Tempted by the Viscount

by Sofie Darling

  “I’m uncertain how I can be of more help than my sister. If you will pardon me—”

  Mariana slipped her hand into the crook of Olivia’s arm, securing her to her side. Olivia was caught. “Sir Edwin,” Mariana began, turning a dazzling smile onto her prey, “has difficulty believing our daughters’ feeble female brains are capable of progressing mathematically beyond tallying the number of stitches on a sampler.”

  Olivia heard in Mariana’s tone the familiar stirrings of a righteous and one-sided debate. Sir Edwin would have no hope of getting a word in edgewise once Mariana warmed to her subject.

  Herein lay the difference between herself and Mariana: Olivia was no crusader. While she believed that her daughter needed a male education—the very reason she and Mariana had founded the school, after all—she had no interest in converting the Sir Edwins of the ton to her way of thinking.

  The ton simply wasn’t ready for The Progressive School for Young Ladies and the Education of Their Minds. And it wasn’t Olivia’s mission in life to make them so.

  “Sir Edwin,” Olivia conceded, “I suggest you bring your daughter for a visit if your curiosity has gotten the better of you.”

  Sir Edwin’s nose darkened into an unattractive shade of aubergine. “I can assure you that curiosity about such a school does not in any way outweigh my good judgment. Curiosity, indeed.” The man harrumphed. “More like turning my daughter into a curiosity with these outlandish—”

  Olivia was spared the remainder of Sir Edwin’s scold when his voice died away and the volume of the room hushed to a dull murmur. Her eyes shifted from Sir Edwin’s florid face and followed the collective gaze.

  At first glance, it appeared to be nothing more than the announcement of yet another couple standing at the top of the ballroom’s grand staircase. A closer examination revealed that the pair was no couple, rather a man and a girl a few years shy of her debut.

  The girl was both the man’s opposite and his equal at once. Where she was dark, he was light. Where he towered impressively, she stood modestly. Their connection, however, was apparent in the intangibles: a similarity in their composure and in the quiet way they took in the scene before them.

  Mariana pulled Olivia close. “It appears the night’s gossip trump card is being played. You, dear sister, are old news.”

  Olivia tore her gaze away from the new arrivals and lent an attentive ear to her sister.

  “The newly minted Right Honourable Jakob Radclyffe, Fifth Viscount St. Alban,” Mariana whispered. “Rich as Croesus and tonight’s guest of honor. A shipping heir, if the gossip is true.”

  Olivia couldn’t resist the tug of another glance. They were an impossibly gorgeous and arresting pair. His golden head of hair was the finest mixture of red and sun-kissed blond she’d ever seen, which contrasted sharply with the girl’s hair, the deep, complex black of a crow’s wing. It would be a challenge for any painter to get the colors right, especially a novice like herself, but she would love to try.

  She heard someone say, “She’s his daughter. Haven’t you heard?”

  Mariana squeezed Olivia’s arm. “Oh, the gossips will have a field day with this.”

  Olivia nodded once, taking Mariana’s meaning. The girl’s parentage, specifically on her mother’s side.

  The resemblance to both her Asian and European ancestries clear, the girl’s features came together in flawless synthesis: a heart-shaped face, a full rosebud mouth, and the most beautiful eyes Olivia had ever beheld, oval but angled in the exact same line as high cheekbones sharp enough to cut glass, appearing to be not brown, but the changeable gray of a black pearl. It was as if Nature had taken the best from both lines of descent to illustrate for the world its capacity for perfection.

  The ladies formed a tight, exclusive circle, and whispered snippets of conversation flurried around Olivia.

  “Rumor has it that the mother is Japanese,” she overheard.

  “A servant, do you think?” came the scandalized reply.

  “And he acknowledges her?”

  “Oriental women have secrets, don’t you know?” came a giggly whisper from her left.

  “Which ones did they teach him?”

  “Wouldn’t mind finding out,” came a sly response.

  The giggles grew bolder, and the crowd roared back to life as the string quartet swept bows across strings and played on with renewed vigor. The clamor to gossip about this new and intriguing development eluded Olivia, even as it possessed everyone around her.

  Unable to take her eyes off the viscount’s face composed entirely of angles and shadows, she felt a twinge of something she couldn’t identify and quickly dismissed the feeling as nothing more than simple curiosity.

  Why on earth would she feel anything more? The man was nothing to her.

  “Have you ever seen such a pair?” came Mariana’s whisper in her ear.

  “I think not,” was all Olivia could speak through parched lips.

  “Come, let’s waggle an introduction from the Dowager.”

  As Mariana pulled in one direction, Olivia leaned in the other and slipped her arm free. “I’m afraid not tonight. I have a splitting headache.” At Mariana’s bewildered expression, she continued, “You can fill me in on all the details at my soirée in a few days.”

  “Promise?”

  “Yes, sister.”

  Without further hesitation, Mariana was off on her mission, leaving Olivia on her own, a strange relief at her sister’s departure stealing through her. Recently reunited with her husband, happiness radiated off Mariana in waves. Olivia wouldn’t weigh down Mariana’s newfound joy with her problems and anxieties. In this way, she knew she wasn’t alone, for she had a full life and a supportive family, but she was alone in her choices and the path she wanted to forge. It was simultaneously exciting and terrifying.

  Her gaze again stole toward the staircase where Lord St. Alban stood quietly surveying the room. Except his eyes weren’t quiet. They were absolutely fierce, only softening when he bent his head to make a comment to his daughter. The girl nodded once while staring straight ahead and drawing her embroidered silk reticule close to her chest. Deliberately, protectively, he placed a hand at her elbow. His message was clear: his daughter was a peer of this room as much as he.

  The fearsome display of love elicited a confusion of emotion within Olivia, strange and alarming. She couldn’t help thinking of Lucy and Percy, of how he hadn’t been that father to her, and a hard knot twisted inside her chest, even as a warm shiver purled down her spine.

  Instinct urged her to run as fast and as far away as her feet could carry her from this scene. After the scandalous six months of gossip she’d provided the ton, confusions of emotion were best left unexplored and avoided at all costs.

  She would make her excuses, kiss her good-byes, and forget all about the unsettling Right Honourable Jakob Radclyffe, Fifth Viscount St. Alban. By tomorrow morn, she would be settled and ready to begin her independent future, decidedly free from all confusions of emotion.

  Chapter 2

  Jake couldn’t remember a time in his life when he’d been so thoroughly ogled by a room full of strangers. He may as well have entered the ballroom wearing nothing but his smalls and a tiara for all the rapt attention centered on him.

  And on Mina.

  Pride swelled within him for the way she stood, facing down a visibly inquisitive ton. “Ready to board the first ship back to Singapore?”

  Her lips twitched, and her gaze cut toward his before returning to the crowd. They were here to stay. Any suggestion otherwise was pure fantasy. Reflected in one hundred pairs of eyes below them was reality.

  Misgiving snaked through him as he stared across that uniform sea of faces. These people would make a spectacle of Mina. They would never accept her, not fully.

/>   Even though she was the daughter of a viscount, her father’s birthright would be the condition of her position. Not her beauty . . . or her intellect . . . or even her father’s money. Forever she would be reduced to a novelty.

  This was his fear and sometimes, like now, it threatened to erupt into a full-blown panic. Yet he had no choice. This was the life they’d been handed, and the one they’d accepted.

  The gossipy tongues of London wouldn’t know more than the truth presented them. He and Mina were safe here, half a world away from Japan, from the truth of her birth. If the people populating this room ever uncovered that particular truth, they would do more than observe her in idle curiosity, they would shun her, completely, forever.

  Well, that wouldn’t happen. The past was locked away, and he alone held the key.

  Below him, a thoroughly bejeweled matron began ploughing up the staircase with an alarming tenacity for a woman of middle-to-late years. This must be the Dowager Duchess of Dalrymple.

  “St. Alban, my dear,” she puffed, placing her hand on his arm for support, “it has been entirely too long.”

  Too long? He wasn’t aware of ever having set eyes on this woman in his life. Still, he inclined his head in agreement. “Your Grace.”

  “You were such a tiny lad when last I saw you. And now”—She snapped her fingers—“you’re a man full grown. One can’t tell from letters how very tall a person might be. And you were a sailor all these years on the Eastern seas?”

  He nodded. “All my life in one form or another.”

  Until now, he stopped himself from adding. Until he’d become a landlubbing viscount stuck in a soggy country that proceeded along much in the same manner as its weather: invariably and predictably.

  The Dowager pivoted toward Mina. “And you must be Miss Radclyffe? Nearly match your father’s height, I daresay. Must be the Dutch blood.”

  Jake took this as his cue. “Your Grace, may I present my daughter, Miss Radclyffe, to you?”

  “Now, now, St. Alban, no need to stand on ceremony with family. After all, your paternal great-grandfather, the First Viscount St. Alban, was my paternal grandfather. My father was the second viscount. My brother, the third. And my nephew, the fourth. Such a tragedy about your distant cousin Georgie, but the man had no business stepping foot onto a boat. He couldn’t keep his footing on dry land.” She paused out of respect for the dead before continuing, “As far as the St. Alban title goes, nothing was ever expected to come of your particular branch. I suppose that is why you know so little of your English family. But, now, here you are. We shall make the best of it. You do, at least, look the part.”

  Her eyes narrowed, and she began doing what appeared to be a complex computation, which required the use of her fingers. Jake smiled and winked down at Mina, who gave him a serious smile in return.

  “Yes . . . yes, here we have it, St. Alban,” said the Dowager. “You and I are first cousins once-removed. That’s twice-removed for you, Miss Radclyffe, but I would like you both to call me Aunt Lucretia. Now, about Miss Radclyffe.” She paused for a gulp of air. “St. Alban, I understand that you’ve not yet learned the rules of Society, but you’ve made a grave faux pas in bringing her here tonight. She is not yet Out. I shall escort her to my private suite of rooms, where she will remain until you are ready to leave.”

  She held up a forestalling hand as Jake opened his mouth to insert his opinion on the matter. “I’ve been around men all my life, and I know that look. You can save it. Miss Radclyffe’s reputation is at stake.” She turned to Mina. “Do you happen to have a sampler in your reticule?”

  “I have a copy of Newton’s Opticks in my reticule,” Mina replied.

  The Dowager’s eyebrows shot up. “Indeed?”

  “Miss Radclyffe,” Jake inserted, “has a keen interest in astronomy and is intent on constructing her own telescope.”

  “Oh?” chirped the Dowager. She pursed, then unpursed, her lips and, at last, rallied. “How original of you, my dear. Now, if you will come with me.”

  Jake made eye contact with Mina to ensure she was agreeable to the Dowager’s plan. Mina nodded once, imperceptible to all but them, and that settled the matter.

  The Dowager was leading Mina away when she threw one last parting command over her shoulder. “St. Alban, you must make yourself at home.”

  A snort escaped Jake as the Dowager and Mina disappeared into the crowd. Home? Several fingers of a Scottish single malt might convince him that this room felt like home.

  He slipped through the crowd, making his way to its periphery and ignoring the three-foot radius of silence that surrounded him. He would stumble across a cart stocked with whiskey, sooner or later.

  One year ago, the first royal summons had reached him in Singapore, informing him that a distant English cousin, who happened to be a viscount, had died without having produced an heir. He’d ignored the letter. The English aristocracy had naught to do with his life.

  His father had been the younger son of a minor branch of a noble family. Few career options open to him, he’d purchased a commission in the Royal Navy and rose to the rank of Admiral before his untimely death at sea when Jake was still in leading strings. As a result, Jake had been raised by his widowed mother and the Dutch family she’d left when she’d fallen in love with the older English admiral, only to return after his death. The Van Rijn’s were successful traders in the Far East, and Jake had spent the first thirty-five years of his life assured of his place in that unpredictable, always fascinating, world.

  The English, however, had a different opinion on his place in the world. A month after the first summons arrived a second summons. He’d ignored that letter, too.

  When the letters from the Dowager began trickling in, relentlessly one after another, he began paying attention. Her message was clear and increasingly frantic: if he didn’t accept the title, it would revert to the Crown. There were no other male heirs.

  No longer could he ignore his English relations. He’d never shirked his familial obligations a day in his life. He’d accepted his fate. A fate that had led him to London, the possessor of an English viscountcy and a mountain of debt left by the previous viscounts, George and Georgie.

  While this crowd didn’t reflect the sort of company he was accustomed to keeping, it did offer a distraction, albeit a temporary one, from the dreary balancing of Georgie’s books. The man’s idea of “business ventures” had involved blindly handing over large sums of money to “gentlemen” capitalists. It was clear to Jake that those “gentlemen” had speculated the money away on their own doomed and uninformed interests.

  At last, his feet found the oasis he sought: a shiny brass cart stocked with crystal decanters of various shapes and sizes. He deferred to a silver-haired gentleman seeking the same before pouring himself two fingers of a deep amber whiskey and taking a long draught. That was the stuff. This cavernous ballroom wasn’t like home, but the light felt warmer nonetheless.

  The old gentleman gave him a knowing smile and a silent toast as they turned in unison to take in the crowd. Jake was about to practice his rusty social skills by introducing himself—life aboard an East Indiaman didn’t prepare one for a London “small” Salon—when a pair of lords sidled up to the whiskey cart behind him.

  “A widow for a decade?” asked a sloppy voice. “And now a divorcée? That would make her a follower of Mrs. Wollstonecraft or a slut and—”

  “. . . And,” an equally sloppy voice chimed in, “she’s too handsome to be a bluestocking.”

  A round of laughter, grating and repulsive, rang out. The old gentleman stiffened and stabbed the obnoxious duo with his piercing blue gaze. Jake turned in time to watch the blood drain from their faces, eyes as round as sovereigns.

  “Might there be,” the old gentleman began, “a wide spectrum of possibility for the fair
er sex between bluestocking and slut? Perhaps I’m acquainted with this paragon?”

  “Oh, no, Your Grace,” one of the louts stammered out, “you’re not familiar with this particular . . . paragon.”

  The pair mumbled a few indecipherable inanities and halved in size as they slunk away, entirely sobered, Jake suspected.

  Your Grace. A Duke. The company one kept in London.

  His Grace tossed back the remainder of his whiskey, set the glass down, and pivoted toward Jake. “Don’t believe everything you hear about Lady Olivia. They,” he said, gesturing toward the room at large, “have the upside-down of it.”

  The man sauntered away, and Jake couldn’t help wondering who this Lady Olivia might be. Then a too-near voice called out, “St. Alban!” and his curiosity died an instant death.

  He tried not to cringe. It was a name he had difficulty accepting as his own. The Viscounts St. Alban were distant relations on distant shores. And now he was one of them. Beyond belief.

  “Have you considered taking a wife?” asked the Dowager without prelude.

  Jake’s brow wrinkled, equal parts shock and bemusement. “Actually,” he began, “I’ve reconciled myself to the idea.”

  “Oh, my dear, it isn’t so grim as all that.”

  Perhaps it wasn’t. But he hadn’t expected ever to marry for reasons other than true affinity, even love. This move to London had changed that expectation, and his obligation to Mina demanded precedence. He would find her a stepmother of impeccable reputation and lineage, one who could guide her and cement her place in Society.

  He wouldn’t fail Mina, not the way he’d failed her mother.