I will meet you at the tavern.
Olivia
*
Olivia—
Fear not—I will ensure that Mrs. Phelps does not discover your absence. She has an awful weakness for brandy and I know where to get some not often found on English shores. She and Mr. Phelps are to have a bottle, a roast pheasant, and a French gateau in their quarters tomorrow evening. They will have no reason to stray from their feast.
In terms of the kiss, I can scarcely write about it. Please know that I do not presume the event will be repeated. Your company is all I desire. I cannot hope to be so lucky as to receivetwokisses from you inonelifetime.
Augustus
*
Perhaps, he hadcalled too early.
It was the morning after a ball and no one ever planned to rise early after such an occasion. Montaigne had forced himself to wait through the conventional breakfast hour—but he hadn’t been able to restrain himself any longer. He needed to speak with Olivia, and she had given him permission to call on her. While last evening had not gone exactly as planned, he had won what he needed: an audience with her.
And she had let him kiss her. After that kiss, the rest of the ball had been a blur, and he had only been able to glimpse her in snatches from across the room. He could still feel his body humming with the nearness of hers, the sweetness of her lips and tongue teasing him relentlessly in the subsequent hours, as he spoke to acquaintances and tried to act jovial with his friends. He consoled himself, somewhat, by discussing with Catherine the advances that he had made towards a closer understanding with Olivia, and his friend had congratulated him warmly. But when he put his head on his pillow last night, it swam withher.Then, he would have given anything for just a few more moments with her on that balcony.
So, now, at half before noon, the Earl of Montaigne sat alone in a fashionable Bloomsbury drawing room, waiting for Miss Olivia Watson to show herself. He had been waiting for nearly ten minutes and he was beginning to grow agitated. The tasteful pastel pink that formed the theme of the room, along with the furniture, so new he could smell the wood varnish, seemed to taunt him. This drawing room was a space for young, unbroken swains to call on their beautiful sweethearts. It wasn’t a space designed for him, a notorious rake with a blackened reputation, to try and convince a superior woman that he was worth a second chance.
It seemed that that lady wasn’t sure hewasworthy of second chance, or even the possibility of a second chance, because she had yet to come downstairs.
Yes, the butler had told him that he wasn’t sure if the lady had risen, and he supposed she still may need to dress—but he couldn’t lie to himself. Each minute of waiting meant that she very well may have changed her mind about allowing him to speak with her. Which meant that she had changed her mind about hearing him explain his side of the scandal sheets, because she must know that that was what he came to do. And she must suspect that he wanted, that he intended when calling on her, to ask if—
The door opened on a well-oiledsnickand Olivia came through it. When he saw her in the fresh morning light, he struggled for a moment, as he usually did, to breathe. She was wearing a day dress of butter yellow. It made her eyes appear like pure, unadulterated honey, a golden brown so deep that it threatened to pull him under.
He stood as she entered, and she gave him a slight curtsey before taking a seat on the sofa across from his chair. He sat again and, for a moment, as they had last night, they just looked at one another.
The fullness of her figure, the creamy temptation of the skin at her collar, provoked his senses afresh.
He realized that he was probably looking at her the way a wild animal might ogle its prey. Their eyes met. He needed to keep his wits.
“Olivia,” he began, “I owe you an explanation. When I tried to speak to you without one, after the opera, I wasn’t thinking.”
Her brow furrowed. “Indeed, you were not. If you thought I wouldn’t see myself in the line of servants that you seduced—that they say you have seduced,” she corrected, when he raised his hand to object, “then you mistake me entirely. But you have enough power to influence the scandal sheets. Perhaps, you would not be able to shut them up completely, but if the narratives there were not true, you could bully them into a kind of submission. I cannot be the only person who took your lack of objection as tacit admission—and maybe even boasting.”
“Doubtlessly, you are not,” he said, wincing at how sordid it all must sound from her vantage. “But would you let me explain?”
“I am listening,” she nodded. Her eyes did hold an eagerness. It gave him strength to continue, even though he wasn’t quite sure how he would manage explaining it all.
“Thirteen years ago, after you left—” he began, but then broke eye contact with her and found himself unable to go on. He tried to stifle the blush he knew must be rising over his fair complexion. She must know by now how heartbroken he was when she departed and there seemed no use in belaboring the point. He had offended her with his lack of serious intentions and he must not appear to whine over the punishment he had received. He caught his breath. “The scandal sheets caught wind of what had happened between us. I believe it was probably one of my mother’s staff, who realized that they could make a quick few pounds selling the story. And it was only a small item that appeared, intimating that I had had an affair with a maid in my employ.Conversation,I remember is the term they used.”
He had winced at it, then. How they had dirtied what he had had with Olivia, reducing it to a few inches of tawdry newsprint, when their relationship—to him at least—had been so sincere, so sweet. Literally, in fact. Reading that little item, you would have never guessed that they had shared a bag of caramels, as chaste as children, sitting in the gardens of his townhouse. And that, when he had first kissed her, she had tasted of the browned sugar and something ineffably her, innocent and hardy all at once, delicate and resilient.
“I remember the piece,” Olivia nodded. “I wondered if you felt humiliated.”
“No, of course not,” he said, shaking his head. “But it did cause a stir. Viscount Brightley was wrong last night about many things, but I do have to give credence to his description of my family’s situation. We are related to half of the aristocracy. And I was young, no one knew much about me yet. It attracted notice—and, as I soon learned, not just among theton.”
“What do you mean?” That crease had returned between her brows.
He laughed. He had to laugh at the memory of this. How ridiculous, truly, it had been. And it was a story he had never been able to properly tell to anyone before, given everything that had since come to pass.
“Every spring, I visit my cousin’s estate in Norfolk. For the hunt. Not long after you left, I went for my annual trip. When I arrived in my rooms, after a long journey, late at night, they were not empty.”
He had her attention now. Her eyes had widened, and her mouth was parted just slightly.
