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“You will of course be staying with your Aunt Helen in Bloomsbury. I have put a letter for her in your trunk explaining, but I am certain she will not mind your impromptu visit, Vivianna. You will be company for her, poor Helen.” For a moment Lady Greentree’s face clouded as she thought of her sister, married to the disreputable Toby Russell, and then she rallied. “I have also written a letter for Hoare’s Private Bank in Fleet Street, so that you can draw on my account there. You will have expenses, and who knows, you may want to buy a new dress or two!” She smiled fondly at her eldest daughter, as if she didn’t really think it likely. “Now, have you everything, my dear?”
“Yes, Mama, I have everything. Don’t fret. I will be perfectly all right.”
Lady Greentree had sighed, then nodded. “You have always been a headstrong girl, Vivianna. I knew it when you brought home that tinker’s child when you were ten and informed me he needed a new pair of shoes. In some ways, Vivianna, it is a blessing to be so sure of your direction in life. In others…I fear for you. Do not be too impetuous. I beg you to think first, or you may find yourself in a great deal of trouble.”
Seated now in the hackney cab, Vivianna wondered if Lady Greentree’s prediction was about to come true. Because not only had she gone rushing off to London, but upon her arrival at her aunt’s home, Vivianna had pretended to have a bad headache and had promptly retired to her room. Once there, she paused only to change her clothing, snatch up her riding crop, and creep out.
Lil, her maid, had been her unwilling accomplice, as she was in many of Vivianna’s schemes. Lil found her a hackney cab, and sent her on her way with the admonishment to come back “in one piece, miss, for Gawd’s sake!” And as for poor Aunt Helen, if she were to discover her gone…She was already quite mad with worry concerning her rackety husband, and Vivianna knew it was wrong of her to add to the woman’s burden.
But somehow all of that paled to insignificance when she thought of the children.
The carriage containing Lord Montegomery drew to a halt in front of a long, three-story building. A doorman, who had been standing at attention dressed in a red coat with a military cut, strode down to meet Montegomery like a soldier marching proudly into battle.
Vivianna’s hackney had also come to a halt. She peered out at the bland, respectable façade. The place looked mundane, but she supposed exclusive gentlemen’s clubs did not need to advertise their wares on the outside. As she sat, hesitating, Montegomery vanished inside and his carriage moved off. It was time to make her own decision. If she did not do something now, she may as well go back to Yorkshire.
Vivianna was not a woman to retreat easily; she was a fighter. She climbed down out of the hackney and paid off the driver. His fingers closed over the shilling coins. “Here, miss?” he asked her, a strange expression on his face. “Are you sure? Right here?”
“I am perfectly sure, thank you.”
“But it’s an academy, miss. Run by an abbess. An’ I can see you is a laced-woman…eh, that is, a lady.”
Vivianna only understood a few words of what he said, and even then they made no sense. Her chance of following Montegomery inside was dwindling. “I will be quite safe, driver, thank you,” she said coolly.
The man opened his mouth, then closed it again, and with a flick of his wrists turned the hackney back into the sparse stream of evening traffic. Just as Vivianna drew the hood of her cloak up to hide her face, another vehicle pulled up outside the sober building, and another gentleman alighted. Ignoring Vivianna’s cloaked figure standing irresolute upon the footway, he strode briskly toward the open door.
Here was her chance.
Vivianna fell into step behind the gentleman, hurrying to keep up, as if she had every right to be there. The red-coated doorman was bowing him inside. Breath held, head lowered, her cloak wrapped tightly about her, Vivianna moved to slip by him and within.
The air whooshed out of her lungs. She had run straight into a muscular arm, stretched out at waist height and barring her way. Gasping, Vivianna looked up and found the doorman, a sun-browned individual with a broken nose, staring down at her with hard gray eyes.
“’Round the back, girl,” he barked, his demeanor disapproving.
Vivianna hesitated, while behind her on the street another coach was drawing up.
“’Round the back!” he ordered again, giving her a little shove, and brushed by her to attend the new arrival.
The doorman seemed to have made an assumption as to who or what she was—just as the hackney driver had done, she remembered now. What that assumption was, Vivianna did not know, but it did not really matter. This was maybe her only opportunity to get inside and confront Montegomery.
Vivianna hurried back down the steps and in the direction that the doorman was impatiently pointing out to her. There was, she saw now, a narrow lane running down one side of the building. As she stood peering into the shadows, a cart rumbled up b
ehind her, and she quickened her steps and found herself in a courtyard behind the house.
The door into the back of the house had been left open and Vivianna darted inside as if she had every right to do so.
The air was full of the smells of cooking and starch. A small room to her left looked to be a scullery. She kept walking down a long corridor of closed doors, leaving the kitchen and the laundry behind her. It wasn’t very well lit, and she felt her way by running one hand along the wall. Ahead, sounds of merriment grew louder. Another door, and a shorter corridor, and Vivianna blinked.
Light, shining through a beaded curtain, and with it the movement of chattering people and the clink of glasses. Vivianna clutched the riding crop tightly in her hand, hidden by her cloak. She doubted she would need it now, but something made her loath to put it aside. The heaviness in her chest had increased, and she felt as if her corsets were too tight.
“Montegomery can’t be far,” she murmured to herself, to keep up her courage.
Vivianna lifted her chin, like Boudicca going into battle, and made her entrance through the beaded curtain.
Immediately a warning note rang in her head. This was a gentlemen’s club? Vivianna gazed about in surprise. It was very elegant, done up in the French Rococo style, with pale walls and much curling gold decoration. Mirrors were everywhere, and the reflections of dozens of candles gleamed like stars. The furnishings were elegant and uncomfortable-looking—definitely not the overstuffed chairs and sofas that were currently in vogue.
It was not as Vivianna had expected. She had been imagining sober gentlemen sitting about in leather chairs, reading books and newspapers, and discussing the unruly House of Commons over glasses of brandy. There were plenty of gentlemen in this large, elegant room, but there were also many ladies. She also saw an enormous table spread lavishly with plates of prepared food and glasses of champagne.
Were ladies permitted into the hallowed halls of a gentlemen’s club? Vivianna had not thought that was the case, but she was an innocent in such matters, and if necessary that was her defense. Perhaps this was a special evening, a gala evening, and ladies had been invited to attend? Vivianna blinked and looked more closely at the ladies in question. They were certainly very beautiful, and very richly dressed in brightly colored muslins and silks, reminiscent of an earlier age—Rome, perhaps, or Troy. Richly and scantily dressed.
