Someone to Watch Over Me (Bow Street Runners #1)(38)

"You may change your mind, once you recover your memory."

"I don't care what happens after my memory returns," she retorted sharply. "As I've told you before, I won't be a courtesan any longer."

Morgan regarded her with a frank skepticism that annoyed her beyond reason. "We'll see," he muttered.

Another painting caught her eye, a small oil with a delicate gilded frame. It was hung on the wall next to the dressing table, as if she had wanted to look at it while applying perfumes and powders and brushing her hair. Moving closer, she stared at the painting with growing curiosity. It didn't seem at all in keeping with the rest of the house. Obviously done by an amateur, the picture had been painted in bright, cheerful colors. The scene was of a little country cottage, timber-framed and painted white, with a carpet of lavender heather all around, and silver birch trees behind it. A profusion of rosebushes bearing dainty white blossoms covered the front of the cottage.

Vivien couldn't seem to take her eyes from the painting. She felt certain it was a place she had once visited, a place where she had been happy. "How strange," she murmured. "I think...I think this picture was given to me by someone who..." She stopped in confusion. "Oh, if only we knew where this cottage was!"

"It could be practically anyplace in England," Grant said sardonically.

Vivien touched the signature in the corner of the canvas. "Devane," she read aloud. "How familiar that sounds. Devane. I wonder if he is a friend or perhaps even a..."

"Lover?" Grant suggested quietly.

She drew her hand back and frowned. "I suppose he might be." Memories strained behind the impenetrable wall in her mind. Frustrated, Vivien went to a massive breakfront wardrobe, fitted with huge pieces of silvered glass and flanked with cabinets of linen trays on either side. Opening one of the two sets of doors, she beheld a long row of gowns in every imaginable shade of silk, velvet, and satin, the skirts fluttering like butterfly wings. Many of the garments held a faint note of perfume, a combination of roses and spicy wood that mingled with sweet crispness in her nostrils.

"There seems to be a range of styles," she remarked, conscious of Morgan's gaze on her. "Everything from sedate to shocking. What effect are we hoping to achieve?"

"Vivien Duvall in all her glory," he said.

She looked back over her shoulder at him. "What was I wearing when we first met?"

"A mermaid gown. Green silk with little gauze sleeves."

Busily she combed through the collection until she found a gown that matched the description. "This one?" she asked, holding it up for his inspection.

He nodded, looking unaccountably grim.

Vivien held the gown up against her front and glanced down at it. The garment was beautifully made, shimmering green with little ruches of white satin at the neckline that reminded her of foam on the waves. A mermaid gown indeed. She had excellent taste in clothes, evidently...and why not? A courtesan's primary concern would be the art of displaying herself to the best advantage. "I could wear this one to the ball," she said. "What do you think? Shall we give it another outing?"

"No." A shadow flitted across his face, and he regarded the gown with obvious dislike.

Lost in thought, Vivien replaced the gown in the wardrobe. "We didn't get on well that first meeting, did we?" she asked, riffling through the row of clothes.

His voice was subtly serrated with tension. "Do you remember?"

"No...but the look on your face...Anyone could see that it wasn't a pleasant memory."

"It wasn't," he agreed curtly.

"Was it I who dislikedyou , or have I got it backward?"

"The dislike was mutual, I believe."

"Then how did we...that is, why did you ever enter into an arrangement with me?"

"You have a way of sticking in a man's craw."

"Like a fish bone," she said ruefully, and laughed. She pulled out a white gown, a bronze, and a lavender, and brought them to the bed in a colorful heap. Carefully she began to fold the delicate garments while Morgan watched her. "One of these will do nicely," she said.

"Aren't you going to try them on?" he asked.

"Why bother? They're all mine. Why shouldn't they fit?"

"You've lost a bit of weight since your dunking in the Thames." He came to measure her waist experimentally, his large hands nearly spanning the neat circumference. Vivien started at his touch, at the solid feel of him behind her back. The dual proximity of Grant Morgan and a silk-covered bed was enough to rattle her nerves. Remembering his hands, so wickedly gentle as they searched her body, and his mouth imprinting warm, delicious kisses on hers, she tried to suppress a hard shiver. He must have felt the involuntary movement, for his hands tightened at her waist, and his lips moved close to her ear until she felt the caress of his breath.

"There's no need for me to try anything on," she managed to say. "Besides, I can't fasten and unfasten rows of buttons all by myself."

"I would be willing to help."

"I'm certain you would," she replied with a smile that turned wobbly. Sensation, or the exquisite promise of it, raced through her body and pooled low in her stomach making her knees weak. For a breathless moment she thought of leaning back, arching her throat in invitation, pulling his hands up to her br**sts.