“Grant,” she said breathlessly, while her heart raced in an uneven canter. A few books cascaded from her overburdened arms. “I-I found these…I remember reading some of them…You can’t imagine how it feels.” A wild, frustrated laugh escaped her. “Oh, why can’t I remember more? If only—”
“Vivien,” he said quietly, his smile fading. He reached her in three strides, helping to steady the jostling pile in her overburdened arms. As Vivien read the frown of concern on his face, she knew that she must appear half mad. More words bubbled to her lips, but he hushed her gently.
“Let me,” he said, taking the mass of heavy volumes out of her unsteady grip. He set them on a nearby table and turned to her. Clasping her shoulders in his large hands, he eased her against his body. He held her in a reassuring embrace, his hand smoothing over the back of the velvet gown and lightly rubbing the lowest point of her spine. As he spoke, his breath stirred the fine hairs at her temple. “Tell me what you remember.”
Vivien shivered at the pleasure of being in his arms. “I know I’ve read some of these books before, with someone I was very fond of. I can’t see his face, or hear his voice…It seems the harder I try, the farther it slips away.”
“You’ve read these books?” Grant asked dubiously, glancing at the ungainly pile beside them.
Vivien nodded against his chest. “I can even recite a passage or two.”
“Hmm.”
Perplexed by his noncommittal grunt, she glanced at his skeptical face. “Why do you say ‘hmm’ like that? Don’t you believe me?”
She was encompassed in his vivid, considering stare. “It’s not in character for you,” he finally said.
“I’m telling you the truth,” she said defensively.
“You’ve read Descartes,” he remarked, every syllable edged with disbelief. “I should like to hear your opinion on Cartesian dualism, then.”
Vivien thought for a long moment, inwardly relieved to discover that she understood the question. “I suppose you’re referring to Mr. Descartes’s theory that spirit and matter are separate entities? That we cannot rely on our senses as the basis of knowledge? I believe he is correct, and I think…” She paused and continued more slowly. “I think the truth is something you recognize with your heart, even when the evidence seems to prove otherwise.”
Though Morgan’s expression gave little away, Vivien sensed that she had surprised him. “It seems I’m harboring a philosopher,” he said, his eyes suddenly glinting with humor. He set the book on the library table and reached for another on the shelf. “Tell me what you make of Locke, then, and his differences with Descartes.”
Vivien took the book from him and spread her small hand on the morocco leather binding. “Mr. Locke argues that the human mind is a blank tablet at birth…doesn’t he?” She glanced at Morgan and received an encouraging nod. “And he claims that knowledge is founded in experience. Thought can only come after we learn through our senses. But I don’t think I agree with him entirely. We are not born blank slates, are we? I think some things must exist in us at birth, before experience begins to work upon us.”
Morgan took the book from her and replaced it on the shelf, and turned back to her. Unaccountably gentle, he tucked a stray wisp of red hair behind her ear. “Can you tell me what other books are familiar to you?”
Vivien went to another set of shelves and began pulling titles from the tidy rows…history, novels, theology, and drama. She began to stack them in a second heap on the table. “I’m positive I’ve read this one, and this, and these…Oh, and this was one of my favorites.”
He smiled at her enthusiasm. “You’re remarkably well read for a woman who never reads.”
“Why would you say such a thing?” she asked in surprise.
“Lord Gerard assured me that you dislike reading.”
“But that can’t be true.”
“You’re a chameleon, Vivien,” he said quietly. “You adapt to the taste of whatever company you find yourself in.”
“Then you’re suggesting that I concealed my enjoyment of reading and pretended to be stupid in order to attract Lord Gerard,” she said.
“You wouldn’t be the first woman to use that ploy. Many men are made uneasy by an intelligent female.”
“Is Lord Gerard that kind of gentleman?” Reading the answer in his face, she sighed heavily. “Every day I learn something new about myself. None of it pleasant.”
As Grant regarded her downcast head, he was assailed by a strange yearning he had never experienced before. He had been so certain of who and what Vivien Rose Duvall was…and she kept confounding him.
His gaze skimmed over her in a thorough survey. The sight of her in the velvet gown, a red so dark it approached black, caused a response that was alarming in its intensity. He had never once allowed himself to imagine that somewhere in the world there might be a woman who was not only beautiful but intelligent, kind, and unaffected. The fact that he seemed to have found her in Vivien was astonishing. He was again uncomfortably aware that if she had not been a courtesan, had he not possessed his prior knowledge of her true character, he would be mad for her.
The neat auburn upsweep of her hair revealed the daintiest pair of ears he had ever seen, a vulnerable neck, a delicate jaw that made his fingers itch to investigate the soft curve. He murmured her name, and she looked up at him with clear, deep blue eyes that contained no hint of guile. Remembering how wickedly seductive her gaze had once been, Grant shook his head.
“What is it?” she asked.
“You have the eyes of an angel.” His gaze searched her face until a tide of pink crept over it.
“Thank you,” she said uncertainly.
Grant took her arm in a gentle grasp. “Come with me.”
As he drew her to a chair by the fire and urged her to sit, Vivien glanced at him warily. “Are you going to question me further?”
“No,” he said, a reluctant smile tugging at his lips. For now, he was going to ignore all the contradictions about Vivien and allow himself to simply enjoy being with her. A beautiful woman, a fire on the hearth, a roomful of books, and a bottle of wine…It might not have been every man’s idea of heaven, but God knew it was his.
Carrying an armload of books to Vivien, he deposited the stack on the floor near her feet. Seeming to understand that he merely wanted to spend some time with her, Vivien began to sort through the pile, while he pulled a bottle of bordeaux from the sideboard and opened it expertly. After filling two glasses, he sat in a chair beside Vivien and handed one to her. He noted that she sipped the wine immediately, without the usual ritual of those accustomed to sampling fine vintages…no swirling of the glass to test the aroma, or the rivulets that the English called “legs” and the French more poetically referred to as “tears.” As a member of the beau monde, Vivien should have been experienced at such a ritual. However, she did not look like a worldly courtesan accustomed to the finer things in life…she looked like a sheltered, naive young woman.
“This gives me hope,” she remarked, picking up the volume at the top of the pile and holding it in her lap. “I know it’s a small thing, to remember reading some of these books…but if this little bit of my memory has come back, then perhaps other things will follow.”
“You said you remembered reading with someone.” Grant drank from his own glass, his gaze remaining on her lovely firelit face. “You referred to that person as a ‘he.’ Any impression of him? Any detail of his appearance or the sound of his voice? Or a place you might have been with him?”
“No.” The soft curves of her mouth became enticingly wistful. “But trying to remember makes me feel…” She paused and stared into the ruby depths of the wine. “Lonely,” she continued with visible effort. “As if I’ve lost something, or someone, that was very dear.”
A lost love, Grant speculated, and experienced a sudden wash of jealousy. Concealing the unwelcome emotion, he stared hard into his own glass.
“Here,” Vivien murmured, ha
nding him the book of Keats. “Won’t you tell me which is your favorite passage?”
Vivien watched Morgan’s bent head as he thumbed through the worn pages. The firelight flickered over his dark hair, making it gleam like ebony. The thick locks were cropped too short, but even so, they contained a hint of curl and wave that intrigued her. He should let them grow longer, she thought, to add a touch of softness around the uncompromising angles of his face.
Her gaze moved to the volume that was nearly engulfed by his long-fingered hand. No sculptor would ever desire to capture the shape of those brutally strong hands in marble…and that was a pity. Vivien thought them a hundred times more attractive than the slender, fine hands of a gentleman. Besides, it wouldn’t seem right for a man built on his impressive scale to have delicate little hands. The thought brought a smile to her face.
Glancing upward, Morgan caught sight of her expression and arched his brow quizzically. “What’s so amusing?”
She pushed herself out of the chair and knelt beside him, her skirts billowing briefly and settling in velvety wine-colored puddles on the floor. For answer, she took one of his hands and measured her own against it, flattening their palms together. His fingers extended well beyond her own meager reach.
“I don’t remember the other gentlemen of my acquaintance,” she said, “but I have no doubt you must be the largest man I have ever met.” Heat collected between their clasped palms, and Vivien snatched her hand away, blotting a faint sheen of moisture on the skirt of her gown. “What is it like to be so tall?” she asked.
“It’s a constant headache,” Morgan answered dryly, setting the book aside. “My head is well acquainted with the top of every doorframe in London.”
Vivien’s smile turned sympathetic. “You must have been a long-legged, gangly child.”
“Like a monkey on stilts,” he agreed, making her laugh.
“Poor Mr. Morgan. Did the other boys tease you?”
“Endlessly. And when I wasn’t trading insults, I was busy fighting. They each wanted to be the one to thrash the largest boy at Lady of Pity.”
“Lady of Pity,” Vivien repeated, the name unfamiliar to her. “Is that a school?”
“Orphanage.” Morgan seemed to regret the revelation as soon as it left his lips. At Vivien’s silence, he threw her an unfathomable glance. For one electric moment, she saw a flash of defiance—or perhaps it was bitterness—smoldering in the depths of smoky green. “I wasn’t always an orphan,” he muttered. “My father was a bookseller, a good man, though damned poor at making business decisions. A few bad loans to friends followed by a year of poor sales landed the entire family in debtor’s prison. And of course, once you go in, you never come out. There is no way for a man to make money to pay his debts once he’s in prison.”
“How old were you?” Vivien asked.
“Nine…ten, perhaps. I don’t remember exactly.”
“What happened?”
“Disease went through the prison. My parents and two sisters died. My younger brother and I lived through it, and were sent to Lady of Pity. After a year I was thrown out to the streets for ‘disrupting internal order.’”
The recitation was matter-of-fact, emotionless, but Vivien sensed the pain and hostility banked beneath his calm facade. “Why?” she murmured.
“My brother, Jack, was small for his age, and somewhat sensitive by nature. The other boys were apt to bully him.”
“And you fought to defend him,” she said.
He nodded briefly. “After a particularly nasty fight, the director of the orphanage reviewed my record, which was filled with words like ‘violent’ and ‘incorrigible.’ It was decided that I posed a hazard to the other children. I found myself outside the orphanage walls with no food or possessions save the clothes on my back. I stayed by the gate for two days and nights, shouting to get back in. I knew what was going to happen to Jack if I weren’t there to protect him. Finally one of the teachers came out and promised me that he would do what was in his power to look after my brother. He advised me to leave and try to make some kind of life for myself. And so I did.”
Vivien tried to imagine him as a boy, young and frightened, torn away from the last living link with his family…forced to make his own way in the world. It would have been so terribly easy for him to turn to crime and violence as a way of life. Instead he had come to serve the society that had victimized him. He made no effort to pose as a hero, however. In fact, he had deliberately painted himself as a self-serving scoundrel who upheld the law only for the profits he made from it. What kind of man would commit himself to helping others while at the same time disclaiming his own good motives?
“Why this?” she asked. “Why become a Bow Street Runner?”
Morgan shrugged, and his mouth twisted cynically. “It comes naturally to me. Who better to understand the criminal element than someone who comes from the streets? I’m a mere step away from being one of them.”
“That’s not true,” she said earnestly.
“It is,” he muttered. “I’m just the other side of the same bad coin.”
In the ensuing silence, Vivien made a project of straightening a stack of books on the floor. She pondered his bleak words, the stillness of his large body, the tension that shredded the air. He seemed as unfeeling and immovable as a block of granite. However, she suspected that his invulnerability was an illusion. He had known so little softness in his life, so little comfort. A powerful urge took hold of her, to reach out and hug him, and pull his dark head to her shoulder. Common sense prevailed, however. He would not want or welcome comfort from her, and she would probably earn a humiliating jeer for her pains. If she was wise, she would let the subject drop for now.
But another question slipped out before she could prevent it. “Where is your brother now?”
Morgan seemed not to hear.
“Where is Jack?” she asked again, kneeling before him, staring into his averted face.
The green eyes shifted, his gaze meeting hers with searing impact.
“Please,” she said softly. “You know the worst about me. Surely you can trust me this far. Tell me.”
Dark color crept over his face. It seemed as if some terrible secret were leaking poison inside him. Just as she thought he would not answer, he spoke in a rusted, halting ramble, so softly that she could not hear some of the words. “I went back for Jack when I was able…had secured a promise of work for him at a fishmonger’s stall where I cleaned and wrapped fish. I knew they would let him leave the orphanage if…some relative were to speak for him. I was nearly fourteen, a man by most standards, ready to take care of him. But when I went to Lady of Pity and asked for Jack…they told me he was gone.”
“Gone?” Vivien repeated. “Had he run away?”
“Smallpox. Half the children in the orphanage had it. Jack died without me there…without anyone who loved him.”
Words failed her. She regarded him sorrowfully, pressing her hand hard against her thigh to keep from touching him.
“And I knew,” he said quietly, “that if I had come sooner…I could have saved him.”
“No,” Vivien replied, shocked. “You mustn’t think of it that way.”
“It’s a fact. There’s no other way to think of it.”
“You’re not being fair to yourself.”
“I failed him,” he said flatly. “That’s all that matters.” He stood in one fluid movement and turned to the fire, staring into the sputtering coals. Snatching up a poker, he jabbed at a log until it erupted into fiery life.
Vivien stood as well, her hands clenched into fists as she stared at his broad, hard back, his dark head silhouetted in fire-glow. Her compassion for him overrode any concerns about her own problems. Morgan had devoted his life to saving others because he hadn’t been able to save his brother. Yet no matter how many times he rescued and helped and served others, he would never be able to absolve himself of his one great failure. He would be haunted by guilt for the rest of his l
ife. Her entire being was filled with one aching wish…that she could find some way to help him. But there was nothing she could do.
Her hand touched his shoulder, lingered, then slid to the hot nape of his neck. His entire body seemed to stiffen at her touch, and she felt the ripple of nerves in his neck. He jerked away with a muffled curse, looking as if she had stabbed him. “No,” he said savagely. “I don’t need pity from a—” He stopped, choking off the rest of the sentence.
The unspoken word floated in the air between them.
Vivien knew perfectly well what he had been about to say, and the hurt of it jolted through her. But why hadn’t he completed the sentence? Why had he reined in his temper in a last-second attempt to spare her feelings? She stared at him curiously, while a feeling of artificial calmness descended on her. “Thank you,” she said with only a slight tremor in her voice. “Thank you for not saying it.”
“Vivien,” he said gruffly, “I—”
“I shouldn’t have asked such personal questions,” she said, clinging to her meager supply of dignity as she began to retreat from the room. “I am very tired, Mr. Morgan. Perhaps I’ll go upstairs and rest.”
She heard him begin to say something else, but she fled the library as quickly as possible, leaving him to his brooding contemplation of the fire.
Morgan left the town house well before supper, while Vivien dined in solitude. She wondered what companions he would seek tonight, if he would lounge in a coffeehouse and take part in some political discussion, or visit his club and play cards while a saucy wench perched on his knee. There would be no shortage of available women for such a man. Morgan had the appearance of a gentleman, but he possessed a hint of street swagger, a combination irresistible to any female. No doubt he had inspired countless fantasies among the women of London, both high and low.