An Affair Without End (51 page)

But she could not let him ruin his own future for the sake of her reputation.

Vivian did not have a chance to talk to Oliver until a long while later, when they’d finished their circumnavigation of the room and stopped to talk with Eve and Fitz. Eve enveloped Vivian in a hug and stood with her arm looped around Vivian’s waist as the four of them made idle chatter. Before long, Camellia and Gregory joined them. Camellia was sparkling, and Gregory looked somehow smug, satisfied, and relieved, all at once. Matters must have progressed rather well with the two, Vivian thought, and wondered if it had gone as far as a marriage proposal. She cast an inquiring glance at her brother, and he blushed and grinned. She knew that Seyre must have asked and been accepted.

The idea was enough to make her want to laugh aloud—just imagine the stir it would make for all the Bascombe girls—that unrefined, troublesome quartet from America—
to make excellent matches before the end of their first Season. And think of Camellia, the wildest of them all, marrying the highest-ranking catch of the entire
ton
!

The thought was enough to carry her for the next few minutes, but after a time, weariness began to sink in on her. Oliver, who had been chatting with his brother, turned to Vivian, putting a supportive hand beneath her elbow.

“Tired?” he asked, bending his head toward her.

She nodded. “A little. I think I will go home now. But, Oliver . . . we must talk.”

“Of course. I’ll see you home.”

They took their leave of the others, and Oliver escorted her to her carriage, climbing in beside her. As soon as the carriage door was shut, he curled his arm around her shoulders, pulling her against him. Vivian went with him, resting her head upon his shoulder. It felt so right, so natural and good, that tears sprang into her eyes.

“Oh, Oliver . . .”

“Hush, now, just rest.” He turned his head a little to kiss her forehead. “Are you in much pain?”

She started to shake her head, then said, “A bit. I’m afraid I’m not accustomed to being punched.”

“I should have hit him a few more times,” Oliver said darkly.

“It wasn’t he who hit me, actually.”

“He was responsible. Wish I’d hit the other, too, though. Still, Fitz told me you got some of your own in. He said the fellow’s coat had blood on it where someone stabbed him with a hatpin.”

Vivian’s lips curved up in satisfaction. “True. I wish I had had a longer pin.”

“So do I. If you intend to continue in this way, perhaps you ought to carry a knife strapped to your leg like Camellia.”

Vivian laughed. “I’m not planning on breaking up any more rings of criminals, thank you.”

“I have found that one’s plans have little to do with the matter.”

They reached her house and walked inside. When they were seated on the sofa in the smaller drawing room, he took her hand and raised it to his lips, kissing the knuckles, then said, “Very well, Vivian. Now . . . let’s talk.”

He looked at her, waiting, and suddenly Vivian found it difficult to say anything. Her throat clogged with tears, and she had to wait a moment and swallow.

Finally, not looking at him, she began, “You are a very good and kind gentleman to do what you did for me tonight. I am very grateful.”

“I don’t want your gratitude,” he responded, his voice almost rough.

“Perhaps not, but you have it anyway.” She paused and raised her head to fix him with her gaze. “Do you realize what you’ve done? How do you plan to get out of this engagement?”

“I have no plans to do so.”

“Oliver!” Vivian could feel the tears battling against the backs of her eyelids, but she refused to give way. “I will not let you sacrifice your life to keep me from suffering a little social discomfort.”

“I am not sacrificing my life.” He took both her hands in his. “I am sorry that I did not ask you before I announced it. I would not have forced it upon you like that if I had had any other choice. But when Aunt Euphronia began braying like an ass, I could not just stand by.”

Vivian chuckled softly at the description of his aunt. “But you do not want to marry me. I know you don’t.” She cast a droll look at him. “You have told me more than once that you do not.”

“Whatever I may have said, I was a fool. Vivian . . .” He stood up, pulling her to her feet, and took her by the arms, staring down intently into her eyes. “I love you.”

“Oh!” Vivian could not stifle a little cry, and she covered her mouth with her hand, her eyes filling with so many tears that she could not hold them back.

“This makes you cry?” he asked, his voice caught somewhere between laughter and frustration. “Vivian, is the thought that abhorrent to you? Can you not bear to be married to me?”

“No! Oh, no!” She reached up to curve her hand against his cheek. “There is nothing abhorrent about you to me. Nothing. But I—you—oh, Oliver, how could it ever work between us? We are so different. I would drive you mad within a week; you have said so yourself. I am impulsive and emotional and—”

He stopped her words with his mouth. After a long moment, he lifted his head and said, “You are also beautiful and kind and generous and the most . . . fun I have ever had in my entire life. Yes, we’re different, but it doesn’t mean we cannot get along. We’ve managed to do it so far, haven’t we?”

“But we’ve been in the grip of irrational lust!”

“I have the feeling that I shall be in the grip of irrational lust as long as I am around you, my love. And our differences match rather well. I keep you from flying off in too mad starts. And you keep me from being deadly dull.” He paused, then said soberly, “It doesn’t matter how different we are. The fact is that my life is meaningless without you.”

“Oh, Oliver!” She began to cry again.

“There. I’ve done what I thought was impossible. I’ve turned you into a watering pot.” He pulled her to him gently and stroked his hand down her head and back. “Just tell me one thing, Vivian. That’s all that matters. Do you love me?”

“Yes, oh, yes! I love you more than anything in the whole world.”

He stepped back a little and crooked his forefinger under her chin, lifting her head. “And I love you. And in the end, my beautiful, mad, magnificent hoyden, that is all that matters.”

He bent his head and kissed her.

Turn the page for a peek at
the first two delicious Willowmere romances . . .

A LADY NEVER TELLS

and

A GENTLEMAN ALWAYS REMEMBERS

now available from Pocket Books.

And look for Candace Camp’s new Regency series,
“The Legend of St. Dwynwen,” beginning with

A WINTER SCANDAL

coming this fall!

L
ONDON,
1824

Mary Bascombe was scared. She had been frightened before—one could not have grown up in a new and dangerous land and not have faced something that set one’s heart to beating double-time. But this wasn’t like the time they had seen the bear nosing around their mother’s clothesline. Or even like the way her heart had leapt into her throat the day her stepfather had grabbed her arm and pulled her against him, his breath reeking of alcohol. Then she had known what to do—how to back slowly and quietly into the house and load the pistol, or how to stomp down hard on Cosmo’s instep so that he released her with a howl of pain.

No, this was an entirely new sensation. She was in a strange city filled with strange people, and she had absolutely no idea what to do next. She felt . . . lost.

Mary took another glance around her at the bustling docks. She had never seen so much noise and activity or so many people in one place in her life. She had thought the docks in Philadelphia were busy, but that was nothing compared to London. All around them were piles of goods, with stevedores loading and unloading them, and people
hurrying about, all seemingly with someplace to be and little time to get there.

There were no women. The few whom she had seen disembark from ships had been whisked away in carriages with their male companions. Indeed, all the passengers from their own ship were long gone, only she and her sisters still standing here in a forlorn group beside their small pile of luggage. The shadows were beginning to lengthen; it would not be long until night began to fall. And though Mary might be a naïve American cast adrift in London, she was smart enough to know that the London docks at night were no place for four young women alone.

They could not stay here. Unless a carriage happened by soon, they would be forced to pick up their bags and walk into the narrow, dingy streets beyond the docks. Mary glanced uncertainly around her. Several of the men loading the ships had been casting their eyes toward Mary and her sisters for some time. Now, as her gaze fell on one of them, he gave her a bold grin. Mary stiffened, returning her most freezing look, and pivoted away slowly and deliberately.

She studied her three sisters—Rose, the next oldest to Mary and the acknowledged beauty of the family, with her limpid blue eyes and thick black hair; Camellia, whose gray eyes were, as always, no-nonsense and alert, her dark gold hair efficiently braided and wrapped into a knot at the crown of her head; and Lily, the youngest and most like their father, with her light brown, sun-streaked hair and gray-green eyes.

All three girls gazed back at Mary with a steadfast trust that only made the icy knot in her stomach clench tighter. Her sisters were counting on her to take care of them, just as Mama had counted on her to get the girls away from their stepfather’s house after their mother’s death and across the ocean to London, to the safety and security of
their grandfather’s home. Mary had managed the first part of it. But all of that, she knew, would be for naught if she failed now. She had to get her sisters someplace safe and proper for the night, and then she had to face a grandfather none of them had ever met—the man who had tossed out his own daughter for defying his wishes—and convince him to take in that same daughter’s children. Instinctively, Mary clutched her slender stitched-leather satchel closer to her chest.

At that moment, a figure came hurtling toward them and careened into Mary, sending her sprawling to the ground. For an instant, she was too startled to move or even to think. Then she realized that her hands were empty.
Her satchel!
Frantically, she glanced around her. It wasn’t there.

“My case! He stole our papers!” Mary bounded to her feet and swung around, spying the running figure. “Stop! Thief!”

Pausing only long enough to cast a look at Rose and point to the luggage, Mary lifted her skirts and took off running after the man. Rose, interpreting her sister’s look with the ease of years of familiarity, went to stand next to their bags, but Lily and Camellia were hot on Mary’s heels. Mary ran faster than she had ever run, her heart pounding with terror. Everything important to them was in that case—everything that could prove their honesty to a disbelieving relative. Without those papers, they had no hope; they would be stranded here in a huge, horrid, completely strange town with nowhere to go and no one to ask for help. She had to get the satchel back!

Her sisters were right behind her; indeed, Camellia, the swiftest of them all, had almost caught up with her. But the wiry thief who had taken her case was faster than any of them. As they rounded a corner, she spied him half a block
ahead, and realized, with a wrenching despair, that they could not catch him.

A few yards beyond the thief, two men stood outside a door, chatting. In a last, desperate effort, Mary screamed, “Stop him! Thief!”

The two men turned and looked at her, but they made no move toward the man, and Mary knew with a sinking heart that her sisters’ future was disappearing before her eyes.

Sir Royce Winslow strolled out of the gambling hell, giving his gold-headed cane a casual twirl before he set its tip on the ground. A handsome man in his early thirties, with blond hair and green eyes, he was not the sort one expected to see emerging from a dockside gaming establishment. His broad shoulders were encased in a coat of blue superfine so elegantly cut that it could only have been made by Weston, just as the polished Hessians on his feet were clearly the work of Hoby. The fitted fawn trousers and white shirt, the starched and intricately tied cravat, the plain gold watch chain and fobs all bespoke a man of refinement and wealth—and one far too knowing to have been caught in the kind of place frequented, as his brother Fitz would say, by “sharps and flats.”

“Well, Gordon, you’ve led me on another merry chase,” Sir Royce said, turning to the man who had followed him out the door.

His companion, a man barely out of his teens, looked a trifle abashed at the comment. Unlike Sir Royce’s, Gordon’s clothes evinced the unmistakable extremes of style and color that branded him a fop. “And I would never have taken it into my head to wear that yellow coat.”

“But it’s all the crack!” Gordon exclaimed.

However, his companion was no longer listening to him. Sir Royce’s attention had been caught by the sight of a man tearing down the street toward them, clutching
a small leather satchel. What was even more arresting was that running after him was a young woman in a blue frock, her dark brown hair loose and streaming out behind her and her gown hiked up almost to her knees, exposing slender stocking-clad legs. Behind her were two more young women, running with equal fervor, bonnets dangling by their ribbons or tumbling off altogether, their faces flushed.