by Isobel Carr
It might be freezing, but it was still England. Still home. The cold was nothing a good English ale, a hearty steak and kidney pie, and a hot quaking pudding couldn’t make infinitely better. Once he’d had those, he’d be ready to run his Olivia to earth and see just what bout of madness had prompted her to return to London so soon.
CHAPTER 8
Come along, sister-of-mine.”
Margo’s head snapped up, and she felt her cheeks flush. Rolly was standing in the doorway of her room, clothed in tobacco-brown superfine with a sherry-colored waistcoat embroidered with a palm trees and monkeys. She hadn’t heard him open the door, busy as she was trying to calm her nerves and settle her stomach. She felt like a blasted girl about to make her debut.
“Father sent me to fetch you,” Rolly said, pushing away from the door frame. The floor creaked as he stepped toward her, his shoes and buckles shiny against the dull wool of the carpet. “You know how he hates to keep the horses waiting.”
“You mean how he hates to be kept waiting,” Margo replied as she dabbed on a bit of perfume. She put the stopper back and set the bottle down, the glass clicking against the Japanned tray that held all the various pots and vials of paint and powder and scent that she had brought home with her from France.
She hadn’t used most of them since returning to England. The current fashion in London was for a more natural appearance than was favored at the French court. The lightest dusting of powder on the skin, the barest hint of rouge on the cheek, and a smudge of kohl about the eyes was all the English considered de rigueur. She felt naked.
Margo took a deep breath, smoothing her hands over her waist and down over her full skirts. “Am I presentable?”
Rolly grinned, one side of his mouth sliding up higher than the other as it was wont to do when he was feeling mischievous. “For a widow in deepest mourning?” he said offhandedly as she stepped past him. “Eminently.”
“Wretch,” Margo shot back as she hurried down the corridor. Trust her roguish brother to point out that she wasn’t supposed to care only six months into her widowhood. She was supposed to be distraught, bereft, grief-stricken. She’d been none of those things since her husband’s death, as he well knew.
Rolly’s answering laugh and the tread of his heels chased after her. Margo pushed aside her failings as a widow. She missed Etienne, but that was all. Missed him the way one did a friend who’d gone away. For that’s what her husband had been in the end, a friend she saw on occasion as they both went about their separate pursuits and affairs. It had been his mistress, Madame D’Arbly, who’d been inconsolable at Etienne’s passing, and Margo who’d had to console her.
Rolly caught Margo at the bottom of the stairs. He took her silk opera cloak from the waiting footman and held it out. She stood still while he shook it out and draped it over her shoulders.
“You look lovely, Margo,” he said, squeezing her shoulders before letting go. “Good enough for Arlington to want to take a bite.”
Margo inhaled sharply and spun about. Rolly danced backward, but she caught him a glancing blow with her fist all the same. Sometimes she couldn’t help wishing she were an only child.
“Very ladylike,” Rolly said as he clapped his hat onto his head, toggling it to make sure it was secure.
Margo glared, turned about on her heel, and headed out to join her parents in the coach. Arlington had invited them all to Drury Lane tonight. Whispers of a betrothal between her brother and Lady Olivia had already begun to circulate.
On the surface, tonight was merely another step in the slow unveiling of that relationship. A demonstration that both families supported it. But behind the invitation, Margo could sense other forces at work. There was something there, a connection between Arlington and herself that was nearly irresistible.
The damp night air kissed her skin as the footman handed her up into the waiting coach. Margo took the rear-facing seat across from her mother. Her father glanced impatiently at the door as Rolly crammed his way in, his long legs crushing Margo’s skirts as he twisted about to fit into the narrow space.
Margo yanked the yards of black watered silk aside as they got underway. She wanted to look perfect tonight. As perfect as she could anyway, decked out in widow’s weeds. The eager burn of excitement she remembered from her first Season licked through her, warming her from the inside out. She’d had more than one lover over the years—it would have been strange had she not, given that affaires de coeur were almost as important as politics in the corridors of Versailles—but she couldn’t remember the last time a man had left her feeling breathless with anticipation.
She and Arlington had crossed paths several times over the past few days. The first time was purely by chance. It had to have been. She’d accompanied her father to hear a scientific lecture at the British Museum. Short of bribing her parents’ servants, Arlington couldn’t have known she’d be there.
Afterward, she and Arlington had strolled through the marble halls, discussing commonplaces about the Season, but she had let slip that she preferred to end her late nights with a dawn ride before falling into bed. The next morning she’d encountered the earl on a natty black with one white stocking up over its knee, shuffling down the sandy track in Hyde Park in the predawn glow. Rolly had given her a decidedly amused glance, but he hadn’t said anything as the earl fell in with them as if this encounter was purely serendipitous.
They’d crossed paths again at Negri’s, where he’d treated her and her mother to tea. It was there that he’d proposed tonight’s outing. But Arlington had been looking at her, his vivid blue eyes intent, waiting to see her reaction, not that of Lady Moubray.
Yes, the Earl of Arlington was most certainly pursuing her, but she wasn’t entirely sure he knew what he would do if he caught her. Nor was she sure what she would do. He was intriguing, but his pursuit was almost decorous.
Taking a lover was something she had every intention of doing, when the right circumstances and the right man presented themselves. Marrying again wasn’t. And even though she could feel the tug of attraction building between them, Arlington seemed too honorable a man to do anything so improper as seduce the sister of his daughter’s betrothed.
He’d done nothing more than kiss her hand the night of the ball, hadn’t done even that on any of their subsequent meetings. His reticence was unnerving, not at all what she was used to dealing with from the men of her acquaintance. At Versailles, her husband’s friends had begun propositioning her within days of their marriage, and their pursuit had only intensified in the weeks after his death.
Margo fiddled with one of the pins that held the bodice of her gown to the jet-encrusted stomacher. This wasn’t Versailles, and Arlington wasn’t some French courtier whose romantic intrigues were nothing but political showmanship or pleasure seeking.
And there was Rolly to consider as well. Margo didn’t believe for a moment that whatever he and Lady Olivia were up to could be taken at face value, but all the same, she didn’t want to spike his wheels unnecessarily, and Lord love her, she didn’t want to cause a scandal here on her own shores. She’d done enough of that in France.
Roland took in the expression on Lord Arlington’s face as the earl set eyes on Margo with an amused shake of his head. The man was utterly infatuated, though he was doing his best to hide it. It was impossible to mistake Arlington’s fleeting smile and the way his eyes returned to Margo again and again as he waved them into the box.
Poor devil. Margo would eat him alive.
Roland glanced at his sister as she took a seat beside their host in the front row of the box. Margo nodded to the earl, but immediately turned her attention to the boxes on the other side of the theatre, putting on quite the show of ease as she nodded to friends across the abyss of the pit.
Lord Omsbatch nodded back, light flashing off his quizzing glass. Roland frowned. Yes, Omsbatch seemed a more likely swain for Margo than Arlington, though it wasn’t a connection he’d choose for her.
&
nbsp; Roland forgot about his sister’s romantic intrigues the moment Lady Olivia turned to study him over her shoulder. She was seated alone in the back row, just behind his parents. A gown of scarlet silk set off her skin as though she were a pearl in a setting of rubies. She looked every inch the confident young society matron she should have been.
Standing beside her was a stranger who could have been her brother. He had the same blond hair and the angles of his face were a younger version of Lord Arlington’s. The man frowned as Roland stepped toward them, his expression changing to polite indifference as Olivia turned to look at him.
The man dropped a hand to rest casually on Olivia’s shoulder, two fingers touching the naked slope of her neck. Roland fought back the urge to pitch the man over the rail and into the pit.
“Mr. Devere, do you know my father’s heir, Mr. Carlow?” Olivia said, glancing between them.
“I’ve never had the pleasure.”
Carlow’s mouth crooked into a somewhat disdainful smile. Clearly his presence wasn’t any more welcome to Carlow than Carlow’s was to him.
“Mr. Devere,” Carlow said with a nod, his thumb moving in a lazy circle on Olivia’s shoulder. This is mine, he was saying none too subtly. Don’t get any ideas. Don’t touch. Roland felt the same way.
“Henry’s come all the way from Italy to support me in my return to the social fray,” Olivia said with genuine, guile-free pleasure.
Roland looked pointedly at Henry’s encroaching hand and then back to the man’s face. Carlow fell back a step, his hand falling to his side. For the briefest moment, the man’s eyes snapped with fury. Whether it was at being challenged or at his own blunder of giving ground, Roland couldn’t tell. What was perfectly clear, however, was that Mr. Henry Carlow wasn’t at all pleased with Olivia’s betrothal.
“I see Lady Robert trying to gain your attention, my lady,” Roland said, enjoying the way Carlow’s eyes narrowed in annoyance. “Shall I take you to her?”
Roland held out his hand, and after the slightest pause, Olivia allowed him to help her up and escort her out of her father’s box. Roland shot Carlow a triumphant look, and the man glared back darkly. He’d just nipped her out from under the man’s nose, and there wasn’t a damn thing Henry could do about it.
The corridor that ringed the theatre was nearly empty, just a few pages and footmen dashing by on errands and the occasional late arrival making haste for their seat. Roland tucked Olivia’s hand tightly into the crook of his arm and set off slowly toward the boxes on the far side.
“Did you really see Lady Robert beckoning?” Olivia said, her tone clearly implying that she knew he was lying.
Roland shrugged ever so slightly. “I may have been mistaken. It may have been Mrs. Staniland waving to my mother. The theatre is damned dark in places.”
“Or it may have been Mrs. Hahn trying to attract your attention,” she said with an artful little sigh. “Don’t think I didn’t notice her chagrin at being ignored at your parents’ ball. Past conquest?”
Roland stopped dead in his tracks, pique and horror at war within him. “Almeria Hahn? If you think for a minute—”
“How am I to know whom you’ve dallied with over the years?” she said with a show of faux indignation. Olivia batted her eyes, clearly waiting for an answer.
“Well, you can start by assuming that Bishops’ wives—especially those with a squint and a mole that a witch would be proud of—are unlikely to be counted among their ranks.”
“Really?” Olivia dropped his arm and took a step away from him. She leaned back against the paneled wall, hands tucked behind her. Her exact expression was impossible to decipher, but there was a definite hint of exasperation in it, perhaps even annoyance. “I’ve heard it said that one woman is very much like another in the dark.”
“Only by a man who’s touched in the head,” Roland responded with feeling.
“So not Mrs. Hahn? What about Mrs. Pipkin and Lady Mossiker? They’ve both been glaring at me like gorgons, and I can’t imagine it’s merely because I carry the stench of scandal.”
A harried matron with three girls in tow skirted past them. Roland held his tongue until they were out of earshot. “Whatever I may have done, and whomever I may have done it with, I’m gentleman enough not to speak of it.”
“You mean it’s none of my business,” Olivia said, her tone verging on arctic. “While my entire history is an open book, not only to you, but to the world. I imagine you’ve bandied your conquests’ names about with your friends. But I’m to have no warning?”
Roland grasped her arm and propelled her back into motion. He should have thought of this, should have dealt with it. For she was right; there were certainly past lovers who might be very angry indeed to find he’d suddenly given up his claim to bachelorhood, and not in their favor.
Olivia’s hand balled into a fist and she tried to pull away. The roar of applause from inside the theatre washed over them. Roland swung Olivia about to face him, keeping a tight grip on her arms to prevent her from storming off.
“You’re right, my dear. I’m not gentleman enough not to have done my share of bragging over cards and wine, but then you already have proof of that.” He held her in place, wanting to shake her almost as much as he wanted to kiss her.
A small, black page dashed past them, a note clutched in his hand, the peacock feathers on the front of his turban streaking back like a flag being carried into battle.
“Do you want the laundry list,” Roland finally said when they were alone again, “or only the names of those whose noses might be out of joint at the moment?”
“I fear we don’t have time for a full accounting.” Olivia tipped her head back to stare up at him.
Roland let his breath out slowly. “Just now realizing that your choice of pawn might not be as ideal as you thought?”
Olivia swallowed hard, looking as though she were preparing to take a beating. Almost as though she wanted whatever he said to be hurtful.
Roland loosened his grip. “Mrs. Pipkin’s antipathy I can’t explain, so you’ll have to put her glares down to offended sensibilities,” he said. “But yes, you’re right about Lady Mossiker.”
Olivia nodded. “But not now?”
“Not since autumn.”
“Good,” Olivia said firmly. “And now, I believe we’re missing the play.”
“Lord Arlington?”
Philip realized with a start that he hadn’t the slightest idea what Madame de Corbeville had just said. He’d been too busy watching her saying it. Her two front teeth were ever so slightly crooked, and her upper lip was a work of art. It was bowed and fuller than her lower lip. And just now both lips were parted in a grin, the lower one caught almost guiltily between her teeth.
“Worried about my scapegrace brother alone with Lady Olivia in the deserted byways of the theatre?” she said.
“No,” Philip said, leaning forward in his seat until the orange blossom scent of her perfume filled his head. “Livy is more than capable of managing your brother.”
Madame de Corbeville’s grin widened, and Philip swallowed hard. She was ridiculously beautiful, but it was the devilish glint in her eye that was truly enchanting. He recognized the rush of infatuation for what it was, but that didn’t make the heady feeling any less intense or one whit more appropriate.
“She does seem to have rather taken him in hand, doesn’t she?” the comtesse said.
Philip nodded, and the babble of the crowd washed over him. There might be a few stray theatregoers who were there to watch the performance, but most were there to see and be seen. The true show was taking place on their side of the stage, not on it.
The din abated a tad as the orchestra’s opening notes announced the imminent arrival of the performers. The comtesse didn’t so much as turn her head. She just stared back at him, dark eyes large and knowing, very much like a cat deciding if it would deign to let you pet it.
Philip forced himself to turn his attention to t
he stage while every fiber of his being wished this wasn’t a family party. He was aware of the Moubrays to his left and his heir at the far edge of the box, leaning out over the pit to speak with the people in the next box. But they were somehow nothing more than set dressing, no more real than the painted canvas backdrop behind the actors.
Madame de Corbeville’s father had let drop that she was accompanying him to a lecture at the British Museum, and though Philip had told himself he wouldn’t go, he’d found himself lurking in the back of the room, listening with half an ear to a lecture on the artificial production of cold air and guiltily staring at his daughter’s future sister-in-law like an apprentice mooning over a milkmaid.
Just as he’d found himself riding at dawn every morning in the hopes of seeing her, and rushing down the street when he spied her entering Negri’s. In idle moments he found himself picturing her smile. His dreams were filled with her: naked, writhing atop him like Lilith in the Garden.
He’d lost his wife when Livy was still in the nursery, and though he certainly hadn’t taken a vow of celibacy during the intervening years, his occasional affairs had always been fleeting, and his partners every bit as desirous of discretion as he was. Margaret, comtesse de Corbeville, however, had a reputation for being anything but discreet.
CHAPTER 9
A heavy fog, almost like the mist that sometimes covered the moors at home, had settled over the city sometime in the wee hours of the morning. The air stank of coal and brine. Livy felt almost as though she were drowning as she drew a deep breath and flexed her hands, fingers fighting the stiff leather of her gloves. Usually once the leather warmed, they were as pliable as her own skin, but at the moment, they felt almost like mittens around her cold fingers.
“Did you want to go back?” Devere said, reining in his own mount and watching her with dark, all too inquisitive eyes. “You needn’t indulge Margo and me in our insanity.”
