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  “My children’s mother and I were not married. She was my mistress.”

  “Oh,” she said softly, and he saw the hurt of disappointment in her eyes.

  “The situation was nothing unusual, I am sorry to say. I am hardly the first man to sire children out of wedlock.” The words sounded a miserable excuse even as he said them, as if he were trying to weasel out of his own past. “Sara and William are my heirs. They bear my name, and any woman I marry would have to raise them as her own, beside any children we might have together.”

  It was that last point that was so unpalatable to gently bred women. Bastards beside their own offspring? Bastards, heirs along with their own children? He could hardly berate them for following dictates of society in which they had been schooled since birth. They could not help their inability to accept bastards into their care.

  And he, loving Sara and William as he did, could not accept a woman as wife who would not love his children.

  “What of their mother?” Vivian asked softly.

  “She is somewhere in London, with a new protector. She broke off our affair shortly after William was born, and did not protest when I demanded the children.” He shrugged, beginning to feel angry and defensive on behalf of his offspring. “She sends gifts on occasion, and visits them once or twice a year, although less frequently as time goes on.”

  “Did you love her?”

  “I thought so for a time, but it was based on illusion. I saw her beauty and her charm, and nothing of who she truly was. I was young and stupid, but I would not have Sara and William pay any more of the price for my idiocy than they already must.”

  “It was… quite remarkable of you to claim them as you have.”

  “I am their father,” he said, the simplicity of the statement his only way to express the strength of the bond he shared with them. “I could not leave them without my name, without my protection, to be raised by strangers or by a mother who paid them little care. And I will not wed a woman who cannot give them the love they deserve. Better that they remain motherless than be subject to an unloving and jealous one.”

  He met Vivian’s troubled gaze, holding it with his own. “Now you are wondering what you are doing here alone with me. I am no marriage prospect, as you were led to believe.”

  “You have surprised me, that is all,” Vivian said, the weakness of her voice belying the words. She tried to smile. “I had been expecting to hear that you were divorced, or had beaten your wife, or that she had thrown herself from a window in despair of being married to you.”

  “That would have been better?”

  “No, only more expected,” she said, and to his astonishment her strained smile stretched to one more natural, as if she could almost see humor in the situation. Where, he did not know.

  “I say, I don’t look like a wife beater, do I?” he asked.

  “I would not know. But perhaps you are someone a woman would throw herself from a window to avoid.”

  “I think some have tried.”

  “Perhaps if you made a habit of being more polite in your speech, a little more fawning and gracious, they might ponder longer before the leap.”

  “I prefer to have the truth laid out plain and unadorned, and let people think what they may.” They resumed walking up the hill toward the ruins, skirting at least for the moment the subject of his past mistress. He did not fool himself into thinking it was an issue she could so easily overlook, and wondered what thoughts would eat away at her later, when she had time to think it through.

  “Yes, you seem to have made a special effort to make yourself as blunt in your speech as possible.”

  “You are well matching me in that,” he said, enjoying the banter, and willing to endure whatever arrows she chose to shoot at him as long as she kept talking.

  “Only because it seems to be what you respond to best.”

  “Then you admit to humoring me, for your own ends.”

  “And what if I do? Don’t we all do that?” she asked, slightly out of breath from the climb. Even through her breathing he could hear the trace of bitterness in her voice.

  They had reached the top of the hill, and the heart of the ruins. He stopped so that she could catch her breath, and so that they could both take in the stone walls that rose and tilted and tumbled around them.

  “It should have been time that did this,” he said, gesturing to the stones around them, “not men.”

  “It does take away the romance,” she agreed.

  He led her in a slow circuit of the ruins, and paused with her at an opening in the stones that looked down over the valley and the village of Corfe Castle, gray against the green of the rolling hills.

  “Do you always humor those around you?” he asked, not willing to let that bitterness escape unexplored.

  “I haven’t had much choice,” she said, still looking down upon the view.

  “It seems a hard way to live, always pleasing others and never yourself.”

  “One becomes trained in it,” she said, “like a cook or a seamstress. It becomes one’s work, for it is how one earns one’s bread.”

  “That hardly seems to be a wise thing to admit.”

  “I am being honest about my dishonesty,” she said, and looked up at him with confusion. “Only, with you, the more I seek to be as straightforward as you wish, the less I know if I am seeking to please you, or to please myself. I am growing to like saying what I think.”

  “And did you calculate that that is precisely the right thing to say to me?” he asked lightly, although his heart was thumping in his chest. It was so long since he had been with someone who could speak plainly to him of her thoughts. He had told himself for nearly two years that if he could find a woman who cared more for the honesty of her heart than for appearances, he would find a woman with whom he could share his life.

  He wanted a wife. He wanted someone with whom to grow old, and watch their children grow. He wanted someone to pull into his arms at night, and sleep warm against him. He wanted someone who knew him completely, and whom he could know to the depths of her being. Life was not meant to be lived alone.

  “Do stop thinking about yourself and what a grand matrimonial catch you are,” she said, stepping away and finding a seat on a fallen bit of wall.

  His lips parted in surprise, her words like cold rain against the warmth of his desires. They reminded him that he had not won her yet.

  “Are you now thinking that you have created a monster?” she asked. “So be it. My nerves are worn from this, this…” She paused, waving her hand around. “Whatever you call this interplay between men and women. You don’t have anything to eat, do you?”

  “No, I’m sorry,” he said, smiling to himself. Perhaps he should carry a pocketful of treats and win her that way. Would that do it?

  She put her hand over her stomach and frowned. “That’s all right. I don’t think I’m as hungry as I thought.” She cocked her head, staring at him in surprise. “Actually, the more I say what is on my mind, the less hungry I become. It seems quite beneficial.”

  “It’s what I’ve come to believe.”

  She narrowed her eyes at him, and he fidgeted under her assessing gaze. He sat down beside her, if only to escape such frank scrutiny. She had managed to turn the tables neatly upon him, taking on the role of frank examiner that he was accustomed to having as his own.

  “I think there’s a touch of self-righteousness to your honesty,” she said.

  “Self-righteousness?” he repeated, appalled.

  “Dear me, have I gone too far, and shared too much truth?”

  “I am not self-righteous,” he said in a priggish tone that seemed to prove the opposite.

  “Self-righteous and a bit of a coward,” she continued, “as much so as I am.”

  He crossed his arms over his chest, feeling more uncomfortable by the moment. “Explain yourself.”

  “All this honesty—you think it makes you unassailable because you are virtuous.” The ac
cusation came in a straightforward manner, and she caught him with her eyes. “You use your bluntness to guard yourself, and scare people away.”

  “Nonsense.”

  “I am not berating you for it.”

  “I did not say you were. I’m saying it’s nonsense. I say what I think because I’m tired of hypocrisy, not because I want to frighten people.” As he spoke, he became aware that he was protesting too much, aware that he would not be defensive if she had not come close to a truth he would rather not examine.

  “Mmm.”

  “You don’t believe me?”

  “You know your reasoning better than I,” she said, in a tone that suggested very much the opposite.

  “I’m not trying to scare you,” he said, and laid his hand over hers.

  She laughed nervously, moving her hand beneath his as if she might pull it away. “Aren’t you?”

  Maybe he was. Maybe he was trying to keep her from seeing clearly into him before he was ready to reveal all his faults and weaknesses. He wanted her to see the better side of him, to focus her attention on what he could offer her rather than what he might lack.

  The best defense was an offense, was it not?

  He picked up her gloved hand, feeling its fine trembling. He watched her expression, her lips parting, her eyes on their two hands. Her nervous expectation was contagious, and he found his own heart beating rapidly; he was frightened that she would pull away, yet he wanted more than anything to continue.

  He raised her hand to his lips and kissed the back of her fingers. She jerked her hand, and he tightened his grip, not letting her go.

  “Mr. Brent…” she said.

  “Richard. My name is Richard.” Let her say his name; let her accept him. Let this grow to be more than a brief acquaintance.

  He opened her hand and laid her palm against his cheek, then turned his face so that he could kiss the inside of her wrist where it was left exposed at the edge of her glove.

  She caught her breath.

  He drew in the faint scent of her, mingled with the leather and the wool, delicate and feminine and ineffably precious. This was something he wanted in his life for more than an afternoon.

  He pushed up her sleeve an inch, and followed it with his lips, then painted a stroke upon her soft skin with the tip of his tongue, losing himself in the velvety smoothness and warmth.

  “Mr. Brent!” The words were breathless, and again she tried to pull her hand away, and again he stopped her.

  “Richard. Call me by my Christian name.”

  “You must stop,” she said. But the words were half-hearted.

  He sucked against her wrist, using his tongue to rub her, willing her to feel the same heat that was growing in him, willing her to feel the beginnings of a bond between them and the promise it might hold for the future.

  “You must… Richard…” she said, and when he looked up at her from under his brows he saw that her eyes were half-closed, and she was leaning toward him.

  He began to slowly peel her glove down her hand, exposing its heel and the base of her thumb. He slid his finger under the thin leather, rubbing against the palm of her hand, which was damp and warm in the confines of the glove. Her fingers curled inward, and her breathing quickened.

  “This is indecent,” she whispered. Her pupils had grown into black pools against the sea green irises. She wet her lips.

  He peeled the glove another two inches, to the base of her fingers, and kissed the palm of her hand. He scraped against her skin with his teeth, and then with the tip of his tongue penetrated into the tight vee exposed between each finger, imagining behind his closed eyes his tongue working more intimate places than her hand, imagining his mouth at the warm heart of her, making her moan with pleasure in the dark confines of his bed.

  He felt his own body responding to the feel of her skin against his tongue, and to the sound of her quickened breathing. He wanted more than her hand: he wanted much more than any young lady would permit upon such short acquaintance, however bold she tried to be.

  If he allowed this to go any further he might truly scare her away, and that was something he was not willing to risk.

  He kissed her palm once more, then reluctantly pulled the glove back down her hand. He released her, then gently brushed the back of his fingers against her cheek, as if his hand could kiss her for him.

  “Your cousin will be wondering what has become of us,” he said softly.

  “Will she?” she asked, as if lost in a dream.

  “She will, and she’s likely half-frozen by now, which serves her right for pretending to be hurt.” He stood and helped Vivian to her feet.

  “I do not regret that she did. Good gracious,” Vivian said, looking down at her gloved hand. “I had never thought of such a thing happening to my hand.”

  He laughed, and laid his own hand over hers in the crook of his arm. He felt hopeful, and giddy with it. A quiet voice warned that it was wisest to go slowly, that it was too soon to know if they were right for one another, but he ignored it.

  For this one moment, he would allow himself to hope.

  Chapter Five

  December 27

  The Feast of Saint John the Evangelist

  “Vivian, my dear,” Mrs. Twitchen said. “I am so glad to have found you alone.”

  Vivian was curled into a corner of a window seat, pillows beneath and around her to ward off the chill through the glass, a book in her lap to make it seem she was otherwise occupied than watching the drive in hopes that Lady Sudley and Mr. Brent might come to call.

  Penelope was upstairs, fussing over whether or not to change the trim on her white presentation gown. She had forestalled all her mother’s attempts at speaking on the topic of Mr. Brent, but as Mrs. Twitchen sat herself down on the window seat Vivian felt no quiver of foreboding.

  Richard had already explained about Sara and William’s mother, in more detail than Mrs. Twitchen would share. She could understand why Mrs. Twitchen had been concerned, but she thought that she would, in time, be able to overcome the discomfort the thought of that fallen woman brought her.

  Jealousy nibbled at her heart when she thought of the woman he had loved and who had given him children who were the center of his world. By his own admission the woman was beautiful and charming, and though he discounted those traits as valueless, she knew she would be tempted to hold herself against them in weak comparison, and to wonder if Richard had any last ember of feeling for the woman.

  She would be strong, though; she would not let such thoughts destroy her confidence. It was as Penelope had said: he would value Vivian as Vivian valued herself. She would not let thoughts of the former mistress destroy her chance at happiness.

  To let the past eat at her would be to invite a lifetime of distress, if it should happen that she and Richard were to wed. The woman, having not had the good grace to die or move to South America, would be making regular, if infrequent, appearances in Sara’s and William’s lives. Which meant—if Vivian became Mrs. Brent—in her own life, as well.

  It was not a pleasant thought.

  Neither was it an undigestible thought. There was much she could swallow if it meant becoming Mrs. Brent, and she was almost embarrassed to admit that a fair deal of the persuasion had been done by Richard’s mouth on her hand.

  She had relived a dozen times his seduction of her hand, and with each remembrance her body flushed anew with pleasure, her blood warming and tingling in intimate places. She schemed in her mind for how they might next find a private moment together, when he could again take her hand and ravish it.

  Or ravish all of her. Let him have her! Then they would have to marry, and she would rush to the prize without having to play all the steps in the game. Only the prize was no longer marriage for the sake of marriage, but was Richard himself.

  She saw his tenderness for his children; she saw his vulnerability that he hid behind his blunt words; she saw that his scandalous decisions regarding his children were the on
ly choices that had true honor to them, not the false honor of society. He was a good man, with a true and gentle heart.

  And he made her body feel things she would not speak of to Penelope or Mrs. Twitchen for all the cakes in France.

  She was so consumed with thoughts of Richard that she had eaten only half the gingerbread on her plate. It sat now in a pool of lemon sauce on the small table with her cold cup of tea.

  “Is something amiss?” she asked Mrs. Twitchen, as the woman sat next to her in the window seat. She pulled up her feet to make more space.

  “Nothing so far, I do hope, and it is my duty to prevent what I may. Only this is so very awkward and embarrassing, Mr. Brent being a relative of sorts. And from such a good family! One hesitates to say anything against him, yet I feel I must, I simply must warn you away from him.”

  “Is it the mother of his children that distresses you?”

  “You know about that, then?” the lady asked, surprised.

  “He told me himself.”

  “Then he told you as well about the other woman, the young lady of good family whom he jilted?”

  Vivian sucked in a breath, taken by the same surprise with which one slips and falls on the ice.

  “I see he did not,” Mrs. Twitchen said. “Dear me, I do hate telling such tales, and about one almost in my own family! It was a horrible scandal. They were engaged, and he broke it off without explanation. The girl’s father sued for breach of contract, and besides for paying her a settlement Mr. Brent was forced to put an apology accepting all blame in the Gazette. Of course, no one will have anything to do with him now.”

  “Surely he had some reason?”

  “If he did, he never spoke publicly of it. And who would dare to ask?”

  “I can hardly warrant that he is guilty of such a thing,” Vivian said, willing herself to disbelieve.

  “Mr. Brent may have kind places in his heart, but that does not mean you can trust him. Men are not always what they seem when they have their eye on a young woman and are pursuing her. Remember, even a tyrant like Napoleon probably had one or two good traits amidst all the rest, and I imagine he could be as charming as any other when he pleased.”