“Some friends,” David said in her ear. “I hope you don’t mind.”
Vivian shook her head. Who was she to mind? He could talk to his friends while she gawked at everything around her.
“I say, who is your lovely companion?” asked the darker man as they drew near. His eyes hadn’t strayed from her face.
“May I present Mrs. Vivian Beecham,” said David. He said her last name differently, as if it were French: bow-sham. “Mrs. Beecham is not from London, so I’ve undertaken to show her the finer points of our city.”
“Indeed.” Both men bowed, but it was the man with dark hair who took her hand and brushed his lips just above her knuckles. Vivian had a sudden thought what his expression would look like if he knew he’d just kissed the hand of a half-Irish pickpocket, and she almost snickered aloud. She managed to stop herself in time, pressing her lips together in a polite smile.
David wondered if she had any idea how enchanting she looked that way. He noticed the glint in her eyes, and the way her lips curled as if hiding a smirk behind her demure smile; he had a good guess what she might be thinking, and it made him want to laugh, too. “Mrs. Beecham, may I present to you two notorious rogues, and sometime friends of mine: Mr. Edward Percy and Mr. Anthony Hamilton.”
“Sometime? Nonsense,” said the darker man, Mr. Hamilton, with a charming smile. “We are the closest of friends. Almost brothers.”
“Not quite, if he can hide a woman from us,” exclaimed Mr. Percy. “Reece, you dog, you—”
“But who can blame him, in this instance?” interrupted Mr. Hamilton again. “Do you plan to stay in London long, Mrs. Beecham?”
“I have not yet decided,” she replied, caught off guard. “It depends…”
“We must persuade you to make a long visit to our city. Have you seen the sights yet?”
“Er…no.” She glanced at David, who seemed oddly quiet and watchful.
“I would be delighted to escort you,” offered Mr. Hamilton at once. He also glanced at David. “Should business prevent Reece from it.”
“When has business ever prevented Reece from showing a lady a fine time?” blared Mr. Percy. His eyes were bloodshot, and he tipped a flask to his lips as soon as the words were out of his mouth. Vivian gauged it wouldn’t be long before he passed out and snored for a day and a half.
“Percy, you’re drunk,” said Mr. Hamilton without looking at his friend.
Mr. Percy hiccupped. “Most likely. So’s you, Ham. Now Reece, is this the wom—?”
“We don’t want to miss a moment of the play,” said David, inclining his head. “Sleep it off, Percy. Hamilton.”
“Good evening, Mrs. Beecham,” said Mr. Hamilton, who did not look drunk. He glanced briefly at David before returning his attention to Vivian. “Reece.”
“Am not drunk,” said Mr. Percy with a bleary look. “Not that drunk. Just curious. Not every day Reece brings a wom—”
“This way, my dear,” said David, guiding her past his two friends. Vivian wondered what, precisely, Mr. Percy had been saying that David didn’t want her to hear. She supposed his friends thought she was his bit of skirt now; his mistress, they would say, no doubt. She doubted men of their class took whores to the theater and sat in the fancy boxes.
“Have you got a mistress already?” she asked as they slowly made their way up the stairs. David stopped dead, almost tripping an elderly man behind him.
“Have I what?”
“Got a mistress already,” she repeated, but quietly. “Your friends seem surprised to see you here with a woman they don’t recognize. Do you usually bring another woman?” He stared at her with an odd expression, and Vivian realized she was prying. “Well, none of my business, I suppose,” she muttered.
“No,” he said, resuming their pace. “I never bring any women to the theater. That is what shocked them. And now they are perishing of curiosity about you.”
Vivian glanced back uneasily, hoping that was not true. It was. In just the second she was looking at him, Mr. Hamilton looked up, right at her. His eyes met hers, and she could see the speculation there. His mouth curled a little, and he nodded at her. Vivian faced front again, her heart beating hard. It had been amusing when he bowed to her and kissed her hand. Now she thought it might not be so amusing, if he started asking questions which had no answers. He might not share David’s appreciation of the joke.
“You have nothing to fear from either of them,” he went on. “Percy is likely so drunk he shan’t recall ever meeting you.”
“The other one will,” she said.
A funny smile crossed his face. “Hamilton won’t disturb you, either.”
“Have—have you told them?” she asked warily. “The truth?”
He stopped again, this time shaking his head in exasperation. “You wound me.”
She turned, stumbling as the crowd swirled around them, pushing her into him. He put his hand under her elbow, steadying her and pulling her closer at the same time. “You might be a Russian archduchess for all these people know. My friends will leave you in peace because you are my guest.” He put his hand over hers on his arm. “Shall we enjoy the play?”
Reproved, Vivian nodded. Why was she questioning him about every little thing, when he had brought her to the theater? He said he wanted to do something nice for her. She ought to accept it in better grace, she decided, and stop looking for all the ways he might be making sport of her.
They continued on their way, more slowly now as the crowd around them grew sluggish and more fashionable. Up the stairs, away from the raucous throngs streaming toward the pit, the elegant theater patrons seemed determined to see and be seen, with much less interest in taking their seats. Although Vivian still felt finer than she had ever been in her life, she could see that she was nothing next to these ladies, with their sparkling jewels and glowing silk gowns.
People looked at them. Vivian could see their eyes skip over her as if she weren’t there—not elegant enough to take note of, she thought—then land on David, grow wide, and leap back to her. At first it made her nervous, but David showed no such hesitation. In fact, she would swear he seemed to relish it as he walked right toward the interested onlookers. Summoning up a smile, she followed him.
If she had known what he would do, she might not have done so. From the left and from the right, people hailed him. Some were jovial, some were snide, and some seemed simply amazed. All of them looked to her with intense curiosity. And to Vivian’s astonishment, David introduced her a bit differently every time. One time she would be Madam Beauchamp, a recent émigré to England. The next she would be Mrs. Beecham again, with a strong implication that she was a lady of some fortune recently returned from abroad, and after that Miss Beecham, a distant cousin of his come to see London. Once he even subtly suggested she was connected to the royal family of Denmark, a lie which left her speechless with shock.
“Denmark?” she managed to squeak as they moved on from the beaming couple who now thought she was almost a princess. “Are you completely mad?”
He grinned. “No. Lady Winters has never been to Denmark. You could be the queen and she would never know.”
“I’m not Danish! I’m not even sure where Denmark is!”
“Well, you’re Irish, which rhymes with Danish,” he said. “And Denmark is somewhere…north. East, I’m certain of that. It’s close enough, don’t you think?”
“Not really,” she said, although trying not to laugh at how outrageous he was, and how calm he was about the lies he was telling.
“I doubt Lady Winters knows where Denmark is, either,” he told her. “There’s no harm in it.”
“You’re a charlatan,” she said, almost gasping in disbelief at the things he was telling people.
He simply smiled, but it was a wicked smile, full of satisfaction. He was having the time of his life, she realized, and suddenly it dawned on her what he was doing. To some people he had merely introduced her by name; to others he had told ever more
fanciful and outlandish stories, all seemingly guaranteed to make the listener fawn over her in awe. He was showing them up, these people who whispered behind their hands about him and took pleasure in his misfortunes. He was making them fall over themselves to win the favor of a no-account thief who would as like as not lift their purse while they were bowing over her hand. And yet, by telling everyone a different name and background for her, he had ensured that no one would be able to find her again. The joke was entirely on them, with no danger to her.
Strangely, it made Vivian want to laugh. How many times had she longed to take people who thought too highly of themselves down a peg, and here he had done it. Of course the fools would never know, but David would know, and that seemed to be enough for him.
He led her into a fancy box with an astonishingly good view of the stage. Peering over the edge, Vivian thought she would see the sweat on the actors’ brows. It was wonderful, and she pulled her chair closer, not wanting to miss a moment.
“I’m not such a charlatan,” he said, taking the seat beside her and resuming the conversation. “They would never have believed it if you hadn’t had such lovely manners and a beautiful accent.”
“Where did I learn to ape my betters, you mean to ask?” She grinned.
“No,” he corrected her at once. “Not your betters. Not a person here is your better.”
She turned to face him, her eyebrows raised as high as they would go. He wasn’t perturbed. “What did you say?” she asked in surprise.
“Not a person here is your better,” he repeated.
She looked closely at him for any indication he was making sport of her. He had to be, even though she couldn’t see any sign of it. She frowned suspiciously, and turned her back on him. “Bloody liar,” she muttered.
“It’s not a lie,” he said. “Why would you think so?”
She spun around again. “Why, it’s clear to see! All these folk are so finely dressed, so elegant…”
“That sort of elegance can be obtained from a milliner, a maid or valet, and a tailor. Anyone with money can achieve it. It’s not your fault you aren’t elegant in that way.” He put his head to one side, studying her. “You have your own elegance.”
Vivian just stared at him, speechless. He smiled slightly, his dark eyes lingering on her face. “You’re mad,” she finally said, but inwardly she felt a tingling rush of warmth. Elegance? It wasn’t true, of course, but it was lovely of him to say so. “I’ve an ear for languages and an eye for things like manners,” she said, leaving that topic and returning to an easier one. “It came in handy more than once, being able to ape a lady, or at least a lady’s companion.”
“No doubt,” he said, then adopted a slightly wounded tone. “Still, knowing you can behave so beautifully, I wonder why I am treated to the sharp edge of your temper at all times.”
“Because you’re a scoundrel,” she said calmly. “And you like it.”
He laughed. “You have caught me out.”
She laughed with him, just as the lights on the stage came up, and the musicians began to play. At once her attention fixed on the stage, and she did not notice how David’s eyes lingered on her in an oddly thoughtful way.
David watched her instead of the stage. She didn’t seem to realize it, enraptured by the play. Emotions dashed across her face, a flicker of a frown, a flash of dismay, then a brilliant smile and delighted laugh that made David smile, too, when she glanced at him, even though he hadn’t the faintest idea what had been amusing.
For the first time, he thought he was seeing Vivian without a trace of artifice, the way she would be if her nature hadn’t been hardened from years of cruel life. For days she had sat in stubborn silence, her back to him, a wooden figure almost. Now she was still again, but from rapt attention to the play.
David had never expected to spend this much time in her company. Locking her up had been pure impulse; keeping her there had been pure stubbornness. If she had been a simple petty thief, she would have told him what he wanted to know and he would have released her. He would never have noticed the way she nibbled the inside corner of her lip when she was worried. He never would have known that she loved the small luxuries in life—a hot bath, a cozy mattress, a bit of lemon tart—the way most women liked jewels. He would never have suspected that something as simple as a play would make her eyes light up and shine like stars, when all around her people were more interested in who was sitting in whose box than in anything the actors were saying or doing.
Now he didn’t know what to do with her. Instead of losing interest in her, he only wanted to know more about her. He was attracted to her still, but it was not strictly about taking her to bed; he wanted to make her laugh almost as much as he wanted to make love to her. No other woman had ever managed to intrigue him so, particularly not whilst calling him the names Vivian hurled at him regularly. Instead of being put off by it, David found it exhilarating. He liked a woman with spirit and wit. He even liked that he must be himself with her, or be mocked as a liar. Vivian, he realized, forced him to be honest.
It wasn’t an altogether comfortable feeling for David. All his life, people around him had made him aware of his many failings. It had been easier for him to laugh off every scolding, make a joke of every disaster, and generally carry on as if he hadn’t a care in the world. He couldn’t remember the last time he had been utterly unguarded, and not braced himself for a lecture or recriminations in return. But Vivian seemed to have little patience for his insouciance, and refused to let him sulk about his problems. Strange to say, but she might actually have been a good influence on him.
At the end of the farce, she applauded enthusiastically before turning to him, her eyes shining. “Wasn’t it lovely?”
“Completely,” he confirmed, smiling back at her.
“Have you ever seen anything so amusing?” She began to laugh as she spoke. “I never saw anyone so clever as Miss Hardcastle.”
“Indeed,” he said wryly, “for perceiving a fundamental truth about gentlemen: we are all fools when it comes to women.”
“You needn’t add the last,” she said. “Just leave it at fools.”
David smiled. “Perhaps so. Would you care for some wine?”
His genteel manner made Vivian want to laugh again. “Aye,” she said, then corrected herself. “Yes, thank you. That would be lovely.”
This time he laughed. “I shall fetch some. Bar the door behind me, wench, to keep your admirers at bay.”
“Admirers, here,” she said with a sniff. “What a laugh.”
David shook his head and left, pulling the door securely closed behind him. He briskly strode off down the corridor. It had been amusing earlier to introduce Vivian to people, but now he just wanted to get back to her. He hoped Hamilton would have the good sense not to stop by and visit her.
“Reece,” whispered a silky voice behind him. David turned without thinking, only realizing too late that he would have done better to pretend not to have heard.
Jocelyn, Lady Barlow strolled around him, too closely, a secretive smile on her lips. She had been his last lover, months ago. He hadn’t seen her since the night Marcus narrowly saved him from her husband’s wrath. “I thought that was you, half asleep in Exeter’s box. Where on earth have you been, darling?” She walked her fingers over his arm.
David shifted his weight, easing just away from her hand. There were few people in the corridor at the moment, and she was taking full advantage of it. “Out of town, Jocelyn. You might remember I had to leave rather suddenly.”
She pouted. “What a tempest over nothing. Barlow forgot about it within a fortnight.”
“Perhaps because I quit the scene so promptly,” David murmured.
She smiled, a coy smile that had once brought him running to her side. “But now you’ve returned.”
“So I have,” he said, stepping sideways again when her hand would have slid along his waistcoat. “Are you enjoying the play?”
“Play?”
She laughed. “Oh yes, we are at the theater. Darling, you know I don’t care for the theater…unless one is contemplating diversions of a private nature, in one’s box…”
“The farce was terribly amusing,” he told her, ignoring her every attempt to flirt with him, and avoiding her attempts to touch him.
Jocelyn rolled her eyes. “If I cared to attend,” she said, stepping closer until David had to stand a little straighter. She tilted her head and looked him in the eye. Jocelyn was tall for a woman, taller than Vivian. “Shall we find a quiet corner and create our own entertainment?”
He looked at her. Once he had been mad for her. He had carried on with her past the point of prudence and let her use him to punish her husband for his indifference, until even the negligent Lord Barlow couldn’t let it pass. David knew Barlow had been on the verge of calling him out, before Marcus intervened and sent him away. David wasn’t fool enough to tempt the same irate husband twice, had he even wished to. “No.”
Jocelyn blinked. “No? Why not?”
He inhaled deeply, and let it out. “We are done, my dear. We have been for months.”
“That needn’t be so,” she began, but David held up one hand.
“Yes, it really must.”
She looked ready to protest, then stopped, acceptance settling over her features. “Yes,” she said at last. “I suppose it must. The young woman, I trust.”
“Not at all.” His protest was quick and instinctive.
She smiled wryly. “I think so. A woman can tell.”
David raised one eyebrow. “Then why did you approach me, if you believe that?”
She sighed. “One can hope. You really were the sweetest…” She patted him on the arm. “That’s that, then. Go back to her.”
“It’s not what you think,” he tried once more.
“Not yet, perhaps.” She wagged a finger at him. “You want it to be, though.”
He did. He couldn’t admit it, but neither could he deny it. David smiled, and raised her hand to brush his lips across her knuckles. “Good evening to you, Jocelyn.”
What a Rogue Desires Page 15