Rushed to the Altar by Jane Feather Page B

been shocked by the old man’s language but instead found it entertaining; it was so unlike anything she’d ever been exposed to before. Amazingly, she thought, she could probably manage to hold her own.
    “Oh, your mother was a milksop.” The viscount waved a dismissive hand but refrained from any further mention of his brother’s wife. “Go away, Jasper, andleave me with this charming creature.” He patted the ottoman beside his chair. “Sit here, my girl, and tell me all about yourself. How long have you been at Mother Griffiths’s?”
    Clarissa took the seat, arranging her skirts carefully and making sure the old man had a good view of her bosom. “Just a few weeks, sir. I came to London to make my fortune.”
    “Oh, you and half a hundred other girls,” the viscount declared with a chuckle. “And not many of ’em will make it.” He leaned closer, examining her again through his glass. “I’d lay odds you will though. Cosgrove, you black crow, fetch a glass for this pretty creature. I insist you take a drink with me, my dear.”
    Clarissa hadn’t noticed the other inhabitant of the darkened chamber. A tall, thin, angular man in the black robes of a priest appeared suddenly from the shadows by the bed curtains and stepped soundlessly across the room. A heavy cross hung from his neck, his rosary beads at the waist of his cassock. He regarded Clarissa with an expression of alarm and she thought sympathetically that the poor young man had probably never expected to find himself waiting upon a whore, any more than she had expected to act the whore.
    “My secretary and confessor, Father Cosgrove,” the viscount said with a vague wave between them. “Fetch a glass, man.”
    The priest slid back into the shadows and returnedwith a wineglass that he set down on the table beside the viscount’s chair.
    “Well pour, pour for the lady, man.”
    He filled the glass and handed it to Clarissa, who thanked him with a smile that Mistress Clarissa Astley would have bestowed upon her own parish priest. He looked momentarily reassured, before fading into the background once more.
    “So, what d’you think of my nephew, then, Mistress Clarissa?” the viscount demanded with a glint in his eye. “It’s all right, he’s left us, so you can speak freely. How’s his swordsmanship?”
    “I couldn’t say, sir.” Clarissa was genuinely surprised at the question. “I’ve never witnessed it.”
    “
What?
You mean the blackguard’s not bedded you yet? What’s the matter with him? Lost his gumption . . . lost his starch?”
    Clarissa struggled to recover from her mistake. She laughed, trying to sound insouciant. “I was funning, sir. A stupid jest, of course. It’s true I have never witnessed my lord Blackwater on the dueling field, but in other matters . . .” She gave him a bold smile, remembering that Jasper had told her the viscount did not like false innocence. “I have no complaints, my lord.”
    He nodded and drank from his glass. “It’s been a few too many years since I had a woman in my bed. Old age is the very devil. But I’ve had my moments.” He glanced towards the shadows by the bed. “Haven’t I, Father Cosgrove? I’ve had my moments indeed.”
    “Yes, my lord” came the mumbled response.
    “Father Cosgrove, for his sins, is hearing my life’s confession,” the old man informed Clarissa with a wickedly beatific smile. “Not only is he hearing it, but he is writing it down for posterity. If such an account of one man’s wicked ways can serve to deter another after him, then my work is well done. Isn’t that so, Father Cosgrove?”
    “If God so wills it, my lord.”
    “Bring the book here, man. I would take a look at the last chapter.”
    The priest returned to the fireside carrying a bound sheaf of papers. He laid them on the arm of the old man’s chair. “If you have no further need of me at the moment, my lord, I will go to my devotions now.”
    “Send my nephew in to me.” The