Natasha, however, seemed to have, with only minimal experience in such matters herself, a preternatural instinct for their navigation.
Two nights ago, at a ball given by the absurdly rich Mrs. Templeton and attended even by some of the minor members of the nobility, Natasha had made, at least for the evening, the hurdles of her biography seem like minor considerations. Olivia had never before been to a ball in Britain, but she had been to many in France, and she had never before seen a young woman generate such interest. Before the night was over, Olivia overheard three matrons exclaim that Natasha Mapperton would make the match of the season. Of course, for the milieu they were currently circling in, a great match wasn’t a duke or an earl—that was, of course, out of Natasha’s reach. But a baronet, perhaps, or a wealthy tradesman’s son now seemed within her grasp.
But, as Eloisa had reminded Natasha since, ballroom admiration could be illusory. The real question was whether the young men would come to call.
Olivia hoped that they would. They had come to England because it had been the dying wish of Mr. Mapperton that his daughter marry in his own country. Olivia knew that Eloisa gave credence to her deceased love’s preferences—but she also knew that Eloisa would have swiftly ignored his wishes if she judged them not to be in her children’s best interests. Not only did Eloisa think that Natasha may have better marriage prospects in Britain, where new fortunes abounded, but she thought it more politically stable than France. After watching the country roiled by war and Napoleon, Eloisa was not about to consign the fate of herself and her children completely to that country—a foothold in Britain would give them a refuge if they should so need it.
Olivia wanted Natasha to find wealth and happiness and for Eloisa to feel that her children were safe from the vagaries of an uncertain world. And, in Olivia’s mind, the sooner Natasha married, the better. She herself did not want to linger in England. She looked forward to returning to France with Eloisa and Nathanial as soon as Natasha found her match.
Then, Olivia would marry Mr. Laurent, a respectable lawyer in the country village where Nathanial and Eloisa had their estate. Once she did, she would be free of England and its memories forever.
“As ifyouknow,” Nathanial said to his sister, taking a seat beside her on the sofa and devouring the last of his orange. “I’ve been to Covent Garden Theater and mother won’t even let you attend.”
“Shewould,” Natasha began, “but it wouldn’t look proper if—”
Her response was lost, however, when Chassey entered the room.
“Mr. Maurice Templeton, ma’am, and his brother, Mr. Paul Templeton.”
Eloisa’s eyes flashed. The Templetons were the leaders of their social set. If the heirs of the wealthy banker were here, then many others would follow.
“Yes, Chassey,” Eloisa breathed, “Show them in.”
*
Olivia had neverseen a drawing room so packed with bodies. It seemed that every young man who had sighed over Natasha at the ball had indeed come to call. The men were now perched on every available sofa and divan, angling to get into a tete-a-tete with their young quarry.
Olivia and Nathanial had been relegated to a love seat in the corner, watching Natasha and Eloisa hold court. Mother and daughter circulated seamlessly among the guests.
“Shouldn’t you mix as well, Nathanial?” Olivia teased.
“Bollocks mixing,” Nathanial responded, crossing his leg over his knee, and digging into one of the cream cakes that the other young people had declined to touch.
“But surely these young gentlemen have sisters,” she pressed.
Nathanial leveled her with a gaze. “I don’t want anEnglishwife.”
Olivia was touching on a source of disagreement between Eloisa and her son. Eloisa thought that Nathanial should take the prospect of meeting a wife in England seriously, given the big dowries on display in any given London season, but Nathanial was dead set against marrying here. His mother thought that he was being needlessly short-sighted.
“And why is that?” Olivia did not quite understand Nathanial’s reluctance. Although he was full young, she supposed, to be thinking seriously of matrimony.
“They’re not to my tastes.” Olivia watched Nathanial blush when he realized his audience. “No offense intended, of course, to present company.”
Olivia laughed. She had watched Nathanial grow up and they had long ago begun talking with the frankness of family members. She regarded the young man as a kind of nephew.
Her saucy retort died on her tongue, however, when she realized that an eerie silence had filled the room. She turned her head away from Nathanial and saw that every person in the room had their head craned towards the door.
Augustus.
There, framed by Eloisa’s elegant salon doorway, he stood. An earl in Bloomsbury, a genuine nobleman in the midst of manufacturing heirs, brewers’ offspring, and the sons of one or two penniless baronets.
To say that he looked out of place in the setting would not be fair to Eloisa, Natasha, and their guests. The young men that surrounded them were, perhaps, even more fashionably dressed than Augustus. But from the cut of his coat to the snug fit of his buckskin breeches, Augustus carried the air of his rarefied world, as invisible as a light spring breeze and just as tangible to those who felt it.
Olivia hated herself for her visceral reaction to his presence. How her fingertips ached to trace the strong bend of his jaw, how she could imagine (or, really, somewhere between imagine and remember) riding over his muscular thighs—she shook her head. She had had other lovers in the years since their summer together. She had always been discreet, but she was hardly a nun. And, so, unfortunately, she was not estranged from what her own reactions to this man meant. It wasn’t usual, she knew, to feel such a tightness in her pelvic muscles, to have to press her knees together at the mere sight of a man.
She watched Augustus stride towards Eloisa, who looked somewhere between affronted and shocked. When he reached her, he gave a deep bow. Gradually, the other guests realized that they must not stare and returned to their conversations.
How could Augustus be here? It broke every form of society for him to enter this space without introduction. She did not understand. He could not regard the scene yesterday, after all, as welcome to return.
