Regency Improprieties: Innocence and Impropriety / The Vanishing Viscountess

He knocked on the door and gave his name and card to the servant who answered it. When he was admitted, he heard another not so fortunate fellow say, ‘How did he get in?’

The servant left him alone in the gazebo’s lower room, and a moment later Rose came rushing in, directly into his arms.

‘Oh, Flynn! I hoped you would come!’

He could not help but hold her as she clung to him and buried her face in the damp fabric of his caped greatcoat. When she finally pulled away, tears glistened on her dark lashes.

‘When does Greythorne come?’ he asked.

She glanced up in surprise. ‘You knew of it?’

He nodded.

A faint smile flitted across her face. ‘He cancelled. Postponed, I mean.’

He gazed at her. ‘Let us go somewhere we can talk.’

She went to take her cloak off a hook on the wall. When they walked out, the bedraggled men outside could be heard saying, ‘That’s her!’ and ‘Dash it! He’s cut us out.’

He whisked her away, leading her down the Dark Path. It was dotted with small classical structures where couples could be private. Flynn tried the knob of the first one they came to, and, finding it unlocked, brought her inside. Rushlights lit the interior. A table was set with wine and two glasses.

‘I am guessing this party has been cancelled,’ Flynn said, gesturing to the table. ‘Come.’ He led her to the single chaise-longue, the only place to sit. ‘If they do show up, we will make an apology and leave.’

He unfastened her cloak and laid it aside with his greatcoat, hat and gloves before coming to sit next to her. Taking her hand in his, he pulled off her gloves, one finger at a time.

She could barely breathe for the feel of his bare hand upon hers. ‘Greythorne gave my father money for my company.’

He held both her hands in his.

She stared at them. ‘But … but when the rain came he … begged off. He sent a message. So I do not know when I shall be required to meet him. I do not wish to meet him at all, Flynn!’

He nodded, squeezing her hands. ‘Have no fear. I will think of some way to help.’

Rose gazed at him, feeling relief and something even more powerful. She could not believe he had come to her, rain and all. Now that his hands folded over hers, tethering her with his strength, she had not realised how keenly she needed him.

But he released her and stood, turning his back to her. ‘Lord Tannerton is prepared to better any offer Greythorne makes.’

She bowed her head. Tannerton again. Standing between them. ‘When?’ She felt the gloom descend upon her.

He answered in a low voice. ‘I must go to your father with Tannerton’s offer. If he accepts right away and does not wait for Greythorne to make a counter-offer, then it would still take me a week to make arrangements.’ He turned back to her. ‘Two weeks, perhaps.’

‘Two weeks,’ she whispered.

He came to sit next to her again. ‘There is no other choice, Rose.’

Her mind had accepted this. She wanted to sing. She wanted some day to sing Elvira’s part in Don Giovanni, to be a name everyone knew, like Catalani, and she wanted nothing to stop her. She wanted to live the life her mother had lost.

Only her heart warred with that ambition. Her heart pined for love. For Flynn.

She pulled away from him and rose from the chaise. ‘I do not want to stay here, Flynn. I.I feel as if I am trespassing.’

She bent down to pick up her cape. He came to her and took the cape from her hands, wrapping it around her. He fastened it under her chin and pulled the hood up to cover her head. She had difficulty breathing, he was so near. She dared not lift her chin to look into his eyes, because she wanted so dearly for his eyes to burn with the same desire raging inside her.

But she could not help herself. She tilted her head back. His eyes were dark with passion. The joy of it caused her knees to go weak. All she need do was close the distance between them and place her lips on his. What harm to taste his lips just once? Everyone expected her to be a wanton, why not behave like one now? She longed to be the wanton with Flynn.

‘Flynn,’ she whispered.

Rising on tiptoe, she touched her lips to his, lightly at first. When he did not move away, she slid her arms around his neck and increased the pressure. His lips parted, and she darted her tongue into his mouth where he tasted warm and wet and wonderful.

A low groan escaped him, and as she felt his breath cool her mouth, she grasped him tighter. His arms encircled her and he slammed his body against hers, his fingers pressing into her soft flesh. All sensation raced to where he ground himself against her, urging her on, thrilling her with the feel of his manhood hard beneath his clothes.

He wanted her, it meant. She was glad she’d learned about what was happening to him. And to her.

‘Flynn,’ she repeated, this time with urgency.

One of his hands slid around her body to her breast, rubbing and fondling until Rose thought she would cry out with the pleasure of it.

He unclasped her cloak and let it slide to the ground. Picking her up in his strong arms, he carried her to the chaise. She kissed his lips, his cheeks, his neck, anywhere she could reach.

‘Make love to me, Flynn,’ she begged.

He placed her gently on the chaise and positioned his body over hers. He bent towards her, closer and closer, and she thought she would burst from need of him.

Suddenly he broke away, so abruptly she looked to see if someone had pulled him off her, but there was no one there.

‘You are bewitching me,’ he rasped, grabbing her cloak from the floor. This time he merely tossed it to her and walked over to pick up his greatcoat and hat. ‘I will take you back to the gazebo.’

Outside it rained harder than before. The Dark Walk was darker and more deserted than ever now that the hour had advanced and clouds hid the moon. She could barely see where she was going, and she nearly slipped on the slick path trying to keep up with him.

She reached for him, grabbing his arm. ‘Flynn! Stop.’

He stopped, but did not look at her. ‘Rose, this attempt to seduce me was a mistake, do you understand? It must never happen again.’

‘Seduce you?’ she cried, ‘You seemed willing enough, Flynn. Do not make the fault all mine.’

He turned to her. ‘I will not betray Tanner.’ Even in the darkness she could see his eyes flash at her. She took a step toward him, but he backed away. ‘No, Rose.’

She lifted her trembling chin. ‘You’ve already betrayed him, have you not, Flynn? By wanting me? You cannot be telling me you do not want me, because I know you do.’

‘Wanting and taking are not the same thing,’ he said through gritted teeth.

He started walking again. As she hurried to stay with him, he stopped again, so abruptly she nearly collided with him.

He whirled on her. ‘What I do not understand is why you behave like a loose woman with me, but act as if bedding a marquess would be the worst torture in the world.’

‘A loose woman!’ she cried. ‘Is that what you think of me?’

He did not appear to hear her. ‘Do not tell me you merely want more money, because you do not behave as if you want any money at all. If you wanted another man, it would make sense, but why throw yourself at me—’

‘I did not throw myself at you!’ She swung her hand to slap his face.

He caught her by the wrist.

‘You were the one who chose the Dark Walk, Flynn, who brought me into that room. You chose that private place, and you dare accuse me of being the seductress?’ She tried to twist away, the hood of her cape falling from her head.

He grabbed her other wrist and struggled with her, losing his hat and pulling her closer and closer until her body was flush against his and their faces were only a hair’s breadth away, the need burning in his eyes.

‘How do you explain this, Flynn?’ Her voice shook. ‘I am not throwing myself at you now, am I?’

He did not release her right away, but held her, his breath rapid, his flesh so hot it seared her senses. Then he released her and ran a ragged hand through his hair.

Rain battered their uncovered heads and streamed down their faces. Slowly, however, the flames of their anger and passion fizzled in the damp air, as if turning to ashes. To gloom.

Rose whispered to him, her words competing with the rain. ‘What are we to do, Flynn?’

He did not answer, but his eyes shone an intense blue in the dim light, and the rain curled his usually neatly combed hair. He looked boyish. Vulnerable. He reached for her hand.

‘We left our gloves back in that room,’ he said, rubbing his bare thumb against her palm.

‘Oh.’ Rose closed her eyes at the exquisite feel of his touch ‘.I must retrieve mine. I have no other pair.’

He nodded and they started back, trudging through the puddles forming in the gravel of the walk. When they reached the small structure, he entered it alone and came out with both pairs of gloves.

They walked back in silence, Rose holding his arm.

‘‘Tis odd the orchestra is not playing,’ Rose said as they neared the gazebo. The paths were deserted. The supper boxes empty. ‘Everyone has left.’

They hurried to the gazebo door. Inside the servant was sweeping the floor.

His broom stilled when he saw her. ‘Miss O’Keefe, your father told me to tell you to ask the gentleman to escort you home, for Mr Hook told everyone to go home because of the rain and so your father did.’

Rose nodded. ‘Thank you, Mr Skewes.’

The thin wiry man grinned. ‘He said as long as it was the fellow that was here before—’ he nodded to Flynn ‘—he’d not worry about you and neither was I to worry.’

‘You are kind,’ she said. ‘We had better be off, then.’

She and Flynn walked back out into the rain.

There were a few other stragglers walking to where the hackney coaches waited beyond the gate. Rose’s cloak felt heavy from the soaking rain, and she shivered.

‘You are cold.’ Flynn started to unbutton his greatcoat.

‘No.’ She put up a hand. ‘Your coat is as soaked as mine. I will be fine once we are in the carriage.’

They waited in a queue until it was their turn. Flynn lifted Rose into the hack and called out her direction to the jarvey.

They sat closer together than was wise, given how easily passion had sprung up between them. Rose shivered again, more from frustration than the chilling damp, but he unfastened her cloak and bundled it out of the way. Then he shrugged out of his greatcoat and wrapped an arm around her to warm her.

She snuggled close to him and rested her head on his shoulder. The passion that had nearly driven them to a frenzied coupling had settled into something more intimate and infinitely more sorrowful. In silence they held each other all the way across the new Vauxhall Bridge, up the roads skirting the river to the Strand, and into Covent Garden.

When the vehicle stopped on Langley Street, Flynn wrapped Rose in her cloak again and helped her out. Asking the jarvey to wait, he walked her inside her building.

‘Will you be all right?’ He put his hand on her arm as they reached the top of the stairs. ‘Your father will not be angry?’

Rose shook her head. ‘Remember, he said he would not worry if I was with you.’

His fingers tightened around her arm.

He dropped his hand. ‘I must go.’

She did not move.

He started to turn away, already grasping the banister, but he suddenly turned back to her. She ran to him, and he caught her face gently in both hands, kissing her, a slow, savouring kiss more steeped in sadness than in the fires of passion that had earlier burned them both.

Without speaking another word, he released her and hurried down the stairs.

Chapter Ten

By the next morning, the rain had cleared and the day promised to dry up some of the damp. Still, Flynn was grateful Rose was not scheduled to sing that evening, and she had assured him no plans to dine with Greythorne would be made.

Flynn needed the respite from the turmoil raging inside him, but, more than that, he needed a very quiet place. He closeted himself in Tanner’s library, busying himself with the most tedious of his many tasks.

Tanner breezed into the room, humming a tune, and causing Flynn to lose the tally of the long line of figures he was tabulating.

‘I trust I am not interrupting something important,’ Tanner said.

Flynn had done something uncharacteristic the night before. After leaving Rose, he availed himself of one of Tanner’s bottles of brandy and downed the entire contents in the privacy of his own room. He now paid the price with a killing headache and a foul mood.

Head throbbing, he put down his pen and recapped the inkwell. ‘Did you have need of me?’

Tanner picked up a ledger Flynn had left on the side table. ‘No need, really.’ He leafed through the ledger, slammed it closed, and dropped it with a thud that ricocheted in Flynn’s brain. ‘I did wonder how it went with Greythorne—and Miss O’Keefe, of course.’

Flynn’s mood became blacker. ‘He cancelled because of the rain.’

Tanner laughed, a loud guffaw that rattled painfully in Flynn’s throbbing head. ‘The fribble. He’d give her up to keep his coat dry.’ He laughed again, then drummed his fingers on the wooden table. ‘Did he set another date?’

Flynn gripped the edge of the desk, trying to remain composed. ‘Not as yet.’

‘Rain is good for something besides crops,’ said Tanner cheerfully.

Flynn tried to look composed. ‘It appears he is putting pressure on her father. He paid a sum for the opportunity to dine with her.’

‘Ah ha!’ Tanner cried.

Flynn pressed his fingers against his temple.

‘We have more in our arsenal of weapons besides money, do we not, Flynn?’ Tanner laughed again.

Flynn had not a clue what Tanner meant, but he would rather not ask and prolong this loud conversation.

But Tanner showed no inclination to be quiet. ‘We have cunning, and we have friends in high places.’

‘Indeed,’ muttered Flynn, who did not care what the deuce Tanner meant, if he would only stop talking.

‘Any fellow can throw money at a woman and win her, can he not?’ Tanner went on, walking to and fro as he spoke, his footsteps pounding on the carpet. ‘But we think of voice lessons and opera performances!’

‘I am not getting your point, Tanner,’ Flynn said tersely.

Tanner glanced at him quizzically, then peered at him more closely. ‘You look ghastly, Flynn. What the devil is wrong with you? You look as though you are going to shoot the cat.’

Flynn’s stomach did not react well to this reference to vomiting. ‘I have a headache.’

‘A headache from too much drink,’ Tanner concluded. ‘What did I miss last night?’

‘Nothing. You missed nothing.’ Merely a near-betrayal of all Tanner’s trust in him.

Tanner continued stomping around the room. ‘Good, because it was very fortunate that I was in the company of his Royal Highness, the Duke of Clarence, you know. Friends in high places!’

Flynn gave him a direct look. ‘Am I supposed to understand you?’

Tanner laughed again, this time a loud, barking, brain-joggling laugh. Flynn pressed his temples.

‘No need to heed me.’ Tanner winked.

Did not Tanner need to meet someone at White’s or bid on a horse at Tattersalls, or something? ‘If you require my services, sir, I will endeavour to oblige you, but I was working on these sums …’

Tanner sidled up to the desk and leaned over Flynn to look at the numbers on the page. ‘I trust nothing is amiss?’

Flynn could feel Tanner breathing down his neck. ‘All is as it should be—but I have not tabulated the whole list.’

‘I despise sums.’ Tanner lumbered away, pulling books off the bookshelves, opening them, then slamming them shut again, and shoving them back into place.

Flynn closed his eyes and waited for the wave of hammering in his head to subside.

‘So!’ said Tanner, so loud Flynn thought his head would blow apart. ‘What is next in this game of ours? I say, this is more like a chess game every day, except not so ghastly tedious.’

A chess game, indeed, thought Flynn. The Queen was the prize. And after his behaviour the previous night, Flynn was a rook. ‘It is time to deal with the father. Make the offer.’

Tanner stood before him, hands on his hips, head cocked. ‘I had surmised more pursuit was in order. The girl hardly seems willing.’ He looked pensive. ‘I knew she’d be a challenge. She should come around after Ayrton puts her in the opera. How long do you think that will be?’

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