One Sinful Night (27 page)

Vivienne laughed out loud. So the old harridan finally wanted to make peace, did she? Well, she had a peculiar way of asking. More like demanding that Vivienne come to her. At least she kept up appearances and said please! Vivienne supposed she should go see her, although she certainly didn't relish spending any time with Susana Kavanaugh alone. After the looks that woman gave her at dinner the night before, there was not a doubt in her mind that Lady Whitlock hated her and would rather have any other woman on the planet than Vivienne marry her son.

Certain her aunt and uncle would approve of her visiting her future mother-in-law at her request and not one to back down from a challenge, Vivienne penned a brief note to accept Susana Kavanaugh's invitation. It would not be the most enjoyable afternoon she ever spent, but making peace with her might be worth it in the long run. She was actually a little interested in what Susana Kavanaugh had to say to her after all these years. “Would you please take this to Lady Whitlock's footman, Lizzie? It seems I'm to have tea with Aidan's mother this afternoon.”

“Why, Miss Vivienne!” Lizzie cried in amazement, taking the note from her with round eyes. “I thought she disliked you!”

“Oh, she does, I've no doubt of that. Perhaps she just finally accepted that I'm marrying Aidan. I can't imagine what she'll say to me,” Vivienne said with a little laugh as Lizzie left the room. Probably a long lecture on how not to disgrace Aidan's good name nor her standing in society. She tried to brace herself to be civil to the woman.

 

“He's dead.”

Aidan glanced up from his desk at Grayson's surprising announcement. He knew instantly to whom Grayson was referring.

“What happened?” he asked. He'd been occupied at his office all morning, burying himself in work so he did not have to think about his impending marriage to Vivienne. It hadn't worked. His mind kept returning to her taunting words to him last night.

And that mad kiss on the patio.

He had been up all night reflecting on how she believed he would spend their marriage punishing her. There was some truth to her assertion. He was not proud of himself, but perhaps Vivienne was right about him. Could they be happy together if he gave it a chance? He did not want to be in a miserable marriage with her. Could their marriage be an agreeable one? They had so much in common, so much bonded history together, they could certainly make a decent go of it. Their love had been a rare and wondrous occurrence ten years ago. Could they reclaim that? Could it grow between them anew? If only he could forgive her…

She had adamantly declared her innocence in the incident with Nicky Foster. Had he seen something different from what really happened that day at the cottage? Had it truly been the way Vivienne depicted it? Could Foster have been taking advantage of her against her will? What if he had been wrong about her all these years? That question left him sleepless last night. But the answers haunted him as well.

And he had handled her badly last night. At this point in time he should know better than to think he could force Vivienne to do anything she didn't want to do. She was an independent soul and he had always loved her because of it. By forbidding her to stay away from Harlow, he just pushed her further under that man's influence. His frustration with her and fear for her had eclipsed his better judgment and he came across sounding tyrannical and irrational. He needed to go about it in a softer way with her, to get her to see his point of view. Harlow was dangerous, and maybe Aidan needed to explain to Vivienne just how dangerous he was.

Which brought him back to the conversation in front of him.

Grayson sat himself in a chair across from Aidan's desk and began the sordid story of Jimmy Travers' sudden demise. “Last night two men jumped him in the alley and knifed him. They sliced him up badly and it happened so quickly Jones couldn't stop them. He stayed to help, but the two men disappeared into the night. Travers bled to death before Jones could get him to a doctor.”

“The poor fool,” Aidan muttered in disgust, thinking of the thick-witted man and all the trouble he brought about. Aidan was positive that setting the warehouse fire had been the least of the man's sins, but it still seemed a waste of a life. Disappointment ran rampant through him. “It was all for nothing.”

“There's a harsh price to pay for being foolish and greedy.”

“Yes, and Harlow will be paying the price for this soon enough,” Aidan predicted threateningly. He could hardly wait to see justice served up to that one. If he only had some proof.

“That's going to be harder to prove since he just killed off the only witness to his crime,” Grayson said with a frown.

“That we know of,” Aidan added, raising one eyebrow. “Keep investigating. There has to be something that we're missing. I am sure of it. He's not that smart and he could not have possibly covered all of his tracks. Let's put a trail on Harlow and his brothers first thing in the morning. We should have done that from the beginning.”

“I agree.” Grayson nodded, making ready to leave. “I think we have sadly underestimated Harlow's capabilities.”

Which made Aidan all the more worried about Vivienne's involvement with him. Maybe he would stop by the Cardwells' this evening and make another attempt at reasoning with her. She was a reasonable woman, in spite of his protests to the contrary. If they could talk as friends again, as they once used to, they might be able to come to an agreement. Maybe they just needed more time together.

“Oh, did we follow up on Travers' sister?” Aidan called after him.

“Yes,” Grayson turned to say with a grimace. “She's dying of consumption in the hospital. Doctor said there was no hope.”

Aidan shook his head in regret as Grayson left the office, leaving him alone with his thoughts. There was so much misery in the world. Why would he insist on focusing on the sorrow in his own life? Could he concentrate instead on the good things he was fortunate enough to possess? He had once loved her with all his heart. She had once been his best friend. Was this a second chance at that happiness? Could he choose to be happy with Vivienne?

 

As Vivienne alighted from the carriage in front of Lady Whitlock's house, her pretty blue-striped tea gown swirling about her, she steeled herself for a tiresome and strained visit with Aidan's mother. She waved to the Cardwells' driver as he drove away with instructions to come back for her in an hour. Vivienne gave herself a moment before she had to knock on the door. She adjusted her skirts and took a fortifying breath. This afternoon was going to challenge her patience, of that she had no doubt.

“Hullo there, Vivienne!” a familiar voice suddenly called to her.

Startled, she glanced around to see Jackson Harlow waving from the window of a large, black-lacquered carriage pulled by four fine ebony horses. His gloved hand moved elegantly and he smiled brightly at her, his blond hair visible beneath a black top hat. As usual, everything about Jackson Harlow was elegant and stylish.

“Good afternoon!” she called back to him, grinning in spite of herself.

He ordered his driver to stop and he sprang from the carriage, landing like a tiger on the sidewalk beside her, his black cape swinging around him. His golden smile beamed at her. “Vivienne, what great luck! I was on my way to see you just now.”

“Were you?” she asked in confusion. “I'm about to meet Lord Whitlock's mother for tea.”

His expression clouded with disappointment. “Oh, then I suppose it will have to wait. I had some news for you.”

“About my father?” she asked breathlessly.

“Yes, about your father.” A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “Could you spare some time now? Otherwise it will have to wait a few weeks. I'm leaving town tonight on an urgent matter. I'm not sure when I'll be able to return to London. If you come with me now, I can show you the documents at my office before I leave.”

Vivienne could barely contain her excitement. He had news about her father! Consumed with curiosity, she knew she could not wait weeks or perhaps months to learn what it was. She glanced toward Lady Whitlock's townhouse. Aidan's mother would be expecting her any moment now and would be exceedingly put out if Vivienne arrived late. Then she reckoned that Susana Kavanaugh would be put out with her for the rest of her life, and that being late for tea would hardly make a difference in her feelings toward her at this point.

Still, she harbored misgivings. “Would we be terribly long?” she asked him anxiously.

Jackson pulled a gold pocket watch from his vest and looked at it thoughtfully. He turned his golden brown eyes back to her, tilting his head to one side. “Well, that depends. I can't say for sure how long it will take, although you will more than likely miss tea.”

“You couldn't wait an hour? Until after I've had tea with her?”

He shook his head in regret. “Honestly, I cannot. I have an important engagement outside London that I must attend to immediately. I'm on my way now and thought I could quickly take you to my office before I leave.”

Vivienne shifted nervously on her feet. She desperately wanted to know what Jackson had discovered. She would never get another opportunity to meet with him either. Once she married Aidan, that would be the end of that. Although faint warning bells sounded in the back of her mind because of the way he kissed her the other day, the prospect of learning more about her father outweighed her reservations.

She agreed to go with him.

Again he flashed his charming smile and extended his hand to her. “Come along, Miss Montgomery. What I have to tell you is something you certainly will need to hear.”

Giving a fleeting glance back at Lady Whitlock's house, Vivienne accepted his hand and allowed him to escort her into his stylish and grand carriage.

Aidan's mother was waiting for him in his drawing room when he arrived home later that evening. It was quite unusual for his mother to come to his house without an invitation and he was puzzled by her presence. She had her own elegant townhouse about six blocks away and preferred to have Aidan visit her on her territory. Their arrangement suited him perfectly and he wondered what had brought her there today. “What a surprise to see you, Mother,” he greeted her.

She sat rigidly on a straight-backed chair, her hands folded primly in her lap. Her expression was grim, the age lines on her face seeming more pronounced than usual. Yet there was an undisguised gleam in her eyes. “I'm afraid I have some unpleasant news to tell you, Aidan.”

A tightening in his gut told Aidan it had to do with Vivienne. He wondered what news his mother would have to impart about his future wife. “What is it?” he asked with a slight sense of dread.

“It seems Vivienne has run off.”

“What do you mean?” he asked, his voice sounding as if it came from somewhere other than his own mouth.

“Vivienne and I have never had the best relationship, as you well know. For your sake, I thought it would be nice to invite her to tea this afternoon to try to smooth things over between us before the wedding. I was trying to make the best of this dreadful situation, Aidan. I was reaching out to her. I received a note from her accepting my invitation, but she never arrived.”

“That doesn't mean she's run off,” Aidan protested, feeling a little calmer. He was stunned that his mother made such an effort in the first place, and even more so that Vivienne had accepted an invitation from her.

There was a hard glint in his mother's gray eyes. “The Cardwells' driver left her at the steps to my door, but I never saw her. She never set foot in my house. He came to pick her up an hour later, but of course she wasn't there, and she has not returned home. No one knows where she is.”

Aidan's mind was spinning.
Vivienne. Not again.

Susana continued, “One would think a girl would keep an engagement with her future mother-in-law two days before her wedding. She would do well not to anger me and she knows that, Aidan.”

No, it did not sound like Vivienne. If she were going to anger his mother, she would do it openly. And if Vivienne had accepted her invitation, she would have been there. Which gave him pause to worry. Vivienne was headstrong, to be sure, but not foolish. He would credit her that much. As a newcomer to London, she would never venture off alone in a city so large and unknown to her. Terrible things could happen to a young woman on her own in London. Aidan's heart began to race. “Something must have happened to her.”

“Don't be a fool, Aidan,” his mother snapped at him, her mouth twisted in a scowl. “The girl is just not the type to marry. It's quite obvious that she ran off with someone.”

Last night, Vivienne had offered to release him from the engagement but he had stood his ground to honor his commitment to marry her. Had he been too forceful with her? Had she balked at his unyielding bitterness? She said she didn't want to marry someone who didn't want to marry her. He might have believed she was escaping their compulsory marriage, if not for that kiss. Their kiss last night meant more, and they both knew it. “I had agreed to marry her. Why would she run away?”

“I didn't say she ran away. I said she ran off with another man.”

At first he rejected the idea. Then he thought of Jackson Harlow. Aidan felt sick inside. And livid. She had taunted him with that just last night—that he had no right to tell her who she could and could not talk to.
But we're not married yet, are we, Aidan?

“She had to meet a lover,” his mother insisted in a sharp tone. “A girl does not just wander about this city alone. She has done nothing but shame that family since they took her into their home. Those poor Cardwell twins are out searching the streets for her now, and her aunt and uncle are beside themselves with worry.”

Feeling an icy sense of urgency settle over him, he asked impatiently, “Why didn't you send for me earlier? When you first learned she was missing?”

Susana stood up angrily, her voice rising in pitch as she spoke. “Why should I have bothered you? That girl has caused you trouble since the day you met her. It's obvious she has no true desire to be your wife. You deserve better than Vivienne Montgomery. Let her be another man's burden for a change. I, for one, am glad to be rid of her. As you should be.”

“Go home, Mother,” Aidan said with a distinct coldness, his disgust for her palpable. “I have to find Vivienne.” He turned on his heel and left the room, ignoring his mother's repeated calls to him.

“Don't bother searching for her! She's not worth it! She doesn't want to marry you, or she would have been at my house this afternoon!”

Where could Vivienne be? In his heart he knew something was terribly wrong and she was in danger. And that somehow Jackson Harlow was involved in this up to his neck. He would go to the Cardwells' and join forces with Gregory and George. They would surely have more information on Vivienne's whereabouts than his mother did. He hurriedly made his way through the house and called to his butler, giving the man instructions. “Have Higgins bring my carriage around front as quick as he can. I'll be right down.”

Taking two steps at a time, he raced up the long, elegantly curving staircase and down the corridor to his bedroom. A growing sense of alarm spurred him. Whatever had happened to prevent Vivienne from arriving at his mother's house was not good. He strode purposefully to the massive oak chest of drawers in the corner of his room.

Finley waited for him anxiously, but Aidan was barely aware of his valet's presence. “I need to talk to you about something important, Aidan,” Finley said.

Aidan opened the top corner drawer and removed a heavy, black leather case. Inside was a pistol. Some sixth sense told him he might need it and, when he found Harlow, he wouldn't mind using it. He placed it in his coat pocket. “Not now, Finley. I'm on my way out.” He continued to the door of the bedroom.

“It's about Vivienne.”

Aidan stopped in his tracks and turned. He looked Finley directly in the eyes and demanded, “What about Vivienne?”

Finley hesitated, as if afraid to speak, his freckled face drawn in worry.

Aidan said impatiently, “Out with it, man. I haven't time to waste. I think Vivienne's in trouble.”

That seemed to spur Finley into talking. “She never did anything wrong, Aidan. All those years ago, back in Galway. That day at the little cottage. When you found her with Foster. She was set up.”

Aidan had the very breath taken from him. “Say that again.”

“She was set up to look like she was with Foster, and to be caught that way by you. And for you to be angry enough to call off the wedding.”

“How would you know something like this?” Aidan asked incredulously.

“Because I set it up. I was the one who arranged for Nicky Foster to be there before you arrived and for him to make it look like he was taking advantage of Vivienne. To compromise her.”

“Are you telling me that Vivienne was completely innocent all this time?”

“Yes.” Finley had the decency to look ashamed. “She was never untrue to you.”

Aidan's head spun with this bit of news. Images and words raced through Aidan's brain. Making love to Vivienne in the portrait gallery. “
No one else, Aidan! There has…never been anyone else. Just you, Aidan. Only you.”
Her anguish and tears in his arms afterward. “
My arms were not around Nicky. They were trying to push him off of me. And I was not kissing him. He was kissing me. Against my will.”
Her anger with him for not believing her. Then Gregory's words last night. “
You're wrong about her.”

Aidan had been completely blinded. So unyielding and callous. Full of wounded pride and righteousness. But another thought gripped him and he gave Finely a hard look. “Why would you do something like that?”

“I was told to.”

“Who told you to do something like that?” he asked, although his head pounded with a sense of foreboding. He would not want to know the answer.

Finley waited a moment, his brown eyes meeting Aidan's directly. Then he confessed, “Your mother.”

His mother. Her dislike for Vivienne was always blatant, but was she capable of that kind of hatred? To ruin Vivienne? To destroy the love of her only son? He thought of her waiting downstairs for him. An awkward silence followed before Aidan spoke again. “Do you know what you are saying?”

“Yes.” Finley nodded with a definitive look.

It was too much. And yet it made sense. Finley had originally worked for his mother at Cashelwood Manor. He was the only servant who knew that Aidan met Vivienne secretly in the little cottage. He more than likely reported to her all Aidan's comings and goings. Finley would have been the logical choice to aid and abet his mother. Afterwards, Finley had been sympathetic and encouraged him to forget Vivienne and move on. That was when they had become friends. But Finley had never lied to him in all these years, and he certainly had nothing to gain by telling Aidan the truth now. Which posed another good question. “Why are you telling me this ten years after the fact?”

“Because I know better now,” Finley asserted, the look on his face remorseful and contrite. “I knew it was wrong at the time and I have felt guilty about it all these years. I have wanted to tell you the truth many times, but I couldn't. I believed you would never see Vivienne again and it wouldn't matter anyway. But when she showed up at Bingham Hall, I couldn't believe it. I figured you must be fated to be together for some reason. Now that you're marrying her, you should know Vivienne never wronged you, and you both suffered for nothing. Your mother has been dead set against you marrying Vivienne from the start and, to be frank, I don't think she is innocent in Vivienne's disappearance today, either. I think she has her hand in stopping your marriage Saturday, just as she did the first time.” Finley took a deep breath. “That's why I'm telling you now.”

Again, Aidan was stunned speechless. His mother's scheming knew no bounds. It was unbelievable that she would go to such lengths to keep him from marrying Vivienne.

The implications of Finley's confession were devastating. His mother,
his mother
, had deliberately ruined his life.

“I'm sorry,” Finley said with quiet resignation, his head hung low. “I'll pack my things and leave the house tonight.”

Aidan shook his head. He knew Finley had only been following his mother's orders and at the time was not in a position to refuse her. “No, you don't have to leave. There has been enough unhappiness caused by this. I'm just thankful you told me the truth now. We'll talk more about this when I get back though. Right now, I have to find Vivienne.”

“Thank you, Aidan.”

Aidan left Finley and raced back down the stairs, calling to his mother. As he suspected, she had not left yet, for she was waiting to see what he was going do about Vivienne.

“Is it true, Mother?” he demanded angrily.

Regally, she turned her head toward him, her expression mildly curious. “Is what true, Aidan?”

“Is it true you ordered Finley to arrange for me to find Nicky Foster with Vivienne before we left Galway?”

Her gray eyes widened the slightest bit, but she rallied well. “I have not the faintest idea to what you are referring,” she responded coolly.

“You deliberately made Vivienne look unfaithful to me all those years ago, didn't you? And you have conspired to keep her from me today. I knew you disliked her, but for the love of God, Mother…I never thought you capable of such malice. Where is she now?”

“I'm sure I don't know what you mean. How could I possibly know where that little harlot is or who she is with? It's good riddance as far as I'm concerned.” She turned her back, dismissing the conversation and him.

For the first time in his life Aidan put his hands on his mother and spun her around to face him. Anger seethed through every vein in his body. Rage, betrayal, and fear for Vivienne. Especially fear for Vivienne. If anything happened to her due to his mother's hatred and his own blindness he would never forgive himself. “You arranged for someone to take her this afternoon, didn't you? Because you certainly didn't invite her to tea! Tell me who has her and where she is, Mother, or I swear to God you will never see me again.”

Suddenly fearful, Susana Kavanaugh was aghast at her son's behavior. “Has Finley been talking—”

That sealed it. She was behind all of it, without a doubt. “Tell me who has her,” he ground out between clenched teeth, giving her a little shake. “Is it Jackson Harlow?”

Maybe she finally felt remorse for once in her life. Maybe she feared losing contact with her only child. “Yes,” she choked out on a bitter sob.

He released her in disgust, his worst fears confirmed. Before his eyes, his mother suddenly appeared weak and old, not the queenly, imposing figure she usually portrayed. She was his mother, but she had cruelly betrayed him. Not just once, but twice. “We'll discuss this later, and for your sake, you had better hope that I find Vivienne unharmed.” He stalked away from her.

“Aidan,” she called after him piteously, her sobs echoing in the high-ceilinged foyer. “I'm sorry…I just wanted what was best for you. I love you…”

He glanced back only to ask, “Do you have any idea where he was taking her?”

She shrugged with a sniffle, her thin shoulders sagging. “I…I didn't ask specifically, but one would assume he left London.”

Now Aidan was positive that Harlow had left London with Vivienne. He just had to figure out where.

“You won't reach her in time,” she cried to him as he opened the front door. “He's going to marry her.”