“Believed it? It was inyourhand. We had been exchanging notes for months. The note was left in the usual place. I knew your hand better than anyone’s.”
“That’s impossible,” he said, slowly, looking her full in the face, “Because I never left you any note of the kind.”
She recoiled in disbelief. How could he not remember? Why would he deny it?
“I am prepared to forgive you. I never thought I would, but now it seems possible. We were young. It would have been an easy mistake for you to make. I was a servant in your home—what must have felt like your mother’s home to you.”
“Olivia, I didn’t write that note. How could you believe it? Back then we were so—we were so—” he seemed to search for the word and, finally, was unable to find it.
“It was in your hand, Augustus,” she said, softly, “I don’t know what to tell you. And—” She bit off—it was too humiliating to repeat.
“Say it,” he glowered.
She closed her eyes. “And it held ten guineas. I remember exactly what you wrote,My gift should, I hope, help you in securing another place.”
He said nothing. Dread dipped in her stomach. Perhaps, now, he remembered. How could he forget? And yet it seemed he had.
She opened her eyes once more. He was looking at her, his mouth open in shock.
“That was our jest, don’t you remember?” Her cheeks burned, but she had to make him see. “That you liked pleasuring me with your mouth so much that you should paymeten guineas.”
“Of course, I remember.”
“It was clear you were giving me my ten guineas and that I should be on my way.”
Anger flared in his eyes.
“Do you think that I could actually countenance such conduct? That I would give you ten guineas, a woman that I had been bedding morning, noon, and night, and banish you from my sight? That I could be so heartless as to take such a thing between us and then use it to dismiss you?”
“That is what happened, Augustus. That is what you did.”
“No, Olivia—I did not. I never did such a thing. You have to believe—”
A knock sounded on the door to the room.
Olivia had been so absorbed in their conversation, so perplexed that there could be any disagreement on their history, that she had forgotten they were at a masquerade. That there were hundreds of people downstairs—and that there existed a very real risk that they could be discovered.
Augustus glared at the door and then looked at her.
“Don’t move.”
He stalked to the door.
When he opened it, she heard him scoff with impatience.
“Before you murder me, you might consider thanking me,” said the voice at the threshold, which belonged, she suspected, to the very proprietor of this establishment, the Viscount of Tremberley. “Your brother and all the Mapperton clan are searching for you and Miss Watson downstairs.”
“Why in the devil are they doing that?”
“Given the circumstances, I feel they should be given the opportunity to reveal that themselves.”
“Bollocks. Why?”
Olivia could hear the viscount’s sigh from her place on the bed.
“It seems that your brother has rather unfortunate timing in regard to your plans. He has proposed to Miss Mapperton and been accepted. He wants to share his news.”
Augustus’s curse reverberated across the room.
