Harlequin Historical September 2021--Box Set 1 of 2

by Christine Merrill

  ‘That is not what I meant,’ he said. But neither did he want to explain the perfectly logical reason a man would be interested in a beauty like Olivia Bethune. Then he added in a gentler tone, ‘There is nothing wrong with you, Lady Olivia. If anyone has a problem, it is Clement. He should have married you long ago. If...’ He had been about to say, If it was me. But the comparison was pointless. It had not been him, nor would it ever be.

  As if she could sense what he was thinking, she pulled away from him, sliding across the seat to put distance between them, and glared at him suspiciously. ‘No one asked your opinion on the matter. And if you have been speaking nonsense to persuade me to cast him off, you are sorely mistaken. I am more determined than ever to become Mrs Alister Clement, and there is not a thing you can do to stop me.’ Then she turned deliberately from him and stared out of the window for the rest of the trip.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Of all the horrible men that Hugh had hired to watch her and her sister, Michael Solomon was, without question, the worst. It was bad enough that he had found the time and place of their attempted escape. But that he had taken the opportunity to question her feelings for Alister was too much to bear.

  The brief meeting in Mrs Wilson’s sitting room had been a disaster. Alister was justifiably angry, and she’d had no time to explain to him that it was not her fault that they had been discovered. She was sure that she had done nothing to reveal the truth. But the kiss he had given her had felt more like punishment than love, as if he blamed her for what had happened. And though he had promised that it was not over between them, she was baffled as to when and how they would meet again.

  Then Mr Solomon had been kind to her in the carriage. Between frustration and embarrassment and thinking of the night that she most hated to think about, she had been quite overwrought, near to tears. And then he had looked at her with such concern in his eyes. And he’d stroked her hands and promised not to hurt her, making her feel warm and safe inside. For a moment she had thought that somehow things might turn out all right.

  Then he’d ruined it all. He had accused her of not loving Alister and grasping at any straw that might get her out of the house. For a moment she had thought he truly cared about what had happened to her. But then he’d proved that he had no heart.

  She stared out of her bedroom window, down into the garden. He sat in his usual place beneath the tree pretending to doze but far more alert than she liked. He was wearing a neat grey coat that she knew would complement his eyes, should she go down to look in them.

  For a moment, she actually considered doing so. It was lonely, sitting by herself in her room. She had read all the books in the library—twice through—and could not bear the thought of putting another stitch in her needlework. If she complained to her brother, he would remind her that they lived in a fine house, with all the servants she could wish for. There were many in London who would be envious of the ease of her life.

  No matter how pretty, a cage was still a cage. She glanced again at Mr Solomon, who had spoken casually of chasing down jewel thieves. Of course, ladies never had such jobs as that. But it would be exciting to hear of such things when one’s husband sat down to dinner. He had not said he was married, and she wondered if it would be impolite to ask. Just to satisfy curiosity, of course, and give a reason for conversation.

  Of course, now that she thought of it, she did not like the idea of there being a Mrs Solomon and a family of attractive blond-haired children waiting at home to hear stories about the foolish rich girl he’d been forced to chaperone. She much preferred to think of him alone, as he was now.

  There was a soft knock on her door and her maid entered, carrying a hatbox. ‘Your new bonnet arrived from the milliner’s,’ Molly said with a smile, setting it down on the bed and stepping aside, eager to see the latest purchase.

  ‘My new bonnet,’ Liv said, confused. She did not recall buying such a thing on her last trip to Bond Street, nor were any of the previous orders unfilled. She was about to tell Molly to send it back when it occurred to her that a surprise package might be an excellent way for someone to get a message past her keepers.

  She smiled and walked to the bed, untying the string and lifting the lid. It was obviously not something that she had ordered, for she’d have never chosen such a ghastly thing for herself. The band was too wide and covered in horrible red and white ribbon, with clusters of gillyflowers on either side of the brim. It was just the sort of thing that a man might select, if he had no notion of fashion.

  Liv picked it up, glancing beneath it for folded notepaper or a message scrawled on the back of the receipt, but she found nothing. Then, as she picked it up and settled it on her head, she felt a lump behind a particularly garish red flower above her left ear.

  She closed her fingers on it and turned her head to look at Molly. ‘Isn’t it the sweetest thing?’

  ‘If you like it, my lady,’ the maid replied dubiously, and dropped her eyes as if she couldn’t stand to look at the thing a moment longer.

  This gave Liv the opportunity to palm the crumpled paper, slipping it up her sleeve as she pulled the bonnet off and dropped it back in the box. ‘You may put it away now. I will save it for a special occasion.’ Perhaps on the day of her marriage, which she hoped would be revealed in the note she’d just found under the hatband.

  * * *

  The next morning, she stared up at the sky and the heavy drops that fell from it, shivering. It was looking to be a miserable day, and she was glad that Alister’s planned escape was not scheduled until the following week.

  Then, unable to help herself, she thought of Mr Solomon, sitting under the tree in the garden. Surely he would have the sense to take the day off and find somewhere dry to sit. Perhaps, if she promised him that she had no intention of running off today, he would find somewhere safe and warm.

  That would be most foolish of her. If she could get him to go away, even for an afternoon, she should take advantage of the situation and leave. Knowing that, he would be a fool to budge, no matter the weather. It was unrealistic to hope for a truce, and she was not sure she even wanted one. Yet the thought of him out in the rain made her sad.

  She was getting soft. Soft and foolish. She was not even sure he was there, yet she was worrying about him, even though he did not give a fig for her happiness. All the same, she found herself walking to the kitchen door and out, her shawl pulled up over her head to protect her from the rain.

  He was there in his usual spot under the tree, an oilcloth wrapped about his shoulders and rain dripping from the brim of his hat.

  She spared him only a single glance before going to the dogs’ kennel and calling, ‘Caesar, Cleo, come.’

  The pair of pugs raced past her and through the open door, where she could hear the rattle of collars and the shouts of the scullery maids as they shook off the rainwater on the freshly mopped kitchen floor.

  Then she spared another glance for Mr Solomon, who was trying not to look enviously after the dogs.

  ‘You’d best come too,’ she said, jerking her head in the direction of the open door. ‘I will not have you catching your death because of my brother’s stubborn desire to keep me here.’

  He was on his feet almost before she could finish the sentence. ‘This invitation was not expected, but it does not in any way interfere with my mission.’

  ‘If you were set to watch me,’ she said with a shrug, ‘you can do it inside just as easily as out.’

  ‘More so,’ he assured her. They were in the kitchen now and he was stripping out of his raincoat and hanging it on a hook beside the door. ‘In any case, I would not recommend you attempt an elopement today. The roads will be impassable, and travel will be most unpleasant for all concerned.’

  ‘Then for the moment we are at an impasse as well,’ she said. ‘There is a fire in the sitting room. I will ring for tea.’ Why was she being so grac
ious to the man? He had done little to deserve it. But without a chance to go to the garden and banter with him, she would be spending the day in solitude. And rainy days such as this one always seemed to drag on, like an entire week forced into a single afternoon.

  At least, with someone there, she would not be quite so alone. They followed the dogs down the hall to the sitting room and he immediately gravitated to the fire, holding his hands out to it, fingers spread as if to soak up all the warmth possible. He had not complained about his situation, but clearly he had been as miserable as the pugs.

  When the housekeeper brought the tea she looked from one to the other of them, as if wondering if it was proper to leave the mistress alone with a strange man.

  ‘It is all right,’ Liv said with a sigh. ‘If Hugh thought Mr Solomon was a threat to my virtue, he would never have hired him.’

  The servant withdrew, and the man in front of the fire laughed. ‘It is good that the rain has washed away what little pride I had left, or you’d have crushed the last of it.’

  ‘Do you want to be seen as a threat?’ she said, surprised. ‘Because, if you are, I will have to send you back out to the garden.’

  The wet dogs at his feet turned to her as if they understood, their little foreheads wrinkling with worry.

  ‘No one is going back out in the rain,’ she assured them. ‘Not even the scoundrel you are protecting.’

  ‘A moment ago, I was no threat. And now I am a scoundrel,’ he said with a smile. ‘Things are looking up.’

  ‘Because you do not have the sense to be insulted,’ she said, shaking her head and trying not to smile back.

  ‘I cannot help the fact that I am a man,’ he said, as if that should make sense to her. ‘It is no compliment to think that you do not see me as such.’

  ‘Because all men are threatening, I suppose,’ she said, rolling her eyes at him.

  By his silence, he probably thought this was the truth.

  ‘Gentlemen are not,’ she said, wondering if now he would be insulted that she did not think him one of those.

  ‘That statement shows how few gentlemen you actually know,’ he replied.

  ‘I know Alister,’ she said confidently. ‘And he is no threat.’

  Now it was Mr Solomon’s turn to roll his eyes. ‘He is not the yardstick with which to measure all of masculinity.’ Before she could correct him, he added, ‘You know your brother as well. He is as finely bred a gentleman as we are likely to find. Yet, from our conversations, I do not think you would call him harmless.’

  He had trapped her. She should be defending both the men in her life, and yet she could not seem to find words to refute anything that he had said. Alister was meek and polite, and everything her brother was not. It was one of the things she liked about him.

  Her brother was a murderer. And yet some part of her still loved him.

  And Mr Solomon? Was somewhere between the two extremes. What was she to do about him? ‘Are you saying I should not trust you?’

  ‘Perhaps,’ he said. ‘Or perhaps I should not trust myself.’ He glanced around the room, as if searching for a way forward. ‘Now, what shall we do to keep busy until the rain stops?’

  She looked at him, surprised. It had not occurred to her that she might be responsible for his entertainment if she brought him inside. Since she had not really planned to do anything more than stare out of the window, she could not really claim that his presence was interrupting anything.

  ‘Chess?’ she suggested, pointing at the board in the corner.

  ‘An excellent idea,’ he said, letting out a relieved breath. ‘Black or white?’

  ‘White,’ she said, taking the advantage of the first move.

  ‘And I will follow after, just as I do the rest of the time.’

  * * *

  The day was passing peacefully, and he was enjoying it. They had played three games already, a win each and a stalemate. It was a joy to find someone who was an even match in skill, for he liked a game to have a bit of unpredictability.

  If he was honest with her, he should point out that the rain had stopped half an hour before. She did not have a good reason to keep him inside, nor did he have cause to stay. But the dogs were asleep, and it seemed a shame to disturb them. Now that he’d had the chance to talk to her about something other than her worthless fiancé, he found that Lady Olivia was actually quite good company. One more game would do no harm to either of them.

  Then he heard a noise from the doorway. A cleared male throat, and the tap of a boot against the marble tiles of the hallway floor. He looked up to see the Duke watching impassively.

  He looked back, making sure that his face was equally impassive and showed no trace of the guilt he felt.

  He was afraid to look at the woman across the table from him, especially after he heard her voice, too high and artificially bright. ‘Hugh! You are home so early.’

  Michael flicked his glance to the mantel clock, noting that it was nearly four. The day had flown by and they had not noticed the time passing.

  ‘Not so early,’ her brother said, his voice calm but his gaze suspicious. ‘Were you not expecting me?’

  ‘I’m sure your tea will be ready at the usual time,’ she said with a weak laugh. ‘Not that I have anything to do with the preparation of it.’

  ‘And is this what usually happens when I am not here?’ he said, raising an eyebrow.

  ‘Chess?’ she said with a strange inflection that made it sound like something forbidden. ‘No. Not usually. I have no one to play with, being in the house alone.’

  ‘But not today,’ he said, staring at Michael.

  ‘It was raining, you see,’ she said quickly. ‘And I did not have the heart to see Mr Solomon getting drenched to the skin.’

  ‘Are you in the habit of watching him?’ her brother asked.

  It was an excellent question, and one that Michael should have thought to ask earlier.

  ‘I went out to check on the dogs,’ she said with a note of triumph, as if happy to light on an excuse. ‘And I saw him in the garden.’

  ‘And invited him in for tea and cakes,’ her brother said in a disgusted tone, glancing at the empty cups on the table.

  ‘Just until the weather improved,’ she said.

  ‘The sun is shining now,’ he said in response. ‘If Mr Solomon is finished playing games, perhaps he would care to note the fact from the window of the study.’ Then he turned on his heel and left without bothering to see if Michael followed.

  The Duke did not look because he did not have to. As an employee, of course Michael would go where he was expected to receive a dressing-down for being found in a place he never should have gone.

  He turned and offered a sketchy bow to the lady seated before him, by way of an apology for leaving so abruptly. Then he turned and headed down the hall at a pace quick enough to catch the Duke at the door to the study, damning himself the whole way.

  He could not decide what was the greater sin: to spend an afternoon chatting with his employer’s sister, or to be caught doing so. Given the identity of the employer, getting sacked for not knowing his place was the least of his worries.

  Once inside the study he stood like a soldier before a general, back straight, eyes forward, dead still, and waited for the explosion he was sure would come.

  Instead, the peer took his seat behind the desk and looked up at him as if he were observing a specimen in a laboratory. Then he said in a dangerously ordinary tone, ‘Do you enjoy your position here, Mr Solomon?’

  He was ready to answer in the affirmative, then stopped, not wanting to sound as if he was taking too much pleasure in it, as it must have seemed in the sitting room. ‘I appreciate it,’ he said, which was a more accurate assessment. ‘And I think, despite the way it might have looked just now, that I do it well.’

  ‘Did
I hire you to entertain my sister?’ the Duke asked.

  ‘No, Your Grace. You wanted to be sure that she was not eloping or forming attachments to inappropriate men. She was doing neither of those things today.’

  ‘Do you consider yourself appropriate company for her?’ the Duke asked. ‘Because I certainly do not.’

  The assessment was meant to sting, reminding him that he was nowhere good enough for a high-born lady. It was true, of course. All the same, he did not like having the fact rubbed in his face by his betters.

  But pride was an emotion that he could not afford at the moment. So he replied, ‘I was not thinking in terms of forming an attachment to her, if that is what concerns you. Nor do I fear that she is likely to become attached to me. I doubt she likes me very much, truth be told. But it will be easier to keep ahead of her if she views me as a confidant instead of a jailer.’

  ‘That is good to know.’ The Duke stared at him in silence until the air in the room seemed oppressive and Michael had to struggle not to turn towards the door. Then he spoke again. ‘Because if anything inappropriate happens to my sister, you will pay with your life. Do you understand?’

  ‘As Richard Sterling did?’ he replied, unable to resist a counterstrike of some kind. It was the height of foolishness if the man was as dangerous as his sister claimed. But his research had turned up a story even worse than Lady Olivia’s assumptions. Sterling had died shortly after a public argument with the Duke.

  ‘What do you know of Richard Sterling?’

  ‘Only what Lady Olivia tells me,’ he lied.

  ‘And what is that?’ Was it his imagination, or did the Duke actually sound curious?

  ‘That he was found dead in the Thames after his suit was refused.’

  ‘He was not worthy of my sister either,’ the Duke said with a strange smile. ‘Sometimes, it is a wonder to me that Clement has lived as long as he has.’

  ‘To me, as well,’ Michael said, honestly puzzled at the man’s reaction.