Chapter 7
VAUXHALL GARDENS, AN HOUR LATER
Lady Viveca was disappointed.
She’d made that state of mind abundantly clear.
Not with her words, but with her silence.
When this lady stopped speaking, that was when one needed to watch out.
Blaze supposed he couldn’t blame her. She’d struck a deal for a night of East End rough, and he’d brought her to Vauxhall Gardens, with its Grand Walk, fountains, artificial ruins, cascades, temples, grottoes, and minstrels parading about beneath the fifteen thousand glass globes.
Not that Blaze himself had any use for any of that.
But he’d been laboring under the impression that nobs did. That they themselves were under the impression that Vauxhall Gardens offered a taste of decadence with an edge of London peril. Positively titillated, that was how he thought aristocrats felt about Vauxhall Gardens.
Well, not the aristocrat at his side.
She clearly found Vauxhall’s edge decidedly dull.
They’d been ambling around for a good half hour and avoiding the eyes of the inquisitive, for though Lady Viveca wore a cape and mask, she was obviously one of them—a nob.
Truth was, he’d never strolled anywhere at any point in his life. But he could half admit it wasn’t an altogether unpleasant experience to be strolling beside Lady Viveca.
Finally, she spoke. “I’ve visited the Gardens many, many, many times over the last few years.”
“Like it that much, do you?”
That got a spark fired up in those blue eyes she flashed up at him. “This isn’t your world, Mr. Jagger.”
Crikes. She was back to calling him Mr. Jagger.
“Some nights, it is,” he said, which was only the truth.
The life of a rogue wasn’t nearly as edgy, dangerous, or exciting as this lady thought.
Some nights it could be dead boring.
But she didn’t want to hear that.
He needed to shift the tone. After all, their deal had been one-for-one, and in her mind, he wasn’t holding up his end. “But Lady Viveca—”
“Viveca.”
“Viveca, have you ever been to Vauxhall Gardens without a brother, sister, or chaperone?”
She sniffed, then said, reluctance in every syllable, “I haven’t.”
“Well.” He spread his hands wide, hoping suggestion would sufficiently offer that hint of excitement she craved.
“Of course,” she said, her voice brightening.
Blaze tensed up. He never trusted a sudden turnabout in tone.
“You shall lead me down a Dark Path.”
She looked just a little too satisfied.
“I shall?”
“I’ve never been down one.”
Blaze heard a double entendre within her words, but doubted she intended it.
For all her boldness, this lady was an innocent—a virgin, plainly.
The virgin sister of his business associates, yet more plainly.
He would steer well wide of any double entendre she gave an airing—unintentional or otherwise.
It wasn’t long before they reached the secluded part of the gardens known for the Dark Paths.
The hanging globes were fewer here, and the music distant and muted.
It gave an atmosphere of suspense and intrigue to some, he supposed.
Those who had never ventured down a St. Giles alleyway in the dead of night, for example.
For the lady at his side, it might suffice for their bargain.
That was his sincere hope, anyway.
He’d never felt more sincere about anything in his life.
“Do you think we could remove our masks here?” she asked.
“I’d be remiss if I didn’t advise against it.”
“Because I’m a lady.”
He nodded.
“Well, who knew?” she said, pushing the hood off her head, her hair shining red gold in the dim light, then untying her mask. She tucked it into an interior pocket.
He knew that tone—and he further knew to be wary of it. “Who knew what?”
“That Blaze Jagger is secretly the most morally upright man in London,” she replied, matter-of-fact.
He scoffed, dismissive, but really, he took great mortal offense. Him? Moral…upright? “Don’t you understand anything, Viveca?”
Her head whipped around. Oh, she didn’t like that. “I understand quite a bit, Mr. Jagger.”
It was still Mr. Jagger, was it? “Then you understand the Dark Paths are where the morally upright put on their masks and become morally bent.”
Her pique faded as quick as it had come on, and she nodded. “Why do proper people think impropriety is all right if they’re the ones being improper?”
He shrugged. “It’s how folk shield themselves when the body demands to do what it wants. Only replace what with who.”
Even in the dim, flickering light of a far-off globe, he could see a smile tip about her mouth. “Oh, I like that.”
She would, wouldn’t she?
And that was why he’d said it, wasn’t it?
The deeper they strolled down this branch of a Dark Path, the narrower it became, so now her shoulder was touching his. Of course, that was the entire point of a dark path, wasn’t it? To get couples bent on amorous pursuits closer to each other.
They rounded a curve, and the suddenness of the sight before them stopped them both dead in their tracks—a man on his knees before a woman, gathering her skirts in his hands, which were above her knees and inching higher.
Viveca gasped, but remained rooted in place, her wide blue eyes fixed on the sight.
Blaze grabbed her upper arm and pulled her back around the bend.
She looked up at him, her brow crinkled. “Why was he on his knees before her?” Her eyes brightened with certainty. “Is he proposing marriage?”
Blaze snorted. “My money says no.”
“Then, what—”
“Let’s try a different path, all right?” He wasn’t about to relate the what of what that couple had been getting up to.
“But—”
He didn’t release her, but held firm as he turned them to double back the way they’d come. However, when they made the next turn in the path, they found another couple had come up behind them—and this time, it was the woman on her knees before the man, her fingers on the falls of his trousers.
Before Viveca could ask if it was the woman proposing marriage this time, Blaze pulled her back around the corner. Trapped, that was what they were.
He released her arm and crossed his arms over his chest, propping his shoulder against a handy tree, resigned to the wait.
No such resignation shone in Viveca’s inquisitive eyes. “Will this take them very long, do you think?”
He shifted on his feet. That curiosity of Lady Viveca’s could lead them down paths darker and more mysterious than the one they presently stood upon. Still, he must answer. “It depends.”
“On?”
“On factors of a wide variety.”
“That sounds intriguing.”
“It’s not.”
“But you must be lying, Mr. Jagger,” she said, shaking her head. “Because people risk rather a lot for the experience, don’t they?”
She had him there.
“So, what various factors, then?” She looked ready to absorb every word like a sponge.
So be it… “A factor would be attraction.”
She nodded. “A given, one would think.”
“Another factor would be if this is a couple’s first time, erm, together.”
Her head tipped to the side. “Why is that?”
“He would want to impress her, wouldn’t he?”
“He would.”
“And there’s stamina to contend with.”
“Stamina?” Her eyebrows crinkled together. “Like a horse in a race?”
Blaze cleared his throat. “A man’s stamina before his…”
He found himself unable to finish the sentence.
Blaze Jagger!
A man known for his loquacity.
But this Lady Viveca…
She was something else.
“Before his…what?”
He saw no way out of this conversation but through… “Release.”
Her eyes widened, but knowledge shone within. He wouldn’t have to explain release to her.
There was a god.
“Can it take a man a very long time to reach release?”
“Depends on the man.”
“You’re a man, Mr. Jagger.”
Now wasn’t the time for him to remind her to call him Blaze.
In fact, to his way of thinking, they would be better off sticking to the formalities.
“I’d noticed.”
“Does it take you very long?”
His mouth opened—and immediately snapped shut.
She wasn’t finished. “To look at you, one wouldn’t suppose your stamina to be lacking in any way.”
Under different circumstances, with a different sort of lady, this conversation would be prelude to a tupping. But this conversation, coming from Lady Viveca Calthorp’s pretty pink mouth, was spoken as observation and information gathering.
It was the most disorienting conversation he’d ever had in his seven-and-twenty years.
And complicating the matter was the issue of his cock and the state of his developing arousal.
Viveca, well, she was an arousing woman.
Curious, fearless…sensual.
And the way she was looking at him… She kept watching his mouth when he talked.
But not just his mouth, but his face…his body…the diamond stud in his left ear that she liked so much.
He was arousing to her, too.
Which was no good.
No good at all.
Her eyes narrowed, and she tipped her head to the other side. She was listening to something. “Do you hear that?”
“Hear what?”
“On this side”—she pointed down the path—“the woman is moaning, but on this side”—she pointed the other way—“the man is moaning.”
Oh, lord.
He was going to have to tell her what that man and that woman had been doing on their knees after all.
For here was the thing: Viveca was a woman, full grown, had been for years. Out of their bargain, this woman wanted knowledge and experience, and as he wasn’t about to give her the latter, he could give her the former.
As a compromise.
“Well, down that way”—now, he was pointing—“it’s the woman being pleasured.” He pointed in the other direction. “And over there, it’s the man being pleasured.”
She nodded all the while he spoke, as if understanding what he was saying both with his words and below them. Then she asked, “Being pleasured?”
He could groan.
He did groan.
“When you saw the man fall to his knees before the woman…”
“Yes?”
“He wasn’t proposing marriage. He was positioning himself to pleasure her.”
Her eyebrows crashed together. “But how? It’s been my understanding that copulation involves a woman’s vagina and a man’s shaft—”
Blaze took it back.
There wasn’t a god.