Her Perfect Match (11 page)

Finally, his world stopped tilting and he realized he still crushed her to the settee. With a grunt, he parted their bodies and flopped onto his back. She curled against his side and they remained silent together in the quiet.

Benedict stared up at the ceiling high above. Even the moldings were done in erotic images of bodies intertwined. He shook his head with a smile as he shifted his focus back to the naked woman in his arms.

Although they had certainly shared long nights when they were last lovers, Vivien had never been comfortable being held. She found means of escape and built walls whenever he offered her tenderness rather than passion.

Tonight, she rested her head in the crook of his shoulder, gently tracing patterns across his skin, and made no effort to remove herself from the intimacy of their embrace.

“May I ask you something?” she finally said when they had been silent for several moments.

He braced himself for the ramifications of all the questions she could have, but nodded. “Of course. You may ask me anything.”

She looked up at him at his words and there was a flash of sudden, deep emotion in her eyes that she immediately masked. “What do you know of the Earl of Dershingham?”

Benedict hesitated. That was
not
one of the questions for which he had prepared a moment ago. He hardly knew how to answer it except honestly, for he did not understand her reasons behind it.

“We do not move in the same circles, so I have little cause to interact with the man, but I have never heard anything good,” he said softly.

She stared into the fire across the room. “Nor have I.”

There was a wistfulness to her tone, but also an anger. Neither of which he understood.

“Please tell me you are not asking for my help in shopping for a new protector,” he said, his tone light even though he was utterly serious in his words. “Especially not after the passion we just shared.”

She stared at him in horror. “Dear God, no!”

She sat up, offering him the most magnificent view of her naked breasts, the curve of her bare arms, the sweetness of her tousled hair down around her face.

He smiled. The strength of her resolve told him everything he needed to know about the truth of her statement. “Then why do you ask me about this man?”

She drew her lip between her teeth and worried it as she stared at him, unflinching. For once, he could see the full course of her thoughts. She considered the truth, but hesitated. She wanted to pull away and distance herself from honesty and connection.

He reached out to take her hand and smoothed his fingers over her palms gently. “Please,” he whispered.

Vivien had never weakened to him. There were a few times he thought she might over the years, but something in her had always stopped her. Tonight, in the sparkling light of the fire, with his hand in hers, she couldn’t seem to harden her heart or protect her privacy or whatever it was that drove her to build so many walls between herself and anyone else who might see inside.

She tilted her head, looked him straight in the eye and said, “I wish to destroy him.”

Vivien shook her head as the words left her lips. What had she just done? Shared something from her private list of things to do? With
him
?

She shook his hand away and managed to push past him to her feet. She pulled her gown over her naked, flushed body and fastened the little buttons along the front without looking at him. Still, she felt his shocked stare burn into her back. And not just shocked at what she’d said, but that she had shared something so unexpected and personal.

It was not her way, and for good reason.

“Are you going to say something?” she asked, hardening herself as she spun on him.

He stared up at her, but his expression was unreadable. Funny how they could reverse roles like that, her with her emotions wild, him calm and inscrutable.

“No one deserves to be destroyed more than Dershingham,” he conceded.

Her eyes went wide. That was all?

But of course, it was not. Benedict sat up, still entirely naked and utterly distracting.

“But what you suggest is madness, Vivien. A woman of your position—”

She cut him off with a wave of her hand. “A woman of my position is the
only
kind who could stand up to someone like him.”

He continued to stare at her with such focus that she felt the uncommon sensation of blood rushing to her cheeks. She turned away so he would not see it.
 

“I only meant that there would be a cost if you did so,” he said softly.

“Yes,” she agreed, thinking of all the consequences that would very likely follow a public destruction of an important man. Funny how they did not trouble her anymore. The pain that would follow the action would be very brief since she intended to leave London.

Benedict got up and continued, unaware of her thoughts. “You have built a life, a reputation, on your discretion. If you swing on this man, especially in a way that will be seen as public, you could violently alter your future.”

Vivien mulled those words. Violently alter her future. Yes, that sounded perfect.

She turned on him.

“You say no one deserves destruction more—does that mean you know what he does?” she asked.

Benedict shrugged. “He’s a cheat at cards, a miser with his family, there was some talk about a duel where the man opposite him was shot and permanently maimed under very questionable circumstances…”

When she shook her head, he trailed off.

“These are minor transgressions,” she whispered. “It is the servants who receive the worst consequences of his evil. Girls in his employ, especially the youngest of them…” She cleared her throat and blinked at a sudden sting behind her eyes. “Raped. Brutalized and tortured. If they try to leave, they are given poor references and cannot find new employment.”

Benedict stepped back in shock, but his expression didn’t slow her pace. She continued, her voice cracking with emotion she could not control as the awful words continued to spill forth.

“Some have had no choice but the streets as their escape. Others have remained in his employ. One girl killed herself last year, swallowed poison from the house and lived her last few days in agony in a
barn
because the bastard didn’t want to hear her cries in his halls, disturbing his supper. She was but fifteen at her death.”

Benedict sucked in a breath and reached for his trousers. Once he was clothed, he shook his head. “I am shocked at this. Everyone knows he is a bastard, but these allegations are much darker than any leveled at him before.”

“But why would men of your rank know?” she asked with a shake of her head. “It isn’t as if servants take up much space in your mind, do they? Once they disappear below stairs, you forget them entirely. And that is the notion these predators rely upon. No one cares, so no one will stop their behavior. But those of us who walk outside your world, who are closer to servant than to lady of the manor, we know the truth. And I am tired of remaining silent.”

He stared at her for a long moment, his expression unreadable, but then his eyes widened and his thoughts became clear. He might hesitate to support her wild plan to destroy a man of rank…but he
admired
her for the desire to do so. Admired her! She did not think anyone had done that for years, at least not a man.

His regard warmed her unexpectedly and she turned her face so that he wouldn’t see how meaningful his support was to her. There was no use giving him so much power.

“What if I…helped you?” he asked when he next spoke.

That question forced her to pivot in shock to stare at him. “Help me?” she repeated, the words seeming foreign on her tongue.

He laughed. “Yes,
help
you. Surely you have heard the term before. It means to come to your aid, be a partner in your plans, render assistance—”

She lifted a hand to still his teasing words. “Yes, I know what the word
help
means, Benedict! But you cannot be serious.”

“I am utterly serious,” he said, his brow wrinkling with trouble and confusion.

“It is a noble suggestion, of course, but it could only bring you grief. Do not forget, you have a reputation that is even more steeped in your actions than even mine is. Your family, your
brother
, they will surely disapprove, as will three-quarters of the
ton
, even if they discovered the truth of what the bastard is doing.”

Benedict pursed his lips. “You think so little of those of my rank.”

“I have known a great many of them,” she said, her tone filled with more bitterness than perhaps she had intended.

He frowned. “So you lump me in with them, then?”

Her lips parted at the true hurt in his expression. And her surprise extended to her own reaction, as well. In truth, she did not put Benedict in the same category as his cohorts. She never had.

“No,” she said, reaching for his hand despite the danger in touching him during this highly charged exchange. “Of course not.”

“Then will you not allow that perhaps
I
am tired of remaining silent, as well? Injustice should not be tolerated by anyone!”

She pursed her lips as she tried to think of some way to dissuade him from joining her cause. For both their sakes. But she could think of none save one.

“And you are looking for a wife,” she said, trying to maintain some tone of innocence as she brought up the subject. “Women like a hero.”

She hoped that her reminder would set him back from this course she intended to follow. And when his face fell slightly, she thought her reminder had done just that.

He moved toward her and lifted her hand to his chest. “Let us not speak about wives.”

She blinked. Some part of her recognized that she should do just what he asked her not to do. She should press on the subject of his intention to marry until it drove him away.

But she couldn’t. Even if she should, even if he needed to hear it, even if there were a thousand reasons. She couldn’t. There was something in Benedict, just as there had always been, that made her surrender.

“Then shall we talk about our takedown of the bastard instead?” she whispered, suddenly aware of how close they were, how he was still shirtless, how her body reacted to his heat and his scent.

He shook his head, leaning closer. “Later,” he murmured.

Then his mouth was on hers again and she spiraled into a dark cavern of pleasure where nothing else existed but them.

Chapter Ten

Benedict set one book back on Vivien’s shelf and reached for another. His eyes went wide at what was within. The shelves in her public parlors were lined with erotic tomes, complete with illustrations of a most shocking nature. That, combined with her erotic art and wallpaper, made his head spin.

But he had always known that his lover was a sensual woman, unafraid of intimacy of the body. No, what she was afraid of was something far deeper—intimacy of the mind and the spirit. Sharing anything, even the smallest detail, of the woman behind her public persona, was terrifying to her. So she built walls with her clothing, her sensuality, her shocking chambers where sin was king…

He knew she had private rooms in this house…she had to, no one could sleep full-time in that gargantuan bed she shared with her lovers.
Those
were the chambers he wanted to see, a glimpse of her real self, her real life when she was alone and not trying to impress those with power.

She would never show him of her own volition, but he had a plan to get around her walls this time.

The door behind him opened and he turned to watch her come into the room. Her blonde hair was swept up in a complicated fashion and her bright blue eyes were accentuated by the equally stunning blue of her gown.

“Good afternoon,” he said with a slight bow in her direction.

She laughed. “We are very proper today.”

“I always greet a lady properly,” he said, then crossed the room and took her arm to pull her close. After he kissed her slowly, thoroughly, he smiled. “You see?”

She staggered slightly as he released her and smoothed her dress gently. “Ah, yes. Though I doubt you were taught the second welcome in a comportment session.”

“You never met my governess,” he said, then whistled.

Her eyes went wide. “You cannot be serious!”

He shook his head. “I admit, I am not. But for a moment you thought me as wicked as some of the men who come to your home regularly.”

She smiled, but the expression seemed forced. “Some of those men are very nice, yes, but I would not want them to stay longer than an evening, I assure you. Their wickedness is not their most charming trait. Though everyone seems to think that is all I care about.”

He tilted his head. She seemed truly irritated by what had been honest teasing. Which created an opportunity for him to press for those details he was always so hungry for.

“If wickedness is not the dominant trait you look for in a gentleman, then what is?”

She hesitated for so long that he wondered if she had actually heard his question, but then she sighed. Her gaze was far away as she murmured, “I could scarcely tell you anymore.”