Someone to Watch Over Me (Bow Street Runners #1)(44)

"But you've done more than that. You've invited anyone and everyone who could possibly wish me harm! I'm being dangled before them like live bait, and you're waiting to see who will snap!"

"There are half a dozen Runners and constables attending tonight, not to mention myself and Sir Ross. We're all keeping our eyes on you. You're in no danger." His words had the effect of throwing brandy on a fire. She flared in fury, her lips drawn back from her teeth. "You could have told me what you were planning! But you didn't, because you wanted me to be unprepared, and humiliated, and shamed by the sight of the multitude I've slept with."

"So you think this is all some elaborate punishment I've devised for you?" he sneered. "Try again, Vivien. Bow Street has better things to do than support personal vendettas. My job is to catch the man that tried to kill you, and this is the best way of doing it. If you happen to be embarrassed by the evidence of your past, that's no fault of mine."

"You manipulative, arrogant..." She tried to think of the nastiest word possible, while her hand rose to slap him.

"Go on," Grant said softly, "if it makes you feel better."

Vivien stared at him, so handsome in his black evening wear, so strong and invulnerable that one slap would only amuse him. She curled her shaking hand into a fist and clenched it against her middle, using all her will to control her tumult of emotions.

"You can hardly bear to hurt anyone, can you?" Grant murmured. "Even when they deserve it. But that's not like you. You used to rip a man's heart out and crush it beneath your foot with no more concern than you would swat a damned fly. What the hell has happened to you?"

She had never truly felt like a prostitute until this moment. Suddenly she wished--for the first time--that she could instantly change back into that other Vivien, the shameless, uncaring woman who did exactly as she pleased. Perhaps then the ache of betrayal would fade away. Until now she had regarded Grant Morgan as her protector, her friend. She had fallen in love with him, though she would never have expected anything to come of it. But he was not her friend. He was as much her adversary as everyone else here tonight. She felt very much alone, like a woman about to be stoned. Well...damn them all and let them all stare.

Raising her head, she stared at Grant steadily, the color fading from her face except for two bright arcs high on her cheeks. "All right," she said in a low voice. "Tonight I'll give everyone, including you, what they want."

"What the hell does that mean?"

"Only that I intend to make your job easier for you."

She squared her shoulders and left the gallery with determined strides, plunging back into the drawing room like a gladiator. Grant followed more slowly, his gaze locked on her small, trim form. Any trace of shame or timidity had left her. She moved among the guests with a straight spine and a regal tilt to her head. It seemed as if the Vivien he had remembered was now back, as alluring and coquettish as ever.

Openly flirting and teasing, Vivien began to attract men like flies to a honey pot. Before long a circle of five had gathered around her. Three of them were former paramours, and by all appearances more than willing to renew their previous arrangements with her. Clasping a goblet of wine in her delicate fingers, Vivien finished it far too quickly and accepted another.

Grant moved forward, feeling like a starving man being forced to watch as others feasted athis picnic. At that moment he felt Sir Ross's restraining clasp on his shoulder. "Let her be," came Cannon's cool murmur. "She's doing exactly what needs to be done. A clever woman, your friend."

"Vivien is merely reverting to type," Grant said bitterly. "She can't rest until she's made every man in the room want her."

"Really." Cannon's voice turned dry and chiding. "Take a closer look, Morgan, and tell me what you see."

"A courtesan, enjoying the hell out of herself." Grant drank deeply of his brandy.

"Oh? I see a woman with perspiration on her forehead, holding her wineglass in a death grip. I see the tension of a woman attending to an unpleasant duty regardless of the embarrassment it causes her."

Grant snorted. "She isn't capable of embarrassment."

Cannon regarded him speculatively. "If you say so. Though at the moment I haven't much faith in your objectivity."

Grant waited until the magistrate left him before he replied under his breath, "Neither do I."

He continued to watch Vivien while jealousy and anger swirled in a fomenting mass inside him. This was what it would be like for any man fool enough to care about Vivien. He watched her flirting and talking with her former lovers, and he couldn't help recalling the sickening details of what she had done with each and every one of them. He wanted to smash, pummel, skewer, mangle someone...anything to release this welling violence. He hadn't known he was capable of such irrational rage, and he was appalled by it.

Until now, Vivien hadn't known it was possible to present a facade of pleasure and gaiety when she was abjectly miserable. It was the worst kind of torture to stand here and pretend sexual interest in any and all the men that surrounded her, when all she wanted was to be alone.

She did not look directly at Grant, but she saw him from the corner of her eye, a grim giant who looked as though he had swallowed a bellyful of wasps. She couldn't help thinking of him as the cause of her problems...though that wasn't quite fair. If she hadn't led the kind of life that had resulted in this unholy mess, she wouldn't need his protection. She was to blame for the entire situation. But he, damn his arrogant hide, didn't have to treat her with such ambivalence, being kind and caring one moment and sarcastic and superior the next. It would be easier for them both if he would either like or hate her, instead of tormenting her with his mercurial moods.