‘Debating the right time to disclose.’
‘Thankful for your friendship that I chose.’ Vivienne offered a gentle smile.
‘Deciding the right time to propose.’ His words were an indistinct murmur.
‘I can’t think of anything to say.’ Sophie stood in a flutter of skirts. ‘All the good rhymes are gone. Let’s play something else.’
‘If you will excuse me.’ Crispin didn’t speak again and left the room directly.
‘Sophie.’ Vivienne rose from the chaise and met Sophie near the window, their faces mirroring an expression of concern.
‘I know.’ Sophie’s shoulders fell in defeat. ‘But there’s no dissuading him.’
‘He’s wonderful.’ Vivienne took a restorative breath and asserted each word. ‘He is a wonderful brother.’
‘Do you think he could be more? I mean if you could just imagine.’ Emotion riddled Sophie’s words. ‘We would be sisters in truth. I’m so torn between protecting my dearest friend and encouraging my loyal brother.’
‘I know. I’m sorry, but I cannot command my heart to feel a certain way and expect results. If that were true so many things would be easier. I would have my life sorted and be happier by half.’ They still held hands and Vivienne gave Sophie’s a squeeze of comfort for of late she didn’t know what she was capable of feeling other than the emptiness left in her life by her mother’s death.
Sophie embraced her and then pulled back with a slight shrug. ‘I understand. I do.’
‘I know you do. We are sisters in every other way. Just don’t encourage Crispin, please. I fear the moment when it must be confronted. I would never wish to hurt his feelings.’ She whispered the words, afraid to evoke the reality by saying them aloud.
‘Do not worry.’ Sophie viewed her with sympathy in her eyes. ‘Crispin is the most valiant gentleman I know. He will accept the news when the time comes. He will do what’s right.’
Dinner at the Chutterlys’ proved pleasant. As a small gathering it offered an ideal opportunity to reintroduce Vivienne to the brisk round of social functions sure to proceed as the season gained momentum. The three friends shared the carriage ride home, replete from a fine meal and congenial evening.
‘Crispin, what I mentioned earlier couldn’t be truer.’ Vivienne watched as he slitted his eyes, his head leaning against the opposite bolster. ‘You are incorrigible.’
‘One look at you across the room and I knew you were up to no good,’ Sophie confirmed.
‘Me? I’m taken aback. I thought you’d appreciate an introduction to Lord Dander.’ He laid his palm across the breast of his coat. ‘It was well done of both of you not to mention his singed eyebrows.’
They shared another laugh and the carriage rolled to a stop shortly after.
‘Shall I accompany you, Vivienne? It’s late and I’m not comfortable with you travelling home alone.’ He flipped his pocket watch open and held it near the brass lantern fixed to the wall. ‘It is late. Half ten. Lord Huntley may be concerned. I should see you home.’
She heard Sophie’s sharp intake of breath though her friend provided no rescue. ‘No, thank you. My stepfather turns in early. Our house is rather quiet these days and I have the family carriage and an additional footman to ride with the driver. Besides, he scarcely knows when I come and go these days.’ She didn’t add that his disinterest was a blessing. ‘As usual you are very thoughtful.’ She smiled, an ache in her chest abloom. Someday her refusal would break Crispin’s heart. She didn’t want to be the cause of his pain.
‘Very well.’ He looked to Sophie who nodded her head in agreement. ‘I have enjoyed this evening, ladies.’ He disembarked and waited outside to hand them down.
‘I’m sorry, Sophie,’ Vivienne whispered across the coach. There wasn’t time to say more, still her dearest friend understood without further explanation.
Vivienne travelled two blocks before she knocked on the ceiling and gave the driver an alternative direction. Under the guise that she intended to see a show on Drury Lane, she allowed the carriage to take her within walking distance of the Underworld. She pulled her wrap around her shoulders, tucked her chin, and fixed her eyes on her slippers as she moved briskly across the cobbles towards St James Square. A solitary lamplighter passed her with a nod while a few couples hurried on their way to unknown destinations, the streets somewhat isolated.
How foolish of her to take the risk. Despite the better neighbourhood, crime lurked in all corners of London and perhaps the affluent show goers offered temptation to thieves and pickpockets rather than a deterrent. A skitter of apprehension akin to reckless disquiet chided her decision to seek out the gaming hell. So much more than simple curiosity prompted the choice. She’d become buried in grief, lost beneath her solemnity and this, wildly throwing caution to the wind and daring to breach a forbidden world, caused her to feel vibrant and alive. Her pulse raced with the idea of it all.
She approached the building, quiet as it stood yesterday morning, but when she reached the stoop she sensed a current of energy emanating from the hell’s interior. It thrived with activity and her pulse kicked up in tempo, her heart quickening as she climbed the stairs. Her hair fell over her shoulders as she straightened her posture and dropped the knocker.
Nothing happened.
Again she tried—convinced behind the panel an entire other world lived, thrived, with Mr Sinclair at the centre, overseer of goings-on and sorely in need of reform. A woman’s laughter reached through the glass of the downstairs window but when she leaned to peer inside nothing could be seen for the thick velvet drapery pulled tight.
‘You can’t enter through the front, Miss V.’
Startled she turned to see Thomas at the foot of the stoop, a pair of dice tossed without care from one hand, his smile as broad as his shoulders.
‘I knew you would come back. I told him so.’
‘Told who, Thomas?’ She descended the steps to return to street level.
‘Shhh. You must call me Ace.’ He glanced left and right as if someone might hear his correction.
‘If no one will answer the front door, how will I get inside?’ She resisted the urge to push back the too-long hair covering his brow, aware the streetwise character he strove to portray would resent the endearing gesture.
‘Go round the side.’ He slanted his head towards the right. ‘This way.’
True to his word Thomas led her around the building and rapped on a tall wooden door, which opened on silent hinges within seconds. She followed him down a long narrow hallway towards another door painted black; though a glow of yellow-white candlelight illuminated its outline. Her heart hammered with an exhilarating combination of apprehension and anticipation. She need only take a few more steps and she would enter the hell, a place forbidden to women of her station. With a glance aside she whispered gratitude to Thomas, only to discover he was gone, the scamp having shown her the way and hied to street level.
She couldn’t go back. Not after reaching this point and besides, Mr Sinclair waited behind that door and she meant to reform him. By some stretch of the imagination she believed she’d make him a better man by ameliorating the error of his ways. Powered by this wild urge, unexplainable but incredibly strong, the cause propelled her feet forward, the need to see him as alive in her as the thrum of the pulse in her ears.
‘Dammit to hell.’ Sinclair looked over the sea of gentleman and lady-birds littering the lower level, his anger palpable. He’d received credible information as to Pimms’