Perhaps he was as dissipated and jaded as Vanessa thought him. By choice he was a devoted pleasure seeker, not an unusual pastime for an idle, rich nobleman. Admittedly, he was a profligate man. But these prurient amusements were becoming less and less appealing.
His dissatisfaction must have shown on his face, for a moment later his host, Jeremy North, Lord Clune, sat down beside him.
“You don’t appear to be enjoying the entertainment, my friend.”
“On the contrary,” Damien lied. “I’m fascinated by the slender redhead with the beauty mark on her thigh.”
Clune’s mouth curved in amusement. “You show excellent taste, as usual. She is imported from France-the daughter of an aristocrat fallen on hard times during their hideous revolution. Speaks only a few words of English, but her talents are amazing.”
Damien feigned a smile. “High praise, coming from a man dedicated to debauchery.”
“Indeed. What is this I hear about the new beauty you have in your keeping?” Clune asked.
“Beauty?”
“A widow, I’m given to understand. Rumor is that you’ve actually ensconced her at your own estate. A bold move, even for you. Do you mean to share her with your friends, or will you selfishly keep her all to yourself?”
Damien exhaled a slow breath, troubled by the mistaken conjecture that Vanessa was in the same category as his usual mistresses. Just as troubling was the shaft of fierce jealousy he felt at the thought of sharing Vanessa with other men. Jealousy was a foreign notion to him-or it had been, until her.
“I fear your assumption is off the mark, Chine,” he said casually. “The lady is employed as my sister’s chaperon, nothing more.”
Clune looked somewhat skeptical but didn’t challenge the lie. Instead he lifted a hand and beckoned to the red-haired dancer upon the stage.
Damien surveyed her as she floated down the stairs to stand before him. Her eyes were huge but glazed. No doubt she was drugged with an opiate to make her task of welcoming the wicked perversions of a dozen gentlemen more palatable.
Damien frowned, realizing she was younger than he had first assumed. “Have you sunk to robbing the cradle, Jeremy?” he queried with a raised eyebrow.
His friend shrugged. “She is eighteen, or so she says. I’m not taking unfair advantage, I assure you. She is being well paid for her efforts, enough to keep her in comfort for a year. And if I hadn’t found her, someone else would have.”
Eighteen was his own sister’s age, Damien realized grimly as the girl settled on his lap with a dreamlike smile.
When she parted the diaphanous robe and lifted her peaked nipples to his mouth, his host politely rose. “I shall leave you to your pleasures then.”
The beauty rubbed the taut buds teasingly against Damien’s mouth. She tasted sweetly of wine, yet rather than becoming aroused, he had to steel himself against a strange and sudden aversion.
Instead of showing his distaste, though, or denouncing Clune for being a less than satisfactory host, Damien came to an abrupt decision and lifted the girl in his arms. Leaving the entertainment behind, he carried her upstairs to his bedchamber.
She was half-asleep even before he laid her on the bed, yet she roused herself to give him a confused look when he covered her near nakedness with a quilt and stepped back.
His Hellfire colleagues would be astounded to see him rejecting such beauty, but he had discovered new limits to his debauchery. He couldn’t take advantage of this girl. Instead, when he left, he would send her to London and order his secretary to see what could be done to find her a different sort of employment.
“Go to sleep, sweetheart,” Damien murmured, keenly aware of the irony of his action: Lord Sin made an unlikely savior of feminine virtue.
He turned away, realizing another unsavory truth. Before his sister’s accident, he would never have been so concerned with the fate of a young girl.
The afternoon air smelled of summer roses but was fraught with tension. With grave misgivings Vanessa watched her brother’s approach along the garden path. She felt like the veriest traitor. She had agreed to act as chaperon for Olivia, yet she wondered if she was making a grievous mistake.
From the bottom of her heart she wanted only what was best for the girl. But even revenge, however ugly its beginnings, might not be such a bad thing if it gave Olivia a purpose in life, if it made her keep fighting rather than giving up in despair.
Praying she wasn’t in error, Vanessa held her breath as Aubrey came to a halt in front of the invalid. Olivia sat cool as marble in her chair, her blue eyes unreadable. Only Vanessa knew how much of her indifference was pretense.
The former lovers stared at each other for a long moment, before Aubrey went down on one knee and whispered Olivia’s name.
Vanessa averted her gaze from the anguished emotion on his face, feeling suddenly superfluous in the rose-scented garden.
Aubrey came several more times that week, blending well into the garden landscape, like any scholar there to study the famous roses. Olivia showed no signs of relenting in her desire for retribution, though, and whatever conversation took place between them was mostly one-sided. She was the ice princess, Aubrey a meek supplicant for her favors. Yet he seemed to accept her coldness as fitting punishment, much like wearing a hair shirt-an uncharacteristic humbleness that shocked Vanessa more than a little.
On his second visit he brought a volume of poetry, which he read aloud. Only by the faraway look in her eyes did Olivia give any indication she was even listening.
Vanessa felt highly uncomfortable with the state of affairs, and with her role in arranging their clandestine visits. She shuddered to think how Damien would react. He would be furious, perhaps enough to call Aubrey out. And he would despise her, as well, for aiding in the deception.
She seriously debated whether to tell him, but that would mean betraying Olivia’s confidence. Too, it would end any possibility Aubrey had of earning the girl’s forgiveness. And when Damien did return to Rosewood at midweek, any semblance of rational thought fled the moment Vanessa saw him.
She was in the music room, attempting to learn a difficult piece on the pianoforte, when he suddenly appeared in the doorway. Vanessa looked up, her gaze colliding with his.
Yearning sprang up in her instantly, and she had to struggle to maintain an appearance of composure.
“I thought you were my sister,” Damien said calmly, giving no sign that he had missed her in the least during his nearly weeklong absence.
“Olivia is in her room reading, I believe,” she replied, adapting his same coolness of manner.
“I trust everything is well with her?”
Vanessa hesitated, but then let the opportunity pass to divulge the truth about her brother’s secret visits. It was better, she hoped, to let Olivia resolve her problems in her own way. “She’s well enough.”
“I’ll go directly to see her.” Damien started to turn away but then paused. “Shall we leave at nine following dinner, then?”
“Leave?”
“The Foxmoor ball is this evening, or had you forgotten?”
“No, but I’m not certain it would be wise for me to attend.” Briefly Vanessa told him about the chill reception she’d received at church from his genteel neighbors.
A muscle hardened in his jaw. “All the more reason to go. It is never judicious to allow your actions to be dictated by others, most especially by a pack of prudish social wolves.”
Vanessa looked down at the piano keys. “It is all well and good for a nobleman of wealth and consequence to flout convention, but a lady of limited means has fewer resources to help her weather censure.”
“I would never have thought you craven, angel.” When she glanced up, Damien smiled almost tauntingly. “You yourself told my sister not to cower under the covers. Is that not what you are doing?”