Lessons in Seduction

387 Pages·2005·1.65 MB·English

by  Sara Bennett

Contents
Prologue
Vivianna put a finger to her lips,
her hazel eyes… 1
Chapter 1
Inside the tall, elegant London townhouse,
Lord Montegomery was impatiently… 9
Chapter 2
First things first: Make quite sure he
cannot escape. 27
Chapter 3
Oliver didn’t stay at Aphrodite’s Club
after all. Not long… 49
Chapter 4
Miss Greta and Miss Susan Beatty were
like a pair… 69
Chapter 5
“Miss Greentree is here, my lord.
She wants to leave… 85
Chapter 6
At Queen’s Square, Lil was waiting for
Vivianna. “I was… 101
Chapter 7
“Oliver? Have you had a chance yet
to look over… 123
Chapter 8
The Montegomery coach seemed very
luxurious after the hackneys, or… 141
Chapter 9
Vivianna could not believe what had
just happened. 155
Chapter 10
“It’s nice to see you again, Miss Greentree.
Miss Aphrodite… 173
Chapter 11
The meeting was held at the Mayfair
home of the… 187
Chapter 12
Oliver nodded at his aunt’s elderly butler
as he stepped… 205
Chapter 13
He looked up at her, his dark
eyes blurred. He… 225
Chapter 14
“I made a mistake.” 243
Chapter 15
Sounds outside. Guests arriving. Servants
calling, doors banging, and familiar… 253
Chapter 16
Marietta was determined to see every
fashionable shop in Regent… 271
Chapter 17
Dobson answered the door in his red jacket,
and his… 295
Chapter 18
The following morning, Vivianna met the
Beatty sisters at the… 315
Chapter 19
Eddie and Ellen stood at the edge
of the staircase,… 331
Chapter 20
Vivianna should not have been surprised
by the savage note… 349
Chapter 21
“I want ye to come and live here, lass.” 359
Epilogue
“I received a letter from Mama today,”
Vivianna said, setting… 373
About the Author
Other Romances
Cover
Copyright
About the Publisher
Prologue
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The Greentree Estate
Yorkshire, England
1826
V
ivianna put a finger to her lips, her hazel eyes
wide in her oval-shaped, grubby face, her curly
chestnut hair in desperate need of a wash and a good
comb. Her two little sisters, their faces as smeared
with tears and dirt as her own, huddled close together,
eyes big, and held their breath.
Voices, outside the cottage, were drawing closer.
Vivianna recognized one of them as the whiskered
man who had been here earlier, peering at them
through the window, trying to coax them outside.
The whiskered man frightened her.
When he had gone, stomping off and shaking his
head, the three girls remained hidden in a dark corner
of the bedroom. To amuse them, Vivianna had told
her sisters a story about three little girls who had been
stolen from their mother and taken far away by a
1
2 SARA BENNETT
woman with a thin, narrow face and her evil husband,
and then abandoned.
It closely resembled their own story, but in Viv-
ianna’s version the three little girls had been reunited
with their mother and all had been well. A nice happy
ending.
“Hungry,” two-year-old Marietta had declared
when the story was finished, her blue eyes wide, her
fair curls dancing about her face.
“I know you’re hungry, ’Etta,” six-year-old Viv-
ianna had replied softly, “but we ate the last bit of the
loaf this morning. I’ll try and find some food outside.
When it’s dark.” She had no idea how she was going
to accomplish this, but she knew that as the eldest it
was her job to look after her two younger sisters.
Marietta had smiled with complete trust. Francesca
had simply whimpered and clung closer to Vivianna’s
skirts. Dark-haired and dark-eyed, she was like a little
pixie, and at one year old she wasn’t able to under-
stand what was happening. Only that they were no
longer safe in their warm and comfortable home with
their friendly servants. Francesca had been asleep
when the man had come and bundled them into the
coach with Mrs. Slater and sent them away.
Far away.
Vivianna did not know how much time had passed
since that night—days and weeks had become con-
fused in her mind. She was even beginning to forget
how everything at home had looked and felt. Mrs.
Slater had not been cruel to them, but neither had she
been particularly kind. And once the man she said was
her husband turned up, she was even more ambiva-
lent. The couple had spent most of their nights and
days locked in their bedroom, and fed the children
only if they felt like it. It had fallen to Vivianna, a
LESSONS IN SEDUCTION 3
child herself, to calm her youngest sisters and to try
and look after them all as best she could.
When the man had grown angry, she had told them
stories until they slept. And then Vivianna lay with her
eyes wide open, trying to think of a way to get home.
Her sense of helplessness and weakness made her stom-
ach ache. She longed desperately for her home and her
mother, but the awful thing was she did not know
where they were.
Oh, she knew that her home was in the countryside,
but she didn’t know what it was called or the village it
stood near—she never had to know—she had always
been kept away from anyone who might ask too many
questions.
Somehow Vivianna understood, even as a tiny child,
that her existence was a secret.
As for her mother ...she had been “Mama,” and
Vivianna had no idea of the names others called her
and where in London she went when she was not with
her children.
The Slaters kept them prisoners in the cottage, and
then one morning, a few days ago, the girls awoke to
find the couple gone. Alone in the cottage, the children
waited. And waited. Vivianna had been certain Mrs.
Slater would return, but she didn’t. The three young
sisters had been effectively abandoned in that dark,
sagging cottage.
Once more Vivianna did her best to look after her
sisters—even at the age of six her sense of responsibil-
ity was highly developed. She was mature for her
years; her hazel eyes held a determined expression
that should have belonged to a much older person.
The voices came again now, drifting into Vivianna’s
consciousness. She blinked and shook off her dreamy
thoughts. By now she was so tired and hungry that she