by Isobel Carr
His grandfather was renowned for having intentionally burned down an entire wing of the family seat in a fit of rage, his father for kidnapping his bride from the steps of the church as she was arriving to wed someone else. And only last year, one of his cousins had been tried for the murder of his valet. He’d been acquitted, but all the same… There were rumors and stories of the Vaughn family’s quirks and indiscretions going back to their knightly ancestor who had supported Queen Eleanor against her husband, Henry I.
Viola had been close enough on several occasions to judge those mismatched eyes for herself, but she’d failed to find them as arresting as the rest of London. Not until tonight, when she’d run headlong into him, while wearing just this side of nothing. Suddenly she’d been transfixed, for his famously frigid gaze had been anything but cold.
Viola stretched until her joints strained and her elbows popped. There was no point in dwelling on those eyes of his. He was notorious for never having kept a mistress, a fact much bemoaned among the ranks of the fallen, and she had neither time nor use for cicisbei. Only the money from her memoirs stood between her and debtor’s prison, and the payment she’d received for the first volume was very nearly gone. But the offer she’d secured for the second volume would keep her in coal and lobster patties for years to come…
She wasn’t an actress, couldn’t sing or dance—at least not well enough for a career on the stage—and at seven-and-twenty, her days as one of the reigning belles of the fashionable impures were behind her. It was time to make do or suffer the lot of so many other fallen women: the slow slide down into common whoredom. A decline from which recovery was impossible.
Viola knew what she was, and she didn’t regret the choices that she’d made, but she’d be damned if she’d let the sacrifices be for naught. She’d prepared so carefully, planned so thoroughly—and had been ruthless enough as she did so to earn the enmity of more than one man—only to see everything swept away by a few investments that had turned out badly and the actions of one petty baronet.
When Sir Hugo had discovered her working on the chapter about their time together, he’d stormed from her house and never returned. He’d even stopped the annuity that had been a part of their contract. Did he think she wouldn’t find a way to avenge herself? That dropping her in such a way would somehow improve what she wrote about him? He was a very foolish man if he did.
She picked up the head of her smashed figurine and turned it over in her hands, watching the light play off the opalescent glaze. The last remnant of her girlhood. A gift from her father only days before she’d eloped… She set it in the saucer of her cup and rose to pace toward the window. It really wasn’t worth mourning.
If she was going to indulge in that particular emotion, she had far more valuable losses she could contemplate: love, innocence, and reputation, all gone in one fell swoop. Viola swallowed a mouthful of air, pushing the faces that swam up from the recesses of her memory back where they belonged. Back where she kept them carefully partitioned and locked away.
Viola twitched back the curtain. A cloudless blue sky and a stream of sunshine greeted her. A small herd of sheep rambled down the street, their young shepherd marching beside them. A glossy coach pulled by four bays rattled past in the other direction, the livery of the footmen bright against the dark finish of the coach.
Just another May morning. Everything seemingly the same as the day before. Perfect. Beautiful. Unbearable.
A loud rap on her door made her jump. She turned to find Lord Leonidas framed in the doorway, his head nearly scraping the lintel. It was as though her house was simply unable to contain him. How had she never noticed that he was so tall?
His disordered hair was a deep auburn in the sunlight; strands escaped his queue and hung down at the temples. In candlelight, it was merely brown. It made her almost sick how badly she wanted to tuck those stray bits back into place, just to have an excuse to touch him.
His expression held both lust and revulsion, and not a little bit of self-loathing. An intriguing mix, as though he were aware of the contradiction. Men were usually so much clearer about their wants and needs, and they so rarely bothered to be squeamish or apologetic about them. To want, to lust, to need, that was enough for them. And Viola liked it that way. It made them so much easier to manage.
Leo paused before entering Mrs. Whedon’s boudoir, a sudden stab of lust burning away exhaustion. She’d pulled a flowery dressing gown over her wisp of a nightgown, but the sun blazing through the open window outlined her long limbs and trim waist perfectly through the thin cloth. Light filtered around the curve of her breasts and sparked her hair into a blaze around her head and shoulders. A Botticelli goddess without the half shell.
She dropped the curtain, and the room plunged into semi-lit darkness. She became merely an extremely beautiful woman, rather than something approaching the celestial.
Thank God for that.
“So what am I to do now?” Viola stepped toward him, and the whole room seemed to shrink.
“Go to bed, ma’am.”
Her mouth quirked up, mocking him, as though she knew it was all that he could do not to beg to join her. As well she should, practiced coquette that she was. She could probably smell lust halfway across town. It was her stock in trade after all, no different from a tailor knowing the hand of his cloth.
“Practical advice, my lord. Will you be taking it yourself?”
Leo’s mouth went dry. Was that an invitation or a taunt? His cock twitched, clear about what answer it wanted.
“Yes, ma’am,” he ground out. “I was only stopping to take my leave. I’ll return this afternoon to await the arrival of Mr. Addison’s men.”
One elegantly straight brow arched as she stared him down, blue eyes unblinking. There was a stillness about her that was fascinating, reminiscent of a doe as the baying of hounds washes over her and she takes stock of her options before erupting into flight. It made it hard to look away from her. Impossible really.
Leo caught himself and yanked his wandering mind away from her. He was tired. That was all. He was tired, and sleeplessness always bred fantasies and gave luster to otherwise mundane objects. She couldn’t possibly be as beautiful as she looked at that moment. No woman could.
Annoyed with himself, Leo nodded, turned on his heel, and left. If he stayed a moment longer, he’d tumble into bed with her, and falling under Mrs. Whedon’s spell was the last thing he could afford to do.
CHAPTER 3
Charles burst into The Red Lion on a wave of gin. Leo allowed the upper edge of his newspaper to sag. The general din of conversation ended abruptly as his fellow League members watched Charles drop into a vacant seat.
A sprig of hope unfurled in Leo’s chest at the sight of him, only to die just as quickly. Charles’s hair was rumpled and hilly in its queue, as though he’d pulled it hastily back without the aid of a comb. His cravat hung loose and open about his throat, and his coat was nothing short of a disaster—a large water spot marred one whole side from shoulder to waist.
His disheveled state did not bode well. Charles had a mercurial temper: One moment he was amiable, jovial, the best of fellows; the next he was anything but. He could turn on you as quick as a mad dog, and today, they weren’t even beginning with Charles in a good frame of mind.
“Long night?” Leo dropped the newspaper on the table and waved a hand. The owner’s daughter appeared as though summoned by a spell. She had twisted her calico-coated hips through the crowd with practiced ease and set a steaming cup of coffee before Charles.
Charles didn’t even reach for it. He just stared at Leo over the table. Hate scuttled through the recesses of his eyes, unmistakable even in so brief a flash. Where had that come from? How had he missed its inception?
Leo had been hoping that today, in light of his lack of success, Charles would listen to reason, would be open to joining forces. If what the letters hinted at was true, there was more than enough money there for both of them.
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From across the room, Gareth Sandison caught Leo’s gaze, his brows raised inquiringly. Leo gave him the slightest of head shakes. If Charles meant trouble, best not to antagonize him by bringing Sandison into their shared secret quite so publicly.
Leo pushed the steaming cup toward his cousin. Charles’s gaze dropped, and his hand closed around it like that of an automaton. He raised the cup up and blew on it, holding it with unsteady hands.
“A long night…” He sounded pensive, but the anger laced beneath it was evident if you were listening closely. “You should know, Cousin. You were there, after all.”
Leo sipped his own coffee and let the comment settle. The warm, earthy scent of the coffeehouse washed over him.
He and Charles hadn’t been as close of late as they had been as boys. Leo had been hoping for something very different when he’d invited Charles to Dyrham Hall after their grandfather died. Some small part of him was still hoping…
“Charles—”
“No.” His cousin slammed his cup down hard enough to send coffee sloshing over the rim. He yanked his hand away and shook off the steaming liquid. Leo held his breath.
All around the room, heads rose, attention shifting to Charles as though he were a fox scampering through a kennel of hounds. His cousin’s mouth flattened, lips almost entirely disappearing.
“No, Leo.” Charles’s voice shook, and the vein in his forehead stood out in stark relief. “The money doesn’t belong to your family. And it wasn’t your family who suffered after the forty-five because of it. It was mine. Mine!” The final word erupted out of Charles. Spittle sprayed across the table, trailing behind like a comet’s tail.
“We’re both Vaughns.” Leo kept his voice soft, low, as though he were speaking to a frightened horse. “And the fortune in grandfather’s letters doesn’t belong to either of us. It belongs to the King of France, or to the Cardinal Duke of York, if you prefer, but I for one have no intention of giving it to either of those bastards.”
Charles wiped his mouth on his sleeve and chuckled, but the humor didn’t reach his eyes. They stayed flat as those of a fish in a monger’s basket. “I’m only a distaff Vaughn. We might share blood, but we’re not the same family.”
Leo opened his mouth to protest, but his cousin raised his hand to forestall him. A pale band on his ring finger marked a loss Leo had thought impossible. Things must be far worse than Leo had ever imagined if Charles had gambled away his father’s ring.
His hand still held up like a shield, Charles said, “You’d say I was raised a Vaughn, but you’d be wrong. I spent every damn day of my childhood having my face rubbed in the fact that I was a poor relation. A duty. A burden.”
Leo frowned. It was impossible that his cousin could say that, could feel that. Or it should have been. “You’re my father’s favorite sister’s son. My father—”
“I’m a MacDonald.” Each syllable was clipped, harsh, and emphatic. “The son of a disgraced and broken house, but I’m going to reclaim my birthright, my place in the world. And that money is the key to it all.” Charles leaned forward, hands gripping the edge of the table, knuckles white. “You don’t need it, Cousin. You’ve got an entire estate to entertain yourself with, thanks to Grandfather. Let it be.”
“You know I can’t do that, Charles. What I have is a house that at present isn’t capable of—”
“Just stay out of it, damn you.”
“And if I don’t?”
“Don’t cross me on this, Leo.” Charles stood up and shook out his rumpled coat. The soft pile was smashed askew, making it dull and rough. He turned to go, but stopped before stepping away from the table. “That money is there for the taking, and I mean to have it. Neither you nor that whore is going to stop me.”
Leo watched his cousin go with a sour taste in his mouth. He’d seen Charles work himself up about things in the past, but this cold fanaticism was something new. There was no hope of him seeing reason. Charles was beyond that now.
It wasn’t just about the money. Leo turned his cup between his fingers, absently studying the blue transfer pattern of birds and teahouses, wishing he could simply let it go. Dyrham Hall was small, barely more than a house and a few acres of pasture, but it was also beloved, a love he and his grandfather had shared, along with their passion for horses and hunting.
The estate was simply too small to support itself, let alone support the care of the hunters who were its reason for existence. If Leo wanted to live there, to make a life there, he was going to need money. Quite a lot of money, actually. Far more than his younger son’s portion.
Besides, whatever else Mrs. Whedon might deserve, she didn’t deserve Charles. Especially in his present mood. No one did.
Leo was pulled from his introspection as his friends, Sandison in the fore, descended upon him. Most of them had been friends since they were boys, all except Dominic de Moulines. The Frenchman—bastard son of a French comte and his island mistress—had been inducted into the League when he’d come to London to give a fencing demonstration.
Roland Devere pulled a handkerchief from the pocket of his tobine coat and mopped up the table, fastidiously careful to keep his cuffs clean, before sitting down. Sandison simply sprawled at his leisure, prematurely silver hair swinging loose, looking very much as though he’d slept in his coat. Knowing Sandison, he probably had, if he’d slept at all. The others took the remaining empty seats and stared at Leo expectantly.
Devere wadded up the handkerchief and sent it sailing toward Anthony Thane, who caught it in midair and dropped it onto the folded newspaper. “Anything we can help you with?” Thane said, glaring at Devere.
“Not at the moment.” Leo tossed back the last of his coffee and set the cup aside. “Just a family squabble.”
De Moulines shook his head, just the way Leo’s older brother did when he knew he was lying. “Non. No such thing with you damn Vaughns, this we all know. Mad, the lot of you.”
“Besides,” Sandison cut in, “MacDonald was quite loud: money, the forty-five, poor relation, birthrights.”
“From across the room, it was all very intriguing,” Devere said.
Leo held back a smile. Devere was always looking for an adventure, and Sandison, despite his sleepy appearance, was all too keen when it came to schemes and puzzles, while de Moulines was a fire-eater, ready to fight on the flimsiest of provocations. Only Thane could be counted upon to keep a cool head.
“No,” Leo said, answering Thane and ignoring the others. “At the moment it’s nothing but a family squabble. For now you’ll have to excuse me. I’m off to call on Mrs. Whedon, and that most certainly isn’t something I need any of your help with.”
Devere’s eyes narrowed, and Sandison went off in a peal of laughter, while the other two choked on their coffee. Leo shook his head at them and refused to be drawn in. He reclaimed his hat and swordstick from The Red Lion’s porter and set off briskly toward St. James’s Park.
His cousin’s refusal to see reason still chafed, but it wasn’t all that surprising. The cards had been dealt and the bets laid; there was no going back now. Leo stopped in the middle of the walk as a plan began to take shape.
A covey of giddy demi-reps out for an airing swirled around him. They sized him up as they went by, the stench of stale perfume and cheap cosmetics swirling in their wake. He could feel them weighing the cut of his coat, the expense of his boots, the value of his purse. They could probably guess his worth as well as any moneylender.
Leo adjusted his hat and flipped his swordstick up smartly under his arm as they drifted off slowly so if he wished to catch them he might. One of them smiled back over her shoulder, displaying her fine neck and an expanse of straight and surprisingly white teeth. Leo shook his head, causing her to whip back around. Her walk took on a decided flounce, skirts swishing, bouncing erratically over the false rump beneath them. He had a much more alluring conquest in mind. Beside Mrs. Whedon, the gauche girls before him in their rouge and patches didn’t s
tand a chance. Just the thought of her set his mouth watering, made his pulse rise with expectation.
Leo plucked his watch from his pocket and thumbed the tortoiseshell case open: three-eighteen. He quickened his pace. He was going to be late to meet Addison’s men, and he had a serious bit of seduction to get under way. A vision of flame-colored hair, slightly damp and tangled, hanging over him like a bedouin’s tent made him inhale sharply. The loamy scent of the park washed over him, reminding him of her perfume.
He even knew exactly how to put his proposal to her…
“So, in exchange for your continued protection, I’m to become your mistress?” Viola smiled in spite of herself. Lord Leonidas had certainly found an original way of framing his proposal. He’d launched into it mere moments after the Bow Street runner had left them.
Her savior shook his head, mad eyes dancing beneath long lashes. “No. In exchange for both continued physical protection, and my letting it be known in certain quarters that you are under such, you’ll become my lover.”
“The term you choose makes no difference, my lord. The end result is the same.”
“Oh, no, Mrs. Whedon. It’s not the same thing at all.”
Viola let out an unsteady breath. The hint of a growl in his voice set her nerves on edge and made her nipples tighten until they pressed uncomfortably against the stiff wall of her stays.
She wanted this man, much as she hated to admit it. Wanted him badly enough to consider breaking every rule she’d ever made for herself. And that was all the more reason to resist the impulse. The last time she’d felt this way, it had been disastrous, and getting what she wanted had only made things worse.
“No?” Her voice came out embarrassingly weak, almost breathy. She swallowed and balled up the hand he couldn’t see until her nails bit into her palm.
Calm. Serene. Unflappable. That was what she was famous for being, what gave her the allure of being unobtainable. Calm, serene…
