“Eloisa,” she panted.
“Mrs. Mapperton,” Augustus responded, stepping back from her. “I hope we didn’t startle you.”
“Startle me!” she exclaimed. “Yes, I am quite startled.”
Eloisa strode towards them, her elegant silver gown swishing with her movements.
“I assume,” she said, her eyes narrowed into slits and trained on Augustus, “if you are kissing Olivia, it is because she has let you. I cannot admonish you for taking a liberty that you have been lucky enough to win from her. I will, however, issue a warning. If you harm Olivia, I will personally make your life a misery. I do not care how many town manses or carriages or titles that you have in your possession. Or marriageable younger brothers that my daughter seems to adore. Do you understand me, Lord Montaigne?”
“Very much so, ma’am,” he said, and Olivia could tell he was struggling to catch his breath and appear somewhat respectable, “I have no intention of harming Olivia. That is the last thing that I would want.”
“For a man who says so, you’ve done a remarkably poor job in the past.”
With a perplexed frown, Augustus gave a slight bow of his head. “I certainly do not defend my past conduct.”
“Very good,” Eloisa bit off, snapping her fan in a gesture that Olivia knew, from years with Eloisa, meant she regarded the matter as closed for the time being. “Now, come, Olivia. You have spent long enough on this balcony with a known scoundrel. While you are free to receive him at our lodgings, any more time with him on this balcony and our cadre risks tipping fromoutréto scandalous.”
Of course, Eloisa was right. She had lost track of time with him. She and the Mappertons did not need any more attention tonight.
She moved to leave, but she felt strong fingers close around her wrist, pulling her back.
“Olivia, will you allow me to call on you?”
He looked nearly nervous. Much closer to the young man of twenty that she had known than the titled lord who had strode into the Mapperton drawing room and then cornered her in a dirty alleyway.
She should refuse him. Especially with Eloisa watching. Eloisa, who knew all that had passed between them once, formed a painful reminder of all she owed to herself.
But the punishing force of his kiss was still on her lips. And the ardor on his face whispered that, perhaps, there were things she did not understand, and it stoppered the refusal in her throat.
“Yes,” she breathed out. “You can.”
Then, she broke away from him, moving towards the balcony door, where Eloisa held the door open for her just inside.
She willed her feet across the stones and through the door, but she couldn’t help turning back one more time.
Augustus was watching her leave, his expression once more poised somewhere between lust and pain. He looked like a supplicant before a shrine, a worshipper before an idol. She couldn’t believe that such a gaze could be for her.
But, then, for just a moment, with their eyes locked, when he gave one hard swallow, she believed that it could be.
Volume the Second
Chapter Eleven
Olivia—
After your last missive, I was sure that you would not meet me in the gardens. I only went myself because I hoped against hope that you would somehow appear after all. Now, I feel that I have never previously appreciated caramels. They were never a particular favorite before, I must confess, but now I seem to have acquired a taste for the sweet—and I do believe that they will forever remind me of you.
Would you indulge with me further by meeting me tomorrow evening at the Star and Sickle Tavern? I promise to have a bag of caramels and an ale waiting for you at midnight.
Augustus
*
Augustus—
I should refuse outright, as you well know. If I am caught out of bed after hours, Mrs. Phelps would turn me away without a second thought, I am sure.
But after yesterday, I suppose my refusals seem rather hollow. I should have not let you kiss me either, but how could I resist a man who tasted of caramel? It was hardly fair of you to tempt in such a fashion.
