The Viscount's Valentine

Cover

The Viscount’s Valentine

Viscount Blackthorne is better known as Blackheart, a notorious rogue with a reputation for seduction. Forced to flee London and a young woman’s irate father, he escapes to the wilds of Yorkshire hoping to rest, relax, and wait out the scandal. The last thing he expects to find in the country is the stunning beauty he first eyed twelve years ago, the one woman who captivated his heart and made him question his ways.

The widow Honey Hockley has given up on romance and settled into the quiet simplicity of her small Yorkshire village. Before marrying her infirmed husband, she had one sparkling night of a London Season, a night she’ll hold on to forever. But Honey’s peaceful days are shattered when a handsome and mysterious stranger comes to town, forcing her to question her decision to accept a life alone.

Upon meeting, attraction flares, and it’s only Honey’s fears and the Viscount’s reputation that keep them apart. So while Honey works to accept the possibility that life and love may yet hold some surprises for her, the Viscount works to clear his name and win over the one woman he believes can make him virtuous again.

Title Page

Copyright

The Viscount’s Valentine

Donna Lea Simpson

A somewhat different version of this book originally appeared as the story Wild Honey in the anthology Valentine Rogues, published by Kensington/Zebra in January 2001, copyright © 2001 by Donna Lea Simpson.

Beyond the Page edition copyright © 2013 by Donna Lea Simpson.

Material excerpted from A Rogue’s Rescue copyright © 2002, 2013 by Donna Lea Simpson.

Cover design and illustration by Dar Albert, Wicked Smart Designs

Published by Beyond the Page at Smashwords

Beyond the Page Books

are published by

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ISBN: 978-1-937349-58-5

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Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Excerpt from A Rogue’s Rescue

Classic Regency Romances

About the Author

Chapter One

1808

Valentine’s Day Ball

London

Lord Bron Alvarice circled Lord and Lady Never’s ballroom. They were holding their annual preseason Valentine’s extravaganza, and he had attended out of sheer boredom. He could think of no other reason why he was dressed in his usual best blue coat gazing stupidly at a lot of children in pretty white frocks as they danced with a collection of London’s bucks and beaux, floating about the red and white decorated room in a cotillion dance.

But the usual round of London excitements for a young man of means had become a dead bore. Mills, races, cockfights, gambling hells, opera dancers . . . he was twenty-four and bored to death with it all. He had a fund of excess energy that he had no idea what to do with. None of his other friends seemed to be suffering this dreadful ennui.

He spotted a friend, Derrick Laughton. He was doing the pretty to the chit his mother had chosen as his bride. Fairly sanguine about it he seemed, too. She was well enough looking, but had a tendency to bray when she laughed, and had a thick waist. Maxwell Prosper was in attendance as well, squiring an heiress who would be on the shelf if she did not find a husband this Season. Her besetting sin was a face like an Arabian horse and a shrewish manner. One or the other could be ignored, thought Bron, but both together . . . he shuddered.

Well, not for him. He was the future Viscount Blackthorne, but right now he was just Lord Bron Alvarice, and he intended to enjoy himself thoroughly before settling down to a life in leg shackles. So why did everything seem so devilishly flat?

He saw a crowd of young men near the row of chairs on the west end of the ballroom. There was a palpable air of excitement emanating from the knot of young gentlemen, and Bron wondered if some announcement about the war had been made and was being discussed. His pulse quickening, he advanced, only to see the knot separate and one young man lead a girl onto the floor.

She was breathtaking. There was no other word for the vision in palest peach muslin, her honey-colored hair dressed high in a coronet, with a circlet of white roses atop it, and her swanlike neck encircled in glowing pearls. She was graceful as the lucky man, one of Bron’s acquaintances, William Conroy, led her into the dance. It was a new dance, the quadrille; she gracefully walked through the steps with William, his face beaming red by the end of the dance, for he was stout and even the gentle pace she kept was usually beyond him.

Bron’s curiosity was raised, for William never danced. He watched them, and as his friend took the girl back to her seat, he saw the crowd of young men descend upon her again, like drones to the queen in a hive. She was irresistible, it seemed, and was casting every other girl in the place into the shade. The next dance was a country dance, and she was led out by a stranger to Bron, but her affect on him was just the same as it had been on Will. Drawn by curiosity, Bron circled and drew near to the crowd of her admirers.

Like an angel, one young man breathed, as he gazed at the girl who spiritedly moved through the country dance, one honey lock of hair dancing and bouncing on her pale shoulders.

Exquisite, his boon companion agreed. And absolutely unspoiled. D’you know, she has danced with poor Dobbs, and he ain’t got a penny, and is homely as they come from the pox. Gives a fellow a chance, not like some o’ these nose in th’air types, I say.

A perfect angel, the other young man breathed again, as he watched the object of his admiration.

Bron rolled his eyes. What gudgeons! No girl was so unspoiled if she was that beautiful. Straight out of the schoolroom she looked, though he had to admit she seemed to have more address than most schoolroom misses. He began to watch to criticize, intent on finding her fatal flaw, for certainly she must have one. All women did. But as the evening progressed and she stood up with any young man who asked, and treated them one and all to the same sweet smile, he wondered if her only fault would be that she was a simpleton. He wondered if he should ask her to dance just to confirm his guess, for she was beginning to prey on his mind.

He had found out her name, Miss Honoria Stillwell, and her age, just eighteen that very day, her birthday. He had even found out her nickname . . . Honey, of all things. It was enough to gag one with cloying sweetness. Even the society dragons, who could usually be depended on to find something wrong with each girl, seemed enamored of her. One of the most severe, Lady Benton, pronounced her to be a well-behaved, pretty sort of gel. From her that was high praise indeed, she who found fault even with Princess Charlotte, damning her as a little hoyden.