“Certainly, you do not seem to have conducted yourself for the approbation of society.”
“No,” he said with a low chuckle that sent something traitorous snaking through her blood. “I have not. And while I have no desire to change their opinion of me, I would like to improve my standing in your eyes.”
“You cannot care what I think,” Olivia blurted out, “Please—don’t be cruel.”
“I never want to be cruel to you, Olivia. I never did. I understand that, in the past, I may have made a poor impression upon you. If I hurt you, I am deeply sorry.”
Olivia was stunned by the words. He was admitting that the way he dismissed her was cruel—and asking for her forgiveness.
She nodded, stiffly. It was humiliating, in a way, to have to acknowledge what he had done. But it seemed petty to treat him with incivility now, especially when he was going to such lengths to make amends. And, really, he was doing much more than anyone would think was warranted. Most people, in his world and hers, would think the ten guineas thirteen years ago sufficient compensation.
It didn’t matter how it had rent her heart. The heart of a maidservant was worth far less than ten guineas in most corners of Britain.
“And I want you to know,” he continued, “that I have no designs on Miss Mapperton. And no objections to her acquaintance with my brother.”
“Eloisa doubts Lord Percy is at an age to be serious in his affections.”
“I do not think obtaining a certain age is necessary for lasting attachment. I see no objection to the match, if he wants to make it. But that’s not my affair.”
“Isn’t it?”
He shook his head. “No, Miss Watson.”
From the way he looked at her, his light eyes alit with that intensity, she had the strange feeling that he was implying something elsewashis affair—her. But he didn’t say it. And why would he feel any uncommon interest in her? For whatever reason, he felt he needed to right this wrong of his past, and he was merely doing it.
Soon, Petunia appeared at her brother’s shoulder, and their tete-a-tete was dissolved.
But for the rest of the evening, Olivia felt the thrum of his nearness—and of the absorbing expression that had been in his gaze.
Chapter Eight
Augustus—
That display in my rooms was devious, indeed. I suppose you think you are very clever offering so many sweets at once. But I do not see how you will discover my true favorite from such a method. With such inefficient measures, I suppose you will never guess.
Olivia
*
Olivia—
Oh, I already know the answer to your interesting riddle. If you meet me in the gardens after dinner tomorrow, you will find an ecstasy hitherto unknown to yourself.
Augustus
*
It was expected,perhaps, that given his obsession with Olivia Watson—he was, after all, spending his days plotting to make her his wife—that he would struggle to stop thinking about her. But Montaigne was exceeding, even by that measure, the bounds he had thought possible. She occupied his wakinganddreaming thoughts. After the ball at Almack’s, he spent the next two days with his head full of her, plagued by a persistent cockstand.
He hadn’t been able to understand how she wasn’t besieged by offers to dance at Almack’s. Yes, many of the debutantes were quite pretty, and Miss Mapperton, who had made a conquest of anyone in that crowd with any susceptibility or taste, was captivating. But Olivia.
Olivia. Olivia. Olivia.
She had the form that, while he acknowledged was not fashionable, he personally would be willing to die for. The soft swell of her bosom in her evening dress beckoned him to confirm the lascivious nature of which the scandal sheets accused him.
He woke at night, poised somewhere between memory and fantasy, his breathing hard and his cock harder, thinking only of her.
All of this—and, at the ball, they hadn’t even touched. He had yearned to sweep her into one of the waltzes that certain society matrons still found scandalous. But, perhaps, it had been for the best that he had not, given that the idea of holding her that close again made his hands shake. It wouldn’t have helped anyone or anything if he had transformed into an insatiable beast on the floor of Almack’s.
