by Zoë Archer
“You’re from Colorado,” Olivia said to Will when they finished reading. “Everyone gets it wrong.” She crumpled the newspaper and tossed it down to the pavement.
Prudence trembled with fury. “You are missing the point!” Clutching her reticule, she continued, “You think no one has noticed what has been going on between you two, but they see.”
“It ain’t anyone’s business what Olivia does,” Will snarled.
“It most certainly is,” Prudence said hotly. “Inappropriate behavior will not be tolerated by decent society. And I can tell you,” she added, “that lascivious behavior with an American bumpkin is inappropriate.”
“How dare you?” Olivia snapped, enraged at this insult. She heard Will’s sharp intake of breath beside her.
“How dare you, Lady Xavier?” Prudence countered. “Do you think you are so removed from the rest of us that anything you do will be shrugged off, accepted? We all have to live under the same strictures, and believing that you are somehow exempt is unbelievably arrogant. And self-destructive,” she added smugly. “If you continue like this, no respectable person will acknowledge you.”
“What if I don’t want them to acknowledge me?” she answered stormily. “What if I don’t care?”
“It isn’t simply a matter of being invited to country house parties, and you know it,” Prudence retorted. “Like it or not, your reputation affects everything. Including your brewery.”
“What?” Will asked.
“It’s true,” Prudence said, turning to him scornfully. “As one of the few female business owners, Lady Xavier is under intense scrutiny. All of her actions are held up before the public. No one will want to trade with a woman of low reputation. She will certainly be shunned should she be suspected of moral impropriety. I am seriously considering moving the mission in order to put as much distance between this den of iniquity and my house of moral charity.”
“Are you quite finished?” Olivia said between her teeth.
“I’ve spoken my piece,” sniffed Prudence.
“Ma’am,” Will drawled, “I don’t believe in talkin’ disrespectfully to ladies, but since you’ve shown that you ain’t anything more than a gossipy hen, and not much of a lady, I’m going to tell you to hit the trail.”
Prudence gasped in horror. Without another word, she spun on her heel and marched off, with her footman trailing after her.
Tremors of rage shook Olivia’s body. She felt almost sick with it. But beneath that anger was dread.
Back at Princes Square, she went up immediately to the drawing room. She poured herself two fingers of scotch and drank it back, feeling heat slide down her throat and into her belly. She stood at the sideboard, staring at the decanters of liquor. The fire reflected in the crystal surfaces, dazzling, hypnotic. She wanted to lose herself in the contemplation of the flames, in the tiny prismatic world contained within the glass. In that world, there would be no George Pryce, no society columns, no Prudence Culpepper or the many she represented. Just perfect, clear glass and fire.
Will came up behind her. His hands went to her shoulders, and she leaned against him. So solid, so sure. She tipped her head back so her forehead rested against the underside of his jaw. She breathed deeply, taking in the warm leathery musk of his skin.
“Take me to bed,” she whispered. “Make me forget.”
“Liv—”
“Just a little while,” she said, turning around and staring up into his desire-filled eyes. They burned down at her as she slid her arms around his waist. “It’s all the time we have.”
“Just a little while,” he repeated, and then their mouths came together and she made herself forget time.
They were lying quietly in bed when a slip of paper slid underneath the door. Frowning, Olivia sat up. If there was an urgent message, Mordon usually knocked.
“Leave it,” Will said. He tugged on her hand.
But she was simply too mystified to ignore the note. She quickly got out of bed and picked up the scrap of paper, unconcerned about her nudity.
“It’s for you,” she said, perplexed. Will’s name had been written across the front. He was at her side almost immediately, and she handed him the paper.
They stared at each other. After a long moment, he opened the note.
“It’s a name and address,” he said, reading it. He looked up at her, his expression inscrutable. “Lawford found them. He found my family.”
“That’s wonderful.” Her voice sounded far away.
The world, which she had been struggling so hard to keep at bay for the past few hours, was determined to invade this sanctuary. And neither she nor Will could stop it.
Chapter Sixteen
Will held the piece of paper and stared at it.
“This is it, huh?” he asked, not looking at Olivia. His eyes moved over the words Lawford had written in a bold, educated hand. “Search is over.”
“That’s right,” Olivia said. Her voice sounded far off. “Over.”
Where was it, the jubilation that was supposed to come when this moment arrived? Jake had put so much weight on Will finding his family, that if he was given this one thing, the days of rambling and knocking around would suddenly stop and Will would finally put down some roots. And here it was, the answer to a lifetime of questions he never stopped to ask.
“What does it say?” she asked.
He handed her the note and walked away. He started putting on his clothes without thinking, his actions mindless as he tried and failed to get his mind around what this information meant.
“Benjamin Bradshaw,” Olivia read aloud. “Nine Half Moon Street. London.”
“That on the other side of town?” he asked as he buttoned his shirt. He reckoned that whoever this Ben Bradshaw was, he had to live far from Olivia, in the seedier part of London.
“No,” Olivia breathed. She shrugged into a robe, then came over to him quickly and grabbed his arm. “Will—Half Moon Street is in Mayfair.”
The name meant nothing to him. “Yeah?” He distractedly shoved the tails of his shirt into his trousers and turned to look for his boots.
“You don’t understand.” Her voice almost shook as she held him tight. Her urgency made him glance up, and he was nearly confounded by the look on her face. She stared at him as though he was covered in stars. “Mayfair is the most exclusive part of London. Only the wealthiest and most esteemed families live there. People like the Rothschilds.”
It was like his mind was swamped in molasses. He couldn’t make sense of what she was saying. When he didn’t say anything, Olivia continued, “Don’t you see—if Ben Bradshaw is a member of your family, and if he lives in Mayfair...”
“Then I’m from money,” he concluded. He rubbed his hand over his face. “I don’t know, Liv. I don’t feel rich.”
But she seemed genuinely happy for the first time in a long while, George Pryce and gossip-mongering newspapers forgotten. That smile of hers, which tied itself around his heart surer than any lasso, spread across her face, and she wrapped her arms around him. “Will, this is brilliant. It’s the most wonderful news.”
He pulled away, frowning. “You’re glad I might be wealthy?”
She looked dazed. “No—” Olivia backed up, holding the front of her robe closed. “But things will be so much different for you, better, perhaps, if you come from a family of influence. I was hoping”—she looked away, then looked back—”that there might be some chance for us, after all.”
He understood her right off. And that charge, which he hadn’t been able to find before, came galloping through him like a stampede. “We can tell all them yentas to shut their big mouths,” he said with a growing smile.
“Exactly,” she beamed.
He grabbed her around the waist and swung her in circles until she shrieked. “Liv, that’s the best damned news.” He slowed and set her feet back on the ground, staring down into her shining face. They stared at each other for a few moments as the room still gently spun
around them. Her hands spread on his chest, and he could feel her against the pounding of his heart. “I mean it, Liv,” he said softly. “That’s the best part about all this. Soon as I can, I mean to call on you.”
In answer, she slid her hands up his chest and linked her fingers around his neck. She tipped her head back and he came down for a kiss, hot and full of promise. And just like that, he felt that sense of peace, of rightness that had been missing for so long. The sandstorm that gusted through his heart quieted, and in the stillness, there was only Olivia.
“Before we get too distracted,” she said breathlessly, pulling back, “we ought to put our clothes on and go see Benjamin Bradshaw. It’s nearly ten o’clock, but let’s not wait until morning.”
“No, ma’am.”
Now that Will understood that what he had been missing had been living here at Princes Square all along, he finally felt excited about finding his kinfolk. A family of his own—Olivia, this Bradshaw, and who knew the other relatives that would be revealed to him. After he got decent, he slipped out and waited in the music room while Olivia called her maid. She wanted to make a good impression on Will’s family, and made herself endure the long ritual of dressing.
He sat down at the piano and began picking out a few notes. He thought about maybe putting on his fancy suit to meet his family, but he knew he’d feel even more awkward and stiff in those clothes. He wasn’t ashamed of who he was—a cowboy, and a damned good one, too. And he’d make Jake proud, to boot.
He played “My Grandfather’s Clock,” thinking that maybe he’d meet his own grandfather soon. He gave the notes extra kick as plans began forming in his head. He could stay in England, maybe raise horses in the country, since Olivia had said Englishmen were pretty wild for horseracing. He and Olivia would finally finish George Pryce. They could run the brewery together. Get married. There wouldn’t be any children, but Will wanted Olivia more than he wanted babies. He might miss Colorado, too, but it was only a place. Olivia was everything.
As futures went, his looked pretty grand. So when Olivia appeared in the doorway of the music room, savory in an emerald green dress with a wide, open collar and snowy blouse underneath, Will jumped up from the piano bench and swooped her into an impromptu waltz around the small room, humming a tune.
She laughed, the finest sound Will knew of, as she was led through the steps.
“We might yet see you presented at court,” she chimed. “You’ll charm all the aristocrats.”
“I ain’t interested in fancy folk,” he said, slowing. “Just you. Just my kin.”
“The world is changing, Will,” she said with a smile. Their hands were still intertwined, her slender fingers wrapped in his rough ones. “And changing for the better. At last.”
The lights were blazing in the front windows of the elegant townhouse on Half Moon Street. Several carriages were waiting outside, which meant that a dinner party was most likely ongoing. Perhaps for privacy’s sake, it would have been better if Will’s family wasn’t entertaining guests when their missing relative arrived, but there would be no more waiting. Olivia and Will, eager as they were to meet his family, spoke little during the carriage ride over. There was too much to say and feel, an overwhelming tidal wave of emotion that choked away all words and left them to hold hands silently as they drove eastward. Olivia didn’t know if it was his hand that shook or her own.
Though she wanted to leap down from the carriage as soon as it stopped, she waited patiently for the footman to get the door and offer a hand. Once standing on the sidewalk, she nervously adjusted the bodice of her dress and gazed up at the impressive façade of the house. It wasn’t much bigger than her own, but Mayfair had a certain sheen of gentility that even affluent Bayswater could never approach. Yet somehow, she had the strangest feeling that she had been at this address before.
“Ready?” Will asked at her side.
Covering her uncertainty with a bright quick smile, she nodded. But Will did look quite apprehensive, and heartbreakingly young, as he also stared at the front of the townhouse. He swallowed and tugged at the bandana around his neck.
She smoothed the lapels of his duster. “You look fine,” she assured him. “Better than fine. Marvelous.”
“Maybe they’ll make me muck out their stables,” he said, only half joking.
“Will,” she said seriously, “they will be so happy to finally meet you. And why shouldn’t they be? You’re strong, intelligent, courageous and have a wonderful heart. You will make any family proud.” She cupped his chin with her gloved hand. “So no more nonsense about stables. Farshtaist?”
The sound of Yiddish made Will’s anxiety lessen, as she hoped it would. He flashed her a grin, and she was confident that no one, no matter if they came from Mayfair or Montana, would be able to deny him.
“Let’s quit wastin’ time, then.” He took her hand to lead her up the front stairs. With a wink, he knocked smartly on the door.
An unflappable butler in formal dress greeted them. “May I assist you?” Behind him, the clink and murmurs of a dinner party sounded.
“We would like to speak with the master and mistress of this house.” Olivia presented the butler with her card, and, after quickly scanning it, he placed it in a waistcoat pocket.
“I am afraid that they are unavailable at the moment,” the butler said, gracious but decorous. “But I will indeed inform them that you called.”
“It is most urgent that we speak with them now,” Olivia continued. “I am certain they will want to meet with us, if they knew the consequence of our visit.”
Yet the butler would not be swayed. “Alas, madam, I am unable to assist you in this matter, but I can assure you—”
Will, who had been steadily growing more and more restless during the course of this excruciatingly polite conversation, had reached his limit. “Step aside, son,” he said, shouldering past the butler. Will’s size and muscle easily overpowered the smaller man. “I’ve got important business inside.”
Olivia quickly followed him to find them standing in the middle of an immense foyer, two stories high, with a huge chandelier glimmering above their heads. Once again, she was assailed by a powerful feeling of having been here before.
The butler’s calm demeanor gave way to heated indignation “See here, sir, this is absolutely outrageous!” A few footmen rapidly appeared, much younger and broader than the butler. “Either remove yourselves at once, or I will be compelled to use force.”
Olivia realized that Will had been keeping his natural rowdiness in check for a long time and was eager to let it loose. With a ferocious grin, he raised his fists in preparation of a fight. The footmen, sensing that they had a formidable combatant on their hands, braced themselves.
“Let’s get to it, gents,” Will said.
“Wait!” Olivia stepped between Will and the footmen. She turned to the butler. “We would never disturb the occupants of this house if we did not think the matter was of the utmost urgency. We don’t want to fight,” she added with a glare for Will, then looked again at the butler. “Please tell your master and mistress that Lady Olivia Xavier begs just a moment of their time. I assume all responsibility for any disruption this may cause.”
The butler still appeared doubtful, but she gave him a look that would not be argued with. He glanced quickly between the imperious lady and the bellicose cowboy, and, deciding that he would rather face the wrath of his employers than these peculiar strangers, led them to a small retiring room off the foyer with instructions to wait. Clearly, they were not deemed worthy of the drawing room.
Olivia sat in a ladies’ chair while Will paced. The room was stuffed with elaborately carved furniture and ceramics, a touch too ornate for her taste, but she made no comment about it to Will. A Gothic Renaissance clock ticked loudly, and between his boots going back and forth across the floor and this noise, she felt as taut as a bowstring. Her heart ached for him, what he must be going through at that moment, and when he glanced her w
ay she offered him an encouraging smile, despite her own trepidation.
He took in the room and made a face. “Not sure if I care for my kinfolk’s spread. Little too stuffy for my likin’.”
He did look out of place in the extravagant, cramped space, a rangy cowboy amidst the ferns and folderol. “Perhaps you can convince them to put spittoons on the floor and mount longhorns on the wall.”
“And have everyone come to dinner by ringin’ the bell, and yellin’ ‘Come and get it,’” he added.
“You could have Pug-roping contests,” she suggested. They were both growing giddy from tension.
“And crumpet quick-draws.”
Before they could carry their hysteria any further, the door to the drawing room opened and a man and woman in full evening dress entered, looking exceptionally confused and a bit annoyed. Olivia got to her feet, frowning. They looked much too young to have a grandchild Will’s age.
“Lady Xavier?” the man asked. “What exactly is this about?”
Her memory returned in an instant. She had been in this house before, back when David had been alive, for a ball. She dropped into a curtsey. “Lord and Lady Donleveigh, I apologize for the intrusion. May I introduce my friend, Mr. Will Coffin?”
Lord Donleveigh shook hands with Will, frowning. “That American we’ve been hearing about?”
“Yessir,” Will answered, but then he looked as puzzled as the earl. “Ain’t your name Ben Bradshaw?”
“Goodness, no,” Lady Donleveigh exclaimed. “His name is Rupert.”
A cold worry began to gnaw in Olivia’s stomach. “Do either of you perhaps have a relative by the name of Benjamin Bradshaw?” she asked. “A cousin, or uncle?”
The earl and countess exchanged concerned glances. “Not to my recollection,” Donleveigh said cautiously. “Though my family is extensive, and so is Wilhemina’s. What is this all about? You have interrupted our dinner and terrified my servants.”
“I’m lookin’ for my kin,” Will explained, “and I was told that I’m related to someone by the name of Bradshaw who lives here.” He looked at Olivia. “Maybe Lawford was wrong.”
