Notorious Lord, Compromised Miss

Annie Burrows has been making up stories for her own amusement since she first went to school. As soon as she got the hang of using a pencil she began to write them down. Her love of books meant she had to do a degree in English literature. And her love of writing meant she could never take on a job where she didn’t have time to jot down notes when inspiration for a new plot struck her. She still wants the heroines of her stories to wear beautiful floaty dresses, and triumph over all that life can throw at them. But when she got married she discovered that finding a hero is an essential ingredient to arriving at ‘happy ever after’. Please visit her website at www.annie-burrows.co.uk

Available now from Annie Burrows:

CAPTAIN FAWLEY’S INNOCENT BRIDE

Author’s Note

It is really exciting to be taking part in this new venture for Mills & Boon in the twenty-first century. I believe there are all sorts of gadgets available nowadays that you can download and read this story on…most of which would probably totally baffle me!

I do hope you enjoy reading this love story, set in the days long before computers had ever been dreamed of, and life went at a much slower pace.

Annie Burrows

Chapter 1

Viscount Maldon ran a finger round the inside of his neck cloth, uncomfortably aware that by entering this place, he was putting his neck in a noose. He should have had a stiff drink before coming out. Everyone knew they did not serve anything stronger than lemonade in Almack’s Assembly Rooms. And lemonade was not going to do a thing to steady his nerves.

The dancing was already under way, and the lobby was currently deserted, so nobody had noticed him yet. But once he set foot in that ballroom, there would be no going back. He would be at the mercy of every girl that men who could afford to be choosy had already passed over. The fat ones, the ones with annoying laughs, or bad breath, or, heaven forbid, facial hair…

Breaking out in a cold sweat, Viscount Maldon veered sharply away from the entrance to the ballroom, and ducked into an alcove that was partially screened by the luxuriant foliage of a potted palm. A man required nerves of steel to walk, unarmed as it were, into the all-female domain of the marriage mart!

How had Acton ever thought he could do it?

“You have got to show your creditors you mean business.” The family’s elderly man of business wheezed as he pushed a piece of paper across the desktop with his gnarled forefinger. “Merely setting foot in Almack’s will send out a clear-enough message. But if you can manage to secure a dance with one or more of the females on this list whilst you are there…”

Viscount Maldon had meekly pocketed the list. He had taken it home and studied it. He had learned all the names on it by rote.

So there had been no need to put it in his breast pocket before setting out tonight. He had been somewhat surprised, when he had given his appearance one last critical appraisal in the mirror, that it had not distorted the fit of his cutaway coat: it felt like a ton weight against his heart.

But he looked just as he always did. His spare frame elegantly covered in well-tailored clothing, his fair hair tidily clipped and neatly brushed. Only the clouds dulling his gray eyes might have given those who knew him well a clue that something troubled him.

The list, that was what troubled him. The list of all the women Acton had ascertained might be prepared to accept his suit.

“You are not free to gad about like a younger son with no responsibilities, now you have come into the title,” Acton had lectured him. “It is up to you to save the estate, and marrying well is the most effective way of going about it.”

Marrying well! He grimaced. Pursuing some unattractive female for the sake of her dowry was not his idea of marrying well.

But men with their pockets to let did not, as Acton had querulously pointed out, have the luxury of choice.

Surely, Viscount Maldon thought mournfully, amongst all the eligible maidens upon the list Acton had given him, there must be one who was not too repulsive? At least, not too repulsive to dance with.

He had to demonstrate that he was the man to sort out the muddle his father had created and his brother compounded, with their reckless gambling. It had to be done some time, and, since he had got this far, it might as well be tonight.

Having talked himself into accepting his fate, Viscount Maldon peered through the foliage, towards the open door of the ballroom, and took his first real look at the assembled throng. By some cruel irony, the first face he recognized, amidst the swirling mass of humanity, belonged to Acton’s first choice.

Dressed entirely in white, Miss Harriet Millbury was bouncing through the steps of a cotillion on the arm of an elderly earl, a muddy-complexioned man, who everyone knew was in search of a third wife to provide the heir his first and second wives had so signally failed to produce.