Lessons in Seduction (Greentree Sisters 1)

Vivianna watched him suspiciously. “Of course, the main thing we supply to the children, apart from education and good food and a safe place to live, is affection. Some of them have never been loved in all their lives, my lord. Can you imagine how that must feel? To be lacking in something so simple and yet so important as love?”

“Well…” He could not remember his father paying him any particular attention. He had been pushed off onto nannies and tutors until he went to school. Had he suffered particularly? He didn’t think so—he hadn’t expected any differently—or perhaps he had been a resilient child. But he had a feeling if he explained all that to Vivianna she would see it differently.

“We only have a small number of children at the moment, but we hope that as time goes on we will gather in more. Of course, we will need many generous donations from people who feel as we do. For now a roof over their heads is the most important thing.”

Oliver supposed that he was meant to say that, naturally, they could keep Candlewood, and with his goodwill. But he didn’t. He couldn’t. Candlewood needed to come down—Lord Lawson had to believe it was so. The demolition of Candlewood was pivotal to his plan to trap Anthony’s killer. He had offered to rehouse the orphans in Bethnal Green. Why couldn’t they accept that his position was nonnegotiable?

As he stepped through the doorway, his gaze fell upon the place where his brother’s body had lain, lifeless, at the bottom of the stairs. And for a moment Oliver could not breathe.

It hadn’t bothered him so much when he visited the other times. He hadn’t allowed it to. He had steeled himself and gotten through it. But today, perhaps because of Vivianna, he felt vulnerable and unprepared, and it struck him with the force of a sledgehammer.

When he had first seen Anthony lying there, he had believed that, in his despair, Anthony had shot himself with his own gun. It was only later, as shock and grief began to wane, that the doubts crept in. He began to remember the hints that Anthony had let drop about Lord Lawson, his great friend Lawson, and piece them together.

It went something like this: Anthony had accidentally come into the possession of letters that, if made public, would cause a scandal that would destroy Lawson’s grand political career. Anthony had been torn as to what to do with these letters, and it had been this dilemma that he had come to discuss with Oliver the night he found Celia there. The night Anthony had died.

At first Oliver did not think it could be murder. His mind was too full of the scene with Celia and Anthony, and all the things he should have said and done. He had sunk into a gloom so deep he had wondered if he would ever escape it. And then, a couple of months after Anthony’s death, Lawson had come to see him. They had sat in the library with a bottle of brandy, long into the night.

Of course, Lawson was full of condolences and spoke of his own sorrow, and they repeated stories about Anthony, and shed a tear or two for Anthony, and then…Then Lawson had began to talk about some personal papers Anthony had been keeping for him.

“Nothing very important, just some old letters,” he’d said indifferently, his ice-blue gaze on Oliver. “Have you seen them?”

Oliver had felt the gloom in his heart shiver like lifting fog.

“Have another brandy, Oliver. That’s it. Did Anthony ever mention the letters to you, by the way?”

Lawson was smiling, but there was something in his face that struck Oliver like a steel blade on bone. After a moment Oliver had forced himself to look away, to pretend he was drunker than he really was, and when he had lain his head in his arms and pretended to pass out, he had heard Lawson searching methodically through the

drawers of the desk. Searching for the old letters that meant nothing to him….

When Lawson had gone, Oliver had sat and stared into the fire and felt his brain working properly for the first time since Anthony had died. He remembered Anthony’s hints and comments about Lawson, the worry line between his brows those last weeks before he died. Everything clicked together and the picture that formed was sickeningly clear. And the odd thing was that if Lawson had said nothing, Oliver probably would never have put it all together.

A few nights later, when Lawson asked him about the “old letters” again, he pretended not to know what Lawson was talking about. Of course, Oliver had realized by then that he, too, was in danger. If Lawson believed for a moment that Oliver was a threat to him, then he would kill him. Oliver had decided he must play a part—he would be a drunken and worthless gentleman who was swiftly running through his fortune. A fool who was of no harm to anyone but himself. And thus Oliver could keep an eye upon Lawson, without Lawson being aware of it.

During the weeks that followed, Oliver searched in every place he could think of for Lawson’s papers. He looked everywhere, but found nothing. Because, of course, if Anthony had been in the possession of letters important to Lord Lawson, then he would have brought them with him to Oliver’s house the night he found him with Celia. After that dreadful scene, he would have forgotten all about the letters, and when he had set out alone on his long walk to Candlewood, he would have taken them with him, tucked securely into the inner pocket of his jacket.

Candlewood was where those letters would be now. In the hidden chamber his grandfather had always hinted at and whose secret he had passed on to Anthony, the grandson who shared his obsession.

But by the time Oliver had worked all of this out in his head, Candlewood was already occupied by the Shelter for Poor Orphans. Oliver had tried searching the house a number of times, the last one with the help of a carpenter, but to no avail. The only way he could find the secret chamber was to dismantle Candlewood stone by stone.

And he’d do it, too.

That is, if Vivianna, blast her, would let him get on with it!

“Lord Montegomery?”

They were waiting for him, the two fair-haired sisters with their earnest smiles, and Vivianna, beautiful and good and not to be trusted.

Oliver said, “Lead the way,” as if he had not been standing there in the doorway staring at nothing, and followed them into his grandfather’s house.

Vivianna was of the opinion that the visit went downhill after that.

The Beatty sisters had laid out tea in the same small, shabby parlor as on her previous visit. Oliver did not seem to notice, nor care. Vivianna had seen the way he stared at the place where his brother had died—she was certain that was what he had been looking at. For a long moment it was as if he had gone away, and then, when he came back and rejoined them, he was…locked up. His feelings were hidden, deep inside him.

The Beatty sisters spoke to him at length about their hopes and ambitions for the shelter. No one could doubt their dedication and sincerity. Oliver listened to them without interrupting, and he seemed to understand and to care. Vivianna was certain he cared—she had seen the expression on his face when Miss Susan spoke to him about Ellen and Eddie. Oh, he cared, all right…just not enough.

When the two sisters were done, he sat back and fixed them with his dark blue eyes. His tone was measured and reasonable.

“I understand, ladies, that you are seeking to make better lives for these children. I have never said I disagreed with your work, nor failed to comprehend the importance of it. All I have ever said is that you cannot continue to carry it on here, at Candlewood. I have offered you premises elsewhere. I offer them again now.”