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She didn’t feel guilty in the way he imagined, but she wasn’t going to tell him that. “I did enjoy it, but it wasn’t…that is, you didn’t put your…your…inside me…” The right words escaped her and her voice trailed off. The Mr. and Mrs. England instruction pamphlet was vivid in her mind, with its clear and rather crude illustrations.
“No, I didn’t come inside you,” he said softly, and smiled his wicked smile. She felt her senses fizzing and popping like champagne. “I’m going to, though. Soon.”
Vivianna shivered.
The coach slowed and began to turn. She looked to the window and saw the crumbling gateposts of Candlewood, a worn lion atop each one, and the long driveway ahead. Vivianna didn’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed, until she remembered that they still had to make the journey home.
Suddenly she couldn’t wait to be free of him.
Oliver felt the coach draw to a halt. In the center of the circular carriageway was an old fountain, long since run dry, flanked by an untidy but colorful flower garden. Before them loomed Candlewood, his grandfather’s monstrous obsession.
Thoughts of Vivianna and his lingering desire for her were put aside as Oliver remembered the morning he had come to find Anthony. It had been early, just after dawn. He had been supposed to collect his brother so that they could then travel on to the Derbyshire estate together, but in the awfulness of the scene of the night before he had almost forgotten that. Celia crying and Anthony’s white, shocked face…No, Oliver had come here to Candlewood that morning to explain. Explain! Now, there was a Herculean task. Actually, he had just wanted to apologize. To somehow turn those dreadful hours back and start again.
Instead he had found his brother dead.
Now, as then, Oliver felt himself begin to seize up with a combination of horror, grief, and guilt. But he had not come to Candlewood to wallow in the past. There would be time enough for that when he had captured Anthony’s killer and exposed him for the savage and pitiless creature he was….
Oliver stepped briskly from the coach and turned to offer Vivianna his hand. She took it, but her fingers were unwilling and she quickly removed them, edging away from him as if she did not feel quite safe.
He gave her a proprietal glance. Safe was not a word he would use of himself, not when he was around Vivianna. He was like gunpowder, very unstable and likely to explode. At least he had regained control over his lust for her. For now. God help him on the journey home.
His thoughts scattered as a dozen or more children, wearing clothing made of all colors and patterns, like a flock of exotic birds, came running from the house and down the steps toward them. Behind the children, alternating between a quick trot and a sedate walk, were two dainty middle-aged women with fair ringlets.
“Miss Greentree!” the children cried, as if Vivianna had come to save them from some awful fate. “Miss Greentree!”
Oliver swore under his breath.
This was going to be worse than he had thought. Much worse.
Vivianna cast him a glance, but whether it was a look of warning to behave or to check whether or not he was about to pounce on her, he couldn’t tell. Then the children were upon them, circling them and chattering, clutching at Vivianna’s skirts and grinning up at her. In another moment the women had reached them, too, clapping their hands at the children as if they were ducklings to be shooed back to their pen.
“Give Miss Greentree a little room, children, please! That’s better. Now give her a curtsy, girls, and a bow, boys. Excellent, Eddie and Jim! Beautiful, Ellen!”
Vivianna gave them all her brilliant smile. Despite what had happened in the coach, which must be deeply troubling to her, she had set aside her own concerns for the children. That smile was so real and unassumed—her entire heart was in it. Just as she put her heart into everything she did.
“I think you have met Lord Montegomery.” Vivianna was busy organizing them. “My lord, you know my friends Miss Susan Beatty and Miss Greta Beatty.”
“Yes, we have met. The last time you came to Candlewood you brought a carpenter.” Miss Susan Beatty gave him a cool smile.
“You kept the children waiting outside in the cold while you and your man inspected the house.” Miss Greta Beatty was also chilly.
Oliver hadn’t realized that at the time. All he had wanted to do was find his grandfather’s secret chamber, and discover what it was Anthony had hidden within it. He hadn’t found a thing, and he could still taste the disappointment.
“Better a sniffle than the roof falling down on them, surely, Miss Beatty?” he said offhandedly, playing his part.
Their looks were glacial. Vivianna cleared her throat and regained her hold on the situation. “Well, that’s in the past, and I am sure Lord Montegomery means to allow us all to stay inside today. We must make the most of his visit to Candlewood to show him what we have achieved here.”
The Beatty sisters exchanged glances and smiled, and then their gazes returned to Vivianna with expressions of total love and trust. Oliver hid his exasperation with difficulty—the woman was incredible.
“We do thank you for coming, Lord Montegomery. We appreciate it. The children appreciate it.” The two sisters were sincere—at least in their desire to please Vivianna.
“Do they?” Oliver raised his eyebrows and looked at the ring of curious faces that had gathered about him. One little boy with a freckled nose said, with all the confidence of the London streets, “Are they your ’orses, mister?”
“They are.”
“Did they cost an awful lot?”
“Yes, they cost a great deal.”
