Sara Bennett (3 page)

And then that unfeeling wretch threatened to ruin everything.

Vivianna had known as soon as she read the letter that she could not let that happen. She was not the sort of woman to stand by and watch her dream be destroyed. She would come to London to take whatever action was necessary.

Lady Greentree, though worried and concerned at her going, had learned long ago that once Vivianna committed herself to something this passionately, there was little anyone could say or do to stop her. Or even to slow her down. Vivianna did not care for the strictures that society tried to place upon her, a young spinster. She believed there were more important things to life than adhering to so many—to her mind—pointless rules.

“I will not be made helpless just because I am a woman,” she had told Lady Greentree. “I am going to London to save the shelter.”

Her sister Marietta had begged to be allowed to
come, too, but for less noble reasons—“To see the sights and the shops, Vivianna!”—while Francesca, the youngest, had declared that nothing, not even the sights of London, would ever entice her away from her beloved moors. Vivianna promised to write to them when she reached London, to tell them how long she was staying.

So she and Lil, her maid, took the mail coach for the Great Northern Road, and London.

Before they left, Lady Greentree spoke frankly to her.

“You will of course be staying with your Aunt Helen in Bloomsbury. I have put a letter for her in your trunk explaining, but I am certain she will not mind your impromptu visit, Vivianna. You will be company for her, poor Helen.” For a moment Lady Greentree’s face clouded as she thought of her sister, married to the disreputable Toby Russell, and then she rallied. “I have also written a letter for Hoare’s Private Bank in Fleet Street, so that you can draw on my account there. You will have expenses, and who knows, you may want to buy a new dress or two!” She smiled fondly at her eldest daughter, as if she didn’t really think it likely. “Now, have you everything, my dear?”

“Yes, Mama, I have everything. Don’t fret. I will be perfectly all right.”

Lady Greentree had sighed, then nodded. “You have always been a headstrong girl, Vivianna. I knew it when you brought home that tinker’s child when you were ten and informed me he needed a new pair of shoes. In some ways, Vivianna, it is a blessing to be so sure of your direction in life. In others…I fear for you. Do not be too impetuous. I beg you to think first, or you may find yourself in a great deal of trouble.”

Seated now in the hackney cab, Vivianna wondered
if Lady Greentree’s prediction was about to come true. Because not only had she gone rushing off to London, but upon her arrival at her aunt’s home, Vivianna had pretended to have a bad headache and had promptly retired to her room. Once there, she paused only to change her clothing, snatch up her riding crop, and creep out.

Lil, her maid, had been her unwilling accomplice, as she was in many of Vivianna’s schemes. Lil found her a hackney cab, and sent her on her way with the admonishment to come back “in one piece, miss, for Gawd’s sake!” And as for poor Aunt Helen, if she were to discover her gone…She was already quite mad with worry concerning her rackety husband, and Vivianna knew it was wrong of her to add to the woman’s burden.

But somehow all of that paled to insignificance when she thought of the children.

The carriage containing Lord Montegomery drew to a halt in front of a long, three-story building. A doorman, who had been standing at attention dressed in a red coat with a military cut, strode down to meet Montegomery like a soldier marching proudly into battle.

Vivianna’s hackney had also come to a halt. She peered out at the bland, respectable façade. The place looked mundane, but she supposed exclusive gentlemen’s clubs did not need to advertise their wares on the outside. As she sat, hesitating, Montegomery vanished inside and his carriage moved off. It was time to make her own decision. If she did not do something now, she may as well go back to Yorkshire.

Vivianna was not a woman to retreat easily; she was a fighter. She climbed down out of the hackney and paid off the driver. His fingers closed over the shilling
coins. “Here, miss?” he asked her, a strange expression on his face. “Are you sure? Right here?”

“I am perfectly sure, thank you.”

“But it’s an academy, miss. Run by an abbess. An’ I can see you is a laced-woman…eh, that is, a lady.”

Vivianna only understood a few words of what he said, and even then they made no sense. Her chance of following Montegomery inside was dwindling. “I will be quite safe, driver, thank you,” she said coolly.

The man opened his mouth, then closed it again, and with a flick of his wrists turned the hackney back into the sparse stream of evening traffic. Just as Vivianna drew the hood of her cloak up to hide her face, another vehicle pulled up outside the sober building, and another gentleman alighted. Ignoring Vivianna’s cloaked figure standing irresolute upon the footway, he strode briskly toward the open door.

Here was her chance.

Vivianna fell into step behind the gentleman, hurrying to keep up, as if she had every right to be there. The red-coated doorman was bowing him inside. Breath held, head lowered, her cloak wrapped tightly about her, Vivianna moved to slip by him and within.

The air whooshed out of her lungs. She had run straight into a muscular arm, stretched out at waist height and barring her way. Gasping, Vivianna looked up and found the doorman, a sun-browned individual with a broken nose, staring down at her with hard gray eyes.

“’Round the back, girl,” he barked, his demeanor disapproving.

Vivianna hesitated, while behind her on the street another coach was drawing up.

“’Round the back!” he ordered again, giving her a lit
tle shove, and brushed by her to attend the new arrival.

The doorman seemed to have made an assumption as to who or what she was—just as the hackney driver had done, she remembered now. What that assumption was, Vivianna did not know, but it did not really matter. This was maybe her only opportunity to get inside and confront Montegomery.

Vivianna hurried back down the steps and in the direction that the doorman was impatiently pointing out to her. There was, she saw now, a narrow lane running down one side of the building. As she stood peering into the shadows, a cart rumbled up behind her, and she quickened her steps and found herself in a courtyard behind the house.

The door into the back of the house had been left open and Vivianna darted inside as if she had every right to do so.

The air was full of the smells of cooking and starch. A small room to her left looked to be a scullery. She kept walking down a long corridor of closed doors, leaving the kitchen and the laundry behind her. It wasn’t very well lit, and she felt her way by running one hand along the wall. Ahead, sounds of merriment grew louder. Another door, and a shorter corridor, and Vivianna blinked.

Light, shining through a beaded curtain, and with it the movement of chattering people and the clink of glasses. Vivianna clutched the riding crop tightly in her hand, hidden by her cloak. She doubted she would need it now, but something made her loath to put it aside. The heaviness in her chest had increased, and she felt as if her corsets were too tight.

“Montegomery can’t be far,” she murmured to herself, to keep up her courage.

Vivianna lifted her chin, like Boudicca going into
battle, and made her entrance through the beaded curtain.

Immediately a warning note rang in her head.
This
was a gentlemen’s club? Vivianna gazed about in surprise. It was very elegant, done up in the French Rococo style, with pale walls and much curling gold decoration. Mirrors were everywhere, and the reflections of dozens of candles gleamed like stars. The furnishings were elegant and uncomfortable-looking—definitely not the overstuffed chairs and sofas that were currently in vogue.

It was not as Vivianna had expected. She had been imagining sober gentlemen sitting about in leather chairs, reading books and newspapers, and discussing the unruly House of Commons over glasses of brandy. There were plenty of gentlemen in this large, elegant room, but there were also many ladies. She also saw an enormous table spread lavishly with plates of prepared food and glasses of champagne.

Were ladies permitted into the hallowed halls of a gentlemen’s club? Vivianna had not thought that was the case, but she was an innocent in such matters, and if necessary that was her defense. Perhaps this was a special evening, a gala evening, and ladies had been invited to attend? Vivianna blinked and looked more closely at the ladies in question. They were certainly very beautiful, and very richly dressed in brightly colored muslins and silks, reminiscent of an earlier age—Rome, perhaps, or Troy. Richly
and
scantily dressed.

Her cheeks warmed. If Lady Greentree walked into such a place, she would turn and walk straight out of it again. What had that hackney driver said to her before she sent him away? Something about this being an “academy” run by an “abbess”? The warning note in Vivianna’s head became an entire orchestra. Again she
ignored it. There was no time to change her plans now. Glimpses of women’s limbs through gossamer-thin silks was irrelevant to her right now. Perhaps, she thought doubtfully, London society was more liberal when it came to female attire than that in Yorkshire.

Anyway, the fact that there were women present suited her plans; it enabled her to move about far more easily in search of her prey. With a quick glance left to right, to assure herself that no one was taking any particular notice of her, Vivianna began her journey across the room, keeping close to the wall and using draperies and green leafy plants for cover. If anyone did notice her, she thought with beating heart, they would believe her to be a gentleman’s shy spinster sister, or a maiden aunt, come down from the country to partake of the pleasures of the capital, and unused to company.

Hovering near an aspidistra, Vivianna peered about the room, seeking Montegomery’s dark and handsome visage. What if he wasn’t here in this room? This was a large house and there must be other rooms. What if she had to search them all? Again Vivianna stilled her fears. If she had to examine every inch of the place, then she would!

But she was in luck. In the next moment she spotted him, standing in a doorway off the main room. There was a woman before him, her gown constructed of some shimmering silken stuff Vivianna had never seen before, the draped bodice disclosing a great deal of bosom and the skirt cut in such a way that her lower limbs were almost completely visible. Shocked, Vivianna raised her eyes abruptly.

The pair of them were laughing, and the woman ran a finger lightly down his chest in a gesture that was teasing and yet surprisingly intimate. They drew
closer, spoke briefly, and then Montegomery stepped back into the room out of sight. The woman smiled over her shoulder in that same teasing, intimate way, as she moved toward the table where champagne sat cooling in ice.

Was she fetching him a glass of champagne? As Vivianna hesitated, the woman was approached by another, older gentleman with blossoming side-whiskers, who began to engage her in conversation. She glanced back toward the doorway apologetically, and then turned a brilliant smile and her full attention upon the new arrival. Vivianna knew a chance when she saw it: a chance to beard the lion in his den.

Swiftly, Vivianna moved in a direct line toward the doorway through which Montegomery had disappeared. No time now to play at being invisible. No time to play it safe. No time…She brushed by an attractive older woman, her dark hair streaked with gray, wearing a sumptuously beaded black gown and a great number of diamonds. The woman’s startled glance was echoed by others. Vivianna’s shoulders ached with tension, and any moment she expected someone to stop her, to ask her what she thought she was doing.

It did not happen.

She reached the open door and stepped inside, closing it quickly behind her.
Now I have you!
Her trembling fingers found the key and turned, locking them both in.

F
irst things first: Make quite sure he cannot escape.

Vivianna removed the key from the lock and slipped it into the pocket sewn into her skirt. Only then, with a deep, sustaining breath, did she turn to face the room. It was just as elegant as the one she had left, but far more intimate. A fire crackled in a fireplace, ornaments gleamed on small, polished tables, and a very large chaise lounge was draped in scarlet silk and dotted with crimson cushions. Upon the wall was a framed painting—a Botticelli Venus—all golden hair and pink flesh.

His back to her, Lord Montegomery was standing by the uncovered windows. A tall, dark, broad-shouldered figure against the night. There was something distant about him, as if he were a man who was all alone. For a moment she hesitated, uncertain, feeling like the intruder she was.

As if sensing her gaze upon him, he turned, a half smile of welcome curving his mouth. His smile turned
quizzical. He blinked deep-set eyes that were of a blue so intense and so dark they almost appeared to be black.

“I thought this was the Venus Room,” he said in a deep, deceptively sleepy voice. “You look more like Diana the Huntress.” His gaze slid over her in a leisurely fashion. “Although with far too many clothes on…”

The meaning of his words barely touched her. If she thought of them at all, Vivianna believed he was trying to be witty at her expense. There was nothing wrong with her good Yorkshire cloth. She took a step forward, hands clasped around the riding crop, her voice ringing out. “Lord Montegomery?”

His intense gaze sharpened. “Do I know you, madam?”

“No, my lord, but you will. My name is Miss Vivianna Greentree, and I am here to restore your conscience to you.”

His dark brows rose, and something shifted in his expression—as though he recognized her name. But, as that was impossible, Vivianna did not allow herself to be distracted. He took a step closer across the splendid Aubusson carpet. “My conscience?” he repeated. “Do I have one to restore? And if I did, would I want the bother of it?” His gaze flicked down to her hands and the riding crop. His lips thinned. “I am sorry, Miss Vivianna Greentree, but there seems to have been a misunderstanding. I prefer
not
to be beaten. Not by you or anyone else. I am a man who likes his pleasure
without
a sting in it.”

That was when Vivianna’s single-minded purpose began to unravel. What on earth did he mean? Who did he think she was? She blinked, opened her mouth, then closed it again. She mustn’t be side-
tracked. They may be interrupted at any moment; she must present her argument while she had the chance.

She drew breath again. “My lord, I am here about the—”

“You’re new.”

“I…that is, no, I—”

There was a gleam in those dark blue eyes as once more they swept over her, taking in her cloak, and her plain wool dress with the neat lace collar. He looked at her for all the world as if she were wearing something as transparent as the women out in the other room. He walked around her—
prowled
around her, rather—and his mouth tilted at the corners. Warily, Vivianna turned with him, keeping him in her sight at all times—which wasn’t difficult, she told herself, when he was wearing such a garish waistcoat. Now he was considering her hair, which she knew full well was windblown and wild from the wait in Berkeley Square, and her face, flushed with righteous indignation.

And—how bizarre!—she could tell he liked the look of her. Of Vivianna Greentree, who had never sought the attentions of any man. She felt his interest like a warm wave, washing over her, as his gaze took a leisurely journey from the top of her chestnut head to the tips of her leather half-boots. His smile grew, making him appear even more like a pirate, and even more dangerous. But what amazed her most of all was her own reaction. She was unprepared for it, had never expected it, and so it took her completely by surprise.

There was confusion and anxiety, of course there was, but underneath…Vivianna felt a shiver deep inside her. It was as if Montegomery had touched her in a place no man had ever touched her before. A secret womanly place she had never known existed. Un
til now. Realization swept over her.
Good Lord, this won’t do!

And still he prowled with an elegant grace. Like Krispen, Lady Greentree’s beloved tomcat, he had that wonderful litheness mixed with a certain smug self-assurance. Unfortunately, she did not expect Montegomery to be quite as easy to manage as Krispen.

“Hmm, perhaps we can come to some arrangement after all,” he said.

They were clearly at cross-purposes, and Vivianna could not let it continue. “There is only one arrangement you and I can come to,” she said sharply, her voice a little strained. “You will change your mind about—”

“You’re very…firm, Miss Vivianna Greentree. I can tell you will be a hit here at Aphrodite’s.” His eyes gleamed at her, as if he had made a joke. She felt beguiled, bewitched, and totally out of her depth. “I’m extremely flattered you’ve come to me first, but I don’t want the crop. I do want you, however. Even though your appearance reminds me of one of those tedious do-gooders who bleat about the poor.”

Tedious do-gooders!
Shocked, Vivianna froze, and he took the opportunity to circle around behind her.

“I’d like to change your bleats to sighs,” he murmured, so close that his breath stirred her hair, and then his fingers brushed over the sensitive skin of her nape.

Vivianna jumped and spun to face him again, her heart beating fast, her body alive with conflicting signals. “My lord—”

“My name is Oliver, and I prefer it to all this ‘my lording.’ Say it.”

“Oliver—”

“Better. Now, I am sure we can both benefit from
what I have in mind.” His dark brows lifted at her lack of perception. “Pleasure, Miss Greentree! I want to take pleasure from you, and give pleasure to you, and I am willing to pay more than the standard fee if it will buy your full cooperation.”

Pay? Sighs? Pleasure?
You’re new.

With a series of horrid clicks, everything fell into place. Vivianna stared into his handsome face and knew she had made a terrible, terrible mistake, and that Lord Montegomery was about to make a worse one. “Sir, I fear you are under a misapprehension—” she croaked, but he thought it was all part of the game. The game he had believed her to be playing from the moment she entered the room.

“There is an earnest wholesomeness that shines from your eyes, Miss Greentree. Do you know, the thought of corrupting you has shaken off my boredom completely.”

“Oh, has it!” she declared. “Has it really!” She felt light-headed. Finally she understood what the hackney driver had been trying to tell her and she had failed to comprehend. She had inveigled her way not into a gentlemen’s club, but into a high-class brothel!

“Let me divest you of your cloak.”

He flicked open the fastening at her throat and the cloak promptly slid from her shoulders to the floor. Vivianna’s eyes widened, and he smiled into them. He was taller than her by a head—a surprising occurrence for a woman who was usually looking down on the men around her.

“You seem to have forgotten what you were going to say,” he said, and lifted his hand to brush one long finger down her cheek. Brief, light as the contact was, it raced through her body like one of the new railway engines.

“I know perfectly well what I am going to say,” she told him in an oddly breathless voice.

“Do you? Your eyes are telling me things, too, did you know that? Your pupils have become large and dark, and there is a flush on your cheeks. Here…and here…” He touched her again, and this time she gasped. “Your lips are soft and open, just a little. As if you want me to kiss them.”

“No, they are not! I do not—”

“Yes, they are. Soft and open.”

Vivianna felt her lips tingle, felt her heart redouble its efforts. He was so close to her now that his breath warmed her. His eyes were holding hers as if there were no one else in the world but her and him. And that was how it felt, as if they were together on a small, brilliantly lit stage and all about them was the darkness of an empty theater.

Why, this is the strangest thing! I am humming. Every part of me is so alive. Has he done this to me?

Vivianna was focused on her own feelings, but the growing ardor in Montegomery’s handsome face could not help but flatter her. Just as she had never felt this before, no man had ever before looked at her in such a way—as if he would gobble her up. She was finding it difficult to move, to breathe, to think. Her reasons for being here were blurring, while his presence had sharpened. And despite being very aware of it, she could not seem to do anything about it.

Good Lord! He is leaning in against me.

And he was. The entire length of his body was pressed to hers, from chest to hip and thigh. And he wasn’t like her at all. He was hard, his muscles so taut there was no softness to them whatsoever. His arm curled about her waist, holding her there against him, and there was power and strength in the sheer effort-
lessness of it. Her breasts were crushed to his chest, and it hurt a little, and yet the pain was also very pleasurable indeed. So much so that she wanted to be held tighter, closer, nearer.

Vivianna’s breath left her lips in a soft whoosh, just as he bent his head and trailed a kiss along her temple, down over her cheek. “Be assured, Miss Vivianna Greentree,” he whispered. “I am a man who knows how to satisfy a woman.”

“I’m sure you’ve had plenty of practice!” Her voice was husky and small—a mouse’s squeak—and he rightly ignored it.

He smiled as his lips brushed across hers, light as air, and then back again, more forcefully. He ran the tip of his tongue around her own lips, as if to imprint the shape of them. Her head spun as if she had partaken of some of the champagne on the lavish table outside. And then, most shockingly of all, very slowly and very gently, he drew her bottom lip into his mouth and sucked upon it.

Vivianna felt her toes curl in her half-boots. Heat rushed into parts of her body where it had never been before, parts that she had hardly known existed. Her breasts swelled and ached, the place between her legs melted. She heard herself moan, and couldn’t help it. Didn’t want to. It occurred to her that it would be so easy, so very easy, to forget everything but the here and now. This pleasure he had spoken of was dangerous.
He
was dangerous.

There was heat in his eyes, making the blue burn. Did he feel this dangerous passion unfurling in him, too? As she tried to focus beyond the heat to the man within, he smiled at her with a rake’s arrogance that told her he had conquered many women, and she was just one more.

Instantly Vivianna was shocked back into sanity.

Her spine turned to steel; her head cleared. In the confined space she struggled to lift her hands and place them flat against his chest. His dreadful waistcoat felt warm from his body, and momentarily she was distracted again by the hard muscle within, and then one of the gold buttons scratched her thumb and she was sobered.

“Come, Miss Greentree,” he drawled, his voice vibrating in her skull, “come lie with me on that chaise lounge over there. Flesh to flesh, skin to skin. I have the urge to lick you all over.”

The image flared across her mind like a summer storm. Hot and heavy and breathless. She rebelled against it. His muscular arms tightened, but she pushed him. Hard. Unfortunately, it was Vivianna who stumbled backward, and half sprawled across a mahogany side table, sending a marble bust into a dangerous dance. It occurred to her fevered imagination that they resembled an illustration she had seen once on the cover of a novelette that Marietta had smuggled into her room. The woman reeling, in fear for her life—or virtue, Vivianna had not been sure of which—and the man leering at her villainously. It was the sort of thing Marietta enjoyed, but Vivianna had dismissed as foolishness. Villains just didn’t loom over defenseless women like that; not when Vivianna was around they didn’t, anyway.

Now melodrama had suddenly become real life, and it was too much for her.

“No, you won’t have me.” She sounded hysterical and completely unlike herself, but somehow the words felt appropriate to her situation. “You’ll never have me!”

He choked on laughter. Then, composing himself,
he gave her a long look from under dark lashes, as close to a leer as he could manage. “Ah, but I will have you, my lovely innocent,” he avowed dramatically, and then spoiled it by tucking his hands into the pockets of his trousers and grinning. “Is this part of the game? I am enjoying it very much. I can’t wait to ravish you. Or are
you
going to ravish
me,
Miss Vivianna Greentree? I promise not to struggle too much.”

The look in his eyes…the response from her own treacherous body…Vivianna knew it was time to put a stop to this before it really went too far.

“My lord,” she managed, and held up a hand to halt him, although he had made no new moves toward her. “I am not one of the…the women of this establishment. I see now that it is not what I thought but a…” She took a breath and calmed herself. “I have come to speak with you, that is all. I attempted to see you at your house in Berkeley Square but your butler refused me entry. I have traveled all the way from Yorkshire to ask you, no, to
implore
you to reconsider your decision to demolish the Shelter for Poor Orphans.”

The warmth left his eyes. There was a glitter in them, like, Vivianna thought wistfully, distant lightning—the storm was receding. Oddly, he did not seem very surprised.

“The Shelter for Poor Orphans. I see. How disappointing.”

She straightened, pushing away from the safety of the table. The seriousness of her situation was sobering, but Vivianna was not a woman to be intimidated. “My name is Miss Vivianna Greentree. I am one of the founders of the Shelter for Poor Orphans. It is administered by Miss Susan and Miss Greta Beatty, and they wrote to me, informing me of your plans. I have come to London to add my pleas to theirs.”