The only problem was that she did not seem as certain about her intended place in the universe.
When he had found that letter, he had felt only terror. Not anger—he could hardly be upset with her for living after she left England. She had made clear that, for reasons he could not fathom, she thought he had wanted nothing to do with her. That he hadn’t taken their relationship seriously. Therefore, he could hardly blame her for, in the thirteen years since, contemplating marrying another man. He was equally sure that she had been with other men, more intimately, than she had been with this Mr. Laurent. He knew it not from anything she had done or said, but just from her nature. She would explore, especially if she had assumed he had cast her off. She wasn’t one to do nothing, to try and dwell on pain. It wasn’t how she had been taught to encounter the world. It didn’t upset him. He understood it.
What ravaged him was the prospect of losing her again. The idea that she might leave England once more and return to France to marry another man. That she saw him only as a dalliance.
That thought kept him up until dawn, long after he had returned to Mayfair. He sat in his chamber, thinking of how he could convince Olivia Watson to marry him and not some faceless man in France. His advantages, in the eyes of most, he knew, would seem vast. What woman wouldn’t want to become a countess? To live in the splendor that he could offer?
But Olivia, he knew, did not care for or want such things.
If anything, he sensed, they counted against him.
He would have to convince her through other means.
And those were of a very singular variety.
He needed time with her and he needed privacy.
He needed to take her to Tremberley’s masquerade.
*
The issue, asfar as Montaigne saw it, was not getting Olivia to the masquerade. Trem’s annual masquerade had evolved over the years from ademimondeevent to, sometime around John and Catherine’s marriage, a largely respectable society function. Therefore, when Montaigne dispatched the invitation to the Mappertons, taking the liberty of also including Percy in his wishes for their attendance, he had little reason to think that Olivia and her friends would refuse.
No, the problem would be getting Olivia alone at the masquerade, when Nathanial and Natasha Mapperton had clearly noticed his reputation. Furthermore, he knew he could not just take Olivia to any broom cupboard or small library and ravish her. He needed to make her feel sexual ecstasy as she never had. To make the idea of a life as the wife of a respectable gentleman in the French countryside appear absurd beside the pleasure he could give her. He needed, in short, a plan.
That was how he found himself seated at Trem and Henrietta’s breakfast table, both of them indishabille, looking cheerful yet tired.
“She looks just like you, Henrietta,” Montaigne said, peering down at the infant whose blue eyes mirrored hers to an uncanny degree.
“Monty, that’s scandalous,” Henrietta protested, biting into a pastry with zeal, “I can only see Trem when I look at her.”
“My wife is addlepated,” Trem broke in, “The girl is my only living relative and she is all Breminster, no Tremberley. It’s a shame, really.” The smile on Trem’s face and the besotted look he shot his wife announced, however, that he hardly regarded the matter as a tragedy. “But come now, Monty. As flattered as we are in your interest in our offspring, that can hardly be why you are here this morning. How can we help you? With Olivia?”
“We’ll do anything,” Henrietta offered. She took a hearty sip of her tea and fixed him with a penetrating gaze. “You must really love her. I never thought I’d see it.”
Love. There it was. The word in Henrietta’s mouth, like it was nothing. It made him feel uncomfortable to hear it, to see his desire put in those terms. He wasn’t sure why.
“I need your help,” he said, pushing down his mounting terror, “It concerns the masquerade.”
Trem and Henrietta groaned in tandem.
“The blasted masquerade,” Trem swore.
“When is it?” Henrietta asked her husband, squinting.
“Tomorrow,” Montaigne supplied, horrified that the hosts of the event on which his hopes hinged seemed so disconnected from it.
“Yes, of course,” Henrietta said, quickly, “Mr. and Mrs. Foxcroft have been superintending all of the arrangements. We’ve just been so distracted. With the baby.”
“We shouldn’t have had it this year. That’s what my wife is being too diplomatic to say.”
Henrietta was hardly being delicate, but it was no matter.
“Then why are you?” Montaigne asked, bewildered.
Trem shrugged. “Tradition, I suppose. It didn’t occur to me to cancel it. And now I can think of nothing worse than having all thetonin this house, when I just want to be with my wife and child.”
“We’ve been dreading it,” Henrietta said, brightly, “But perhaps you can give us a reason, Monty, to see some purpose in it. If it helpsyou, then it will make the blasted thing palatable.”
