Rules of Passion E-Book

Sara Bennett

• Herausgeber: NYLA
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 501

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2005

Beschreibung

Beautiful, spirited, and daring Marietta Greentree is determined to follow in the footsteps of her natural mother, the dazzlingly gorgeous courtesan Madam Aphrodite. However, being the most...unconventional of the three Greentree sisters makes Marietta's goal a bit more challenging than she expects, leading Madam Aphrodite to encourage her to try seducing just one man – the disgraced and broodingly handsome former Lord Rosebay, Max Valland. Considering the gentleman has virtually nothing to lose, he's certainly willing to help Marietta on her mission! Soon though, he's caught completely off guard by his genuine attraction and desire for the strong-willed and determined young lady and drawn to her unexpected vulnerability. Only when Marietta is threatened by the dangerous mysteries surrounding her partner in passion does she realize she's betrayed the courtesan's number one rule: never fall in love.

Leseprobe

RULES OF PASSION

GREENTREE SISTERS

BOOK TWO

SARA BENNETT

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the writer’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Rules of Passion

Copyright © 2005 by Sara Bennett

Ebook ISBN: 9781641973359

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

No part of this work may be used, reproduced, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without prior permission in writing from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

NYLA Publishing

121 W. 27th St., Suite 1201, NY 10001, New York.

http://www.nyliterary.com

CONTENTS

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Epilogue

Also by Sara Bennett

About the Author

PROLOGUE

Somewhere in the North of England 1841

Marietta Greentree opened swollen eyelids and peered miserably across the small, cluttered room. Her bag lay on the floor, clothing spilling from it. Among the froth of undergarments was the fine silk nightgown she had thought to wear on her wedding night. Her gaze slid away, found the light that trickled through a narrow window. There were sounds drifting up from the stableyard. Grooms, servants, employees who worked and lived at the inn—the voices of those going about their daily routine. Everything normal.

Except for Marietta, whose life could never be the same again.

Gerard Jones, the man she had believed she loved, the man she had trusted, the man who had persuaded her to run off with him to Gretna Green, was gone. He had left her here, in an impoverished inn on the road to the Scottish border.

Her mother, Lady Greentree, had warned her, her sister Francesca had warned her, but she hadn’t listened. His unsuitability in their eyes had only made him the more appealing to her—in her youth and romantic idealism, she had been certain that she knew best. They just didn’t understand, she told herself.

This was love as she had always dreamed it to be! So when Lady Greentree refused to allow the banns to be called, Marietta thought her heart was broken and made the desperate decision to agree to run away with him. He loved her, and she loved him—surely that was all that mattered? She told herself that when her family realized how happy they were together, they would see their mistake and all would be forgiven.

Stupid, stupid, stupid! Marietta groaned and covered her face with the pillow.

Gerard hadn’t loved her at all. He had wanted her body, or perhaps not even that. Perhaps he was the sort of character who found his enjoyment in destroying a young girl’s heart and reputation. He was the sort of cad who had been secretly laughing at her all the time as he lured her into his trap. And she was too silly to know it.

And yet . . . was being warm and loving and trusting so silly? Marietta had been in love with love for as long as she could remember, and Gerard had seemed a natural progression. She had fallen in love with him, or had she? Was she simply in love with the idea of being in love with him? She had imagined herself Isolde to his Tristan, Genevieve to his Lancelot.

Her heart was numb. She squirmed with the knowledge that she had been putty in his hands—naïve putty, but putty all the same. Gerard had come to her room last night, pleading to be allowed to make her his in truth—that was what he had said, “mine in truth,” just like a melodrama. Indeed, as he kissed her and wrapped his arms about her, she had felt as if the entire moment was slightly unreal. Delightful, yes, but dreamlike.

Briefly she had heard a serious voice, a little like her mother’s, telling her that what Gerard was saying sounded suspiciously like flummery. But then he was kissing her and saying he loved her and only her, and . . . Her mind skipped forward, finding the scene all too humiliating. In her favor, she had protested a little—a very little—but she was young and inexperienced and Gerard was neither. In fact he had not been the gentle and caring lover she had imagined he would be—she had felt nothing in his arms beyond the creeping onset of doubt and dismay. She had simply wanted it to be over.

With burning cheeks she remembered how Gerard had risen from the bed, afterwards. Anxiously, she had said something about their wedding, about how she hoped her mother would forgive her—already deep in her heart the golden image of the make-believe Gerard was beginning to tarnish.

He had laughed at her. “Wedding?” he said. He began to taunt her, informing her in a smug voice that he had never intended to marry her. He had heard that she was the natural daughter of Aphrodite, a famous London courtesan, and he had wanted to sample her firsthand. And really, dear me, he’d had better.

At first she had been too shocked to take it in. She tried to smile. He must be joking her, she told herself, he must be playing a cruel prank. But he kept on, and slowly, surely, the horrible truth had sunk into her brain.

Suddenly Marietta felt as if she was looking back upon herself from a distance, as if at a complete stranger whose pitiable actions were seriously flawed. When Gerard had closed the door behind him, abandoning her to her fate, he had taken more from her than her reputation. He had stolen something innocent and sweet and trusting, and Marietta doubted it would ever return. She did not want it to return. She swore that she would never place herself in such a vulnerable position again.

With a wince, aching in mind and heart and body, Marietta sat up. She gazed bleakly about her. It was done. They had spent the night together in the same inn. In the same room.

That was bad, very bad.

And yet . . . Marietta sat up straighter, something of her old spark returning. She was a long way from Greentree Manor—this inn was well beyond the sphere of her family or those they knew. Had anyone seen her arrive with Gerard? She did not think so. Perhaps she could escape Gerard’s cruel trap after all, at least that would be a small victory over him.

Melancholy lifted as new hope surged through her. The situation could be salvaged. No one but she and Gerard knew the truth, and he was long gone.

She doubted he would show his face again—he was too cowardly for that. Perhaps, just perhaps, if she could make her way home incognito, no one would be the wiser. She would beg the forgiveness of her family, allow Mr. Jardine, her mother’s secretary and family friend, to make up some clever story to account for her short absence. No one need ever know that Lady Greentree’s second daughter had fallen into the clutches of Gerard Jones . . .

The chamber door opened and a tall dark shadow stood there. The face was starkly familiar, and the mean little eyes were gleeful. With sinking heart Marietta recognized Lady Greentree’s former estate manager, Rawlings. Her mother had sacked him years ago, and he had always resented her for it.

What shocking bad luck had brought him to this place at this moment?

“Miss Marietta Greentree!” he crowed. “I thought it was you last night when I saw you climbing the stairs, and then this morning when I heard one of the maids say a young lady had been left high and dry . . . Aye, I see you’re surprised to see me. I warned her ladyship many years ago that she was bringing trouble on herself when she took you and your sisters into her home. I was right.”

His smug self-satisfaction was plain to see—he hadn’t even knocked in his eagerness to discredit her. But Marietta knew all depended upon winning him to her side, and she swallowed what pride she had left.

“You won’t . . . won’t tell anyone?” she managed, despising herself for the pleading note in her voice.

“ ’Course not,” he said, “wouldn’t dream of it.”

She knew at once he had no intention of keeping quiet. She should have saved her breath. In a day everyone in the district would know her misfortune, in a week everyone in the county, in a month it would even have trickled down to London.

Marietta Greentree was well and truly ruined.

1

Vauxhall Gardens, London

1845

The gas-filled balloon bobbed sluggishly in the breeze, as if seeking to escape its tethers, reaching toward the distant blue sky. The wicker basket, fastened to the balloon by an iron band and cords, appeared smaller than she remembered, while the crowd gathering to watch the ascent appeared larger.

Marietta wasn’t afraid.

No, not at all. She was exhilarated!

She had been planning this outing all week, ever since she had come to Vauxhall Gardens with Mr.

Jardine, and for the first time seen a balloon ascent over London. Her breath had caught in sheer wonder and she had begged Mr. Jardine to allow her to pay her money and become a passenger. But he had refused even to contemplate it.

“What would your mother, Lady Greentree, say if I allowed you to do something so dangerous?”

“She would understand that fear has no place in our new world of science and discovery.”

“That’s all very well, Miss Marietta, but it doesn’t alter my decision. You’re a single young lady and it would not be proper⁠—”

“Psht!” It was a sound she had heard Aphrodite make—Aphrodite the famous courtesan and her real mother. “What does that matter? My reputation is already in tatters, you know that as well as I. If it wasn’t ruined long ago by being one of Aphrodite’s daughters, then it was certainly ruined by Gerard Jones.”

“Your sister Vivianna doesn’t believe that for a moment⁠—”

“Then she is deluding herself, Mr. Jardine. Vivianna believes she can make everyone better, but she can’t repair me. I am ruined and there is no chance I will ever make a good marriage. I have resigned myself to it. Going up in a gas balloon can make no possible difference to that plain fact.”

“Whether or not that is so, I won’t let you put your life in danger in one of those . . . those contraptions, Miss Marietta!”

However Marietta was not the sort of girl to be easily thwarted when she had made up her mind about something. At home in Yorkshire, at Greentree Manor, she and her sisters had been allowed a great deal of freedom—to her own cost, unfortunately—and although Marietta knew that things were different in London, she could not see the point of being fettered. Especially when it could make no possible difference to her prospects of finding a suitor, which were already nil.

Vivianna was lucky, she had Oliver, and she had love, but Marietta had destroyed her chances of emulating her sister when she had tried to run off with Gerard Jones. She had wept long and hard when they brought her back to Greentree Manor, not so much for Gerard, whom by then she had realized was a lying rogue, but for her own lack of foresight. Time had resigned her to her fate as the “scandalous Greentree sister”—no matter how interested a man was in her, he soon faded away when he learned of her past. She may wish it was otherwise, that love conquered all, but she was no longer such an innocent as she had been. Love did not conquer all, in fact love was more often than not the crux of the problem.

However all was not lost. She may never live a cozy life as Lord Somebody’s wife, but she still had a life to live. Why shouldn’t she experience everything it had to offer, and without the fear of exposing her vulnerable heart once more? Marietta had a plan, and she hoped, very soon, to put it into practice.

At the Vauxhall Gardens, she had waited until Mr.

Jardine became interested in one of the displays, and then given him the slip, claiming she had dropped her glove and must return for it. “I’ll only be a moment,” she’d promised. “You go on and I’ll catch you up.” She’d hurried back to the balloon to have a word with the ticket seller. A ticket tucked safely into her drawstring bag, Marietta had returned to her companion.

Now she recalled what the ticket seller had said.

“It’s at your own risk, miss. As long as you realize that.”

“I do,” she had replied firmly.

“Then be here same time next week, and if the weather permits, you can go up with Mr. Keith.”

“Mr. Keith?”

“The aeronaught, miss. Don’t you listen to them what says Mr. Green’s the best aeronaught in England—I’d leifer go up with Mr. Keith any day!”

The lad had said it with a smile.

People, Marietta found, usually did smile at her.

Perhaps it had something to do with her petite stature, or her bouncing blond curls, or her open face and big blue eyes. Outwardly she was transparently honest in the joy she gained from life, and people gravitated towards her because of it.

Until they discovered she was ruined, she reminded herself bitterly—then they were quick to avoid her.

“Such people aren’t worth knowing,” her sister Francesca had said in an attempt to make her feel better. “Your true friends will never desert you.”

Francesca was younger than Marietta by only a year, but in appearance and character they were very different: Francesca tall and dark; Marietta small and fair. Francesca was intense and serious, whereas Marietta was, outwardly at least, all light and laughter. But they were close despite all that, and she wished that Francesca had agreed to leave her moors behind and come to London. Her sister had a way of comforting her—of making the truth seem not so bad.

The balloon awaited her, and this time she wasn’t about to be left behind on the ground, oh no. This time she’d be up there, in the sky, looking down.

Marietta hurried forward, and the crowd parted for her. The aeronaught, a man of about forty with graying dark hair and lush side-whiskers, was making some last-moment adjustments. He looked up, distracted by the crowd’s murmur, and the lad who had sold her the ticket leaned closer and murmured something in his ear. The aeronaught’s face underwent a transformation and suddenly he was all smiles.

“Ah, Miss Greentree! How do you do? I’m Ian Keith. We’re almost ready to take off. Please, come aboard.” He had a slight cockney accent, as though he had risen in the world.

Appropriate, Marietta thought, seeing he was an aeronaught. She smiled back, eager to be aboard, and it was only as she reached to take his gloved hand that she realized there was another passenger already in the wicker basket. He had been partially hidden in the shadow thrown by the balloon towering above them, but now she looked up and saw him clearly. A man. A stranger. And not a friendly-looking one.

Marietta allowed herself to observe him frankly, not for a moment considering it might be more polite to lower her gaze. The Greentree sisters had been brought up to believe a woman should say what she believed and act accordingly, that she should face life head on and never shy away from it. Her experience with Gerard may have dented her confidence, but it was far from destroyed.

Unsmiling, he returned her gaze.

The stranger was certainly very handsome, with hair of a deep mahogany brown and eyes of a similar color. He was dressed in a dark green jacket and buff trousers, and although there was the appearance of a gentleman about him it seemed slightly shabby, as if his valet had forgotten to give him a good polish. A neglected stranger, Marietta thought.

A brooding and solitary man with secrets, who was not inclined to laugh and enjoy himself as she fully intended to do.

Marietta found herself wishing he wasn’t going up in the balloon with her. His presence threatened to spoil her enjoyment on this, her first adventure since she had made the journey to London from Yorkshire. At least she wouldn’t have to make polite conversation with him—he looked as dismayed to see her as she was to see him—and polite conversation meant exchanging the broader details of one’s life, and inevitably that led to who she was, and whose daughter she was, and then suddenly the person she was speaking to would find something urgent to do.

The man raised his eyebrows, and Marietta realized she was still staring at him. His mouth quirked, and she discovered that he could smile after all.

“Perhaps you’d better get into the basket,” he said, in a deep, aristocratic voice that didn’t go at all with his shabby look. “If you don’t want to be left behind.”

There were some steps set against the woven wicker to enable passengers to climb inside. Marietta negotiated them with difficulty. She was hardly in the forefront of fashion—indeed, she was at least two years behind and she hadn’t had time yet to visit the London shops—but she had dressed in what she thought was a suitable outfit for a balloon ride. Now the blue wool dress and its modest two petticoats seemed cumbersome. The fashion was changing, skirts were becoming more rigid and hems longer.

Marietta preferred the less fussy styles, too many flounces made her curvaceous shape appear even more curvaceous. But today even her Amazone bodice, plain and tightly buttoned to the neck and wrists, felt awkward, while the long ends of her scarf mantella were threatening to strangle her, and her velvet bonnet had been tipped to the side by her exertions.

As she climbed over the edge of the basket, she was just congratulating herself on her nimbleness when the toe of her elastic-sided boot caught. She stumbled and would have landed flat on her face if the stranger had not reached out and caught her.

Her breath whooshed out as she fell against him, his hard, masculine body a bulwark against hers. For a moment she could not think—her mind went completely blank. Shock, whispered a voice in her head.

You aren’t used to being this close to a man. But it was more than that. Her senses were overloaded with information: the clean male scent of him, the dark shadow on his jaw above her, the heat of his palm on her back. Marietta found herself a little shaky just from being there, which was ridiculous enough in an untouched spinster, but for a ruined woman . . . !

The thought sent her instantly to the furthermost corner of the basket.

“Thank you,” she said, an afterthought.

Politely, he bowed his head; his eyes never left hers, and there was no smile in them. Nothing to tell her that what she had just felt had been experienced by him, too. Indeed the look he gave her made Marietta think he was also wishing her miles away.

“Perfect,” she muttered under her breath. “I am about to ascend in a balloon with a man in a mood.”

Mr. Keith had finished his preparations. He climbed into the basket with them, swinging his legs over the side with practiced ease. The basket was big enough for five, but it seemed only Marietta and her companion were to be passengers today. “Are you ready?” the aeronaught asked, but it was obvious he did not expect a negative answer. Marietta sat down and clung to the side and nodded vigorously.

“Get on with it, Ian,” the stranger said in a deep, impatient voice. He sat down and crossed his long legs.

“Dear me, Max.” Mr. Keith shook his head as if he found the other man beyond his comprehension, and then he called out to his helpers. The balloon was cast off without fuss, ballast was thrown out, and they began to rise, quite quickly, into the London sky.

“Oh!” Marietta gasped.

The ground was rapidly slipping away from her.

The crowd—their faces lifted—was growing smaller and smaller. There was a strange silence, almost like a dream, as they rose higher. Below her lay Vauxhall Gardens, and then the Thames, and beyond that the bustle of London, with its pall of smoke, stretching away as far as she could see. The Houses of Parliament and St. Paul’s dome were visible, looking awfully small, and the green squares and parks stood out among the lines of streets and the boxes that were houses.

“You haven’t been introduced.” Mr. Keith spoke above the soft underlying roar of the city below them.

Reluctantly Marietta lifted her eyes from the Thames as the breeze tugged the balloon along.

Mr. Keith smiled at her as if he understood her sense of dislocation. “Miss Greentree, this is my friend, Max. Max, this is Miss Greentree.”

“How do you do,” Max said in a disinterested voice. He gave her a brief glance that was more indifferent than unfriendly, before turning once more to gaze down over the city spread beneath them.

Marietta shrugged off his behavior, and returned to her own perusal of the Thames, a glittering silver snake broken up by bands of bridges, with ships at anchor and steamboats like wind-up toys. Soon they were moving towards Richmond, sailing over fields and hills, leaving behind the smoke of London and its pointed spires.

“Are you enjoying yourself, Miss Greentree?”

Marietta beamed at Mr. Keith. “It is even more wonderful than I imagined, sir.”

“Not anxious about heights then?”

“Oh no, not at all!”

He grinned at her, the lines about his eyes deepening. “I am glad. My friend here didn’t want to come.

I insisted—when I knew you were the only one making the ascent today I thought he would be company for us. Now I wish I’d told him to stay home. He’s like a rain cloud in the corner there, threatening to spoil our fun.”

Marietta giggled, and then bit her lip when Max shot her a hard look from narrowed dark eyes.

“Perhaps I am not in the mood to enjoy myself,”

he said in a low voice. “Perhaps circumstances won’t allow me to.”

Marietta gave him one of her unflinching stares.

“But can’t you forget your troubles for now?” she demanded, not pretending she didn’t understand him.

“Look down there. How can you not feel amazed by such a sight? How can your own concerns not seem insignificant, Mr. . . . eh . . . ?”

“Max,” he said shortly. “And I am amazed. I’m just not in the mood to show it.”

Marietta laughed at him because he was so absurd.

She noticed a gleam in his dark eyes. He did look like a rain cloud, just as Mr. Keith had said. Or maybe he was more like a thunder cloud—a rather dangerous one. Perhaps it was not such a good idea to tease him, and yet Marietta suddenly and unexpectedly yearned to turn that frown into a smile.

“Haven’t you heard of Max?” Mr. Keith said, lowering his voice. “He’s the scandal of the moment. He has been turned out of his boyhood home by his cousin. Perhaps now you can sympathize a little with his unhappy mood, Miss Greentree, even if you can’t condone it.”

“Turned out of his home? No, I have not heard of him. I am only lately arrived in London. How could his cousin do that, Mr. Keith?”

“Well,” he considered his words. “This cousin has produced proof that Max is not his father’s legal heir.

In short, that Max’s father is not his father after all.”

Marietta’s shocked gaze slid to Max.

“Now,” Mr. Keith continued on, “we could say

‘Poor Max,’ and feel very sorry for him, or we could look at the situation from a different angle. We could say that Max has been a prisoner of his upbringing, and now he has a chance to begin again. Start afresh.”

“I know what you’re doing, Ian,” Max said, giving his friend a narrowed look.

“Put aside your woes, Max. Life goes on.”

“You do not have as much to lose as I.”

“Think of your past as a shackle to be thrown off, Max. Just imagine how much lighter and freer you will be without it.”

“Lighter and freer to do what?”

But he sounded resigned, as though Mr. Keith’s attempts to cheer him up were something to be borne for the sake of their friendship.

“Max,” Mr. Keith said reprovingly, “Miss Greentree is probably the only lovely young lady in London who is ignorant of your situation. You should make the most of the moment, my friend.”

“Thank you, Ian,” Max said gravely, and turned his face away so that only his profile showed against the pale blue sky. Handsome, wounded, brooding⁠—

the words were descriptive of the perfect Byronic hero. If she was Francesca, she would paint a picture of him standing grimly alone on the moors, or write a poem in honor of his moody good looks. But she was not dark and dramatic Francesca; she was generous and impulsive Marietta. And despite her decision not to bother with him, her mind was already seeking for ways in which to tackle the fates and make his life better.

“Mr. Keith,” she said quietly, turning again to the aeronaught. “Has Max anything left at all? Of course,” with a glance at Max, “you do not need to tell me if it is personal.”

“But everyone knows, Miss Greentree. And yes, Max has a few odds and ends remaining.” There was a dry note in Mr. Keith’s voice that Marietta did not understand but she let it pass. “The thing is, Max loves his boyhood home, and of course he now has to deal with the shame of his birth, and the despoiling of his mother’s memory in the eyes of the world.

He’s feeling a little lost.”

“It seems cruel and unnecessary of his father to let everyone know. Such a scandal is normally hushed up. In my own family my uncle has gone to great lengths to hide the slightest whiff of disgrace.” That was true enough, Uncle William Tremaine had been appalled when he learned of Gerard Jones and how gleefully the London gossips had taken to the story.

He hadn’t spoken to her since, but she had heard that he’d declared her “her mother’s daughter well and truly.”

Marietta edged closer to Max, and he looked at her as if he would much rather she stayed away. But Marietta didn’t let that stop her, and in a moment she was sitting beside him in the basket, her arm bumping against him as a stronger gust shook them. He stared down with that haughty lift of his eyebrows, but she had never been easily intimidated and she wasn’t now. Clearly Max was in need of some good advice, and Marietta knew she was just the person to give it.

“Can your real father help you?” she asked him candidly. “Perhaps he is not even aware yet that he has been blessed with a son.”

Max gave a nasty laugh. “Perhaps he took to his heels and left my mother with no choice but to marry another man to cover her shame.”

Marietta sighed. “I am so sorry . . . Max. I am in a similar situation myself, you know, so I understand a little of what you must feel. I do not know who my father is either.”

Max stared at her as if he had wandered into a nightmare and could not find his way out. Marietta felt her face color. She hadn’t meant to tell him that, and her words had sounded odd, but she had been trying to comfort him. And anyway it was the truth; she didn’t know who her father was. Her mother, the courtesan Aphrodite, knew, but she hadn’t spoken of it, and besides, Marietta wasn’t sure she wanted to meet him. More than likely her father would want to avoid her, just like everyone else.

“I think,” Max said at last, in a weary voice, “that you are trying to be kind. I beg you not to be. I do not want your kindness. Despite what Ian believes, I just want to be left alone.”

“To wallow in your bad fortune?” Marietta asked, and had the satisfaction of seeing that angry sparkle return to his eyes. “Max, don’t you know that we make our own fortune, good and bad? That is what I intend to do⁠—”

The wind had been growing stronger, and now there was a violent gust. Beneath them treetops swayed, and a herd of cows mooed and tried to flee from the balloon. Mr. Keith had been going about the important work of controlling his balloon, but Marietta had been aware of him listening to their conversation with interest. Now he glanced at her and nodded his head, as if keen to egg her on. But Marietta had said all she had to say. If Max wanted to revel in his bad fortune, then she was content to let him.

There was another sharp gust—the basket swayed.

“I’m going to start our descent,” Mr. Keith said. “The wind is stronger than I anticipated, so be warned: our landing may not be a gentle one.”

Max frowned at him, and Marietta sensed the unspoken anxiety in their exchanged looks. She swallowed, and peering over the side, knew she had no desire to tumble to earth from this height.

“You must brace yourself, Miss Greentree.” Mr. Keith was brisk. “The basket may well fall over when we land, but if you hang on tightly you will not be cast out of it. Max?”

Marietta turned blindly toward her brooding companion and saw him nod. Whatever Mr. Keith had asked of his friend had been agreed upon. And then they were descending, and rather quickly.

The silk flapped overhead, and the basket swayed alarmingly. The wind was even stronger down here, and the aeronaught cast a worried glance at the farmer’s field below—what had looked green and softly undulating now appeared less and less inviting. Marietta gave a cry as the basket struck ground and bumped roughly once and then again. They were dragged along, bouncing, as the quickly emptying envelope flapped wildly. And then they began to tip over.

A strong arm clamped about Marietta’s waist, anchoring her, and her face was pressed into a broad chest. She was enveloped, swallowed up by her companion. And safe. Despite the seemingly endless journey along the ground, Marietta felt remarkably safe in the shelter of Max’s arms.

That was why she clung to him, she told herself later, her nose deep in the folds of his necktie above the buttons of his waistcoat, her head full of the clean, masculine scent of him. A particularly nasty bump flung her upwards but he hung on to her, swearing under his breath, calling out to Mr. Keith to

“Get on with it!”

And then, at last, they came to a standstill. They were down, and the cacophony of sound gave way to an eerie silence. Marietta lay still, aware of the large body beneath hers, of each breath gently lifting and lowering her. She raised her head and looked about, her fair hair tangled and falling down, her bonnet nowhere to be seen.

The basket was on its side in the farmer’s field, its contents scattered, and the silk envelope flapping gently. A horse was standing some paces away, tail twitching, keeping a suspicious eye on them. And then Mr. Keith was on the move, checking his equipment, frowning as he worked.

And Max . . .

Max was lying on his back, looking up at her, an expression of long suffering on his handsome face.

Just at that moment, a thick strand of her hair slipped out of its pins and tumbled across his cheek and into his eye. He sighed as if he’d just about had as much as he could take.

Marietta felt the heat suffuse her face—the man was insufferable. “Excuse me,” she said in the chilliest tone she could manage in the circumstances, and proceeded to clamber off him. It was awkward, and her skirts and petticoats seemed to have become tangled up with his long legs. She folded her knees up, the better to crawl, but she had hardly begun when he grabbed her against him, cursing, and rolled to one side with her still clasped in his arms. With a gasp, she wound her arms about his neck and held on, his hair like rough curled silk against her fingers.

“Careful, Miss Greentree, I may need to father a son and heir one day.” His voice, with its slight mocking drawl, tickled her ear. “But then again, who would want my child?” he added, and she realized the mockery was for himself.

“Oh, Max, I’m sure someone would!” she said, before she could consider her words. “Not me, of course, I-I am not . . . but someone . . .”

Her clumsy attempts to make him feel better touched him. He smiled. A slow smile that lifted the corners of his unhappy mouth and made his brooding face come alive with humor.

“Perhaps we won’t make an heir just yet,” he said, and began to untwine her arms from his neck and untangle her skirts from his legs. He eased himself out of the basket and pulled her after him. He held her briefly, his hands on her waist, allowing her to catch her balance, but as even that made her oddly breathless, she was relieved when he finally stepped away.

“Thank you,” she said with stiff politeness. “I am grateful.”

“You’re not hurt?” He ducked his head to see into her face, he being so much taller than she. Close up, his eyes weren’t quite so dark, and there was a little scar on his chin.

She made herself look away. “I’m perfectly all right, thank you.”

Evidently he believed her. He turned to Mr. Keith.

“You’ve made better landings, Ian.”

“And worse ones, Max.” Mr. Keith didn’t even look up from what he was doing. “Don’t be ungrateful. You’re in one piece, aren’t you?”

Max grunted, then took a few steps away and gave a bone-jarring stretch.

Marietta stood and watched—she could not seem to help it. The pull of his big body—and he was big, she could attest to that—the fluid movement of his muscles and sinews, the purely sensual enjoyment on his face as he tested himself. Marietta decided there was something very attractive about Max, but at the same time she was aware of wanting to remove herself as far from him as possible.

“Miss Greentree, you are unhurt?” Mr. Keith had finally remembered there was something other than his balloon that might be broken.

“Yes, thank you. Max . . . kept me safe.”

Mr. Keith’s mouth twitched. “I thought he might,” he said evenly.

Max stopped in mid-stretch, turning to glare at him over one broad shoulder. “I’m not a nursemaid, Ian.”

Stung, Marietta straightened to her full height⁠—

and still had to tilt her head back to meet his eyes.

“For your information, sir, I am well past the age when I need a nursemaid.”

Max sneered—or at least Marietta, who had never seen a sneer before but had read about them in books, thought that’s what he did. “Are you? You look a mere child to me.”

Again she felt her cheeks flush red. A child? It was a long time since Marietta had felt like a child. Some people mistook her petite stature and vivacious manner for immaturity but they were mistaken. She was a grown woman with a mind of her own and a particularly strong will.

“Most of my friends already have their own households, and nursemaids for their children,” Marietta replied in what was for her a subdued tone.

“But not you, Miss Marietta?” Mr. Keith smiled, attempting to lighten the atmosphere.

“No.” Marietta smiled back, but her gaze slanted sideways toward Max. “I have no plans to marry. Ever.”

Max made a sound like a snort. “In my experience all women want to marry,” he said, as if he were an expert. “What else would they do but marry?”

“Yes, you’re right,” she said dryly. “What else can they do? Respectable society and those who command it have made it impossible for a woman to surv iv e without the shelter of a husband. But I am . . . different, and I have no intention of being told how to live my own life. I am going to do something else.”

Max had the gall to lift his eyebrows, his smile supercilious. “I see. Perhaps you are going on safari to Africa, Miss Greentree. Or taking a climbing trip in the Highlands. Or setting up a shelter for orphans where they are taught to play the piano, as one eccentric lady has done.”

Did he mean Vivianna? Her elder sister had begun the Shelter for Poor Orphans some years ago. “I believe that life should be savored to the fullest,” she said, glaring back at him. “And I mean to taste it, every single drop.”

It was true, in a way the ruination of her reputation had set her free to explore other pathways. There was a certain freedom in knowing you couldn’t make things much worse than they were already.

Something flickered in his dark eyes—as if she had struck a chord in him. “Perhaps you would like a partner in your adventures,” he said, and his voice was no longer supercilious. “I am available.” He laughed, and it was hardly bitter at all. “I have nothing else to do but sit and feel sorry for myself, as you so rightly pointed out. Let’s go adventuring, Miss Greentree.”

Marietta wasn’t certain what she would have said.

Yes trembled on her lips, but that was impossible.

She had no intention of falling in love, not with Max and not with anyone, and the adventures she was planning were not the sort he would be able to afford—not any longer. Because for some time now Marietta had made her mind up that she was going to be a courtesan, just like her mother.

It was the only way in which she could have that life she craved, that full and satisfying life, without exposing her damaged heart. And her tattered reputation would be of no importance if she was a courtesan, in fact it might be a bonus. She had thought it over, and really, it was the only way she could move forward. Of course, it would not be easy. There was her family to convince—and Marietta did not pretend they would be pleased with her choice of career—and she did not want to hurt them more than she had already. But neither did she want to languish in the shadows for the rest of her life. She was young and alive, and it was time to begin to celebrate that fact.

Luckily, she did not have to explain all of that to Max, because they were interrupted.

“Hello there!” It was the farmer, peering over the fence. “Do you folk need any help?”

Soon afterwards they had loaded themselves into his cart and were jolting their way back to London.

Marietta had been given the place of honor on the seat beside the farmer, while the two men sat in the tray at the back. She could hear them passing comment, but she did not join in the conversation.

She felt shaken from the landing, but more than that.

She felt shaken by Max.

Yes, he made her angry. Yes, he was moody, and it wasn’t fair that he was so physically attractive. When he had held her in his arms, her body pressed to his, she had felt . . . well, it frightened her, because the last time she had felt like that it had ended in disaster. Marietta sympathized with his predicament, of course she did, but they were strangers, and soon they would go their own ways and live their own lives.

She found comfort in the fact that she would never see him again.

When they reached the outskirts of London, Mr.

Keith found Marietta a hackney cab to take her home. She glanced at Max as she climbed inside. He was looking at her, but his smile was gone, and it occurred to her that soon he would have forgotten she existed. With a little shrug, she ignored him too, and turned her face for home.

“It was no accident Miss Greentree being with us, was it, Ian?”

Ian Keith glanced at Max, taking in his obvious bad humor.

“The truth, if you please,” Max added, his dark eyebrows drawing down at the corners to mimic the shape of his mouth.

Ian sighed. “I don’t know why you’re complaining. Any other man would have been more than happy to while away a few hours in the company of so sweet a girl. I thought . . . I hoped she would drive away your dark mood.”

“Did you? I suppose she did have a certain naïve charm. If I were ten years younger⁠—”

“Max you’re twenty-nine!”

“I feel like one hundred and twenty-nine. I’ve seen girls like that before, Ian. Too many of them.” He sounded pompous and he knew it, but it seemed important to convince Ian that he had no interest in Miss Greentree. Because if he couldn’t convince Ian, how on earth was he going to convince himself?

“I take it you’re not hanging out for a wife then?” Ian said curiously. “Not that I’m suggesting Miss Greentree is the woman to share the nuptials with you, but I have wondered.”

“If I want a woman in my bed I’ll go to Aphrodite’s and find one there, and as for the rest . . . My serv ants cook my meals and launder my clothes, and I have you for a friend.” The drawl was back in his voice, to show he didn’t care. “A wife would be an added burden, especially now, when I have no future.”

Ian shook his head. “It isn’t the end of the world, Max. Even if you can’t persuade your father to change his mind, or break your cousin’s hold on your inheritance, you still have a lot to be grateful for. Remember, you have your mother’s estate in Cornwall, and your house in London. Admit it, you’re hardly destitute, Max!”

Max’s expression grew bleak. “You have a very simplistic view of the world, my friend. My mother left me property in Cornwall, it’s true, but the house is falling down. And the house in London isn’t mine, it’s part of the Valland estate and it belongs to Harold now. My father has sent his man of business to tell me to leave by the end of the month, but I don’t know if I can wait that long. You see I can’t pay my servants or my household bills. Although my cousin Harold has been generous, I cannot . . . I do not expect him to support me.”

“Why not?” Ian asked coldly. “He’s taken what is yours, hasn’t he?”

Max’s handsome face turned grim. “It isn’t Harold’s fault this has happened. I don’t blame my father either, not really. I’ve never seen him as hurt and angry as he was the night he read out my mother’s letter.”

Ian did not dispute him, although his expression said he would like to.

“And then there is my name,” Max went on quietly. “I can no longer call myself Lord Roseby—I am plain Max Valland. And although my mother may be dead, her reputation as a caring and generous woman, an honest and respectable woman, is in jeopardy. Vicious gossip follows me wherever I go. I am the scandal of the moment, and I do not like it.”

“You think it’s true then, that your father⁠—?”

“Is not my father? That he married her all unsuspecting, believing the child she was carrying was his own? I have seen the proof with my own eyes—my mother’s letter of admission—I must believe it.”

“So who is your father, Max?”

“I don’t know.”

“Not even an inkling?” Ian asked softly.

Max hesitated and then he said, “No,” firmly. Ian knew there was no point in trying to force Max to confide in anyone, that was not Max’s way. Max would tell only when and if he wanted to; when the burden was finally too heavy and he had to lay some part of it down. Ian had often thought that a wife was exactly what Max needed, a strong woman to confide in and stand at his side, someone to love him whatever name he bore. But then that, he supposed, was the wish of most men, and most men never had it realized.

Max might not be an easy man, and at the moment he was a troubled man, but he had many good points. Ian only wished that Miss Greentree of the big blue eyes and irrepressible smile had had the chance to see some of them.

2

The sounds and sights within Vivianna’s bedchamber were almost more than Marietta could bear. She did not like to see her sister in pain. Who would have thought it would be quite so exhausting to bring a baby into the world? Even one as anticipated and loved as Vivianna and Oliver’s baby.

Marietta wasn’t supposed to be in the room, she knew that, but in the confusion no one had had the time or energy to send her out. Besides, Oliver was here, too, and he wasn’t supposed to be! A father, the doctors had informed him roundly, should be at his club awaiting the news in the presence of his friends, or else downstairs with a glass of brandy, pacing the carpet. Certainly not up in his wife’s bedchamber holding her hand.

Just then Vivianna gave one last cry of effort, and suddenly it was over. The baby was born.

“A boy!” declared the doctor with obvious relief, and the baby was taken off to be sponged and wrapped in the same shawl used by Montegomery babies for hundreds of years. Evidently this didn’t suit Oliver and Vivianna’s son, because when he was presented to the proud parents he was howling loud enough to wake the whole of Berkley Square.

Gazing at Oliver across their son’s red, angry little face, Vivianna gave him a beaming smile. “You’re not the last of the Montegomeries now,” she said, her voice husky from exhaustion. Then, tears filling her hazel eyes, “Oh, Oliver . . .”

Oliver drew them both gently into his arms, and closed his own eyes, burying his face in her hair. In the bedchamber people moved about them, tidying up, murmuring words of congratulation, but Oliver and Vivianna and their son were in a little island all their own.

Watching them, Marietta felt the burn of tears in her own eyes—a mixture of sorrow and joy and even a touch of envy. For this would never be her life. She was destined for something very different, and if her hopes became reality then it would be a life to savor and to look back on with a smile of satisfaction. But she would never have what Vivianna had right now.

The heart of one man.

She had come to London to be of help to her sister during her confinement, and to assist her afterwards with household matters. Lady Greentree was to have come herself, and in fact had been ready to do so, until she had an unfortunate accident. Two weeks ago, she tripped and fell down some stairs, and wrenched her ankle. Although the ankle was not broken, she was unable to walk, and a journey by coach to London had been out of the question. Even if she had been able to travel, of what possible use could she be, hobbling about? So she had handed the task over to Marietta, a little reluctantly to be sure—Lady Greentree did not like letting her second daughter out of her sight, not since Gerard Jones, and London was a long way from her watchful gaze. Marietta, with strict instructions as to what she could and couldn’t do, and with Mr. Jardine as her companion, came to take her mama’s place at Berkley Square.

Vivianna was very glad to see her.

“Oh Marietta, thank you for coming to be with me. I have missed you so!” It was nice, Marietta had thought, to be appreciated, even if she knew her sister was a little overwrought because of her condition. And she intended to do her duty, of course she did! But now she was finally in London, Marietta also meant to make the most of it. She had plans of her own, and one of them had been the ascent in the gas balloon. The other . . . Well, that was something both Vivianna and Lady Greentree had expressly forbidden.

Marietta planned to visit Aphrodite at her home, the famous Aphrodite’s Club. And she planned to ask Aphrodite for her help.

“You are not to go there under any circumstances,”

Vivianna, knowing Marietta’s adventurous and impulsive nature, had spoken to her on the matter. “Are you listening to me, Marietta? Mama has forbidden it, and if Uncle William Tremaine were to hear of it . . .” She shuddered at the image of Lady Greentree’s brother discovering yet another scandal in the family. “He already considers you beyond redemption. You should concentrate on showing him how good and obedient you can be.”

“When did you begin to care what Uncle William said and thought?” she asked her sister, trying not to be hurt by her words. “Besides I am beyond redemption.”

“Nonsense! There are gentlemen here in London who have never heard of your . . . your misfortune.

Oliver says he can find several who will be very interested in offering for you.”

Marietta bit her lip to stop herself from saying what she thought about that. Vivianna probably believed she was doing her sister a good turn—as the eldest she had always tried to look after them, ever since they were kidnapped from Aphrodite as children and later abandoned on Lady Greentree’s estate, where she had found them and taken them in.

But the idea that Marietta would need Oliver’s help and persuasion to find herself a husband—probably some old man with lecherous eyes—made her feel ill. She was twenty-one now and the scandal had set her well and truly on the shelf. She had no intention of allowing Vivianna to boss her about just to avoid Uncle William’s displeasure. Particularly when she knew that same older sister had visited Aphrodite’s Club, incognito, when she was of a similar age.

Marietta took one more look at Vivianna and Oliver, admired their new son, and slipped out of the bedchamber. Mr. Jardine was waiting at the head of the stairs, his blue eyes anxious, his graying hair standing on end as though he had been running his hands through it.

“A son,” she said, with a smile to set his mind at ease. “And everyone is very well.”

His face sagged in relief. Mr. Jardine had been with the Greentree family for so long that they always thought of him as one of them. He had come to Greentree Manor shortly after Lady Greentree’s soldier husband, Edward, had died in India, and Marietta and her two sisters had been found abandoned in a cottage upon the estate. At the time Rawlings was their estate manager, but he had proved unsatisfactory and Lady Greentree had let him go—only for him to bob up in that inn and ruin Marietta’s life.

Mr. Jardine was a mature gentleman of medium height and build, and handsome. His skin had been darkened by the years he had spent in the West Indies.

“Lady Greentree will be so pleased,” he said now, and it was clear from his expression that he was imagining her joy when she heard about her grandson.

Such a wish to please an employer might be due to friendship or gratitude or loyalty, but Marietta knew differently. It had been obvious to her for many years that Mr. Jardine loved Lady Greentree. Unfortunately his love went unrequited, for although Amy Greentree was clearly fond of her secretary, she was still mourning her husband, and perhaps she always would be. It did seem to be a pity that she could not put aside his memory for just long enough to allow herself to brush the past from her eyes. If she could once see Mr. Jardine clearly, without the veil of her bereavement, Marietta was certain she would love him, too.

Marietta left Mr. Jardine and slipped down the stairs. News of the new Montegomery heir had already spread, and servants with beaming faces had gathered in the entrance hall. Soon congratulations would begin arriving at the town house, and with them would come Lady Marsh, Oliver’s wealthy aunt. Mr. Jardine would send a message posthaste to Lady Greentree and Francesca, and Marietta would follow that with a letter of her own. A notice would be placed in the more important newspapers, and that would bring more congratulations. Queen Victoria herself would send a gift, for Oliver was a favorite of hers, and Prince Albert would attach a personal note, because Vivianna was a favorite of his.

But there was someone else, someone Marietta considered more important than Her Majesty. Someone who should be told the news as soon as possible, and with Vivianna so completely absorbed in her brand-new family, that important person might be otherwise forgotten until tomorrow.

A grandmother deserved to be informed face-to-face.

Marietta hurried off to find Lil, her sister’s maid.

Lil could keep an eye on Vivianna while she slipped out to tell Aphrodite the good news.

And it has nothing to do with my wish to visit Aphrodite’s Club and my plans to be a courtesan. Nothing whatsoever . . .

But Marietta was fibbing to herself, and she knew it. Visiting Aphrodite’s Club was not a whim, it was an important step toward her future. Everything depended upon Aphrodite’s reaction to her request for patronage—for if she was going to be a courtesan, she wanted only the best advice.

“Do you think you should go off to that place, miss?” Lil said. “I don’t know if Lady Montegomery would approve.”

“Lady Montegomery’s approval is neither here nor there,” Marietta retorted.

Lil opened her mouth as if to argue, and then took note of the stubborn tilt of Marietta’s chin, and closed it again. The Greentree sisters were all alike, she thought wryly to herself. When they wanted their own way there was just no stopping them.

Aphrodite’s Club had a somber elegance that gave little clue to its real purpose, thought Marietta as the hansom cab set her down. She had never seen her mother’s club before, but she had read of such places and steeled herself for a certain amount of gaudiness. This was more like a private school for young ladies!

Marietta lifted the hem of her skirts above her slippers to climb the stairs towards the white portico that framed the entrance. Apart from tossing on her emerald velvet cloak, Marietta had not changed her clothing from the red and green shot silk dress she had worn all day. Changing would have meant delay, and the news she carried seemed too important to wait. Besides, this might be her only chance to speak to Aphrodite privately, and Marietta meant to take it.

The doorknocker brought a man in a red military style jacket to the door, his thick graying hair neatly combed, his gray eyes quizzical in his rugged face.

This was Aphrodite’s faithful Dobson—Marietta knew him instantly from Vivianna’s description.

And just as her sister had said, he looked as if he had been involved in a great many fistfights over the years.

“What can I do for you, miss?” he asked sternly, in the accent of the London streets. “Do you know where you are? Maybe you’re lost, is that it?”

Marietta smiled. “No, I am not lost, Dobson. I am Miss Marietta Greentree, and I have come to see Aphrodite.”

Dobson’s eyes gleamed with intelligence behind his rough mask; his mouth did not smile but it looked as though it wanted to. “She’s in the salon at the moment, Miss Marietta.”

“Oh, is she?” Marietta’s curious gaze flicked past him. “I came to tell her good news, Dobson. Vivianna and Oliver have had a son, and I thought Aphrodite would want to know immediately.”

Now Dobson did smile. “Why, that’s wonderful news! Aphrodite will want to know all right. You wait here, miss, and I’ll go and fetch her.”

And he dashed off.

Marietta stood alone in the vestibule. Really, she hadn’t expected a bordello to look so . . . so ordinary.

Nothing exciting appeared to be going on, or if it was, then it was all happening behind tightly closed doors. She could hear music and talk and laughter from the salon, but even so there was nothing here that was different from any other large, fashionable, London establishment.

Almost a disappointment, Marietta admitted to herself.

A curving staircase rose up to a gallery circled by a black and gold balustrade. There were boudoirs up there, she supposed. Perhaps they were gaudy, perhaps they were occupied. Marietta sighed. Alone on her chair in the vestibule she felt very removed from it all, just as she had felt removed from life for the past four years.

The doorknocker rattled.

Marietta stared at the closed portal. The knocker sounded again, louder this time, and she shifted nervously. Elsewhere, apart from the faint laughter and music, the house was silent. No footsteps hurrying closer, no Dobson returning. Perhaps whoever it was would simply go away . . . The knocker sounded again, impatient that no one had answered.

There is no one here, she wanted to shout. Only me.

The knocker clattered furiously.

Agitated, Marietta reminded herself that this was her mother’s house. Although it was not considered proper for a young lady of Marietta’s social status to open a door—especially the door to a disorderly house—the person on the other side could not possibly know who she really was.

Marietta gave a quick glance down at herself, and then removed her cloak. Her red and green shot silk skirt was creased but reasonable, the square collar and matching cuffs were clean if a little limp. She patted her hair, and found that the soft curls were still in place.

The knocker rattled again, one last furious attempt to rouse Dobson, and then she heard steps, beginning to move away. Perhaps it was an important guest? Someone Aphrodite would be upset about losing?

Marietta hurried over and flung open the door.

A tall man in a top hat had descended the stairs, and was already moving toward the street—evidently leaving in frustration.

Marietta called out, “Sir? Please!”

He stopped and turned to look at her over his shoulder. The gaslight from the street was bright and against it he was nothing but a dark shadow—a tall shadow with broad shoulders.