The Veiled Heart (The Velvet Basement Book 1) (2 page)

“No,” she croaked defiantly while her defenses crumbled.

His face lost its smile.

“Be reasonable, madam; one is all I need.” His hand reached out to the box still on the counter and the angel, God bless her, slapped it away.

“No.” Miriam’s voice was clearer now and projected assuredly even as her limbs trembled. One second after another gave her the time to collect her composure.

He looked at her.

Looked as if he could see right into her, as if he could see past the veil that guarded her from sight.

She looked right back.

Looked into those blue pools of light as if they held salvation, but they didn’t; nothing could hold that.

Neither of them said anything.

A cough came from somewhere in the shop, some soft talking, and the sound of one of the cabinets opening.

Then he stepped back and raised his hands, palms forward in a signal of surrender.

“As you wish.”

A surprisingly civil response. As though he understood.

Understood defiance was the very foundation that held her up.

Did he instinctively know that any other answer would undo her? That ‘no’ was what she needed to say, had needed to say and never could? Never did?

A cool reserve dropped in front of those blue eyes as he pulled on his gloves. Then turned and left in a handful of long sure strides.

She was forgotten.

As inconsequential as a wife to an indifferent husband.

That she was considered the beauty of the season at her come out had never mattered. Five-foot-five, hourglass figure, alabaster skin, eyes the color of dew-scattered violets. Her heart-shaped face was framed with hair that was as straight, shiny, and thick as a bolt of black satin.

None of that had made a single bit of difference to what her husband found pleasure in.

Men of all ranks had lined up in front of her; in the end filial duty was what made the ultimate choice. The family estate was resurrected and she was left with the reality.

Oh yes, she had long ago mastered belittling sensations. It came right after she had mastered self-pity and bitter disappointment.

Accepting the way things were had seemed better than the alternative.

However, that was the old Miriam.

She took a deep breath and lifted her head.

She was making changes.

Payment to the angel was swift; and after a quick ascent and the address of the next stop given to her cab driver, her heart finally slowed down to something resembling Big Ben as it chimed the hour across the city.

She hadn’t remembered that blue water for a long time.

The way it washed away the heat of her pain, had cloaked her like a satin skin. The gentle water had slipped between her legs with an equanimity that reminded the rest of her body there was nothing special there to guard. It had stung her scratches and raw surfaces, and yet simultaneously caressed the beaten flesh, nonjudgmental and accepting.

Sweat beaded Lord Worthington’s forehead and his heart pounded harder than the pistons of a steam engine. She was the exact build of his most ardent fantasy, slim, below average height with full hips and breasts. Enough of her neck was on display between her collar and veil to see impossibly pale skin. A wonderful milk white that would make his hand look like a sun browned savage at every caress. She was literally perfect, so perfect his body was acting as though he had done a hundred yard sprint.

Those things alone would’ve attracted him, but there was more; she was crowned with thick, inky black hair. Its luster, even partially hidden, gleamed like glossy oriental lacquer. He wanted to pull the pins out, push his face into the satin mass of it, and just breathe in the scent of her.

An Achilles heel combination, a combination he’d spent his adult life chasing.

Worthington placed his hat on his head and raised his hand.

Shops all along the street were closed. On the sidewalk, pedestrians hurried past with brown paper parcels tied with string securely tucked under their arms.

Across the road, a cabbie saw his signal and jumped down to open the carriage door as he crossed the cobblestones glinting with the sheen of gaslights.

He held the doorframe and started to step up, the glass in the carriage door reflected the bookshop entrance.

He stilled.

Heading home would be the smart thing to do, the rational thing to do. He could think of a hundred reasons why he shouldn’t follow her.

Still he didn’t move into the cab.

The cabbie stood waiting for his direction.

As he watched the reflections in the glass, the shop door opened. His fingers tightened on the frame.

She stepped out with the ridiculous box of sheaths, gave a furtive look left and right, and then slipped into an older-styled carriage. The kind that would have belonged to an aristocratic family, and then sold on. It was an older version of a Clarence, fully enclosed, front and back benches, with curtains on the windows. A few of them were still in operation, sold by changes in fortune, and now presented for lower-end service or for train station pick-ups and drop-offs.

He shook his head.

What had she been thinking, traveling in it with no companion? She should be in her own carriage where loyal staff would keep their mouths shut and ensure she stayed safe.

Safety, it seemed, was a highly overlooked freedom.

“Follow that cab,” he said and nodded in the direction of her carriage, “but stay back.”

“Yes, sir.” No hesitation and certainly no questions.

He sat in the cab and held the side strap as it jerked forward and clipped along the street.

They only traveled a few blocks yet far enough away from the affluence of Bond Street to make him a little wary when they stopped.

Worthington stepped out and looked around. Wagons were being unloaded of their goods. Sacks and barrels passed down into cellars below. Activities often difficult to achieve during the day.

“It’s stopped up ahead, sir. Do you want me to head closer?”

“No, wait here.”

He moved along the street. Workmen were doing an honest job. Women in less demanding positions were selling wares off carts, trays, and out of baskets. People were buying, haggling over price. Decent people about made him happier.

Up ahead, his veiled woman stepped out of the carriage, back stiff, head up, and marched straight into a small door no respectable woman should know existed let alone their hours of business.

The Tom Cat was a notorious brothel for middle-class gentlemen with an illicit shop in its basement.

His instincts told him to follow her in; but that would trigger another confrontation. He needed a different way to meet her.

“Hungry, mister? Pastries, three pence.”

Next to him, a young girl stood holding a pastry. A very young girl, four perhaps, much too small to be walking up to strange men. Looking down the sidewalk to a small cluster of vendors selling to the night crowd, he saw her mother with a tray, the straps running over her shoulders and around the back of her neck.

“Did you make them yourself?”

She shook her head.

“Did your mother make them?”

She nodded.

He reached into his pocket.

“Three pence?”

She nodded again.

He squatted down to her eye level.

“Here you go.”

She took the money and her eyes darted to the pasty and away before she held it out to him on its paper serviette.

When was the last time he’d truly been hungry? At this girl’s age, he’d have been fed and been told it was time for bed. A warm house, clean sheets, and his own room. This little one’s work was just starting. They wouldn’t go home until the tray was sold.

“I tell you what. I want you to try it for me first, make sure it’s not too hot. Can you do that?”

She looked over to her mother who gave a strained smile. The kind of smile a woman who works too much and has no choice gives to the world.

Worthington motioned to the pastry and the little girl in question. The woman’s face held a touch of a scowl then she gave a closed-mouth nod.

“Better make sure it isn’t too hot then.” It would be lukewarm at best, but she removed the paper, gripped it in unquestionable ownership in her small fingers, and blew on it. “Good girl.”

She took a large bite, her little cheeks pushed out on either side.

“Taste good?”

She gave a solemn nod.

“You better finish it for me then, sweetheart.”

The hungry little kitten said something that resembled thank you spoken with a very full mouth.

His hand reached out and ruffled her hair before she ran back to her mother. He looked over; her mother seemed pleased enough when the money passed up into her hand. If he thought it would make a difference, he’d buy the full tray to give them a night off. But this early, his money would be spent at the tavern or another tray baked and back out on the street.

He tipped his hat, and then moved back next to a well-ordered wall of ale barrels giving the air a woody yeasty smell.

What was taking her so long? When they’d been in The Velvet Basement together, she had concluded her business very quickly. Even with a customer or two in front of her, she should have come out by now.

A middle-aged man walked to the door looked around and entered.

The muscles in his chest started to tighten and he pushed away from the wall.

What was she doing heading into establishments like this? Didn’t she have a husband, family, even staff who would want to see her safe? Clearly, from the way she walked in brazen as you like, this was not her first foray into the night. He didn’t even know her and he was worried for her, and so he should. The fact was that he was a gentleman, quite well behaved, all things considered, and he was following her. She had walked into The Velvet Basement and become fair game. No surprise what any patrons of The Tom Cat would think or be prepared to do given the delightful package of feminine mystery she presented.

A few minutes later, a second man walked up to the door and with unconcerned ease also entered.

His limbs were restless, so he started to pace back and forth, to shake out the tension.

By the time the third man entered The Tom Cat, he was about to throw plans to the wind and head in himself. The thought of her down in the seedy shop with a group of men made his hands fist and uncurl repeatedly.

The door opened from the inside.

Worthington stepped toward the road.

Then out she came. The heat that blasted him earlier resurfaced and washed through his body along with an ocean of relief.

She looked up, a mystery of black lace.

A shaft of hot awareness slammed full force into his chest as their gaze met.

Even fifteen paces away, he in the shadows, an electric current connected them. It charged through him in an inexplicable thrust of excitement.

When was the last time a woman, face unseen, set him alight?

Never.

She stiffened her delightful hourglass frame and swished to her carriage. Her hips swayed under all that gabardine and stirred his tension into a delicious turmoil.

A smile tugged at his lips. She may be playing cool, but there was fire under that frock for him, whether she knew it or not.

In a few swift strides, he returned to his cab.

“Same as before, lad.” The cabbie nodded and after he closed the carriage door, they moved swiftly after her.

All he needed was one more stop and he would meet her tonight.

It had been him.

Blue-eyes. Standing in the shadows.

She’d turned to him like a compass moves to north. And that internal tremor he’d started in The Velvet Basement rippled again in her body.

Now at the next stop, Miriam stood on the sidewalk and scanned the shadows. Nothing. He wasn’t here. Next to her, the gas streetlamp hissed, spluttered, and flickered its struggle to stay alight into the night like a Morse code.

It was understandable. He could have gone to any number of other shops for his sheath.

Still, something inside her had already grasped on to an improbable connection. The preposterous feeling that he was hers. That he should have been there no matter where she went in the city.

Nevertheless, he wasn’t hers. And she didn’t want any man to be that. Did she?

She should have greater surety in her decision to be alone. At the start of the evening that would have been the case. Yet here she was, disappointed he was not there and wanting something she didn’t dare name.

Miriam gave the cab driver directions home and stepped into the carriage.

The vehicle lurched forward.

A sound like grinding bones rumbled through the cabin of the carriage, and then immediately changed to a shrill scream of metal dragging against metal.

The horses whinnied and jostled, jerking the carriage over to the right and then back again. The cabbie shouted to them, his boots loud slaps on the platform. The cab drew to a bouncing stop.

A rapid succession of colorful phrases came from outside before the driver opened the door.

“Trouble with the wheel, m’lady.”

Miriam moved to get out. The cabbie raised his hand and yet dipped his head in deference at the same time.

“Best you stay inside, m’lady. We don’t want everyone to know I have someone of means in ’ere.”

“Do you know what’s wrong? Can it be fixed?”

“Not sure. Best you draw the curtains.”

Miriam sat back down unable to do more than wait for the problem to be resolved.

He closed the door.

After the vehicle was pushed with some frequency and what sounded like kicked, the driver stuck his head in again to announce that he would try to find her another cab. They’d need someone to come fix the carriage.

Well, that could be a challenge. She wasn’t in the part of town where fares were to be had on a regular basis. And walking would be impossible with all her boxes of sheaths.

Anyway, Aunt D would be the only one to worry about her absence, and she would be asleep by now. Remaining in the cab was the better decision.

Miriam pulled the curtains. The interior was clean and serviceable despite the daily use. Small candle sconces on the front wall of the cabin washed the space in an amber glow. They created shadows that bounced around in animation at the horses’ restless movements. Nevertheless, they shed enough light to allow her to begin her task.

She picked up one of the boxes of sheaths and placed it on her lap. It was the one from the first shop, the one on Bond Street. Her fingers ran over the packets.

He’d looked through this one. Touched the same packets.

Argh, she was like some hopeless schoolgirl twittering over a man she didn’t know, would never meet, and really didn’t want to.

She flipped through the sheaths, nothing. Picked them up and looked into their folded packages, lifted each sheath out and replaced it and still nothing. That was odd. She then proceeded to do the same to all the boxes she’d bought that night. Nothing.

Well, it didn’t require a great deal of astute investigation to realize her sheaths lacked one fundamental element. One that was unfortunately a nonnegotiable part of her plan.

Detailed instructions.

The third pass through every packet in the six boxes confirmed the fact. She had the sheaths but absolutely no idea how they should be used.

Yes, of course, she knew what they were designed to go on top of, but the details?

How was she going to educate prostitutes on the use of them if she didn’t know more than the rudimentary points herself?

What product was sold without comprehensive instructions? For heaven’s sake, you could buy a bag of marbles and get instructions –
do not swallow
. Where was that instruction on her sheath, it was a conceivable situation.

The benefits were easy to understand, barriers to disease and pregnancy; yet how exactly did one manage one’s sheath? Did each customer get one? Could you use them more than once? How did you know when it was functional and when it was no longer safe to use? Were all of them operational and effective? How would one test for defects?

These were, in fact, fundamental questions.

When she offered sheaths to the women engaged in prostitution, she could not expect each one of them to be familiar with them, their use, and maintenance. She, Lady Miriam Rothbury, would be expected to provide the details as she handed them out.

A tight band constricted her chest.

She would have to go back into one of those shops and ask. It was beyond imagining.

Perhaps, the angel at the first shop? That would mean a return trip tomorrow night, leaving her with very little time to prepare. Would she make it in time for her meeting? She’d already paid the brothel to have time with all the girls. There was no way to change that as it had taken a great deal of money waving and debate to get the madam to agree to have all her girls available at the same time.

The band around her chest got tighter. This was not as simple as she had thought.

Outside, an authoritative voice cut through the murmurs.

Instinctively, she put the boxes to the side and threw her shawl over them.

The carriage door opened and a wash of cooler air floated in.

“There’s someone ’ere, m’lady. A gentleman who says he can fix the problem if we give him a ride home?” The driver looked at her with hope. It may be his vehicle but she was his charge, it would be up to her; and obviously, at this time of the night the offer was of genuine interest.

“A gentleman you say?” It seemed unlikely. A man with a modicum of language and confidence could pass as a gentleman in this part of town.

“Yes, ma’am.”

What were the options? Sit here all night, or give a man a ride?

That day on the beach, she’d let the Greek fisherman who pulled her out of the water ride her as she lay there wondering if her husband was still asleep or if he could see her from the yacht. The Greek had been young, bronzed, and energetic. She’d wanted to feel passion, had been open to any touch that was remotely appreciative. Yet, she’d felt nothing.

Her husband had long since ensured she was desensitized.

A thoroughbred may shy at shadows, but it would withstand the grandest of beatings without running away. And if nothing else, she had been brought up a thoroughbred.

Her husband hadn’t slept with her since that trip.

He’d fallen overboard three days later as she lay below decks, too bloody to know if there was a world that did not hold pain at its center.

There were rumors.

The crew was outraged, they’d said, at the beautiful young wife’s beatings.

In reality, the brother of a prostitute her husband had disfigured came onboard. Neither she nor the crew mentioned it to the investigating authority.

Natural justice.

Greeks. They were a passionate lot.

She owed them everything.

Four celibate years later, she spent his money on women of the night and their plight.

An atonement of sorts.

A large square hand pushed the driver out of the cab’s door and there he was.

Blue-eyes.

Her breath stopped.

Was it only a few hours ago that she had seen him for the first time? It felt like a lifetime. Like they had met somewhere in that blue ocean when she’d abandoned herself body and soul to her fate. Or was it long, long before that, those eyes that spoke to her heart?

“I’ll speak with the lady direct.” He didn’t look at the driver as his voice rang out clean and sure. Certain the driver would leave and he did, allowing them to be alone to make their bargain.

Waves of the most delicious anticipation washed over her.

“My driver tells me you need transport home?” Her heart pounded hard.

Blue-eyes laughed; a sound thick as a viscous port. It slid down her insides, rich and heavy, bursting with the sweetness of caramelized raisins.

Oh, he was a feast, there was no doubt about that; and if she was honest, she was a woman starving.

In fact, she hadn’t eaten in years, centuries.

Ever.

She smoothed down her skirt and made herself keep eye contact as large hands held both sides of the carriage doorframe and he stepped inside. His weight dipped her and the cabin slightly toward him before righting as he sat across from her. A palpable awareness slipped under her skirts and meandered its way over every limb.

“I think you know what I want, Lily.” He looked at her with the full power of his charm.

Her eyebrows lifted. But of course, he wouldn’t see them under the heavy lace covering her face.

A barrier that made her brave enough to play.

“Oh? No luck anywhere else?”

Her hand stretched to the boxes of sheaths and pulled off the shawl covering them. She had six large boxes. There wasn’t a single sheath left in any of the shops she’d visited.

He laughed aloud with no modesty at all.

She thought it was his retort until the laughter continued.

No, he obviously thought her a joke.

Color burnt her face, but the low light protected her annoyance as she rallied her voice into action.

“You don’t want one of these?”

He leaned back against the leather seat and nodded as he looked at her with a smile that was now infuriating.

“Yes. However, do you mind if I ask why so many? You realize London now has dozens of frustrated men due to your single-minded purchasing power tonight.”

She straightened her back and put forward her most regal voice.

“Can you fix the cab or not?” Authority. Power was a tool. A baton in the battle of the sexes.

“You mean the wheel? Yes.” He was unconcerned.

“A wheelwright?”

He shrugged. “A mechanic of sorts, but I’m sure I’ll manage.”

“And your price is one of these?” Her hand tapped the boxes as if they were the treasures of Alibaba.

That damn smile again, it wilted her whip and made her want to loosen hooks and eyelets.

“Well, I think perhaps a couple would do for the task. They were only ten pence each and the job here would be worth more than that.”

“You seem to need one of these enough to visit a few shops and clearly have no means to acquire one as I have cornered the market. That in my experience makes them worth more than market price.”

He smiled again and something in her lower body buzzed as if a hive of bees had taken residence and were now making honey.

And, in fact, they were.

Warmth, thick and delicious, rolled through her.

And those blue eyes. They gave her a strange achy feel in the very center of her chest.

It was a feeling from long ago. Before she’d wed.

Younger. Much younger.

A time when the sight of a boy at the cricket stumps made her giggle and laugh. Made her whisper to her best friend. That first kiss in the boat shed was hot and yet sweet. It had made her skin tingle as if there was some magic in the way their tongues had touched.

He’d pulled her aside, stroked her hair, kissed her cheeks, and asked for a token. Then there were shouts from the field up the rise and they all left quickly. The boys had walked back to the house like giants; and she, linked arm in arm with her girlfriend, had felt as if life was a song whose words they didn’t yet know.

Perhaps, that was still true.

Her body felt tuned and tight. Strung and stretched for the first time since her marriage.

This was her chance.

A stranger, a man who made her feel, really feel for the first time since forever. If she was brave enough, she could give her body a different memory.

“I’ll give you three, but there is a condition.” She didn’t know where the courage came from.

Her throat was tight, her lips dry.

His head cocked to the side and a warm rush ran up her legs, a summer breeze warm with long ago hopes and dreams.

“Very well.” His voice was firm and clear.

“You don’t want to know what the condition is?” Her breathing was irregular and tight.

He reached over to the box and started searching through it.

“Lily, we are talking about ten pence; what could you ask?”

“Lily?” Had he mistaken her for someone else?

He looked up from the box. His eyes creased at the corner and he grinned as if he was pleased with himself.

“Lily of the Valley.”

Her lips pulled into a smile even before she could control them. Something about the ease he had about him and his place in the world, here in the carriage, and even in the shop made her feel wistful. She hadn’t felt that since she was a girl.

He resumed his search through the boxes. He was very particular about what he was looking for.

“You seem to know your sheaths.”

His reply was noncommittal.

After some time, he selected the sheaths, set them aside, and leveled his devastatingly blue gaze at her.

“So, Lily, what are your terms?”

Her own heat made every stitch of fabric stick to her skin. Damn it, she needed to breathe, why wasn’t there enough air in the carriage all of a sudden?

She took the leap.

“I want you to demonstrate how the sheaths are used, with me.”

Breathe.

Her body was a total stranger, flooded by the thumping beat of her heart. It pounded so loudly she could hardly hear her own words.

His eyebrows drew down, the air between them tight as those ocean blue eyes locked on her with blazing intent.

“Lily?”

She nodded. “How they are used.”

His face didn’t change.

She took a deep breath in. “Demonstrate. With me.”

Breathe.

“In the carriage. Right now.”