The Restless Viscountess

Chapter 17

“The moment you doubt whether you can fly, you cease for ever to be able to do it."  J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan

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Chapter Seventeen

“Is Lady Alexandra allowed to be alone with a man?” asked Simon as both he and Imogen watched Joaquín and Alexandra walk off together.

Imogen was very nervous for Alexandra. She hoped that Alexandra would react with grace. She knew that the sight would not be kind. Such pain would always be a shock.

Imogen shook her head. “No, of course we are not allowed to be alone with men. Our father would surely have a stroke if he saw her.” Imogen then realised that she, too, was alone with Simon. She blushed at the thought.

Simon seemed to come to the realisation as he knitted his hands together in his lap, as if trying to occupy them. The silence between them quickly became awkward.

Imogen quickly filled the silence. “My sister has loved him for so long,” she told Simon. “Today will be their final test.”

“How so?” asked Simon.

Imogen carefully looked up at Simon. He was curiously watching her. “You must not repeat a word of what I am about to tell you. Promise me that you will not,” she requested sternly.

“You have my word,” he promised.

Imogen shuffled on the stone wall that they were sitting on so that she was properly facing him. As she did so, their legs brushed. She wished that she was not so responsive to these little intimacies but she was. This was the first time that she had ever been alone with a man. “Joaquín and Elena grew up with a very harsh father,” she began. “He was cruel and barbaric. While my father punished our bad behaviour by sending us to bed without supper, their father would lash them.” Imogen felt as though it was taboo to speak ill of a dead person, let alone a king.

“Good Lord,” gasped Simon. “A lashing? His own children?”

Imogen nodded. “Yes,” she confirmed.

Simon’s blue eyes darkened. “How could any man … any father …?” he trailed off as he growled. He shook his head in disgust.

“Joaquín wishes to show Allie his scars,” continued Imogen after Simon had had a moment to calm down. She did like the fact that he took great offense to this, especially when he questioned Joaquín and Elena’s behaviour as a father. It told her that he had the morals of a parent, or rather a future parent if he chose to be one. “He wishes to know if she will be able to tolerate them if they were to wed.”

Simon pursed his lips. He looked as though he was mulling over something in his mind. After a short moment of silence, he asked, “And do you think she will?”

“Of course,” Imogen exclaimed, perhaps a little too enthusiastically. She looked off into the distance, in the direction that Alexandra and Joaquín had walked. “She loves him. Such things as scars do not matter.”

“Scars do not matter?” he repeated.

Imogen looked back to Simon and she shook her head with conviction. “No, they do not.” She could tell that he did not quite believe her.

Imogen took a deep breath and decided to take advantage of the fact that she was alone with a man. She reached out to touch the right side of Simon’s face without risking his refusal if she asked permission. She could tell that he was not breathing with how rigid he had suddenly become. Even she stopped breathing when her index finger rested on the deepest part of his scar, just shy of his eye. It was the part of his face where the bullet had entered. The scar was harder then she had expected. The tissue of the scar was very smooth, but stiff and tight. Simon exhaled a shaky breath as he closed his eyes.