How to Train Your Viscount

Chapter 1

Chapter 1

London, England

April 1802

Lady Caroline Astley slipped inside the dark, silent room. At the sight of the n***d man across the gallery, she recoiled, choking back a shriek as she sloshed hot candle wax all over her kid leather glove.

The unclothed man did not so much as blink, nor did he attempt to cover himself with the length of cloth draped behind his back. She exhaled, realizing it was a statue. Of course it was a statue—the mansion she was skulking about belonged to Mr. Thomas Hope, heir to one of the richest banking families in Europe and a renowned collector of art and antiquities.

This happened to be the reason she had stolen away from the dinner party she was supposed to be attending and was now creeping through darkened parts of the house that were ostensibly closed to visitors—because the new acquisition Mr. Hope had described to her sounded very much like something she had lost.

Or, more accurately, something that had been stolen from her.

She peered around the shadowy room. Dear lord, Mr. Hope had told her his new interiors were going to cause a sensation when he debuted them two weeks hence, and he hadn’t been exaggerating. For someone who had spent the better part of three hours lecturing her on the paramount importance of classical simplicity in both dress and interior design, Mr. Hope had been rather liberal in his use of blood-orange satin curtains. Throw in the floor-to-ceiling mirrors and the gold gilt covering every single piece of furniture, and the room was threatening to give her a megrim, even by the light of the candelabra she had commandeered from the ladies’ retiring room. It had to be spectacularly atrocious when fully lit.

Caro managed to locate the only thing in the room that interested her, the door, which was buried amongst the curtains. She hastened through it.

The next room was some sort of Turkish salon, with low crimson sofas, even more gold gilt, and… She sniffed the air suspiciously, hoping that lingering, spicy aroma was nothing worse than incense. Not that she had any firsthand experience with opium, but she imagined this was precisely the sort of room someone with that particular proclivity might design.

The doorknob to the third room creaked loudly enough that she flinched, spilling more hot wax on her gloves. Once she was through the door, she sagged with relief, though, because she had finally found the Egyptian Room.

Caro shuddered as she noticed a miniature mummy case in the center of the room, its painted colors still bright after thousands of years. She wondered if a tiny mummified body still rested within the coffin. For the life of her, she could not understand this recent fashion for decorating not just in the Egyptian style but with actual sarcophagi. This was someone’s final resting place—a child’s, by the look of it. To regard it merely as the pièce de résistance to complete one’s parlor was sickening.

She found that her hands were trembling, and she placed the candelabra on a black lacquered table. Truly, she wasn’t cut out for… for any of this. She was the daughter of an earl; she did not skulk through opium dens and mummies’ chambers, contemplating larceny.

She drew in a breath and reminded herself why she was here. Anne. She had to do this for Anne. She needed to find that necklace, and she needed to hurry. Her absence from the party would be noticed soon. Now, where would someone stash a pendant?

Then she spotted it—a small leather box on the side table. She hurried over, her hands shaking as she struggled with the lid. If the box contained her sister’s necklace, she didn’t know what she would do. The possibility of recovery hadn’t even occurred to her until Mr. Hope mentioned that he had purchased a new Egyptian necklace in the shape of the Eye of Ra that very morning. Should she… Surely she shouldn’t steal it? She had never stolen anything in her life. Although it was rightfully Anne’s, and how else could she get it back?

The lid gave way, and her shoulders sagged. It was a moot point, because this was not the pendant her sister had suggested Caro borrow for an Egyptian costume party two nights ago, the one that had then been stolen from around her neck by a cutpurse posing as a flower seller. The shape was the same—the Eye of Ra so frequently seen in Egyptian design. But this one was turquoise instead of lapis blue, and it lacked the beautiful gold detailing of her sister’s piece.

Well, that settled that. Caro shut the lid. As disappointed as she was, at least now she could return to the party. She had experienced quite enough clandestine wanderings for one lifetime—

She froze at a familiar sound—the creak of the doorknob. She watched in horror as the door began to inch open.

She scoured the room for a hiding place. There was nothing. What if it was a servant? What was she going to say? Oh, God—what if it was Mr. Hope? If she was caught alone in the dark with a rich, eccentric bachelor, she would be ruined…

A man slipped through the door, illuminated by his own candle.

It was not a servant, nor was it Thomas Hope.

It was infinitely worse.

Really, this had to be the most terrible luck anyone had ever experienced, save perhaps Achilles, when that craven halfwit Paris had somehow managed to train his arrow on the one and only inch of flesh where he was vulnerable.

The vilest man on the face of the earth (for that was who had entered the room), blinked at her incredulously. “Lady Caroline? What on earth are you doing here?”

Four years ago, this man had humiliated her, completely and utterly.

To this day, she closed her prayers with a plea to the Almighty that she would never have to see Henry Greville ever again.

Yet here he was.

Her very own Achilles’ heel.