Sara Bennett Read Online Free

a letter for Hoare’s Private Bank in Fleet Street, so that you can draw on my account there. You will have expenses, and who knows, you may want to buy a new dress or two!” She smiled fondly at her eldest daughter, as if she didn’t really think it likely. “Now, have you everything, my dear?”
    “Yes, Mama, I have everything. Don’t fret. I will be perfectly all right.”
    Lady Greentree had sighed, then nodded. “You have always been a headstrong girl, Vivianna. I knew it when you brought home that tinker’s child when you were ten and informed me he needed a new pair of shoes. In some ways, Vivianna, it is a blessing to be so sure of your direction in life. In others…I fear for you. Do not be too impetuous. I beg you to think first, or you may find yourself in a great deal of trouble.”
    Seated now in the hackney cab, Vivianna wonderedif Lady Greentree’s prediction was about to come true. Because not only had she gone rushing off to London, but upon her arrival at her aunt’s home, Vivianna had pretended to have a bad headache and had promptly retired to her room. Once there, she paused only to change her clothing, snatch up her riding crop, and creep out.
    Lil, her maid, had been her unwilling accomplice, as she was in many of Vivianna’s schemes. Lil found her a hackney cab, and sent her on her way with the admonishment to come back “in one piece, miss, for Gawd’s sake!” And as for poor Aunt Helen, if she were to discover her gone…She was already quite mad with worry concerning her rackety husband, and Vivianna knew it was wrong of her to add to the woman’s burden.
    But somehow all of that paled to insignificance when she thought of the children.
    The carriage containing Lord Montegomery drew to a halt in front of a long, three-story building. A doorman, who had been standing at attention dressed in a red coat with a military cut, strode down to meet Montegomery like a soldier marching proudly into battle.
    Vivianna’s hackney had also come to a halt. She peered out at the bland, respectable façade. The place looked mundane, but she supposed exclusive gentlemen’s clubs did not need to advertise their wares on the outside. As she sat, hesitating, Montegomery vanished inside and his carriage moved off. It was time to make her own decision. If she did not do something now, she may as well go back to Yorkshire.
    Vivianna was not a woman to retreat easily; she was a fighter. She climbed down out of the hackney and paid off the driver. His fingers closed over the shillingcoins. “Here, miss?” he asked her, a strange expression on his face. “Are you sure? Right here?”
    “I am perfectly sure, thank you.”
    “But it’s an academy, miss. Run by an abbess. An’ I can see you is a laced-woman…eh, that is, a lady.”
    Vivianna only understood a few words of what he said, and even then they made no sense. Her chance of following Montegomery inside was dwindling. “I will be quite safe, driver, thank you,” she said coolly.
    The man opened his mouth, then closed it again, and with a flick of his wrists turned the hackney back into the sparse stream of evening traffic. Just as Vivianna drew the hood of her cloak up to hide her face, another vehicle pulled up outside the sober building, and another gentleman alighted. Ignoring Vivianna’s cloaked figure standing irresolute upon the footway, he strode briskly toward the open door.
    Here was her chance.
    Vivianna fell into step behind the gentleman, hurrying to keep up, as if she had every right to be there. The red-coated doorman was bowing him inside. Breath held, head lowered, her cloak wrapped tightly about her, Vivianna moved to slip by him and within.
    The air whooshed out of her lungs. She had run straight into a muscular arm, stretched out at waist height and barring her way. Gasping, Vivianna looked up and found the doorman, a sun-browned individual with a broken nose, staring down at her with hard gray eyes.
    “’Round the back,