Ripe for Pleasure (3 page)

She wasn’t an actress, couldn’t sing or dance—at least not well enough for a career on the stage—and at seven-and-twenty,
her days as one of the reigning belles of the fashionable impures were behind her. It was time to make do or suffer the lot
of so many other fallen women: the slow slide down into common whoredom. A decline from which recovery was impossible.

Viola knew what she was, and she didn’t regret the choices that she’d made, but she’d be damned if she’d let the sacrifices
be for naught. She’d prepared so carefully, planned so thoroughly—and had been ruthless enough as she did so to earn the enmity
of more than one man—only to see everything swept away by a few investments that had turned out badly and the actions of one
petty baronet.

When Sir Hugo had discovered her working on the chapter about their time together, he’d stormed from her house and never returned.
He’d even stopped the annuity that had been a part of their contract. Did he think she wouldn’t find a way to avenge herself?
That dropping her in such a way would somehow improve what she wrote about him? He was a very foolish man if he did.

She picked up the head of her smashed figurine and turned it over in her hands, watching the light play off the opalescent
glaze. The last remnant of her girlhood. A gift from her father only days before she’d eloped… She set it in the saucer of
her cup and rose to pace toward the window. It really wasn’t worth mourning.

If she was going to indulge in that particular emotion, she had far more valuable losses she could contemplate: love, innocence,
and reputation, all gone in one fell swoop. Viola swallowed a mouthful of air, pushing the faces that swam up from the recesses
of her memory back where they belonged. Back where she kept them carefully partitioned and locked away.

Viola twitched back the curtain. A cloudless blue sky and a stream of sunshine greeted her. A small herd of sheep rambled
down the street, their young shepherd marching beside them. A glossy coach pulled by four bays rattled past in the other direction,
the livery of the footmen bright against the dark finish of the coach.

Just another May morning. Everything seemingly the same as the day before. Perfect. Beautiful.
Unbearable.

A loud rap on her door made her jump. She turned to find Lord Leonidas framed in the doorway, his head nearly scraping the
lintel. It was as though her house was simply unable to contain him. How had she never noticed that he was so tall?

His disordered hair was a deep auburn in the sunlight; strands escaped his queue and hung down at the temples. In candlelight,
it was merely brown. It made her almost sick how badly she wanted to tuck those stray bits back into place, just to have an
excuse to touch him.

His expression held both lust and revulsion, and not a little bit of self-loathing. An intriguing mix, as though he were aware
of the contradiction. Men were usually so much clearer about their wants and needs, and they so rarely bothered to be squeamish
or apologetic about them. To want, to lust, to need, that was enough for them. And
Viola liked it that way. It made them so much easier to manage.

Leo paused before entering Mrs. Whedon’s boudoir, a sudden stab of lust burning away exhaustion. She’d pulled a flowery dressing
gown over her wisp of a nightgown, but the sun blazing through the open window outlined her long limbs and trim waist perfectly
through the thin cloth. Light filtered around the curve of her breasts and sparked her hair into a blaze around her head and
shoulders. A Botticelli goddess without the half shell.

She dropped the curtain, and the room plunged into semi-lit darkness. She became merely an extremely beautiful woman, rather
than something approaching the celestial.

Thank God for that.

“So what am I to do now?” Viola stepped toward him, and the whole room seemed to shrink.

“Go to bed, ma’am.”

Her mouth quirked up, mocking him, as though she knew it was all that he could do not to beg to join her. As well she should,
practiced coquette that she was. She could probably smell lust halfway across town. It was her stock in trade after all, no
different from a tailor knowing the hand of his cloth.

“Practical advice, my lord. Will you be taking it yourself?”

Leo’s mouth went dry. Was that an invitation or a taunt? His cock twitched, clear about what answer it wanted.

“Yes, ma’am,” he ground out. “I was only stopping to take my leave. I’ll return this afternoon to await the arrival of Mr.
Addison’s men.”

One elegantly straight brow arched as she stared him down, blue eyes unblinking. There was a stillness about her that was
fascinating, reminiscent of a doe as the baying of hounds washes over her and she takes stock of her options before erupting
into flight. It made it hard to look away from her. Impossible really.

Leo caught himself and yanked his wandering mind away from her. He was tired. That was all. He was tired, and sleeplessness
always bred fantasies and gave luster to otherwise mundane objects. She couldn’t possibly be as beautiful as she looked at
that moment. No woman could.

Annoyed with himself, Leo nodded, turned on his heel, and left. If he stayed a moment longer, he’d tumble into bed with her,
and falling under Mrs. Whedon’s spell was the last thing he could afford to do.

CHAPTER 3

C
harles burst into The Red Lion on a wave of gin. Leo allowed the upper edge of his newspaper to sag. The general din of conversation
ended abruptly as his fellow League members watched Charles drop into a vacant seat.

A sprig of hope unfurled in Leo’s chest at the sight of him, only to die just as quickly. Charles’s hair was rumpled and hilly
in its queue, as though he’d pulled it hastily back without the aid of a comb. His cravat hung loose and open about his throat,
and his coat was nothing short of a disaster—a large water spot marred one whole side from shoulder to waist.

His disheveled state did not bode well. Charles had a mercurial temper: One moment he was amiable, jovial, the best of fellows;
the next he was anything but. He could turn on you as quick as a mad dog, and today, they weren’t even beginning with Charles
in a good frame of mind.

“Long night?” Leo dropped the newspaper on the table and waved a hand. The owner’s daughter appeared
as though summoned by a spell. She had twisted her calico-coated hips through the crowd with practiced ease and set a steaming
cup of coffee before Charles.

Charles didn’t even reach for it. He just stared at Leo over the table. Hate scuttled through the recesses of his eyes, unmistakable
even in so brief a flash. Where had that come from? How had he missed its inception?

Leo had been hoping that today, in light of his lack of success, Charles would listen to reason, would be open to joining
forces. If what the letters hinted at was true, there was more than enough money there for both of them.

From across the room, Gareth Sandison caught Leo’s gaze, his brows raised inquiringly. Leo gave him the slightest of head
shakes. If Charles meant trouble, best not to antagonize him by bringing Sandison into their shared secret quite so publicly.

Leo pushed the steaming cup toward his cousin. Charles’s gaze dropped, and his hand closed around it like that of an automaton.
He raised the cup up and blew on it, holding it with unsteady hands.

“A long night…” He sounded pensive, but the anger laced beneath it was evident if you were listening closely. “You should
know, Cousin. You were there, after all.”

Leo sipped his own coffee and let the comment settle. The warm, earthy scent of the coffeehouse washed over him.

He and Charles hadn’t been as close of late as they had been as boys. Leo had been hoping for something very different when
he’d invited Charles to Dyrham Hall after their grandfather died. Some small part of him was still hoping…

“Charles—”

“No.” His cousin slammed his cup down hard enough to send coffee sloshing over the rim. He yanked his hand away and shook
off the steaming liquid. Leo held his breath.

All around the room, heads rose, attention shifting to Charles as though he were a fox scampering through a kennel of hounds.
His cousin’s mouth flattened, lips almost entirely disappearing.

“No, Leo.” Charles’s voice shook, and the vein in his forehead stood out in stark relief. “The money doesn’t belong to your
family. And it wasn’t your family who suffered after the forty-five because of it. It was mine. Mine!” The final word erupted
out of Charles. Spittle sprayed across the table, trailing behind like a comet’s tail.

“We’re both Vaughns.” Leo kept his voice soft, low, as though he were speaking to a frightened horse. “And the fortune in
grandfather’s letters doesn’t belong to either of us. It belongs to the King of France, or to the Cardinal Duke of York, if
you prefer, but I for one have no intention of giving it to either of those bastards.”

Charles wiped his mouth on his sleeve and chuckled, but the humor didn’t reach his eyes. They stayed flat as those of a fish
in a monger’s basket. “I’m only a distaff Vaughn. We might share blood, but we’re not the same family.”

Leo opened his mouth to protest, but his cousin raised his hand to forestall him. A pale band on his ring finger marked a
loss Leo had thought impossible. Things must be far worse than Leo had ever imagined if Charles had gambled away his father’s
ring.

His hand still held up like a shield, Charles said, “You’d say I was raised a Vaughn, but you’d be wrong. I spent every damn
day of my childhood having my face rubbed in the fact that I was a poor relation. A duty. A burden.”

Leo frowned. It was impossible that his cousin could say that, could feel that. Or it should have been. “You’re my father’s
favorite sister’s son. My father—”

“I’m a MacDonald.” Each syllable was clipped, harsh, and emphatic. “The son of a disgraced and broken house, but I’m going
to reclaim my birthright, my place in the world. And that money is the key to it all.” Charles leaned forward, hands gripping
the edge of the table, knuckles white. “You don’t need it, Cousin. You’ve got an entire estate to entertain yourself with,
thanks to Grandfather. Let it be.”

“You know I can’t do that, Charles. What I have is a house that at present isn’t capable of—”

“Just stay out of it, damn you.”

“And if I don’t?”

“Don’t cross me on this, Leo.” Charles stood up and shook out his rumpled coat. The soft pile was smashed askew, making it
dull and rough. He turned to go, but stopped before stepping away from the table. “That money is there for the taking, and
I mean to have it. Neither you nor that whore is going to stop me.”

Leo watched his cousin go with a sour taste in his mouth. He’d seen Charles work himself up about things in the past, but
this cold fanaticism was something new. There was no hope of him seeing reason. Charles was beyond that now.

It wasn’t just about the money. Leo turned his cup between his fingers, absently studying the blue transfer pattern of birds
and teahouses, wishing he
could
simply
let it go. Dyrham Hall was small, barely more than a house and a few acres of pasture, but it was also beloved, a love he
and his grandfather had shared, along with their passion for horses and hunting.

The estate was simply too small to support itself, let alone support the care of the hunters who were its reason for existence.
If Leo wanted to live there, to make a life there, he was going to need money. Quite a lot of money, actually. Far more than
his younger son’s portion.

Besides, whatever else Mrs. Whedon might deserve, she didn’t deserve Charles. Especially in his present mood. No one did.

Leo was pulled from his introspection as his friends, Sandison in the fore, descended upon him. Most of them had been friends
since they were boys, all except Dominic de Moulines. The Frenchman—bastard son of a French comte and his island mistress—had
been inducted into the League when he’d come to London to give a fencing demonstration.

Roland Devere pulled a handkerchief from the pocket of his tobine coat and mopped up the table, fastidiously careful to keep
his cuffs clean, before sitting down. Sandison simply sprawled at his leisure, prematurely silver hair swinging loose, looking
very much as though he’d slept in his coat. Knowing Sandison, he probably had, if he’d slept at all. The others took the remaining
empty seats and stared at Leo expectantly.