“Benedict, why ask these questions? Why can’t you just be happy with the time we have left?”
He frowned at her odd turn of phrase. There was something quite final and dire about it. “The time we have left?” he repeated.
Even in the dim light, she blanched. “Today, this night,” she said as a means of explanation.
One he did not believe. The more he pondered it, the more he realized there truly was some higher reason for her sudden shifts in attitude. And even though it was clear she had no intention of sharing those reasons with him willingly, he planned to find out on his own.
But not at this moment.
“Have you heard about Dershingham?” he asked.
She seemed surprise that he would change the subject, but also very relieved. “I’ve heard murmurings, why? Has something changed?”
He allowed himself a grin. “Somehow the truth about his financial situation was made public. In White’s. By a creditor.”
Her eyes widened. “Good Lord, I do need to have more parties if I am so far removed from such gossip. When did this happen?”
“Two nights ago. The man all but stormed in and demanded payments. Dershingham was at the card tables and had already lost three of his best horses and a secondary estate. He rose up and threatened the man and both of them were tossed out on their asses.”
Vivien covered her mouth to hide a wide smile. “Great ruination.”
“Indeed. If my sources are correct, his world is already crashing down around him. Loudly and with some level of finality. And it is all thanks to you, my dear.”
“Thanks to us both,” she said with a dismissive wave of her hand.
“Either way, it is a moment a long time coming.”
She leaned closer and her eyes were lit up with more than triumph now. He recognized her desire for him sparkling there in the moonlight. “Do you know how I would like to celebrate and enjoy this moment?”
He shook his head, mesmerized and seduced by the feel of her breath on his neck.
“I can scarcely believe it to be true, but you and I have never made love in public before,” she whispered against his ear. “I have heard there is a dark and private corner behind the concert hall where I would dearly love to feel you inside me while the fireworks explode above us.”
She stood and offered her hand. A hand he took and did not resist against when she tugged him the short distance to the concert hall down the lane. Visitors sprawled on the steps, watching the fireworks with oohs and ahhs. Vivien ignored them and drew him around the back of the building.
The moment they were sheltered from the eyes of the others, she pushed him against the flat stone wall of the hall and lifted up on her tiptoes to kiss him with a passion that was unfiltered and wild. She was grasping for some of the control she had handed over to him with her emotions, but he wasn’t about to allow her to take it back. Not now.
He spun her until her back was against the cool stone of the building. The crowd nearby ohhhed with delight at the explosion of a firework, and as Benedict cupped her backside and ground against her through their clothing, Vivien echoed that sound of pleasure.
His control faltered at the response and he struggled as he hiked at her skirts. She seemed to be just as affected, for she jerked at his trouser fly, maneuvering until his cock slipped free of the confines and she could stroke him.
He looked down as another firework bathed them in a strange green light. Her dress was up around her rib cage, his cock was naked and hard. He grinned as he lifted her and stroked, sliding into her body in one smooth motion.
She cried out, but the sound was lost in the noise of the crowd still appreciating the show just around the corner from them. The idea that any of them could come around the building and be scandalized to find the son of one of the most important families in London making love to his mistress excited him more than it should have.
He drove hard into her, setting a frantic rhythm, but she met him at every stroke, wrapping her arms around his neck and straining to keep up. She gasped with pleasure, she squeezed him as he entered and exited her willing body. And when she came, her face so close to his, he felt the reverberations of her pleasure through every part of him.
He held her close as she jolted and shivered, squeezing him through the crisis, crying out his name until he could no longer control his response. He exploded deep within her, their pleasure merging and becoming one as their bodies had.
Afterward, he held her, their foreheads pressed together and their breath slowing into one shared inhalation and exhalation. She drew back when a moment had passed. Fireworks exploded overhead and he saw all the joy in her features in the blue light.
“I am still swept away by you,” she said with a tiny smile.
He hadn’t expected that admission and he was taken aback by how honest it was. “I hope you always shall be.”
Her smile faded and she leaned forward to bury her face in his shoulder. He held her close and vowed that he would determine what was driving her to make her more recent decisions. And when he did, he intended to do everything in his power to keep her close this time. To keep her in his life forever.
Chapter Seventeen
Vivien stared at Benedict from the corner of her eye as the carriage they traveled in bumped over the roads. One phrase kept playing in her head over and over, disrupting everything and anything she believed about herself.
Two Nights. Two Nights. Two Nights.
She shook her head, but it continued to repeat itself, reminding her that she had spent not one but two nights in this man’s company, that she had allowed herself to settle into his life as she had never done with anyone before.
The fact should have terrified her, but instead she was left with a strangely comforting feeling instead. Almost as if she belonged with him.
Even though she knew for a fact that could never be.
What was terrifying, though, was that they were less than fifteen minutes from their destination, the village of Sapsgate. During the last half-hour, they had left the main road and bumped along, inching toward her past. Inching toward painful memories she had long ago put away with never a thought that she would revisit them.
And yet she was now compelled to do so.
As if he sensed her discomfort, Benedict reached out to take her hand, slipping his fingers between hers before he rested their joined hands against his thigh. Immediately she was soothed and her nervousness faded, at least a little.
“So what kind of girl were you, Vivien?” he asked, his tone light as if to combat her somber mood.
She smiled. This question defied her rule that he not insert himself except when welcomed, but she appreciated his attempts to comfort her nonetheless.
“Probably very different than you picture me to have been.”
He tilted his head. “Oh? I wonder at that. You see, I have always pictured you as a studious sort, perhaps even a tiny bit of a bluestocking, for you are far too intelligent not to have studied and enjoyed the process of studying. I would wager, though, that you always dreamed of more, especially coming from such a tiny hamlet. Perhaps you even snuck peeks at the latest fashions and stole the Society paper when your mama wasn’t looking.”
Vivien’s eyes widened and he chuckled. “How far off the mark am I?”
She could scarcely speak for a moment, but then stammered, “A-almost exactly right, actually. Though my mama encouraged me to read the Society papers, so I never had to steal them. But how did you guess?”
He wrinkled his brow. “What would you have thought I would say?”
“Most men would believe I lived a sinful life from my day of birth, considering how I turned out,” she admitted with a shrug that did not betray how painful an assumption that had been.
He shook his head. “Most men have never attempted to look past your exterior show, let alone actually seen past it. And to their detriment, for to know you, even as little as you allow me, is a gift. You are intelligent,
focused and as strong as any man I’ve ever known. Those things did not happen from some magical wave of a wand. They must have been built from a foundation of some kind.”
She stared at him, surprised that her eyes filled briefly with tears. He loved her, truly loved her. With the kind of depth of feeling she had scoffed at in books or pretended only existed for others as she watched her best friends find love and true happiness with their husbands.
It made the fact they could not truly be together all the more unfair.
The carriage slowed and she breathed a sigh of relief. With his words and her recognition of his heart, the vehicle had become far too close and confining. She welcomed the opening of the door and the fresh air from outside as she stepped out and looked around.
The driver had stopped at a small inn that was central to Sapsgate, The Prided Pony. To her surprise, the place looked smaller than she remembered, but otherwise much the same. Even the paint on the sign was chipped in exactly the same way.
Benedict took her arm and looked up at the building and the street on which it stood with interest. “Not a bad center of town,” he commented.
She followed his gaze. The other shops lined the main boulevard with a tailor, a general merchant and a doctor’s office. All exactly as she recalled.
“How can a place be so stuck in time?” she murmured, more to herself than to him.
He shrugged regardless. “Ten years is a lifetime and also the blink of an eye. I would wager in twenty it will look differently and even more so in a hundred.”
She would have nodded except at that moment the carriage began to pull away.
“Where is he going?” she asked, panic in her tone that she wished she could erase the moment she spoke it.
Benedict squeezed her arm gently. “Only to park the vehicle behind the inn and inquire about food and water for the horse. My man is to be at the ready, whenever you wish to depart. We are not abandoned here, I assure you.”
She nodded and fought for a moment to control her emotions. This place was not a safe one for her—she could ill afford to be wild with her heart.
“Of course,” she said and was pleased that the tension was gone from her voice. “I expect this will not take long, but the animal must rest, of course.”
He offered her an arm and she took it. “Where to first?” he asked.
She looked around. “I suppose the general merchandise store would be as good a place to begin as any.”
He nodded as he led her there. He spoke about something benign, but she hardly heard his words as they neared the entrance. There was unpleasant history to this place.
They moved up the stairs and Benedict released her to open the door. She passed by him and into the goods store almost as if she were moving through a tunnel. A bell rang above her, the same one that had hung there when she lived in this place. The shop smelled the same too, like sweet candy and cheap fabric and tobacco smoke mixed together for a disparate, pungent scent.
She looked around. Goods lined the shelves.
“Welcome,” a voice behind the counter said.
Vivien jumped and turned toward the person. It was Mrs. Carlisle, the same woman who had sat behind that counter a decade before. She was older now, but with the same questioning expression. Vivien held her breath as she waited to be recognized, but the woman didn’t seem to see her as familiar.
“May I help you?” she pressed.
Vivien shook her head. “N-No,” she stammered. “Just looking around.”
Mrs. Carlisle hesitated, almost as if she was starting to remember something, but then shrugged. “Let me know if you need any help.”
Vivien jerked out a nod and looked around a moment more. Finally, she turned to Benedict and said, “I think that’s all.”
He wrinkled his brow, but didn’t argue as they left the store. Outside, she glanced down the street. More memories cascaded down upon her, making her head spin as she pondered them all.
“The woman didn’t know you,” Benedict said softly.
Vivien shook her head. “I suppose I wasn’t memorable,” she said as a means to explain.
He didn’t look convinced, but before he could respond, the door to the shop opened and a woman came running out. Vivien stared. The woman was Genevieve Carlisle. And from her expression, Vivien could see she remembered what her mother had not.
“As I live and breathe, I knew it was you when I heard your voice from the back,” the woman said, her face lighting up. She rushed to Vivien and tugged her close in a tight hug “I heard you speak and I knew in an instant that you were Alice Roth.”
Vivien’s face was frozen in horror and heartbreak, but she hugged the woman back lightly, proving she knew the stranger. Her wide eyes darted to Benedict, judging what he had heard, what he thought of it all. He could do nothing but stare back.
Alice Roth? Why would this woman call her that? And why wasn’t Vivien correcting her mistake?
Unless that was truly her name.
“It has been an age,” the other woman said as she stepped away from Vivien and looked her up and down with clear appraisal. “So much has changed. Look at you! You are dressed all like a lady.”
Vivien flushed darker than Benedict had ever seen and she shot another glance his way. He saw how naked she felt, how revealed by this woman’s careless words, and he wished he could help her, but he was still spinning.
The woman turned to him and snapped her mouth shut. “Oh, I beg your pardon, I didn’t even see you standing there. Is this your husband, Alice?”
Vivien opened her mouth, but Benedict could see that she was in no shape to answer such questions. He stepped forward and gently placed a hand on her back to comfort her.
“I am,” he declared with more ease than he should have displayed in claiming her as a wife. “Benedict Greystone, at your service, Miss…?”
He held out his opposite hand and the woman shook it. “I’m Genevieve Winston, though Alice knew me as Carlisle. I married Martin Winston, can you believe it?”
Vivien shook her head. “I cannot,” she whispered.
Others might have noticed her flat tone, her shattered expression, but Mrs. Winston did not. She continued to chatter on, unfettered.
“You must be here to see your mother.”
Vivien blanched even further. “My—my mother? But she moved away!”
Now Mrs. Winston did hesitate at the strength of Vivien’s statement.
“You did not know she returned?” Mrs. Winston’s face was filled with triumph that she had obtained some kind of gossip. “She did, a few months ago. She’s back in your old home. Come, we must go see her. I’ll tell Mama and be right back to walk with you.”
With a quick smile, the woman hurried back into the shop, leaving Vivien and Benedict alone. She turned toward him, looking up into his face.
He was shocked by what he saw. She was pale, eyes rimmed red by tears she was holding back, she looked terrified, sick and utterly lost.
“Please do not ask me questions,” she whispered. “Not now. Not yet.”
He brushed her cheek with the back of her hand. “I want to help you, Vivien. That is my only wish.”
She nodded, but they could speak no more as Mrs. Winston returned to their side with a laugh. “Mama was amazed that it was you, Alice. She thought you seemed familiar but with your fancy hair and clothes, it’s like you’re another person entirely.”
“Yes,” Vivien said, her tone flat. “I often feel like another person.”
“Come, I’ll walk with you. You must be thrilled to see your mother.”
Vivien took Benedict’s arm and they walked along the road with Mrs. Winston chattering on about people whose names Vivien had never spoken to him but had obviously been important during her youth. Vivien never responded except to nod or shake her head, but her silence did not stop Mrs. Winston from prattling on endlessly.
Finally, after about a mile of walking, they reached a small, tidy home on the edge of the v
illage. At the gate, Vivien stopped and stared. Benedict saw the pain she had exhibited in the village double.
“I know your mama is home,” Mrs. Winston buzzed. “Let us ring the bell.”
Vivien didn’t move and Benedict stepped forward. “You have been so kind to walk with us, Mrs. Winston, but Viv—Alice has not seen her mother in some time. Perhaps you would allow us a bit of privacy in her reunion?”
Vivien snapped her gaze to him and he saw her relief. Mrs. Winston seemed perturbed, the way a gossip always did when she was cut off from a source of news. And Benedict had no doubt that was just what she was, harmless but thrilled to have seen Vivien first so she could share all her observations with her sewing circle.
“Of course,” she said, for there was no other proper answer. “But I hope you will come see me during your stay. I assume you will be staying?”
Vivien shook away whatever she was thinking. “No!” she burst out.
Mrs. Winston took a step back at the strength of her response and Benedict hurried to fill the gap Vivien had created.
“Unfortunately, my business does not allow us to escape London for more than a day. But I’m certain we will see you again. It has been such a pleasure.”
Even this woman could not misunderstand his dismissal. She appeared perturbed as she stepped back.
“Very well. It was nice to see you, Alice. I hope you will say goodbye before you depart.”
Vivien nodded blankly. “Of course.”
The other woman started back up the road toward the main center of the village and Benedict breathed a sigh of relief.
“I cannot imagine you being friends with that woman, even when you were a girl,” he muttered. “I do not picture you as that foolish.”
Vivien swallowed. “I was foolish enough, in my own way. But I would not have counted Genevieve as a bosom friend, no. She always talked far too much.”
They stared at the house together.
“We can leave,” he said softly. “I could have the driver ready in a moment and we could be home to London before sunset.”
Her Perfect Match: Mistress Matchmaker, Book 3 Page 14