Annie Burrows by Reforming the Viscount

carrying all her other guests was moored. Had she really forgotten the only other time he’d gone by water to Westdene? Had that day meant so little to her?
    He could still recall every single minute of it.
    Ironically enough, when he’d gone to collect her, she’d wanted to cry off. She’d said she wasn’t well enough to go out anywhere. Her chaperon had been deaf to her entreaties, practically thrusting her into the hack he’d hired to take them down to the jetty. When she’d winced at the brightness of the light reflecting off the water he’d been livid with her chaperon. Though rouge had given Lydia’s cheeks some semblance of normality, her lips had been completely white. And while the others had bounced, laughing, out of the barge once they’d reached their destination, her legs had almost given way. She’d stood on the jetty swaying, her hand pressed to her forehead. And all her chaperon had done was rather impatiently tell her to go and sit in the shade, and stop making such a fuss.
    Over the years since then, he’d often wondered if the Westerly woman had known her charge better than anyone. Perhaps her impatience with her die-away airs stemmed from a knowledge that Lydia had been acting all along and disapproved of her methods. But at the time, as a young man rather given to fits of chivalry, he’d sworn that someone had to rescue Lydia from that woman. And that, in spite of his youth, and the assumption that went with it that he wouldn’t have to consider marriage for years yet, he was going to be the one to do it. That decision reached, conventions and propriety seemed irrelevant. He’d scooped her into his arms and carried her up to the house. For she’d told him once that only complete darkness and absence of sound would bring any relief from the devastating pain she suffered when she got one of her headaches.
    Robert had been too busy with his other guests to pay him much attention. He’d taken the opportunity to put his proposition to Lydia, but there had not been time for her to give him any kind of answer before the Westerly woman had come panting into the house behind them, vociferously objecting to his actions. He’d only managed to appease her by promising to go and fetch the housekeeper, the moment he’d laid Lydia gently down on the nearest sofa.
    And that had been the last time he’d seen her, as a single woman.
    Dear God, did she really think he could take part in a parody of that day by getting into a barge with a load of young people intent on their party of pleasure? When they both knew that at some stage over the next few days, they would become lovers? It would have been like rubbing salt into all the wounds she’d ever inflicted on him.
    His mouth flattened into a grim line. Even after all these years, he was still angry with her. He’d got her into that house. She’d used him to effect an introduction to Colonel Morgan, then turned all her charm upon him. She’d seduced the old man into making a proposal within the space of a few days.
    As effectively as she was seducing him now, he supposed, darting him those heated looks with those luminous great eyes of hers. While still managing to project an air of fragility—no, make that utter femininity.
    Oh, what the hell did it matter how he chose to describe what it was about her that called to everything that was masculine in him? The fact was that he wasn’t going to be fit to court another woman until he’d dealt with this obsession with her. If he did not take this chance to finally get to know her, in the biblical sense, he would forever wonder what it would have been like. He might even, God forbid, still find himself hankering for a version of her whilst selecting his own wife. Which would be disastrous.
    He needed to take these few days, or even weeks, or however long was necessary. Only then could he start looking for a virtuous young woman who would become a life partner. A woman he would be proud to have for the