But what? He kept racking his mind, trying to find the source of her hesitance, her desperation, the distance she kept between them even as her eyes brightened with emotion around him. But there was nothing, nothing except the same old questions that had been plaguing them for years.
The door to the parlor opened and Benedict scrambled to his feet as his mother unexpectedly entered the room.
She was a tall, slender woman, with eyes like his and his brother’s. She had always been beautiful, a Diamond of the First Water her first Season when she caught the eye of their father. They had married within that year and somehow, over the time they spent together, had developed a love match made of deep affection and respect.
His father’s loss had taken its toll on his mother, but she was beginning to come out of her grief and regain some of the sparkle and shine that made her unique.
“Benedict,” she said, holding out her hands in greeting.
He crossed the room to her and took her gloved fingers. She turned her cheek so he could press a kiss on the smooth surface and then backed away. She had never been overly demonstrative in her affection, though he knew she loved her children greatly. But she was proper.
“Mama, you look well,” he said as he allowed her to take a seat on her favorite chair and then found a place on the settee across from her.
She shrugged. “I need a new maid. Isabel is leaving and she’s begun knotting my hair as she thinks of her future husband rather than my needs.”
“I actually know of a few servants who will need new positions soon.”
Benedict smiled. Their plan for Dersingham had worked in spades. The Earl was utterly ruined, his own wife had left to stay with her mother and the women who had once been tortured by him were beginning to find new places of employment, thanks to a little help from Benedict and some friends. Vivien would be pleased about that, at least.
“Good. Have your servants send a list and I’ll make some inquiries.” His mother arched a brow. “And what about you, son? You say I look well, but you do not.”
He stifled a chuckle. “Direct, as always, Mama.”
She shrugged. “Why shouldn’t I be direct, especially when it comes to those I love? You look tired.”
“I am tired,” he admitted.
“I hope this isn’t because of that woman,” his mother said with a sniff.
Benedict jerked his gaze to her with wide eyes. “W-Woman?” he repeated.
She arched a brow. “Please don’t treat me like one of those simpering fools who pretend not to know anything. I know you’ve taken back up with that woman. What is her name again? Vivien or Violet or something else with a V? For vulgar, no doubt.”
He swallowed hard. This was a most indelicate topic and one he had never imagined he would be openly discussing with his mother, of all people. But then again, perhaps it had not been brought to her attention by a stranger.
“Derek must be very desperate indeed, if he brought you into such an indecent subject,” he said, gritting his teeth with every word.
She shook her head. “You needn’t get your feathers ruffled at your brother. He has said nothing to me. You think we ladies do not hear about the antics of the gentlemen? We simply have the control not to bring it up.”
He stared at her. “Then why bring it up now?”
“I had no desire to do so, I assure you. In fact, I have tried to ignore it, but the situation has begun to get out of hand,” she said with a sigh. “It is one thing to have an affair or to obtain a mistress, but it is another to ignore your duties in order to keep the company of that lady. How do you think our Prince became a laughing stock?”
“My duties are fulfilled,” he said, though his voice croaked.
She shook her head. “You told me you intended to look for a bride this Season. I was thrilled to hear it. Your brother has married and I’m certain that he will begin producing heirs in good time, but you are still his spare. If something happens or if he is only able to have daughters, you will be obligated to create heirs to carry on the family name.”
“So all this is about heirs?” he repeated, overcome with disbelief even though Derek had said as much during their last encounter.
“You can be terribly modern about all this and pretend that your father’s name doesn’t matter, but it does,” his mother snapped. “I owe it to him to ensure it carries on. And in all honesty, I think settling down with a lady of proper value would be good for you. You have been…unpredictable as of late and it troubles me. I’ve always believed I could depend on you.”
He clenched his hands as he tried with all his might to retain some civility. “So you think that by involving myself with someone outside the realm of your approval, this somehow proves I’m not dependable?”
She shrugged one slender shoulder. “It could create problems for me, for your brother, for yourself if you got carried away and believed yourself in love with this person. Or are my reports incorrect?”
He pursed his lips. “I do not think I want to discuss that with you, Mama.”
She held his stare for a long moment and then tilted her head. “Very well. You say that you can handle yourself and I have no choice but to have faith in you. But that does not mean I cannot encourage you. So I have made a list.”
Benedict squeezed his eyes shut. “A list,” he repeated with as much pain in his voice as he felt deep in his soul.
“Of women currently on the market who would be the most appropriate matches for you,” his mother said as she dug into her reticule to pull out a folded sheet of vellum.
As he watched her, Benedict had a flash to something very familiar. A memory of being in Vivien’s chamber and seeing a list of hers on her end table. Her reaction had been powerful and she had snatched the paper away before he could read anything on it beyond the words in the title that read “Loose Ends”.
“Benedict,” his mother said, her tone sharp as she shook the paper in front of his face until he took it. He looked at the neat line of names, almost two dozen, but could hardly focus as his mind returned again and again to Vivien and her mysterious list.
Why had she wanted to hide it from him? Did her reaction have something to do with her behavior in the weeks since that night?
“Are you not even going to pretend to examine the names I have so carefully compiled?” his mother asked.
He glanced at her. Her arms were folded and one slippered foot tapped beneath her gown. He shook thoughts of Vivien away as best he could.
“Of course,” he said, looking at her chosen names with a little more focus. But even as he scanned them with increasing dread, he knew one thing above all others.
He needed to find Vivien’s secret list. And he would.
Chapter Twenty-One
Vivien sat in the parlor of Mariah’s home, nervousness building inside her with every tick of the clock. Today was a regular meeting of the Charitable Fund for Young Ladies and her friends went about their discussions as normal. For the past hour, she had remained almost entirely silent, watching the two women interact, smile at each other, look over paperwork together as they discussed the best idea for this problem or a way to promote their cause to ladies of rank.
She would miss this terribly.
Suddenly Mariah turned on her. “Vivien, I cannot remain silent any longer.”
Vivien tensed. Her intelligent friend was about to comment on her distance, and then she would be forced to tell them something she dreaded.
“What in the world did you do to Lord Dersingham?” she finished with a laugh.
“You mean his sudden change of good fortune?” Vivien said, her lips twitching with laughter she could scarcely hold in.
That was one of the high moments as of late. Dersingham had been crushed under the weight of his scandal when the engagement to the American had failed and his creditors began to call in their debts. He was no longer invited to parties and had been holed up in his London estate for days without word.
“Change in forture is
one way to put it,” Mariah said with an arched brow. “The man is utterly destroyed. They say he will never be invited back to polite Society again and now women are coming out of the woodwork to accuse him of impropriety. There may even be an investigation by the Crown about a recent duel and a stolen bit of gold… Since all these circumstances happened just a few days after you brought up his evil deeds, I must think you had a hand in it.”
“I have heard even his servants are fleeing the house, seeking and finding new employment in the best homes in all of London,” Lysandra continued with a wide smile. “Thanks to you?”
She shrugged with relief. The inevitable was put off for the time being.
“I suppose I had some hand in the fact that the American won’t marry his son as planned, which stole the funds right from the bastard’s coffers, but the rest is not my doing at all. It is only a fair recompense for years of evil deeds. And Benedict has ensured the safe placement of the servants from Dersingham’s home, not me.”
Lysandra held her gaze for a long moment. “Benedict is a good man.”
She couldn’t smile. It was too painful. “Indeed he is.”
“Isn’t there any way to be with him?” Lysandra pressed.
Vivien swallowed. She wasn’t even going to deny that was her heart’s desire. “No. Not with my reputation.”
“But Lysandra and I each came from similar backgrounds and our husbands—” Mariah began.
Vivien lifted a hand to stop her. “You did not come from anything like my background. Lysandra never had a lover beyond her husband and you married a rake with a terrible reputation who could be expected to do something so shocking. Neither of you were ever the most notorious woman in the city.”
Lysandra worried her lip. “When you say that, it is so unkind to yourself. You are far more than just a mistress or a woman of a certain reputation. Your work with the charitable fund proves that.”
“And I appreciate that you both see me as more than what I am,” Vivien sighed. “But it is to no end. I cannot be with Benedict. It would destroy him and I…I care too much about him to live with those kinds of consequences for him. There is nothing else to be said about it.”
“I disagree,” Mariah said with a shrug. “There is a great deal more to be said.”
Vivien drew in a breath. She could sit all day with her friends, debating this subject. But there was one way to cease their ramblings on her love for Benedict.
“Perhaps there is more to be said,” Vivien conceded as she pushed to her feet and walked to the window. She couldn’t look at them when she told them the truth. “There are plans to be made, you see.”
“Plans?” Lysandra repeated with confusion.
She nodded but couldn’t turn. Not until she had confessed. “I—I am leaving London.”
Silence greeted her statement and she finally pivoted on her heel and looked at them. They were staring at her, neither one completely understanding.
“On a holiday?” Mariah offered.
Vivien’s breath caught. The words caught in her throat far more than she ever imagined they would, especially when Lysandra’s hands had begun to shake and Mariah seemed so utterly perplexed by the very idea.
“No. I mean never to return. I am leaving London for good.”
Mariah shoved away from her chair, flipping it over in the process as she staggered to her feet. “What?”
Vivien bit her lip. Her friend, her best friend, was trembling, her eyes filling with sudden tears.
“Please don’t make me say it a third time.”
Mariah shook her head and Lysandra slowly joined both women on their feet. Normally she was the sweetest one, the most innocent and the most emotional. But at that moment, she seemed utterly calm.
“Why are you leaving?” she asked. She reached for Mariah and took her hand, squeezing it for comfort when the two women faced Vivien as a united front.
Vivien sighed. She’d created so many stories in her mind of how she would tell her friends this news…if she told them at all. But right now, only the truth could make them see why this was not just a choice, but an imperative.
“I am in love with Benedict Greystone,” she admitted, every word stinging like fire across her heart. “But we cannot be together.” Lysandra drew a breath to protest, but Vivien shook her head. “Please do not argue, my dear, you cannot understand how much more painful your attempts to change my mind make this.”
Lysandra snapped her lips shut, pink darkening her skin.
“But why not just part with him, then, and stay in London as you have for nearly a decade?” Mariah asked in a shaky voice.
She shook her head. “On the night of my birthday, I realized something I had been denying for years,” Vivien explained. “I am not happy in this life anymore. In fact, I am very empty.”
Lysandra drew back. “I had no idea.”
Vivien shrugged. “Your ignorance was of my design. But as there is no way I could ever start again here, where my face and name are so well-known, I realized that in order to make a new life for myself, I have no choice but to leave.”
“You made this decision the night of your birthday and you said nothing until now?” Mariah blinked in utter disbelief. “Not even to us?”
Vivien drew in a shaky breath. “I made a list of things I must do, loose ends I must settle before I could depart London. You and Lysandra were very high on that list, I assure you. Celebrating you, spending time with you, letting you both know how loved and cherished your friendship has been to me over the years.”
Lysandra gasped as the first tears began to fall. “But you denied us that same time. Here we have been taking the hours we spent for granted, believing there would be hundreds, thousands more in a lifetime to share.”
Vivien shook her head. She could see she had hurt them and that had never been her intention.
“I’m so sorry. It is not in my nature to be open, to share my thoughts or my pains. To be truthful, I was afraid of your reaction, afraid you would try to convince me to stay here.”
“Can we convince you?” Mariah pleaded, her tears now sliding down her cheeks in waterfalls.
Vivien considered the question. In this moment, with the two women sobbing at the thought of her loss, it was easy to imagine there was some way to work it out. To remain in London and forget her unhappiness, her emptiness, to ignore the loss of Benedict and watch him marry with a false smile on her face.
The very thought made her chest feel hollow and her stomach turn. And proved that even the love of her friends could not erase or change the love of this one man.
“No,” she whispered, blinking at her own tears. “I’m afraid this is a decision I must make. I’ll be destroyed if I stay.”
Lysandra nodded, but Vivien knew she would. She was too sweet of temper not to let someone she loved go if they felt it was best for them. Mariah was another story. Jaded like Vivien, though not as completely, the two women had been close for years. And Mariah was far more likely to hate her for her choices.
Her friend slowly crossed the room toward her, pale face unreadable even as she moved just inches from Vivien. For a moment, she only looked at her, then Mariah tugged her in for a fierce hug.
“I would never ask you to do something that would cause you pain. If you must leave, then I have no choice but to understand,” her friend whispered into her hair as the two women clung to each other.
Vivien motioned Lysandra to join them and for a moment, they stood, arms around each other, crying in unison. Until Vivien pulled away with a laugh.
“All right, you ninnies, that is enough,” she said, laughing through her tears. “I shall not ruin my reputation of being a cold, jaded woman by sobbing over you.”
Mariah chuckled. “No one would ever ask you to.”
“When will you leave?” Lysandra asked, retaking her seat and wiping her eyes with a handkerchief she produced from some mysterious fold of her gown.
Vivien took a seat and frowned. “
I had planned to spend a final Season here, celebrating my life and leaving an impression no one could forget, but now…now I think it would be best for me to quietly disappear soon. I have already procured a home on the continent that my solicitor says can be ready in a week. My staff has begun to catalog my things so that I can arrange for the removal of what I wish to take with me.”
“And what of the house?” Mariah asked. “Will you sell it?”
“There is a reason I brought this subject up during our meeting,” Vivien said with a smile. “You see, one of my items on my list of things to do before I left the city was to give away that which I don’t need. And I do not need that house any longer.”
Lysandra shook her head. “I don’t understand.”
“I would like to donate it to the cause we have created together,” Vivien explained. “I think you two could make it a place where women in dire straits can come and live safely. Can you imagine if abused servants felt as if they had a safe alternative to staying in their situations? Or a woman carrying the shame of a child out of wedlock, forced upon her by a so-called gentleman, had a home she could run to? In short, turn my house of sin into a safe haven.”
Mariah shook her head, but her wide smile told Vivien she approved even before she spoke. “It is an amazing idea! But are you certain you won’t want to return to the house? Once it has been transformed, it can never go back.”
Vivien smiled. “That is the idea. For the house and for me.”
Lysandra let out a long sigh. “Then it is settled.”
“Yes.” Vivien said, but in the end the issue felt anything but. Telling her friends was a huge part, and lessened her guilt over keeping the secret even more.
But there was one person who was still in the dark about her plans. And she had no idea how to tell Benedict that it was time to let her go…this time permanently.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Benedict stood in the foyer of Vivien’s house, looking around in an attempt to see with new eyes. Now that he was focused on what could drive her to push him away, what could make her so afraid to embrace what she knew he could offer…all he could see were those reasons.
Her Perfect Match: Mistress Matchmaker, Book 3 Page 18
