by Rowan Nina
Sebastian grinned. “You needn’t pay a wife regular visits, so long as she produces a son. Then Mrs. Arnott will be happy to keep you entertained. Word is she favors you for more than just your money.”
Alexander sighed. His infrequent patronage of the brothel was due to the need for discretion and his lack of interest in the complications of an affair.
Not to mention his distaste for marriage to a “sweet, empty-headed young chit”—no matter how beneficial such a match would be to the earldom. The very idea brought back the ugliness of his experience with Lord Chilton and his daughter.
“Wed and bed, Alex. All you need to do.”
Alexander shook his head and left the dining room, somewhat gratified at restoring his brother’s good humor—if one could call it that.
Despite their different temperaments, of his three brothers, Alexander had always been closest to Sebastian. Partly because they couldn’t compete with the bond their twin brothers shared, but also because Alexander always secretly appreciated Sebastian’s relaxed, devil-may-care approach to life.
An approach Alexander had never been able to cultivate.
And as much as they’d sparred over Sebastian’s cavalier attitude about the scandal, Alexander couldn’t help the sting of envy he felt. Sebastian did what he pleased, everyone else be damned.
He wasn’t the one who had been forced to sacrifice all his plans. He wasn’t the one who’d had to return to London to contend with the detritus of their mother’s abandonment and the subsequent divorce. He wasn’t the one who’d borne the humiliation of a broken engagement to a society debutante.
None of his brothers were.
Alexander rubbed the back of his neck to ease the persistent tension caused by the weight of responsibility. After he had finished dressing, he had picked up Lydia Kellaway’s notebook from where he’d left it on a table.
She was no sweet, uninspiring daughter of a rustic peer. If her writings were anything to judge by, she knew far more about prime numbers and differential equations than fashion and etiquette.
Perhaps that alone was the reason Alexander hadn’t met her before now. Though her father, Sir Henry Kellaway, had been a scholar of considerable repute in Chinese history and literature, he’d always been something of a recluse.
Had that been because of Lydia?
Alexander frowned at the thought. He ordered the carriage brought around, then gave the driver an East Street address that was written inside the front cover of the notebook.
As he rode, he paged through the notebook. There appeared to be no organization to the scribbles—just pages and pages of algebraic equations and geometrical diagrams.
This happens when r is the greatest of the solutions of a + ar = b + βr, a + ar = c + γr, &c. Let (k – a) : (a – κ), which we call ρ, be the greatest in the set—
Alexander gave a short laugh. Odd, he’d called her? Miss Kellaway was more than odd if her brain not only comprehended such convolutions, but also actually produced them.
A few words on the following page caught his eye.
Variables as the measure of love.
The word love was heavily underlined. This was followed by a series of equations and notes that made little sense to Alexander, aside from his recognizing the structure of differential equations and scrawled references to the Iliad, Romeo and Juliet, Petrarch.
He closed the notebook, not having any idea what to make of it. But rather wishing he did.
A short while later, Alexander descended the carriage across from a modest brick town house. A newspaper boy, his trousers tied with a length of rope, paced in front of an iron fence. At the corner, a fruit seller set up her stand and shooed away a dog pawing for scraps.
The door of the town house opened, and a woman emerged, her arms laden with at least half a dozen books. No, not a woman. Lydia Kellaway. In a black dress, her torso as rigid as a tree branch above the billow of her skirts.
Yet despite her clothes, her body appeared both slender and quite deliciously rounded, intensifying Alexander’s conviction that an unclad Lydia Kellaway would be lush, soft, and as tempting as sin.
He crossed the street, his heart slamming against his ribs with every step.
A brown-haired girl, perhaps ten or eleven and as neat as a pin in a starched pinafore, appeared at Lydia’s side to hold the door open.
“Jane, please, could you take—” Lydia’s gaze slid to Alexander as he approached. She straightened, fumbling with her books, her lips parting with surprise.
“Miss Kellaway.”
“Lord Northwood.”
God. Even the sound of her voice made his blood hot. Lyrical, with just the slightest bit of a rasp, like a good brandy that slid rich and warm down one’s throat. He wanted to hear the sound of his Christian name in her voice, wanted it to melt against his skin.
“May I?” He stepped forward to take the books from her. His fingers brushed against her arms, her gloved hands. His head filled with the scent of the air surrounding her.
“Thank you.” Lydia lifted a hand to straighten her crooked hat. Exertion flushed her pale skin, and a few locks of dark-brown hair spilled around her neck and forehead.
She placed a hand on the girl’s shoulder and bent to whisper in her ear. The girl shot a curious look at Alexander before going back into the house. He looked after her with a slight frown.
“My sister,” Lydia explained. “You’ll forgive me for sending her away. I don’t wish her to know of recent… events.”
“Events?”
“Yes, the… Lord Northwood, please come inside.” She preceded him into the drawing room.
As he unloaded the books onto a table, Alexander let his gaze sweep across the room, the worn brocade sofa and chairs, the peeling wallpaper, the faded Chinese scrolls. Not a speck of dust appeared on any surface, but the furnishings bore the evidence of age and wear.
“I intended to contact you today, my lord.” Lydia turned beside the window, tugging off her gloves. “Have you got my notebook? I’m afraid I left it the other night.”
Alexander lifted his gaze from her slender white hands and tapered fingers. He slipped the notebook from his pocket. Relief flashed across Lydia’s face as she started forward.
“Oh, thank you. I’ve got so many notes written there that if I were to—” She stopped a short distance from him as she realized he wasn’t extending the book to her.
A frown creased her forehead, and she gave an irritated huff. “Please don’t tell me you’re going to make an entirely improper request before you give me my notebook back.”
“Hmm. Hadn’t planned to, but it’s an intriguing thought.”
“Lord Northwood!”
Alexander grinned and handed her the book. Their hands touched as she took it. She pulled her arm back, a faint flush coloring her cheeks.
Her reaction wasn’t coy. He knew that. It was as if she simply had no idea what to do with him, and her lack of knowledge caused her embarrassment.
Lydia looked at the front of his shirt, her white teeth biting down on her lower lip. He took the opportunity to study her in the light streaming through the window, noticing details he hadn’t the other night.
The smooth arch of her eyebrows, the faint freckles sprinkled over the bridge of her nose, the delicious fullness of her lips—no, that he had noticed when he’d been close enough to feel her breath. But now he could see the color of her bare, unpainted lips, like the blush of an apricot. She’d taste that way, too, all sweet and juicy and pink.
Hell.
Alexander took a step back, fighting to rein in his arousal. He forced himself not to skim the rest of Lydia Kellaway’s body, to rake with his gaze the curves of her full breasts, the slope of her waist, her round hips…
Stop.
For no other reason than to stop looking at her, Alexander turned his attention to the books he’d dumped on the table. For a man who prided himself on his self-control, he was reacting like a lusty greenhorn.
Alexander restacked the books before lifting his head. She was watching him, her thick-lashed eyes wary, her lower lip still caught between her teeth.
“Do you read anything else besides texts on mathematics?” he asked.
“The occasional magazine or book, yes.”
“Petrarch?”
She blinked. “I beg your pardon?”
“You read Petrarch, don’t you? Shakespeare? The Iliad?”
“How did you—” She drew back, her lips parting on a shocked gasp. “You read my notebook?”
“Hardly. If I’d read your notebook, that would imply I understood it. Which I did not. I did, however, notice your writing about romances.”
“Lord Northwood, you have violated my privacy!”
“Mmm. Like you did mine when you invaded my house at midnight? Or when you hunted up gossip about me? Or when you skulked about unlawfully procuring my name from Havers’s salesbook?”
“Well, I—” Twin circles of pink stained her cheeks, and Alexander wondered if any other woman in the world blushed as much as Miss Lydia Kellaway.
She cleared her throat and fumbled with a brooch pinned to her neckline. “That is to say, I didn’t intend—”
“In any case,” Alexander said, “I fail to see what’s so private about scribbling a few names and equations. Now, if you’d written erotic poems or—”
“Lord Northwood.” Despite her intensely pink complexion, she lifted her head and looked him in the eye. “I happen to believe there is a mathematical basis for romantic relationships.”
He stared at her. He couldn’t have been more surprised if she’d told him she actually did write erotic poems—just in a different notebook.
“A mathematical basis for relationships?” he repeated, not understanding at all.
“Yes. A pattern of behavior. I am using historical examples such as Romeo and Juliet, Tristan and Isolde, Helen and Paris, etcetera, to test my theories and establish proofs.”
She was serious. She stood there clutching her infernal notebook, her blue eyes blinking without guile.
“Proofs of… of what?” Alexander asked.
“Patterns of attraction and rejection. For example, although Laura was a married woman who spurned Petrarch’s advances, he continued to pursue her through his sonnets. I believe I can describe their relationship by assigning variables to their emotions and creating differential equations.”
Alexander was dumbfounded. The woman was trying to quantify love.
“Lydia, I thought you were going to—”
Both Alexander and Lydia turned as an elderly woman entered, her steps accompanied by the click of an ivory-handled cane. She stopped.
“Grandmama, this is Viscount Northwood.” A hint of dismay colored Lydia’s voice. “Lord Northwood, my grandmother, Mrs. Charlotte Boyd.”
“Mrs. Boyd.” He nodded in greeting, suppressing his annoyance at the interruption. How in the name of heaven did one quantify love? “A pleasure.”
“Lord Northwood.” Mrs. Boyd looked at Lydia and back to him again. Something calculating sharpened her assessment. “Lydia has confessed she… disturbed you at your home.”
She did, indeed.
“I do apologize for her impertinence,” Mrs. Boyd added.
“No need, Mrs. Boyd. Miss Kellaway and I have come to an agreement.” He cast a quick glance toward Lydia before returning his attention to Mrs. Boyd.
“Have you?” The woman’s gaze narrowed. “Might I inquire what kind of agreement?”
“It’s nothing, really,” Lydia broke in. “I’m working on some accounting for Lord Northwood in exchange for the locket.”
Alexander studied the older woman to see if she saw through the lie, but rather than appearing suspicious, Mrs. Boyd seemed oddly pleased.
“Well, I don’t think it’s quite proper for a woman to work on accounting,” she admitted, “but I do know that Lydia will be most accurate and thorough. She’s always had a head for numbers, my lord.”
“So I’ve discovered.” He glanced at Lydia. “I’d best be on my way. I’m expected at the Society of Arts offices within the hour.”
As he returned to the carriage, Sebastian’s words echoed through his head.
Find yourself a sweet, empty-headed young chit.
Alexander wouldn’t call Lydia Kellaway sweet. She was sharp and peppery, not sweet. As for empty-headed… he almost laughed. If anything, that woman’s head was crammed with far too many thoughts and suppositions. And young? She must be nearing thirty.
He stared out the window. No. Miss Kellaway was too forthright, too opinionated, too prickly. Not to mention downright odd. She did not come from a prominent family. Society would think it a strange match. It wasn’t what people would expect of him.
Yet he hadn’t been as intrigued by a woman in ages, if ever. He didn’t understand all she was about, but he was determined to try.
He made her blush. Blush! How many years had it been since she—Lydia Kellaway, mathematical prodigy who at eight years of age studied differential and integral calculus—had blushed? At least, in a way that elicited a tingle of pleasure and the urge to smile.
And when Lord Northwood looked at her, her heart fluttered like petals in a breeze.
She wondered what he thought when he looked at her. Did he like what he saw? The heated look in his eyes suggested he did, but he was far more experienced in such matters than she was, so perhaps it was all a game to him.
Or perhaps not.
She pressed her hands to her cheeks, even now feeling them warm with color. Somewhere deep inside, in a place she rarely allowed herself to venture, Lydia remembered what carnal desire had felt like. She remembered the heating of her blood, the tension swirling in her belly.
But this… the lightness, the surge beneath her heart… this was all new. Welcome. Lovely.
Dangerous.
Lydia closed her eyes, hating the whispered warning, the reminder that not even in her imagination should she allow herself to acknowledge, let alone enjoy, the sensations Lord Northwood aroused.
“Lydia.”
Lydia’s eyes flew open at the sound of her grandmother’s voice. She sat up, folding her arms across her breasts. Shame clawed through her, even though she had done nothing wrong.
“Would you please join me in the drawing room?” Mrs. Boyd asked. “I’d like to speak with you.”
“About what?”
“I’ve several matters I wish to discuss before my meeting at the bank tomorrow morning. Ten minutes, please.”
She turned and left, her statement freezing any memory of Lord Northwood from Lydia’s mind. She smoothed the wrinkles from her dress, then scraped her hair away from her face and neck, ensuring any loose tendrils were tightly contained by a ribbon.
Apprehension rippled through her as she went to the drawing room. Her grandmother stood beside the fire, her arms crossed.
“Please,” Lydia said. “What is this about?”
Mrs. Boyd tapped her fingers against her arms. “How many times have you seen Lord Northwood?”
“Seen him? Twice, I think. Why?”
“You’re to see him more often, I imagine, if you’re working on his books,” Mrs. Boyd continued. “My friend Mrs. Keene claims he’s been intent on restoring honor to his family. It’s one reason he’s working so hard with the Society of Arts and the organization of the educational exhibition. He’s vice president of the Society and director of the exhibition. He’s also been attempting to arrange a suitable marriage for his sister.”
Ah. Likely that had something to do with why the young woman had been so upset the other night.
“I’m certain he’ll prove successful,” Lydia said
. She couldn’t imagine Northwood being unsuccessful at anything.
“However,” Mrs. Boyd continued, “word is that he’s not expressed interest in finding a wife for himself.”
“And?”
“Odd, don’t you think? He’s the one who must produce an heir, after all. Though I suspect he knows that no high-ranking family wants their daughter wed to him, not after his mother’s deplorable behavior. And especially not after Lord Chilton insisted his daughter break off her engagement to him.”
Tension crawled up Lydia’s spine. “What are you implying?”
“I’m implying nothing, Lydia,” Mrs. Boyd replied. “I’m merely giving you the facts about the man, considering you took it upon yourself to visit him unescorted. I should hope that Jane’s education means as much to you as that foolish locket does.”
Lydia blinked at the sudden shift in topic.
“Of course,” she said. “Jane and her education mean everything to me. You know that.” The tension tightened around the base of her skull. “Why would you think otherwise?”
“I know you care about her, Lydia. And you’ve—”
“Care about her?” Good Lord. Did her grandmother not know that she loved Jane more with every breath, every heartbeat?
“You have done well with her,” Mrs. Boyd continued. “She’s still a bit careless, but for the most part she is a well-behaved, respectful girl. However, she is ready for a different type of schooling. The kind that will secure her a place in polite society.”
“She’s doing beautifully under my tutelage. We’ve started reading the Odyssey; we’re studying the countries of the empire; she’s learning fractions and basic algebra—”
“Lydia, Jane requires guidance from teachers who possess far more intuitive social grace than you do. She must learn proper etiquette if she is to marry well.”
“She’s not yet twelve,” Lydia protested. “I didn’t give etiquette or, heaven forbid, marriage a thought until I went to boarding school.”
“Perhaps you should have started earlier.” Her grandmother paused; then her voice sounded like the clip of scissors. “The discipline might have done you good.”
Lydia flinched, her hand clenching around the back of a chair.
