I have received no reply about the green ribbon, which I take to mean it is adequate to its office.
Augustus
*
Montaigne had gambledflirting with the girl, it was true.
But for his plan to work, he needed Olivia Watson to come to him—and, if he wasn’t mistaken about her character, she would. She would have affection for Miss Mapperton, given how familiarly she was situated in the household. He had been sure he could use her protective instincts to his advantage.
In that regard, he may have overplayed his hand. Indeed, he had been nearly castrated with scalding tea.
Worse, now he was unsure if Olivia would emerge from the townhouse to run him down. After all, she had already scared him off quite effectively. He had underestimated, it appeared, justhowprotective she was prepared to be when it came to the Mappertons.
Unsurprisingly, Mrs. Mapperton had not displayed the compunction that a hostess usually evinced on such an occasion.
Percy, at least, had been concerned. But once Montaigne assured his brother that, indeed, he still had the function of all his body parts and the skin had not melted from any part of his anatomy, Percy had gone back to discussing poetry with Miss Mapperton. Montaigne himself had had no option but to play the incident off as nothing.
Olivia, of course, had murmured some words of contrition, but the little smile playing on her lips made plain that she delighted in her victory.
Soon after, he and Percy left the townhouse. He told his brother that he did not want to wait until they returned home to change his buckskins and that he would stop at Leith’s, nearby, for a change of clothes. When he had handed over to Percy the reins of his curricle, a vehicle that the boy had been hitherto banned from driving, his brother had disappeared posthaste.
Which left him standing in the middle of Bloomsbury with wet trousers, trying to look as though he wasn’t waiting for the very woman that he hoped, with all of his heart, would soon come running after him.
Montaigne had stalked the street twice already. His crotch was growing quite frigid in the winter air.
He prayed that Olivia thought the scalding insufficient for his indelicate overtures to Miss Mapperton. Unlike Olivia, Percy, bless him, hadn’t seemed to notice his rather shameless attempts at flirting with the girl. He could hardly blame Percy for his inattention. His attentions had never fallen on a less receptive target—the girl obviously could only see his brother.
His breath caught.
She had come.
Olivia Watson met his eye from across the street.
He ran through his options. He would rather not speak with her in the street, but it seemed he would have no choice. But he could give them a little privacy. Rather than walk towards her, he turned away and began to make his way down a narrow alley that led to a mews behind the row of townhouses.
“You!”
He closed his eyes in satisfaction.Thank god.
He kept walking.
“You! Stop!”
When he reached the alley, he turned.
And found himself, blessedly, face to face with Olivia. She looked quite becoming in that day dress, even though it had clearly been designed to be inconspicuous and inoffensive. The heavy swell of her bosom taunted him. He doubted there was a man with a taste for ladies in London who could ignore it. A tantalizing trail of freckles peaked out from the edge of her bodice, a slick made, he was sure, for his tongue to—
“How dare you!” the lady in question shouted at him, interrupting this train of thought, “How dare you come here again!”
“Yes, what a devil I am. Coming here and taking tea. I’m sure the papers will be full of it.”
“Oh, if you think—you—what do you think—”
He smiled at her frustration. He liked the image she made at this moment, sputtering, her brown eyes wide, at his mercy. It reminded him of more pleasurable moments in their acquaintance.
“And for this perfidious treatment, I suppose you could say that I have already been punished. Do not think for one second, Miss Watson, that I was fooled by your little show of clumsiness. If I am able to sire children after your teacup maneuver, the earldom will be very lucky indeed.”
“As if I care about your ability to sire children.”
