It mattered not. He’d secured what he needed: an invitation into her inner circle. An invitation to sniff out the thief. His plan was beginning to bear fruit.
To be sure, he’d somewhat unmanned himself and come across as a Society blockhead—her mean, little smile had assured him of that fact—but he didn’t need her to see him as a man. And he certainly didn’t need to see her as a woman composed of flesh and blood, wants and desires. He didn’t need to see herunbound.
He needed her to lead him to the thief, and, increment by increment, she was doing so. Today was a small victory. In no way should he feel dissatisfied by the idea that he’d disappointed her and that she might now see him as a popinjay.
His blood wasn’t simmering over the thought. He had nothing to prove to her.
He would sharpen his focus on the silver lining. At the last moment she’d returned to being the woman he needed her to be. Not the one who twirled her way through a house on a wave of pure abandon. Not the one whose flick of a tongue tempted him in ways no other ever had. Not the one who revealed the vulnerabilities of her past through a transparent shell of sophistication.
He respected that woman, he might even be in awe of her, the brave choices she’d made, the path she was forging, alone. But he didn’tneedthat Lady Olivia. He needed her to be hard and difficult, not soft and unguarded.
He needed her to be easy to walk away from.
~ ~ ~
She waited until the echo of his footsteps faded across the foyer and the front door snapped shut. Only then was Olivia able to release the bravado suspended within her lungs.
Not five minutes ago, his scent of cloves had enveloped her, and all she could think was that she wouldn’t mind if his arms enveloped her, too.
No. Nothing so tepid as that. In the privacy of this empty house, she could face her true response to him. Body aflame with desire aching for release, her mind had them horizontal on the bare floorboards, pressing, pulling, tugging, begging for more and more and more until—
Until what? Certain salacious poems and novels detailed quite intimately where such gambols led, but she’d never discovered that place for herself, not with Percy.
But with Lord St. Alban? Her intuition told her she’d find out rather quickly. And, oh, how very much she wanted to know.
On a shaky breath, she forced her body into motion, as if in doing so, she could as easily move away from opaque curiosities that nipped at her like tenacious little fleas that wouldn’t leave her be. Her feet crept to the rear of the kitchen, toward the staircase that led up to the communal, secret garden shared with several other townhouses. A cooling outdoor stroll was what she needed.
She ascended the steps and pushed open the door. Her feet came to a dead stop, and the breath caught in her chest. Images conjured up by a too-attractive viscount fled.
Marvelous. No other word captured this garden, ripe with fresh greenery peeking out after an overlong winter and blessedly devoid of another human soul. A narrow footpath wound through the first buds of spring roses not yet in bloom: yellows, pinks, reds, oranges, lavenders. Soon this garden would be a thing of beauty. It was enough to inspire one to take up painting the botanical sort of beauty instead of the human variety.
Now there was a thought. Still life would be so much easier than people. So much more predictable.
She paused beside a vibrant fuchsia rose and brushed her fingertips across petals wound in a tight, velvety bud. Take the life cycle of this rose. From the moment a bee pollinated an ovule to form a seed, its fate was determined. With the proper amount of water, dirt, and sunlight, its path toward dazzling effulgence was secured.
Humans were an altogether different matter, their life cycle fraught with uncertainty and unpredictability. And it seemed to her that they preferred it this way, not knowing what surprise lurked around the corner.
Be it pleasant or unpleasant, it was in a human’s nature to root it out. It could be glory on the battlefield, colors flying high, or a death faked in a war-scarred mountain pass on a sunny afternoon. The cost to self or others rarely figured into these risks that came down to an all-or-nothing scenario, that never considered the black void left to others when it ended on the nothing side.
She approached a small bench and perched on its edge, the green carpet of grass before her extending toward a lively fountain, its bubbling stream a distant, soothing hush. How readily she could return to this dark place.
How dare Lord St. Alban proclaim that she would bring the past wholesale into the present. He wasn’t there, in her mind, when Mariana had delivered the news that Percy was alive. How all she could think was that she wanted—needed—to be set free from a marriage she’d long believed herself liberated from.
Never again would she place her fate in the hands of another. Or again be fooled by the first rush of love, heady, beguiling, and unreliable.
She would choose the life cycle of an English rose. The view might be limited, but her future would be predictable and her own. For here was the other point about a rose: it had thorns. She would employ every last one to keep her independence.
Yet by inviting Lord St. Alban to her monthly soirée, hadn’t she undercut that intention? Hadn’t she stepped into the realm of unpredictability and invited him to further complicate his life with hers?
Tomorrow, she would see him again. Did shewantto see him again tomorrow? Did her blood sing through her veins at the thought? It was entirely conceivable that both possibilities were true.
She strove for another controlled breath, but it refused to obey, instead entering her lungs ragged and shallow. Whatever emotions Lord St. Alban stirred within her, she must resolve and silence.
For her present.
For her future.
Chapter 10
