by Tarah Scott
There was only kindness in his eyes as he replied, “All the more reason to pay my respects.” As she slipped her hand free of his arm, he reached for her fingers and gave them a squeeze before nodding at the roof. “At the very least, I must inspect the roofers’ work.”
She couldn’t deny that request. “Very well.”
He followed her through the shop and into the back. As she stepped into the parlor, Mrs. Lambert looked up, surprised.
“You’re back, so soon?”
The soft tinkling of the piano spared Olivia a reply, but even without the distraction, she didn’t need to answer. The tightening of Mrs. Lambert’s mouth indicated that she understood that, again, something undesirable had happened.
“Soon, your luck will change, lass,” the old woman muttered.
The tinkling of the piano stopped, and Olivia glanced over to her father. His fingers rested on the ivory keys.
“Olivia, child,” her father said, “I swear, you’ve grown from this morning.”
“Hardly, father.” Olivia smiled and crossed the small room to straighten his hat before turning to Nicholas, who remained standing just inside the door. “Father, this is Lord Nicholas Blair.”
Nicholas bowed and stepped into the room. “Good evening, Mr. Mackenzie.”
Her father eyed him, puzzled. “Lord Blair…” Then, his eyes lit. “You came to the shop, did you not? Wanting music?”
Olivia blinked, surprised. Her father rarely remembered anyone. It had taken him a good year or more before he remembered Mrs. Lambert.
“Why, yes,” Nicholas replied with a dry smile. “I purchased a variety of works.” He shot Olivia an amused glance.
“Then, you play the violin?” her father queried.
“Nae.”
“The piano?”
“Nae.”
“What instrument, then?”
Olivia held her breath, tears misting her lashes at her father’s clarity. That made twice of late and so close together.
“I must admit, Mr. Mackenzie, that I am not musically inclined,” Nicholas responded with a rueful smile.
Her father knit his brows. “Why ever did you purchase the music, then?”
The way Nicholas’ eyes locked onto hers made goosebumps rise on her arms, and looking straight into her eyes, he answered, “Mr. Mackenzie, your daughter has a way about her that’s rather convincing.”
Her father laughed, a deep laugh that Olivia hadn’t heard in years. She turned to him, her throat closing with emotion, but as she watched, the mask of confusion fell once again.
“Olivia, child, you’ve grown,” he murmured, then he began to play.
Olivia brushed tears away with the back of her hand. No matter. It was a gift to see him again, even for those few minutes.
“If you will excuse me,” she heard Nicholas say. “I must inspect the roof.”
“Why certainly, my lord,” Mrs. Lambert replied. “I’ll show you the way.”
Olivia waited until their footsteps receded, then escaped to the front of the shop. A mountain of worries awaited her there, but strangely, she didn’t want to think through them. She reached to the counter and, closing her eyes, rested her head on her arms, trying her best not to think, at all.
For a time, she merely listened to the tick-tock of the clock.
Nicholas’s deep voice murmured by her side, “What worries you so?”
Slowly, Olivia lifted her head. “Opera singers.” Indeed, they were at the root of her ills.
“Opera singers?”
“They’re so blasted temperamental.” She snorted a very unladylike snort.
He didn’t appear to mind. He chuckled. “I have thought so myself, quite often.”
Of course, a rake would respond so, but the nature of a rake’s interest in an opera singer stood oceans apart from the nature of her own. Oddly, the thought irritated her more than it should have.
“Louisa is refusing to sing my concert, I hear.” She forced her thoughts away from thoughts of rakes and back to her problems.
“Surely, there are other singers?” Nicholas lounged against the counter.
She glanced up at him. It was a mistake. The man held some wizardly power. Was it the way his broad shoulders and muscles strained his shirt? Or was it his tanned skin? His hands—he had such beautiful hands for a man.
“Olivia?”
Olivia. Not Miss Mackenzie. Her name on his lips made her shiver, even though he’d said her name before.
He caught her chin, his fingers searing like fire on her flesh.
“Do you ever accept help?” He tilted her face up toward his.
There was no mystery as to why Deborah had fallen. The man could melt an icicle with his eyes alone.
Feeling as if drugged with wine, she licked her dry lips and forced her gaze away. “They are my concerns, my lord. As for the roof—”
“Must you?” He closed the distance between them.
“Must I?” He smelled so delicious. She wanted him closer.
“Must you push me away?”
Her heart thudded at his words. She didn’t want to. In fact, she wanted quite the opposite.
She wanted to kiss him, again.
Chapter Eleven
A Hound on the Hunt
Raw attraction. Pure, raw attraction overwhelmed Nicholas as he found himself drowning in Olivia’s expressive, jade-green eyes. She was beautiful, impossible to resist, like a fairy creature from another realm.
She stepped back, but an invisible string pulled him forward. He couldn’t be part from her. No man could. Her lips called him like a siren. His hand lifted of its own will to run a thumb down the line of her jaw in a caress of the gentlest kind.
Her lashes dipped, the silent, slight movement a loud testament to the truth. She, like he, couldn’t deny the raw attraction between them, ignited the moment their lips touched in his mother’s garden.
She melted against him. For all her curves, she felt so fragile in his arms, yet he knew her to be a pillar of strength, a firebrand. Who moved first, he couldn’t say. It didn’t matter. Her lips touched his, soft, warm, satiny, and for a timeless, blissful moment, the world was right. The tip of her tongue teased his. The scent of her hair unleashed a deep desire to graze his teeth down the soft flesh of her neck.
Then, as quickly as it began, the magical moment ended.
“Forgive me,” She abruptly pulled away.
Forgive me—not the exact words he wanted to hear. There would be no good ending to a sentence that began with ‘forgive.’
“Why?” he asked, his voice hoarse even to his own ears.
She met his gaze fully, guilt suffusing her face. “Lord help me, how could I do this to my own cousin?”
Relief that her reluctance stemmed only from Deborah’s lies warred with the dismay that she still believed them. Hadn’t he managed to clear his name—even a bit? “I swear upon my soul that I never touched her.”
Doubt clouded her eyes. At least part of her wanted to believe him, but that only meant the remainder didn’t. He drew a sharp breath. Such was the price of his reputation. But then, he had only himself to blame.
Olivia swallowed and took another step back. “Still, this is a mistake.”
By God, how he wanted to follow her, sweep her into his arms and kiss sense into those sweet lips. Instead, with every ounce of willpower, he forced himself to ask calmly, “How?”
Olivia rolled her eyes with a snort. “These stains, for a start.” She held out her hands.
He caught her fingers and covered them with kisses.
She jerked her hand, but it was a half-hearted tug. “You are making this difficult.”
“I am delighted to hear it,” he chuckled, knowing the half-hearted tug spoke volumes.
“We stand an ocean apart,” she breathed. “I am a working woman.”
Nicholas dropped a slow kiss on her palm, his gaze locked with hers. Again, the tantalizing lashes dipped. Her breath hitched.
“As am I,” he murmured in his most seductive tone.
He was so close to kissing her, of tasting those lips again. Already, he could see her resolve waver.
Something leapt from the shelves above.
“What—” He jumped back.
Olivia laughed as a large tabby cat lifted its twitching tail and strolled down the counter.
“May I introduce you to Mr. Peppers?” She tickled the cat under his chin. “He’s always sneaking in here, causing problems.”
“Aye,” he half growled in wholehearted agreement.
The cat flicked its ears in his direction, as if knowing what it had interrupted.
Olivia lifted the cat in her arms and strode to the door. “If you will excuse me, Lord Blair, I have a good day’s work yet to do.”
He watched her open the door and set Mr. Peppers on his four furry, interfering feet. She was putting distance between them. He sighed. The window of kissing her had shut—this time.
“As you wish, Miss Mackenzie.”
* * *
Nicholas lounged back in his chair and eyed the man seated across the table. Mr. Timms was the best in the snooping business, but he never failed to remind Nicholas of a Hertfordshire boar. Today, even more so. He looked damned uncomfortable in his waistcoat, a new one obviously worn for this occasion. The buttons strained with each word he spoke. Nicholas found himself watching the middle one, mentally wagering how long the thing had before it shot off across the hotel floor.
“I shall have an answer for you within the week, I am sure.” Mr. Timms mopped his sweating brow for the fifth time.
“Discretion,” Nicholas repeated, momentarily forgetting the button.
“Most assuredly, my lord,” Mr. Timms wheezed. “Lady Deborah’s reputation will not be harmed on my account.” He hefted his bulk to the edge of his seat in preparation to leave.
“That’s not all.” Nicholas lifted a finger from the table to stop him.
The man sank back, the chair creaking with the shift of weight. The button held to the cloth, desperately. Nicholas gave the thing less than five minutes, and then focused his attention back on the man, his thoughts sobering. “In addition to the mystery of Lady Deborah’s circumstances, I wish you to investigate those of another.” He paused. Even though they were the only men in the hotel’s parlor, he leaned closer and murmured, “Lord James Randall.”
An eager gleam entered Mr. Timms’ eye. “I have heard of the man. Much, to be truthful.”
Nicholas cocked a curious brow. “I have a history with him.”
“History?” Mr. Timms fished a pencil and parchment from his inner waistcoat pocket and waited.
“When I was a lad of twelve or so, he joined his father on the Randall estate, neighboring mine.”
“Indeed.” Mr. Timms jotted down a few words.
“For a few years, we were friendly, I suppose.” Something about Randall had never set well with him, but in the remote location of their estates in Northern Scotland, Randall had been one of the few lads his age. “Of relevance are the events concerning…Henrietta.”
“Henrietta?”
Henrietta Kendrick. Nicholas hadn’t spoken of her in years, though he thought of her often enough. He closed his eyes and organized his thoughts. “I’d just finished school that year. I came home to a house party my mother was holding. Lady Kendrick and her daughter, Henrietta, were there. Along with Randall, of course. He’d been visiting daily. Henrietta was beautiful.” More than beautiful. She was his first love. He’d fallen for her the moment he’d laid eyes upon her wealth of blonde curls.
“And?” Mr. Timms prompted when the silence lengthened.
“Ah, yes.” Nicholas nodded, half in apology. “We both fell for Henrietta. Deeply. At first…” At first, she’d played them against each other. Then, she’d fallen hard. She’d chosen him. “We fell in love. We were to wed. We spoke of it often, though I hadn’t proposed to her formally. The night of the card game. That’s when Lord Randall made his move.”
That night, he and Henrietta had exchanged harsh words. She’d wanted him to dance. He had wanted to play cards with Lord Witherspoon. He’d gone against her wishes and chosen the cards. When he finally left the card table in the wee hours of the morning, he discovered her gone. He thought she’d merely gone off to sleep.
The next morning, Lord Kendrick discovered Lord Randall in his daughter’s bed. He ordered them wed within the week.
Nicholas closed his eyes.
He had been angry and refused to speak with her. He’d nearly left, but then, he met a woman. Anne or some such name. He bedded her as an act of vengeance. He then stayed at the blasted party, parading her in full view of Henrietta.
The day before the impromptu wedding, he had just finished his preparations to leave when a maid began screaming. He would never forget. How could he? He’d spent his every waking moment since, distracting himself with wine, women and song in an effort to banish the image of Henrietta’s dangling feet, hanging from the barn rafters.
The wine and women had worked, for a time. Then, after he’d made his peace with Henrietta, he kept to the habits of a rake. But now? Had he, at last, outgrown those distractions?
“Odd,” Mr. Timms scribbled across the page as fast as he could.
Nicholas arched a brow. Just how much had he spoken aloud?
“Odd, Mr. Timms?”
“Strikes me odd how he went after Henrietta with such a vengeance that night,” Mr. Timms answered. “Had to be more than pure jealousy, I’d say. Seemed in a wee bit of a rush to make his move on the night of the card game.”
“Aye.”
“What feelings did he show, when she died so unexpectedly?”
Nicholas thought back. Randall certainly hadn’t appeared hurt. “Angry. Furious.”
“Was she an heiress?” Mr. Timms glanced up. “Pardon my bluntness, my lord.”
“Lord Kendrick was very well to do. At that time, anyway.” He’d turned into quite the gambler after his daughter’s untimely end. Who could blame the man?
“Right.” Mr. Timms folded the parchment and tucked it into his waistcoat. “I will report the moment I have news, my lord.”
“Very well.” Nicholas rose and shook his hand.
After the man left, he returned to his chair. Mr. Timms had brought up an interesting point. He hadn’t thought Lord Randall in need of money. The man lived in luxury, or, at least, appeared to do so. If he were poor, why the interest in Olivia? She clearly stood on the brink of poverty. Granted, she was the Duke of Lennox’s granddaughter, but a disowned, disinherited one, and judging by the duke’s behavior, that wasn’t changing any time soon.
What business did Lord Randall have pursuing her? Unless…
Nicholas leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. Unless, it was happening again. Were they both falling for the same woman? There was a difference, though. This lass was fierce and smart. She wasn’t the kind to fall prey to Lord Randall’s flattery…surely?
He expelled a breath and rose uneasily to his feet, recalling again the heartbreak on her face when she’d discovered herself robbed. If only she would let him help her. The roof obviously displeased her, but he held no regrets. At least, she was safe and dry, and as for her most pressing issue of the concert? Mr. Pitt, he’d taken care of. But the opera singer, Louisa?
His lip quirked as an idea formed. He was very well acquainted with one of the famous—if not the most famous—opera singers on the continent. One Florinda Marie de Bussonne, the Lark of Paris. Louisa Hamilton closer resembled the squawking of a chicken compared to Florinda’s golden, dulcet notes.
If Olivia needed to fill the opera hall, at least, in that, he could oblige.
Chapter Twelve
Remembrance
Olivia placed the last envelope on the stack and rubbed her tired, reddened eyes. She’d written every opera singer she could think o
f, in England, Scotland, Ireland, on the continent and off. Even those associated with the smaller opera houses. And in each letter, she’d enclosed another, addressed to Louisa. Surely, one of the letters would find its way to the opera singer, and surely, once she’d read the heartfelt apology, along with the doubling of her fee, surely, she would return?
Olivia heaved a sigh. She’d started this venture for so many reasons, to honor her mother’s memory and her father’s—for what he had been—and to share the beauty of his music with the world. Everything had gone so splendidly…until she’d met Lord Randall.
If only she hadn’t gone to Louisa’s townhouse that night.
She leaned against the shop counter and tiredly lay her head down on her arms. She would rest…just for a minute.
The next thing Olivia knew, the rays of the morning sun warmed her cheek. Groggy, she lifted her head and glanced about. Her father was already playing the piano in the parlor, a sad, mournful melody. Olivia held still. Somehow, he knew. She hadn’t told him what day it was. How could she when he spent most of his days trapped in a dream?
Four years ago, to the very day, she’d been robbed of her parents. Four years ago, her mother had died. She straightened and grimaced. It was painful to visit her mother’s grave, but even more painful to bear the burden alone. Still, she wasn’t one to wallow in self-pity.
If she hurried, she could ready herself and visit her mother’s grave before her appointment at the bank. The bluebells still bloomed along the river. They’d always been her mother’s favorite. She would collect them along the way, as she always did, and lay them on her mother’s gravestone. So many years, they’d collected them, together. She closed her eyes, almost hearing her mother’s laughing, teasing voice. She hurried toward her room.
She’d just set foot on the bottom stair when she heard a knock on the shop door.
The piano stopped.
“Don’t fret, Father,” Olivia called. “I will get the door.”
As the music resumed, Olivia hurried to the shop.
A glimpse through the curtains revealed a fine carriage parked on the street, as well as the fine blue silk of a woman’s skirt as she waited by the door. The fine fall of lace from the sleeve revealed the gown to be an expensive one.
