“I didn’t use you.” He didn’t deny the lying, though. “What happened between us back in Brighton was…”
Before he came up with another flowery lie, she said, “A convenient opportunity to get your own way, which only a fool wouldn’t seize? It was you, wasn’t it, who said that one should never underestimate the power of seducing someone with a few cheap tricks?” The threatening tears gathered and Vee ruthlessly pushed them away, refusing to give him the satisfaction of seeing how much his callousness had wounded. “That unkind and wholly unethical manipulation aside, morally thebuilding next door belongs to the orphans and until you do right by them, I suggest we go back to the way things used to be between us. Back to when we avoided each other like the plague and only spoke when polite company made it impossible not to.”
“What about that kiss? That momentous, significant kiss? You expect me to ignore what it meant? What itcouldmean for us?”
“Us?” From somewhere deep inside Vee found the strength to laugh as if he had taken leave of his wits. “Oh, bless you for thinking that there was ever any chance of anus, Galahad.” She let the amusement morph into disgust. “But for me it was just a kiss. Not my first. Not my last. And certainly notmymost momentous.” Vee held his gaze steady as she gestured to the edge of the dance floor where Lord Dorchester hovered clutching two glasses of champagne and shooting Galahad daggers. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, Marmaduke is waiting.”
“I know you’re mad as all hell at me, but don’t use this silly misunderstanding as a reason to run back to that pompous ass.”
She wasn’t running back, she was running away, but it would be a cold day in hell before she allowed Galahad to see it. So instead, she let every bit of her fresh loathing of him show.
“As my nonexistent grandpaneverused to say, better a pompous arse than a lying one. Especially when the pompous arse is a much better kisser.” With that excellent final memory to replace the awful one from Brighton, she sailed away.
Chapter Fourteen
When wronged, Olivia says that it is better to forgive and forget and move on with your life. Therefore, I have decided to put aside my devastation at my father’s cruel betrayal because I am going to be a bridesmaid and Minerva is going to be a countess and all three of us will be moving from the slum of Clerkenwell to the grandeur of Mayfair. However, I do not yet have it in me to forgive, and because I have the memory of an elephant, I know already that I shallneverforget…
—from the diary of Miss Venus Merriwell, aged 17
“I confess, I am intrigued to see what he does with the place.” The Reverend Smythe had taken Galahad’s treachery and the sale of next door on the chin. “His plans looked very grand and ambitious. Our tired building will appear the poor cousin once it is all complete.”
The traitor himself had been at great pains to share those plans when he had called upon the orphanage last week. Forewarned, Vee had made herself scarce, but the practiced charmer had worked his magic on the reverend and Mrs. Witherspoon, who were now thoroughly seduced by him, too.
“All the fancy plasterwork and wallpaper in the world cannot disguise the hedonistic nature of his business. A wolf in sheep’s clothingis still a wolf after all, and a gaming hell is not an appropriate neighbor for the impressionable young minds in this orphanage.” Seeing as hell apparently truly did not have more fury than a woman scorned, it was a bitter and twisted response, but no less than the cheating wretch deserved. Besides, it was better to be angry at him than weep inconsolably, and she had already wasted more tears on him this past fortnight than he deserved. She was sick to the back teeth of turning into a crumpled wreck every time she closed her bedchamber door, especially when all the tears in the world would not wound a callous, calculated chancer like him one jot.
“This is Covent Garden.” The reverend waved her concerns away. “Sin and sinners thrive here, and a gambling club pales in comparison with some of the depravity our children can spy daily out of their bedchamber windows the second the sun goes down. In many ways, I am hopeful that all the fancy carriages and customers that head next door will force some of those unfortunate fallen women and their lustful customers elsewhere.”
Like a convert to the cause, Mrs. Witherspoon nodded. “Some nights you cannot move for lightskirts outside, and some of them are quite shameless where they ply their trade. A few have even started to hand out flyers detailing prices and the like.” She shot the reverend a veiled look as if Vee was so innocent she was oblivious to it all. “They make shocking reading.”
“I did grow up in Clerkenwell.” Vee sent them both a pointed stare of her own. “I also have two perfectly working eyes despite my spectacles, so I see the same as you. But what goes on outside is by the by.” They were comparing apples with oranges. The unfortunate women who had no other choice and the snake who could have put his dratted club anywhere else. If he’d wanted to. Or if he had truly meant all that he had said before he seduced her. “The morality of some of the street vendors here aside, our children have enough temptation on this doorstep without the lure of the gaming tables. Glamorizing them, as Mr. Sinclair seems intent on doing, will send the dangerous message thatthere are riches to be made in gambling all your hard-earned wages away.”
“We shall caution our charges to be mindful against such unreliable endeavors in the same way that we warn about the dangers of drink or the consequences of crime, and they shall still walk out of these doors rounded and prepared. You’ll see. There are always lessons to be learned here on Long Acre.” The reverend sipped his morning tea. “Resisting temptation and remaining tolerant and forgiving of human foibles are valuable skills that shall make our children more resilient, for the world is an ever-movable feast.”
“But how can you be so tolerant and forgiving ofhimwhen he stole next door from us?” It wasn’t enough that Vee now hated him. She wanted everyone to hate him with her. Perhaps that was naught but a petty revenge, but it might make her feel a little bit better than the Galahad-imposed utter misery that kept her awake at night.
This time it was the Reverend Smythe who shot the matron a pointed look. “It wasn’t meant to be, Vee, so you must stop torturing yourself with it. He sat down with me and explained everything, and I am satisfied that he is as much a victim of Lord Mallory’s greed and duplicity as we are. Mr. Sinclair meant no malice to us when he purchased next door, and he broke no laws.”
Meant no malice indeed! He had known what he was doing. He had been too good at kissing not to know how to use it as a lethal weapon!
“Lord Mallory, however, shall receive his comeuppance for reneging on his aunt’s promise when he arrives at the pearly gates.” Mrs. Witherspoon was standing like a pious opera singer again, fingers interlocked beneath her ample bosom and lips pinched in indignation.
“And so, no doubt, shall Mr. Sinclair, as he is about as innocent in all this as one of our local lightskirts.” Not that anyone else saw Galahad’s true colors except Vee. Even her own family believed the sorry yarn of contrition he had spun them, accepting that he had bought next door in good faith while agreeing that it would have been prudent tohave apprised her of the fact long before she found out. They did not understand why she refused to accept his apology and move on.
But then Galahad had neglected to apprise them of the sting in the sorry tale, so nobody apart from her was aware of the lengths he had gone to to seduce her for his own selfish gain. While she was relieved at that, because havinghimknow how willingly she had succumbed to his talented lips was humiliation enough, Vee was also furious at him for perpetuating his reasonable and innocent façade despite all the pain his lies had caused her. So furious she hadn’t dared touch her beloved copy ofMuch Ado, which still sat on her nightstand where Minerva had left it after he had called two weeks ago to return it. How could she when he had touched it?
She had avoided him ever since their last unfortunate collision, and rather tellingly, he had avoided her, too. Probably because she had served her purpose, or was no longer fit for purpose, and just like Lord Argyll he had blithely moved on. “I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he was the one who encouraged Lord Mallory to renege. After all, he had everything to gain, didn’t he?” She tossed her thumb in the direction of next door.
“After speaking with him, I have absolutely no reason to believe that.” Clearly Galahad had such a talented mouth, he could bewitch everyone. “There is bound to be a reason why Mr. Sinclair got the building instead of us, Vee. The Lord always moves in mysterious ways, after all, and in him we must trust even if his methods do not make immediate sense. It is ultimately by his design that we lost next door. However, what we lost in property we more than made up for in funds. Who’d have thought we’d be left seven thousand?” He chuckled as he toasted first Mrs. Witherspoon and then the heavens with his teacup. “Not I.”
“For my tuppence worth—” Mrs. Witherspoon was too accepting of Galahad’s treachery as well. “—You can’t really miss what you’ve never had, and I rather like Mr. Sinclair’s suggestion of relocating to somewhere nicer one day. It will be better for the children in the longrun to be away from all of the temptations of Covent Garden, and with all that money in the bank, and his offer to buy this place if ever we decide to sell it, it is an unforeseen but intriguing option. It would be lovely to have a garden…”
It was all well and good that the matron was parrotinghiswords, and that pretty dream, despite Galahad instigating it; his treachery aside, it was theone dayVee now took the most issue with. “But how does that help us now, when we are bursting at the seams? Finding such a place and readying it could take several years, and that is a conservative estimate when the three of us are spread too thin already and there are so many children out there who still need saving. That is without all the additional funds we would have to raise to be able to run a larger place ad infinitum. Seven thousand only stretches so far, and at least here in Covent Garden we are seen and those with money feel obliged to donate some to our cause. In the countryside we shall be out of sight and out of mind. We might well end up having to close when Mrs. Leyton-Brown’s bequest runs out. Have you considered that?” Running an orphanage was an expensive endeavor that relied on the benevolence of others, and for that, they had to be seen to be believed. After pondering it incessantly during the purgatory of her Galahad-imposed insomnia, she knew without a shred of doubt that there was no other way to fund it.
“Something will come up to help us continue to thrive,” said the reverend, believing it. “Something always does. Not a month ago we were worrying about how to scrape enough together to fix the roof, remember, and now, thanks to a timely miracle, that is no longer a concern. And thanks to Mr. Sinclair’s superior negotiating skills and urgent need to repair his own leaking roofs, it is being done alongside his as a priority at a third of the cost we were originally quoted. Already, Vee, our new neighbor has proved himself to be more of a benefit to us than the curse you fear.”
And that was galling, too. How typical of the wretch to use their misfortune as a bribe to beat her with!
She wandered to the window and gazed out, fuming that it had been less than three weeks since Galahad had stabbed her in the back in Brighton and already there was a group of tradesmen unloading their tools on the street. The speed at which he had been able to organize workmen was further proof that he had planned everything well in advance.
