“Thank you for informing me,” he replied dryly. “But I am telling you that I must find out if she is…was—sincere or not. I have no other choice.”
Leith sighed. “I don’t recommend this course of action.”
“But if I was going to do it anyway, how would you suggest I proceed?”
“Really?” Leith said, “You are going to make me advise you on how to pursue the paid companion of a rich man’s former paramour?”
Montaigne felt a ping of shock that Leith knew so much about Olivia’s current situation.
“How do you know that she is a lady’s companion?”
“Trem. You know he loves to gossip. Apparently, three nights ago, Mrs. Mapperton—who, by the way, goes by that name, but who is rumored tonotactually be entitled to use it—brought her daughter to an assembly at Mr. Templeton’s townhouse. You know, that garish banker?”
“Who half thetonis in debt to, you mean? Yes, I am aware of the man.” Really, he was beginning to find Leith’s miming of aristocratic hypocrisy rather trying. He used to understand it as a put-on, but lately it had seemed increasingly a feature of his real personality.
“Yes,thatMr. Templeton. Well, apparently, after his rout, everyone was ablaze about this Miss Natasha Mapperton. She is making her debut this season, or what passes for a season in that milieu—”
“That milieu?!” Montaigne objected. Truly, Leith had become too much. “Mr. Templeton is admitted nearly everywhere you are.”
“Yes, but few of those people attendhisentertainments. Anyway, the daughter is debuting, although no voucher to Almack’s, of course. Nevertheless she caused quite a stir. And now Mrs. Mapperton and her daughter are on everyone’s lips. I dare say they will be invited to functions by a few of the curious.”
“What do they say about Olivia?”
Leith looked at him with a perplexed expression. “Well, nothing. Of course.”
Montaigne didn’t enjoy the flavor of thatof course. Even from his best friend. Even when the woman had thrown him out of her house yesterday evening.
“Why ‘of course’?”
Leith sighed. “I don’t say this to upset you. But, in the eyes of most, she is the rather plain, rather…too-plump companion of a woman already living on the edge of disgrace.”
Montaigne stopped. He felt a sudden, overwhelming need to punch Leith in the gullet. He loved the way Olivia looked. Even after the interlude of thirteen years, when her physical reality had to compete with his most fevered fantasies, he had not discovered last night one thing he would change about her.
All those years ago, he had loved her body, her fullness, the generosity and bounty of her unclothed. He had still never seen anything as beautiful as Olivia Watson without her clothes on. He had been surrounded by luxury his entire life, but he had never known true luxury, not really, until he had been with her. It hadn’t just been her body, the thought of which threatened to give him an erection in Hyde Park (not an experience he wanted added to his repertoire of societal sins, thank you), but how she had given herself to him without reservation. He had always been a spoiled boy, one doted on too much, perhaps, by his mother and large family. And yet he had never felt fully sated except for with her.
For him to feel this way, and to hear Leith’s detached tone, the contrast was, for a moment, unbearable.
But he couldn’t say all of that to Leith, of course.
“Olivia is perfect,” he finally managed.
Leith must have caught something of his mood.
“Calm yourself.” His voice was softer now. “I agree she is comely. But you know how thetonassesses these matters. Any little deviation from the ideal hardens into a flaw when the rank of the person in question is deemed inferior.”
“Is that howtheysee the world or how you do?”
Leith startled. For the first time that day, his friend looked at him with an earnest expression. When he did, he looked ten years younger. All at once, Montaigne could see the old Leith. He saw the boy with whom he’d crawled into a farmer’s patch near Eton to steal strawberries; the friend so close to him that they’d learned each other’s handwriting, so that Montaigne could complete Leith’s history assignments and Leith could do his Latin; the one who had provided a road to the world outside his family and with whom he had adventured forth to meet its challenges. In short, the friend who had been his steadfast partner in the endeavor of growing up.
“That’s howtheysee it. Not me.” Leith sighed, real pain shooting across his countenance. “I think your Olivia is a beauty and I told you that at the time. I’m only worried for you.”
“Don’t,” Montaigne shrugged, but he couldn’t say he did not appreciate the sentiment. Perhaps, even, Leith was right to be concerned, given how desperate he was feeling.
“You really will pursue her? No matter what?”
He stopped again on the path, turning towards his best friend. “Nothing will stop me.”
“Well, if you want to get closer to her, there is a clear way.”
