Their love, the one that they had experienced, had been of the type that, when he had lost it, he knew he had no hope of ever replicating. It had been that seamless blend of regard and lust that he didn’t believe a person could find more than once in a lifetime. Her body had been sacred to him, and back then he had worked to learn about her pleasure, how he could bring it to her again and again. It had been a privilege to do so.
Of course, last night, she hadn’t even wanted to speak to him. That fact—he knew it should perturb him more. A woman that you loved to distraction disappears without a trace, without an indication of where she is going, and then when she returns, she claims she wants nothing to do with you. It was, granted, not a promising sequence of facts.
And yet, if she was here, if she was alive, then he could know her, surely. If she would let him.
Furthermore, he flattered himself that having spent a great quantity of time in the company of ladies, and having no less than four sisters himself, he understood something about women.
And the look in her eyes, when she had cast him from the house—it wasn’t disgust or repulsion. It wasn’t the look you gave an old lover that you wished gone from the premises. She looked, if he had to put a finger on it,hurt. And she hadn’t been able to conceal that flicker, that little wanton spark, of desire in those brown eyes. He knew her too well for that. Even now.
No, he had always told himself that something had happened that he hadn’t understood. That she had been mistaken, that she had thought for some reason that he didn’t want her anymore, and, if he could only find her again, he would be able to make amends.
Last night, he hadn’t gotten the chance.
But he had waited thirteen years.
A few more days or, even, weeks were, at this point, nothing to him.
He wasn’t about to let anything stand in the way of a perfect understanding between them.
How, exactly, he would bring about thiséclaircissementbetween he and Olivia, however, he remained unsure.
By morning, he was done walking around London. And he knew what he needed to do.
He returned to his town house, changed to morning dress, and sent Leith their emergency symbol with one direction:Hyde Park, 10 o’clock.
He and his best friends—the Marquess of Leith, the Viscount of Tremberley, and the Duke of Edington—had used the symbol since Eton. It was the first initial of all four of their titles (or, well, all three of their titles and John’s back when he had merely been the Marquess of Forster) overlaid on one another. The resulting rune was like a little four-paned window. They only used it when they were completely earnest, so Montaigne was not surprised when Leith appeared in the park at exactly ten o’clock looking somewhat alarmed.
Relief washed over him when he saw his best friend. While he loved Trem and John like brothers, he and Leith had always had a special closeness. Seeing that he had arrived as requested was a balm to his distress.
However, when Leith pulled up alongside him on his black stallion and jested that he was surprised he had risen so early, his gratitude dimmed. Olivia’s words rang in his ears—it would be fatal to my reputation if I were to grant a private audience to the Downstairs Menace—and Leith’s tone didn’t sound too far off from hers in tenor. He had long given up convincing his friends that he had reformed his ways since the drunken years of his—and, he might add,their—early twenties. In fact, if he was honest with himself, he found it easier to let his friends and all of society think that he was an abandoned hunter of domestics, a kind of beast with a penchant for scullery maids and housekeepers. When they thought such things of him, no one asked other questions. Questions he didn’t want to answer. Well, now, he thought ruefully, he was paying the price for that convenience.
As was his usual custom, he shrugged off Leith’s comment with a smile.
“Come,” he said, indicating that he wanted to walk, and so they set down the path, leaving the horses with the grooms.
“Monty, you know better than to send that symbol for nothing,” Leith grumbled, as they made their way out of earshot of the morning riders and their attendants, “What the devil is it?”
“Olivia,” he retorted, once he knew they were alone. “She’s back.”
Leith groaned. “Brother.”
He said no more, but Montaigne understood his reaction. They hadn’t talked about it much back then and yet, after her disappearance, he hadn’t been able to hide the source of his agony from his best friend. Leith had seen him drink himself into a stupor for a solid year. And, in the years after that one, Leith had watched him swill away any reputation he had on antics that, while done in a state of greater consciousness, must have appeared no less reckless.
And yet he couldn’t care. He needed someone to share in his jubilation and itwouldbe Leith, because he had known the most of the affair in the first place. When he and Olivia had fallen in love thirteen years ago, he had only been twenty, and he had of course told his best friend all about it. John and Trem had been on their Grand Tour at the time, so they had been spared his effusions. By the time they had returned, Olivia was gone. Whether Leith had ever said anything to them about it, he didn’t know.
“She’sback,” he repeated, trying to impress on his friend the good fortune of this event.
“And did she welcome you with open arms? Explain that despite her thirteen years’ absence, she wants nothing more than to be your mistress again?”
Montaigne laughed, although Leith’s sarcasm cut him. Must he always be so caustic? Must he always measure everyone by the yardstick of the social world that he supposedly disdained but, more and more, dictated his actions?
“I’m serious, Monty,” Leith said, turning towards him. “That wench left you in the lurch. She vanished. It only spells trouble.”
“I know that might be how it appears,” Montaigne said, trying to find the words to make Leith understand. “But something happened thirteen years ago. There is something that I don’t understand. A woman just doesn’t—anyone just doesn’t—after the passion—”
He broke off, realizing how he sounded. He knew, if he looked over at Leith, his friend’s eyebrows would have disappeared into his hairline.
“I can’t believe I am about to say these words to the man regarded as the most abandoned rake in England,” Leith began, his voice a strange medley of pity and barely contained hilarity, “But women aren’t alwayssincere, Monty. In fact,peoplearen’t always trustworthy.”
