by Laura Landon
Hannah read Caroline’s letter over again and smiled. She almost had the words memorized, but she never tired of reading about Coventry Cottage’s successes.
According to Caroline, she’d heard of several positions that were open and had written to Rosie. Rosie immediately sent letters of reference to the homes that had positions to fill.
They’d placed five girls and two young men, all in excellent homes. Three of the girls and the two young men would have positions in country homes of friends and acquaintances of either Caroline or one of her sisters. The other two girls would go to town houses in London. The carriage bringing them to London should arrive any moment now. It would deliver its passengers where positions awaited them, then stop at Madam Genevieve’s. The driver would remain overnight, then leave in the morning with a passenger.
They’d rescued another girl from Skinner’s clutches last night, and she would be going to Coventry Cottage.
Hannah couldn’t help but smile. That had always been her goal—to rescue as many innocent young girls and boys as she could from Skinner’s clutches, then send them to Coventry Cottage where they would be trained with skills that would support them for the rest of their lives. When they were ready to go out on their own, the people at Coventry Cottage would find them positions where they were assured of having a better life than they would have living on the streets. Like the seven young people they’d rescued who were now embarking on a new life.
She wondered what path her life would have taken if she’d had a Coventry Cottage to help her when she arrived in London all those years ago. Perhaps she wouldn’t be the infamous Madam Genevieve now.
Perhaps she’d be Miss Hannah Bartlett, a nanny in someone’s home. She loved children and had the aptitude to teach. Or, perhaps she’d be a lady’s maid. She had an eye for clothes and what to wear on various occasions, and she had a talent at styling hair. Or perhaps she’d be—
She stopped fantasizing about what might have been when there was a knock on the door. “Come in,” she said.
The door opened, and Dalia entered.
“Has the carriage from Coventry Cottage arrived?” Hannah asked.
Dalia nodded. “The driver delivered the last young lady to her new post.”
“Good. Make sure he gets something to eat, then find him a room. Tell him he’ll have a passenger when he returns in the morning.”
“I’ve already informed him.”
Hannah recognized the serious look in Dalia’s eyes and her hesitation to leave. “Is something wrong?”
“I’m not sure.”
Hannah waited.
“You have a guest.”
“A guest? Who?”
“Vicar Waterford.”
“Rafe?”
“He accompanied the girls from Coventry Cottage.”
Hannah rose. “He can’t be here now. It’s not safe.”
“I hoped you’d realize that. Skinner doesn’t know he’s here yet, but when he does, it’s hard telling what he’ll do.”
“Where did you put him?”
“In the Gardenia Room.”
Hannah headed for the door. “Tell the driver he’ll have two passengers in the morning. He’s not to leave without both of them.”
Dalia may have answered, but Hannah didn’t hear her if she did. She was too concerned with reaching Rafe and making sure he knew he had to return to Coventry Cottage in the morning.
She walked down a long, narrow hallway to the Gardenia Room and opened the door.
Rafe stood on the opposite side of the room with his elbow resting on the mantel of the fireplace and one booted foot crossed over the other. When he saw her, he smiled.
Hannah’s heart shifted in her breast. She should be used to his smiles. Immune to his charm. But she wasn’t. She’d missed him more during the last few weeks than she thought she could bear—even doubted she could live one more day without seeing him and considered sending for him. But she knew how dangerous it would be for him to come to London. She knew the threat Skinner was to anything connected to her.
She closed the door and stepped into the room.
Rafe was already halfway to her.
She could almost feel his arms around her, feel the warmth of his body next to hers. Feel how safe she’d be next to him.
The voice of reason told her to avoid his embrace. The voice of reason told her to keep a distance between them and not encourage his overtures. But she couldn’t. She was too desperate to be held by him. She was too eager to be a part of him.
She walked into his arms and let him hold her.
“Oh, I’ve missed you,” he said. His finger lifted her chin, and he kissed her on the forehead. Then he lowered his head farther and kissed her on the lips.
She kissed him in return, but kept her kiss short. She needed to remain in control of her passion. “What are you doing here?” she asked.
She needed Rafe to know that she wouldn’t allow him to stay in London. She needed him to know that they had tonight, then he had to return to Coventry Cottage.
“When I found out the carriage was coming to London to deliver two young ladies to their new employment, I made sure I was on board.”
“You can’t stay. When the carriage returns tomorrow, you will be on it.”
Rafe dropped his arms from around her, then separated himself from her. “And if I refuse?”
“I’m not giving you that choice.”
His gaze narrowed. This was a Rafe she wasn’t used to seeing, a Rafe she’d only glimpsed once or twice. This was a stronger, more inflexible Rafe than people usually saw.
On most occasions he was a lighthearted, captivating charmer, whose charismatic personality drew people to him with relative ease. Because of his easygoing disposition, he rarely had to use force. But Hannah knew beneath that good-natured charm lay a steely determination. She’d hoped she’d never have to battle it.
Such wasn’t going to be the case here. He wasn’t going to allow her to order him about as if he were one of her girls, or one of the youngsters she’d rescued off the streets.
She stepped away from him and walked to a small side table where three crystal decanters sat on a silver tray. She poured some liquid from the middle decanter into two glasses. She held one out to him. He took it.
“I’m sorry, but I can’t allow you to stay here, Rafe.”
“Why? Because it would be bad for business if people found out a vicar was in residence?”
His words hurt. She bristled. “Yes. I have a business to run, and I refuse to let you interfere.”
He took a sip of the brandy she’d given him and turned toward the flames that licked upward in the fireplace. When he reached it, he anchored one outstretched arm against the mantel and stared into the blazing fire. “I want you to consider something, Hannah.”
He didn’t look at her. Didn’t give her the chance to look into his eyes to read what his words meant.
“What is that?”
“Please, sit down. Hear me out and don’t say anything until I’m finished.”
“Very well,” she answered and moved to a chair and sat.
He turned. “Our feelings for each other are obvious. I’m in love with you, and whether or not you will admit it, you are in love with me. There’s no debating that point. It’s obvious every time we kiss. It was obvious to me the moment you walked through the door and my heart leaped in my chest. And, from the look in your eyes when you saw me, it was obvious to you. Therefore, let’s save a lot of time and unnecessary arguing and face what we both know, but you are reluctant to admit—we love each other. We belong together.”
Hannah opened her mouth to say something, a rebuttal perhaps, but Rafe’s raised hand stopped her.
“Please, hear me out,” he continued. “I am more than thirty years of age. I’ll be one and thirty in a few months. And you are nearing thirty—if you haven’t already reached that milestone. I want to marry. I’ve never had this compulsion before. In fact, I’d ev
en halfway convinced myself that finding the woman of my dreams and giving her my heart as well as my name was not in my future. Then I met you.”
Rafe turned away from her to look out the window.
Hannah knew there was nothing of significance outside, but rather, he wanted to avoid seeing any reaction she might make—the downward cast of her eyes, the shake of her head, her lips forming the word no. Therefore, pretending interest in the out-of-doors was much safer.
“I’m well aware of your fears. I understand them, Hannah. Really I do. I know how terrified you are that if we marry, someone will discover your past and I will suffer from embarrassment. You are afraid that your past will act as a wedge that will be driven between us. That in time it will sever any love we feel for each other. But that will never happen. I am not a young schoolboy suffering from my first love. I am a mature adult who has weighed all the consequences of loving you and has decided you are worth any trials that will come our way. You harbor doubts because you do not know the depth of love I have for you. Let me assure you, it is stronger and more invincible than anything the world can hurl at us.”
He turned and walked to a chair beside her, then sat. “I don’t intend to lose you, Hannah. It took me thirty long years to find you, and I won’t let you slip out of my grasp. The only question that remains is, what are you going to do? How valuable is my love to you?”
Hannah struggled with the weight pressing on her heart, the painful pressure that wouldn’t let her lungs take in air like they needed to do.
“Can you answer that question, Hannah? Do you intend to continually banish me to the country while you stay here in London and run your brothel? Do you intend to allow me to see only the good side of what you do and not the part I am asking you to give up?” He turned in his chair until he faced her squarely. “Do you intend to keep me in the country like several of the nobility keep their mistresses hidden away, and come to visit me only when you can escape your obligations at Madam Genevieve’s?”
Hannah was shocked by his questions. She turned her head until she was looking directly into his eyes. How could he think she would turn their love into something so sordid? But he should also realize that she could never give up Madam Genevieve’s. And he knew why. “May I ask you a question?” she said. “A question to which I would like an honest answer?”
“Of course.”
“What do you see for our future? How will you support me? Where will we live? What will we do?”
“You need never fear that I cannot support you. Or that you will live in poverty. My grandfather left me money in a trust. It is not a huge amount, but it is substantial. It arrives quarterly.”
“The same grandfather who left you his watch?”
Rafe smiled. “The same.”
“He must have loved you a great deal.”
“He did.”
“What do you think he would say about your marriage to a whore?”
Rafe turned on her. “Don’t call yourself that,” he said. “Ever.”
There was a flash of anger in his eyes that couldn’t be missed. Hannah nodded. “Very well. What do you think he would say about your marriage to a woman with a soiled past?”
“He would understand. He knew what love was. He loved my grandmother very much. Nothing would have forced him to give her up.”
Hannah looked at the confident expression on Rafe’s face and wanted to believe him. She really did. But if Rafe’s grandfather would have understood, he would have been one of the few men of noble birth who did.
“You haven’t answered all my questions,” she continued. “Where will we live? What will you do?”
His look was one of surprise. “We will live at Coventry Cottage. Did you think I would ask you to abandon something that was so important to you? Did you think I would ask you to desert the children you’ve rescued off the street?”
She lowered her gaze to her hands clenched in her lap. “I don’t know what I thought.”
“I would never ask you to give up taking care of the children who were rescued off the street. All I ask is that you leave Madam Genevieve’s.”
She lifted her gaze. “The income from Madam Genevieve’s is what supports Coventry Cottage. Without the income from the brothel, the children will have to go without.”
Rafe was silent for several long moments. When he spoke, his voice was soft, almost a whisper. “I can’t permit you to stay here, Hannah. Allowing you to live in a brothel—allowing you to run a brothel—goes against everything I believe.”
The energy Hannah needed to breathe drained from her body. He was asking her to choose. He expected her to walk away from Madam Genevieve’s, knowing it meant that the children at Coventry Cottage would have to go without.
She thought of what this would mean. Her connection with Madam Genevieve’s enabled her to rescue the children Skinner intended to sell in his brothels. Without her, hundreds of children would be sold into slavery.
Hannah lifted her gaze and looked into Rafe’s eyes. He expected her to choose him over everything that was important to her. She couldn’t do it.
She shook her head. “I can’t.”
She heard him breathe a heavy sigh. “I see.”
“You’re asking too much of me. I could never live with myself if I turned my back on the children.”
“I’m not asking you to turn your back on the children. I’m asking you to turn your back on your life as a prostitute.”
As if a window suddenly slammed shut, taking the light with it, her hope for a future with Rafe suddenly vanished. She had been right all along. The differences between them were too great. The problems too insurmountable.
“Don’t you understand? Running Madam Genevieve’s is how I have the money to provide the children with clothes to put on their backs and pay the people it takes to care for them and train them.”
When he spoke, his voice was louder. His words more emphatic. “You’re not a prostitute, Hannah.”
Hannah bristled. “That’s the problem, Vicar. You have Madam Genevieve confused with someone else. Hannah isn’t a prostitute, but Madam Genevieve is! When I’m in London, I am Madam Genevieve! Just like when you’re in London, you are Lord Rafe Waterford, not Vicar Waterford.”
“There isn’t a difference, Hannah. You’re still the same—”
“There’s a world of difference. There’s—”
Hannah stopped. She needed this to end. She couldn’t survive the constant turmoil that teetering between her vicar’s world and her real world caused. Rafe needed to face what she was, not what he pretended she was. He needed to see the real Madam Genevieve and stop pretending he could change her into someone she could never be again.
“I won’t give you up, Hannah.”
“Hannah isn’t here, Vicar. She lives in the country. At Coventry Cottage. Madam Genevieve lives in London. She’s a fallen woman. A harlot. A famous courtesan.”
Hannah suddenly realized she needed to put Rafe out of her life forever. She needed him to leave and never come back. To do that she needed to show him how different she was from the woman he’d created in his mind. The woman he called Hannah.
She swallowed hard. She needed him to hate her.
“If you need to see what the real Hannah is like—the Hannah that everyone in London knows as Madam Genevieve—you will have to attend an event she is hosting four nights from tonight. It’s an auction.”
“An auction?”
“Yes. The item of value to be auctioned off is the famous madam herself. Madam Genevieve will sell her favors to the highest bidder.” Hannah smiled as coquettishly as she could manage. “If you need proof that the Hannah Bartlett you created to fit your dreams and Madam Genevieve are one and the same, you are invited to see the famous madam in action. Perhaps you’ll even be tempted to bid on her. But, be warned, Vicar. You will have to pay dearly for the pleasure of her body for the evening.”
“No, Hannah! Don’t do this. You can’t.”
; “But I can, Vicar. That is what whores do. They sell themselves. If you don’t have the stomach to watch, then go home! Go shepherd your saints and leave us sinners alone!”
Rafe opened his mouth to say something, but Hannah didn’t have the stomach to degrade herself further. She pointed to the door. “Go.”
He walked toward the door, but stopped when he reached her. “I can’t let you do this, Hannah. I can’t.”
“Then be here in four nights, Vicar. The bidding begins at nine.” She lifted her gaze to face him, then smiled. “But be warned. I will not come cheaply. If you want me, your pockets will have to be very deep indeed.”
His eyes flamed with fury as he glared at her.
She thought he would say more, but he didn’t. He hesitated only a moment, then walked past her.
Hannah shut the door with a thud and leaned her back against the hard wood. She wouldn’t cry. She couldn’t cry. She’d already shed enough tears over him. She refused to shed more.
She slowly moved to her chair by the window and stared out the glass panes until the sky darkened. And she sat even longer.
She loved him, but she couldn’t give up the income from Madam Genevieve’s. And that was the only option he’d given her.
She lowered her head and prayed that when the carriage left in the morning, he would be on it.
It had been three days since the carriage had returned to Coventry Cottage—without Rafe aboard it. Hannah didn’t know what was worse—realizing that she’d lost Rafe forever, or not knowing where he was and worrying that Skinner had found him.
She tried to do what she’d done before Rafe had entered her life, but found it nearly impossible. Her job at Madam Genevieve’s was to oversee the customers and match them up with the girl she thought would please them most. Now she struggled at what used to come naturally to her, and Dalia had to assume more of the responsibility.
She used to be in daily contact with the girls and know what was going on with them, and if and when there were problems to solve. Yesterday she’d walked into the breakfast room and found a new girl sitting at the table. When she asked who she was, the girl introduced herself and said she’d been at Madam Genevieve’s more than a week. And that she was glad to see Madam Genevieve—again.