The Veiled Heart (The Velvet Basement Book 1) by Elsa Holland Page B

to America and then Canada. But even there, the images turned up. His hand tightened around the polished wood on his walking cane. The idea of Freddy touching her had always rankled. Now it burnt a hole in him. Those moans, the hungry squeeze as she came. What man wouldn’t want it all to be his?
    Across the street, a cab rolled up and stopped by the front gate. The front door to the house opened. A servant in a crisp black suit and white shirt approached the cab and spoke to the driver, gesturing down the block.
    Worthington knocked his cane on the roof and his cabbie followed the other carriage as it moved down the road.
    He leaned back and closed his eyes.
    Miriam… Lily. Her image came to his mind as it had been last night with the veil lifted, her cheeks flushed and eyes heavy-lidded.
    London’s most reclusive widow.
    Being a widow a year and a half into a marriage wasn’t so unusual, but the period of mourning was; it had gone on for years. A broken heart, everyone said. A love to last a lifetime. Debutantes whispered how they wanted a love like that. So romantic, to pine so for each other after death. Society held the belief that she’d wear widow’s weeds indefinitely.
    He’d been happy for her. Happy that she seemed to mourn her husband so deeply. It meant Freddy had behaved. As much as he had hated the pictures, they always confirmed Freddy played the ideal husband. Knowing that had been the only thing that had kept him away.
    A right turn at the end of the block, and they stopped.
    He opened his eyes and looked out the window.
    She hadn’t been a widow anything last night. She’d looked marvelous in russet gabardine, black frog closures down the front of her tight fitting jacket. And she was most certainly not mourning a husband.
    They stopped at an entrance to the blocks’ common gardens.
    A few minutes passed and the large wrought iron gate creaked open and Lily stepped through carrying a few boxes.
    Her veil was firmly in place.
    He leaned forward, a slight tightness in his chest. Then the corner of his mouth tugged up. How could it not?
    She wore his veil.
    It hugged the fine bones of her face, and hid her full mouth and fresh as spring skin from view. The sight of her closeted away in his gift sent an unexpected ripple of deep pleasure through him.
    Of course, he’d wanted her to wear it. If she hadn’t, it wouldn’t have deterred him. However, this was better.
    She wanted to see him again.
    In hindsight, he should have known no woman would have resembled her that closely. His body had known in an instant. The situation of where they met, his state of mind being so determined to whore her out of his system; all of that and more had clouded the truth. Here he sat, a man with a real chance to woo her if he could keep his identity secret for a little longer, just enough to give himself a chance.
    His foot tapped on the carriage floor.
    He wanted to jump out and present himself. The veil signaled a sure welcome. However, he held himself back. She needed space. And he needed her wondering if he would show up.
    Lily stepped into the carriage and it took off down the road. Two knocks with the tip of his cane against the roof and his cab started to move after it.
    It took thirty-five minutes before his carriage stopped.
    The panel slid open.
    “The other cab’s stopped up ahead. Do you want me to wait?” The cabbie’s voice was thin, wary.
    The narrow street had insufficient light.
    “Head back to the nearest thoroughfare. How many blocks back is that, four?”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “Fine, head back there and wait.”
    He stepped out and paid the cabbie a small retainer; enough so he knew he would be paid, but not enough to cover his fare, ensuring the cabbie would be where they’d agreed.
    This was a god-awful part of town, tension ticked in his jaw.
    What was she thinking coming here? This was where women dressed as she was would be bundled up in a Hessian sack, stowed on a ship, and sold in a slave