by Liz Carlyle
He had the strangest feeling that he had just made a terrible, irreparable mistake. But how could that be? Somehow, he turned to Chris and Lottie and forced himself to smile. “One down,” he said. “And two to go.”
Nine
In which the Contessa has An Assignation.
V iviana was chilled to the bone by the time she reached the old cottage the following afternoon. A freezing rain had fallen during the night, icing the trees and weighing down the hedgerows which lined the last of her route. The clothes which she had brought with her from Venice—the very warmest things she possessed—were woefully inadequate to the Buckinghamshire winter. She wished desperately for some thick stockings and a habit of good Scotch wool; indeed, she should have ordered them from the village seamstress yesterday.
Instead, she had let herself be distracted by Lady Charlotte. And this, apparently, was where her foolishness had taken her, she mused as she surveyed the scene beyond the rotted gateposts. The ramshackle cottage looked as abandoned and unkempt as ever. With grave unease, she slid off her saddle and somehow landed on both feet, which felt like torpid blocks of ice.
After leading her mount around to the back of the cottage, she secured him in the rear of the shed—the half which had not yet buckled under the weight of its roof—and looked about. Obviously, the collapse was not recent. The former Earl of Wynwood must have been a dreadful old pinchpenny to let one of his properties come to this.
By the time she returned to the yard, the wind had picked up afresh. She knocked, and, getting the response she had expected—nothing—lifted the latch and pushed on the door anyway. It was stuck, but not locked. Stubbornly, Viviana set her shoulder to the wide planks and gave it a hearty shove. The hinges squalled, and the door swung inward, the bottom edge dragging on the flagstone floor.
Inside, the cottage had an air of forsakenness about it, but was not without charm. There was a smell, a hint of the mustiness one associated with old wood and a cold hearth, but there was another, more familiar scent, too. Viviana drifted about the place, wondering at it, and pausing from time to time to blow warm air down her gloves for heat. The cottage’s plain, roughly plastered walls reached up to a low ceiling which was supported by three broad, age-blackened beams. The flagstone floor had been swept clean, and the hearth was already laid with kindling. Yes, the place was vacant—but not entirely abandoned.
The cottage appeared to consist of two rooms with a kitchen across the back. There was a rickety little contraption which might charitably have been called a staircase, but was really just a ladder, ascending into a hole between the beams. The front room was fitted with an old chest, a deal corner cupboard, and a pair of sturdy armchairs. She tossed her hat onto one of the chairs, then peeked into the tiny bedchamber adjacent. In the gloom, she could see a rough-hewn bed covered with an old wool counterpane.
Viviana drifted into the back room, which was more or less empty save for an old-fashioned kitchen basin lined with zinc, and an ancient Welsh dresser, still filled with blue-and-white dishware bearing the cracks and chips of age. A peck basket of apples and two pails of fresh water sat near the sink. How very odd.
Just then, she heard the door scraping open again. She whirled around to see Quin stooping low beneath the lintel. He carried something in on his shoulder and was stomping the slush from his boots as he came. Viviana cleared her throat. He looked up, his eyes widening in surprise.
“It was freezing,” she said, her voice tart. “I had no wish to wait in the wind.”
He smiled coolly and tossed down the bundle which had been balanced on one shoulder. “I’m late,” he admitted. “Mr. Herndon, my steward, detained me. I apologize.”
Viviana drifted back into the front room. “Whose house is this?”
“It was occupied until recently by the widow of an old tenant farmer,” he answered, shucking his heavy coat and gloves. “But she has gone to live with her daughter in High Wycombe. Herndon cannot let it again until some repairs are made.”
“Yes, the shed is falling in,” she said crossly.
Quin’s smile thinned. “It seems my late father did not believe in making any repairs unless they were urgent,” he answered. “And the shed, I collect, was not used by the widow.”
“I sheltered my horse there.” She looked at him sharply. “Will he be safe?”
“Safe enough,” he answered, kneeling by the hearth. “You are cold. Let me start a fire.”
“Don’t trouble yourself,” she returned, her tone impatient. “I cannot stay.” She chided herself at once. Good Lord, she was nervous as a cat. How did Quin get under her skin so easily?
He said nothing more but drew a dented old vesta box from his pocket and struck a match on the hearthstone. It flared to life, its unpleasant stench wafting through the room. He held the match to the kindling, which began to smolder, and finally, to burn.
“The new French matchsticks are not so malodorous,” she complained. “The tobacconist in the Burlington Arcade sells them a ha’pence a dozen.”
He did not answer, but instead stared into the incipient fire. “I am sorry, Viviana, that it is so cold out,” he finally said. “And I’m sorry that my shed is about to collapse on your horse. And that I was detained by Herndon. And that my lucifers are stinking up the room. In fact, I’m beginning to be sorry I bothered to come here at all.”
Viviana drew back an inch. “Si, I am being a—a—what is the English word?” She paused to glare at him. “Una crudele strega. A bitch? A witch? I forget how to say it.”
“Either will do,” he said dryly.
“Well, I shan’t apologize,” she answered. “I did not wish to come here. Not really.”
“And I did not wish you cutting up my peace,” he retorted.
“Cutting your peace?” she answered, not entirely sure what he meant, but unwilling to give an inch. “What about my peace? Is it not cut, also?”
“The peace of this cottage,” he clarified. “It felt like the only tranquil place in the county until five minutes ago.” He was on his feet now, his glossy riding boots set stubbornly wide.
She put her hands on her hips and looked past him, to the bundle he had dropped in one of the wooden armchairs. It looked like blankets. “Someone has been living here,” she said. “It is you, is it not?”
He lifted one brow, and said nothing.
“Your scent, it is in the room,” she challenged.
“Perhaps it’s just the stench of my matches,” he said sardonically. “Perhaps you cannot tell the difference anymore, Vivie.”
Viviana narrowed her gaze and wondered what to say next. Why was she trying to goad him? She did not know this implacable, steely-eyed man who looked as though ice water might run in his veins. In the old days, Quin had always been hot-tempered and eager for a fight—and eager to make up afterward, too. And she—well, she had been little better. Like cats in heat, she thought again. Emotional. Fiery. Passionate. Well, the passion was obviously gone now—thank God.
She resisted the urge to stamp her foot. “Well, let us get on with this, Quentin,” she said. “Let us ‘get our stories straight,’ as you insist we ought.”
He took a step toward her. “Firstly, I should like to know what you have told my sister.”
“I?” she snapped. “What I have told? Niente affatto! Nothing! You dare suggest otherwise?”
He looked at her grimly. “I just think it behooves us, Viviana, to say as little as possible about…about the past.”
“Andare all’inferno!” she spit.
Oh, he knew how to interpret that one, thought Quin. Go to hell. Too bloody late for that. It felt as if he was already there. Somehow, he caught both her hands in his. “Oh, Viviana, for pity’s sake,” he said. “I only meant that—”
“I know what you meant,” she snapped, jerking her hands from his. “Do you think, Quinten, that I am not ashamed of what I was to you? I did not choose it, no. But I gave in to you. And I am still ashamed. More than you wil
l ever know.”
“I am sorry to hear you say it,” he answered quietly. “I was never ashamed of you, Viviana. I was always proud that you were my—”
“Silenzio!” Viviana’s face had gone taut and pale. “I was never yours, Quinten. Never! Can you not comprehend? And you may thank your uncle Chesley, not me, for what little your sister does know.”
“Uncle Ches?” Quin was bewildered. “What did he tell her?”
“That you once pursued me, no more,” she answered. “What else would he say? He knows nothing.”
That was probably true. Quin had taken great pains to hide the relationship from his uncle, in part because Viviana had begged him. But in part because…well, because he had feared Chesley’s wrath. He had known, had he not, that his uncle would not approve? Chesley had treated Viviana almost as a niece or goddaughter. That very fact should have told Quin something.
But there was something else in Viviana’s tone which Quin did not like. He lifted his head, and pinned her with his gaze. “What did you mean, Viviana, when you said you ‘did not choose it’?”
Viviana dropped her eyes. “I just meant that I did not—” She swallowed hard, then glanced back up at him almost accusingly. “That I did not wish to—”
He set both hands on her slender shoulders and gave her a little shake. “What are you saying?” he demanded. “That you did not wish to be my lover?”
She closed her eyes. “I did not wish it,” she whispered. “I told you so, Quinten. I told you so a hundred times.”
His hands tightened on her shoulders. “Oh, don’t play the martyr with me, my dear,” he said. “Perhaps I pursued you rather determinedly. But you wanted it, Viviana.”
“Determinedly.” Her gaze flicked up again. “Si, caro, that is one way of putting it.”
“Are you saying, Vivie, that you didn’t want me?” He looked at her incredulously. “That just won’t wash, my dear.”
She looked weary and a little ill now. “I am not trying to wash anything,” she answered. “Please, Quinten, I must be going now. I think there is nothing for us to settle after all.”
But a distinctly unpleasant suspicion was creeping over him. “Viviana, good God! Are you…are you claiming that I—that I violated you?”
The hurt in her eyes deepened. “No, not that.” Her voice was so soft now he could barely hear. “I did not scream, did I? I did not kick or strike you, or—or…” The words fell away.
“Viviana.” His voice was hollow, even to his own ears. “Viviana—that first time—I did not force you. Do not you dare try to claim that now, after all that you have put me through.”
“Force?” Her eyes widened. “I never said it was that.”
“What then? What the devil are you saying?”
She looked away. “I just did not wish it to be like that,” she answered, sliding her hands up and down her arms. “Can you not understand, Quinten? Not the first time. Not on a divan in some tawdry backstage dressing room, with my skirts hiked up and the filth of the stage still on me. And I wished to be loved. To be married. Even the bourgeoisie, caro mio, have dreams and principles.”
Dreams? Principles? Good God! He dropped his hands and turned away. The walls of the little cottage seemed to shift unsteadily.
He thought back on that night, his brain whirling, his palms beginning to sweat. He had been drinking, but no more than usual. He had been frustrated, yes. He had been growing increasingly desperate for Viviana and beginning to fear he would never win her. And halfway through her amazing performance, he had realized, just as everyone in the theater had, that Viviana Alessandri’s life as a mere understudy was over. He had realized, too, that the admiring glances which had driven him to near madness were about to increase tenfold.
But underneath all the anxiety, he had been so very proud. He had known how hard she had slaved for her success. He had awaited her return to her dressing room with an awful mix of delight and nervousness, pacing the floor and waiting for her to make her way through the throng of admirers which always crowded behind the stage. She had arrived utterly aglow with the light of success. Giddy from the thunderous applause. She had thrown herself into his arms with wild abandon. And he had believed that it meant something, something more than it apparently had.
He turned and walked into the shabby kitchen, where he could brace his hands on the old sink and stare through the window as he fought to collect himself. He felt, rather than heard, her follow him in. “You never desired me, Viviana?” he whispered. “It was just me, pushing you into something…something you did not want?”
“I was inexperienced, Quinten,” she whispered, lightly touching his arm. “How was I to know what I wanted? Did I desire you physically? Yes. You know that I did. But I let my…my exuberance get out of hand. I let things go too far.”
“How far, Vivie?” he rasped. “How far was too far for you?”
She hesitated, as if measuring her response. “I was not sure, Quinten,” she said. And then she answered the question he was afraid to ask. “I had lain with no man before you, caro. I did not know—did not even think about the fact that there was a point, emotionally and physically, at which one could not so easily turn back. Did you…did you not understand?”
He dragged a hand through his hair, and said nothing.
“I thought it was obvious,” she went on. “Obvious, I mean, that I did not know what I was doing. I had always assumed that the first would be my husband.”
Quin opened his mouth, then closed it again. “I…I never dreamt…,” he finally said.
She had circled around the narrow room and into his field of view. She looked deathly pale but almost frighteningly composed. “You never dreamt what, Quinten?” she went on, no anger in her words now. “Did you simply believe that all singers were whores?”
Yes, he had believed it. It was what everyone said. But who was everyone? His new, ramshackle London friends? “I don’t know, Viviana, what I thought,” he lied. “I just…wanted you.”
“And damn the cost?” she finished. “Well, it has cost us both, Quinten. I was a good Catholic girl, but I did not count on the terrible temptation you would present. My resistance lasted all of what—? Two months?”
“But you never said anything,” he managed. “You seemed…to want me as I wanted you.”
“One often wants what one oughtn’t have,” she answered softly. “You were as beautiful, caro mio, as the devil in angel’s wings.”
He had believed her reticence a game. He had believed that she teased and tormented him deliberately. Hadn’t he? With her lush figure and dark, seductive beauty, Viviana had seemed so much older than he. So worldly and sophisticated. He had supposed that she knew what he did not. How to make love instead of just have sex.
Good God, it all seemed unfathomable to him now. Had they both been green as grass? He had been so nervous. So desperate to have her. And he had wondered afterward if she had laughed at him, at his inability to wait. Yes, he had taken her there on the shabby leather divan in her even shabbier dressing room. She had still worn her costume and that hideous wig.
Quin bowed his head and pinched the bridge of his nose until the pain calmed him. “I am sorry, Viviana,” he said quietly. “I was nothing but a green boy just up from the country. It is no excuse, I’ll warrant, but…”
She was looking at him with a worried expression now. “Non importa,” she said quietly. “It is just some water under a bridge, si?”
He laughed, a sharp, pathetic sound. “Yes, my dear, it is just some water under a bridge.”
They remained thus for a time, her hand resting lightly on his arm, his gaze focused blindly through the window. Eventually, he drew in a ragged breath and straightened up. “Well, Viviana, I am sorry it has come to this,” he said, without looking at her. “I am sorry for all the mistakes I made. But they were the mistakes of youth and inexperience, if that matters.”
“I, too, made mistakes,” she admitted.
He
let his shoulders fall. “We just need to decide, you and I, what we are going to tell people when they go prying into our business—as my sister is wont to do. So…so tell me what it is you wish me to say, Vivie, and I shall say it.”
“I did not come here to embarrass you, Quinten,” said Viviana. “You have always been free to deny everything if that was your wish.”
At last he turned and looked down at her. “I never imagined, Viviana, that you came to embarrass me,” he answered. “You are a respectable widow. You have three children. I think you have far more to lose than I.”
He meant it, too. What did he have to lose, truly? Esmée had already left him. And sadly, he had scarcely thought of her since. In Town, his reputation was already black as pitch and likely getting worse. He remembered those awful first days following Viviana’s return as if they were some sort of dream. Indeed, he wondered if he’d been a little mad.
In the years since they had parted, the breath of scandal had not touched her, so far as he knew. Why would she wish to throw away her respectability? She did not want revenge. Indeed, she had not even wanted him. He would do well to remember that it had been she who had left, and not without reason. Her marriage to Bergonzi ate at him, but it was a pain best kept to himself.
He tried to smile at her but it was a rueful, half smile at best. “We will keep to the story we told at Aunt Charlotte’s,” he said. “We met once or twice, and I tried to court you. You spurned me, and that was the end of it.”
Viviana’s expression was still unreadable.
“It will work,” he said reassuringly. “There is no one who can contradict us, save for Lucy Watson, and she can be trusted.”
At last, she nodded. “Si, it will work,” she echoed. “Grazie, Quinten. I should go now. It is a long ride back to Chesley’s.”
