“My love, I am quite happy to wait until you are ready. This must have come as rather a shock to you—I know it has to me. Perhaps you need time to adjust.”
Vivianna did not know what she needed. She had found her mother, but it had not made her life complete. For a moment a memory of Oliver flitted into her mind, his lazy smile and the gleam in his dark blue eyes as he looked at her. Her heart squeezed and the pain was enough to make her stop remembering.
Chapter 18
The following morning, Vivianna met the Beatty sisters at the former lodging house at Bethnal Green; it was not at all as Miss Greta remembered it. The three women gazed about in surprise at the newly painted walls and the repairs that had turned a sagging, soggy dwelling into a place pleasantly smelling of sawdust. There was even a small garden at the back, the soil already tilled and waiting.
Oliver had warned her he had made repairs, but she had not appreciated how much he had done. She could hardly believe it. All this, for the children? Or was it for you? teased a mocking little voice in her head.
“Of course not!” she muttered, and then bit her lip. Luckily the two sisters were as flabbergasted as she and did not hear her talking to herself.
“Well!” Miss Susan’s eyes were brighter than they had been for weeks. “I still don’t want to leave Candlewood, but I think we can have no qualms about moving the children here.”
Miss Greta had a little smile on her mouth. “Lord Montegomery has certainly taken some time and trouble to please us.” Her glance to Vivianna was quizzical, “Or to please someone.”
Vivianna sniffed. “We must have pricked his conscience enough for him to feel obliged to make the place habitable.”
“I think we can safely begin to move our belongings from Candlewood,” Miss Greta said, practically.
“Yes.” Miss Susan smiled. “Oh, the children will be pleased.”
When Vivianna returned to Queen’s Square, she found that Aphrodite had sent Dobson with a message that her father had been told and wanted to meet her. It was as if a new phase in her life was opening, and Vivianna welcomed it.
And once more determined to put Oliver behind her.
Angus Fraser lived in Grosvenor Square. The house was certainly imposing; it spoke of opulence and wealth and grandeur. But Fraser was no aristocrat, he was a self-made man. Aphrodite had told Vivianna that by living in such a house Fraser was showing off to the nobility who had mocked and snubbed him all his life. “He is rubbing their noses in it,” Aphrodite had explained with a wry smile, “and that is very
Fraser.”
Inside the house it was more like a museum. Cold and empty and full of beautiful things. A little dusty, too. Vivianna only saw two servants on her way up the sweeping grand staircase to her father’s bedchamber.
“Is he all alone in the house?” she asked Aphrodite.
“It is how he wants it to be,” Aphrodite said with one of her shrugs.
Vivianna wished she could accept such things as matter-of-factly as her mother, but the echoing house saddened and disturbed her. And the thought that in just a moment she would be face-to-face with her father frightened and yet elated her at the same time.
Despite everything, her treacherous heart longed for Oliver’s arms about her. Instead, she slipped her fingers into Aphrodite’s, and was grateful for her comforting squeeze.
“I know I promised not to tell my sisters about you,” she said quietly, “but I have told my mother…Lady Greentree. I am sorry, but she knew something was wrong, and I have lied to her enough lately. Did I do the wrong thing?”
Aphrodite turned toward her with a suddenly still and pale face. She then looked away and chewed on her lip. “I…maybe not. Maybe it is for the best that you did so, Vivianna. Yes, I think you did the right thing. Anyway”—with a forced smile—“it is done now.”
They reached an arched doorway with double doors; the way into Fraser’s bedchamber. Aphrodite halted.
“I have told you that Fraser is dying,” she said. “He has no legitimate heirs. You are his only child, Vivianna. I do not know what he plans to say to you; Fraser does not show his feelings to me. He has asked to speak to you alone.”
“But—”
“Do not be afraid. His bark is worse than his bite. You will see.”
Vivianna moved to open one of the doors. Aphrodite had told her a little about her father in the coach on the way here. Fraser was very rich, but he was not a gentleman. Most of his wealth came from breweries in London and elsewhere about the country. He could be blunt and rude.
Growing up, Vivianna had imagined her father to be a kind and generous man. The sort of father a young girl would adore and an older girl would look up to. Somehow, despite what Aphrodite had told her, she could not rid herself of that image.
Fraser was dying, and she was the only part of him left.
Surely that would make a difference to him? Surely he would love her and she would love him, simply because of that?