Her Perfect Match (20 page)

Finally, after about a mile of walking, they reached a small, tidy home on the edge of the village. At the gate, Vivien stopped and stared. Benedict saw the pain she had exhibited in the village double.

“I know your mama is home,” Mrs. Winston buzzed. “Let us ring the bell.”

Vivien didn’t move and Benedict stepped forward. “You have been so kind to walk with us, Mrs. Winston, but Viv—Alice has not seen her mother in some time. Perhaps you would allow us a bit of privacy in her reunion?”

Vivien snapped her gaze to him and he saw her relief. Mrs. Winston seemed perturbed, the way a gossip always did when she was cut off from a source of news. And Benedict had no doubt that was just what she was, harmless but thrilled to have seen Vivien first so she could share all her observations with her sewing circle.

“Of course,” she said, for there was no other proper answer. “But I hope you will come see me during your stay. I assume you
will
be staying?”

Vivien shook away whatever she was thinking. “No!” she burst out.

Mrs. Winston took a step back at the strength of her response and Benedict hurried to fill the gap Vivien had created.

“Unfortunately, my business does not allow us to escape London for more than a day. But I’m certain we will see you again. It has been such a pleasure.”

Even this woman could not misunderstand his dismissal. She appeared perturbed as she stepped back.

“Very well. It was nice to see you, Alice. I hope you will say goodbye before you depart.”

Vivien nodded blankly. “Of course.”

The other woman started back up the road toward the main center of the village and Benedict breathed a sigh of relief.

“I cannot imagine you being friends with that woman, even when you were a girl,” he muttered. “I do not picture you as that foolish.”

Vivien swallowed. “I was foolish enough, in my own way. But I would not have counted Genevieve as a bosom friend, no. She always talked far too much.”

They stared at the house together.

“We can leave,” he said softly. “I could have the driver ready in a moment and we could be home to London before sunset.”

He could see her pondering the value of his suggestion, and how much she longed to run from whatever awaited her in this house, but instead she shook her head.

“I came here to face my past,” she murmured, more to herself than to him. “I must do that to move on.”

He wrinkled his brow at her choice of words. Move on? Where was she moving on to?

But he held his tongue, keeping his questions to himself because at present he didn’t think she could bear them. Instead, he touched her hand as they walked up to the front door of the little cottage.

“I am here,” he whispered.

She looked up at him. “It is the only fact that makes this tolerable,” she admitted with a weak smile.

Then she lifted her hand and knocked on the door.

Chapter Eighteen

Vivien could barely breathe as the door opened and revealed a servant she did not know. But of course, when her mother moved away, she likely had left what few servants she had behind, only to hire new ones upon her return.

“May I help you?” the maid who stood at the entryway asked blandly, completely oblivious to Vivien’s pain and horror in this moment.

“I—I am here to see…to see my mother,” she stammered.

She shot a brief glance over her shoulder to find Benedict watching her with the same unreadable expression as he had possessed all day, despite the revelations he had heard. She bit her lip and forced herself to continue.

“I’m Alice Roth,” she finished, hating the way her given name rolled from her tongue.

Benedict drew a sharp intake of breath at her admission, but said nothing else.

The maid stared at her with wide eyes, then bobbed out a brief nod. “I will ascertain if Mrs. Roth is home.”

She left the door open but didn’t ask them in and so Vivien stood on the step, silent as she waited for the girl’s return. It was but a moment, though it felt like an eternity, when she was back.

“Come with me,” she said, her tone darker than it had been as she gave Vivien a quick once-over before she led them both into the house.

Vivien felt her entire body tense as she moved into the foyer. The house looked the same, it smelled the same, and she felt like she had stepped back in time to a far more unpleasant period.

The parlor was on the right and as the door opened, Vivien briefly considered running. Benedict would aid in her escape, she knew that. Except she feared she had gone too far now. If she left, she wouldn’t leave the past behind as she had before. She had opened this Pandora’s Box; she had to face the demons within.

They entered the parlor and Vivien moved to the window to stare out at the gardens behind the house. So many memories mobbed her that she hardly noticed anything else in the room until Benedict cleared his throat.

“You do not have to stay,” he said to the maid.

Vivien turned to find that the girl had positioned herself next to the open door, arms folded, as she stared at the two of them.

The maid pursed her lips. “I have orders, sir.”

Benedict looked utterly confused, but Vivien squeezed her eyes shut as frustration and anger overtook her. She moved forward.

“Thinks we’ll steal her silver, does she?” she snapped.

The maid took a faltering step back at Vivien’s tone, but did not respond.

Vivien pivoted back to the window. “Ridiculous.”

“Not so very ridiculous when you consider all you’ve done,” her mother’s voice said from the door. Vivien swallowed hard and turned to look at her.

Rosalind Roth was much the same as she had been the last time Vivien stood in this parlor. Tall and slender with blonde hair like her own, but rather than blue eyes, she had dark brown ones. Time had been kind to her, keeping her face freer from lines than some women of her advancing years.

Her expression was also the same—filled with hate and judgment for the daughter she despised.

“Mother,” she managed to say with at least some strength to her tone. “You look well.”

Her mother sniffed in reply and motioned the maid away. “Thank you, Ruth, you may go. Don’t worry yourself with tea—I doubt our
guests
will stay long.”

Vivien lifted her chin to keep her pain from being reflected on her face, but her embarrassment was harder to control. Especially when Benedict’s horror and shock at this exchange was more than evident on his handsome face. But of course it would be, he came from a loving family, he couldn’t fathom the deep flaws present in hers.

“You are correct, we will not trespass on your hospitality long,” Vivien spat out, nearly choking on the words. “I was nearby and did not realize you continued to make your home here. I would not have bothered you had I been forewarned.”

Her mother’s eyes narrowed. “Indeed, I suppose you did not know I was here. The last you heard was that I left Sapsgate. Did it give you pleasure to know that what you did drove me away from the home your father built for us?”

Benedict stepped forward at that. “Mrs. Roth, perhaps you do not understand—” he began.

Vivien gasped as her mother turned her attention on him. She hadn’t seemed to notice him before that moment, a fact that Vivien had wished would remain the same. Now her mother looked him up and down.

“What are you?” she asked, the cold steel of her tone unbendable, even by his charm. “Her lover? Not her husband, I’m certain.”

If Benedict was shocked by her directness, he did not show it on his face. “I am her…” He glanced at Vivien with a supportive smile. “I am her friend.”

“Her friend,” her mother sneered. “Is that what they call a whore’s consort now?”

Benedict drew back in horror, his face twisting with shock at her mother’s pointed, cruel words.

“Stop,” Vivien said softly. “Your quarrel is with me, not him.”

“Protective indeed,” her mother all but hissed. “But does he know you are a murderer?”

Vivien rubbed her eyes with one hand. “I did not murder anyone.”

“You did,” her mother protested in something akin to a screech. She spun back on Benedict. “You know that she spread her legs for the first man who offered her a little more than a smile, don’t you? And that it destroyed any hope her father had for marrying her well to a very nice young man of good fortune. Instead, my husband had an apoplexy and died in our dining room because of the public reaction to the fact she had been compromised.”

Vivien swallowed. Her mother’s revisionist version of that night made her throat so dry and her eyes sting with tears she refused to shed because she knew they would give her mother such pleasure to see them.

“I had to leave Sapsgate because I couldn’t bear living in the house where my love took his last breath,” her mother continued, her anger growing with every word. “Where our own child stood over him with such lack of feeling and let him die because she had no principles.”

Vivien clenched her fists. “I felt his death as keenly as anyone,” she protested, her voice cracking. “I wept for him.”

Her mother shook her head. “Little good that did, to weep for him in death when you were the one to put him in the grave.” She spun on Benedict. “So remember that, my fine gentleman. If you think she has any kind of a heart, she does not. She is an empty, worthless shell. You would do well to watch your back that she doesn’t stab it just for the pleasure of causing you pain.”

“Enough!” Benedict roared in a tone Vivien had never heard before.

She spun on him to find his face almost purple with rage and his bright eyes flashing. She stepped back, stunned by the power of his emotions, the drive he had to protect her. And even her mother, with all her limitations, recognized it and staggered away a step.

“You will not say another word,” he continued. “Viv—” He stopped and cast a quick glance at her. “Your daughter is no empty shell. She is as full and glorious a woman as I have ever met. She is kind and decent, she helps those who need her and she would never cause harm to anyone unless it was in the defense of the weak. I refuse to let you attack her with such vitriol, no matter who you are.”

Her mother wobbled briefly, but then shook her head. “You don’t know her.”

He looked at Vivien and she could see that he believed her mother on some level. In fact, she was right in so many ways. But in others, in important ways, she was wrong.

He shook his head. “With all due respect, neither do you. You may be correct that I don’t know the circumstances of her past, but neither do I care about them. I know her today.”

Her mother opened and shut her mouth, but couldn’t seem to come up with a response to Benedict’s declaration. Slowly, Vivien approached her.

“Mother,” she whispered, wanting so much to take her hand but unable to breach the gap that would always be between them. “I should not have come today, for I know my presence troubles you and I do not wish to do that to you. I realize you have lost a great deal and that you blame me for that.”

Her mother let out her breath in a shuddering sigh and did not lift her face to look at her daughter. Vivien hesitated a moment before she continued.

“Are you in need of funds?”

Her mother jerked her head up and Benedict shot her a glance too.

“No!” Her mother said, but then shifted slightly. “I would rather not receive money from the sources you obtain it from.”

Vivien shook her head. “I will have a sum deposited into your account when I return to London. You can pretend you do not know the source.”

Her mother folded her arms and said nothing. Not that Vivien expected appreciation, but the continued disgust from a woman who had once loved her stung.

“We’ll go,” she whispered as she moved for the door. She felt Benedict a step behind her and was glad he made no move to touch her. His warm hand on her back might have been her undoing. “I don’t think I shall see you again, so I hope you will be well.”

Her mother cast her one brief glance and then turned her face, cutting off contact, making it clear that the loss of her daughter was meaningless. Vivien nodded and exited the room.

The maid who had escorted them in was waiting for them in the hall. With a glare, she motioned for the door. Vivien might have laughed at the lack of subtlety if it all didn’t hurt so damn much. That was something she had always wished to control, but had never been able to succeed at.

The air outside felt cool after the stifling environment of the parlor and Vivien drew a long breath of the freshness. Behind her, the front door to her childhood home slammed and she shut her eyes at the violence of the action, at the implications of it. She had revisited the past, just as her list had required she do, but in doing so she had rung the final bell on her relationship with her mother. She would never return here, she would never see her again.

And as she turned to Benedict to take the arm he offered and walked with him back toward the center of town and his carriage, she realized that she was going to have to tell him something about what he had witnessed, why everyone called her by a different name. She owed him that. And she did not look forward to the confessions she was about to make.