“It seems to me, Miss Greentree, that you have already captured his interest.”
“But I don’t know how to use that interest to my best advantage. How to…to…make him stop!”
Aphrodite laughed. “You mean how to keep him at arm’s length until you are ready to submit to him?”
“Yes. And once I do submit, I need to know how to hold on to his interest. To hold on to it, Madame, until he agrees to my terms.” She sighed. “You see, I am very ignorant of such things.”
“Naturally you are, mon chou. Respectable society does not teach its daughters the perils of desire. They prefer them to be naïve and pure and dependent, and so they must be ignorant.”
Vivianna watched her, considering her words. It was something she had often thought about herself, but to hear Aphrodite say it was a revelation. Had she more in common with a famous courtesan than her own peers?
Aphrodite fiddled with the gold mesh bracelet that circled her wrist, turning the catch around and around. “You must care very much about your orphans, Miss Greentree, to sacrifice yourself like this. Or perhaps it is not such a sacrifice?”
Her glance was arch, and Vivianna supposed she should act the part of the indignant virgin, but she was too honest to prevaricate. When Oliver looked at her, when he touched her, she felt pleasure she had never known before. Why should she pretend she did not?
It was as if Aphrodite read her thoughts in her face. “You realize that if you are discovered you will be ruined in the eyes of the world you live in? Gentlemen may enjoy visiting my house, but they would not like the thought of a prospective wife visiting it also, for whatever reason. And if they knew you were planning to use your body to ensnare Lord Montegomery, they would close their doors to you forever.”
“I know this. I will not be discovered. Besides, I want to know what it is like to…to be with a man like Oliver, and I do not want to marry him. I have seen enough of marriage to know it is often not the best life for a woman. I am content to remain a spinster.”
“Marriage is a comfortable jail cell, oui? It can be so. It can also be very happy, Miss Greentree. You are young. Do not close all those doors just yet, not until you are certain of the direction you wish to take.” Aphrodite waited a moment, and then she smiled. “Yes, I will help you, but only if you will do me a favor in return.”
Vivianna’s eyes widened in surprise. “Yes?”
“Tell me…why do you feel so passionately about your home for orphans? I do not believe it is simply the wish that gentlewomen often have to help those less fortunate than themselves. Charity, psht! This is something more, something close to your heart. It shines in your eyes, mon chou.”
Vivianna had not intended to become so intimate with the courtesan, but she realized that to keep such a distance now would be insulting to Aphrodite, and unrealistic. Besides, how could the tragic story of Vivianna’s childhood matter to Aphrodite?
“Very well—it is no secret, although it is so long ago I think most of the Greentree family and their friends have forgotten it. I am one of them now, and I am happy to be so.” But she settled herself on the edge of her seat and prepared her words.
“The truth is, I do not know who I am. I and my two sisters were abandoned as children and Lady Greentree found us and took us in. She was a widow with no children of her own, and I could not have asked for a kinder, dearer mother. But despite my good luck, or perhaps because of it, I have always
felt a closeness to children like myself. Abandoned. Alone. I want to help them, and the Shelter for Poor Orphans is my way of doing so. It is my passion, you are right, and I would do anything to save it.”
And to make Oliver yours, just a little, a voice inside her head mocked. You would like him to look at you as if you were the only thing in the world worth having. Wouldn’t you?
Vivianna cleared her throat and thrust her thoughts away, back into the shadows where they belonged. She felt as if she were on the verge of making new discoveries about herself, and she wasn’t sure if she would like them, or the person she may well become.
Aphrodite was sitting with her head bowed, turning her gold mesh bracelet. After a moment she rose to her feet, moving gracefully to the table which held the decanter and glasses. She poured herself a drink, the lip of the decanter rattling against the crystal glass. Her hands are shaking, Vivianna thought.
“I can see why you are drawn to help others, Miss Greentree,” Aphrodite said, her back to Vivianna. “Tell me, how old were you when you were abandoned?”
“I was six years old, I think.”
A clock on the mantelpiece ticked off the seconds; outside in the garden a sparrow flitted from branch to branch, finding insects. Time stretched on, and Vivianna became uneasy. Still, Aphrodite did not turn.
“Will you help me to persuade Oliver?” she finally asked. “I understand it is an imposition, and yet…I think you will help me.”
At last Aphrodite faced her, her dark eyes were shining with what could be tears. Clearly the story had moved her far more than Vivianna had thought it would, and relief swelled within her. For all her cool sophistication Aphrodite had a tender heart, or perhaps there was something similar in the other woman’s past. Perhaps as a child she, too, had been left, or her parents killed by the Revolution.
“Yes,” Aphrodite said, her voice husky with emotion, “I will help you, Miss Greentree. It is not an imposition, and although I have no scruples about such things, I have another condition. I will not send you to Oliver Montegomery to have your heart broken. Do you understand that? If you are ever in danger of falling in love with him, of losing sight of your true aim in all of this, then you must desist. Is that understood?”
Vivianna nodded with what she hoped was more certainty than she felt. “Of course. You may be sure I will never fall in love with a man like Oliver Montegomery.”
The words seemed to hang in the air between them—tempting fate, Vivianna thought, with a shiver.
“Return tomorrow morning at eleven, mon chou, and we will see what can be done.”
“Thank you.” Vivianna rose to her feet.