The Veiled Heart (The Velvet Basement Book 1) (8 page)

The moonlight washed shades of silver over the street. Miriam leaned closer to the carriage window. The moon was so bright the shapes of the horses and the driver were like dark paper puppets casting moving shadows on the pavement and up the high garden wall as they pulled to a halt.

She gathered her things from the worn leather bench and the cabbie opened the carriage door.

“Same time tomorrow, m’lady?”

“Yes. I’ll send word if anything changes.”

There was a weight in her chest, solid and heavy like a moody ache. However, she wasn’t thinking about that, wasn’t paying any attention to that.

She paid the driver, and then stepped out into the surreal light.

The cab pulled away and Miriam walked over to the large gate.

The night had not gone well.

She’d presented two demonstrations in reputable brothels, The Abbess and The Moaning Whore; both poorly attended and with very little uptake of the sheaths she was handing out. She understood that the women worried their clients wouldn’t want to use them, but their lack of self-preservation was hard to appreciate.

Miriam tucked the box of remaining sheaths under her arm along with her reticule, and reached into her pocket for the gate’s key. On either side of her, ivy spilled over the top of the wall and down the front in long clasping fingers grasping at thin air—like her with these nightly endeavors.

What was it about these women that made them tempt fate? Many of the workers she met in the brothels were hardened realists. Yet protecting their bodies so they could protect their right to work was smirked at as if she had no idea.

If all the women insisted on using them and if good establishments at least had it as a house rule, clients would soon come around.

Still, they looked at her as if she was someone to endure and shuffle out the door after they took her payment and then forgot she had ever been there. A do-gooder, a suffragette, or worst still, a tourist on some pretense for slumming and an ogle at the seedier side of life.

The brass key slipped into the oversized lock and with a bit of a jiggle the gate opened. In front of her, the iron gate was painted a forest green with metalwork laced into shapes that looked like hearts.

Damn it, she had always seen them as the ace of spades. She was clearly a lightweight in this dalliance business.

She got a firm hold on her box, straightened, and walked through the gate, locking it shut again on the other side.

Miriam stood for a few moments and gazed at the block’s private walled garden. In front of her was an urban oasis of undulating lawns, large well-established trees, and overflowing flowerbeds. The air was markedly cooler and a scent of night flowers was in the air.

Tension churned in her belly as it had all night.

Somehow, on this side of the gate with the rest of the world locked on the other side, it was safe to have a look at that odd feeling.

All night, her eyes had scanned the surrounding area, the door, the street, and passing carriages, always looking to see if he was there.

But Blue-eyes hadn’t turned up.

She knew it was pathetic.

She had no right to expect him to find her again.

She knew she was being unrealistic. She knew that. How was he to know when and where she went? And just because he’d turned up last night didn’t mean he magically knew where she was every night.

The gravel path crunched underfoot as she walked to the wooden park bench a few feet away from the gate.

However, it was that other thought that stirred everything around settling a heaviness on her shoulders.

What if he’d had his taste of pleasure and had finished with her?

Putting the box of remaining sheaths down, Miriam sat and slipped her shoes off. She wore no pantaloons tonight. She’d dressed to be undressed.

She was so foolish.

However, this morning another veil was delivered from Harrods with a plain white card with a large M. M for Mechanic, no doubt.

That wasn’t a sign of disinterest.

Surely, a ‘bon voyage’ present would be something different?

An odd lump stuck in her throat. A part of her just couldn’t swallow the fact that he may be done with her already.

The grass sprung back as she got up and walked alongside the path looping around flowerbeds.

There was no point in overthinking it. He hadn’t come.

Up ahead was the back gate to her townhouse. She needed to take the same attitude. She needed to see the exchange for what it was; two people who shared some pleasure. They met by chance; they had planned nothing solid, and that was how she wanted it. A stranger, a man of a low enough station to be safe.

Miriam stopped, drew the saturated air into her lungs. Experienced the way it seemed to seep into her cells. There was a lot to be thankful for.

She enjoyed this, the garden at night. Coming home after putting a part of her plan into action. Even if it was working out differently than she hoped, she was still doing something about issues that mattered to her.

She needed to stay focused on the things that were working. What she had achieved so far. No project really took off without some effort and fine-tuning and, well, Blue-eyes owed her nothing.

She moved forward, as she had promised herself she would with her life.

That first year after Freddy’s death, she had stayed in the country house, curled in bed, the rattle of the wind on the windows the only thing she could remember. Everyone else, the servants, doctors, family were just a blur.

The second year she’d stayed in the house. Jumped when people spoke. The family had stopped visiting, just notes from London. Getting on a horse and riding again had taken another year.

This goal, this need to help the prostitutes, the women who bore the brunt of life’s sexual underbelly, held her up. It had pushed her to return to London and had woken her up to reclaim her life, her whole life, not just what she was comfortable with, but also everything she’d dreamed she wanted life to be before she married Freddy.

Miriam cut across the lawn to walk under the old oaks.

She knew what everyone thought, what everyone said. That she had loved Freddy so much she had mourned and nearly drowned in despair when he’d died.

But that wasn’t it.

Could never have been it.

She had been exhausted. She had let all the fear, all the abject terror loose.

It’s a wonder she never sank in that Greek ocean when she had jumped overboard. She had been so full of the pain, the hypervigilance; the constantly trying to do everything to please him to be sure her actions didn’t result in more punishments, or what he termed rewards. No game had, at its end, an outcome that Freddy didn’t want.

Even years later, her heart contracted and her shoulders hunched down under the memories.

Tonight, with the lack of enthusiasm from the women, with Blue-eyes absence, things seemed dangerously out of kilter. She wanted to crawl into bed and put the pillow over her head.

A figure stepped from behind the second oak.

Her heart lurched then pounded furiously.

A scream caught in her throat and she swallowed it.

She was well trained.

She never screamed, ever. Not after she found out it just excited Freddy.

“Hello?” her voice was tense but steady.

A few shafts of light from a nearby gas lamp did nothing to reduce the shadows around him. But it didn’t matter, she could tell, just knew it was him by his shape. Perhaps something else.

An unexpected swell of warmth moved through her from shoulders to toes washing away the heavy tension from moments before.

“Blue-eyes?”

Miriam took two steps before she stopped herself. She would not rush into his arms. Her heart twirled in her chest and that stupid hope of hers came running to the fore. It lurked about all night and finally, it was redeemed. It would be impossible to control now.

He stepped forward and the gaslights mounted on the garden gates of the surrounding terrace houses showed his face.

The instinct to run slammed in her chest.

His face was chiseled. The softness he generally held around his mouth, around his eyes when he looked at her was gone. Her fingers curled tighter around the shoes in her hand.

“You found me.” She slipped one bare foot over the other.

“I did.” His hands stayed in the pocket of his coat.

Agitation rolled off him, evident in the hold of his shoulders, the tightness in his jaw.

Every muscle in her back, her arms, and neck tensed as she forced herself to stand still. Freddy in this kind of mood was lethal.

There should be no reason to worry. He was a man, but he’d already shown her more pleasure than she knew her body was capable of.

Those were good things. Not enough, but good enough to keep her in front of him and not running for the gate.

For now.

“Well, the night was the usual. You know that if you can’t outrun them, shoot them.”

He stilled, the restless agitation moved into something harder.

That had obviously been the wrong thing to say. Miriam shook her head. Stepped forward and stopped.

“Look, what do you want? What are you doing here anyway?”

Why did she even care what mood he was in? Why the need to reassure him, calm him as if they were some kind of unit? They were strangers who had sex twice in the last week.

“Your carriage sat in front of the Worthingtons’, I believe. Yet you were not inside.”

He took a step forward then stopped, turned, and paced in front of her. A frustration rolled off him. He was clearly struggling with something.

“I had more important things to attend to.” Tension ticked in her jaw. Why did it matter to him? This was not an area of her life he had any connection with or knowledge of.

He stopped. His head tilted.

“Your staff said you had a migraine. Yet here you are out on the town. Are you in the habit of standing up invites from respectable society?”

He would have no idea. No idea who that man was to her, what Worthington represented.

She huffed. “Industrialists who bought their way into society? Who knows what his intentions are, pestering me for an acquaintanceship.”

He suddenly moved forward his hand coming tightly around her upper arm.

She squeaked. “You’re hurting me.”

He dropped his hand immediately but leaned down close to her face and growled. Anger, heat, and something else surged out of him.

Her heart flew into a chaotic gallop and she immediately sought an exit. She moved sideways, her garden gate was just up ahead.

Blue-eyes stepped back, his body somehow contracting, making him less somehow.

“Don’t go. I would never hurt you.”

It took conscious effort to stay where she was. To make herself give him a chance.

Miriam pulled her shoulders back. She could do this. She could stand her ground. She had no master to answer to and he needed to know that or she might as well march off right now. The pleasure he gave her and what he made her hope for were second to that need. The need to walk her own path, at her own time, in her own way.

“Listen. I don’t know your name. And I don’t intend to be chastised by someone I don’t know.” It came out all bravado. She was breathless at the strain that suddenly tightened her lungs and made breathing regularly impossible. Her arm squeezed the box of sheaths so tight against her side she felt it start to crumple.

“And more importantly, you have no business inquiring after me with my staff or making judgments about my assessment of my peers.” Her eyebrows came down and she gave him her sternest look before she realized he wouldn’t be able to see her behind the veil.

Inside there was a whirlwind of sensations and emotions. Everything about him sent warnings. Warnings she had been trained to know very well… a man holding back real anger.

But another part wanted to reach out and soothe.

Then there was her own tension and agitation because he thought he could maraud over her life.

Yes, moments ago she’d lamented that he wasn’t out with her tonight, but controlling and directing her were entirely different matters. She would run forever before she let a man take that position again.

“No right?” His voice was far too soft. His shoulders rippled back under a rather expensive looking coat.

“Lily, I have every right. I have taken your welfare as a personal responsibility.”

A shaft of pleasure shot through her at his words. But she huffed.

“That is ridiculous.”

“When a man has intimate relations with a woman, it is the gentlemanly thing to do.”

“Well that’s not—”
He held up his hand to her response.

“Whether he is a mechanic or not.”

“I was going to say that we have only related twice.”

“I am not going to argue the point with you, Lily. If you think we will not be doing it again, you are playing naive.”

Pleasure warred with butterflies in her belly.

He wanted to see her. This meant something to him too. She wasn’t just turning into a besotted idiot alone. Bossiness aside, she was very pleased.

“Well, I will not have you chatting about my affairs with the staff regardless how many times we choose to relate.”

He didn’t say anything to that, his jaw just tightened. Even in this light, she could see the tension.

He walked over, took the box of sheaths from under her arm, and opened it. A soft scent, clean like lemons and leaves, came off him. Involuntarily, she leaned forward. It was an odd feeling to want to touch a man who exuded so much power.

“Plenty left for another day I see. You couldn’t wait for me? You had to head back out there alone even after last night?”

Her brows came together at that. What was he talking about?

“Wait for you? How would I know if you would turn up or not? We have no arrangement.”

Her eyes gazed over him, took in his stance; the arrogant annoyance on his face. She had seen this look all her life.

He clearly carried a personal power that well outstripped his rank.

“Where does a mechanic get the money for an expensive coat?” Her heart started to beat a little faster.