“It’s beyond impressive, Lady Olivia. Mina has the sort of brilliant mind that could make her one of the great thinkers of her generation. That’s what is at stake.”
Olivia set a balancing hand on the window ledge to her right and looked through its clear pane of glass in an attempt to slow the conversation, to reassert rationality over herself. Below, a group of girls were pruning rosebushes in the back garden, preparing them for their first spring bloom, but she watched them almost sightlessly.
At issue was the not insignificant problem that her brain, and her body, were refusing to think of Lord St. Alban as a viscount in this intimate space. Stripped away were Society’s constraints and dictums about who he was, who she was, and who they were in relation to one another. In the small patch of air they shared with no one but each other, it was simple, even elemental: he was a man, and she a woman.
Yet Society’s rules would reassert themselves, and she remembered precisely who she was: amerewoman.
“What I wouldn’t give,” she began, a burgeoning righteousness increasing with each word she spoke, “to navigate life with your utter privilege. Have you never been denied anything a day in your life?” A silent huff of a laugh escaped her. “No wonder Mrs. Bloomquist’s refusal has you stymied. But fret not, you will prevail. Your kind simply does.”
“My kind?” he asked, his voice low and deep, wary.
She was being unfair, but she cared not. Life was unfair.
“You take me for nothing more than an entitled viscount who must have his way?”
“My characterization of you tends more toward the general. An entitledman? Absolutely.” She rested her hip on a neighboring desk. A sleeping beast had awakened inside her, and it wanted, demanded, release. “It isn’t only that you can do whatever you please; you can do whateverpleases you. What a heady feeling it must be to have the world at your fingertips.”
He didn’t answer her immediately, allowing the moment to stretch out and the import of her words to sink into the air. All the while, he continued to regard her with eyes cool and penetrating. At last, he spoke, his voice a velvety rumble in his chest. “And what in this world doesn’t a woman under the protection of a duke have at her fingertips?”
Her own Mayfair townhouse, she didn’t reply. Instead, she pressed her lips together and held his piercing gaze.
A possibility stole in. He wasn’t only a man. He was an opportunity.
She and he each had something the other wanted. And they each had the power to give it to the other. It was simple.
Misgiving seized her. This was Lord St. Alban. Nothing would remain simple with him for long. She felt it in her bones. But how badly did she want her independence?
It felt like a test question. And Lord St. Alban was the correct answer.
She cleared her throat and spoke the words before she thought better of them. “As one of the school’s founders, I could request a reevaluation of its admittance policy.”
He sat taller in his seat. “Is that so?”
She hesitated. Everyno no noclanging through her head was countered by ayes yes yesthat this was her opportunity, and she dare not miss it. “I could even put in a good word for Miss Radclyffe. That she be the first student admitted under this new policy.”
“Only good?”
“Persuasive,” she replied, unsure how she’d come this far. She would be further entwining her life with this man whom she hardly knew. How badly did sheneedher independence? “On one condition,” she added.
“Which is?”
“For a favor in return.”
“Yes?” He was prodding her along, rightly sensing her ambivalence.
She screwed up her courage and finally said what she needed to say. “Buy me a Mayfair townhouse.”
~ ~ ~
A lightning flash of anticipation shot through Jake and quickened his pulse. Lady Olivia stood tensed before him, every ounce of her body awaiting his counter. He saw it in the tightness about her lips, the clench of her hands, the rawness of her gaze. Every cell in her body wanted him to sayyes.
And he would. But he sensed that he could get more out of her if he held off.
After all, in the span of ten minutes she’d confirmed her connection to a Japanese artist, had even revealed the man’s name.Jiro. What would another ten minutes yield?
Still, he couldn’t allow the opportunity to provoke her further to pass him by. “A gentleman doesn’t gift a lady with property, unless”—He was being a scoundrel, no doubt—“she agreed to be his—”
She held up a forestalling hand. “Donotfinish that sentence.”
