Lessons in Seduction (Greentree Sisters 1)

e and pain, but although Aphrodite’s arms tightened about her, her thoughts seemed to be elsewhere.

“I see.”

“Of course I said I would never see him again. I said I hated him. But it was as if…as if he didn’t even care.”

Aphrodite squeezed her tighter still. “Do not pay him any heed for now. We must do what is good for you, not for Oliver.”

She sounded so sure, so confident. Vivianna felt her sobs subsiding. She took a shaken breath, and then another. Aphrodite led her to a chair and placed her upon it.

“Sit a moment,” she said with gentle firmness. “Take a breath. Regain your calm, Vivianna.”

“How can I?” she gasped. “I fell in love with a rake and now I learn he never existed. Oliver has taken my heart and now it is broken.”

Aphrodite sighed. “I warned you, mon chou. ‘Protect your heart.’ Remember for the next time—people do not take hearts, they give them. Oliver did not take your heart, you gave it to him. There is a difference.”

Vivianna opened her mouth, then closed it again. She was right. Of course she was right. And yet the pain was no better for it.

Aphrodite perched herself on the arm of the chair and slid her arm around Vivianna’s shoulders.

“You probably think me callous,” she said with humor. “But I assure you that is not the case, Vivianna. I do not think you are damaged in any way that truly matters. You are young and the world is big. You will find another man who loves you as you will love him. Oliver Montegomery is not the only poisson in the sea.”

Vivianna nodded and tried to believe it.

“You are willful and passionate, and find it hard to curb those passions. I understand. I was so when I was a girl. But if you have read my diary you will know that. I thought I knew what I wanted, and so I took it. With maturity comes a calmer view of the world.”

“You have come a long way,” Vivianna said. “I know that. From Seven Dials to the Boulevard de la Madeleine.”

“Oh yes, I have come a long way. But I have suffered, also. I have suffered much sorrow.” She hesitated, and then said quietly, “I lost my children.”

Vivianna looked up at her, wiping the tears from her face with her fingers. She could not remember crying so since she was a little girl and she had tried to keep her sisters from harm.

“You lost your children?” she whispered.

Aphrodite nodded, and her eyes were awash with sorrow.

“I was abandoned,” Vivianna said, as more tears dribbled down her cheeks.

“No!” Aphrodite’s voice was harsh, and suddenly she gripped Vivianna tightly, almost painfully, against the black silk of her gown. “You were never abandoned! You were stolen. Taken from your mother by a cruel and wicked man.”

What is she saying?

Vivianna’s head had begun to ache from crying. Surely she hadn’t heard properly, or maybe she hadn’t understood. What cruel and wicked man?

“Your mother was not at home, but she thought her daughters were in good hands. There were loyal servants to care for them, and she did not believe they could be in any danger. She was wrong. The wicked man came for them and brought with him a harridan called Mrs. Slater. She took the three girls away in a coach, and their mother never saw them again.”

“Aphrodite?” Somehow Vivianna managed to get the word out.

“She tried to find them, of course she did! She searched and searched, but he had hidden them well, that man. For reasons of his own, you see, and I will not tell you those now, not here, not now. It is still too dangerous to know. But she did try to find you all, for her heart was breaking with the sorrow of her loss. He pretended to look, too, but I see now that was not the truth, although at the time I trusted him. In the end he said you were lost forever and that I should get used to it.”

Aphrodite’s face was against Vivianna’s hair—she felt her warm breath. Her arms clung, as if she did not want Vivianna to look into her face. As if she could only speak these words if she could not see her response. Not that Vivianna could have moved. She was frozen to the spot.

“I collapsed. I was ill for a long time, nearly a year, and even then I did not recover completely. I have never recovered. I have never worn anything but black since you were taken. I have been in perpetual mourning for my daughters. And then you came to me, and said your name, and that you had two sisters, and I realized…I could not believe at first. I thought it was a cruel coincidence. And yet, your face, your eyes. I knew you, I know you. You are my daughter. You are my Vivianna.”

Vivianna, her cheek pressed to the black silk, wondered if she had lost her mind. For suddenly it was as if she really did remember. The past was swimming up to her out of the darkness. The other woman’s warmth beneath her cheek, the sweet scent of her, the timbre of her voice. All familiar. Her mother, so long lost, come back to her. Could it be? Was it possible?

But Viviana’s silence had been too long, and Aphrodite believed it had another meaning.

“I’m sorry.” Her voice was harsh with pain and emotion. “I did not mean to tell you. I promised myself I would never tell you. You seemed so…so happy with your life, as if you preferred not to know after all these years. You had accepted yourself as yourself, you said. I am not ashamed of what I am and what I have done—I see no shame in it—but I can understand why you would not want such a mother as me.”