Sara Bennett

by Lessons in Seduction

  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.

  Chapter 2

  First 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. Until 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 p
ockets 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.”

  Silence. It seemed, to Vivianna, to last for a painfully long time.

  He was watching her, and his expression was quite closed to her, whereas before she had believed she could read him rather well. She had no doubt that behind that handsome mask his brain was assimilating her words with ease. There was nothing foolish about Lord Montegomery—well, apart from the buttons on his waistcoat.

  “Miss Vivianna Greentree.”

  “That is my name, my lord.”