

Lingering weariness and the cobwebs of the past made her slow, and she took her time dressing and rang for a tray in her room.

When the maid came, she asked after Master Ewen and was told he was sleeping.

She wanted to ask after the viscount, too, but that would not be proper.

The governess had no business asking after his lordship.

And if she did, it would be all over the house in five minutes.