Sara Bennett (19 page)

Vivianna could read the temptation between the lines. Aphrodite wanted to go with Henry, but what
would become of her, and what would become of Jemmy? Quickly she turned the page.

And then, at the bottom of the page:

Tears flooded Vivianna’s eyes.

Was this the love Aphrodite had spoken of, the man she had loved and left behind and now regretted beyond words? Strange, that a woman who had done so much, seen so much, lived such a rich and full life, should regret something that happened when she was a young girl, at the beginning of it all.

Beyond her room, Vivianna heard Helen’s voice, and then Toby’s deeper tones. He was home, then. After a moment Helen began to cry. Vivianna wanted to keep on reading Aphrodite’s diary, but she knew she could not. Helen would need her company and sup
port when morning came. Fascinating as the beautiful courtesan’s life was, it had nothing to do with her.

She closed the diary and hid it away again, promising herself she would read more as soon as she was able.

After he had left Vivianna, Oliver wandered for a long while, undecided upon his destination. His body ached for hers, but he was glad it had come to nothing—
could
come to nothing. He had known all along that even if he had her, it would not be the end of his reluctant obsession with her. More likely it would be the beginning of something more.

She was not the woman he had wanted her to be.

Now he knew the truth.

It was Candlewood she thought of when she was kissing him and touching him. It was Candlewood making her gasp and cry out when he did the same to her. She had believed she could barter her body for his compliance.

Oliver had met too many women like that in the past year. He was jaded with them and their view of the world. He had thought Vivianna was different; he had wanted her so much to be
different
.

But beyond his disappointment, now there was something more to keep him awake at nights.

Lawson and Vivianna.

He had no doubt Vivianna would contact Lawson and take up his offer of help. She had said as much. And Lawson, his cold eyes smug and confident, knew he had found a lever to use on Oliver.

“Bastard,” Oliver muttered. “Murdering bastard.”

Lawson, through Vivianna, would try to stop Candlewood’s demolition—he would use her crusading spirit to buy himself time.

He looked up at the dark, cloud-strewn sky. Lawson was a dangerous man. A killer with powerful friends. On their way home from Candlewood, Oliver had let slip to Vivianna that he wanted to avenge his brother. She hadn’t forgotten it. She would repeat it to Lawson. Naturally she would, because Lawson would assure her that he and Anthony were the best of friends. She would tell him everything.

The game would be up—Lawson would know Oliver was on to him. A year of slowly reeling in Anthony’s killer would have been wasted. But, more than the destruction of all his hopes and plans, Vivianna would be in Lawson’s power. She would be in danger.

Oliver’s blood turned to ice.

He took a deep breath and looked around. The white columns of White’s were right in front of him and he didn’t even remember making the journey. Lawson was probably there now—the opera had long since finished. There was a chance Oliver could still salvage his plan. He could throw Lawson off the scent, make him believe Vivianna was of no importance. He had to try. With a tired shrug of acceptance, Oliver climbed the steps and made his way inside. The gaming rooms were as full as ever, and there were quite a few members deep in conversation, or partaking of a late supper in the dining room.

Oliver refused a number of requests by his acquaintances to join them. Instead he sat with a glass and a bottle of brandy before him, and pretended to be busy with his usual pastime of getting drunk.

“Oliver!”

He didn’t jump, although his entire body went rigid and his heart began to pound. As if he had suddenly come face-to-face with tremendous danger. Slowly, taking his time, Oliver rose unsteadily to his feet.

“Lord Lawson.”

Lawson returned his bow briefly.

Behind him, Toby Russell’s handsome, dissolute face appeared, his eyes as watchful as ever. “Lord Montegomery!” he said with false joviality. “This is a surprise, eh? I thought you were at the opera with my niece. Don’t say it’s finished already? Those things usually go on for hours, don’t they?”

Lawson gave Toby a curious glance. “With your
niece,
Russell? Is the forthright Miss Greentree your niece?”

“She’s come down from Yorkshire. She’s my wife’s sister’s girl.”

“And you asked her to the opera, Oliver?” Lord Lawson was smiling at him, but there was calculation behind it. “Alone?”

Oliver affected disinterest. “Lady Marsh asked Miss Greentree to the opera and then fell ill. I took the young lady in her place.”

Toby raised his eyebrows, but before he could question Oliver’s statement of events, Lawson said, “I thought you were hanging out for a wife, Oliver. Perhaps your aunt sees Miss Greentree as filling that role?”

“Not me, my lord. I have no intention of being leg-shackled yet. Look at Russell here, he’s a warning to us all.”

Lord Lawson laughed loudly and Toby smiled in a manner he probably believed to be good-humored, though looked anything but.

“She is a pretty thing, Oliver, this niece of Russell’s.”

“I suppose she’s attractive in a countrified way,” he said offhandedly.

“So you didn’t enjoy the opera?”

Oliver yawned. “No, my lord, I didn’t.”

“Strange, that wasn’t what I thought.”

Oliver felt his blood freeze as he looked into Lawson’s famous ice-blue eyes. There was amusement in them, and triumph, but worst of all, there was knowledge. Lawson had seen them, or someone else had done the spying and then reported to him. Oliver knew he should have thought of that—he should have planned ahead. And yet it had been innocent enough, until he kissed her.

Then the situation had spun rapidly out of control.

How could he have been so blind and so stupid? He must defuse the matter, brush it off as one of his escapades. He wasn’t supposed to care what happened to someone like Vivianna, and Lawson wouldn’t expect him to.

But he did. Despite what he had said to her tonight, despite what she had said to him, she mattered to him. He realized it now as he sensed the danger he had brought down upon her, and he also realized just how much.

“Ah.” Oliver wagged his finger at the other two men. He made himself smirk and swagger a little, playing at being the drunken fool. “Then you know, Lawson, that Miss Greentree isn’t very happy with me.”

Lawson smirked back while Toby looked from one to the other in frustrated silence. “And why is that, Oliver? Do enlighten us, and I will tell you whether your story tallies with my own. What did you and Miss Greentree talk about at the opera?”

“Damned if I know. I wasn’t particularly interested in her conversation,” he said.

Lawson laughed, but his eyes were bright with contempt. “Do you often copulate with girls in public, Oliver? Very bad form. Especially when Her Majesty is present.”

Toby’s eyes popped. “You did what?”

“I didn’t manage it,” Oliver went on thoughtfully, as if he were discussing a horse race and not a woman’s honor. “I tried, but she wasn’t having any. I do believe I’ll have to let that one go. I don’t think Miss Greentree will come out with me alone ever again. Or that her uncle here would allow it, eh, Russell?”

Toby looked annoyed, but Oliver thought it was because he felt an idiot for not seeing the truth before now, rather than that any harm might have been done to Vivianna.

Lawson gave Oliver a wink. “I don’t know, Oliver, you used to have quite a reputation where the ladies were concerned. Strange, but my information is you were more interested in gazing into her eyes than watching the opera. But you’re not the man you were, Oliver, are you? Maybe these days you need someone else to hold her down for you, open her legs while you find the right—”

“I don’t…don’t know what you’re talking about.”

His voice was tight and hard, his hands clenched at his sides. If Lawson had wanted to flush the truth out of him, then he had almost succeeded. Oliver swallowed his fury and looked away from those ice-blue eyes and hoped he had not given himself away.

“Well then,” Lawson said softly, sounding pleased with himself, “you won’t mind if I take an interest in Miss Greentree, will you, Oliver? Between us we might be able to save Candlewood for those poor little children.”

Oliver stiffened.

Those cold eyes stared into his, and Oliver couldn’t think of a thing to reply. Lawson smiled, as if he had won some bet with himself. “Good, good. I thought not.”

Oliver felt his stomach drop away. Anger and dis
may made his hands shake, and he had to slip them into his pockets. It could be that Lawson was just amusing himself, that perhaps he believed that Oliver was in love with Vivianna and he simply wanted to cause him pain. Revenge for the inconvenience Oliver had been causing him for over a year now. But Oliver did not think so. Lawson had another agenda. He was suspicious. He was beginning to doubt. And he saw Vivianna as a way of forcing Oliver out into the open.

“I’ll be keeping an eye on your niece, Toby. Can’t have the girl corrupted by a rake like Oliver, can we?”

Toby sniggered.

Oliver promised himself that one day soon he would bloody Toby’s nose, but not before he had saved Vivianna from Lawson’s clutches.

If, that is, she would let him.

“I
made a mistake.”

Aphrodite was watching her in her usual aloof manner. “You are a novice,
mon chou,
you will make mistakes.”

“No, I…I thought the moment had come to tell Oliver what I wanted from him. He seemed so approachable, so tender, and I believed he would listen to me and grant me my wish.”

“So you asked him to give you Candlewood?” Aphrodite prompted.

Vivianna nodded, swallowing tears. “He said I was selling my body for Candlewood, and that he had had enough ‘love for profit.’”

Aphrodite was silent, and Vivianna wondered if the courtesan was insulted. After all, love for profit was what she herself sold.

“I don’t want him to despise me,” she went on quietly, her head bowed, and a tear dropped onto the cloth of her skirt. “I realized then that I don’t want
him to think I am only pretending to enjoy his company for the sake of Candlewood. I know he is a rake, but he…that is, I know that I can…I can…”

“Save him?” Aphrodite said woodenly.

Vivianna looked up in surprise and realized that there was a deep compassion in the courtesan’s dark eyes. Aphrodite pulled a lacy scrap of handkerchief from her sleeve and passed it over, watching as Vivianna tidied her tears.

“It is your nature,” the older woman said at last. “You cannot help but believe the best of people and want to help them. I should have foreseen it. You see a man like Oliver, a rake whose life revolves around his own pleasure, and you immediately begin to believe he is redeemable.”

It sounded so very like what Vivianna had been thinking that she was shamed into silence.

“Perhaps, despite what you think, he wanted you to admit to it,
mon chou,
so that he could bargain with you. He wanted you to say to him, ‘Yes, I am willing to sell my body for Candlewood,’ and then he would not have to pretend to care to get what he wanted. Some men think they have to play a game, a part.”

Play a part? Vivianna remembered when they had run into Lord Lawson at the opera, and Oliver had pretended to be a drunken fool. But surely that wasn’t the sort of part Aphrodite was speaking of, it was only one more mystery that Vivianna had yet to solve.

“You think I should bargain with him, then, honestly and openly?” Vivianna asked, her fist closing over the sodden lace. “You think he never cared for me, only for what he could get from me?”

Aphrodite made a face. “I am tempted to say that it is so. For the past year, Oliver has certainly given all
who know him the impression that he is on his way to hell. And yet,
mon chou,
I have sometimes wondered if Oliver is being completely honest with us.” Her eyes narrowed. “You are very strongly attracted to him,
oui
? Your body longs for his?”

“Yes,” she whispered. “I
ache
for him.”

Aphrodite reached out and clasped her hand. “Then you must do something about it. You should take him, Vivianna. Not with your heart, but simply with your body. Enjoy what he has to give you and then walk away from him and forget him. A single night,
oui
? One night of passion and then,
psht!
Over. It is the best thing.”

“I don’t know if I can do that,” Vivianna said, gazing into those black eyes. “I don’t know if I would be able to walk away.”

Aphrodite’s fingers pressed hard. “Of course you can. Take what you want. You say he is a man who makes you ache; satisfy that ache. Satisfy your curiosity. You will always regret it otherwise.”

Vivianna nodded, but she wondered if it was that simple. Somehow Oliver had already entangled himself in the threads of her life. And yet the thought of enjoying him for what he could give her—pleasure and expertise—made her quiver deep inside. A night of unbridled passion and then goodbye. Perhaps it would be worth the pain, to have such memories?

“I want to touch him, too,” she said quietly. “I want to touch that part of him that makes him a man.”

Aphrodite smiled. “Why not? He will not expect you to be trained like a courtesan, so do not be afraid of being bold. Your innocent fingers on him will make him very excited,
mon chou.
Stroke his shaft, hold him, kiss him. If you like, you can take him into your
mouth. Gently, though. That part of a man may appear powerful and strong, but it is his most vulnerable part.”

Vivianna felt a little dizzy at the thought of doing such things to Oliver. But Aphrodite was right. If she did not satisfy her curiosity, if she did not have her night of passion, she would always regret it.

Aphrodite, watching the thoughts flit over Vivianna’s face, wondered if she was doing the right thing. There were those who would be appalled at such advice as she had just given, but Aphrodite had seen much of life. Vivianna needed Oliver Montegomery, and if she wasn’t very much mistaken, Oliver needed Vivianna.

She was no matchmaker, but she had sensed a connection between the two of them from the first. Maybe, with luck, this might do the trick. If not…She shrugged her shoulders, Vivianna would have a night to remember and no harm done. She might think her heart broken for a little while but Aphrodite knew that hearts did not really break, and they were remarkably good at mending.

She knew now that Vivianna was made of sterner stuff. She would endure, just as Aphrodite had endured.

Such is life….

The following day Vivianna went to Candlewood. The Beatty sisters questioned her thoroughly on her progress with Oliver, and it broke her heart to have to tell them that she feared they had lost the battle.

“He is set in his determination to have Candlewood demolished. I wish I could give you hope, but I think…” She could hardly bear to meet their stricken eyes. “I think it best if you go ahead and accept Lord Montegomery’s offer of the other property.”

“Oh no!” Miss Susan cried.

“The Bethnal Green house will have to do, until something better comes along.” Miss Greta, more practical, drew a sustaining breath. “I admit I have looked over it.”

“Greta!”

Greta took her sister’s hands and squeezed them gently. “I know, I should not have gone without you, but I thought, if worse came to worst, we would at least know what to expect.”

Vivianna was in agreement. “In hindsight, you were wise. What is it like?”

“I have to say that I do not think, by our standards, that it is the proper place to lodge children. The building is damp and some of the floors are rotten. The roof leaks.”

“Poor little souls.” A tear streaked down Miss Susan’s cheek.

Vivianna, herself close to tears, glanced up at that moment and saw one of the “poor little souls” outside the window, aiming a slingshot at a bird in a tree. It was Eddie, and he released his shot, sending the bird into angry flight. Her sadness lightened, and she actually found herself smiling. These children were resilient, they had had to be. Maybe the Bethnal Green house was far from ideal, but for the time it would have to do, at least until they were able to find somewhere more suitable to carry on their dream.

Back in Queen’s Square, she had barely stepped from the coach when the man who had been monopolizing her thoughts stepped in front of her, blocking her path to the front door.

Vivianna started and said, “What are you doing here?” before she could think to affect indifference. Besides, she wasn’t indifferent, she was angry. Her body began to tingle and melt, as if it were greeting him in its own passionate language, and that infuriated her even more.

“I want to speak with you, Vivianna. I left my card, but you were out.”

“Speak with me?” Her eyes narrowed. “I have been at Candlewood. Have you been lurking out here waiting for me to return?”

“Lurking?” He gave an angry laugh.

“What is so urgent that it could not have waited until tomorrow?”

There was something strange about him, something edgy and anxious.

“I want to speak with you about Lawson,” he said bluntly, not bothering to answer her question.

“Lord Lawson?” Vivianna raised her eyebrows. She had forgotten all about Lord Lawson.

He glared at her. “He’s already written to me asking to purchase Candlewood on behalf of the shelter. I have refused. Was that your doing?”

Vivianna could not hide her shock. “No, it wasn’t my doing. I had no idea…. But I must say it was very kind and generous of him. Why did you refuse? Isn’t money the same, whoever it comes from? Surely it would not matter to you who paid it as long as you could spend it on…what was the term, now? ‘Whores, brandy, and gaming.’ Wasn’t that what you told me the first time I met you?”

Oliver frowned, clearly not liking to be reminded. “I lied,” he said bluntly. “I don’t want Lawson’s money.”

“Well, I am disappointed. Lord Lawson promises to be very useful to us, and I mean to beg his continued support. I am very sorry for your brother and any guilt you might feel, if that is the real reason you want Candlewood turned to dust—and I have to say I am beginning to doubt that is the real reason, Oliver. But that is beside the point. I cannot allow you to ruin the lives of the children for—”

“Damnation, Vivianna, will you be quiet? Do you never listen? I have come to warn you that Lawson isn’t to be trusted. You think he wants to help you? He doesn’t want to help
you
; he wants to hurt
me
. He is using you because he thinks he can get at me.”

Vivianna stared at him. It made no sense to her, and
yet he looked sincere. But then, Oliver was very good at looking anything he wanted to. “You are very arrogant,” she said at last. “The world doesn’t revolve around you, Oliver—”

She broke off as he stepped closer, and now he was almost touching her. The warmth of his body, the scent of sandalwood from his clothing, in fact everything about him weakened her. In another moment she would put her arms around him and kiss him. It didn’t matter what he might or might not have done; it did not matter whether or not he was an unreformable rake.

That was what made Oliver so dangerous to her.

“Are you wearing drawers?”

She blinked, wondering if she had heard him right. “Oliver!”

He shook his head, and rubbed his eyes as though he, too, were having difficulty concentrating. “I’m sorry.”

Vivianna knew she needed time alone, to think. To plan her next move. To gather her scattered thoughts.

“Will you let me talk to you?” Oliver added quietly, urging her to say yes. “Vivianna, will you please ask me inside your aunt’s house so that I can speak to you in private?”

She stepped backward. “I don’t think so. You are clearly not in your right mind.”

He rolled his eyes to the heavens. “If I am insane then you are the cause.”

“I must go, my lord, excuse me.”

Oliver glared at her a moment more, and then turned his back and walked away. Vivianna watched him disappear around the corner. Why was Oliver so determined to keep her from Lord Lawson? It was most bizarre, and yet she sensed from Oliver’s de
meanor that something very serious was happening. Perhaps she should have spoken to him further.

But Vivianna was still trying to decide whether or not to take Aphrodite’s advice, to give herself one night with the rake and then walk away. Being in his company confused her. Such decisions must be made out of his influence.

Vivianna sighed. “I wish Mama were here.”

And yet, she thought at the same time, better that she was not. Vivianna had too many secrets to keep from her, and it was never easy keeping secrets from Lady Greentree.