by Maya Rodale
She tilted her head and turned the page. So that’s what was under the fig leaf on the statues at the British Museum.
She glanced over at Phinn. Did he mean for them to do all these things? Her mind immediately conjured up an image of them in such positions. A man kneeling before a woman who sat on a chair with her legs spread to an unladylike degree. A woman straddling a naked man lying on a mattress. A woman’s mouth on a man’s— She quickly shut the publication, cheeks burning.
She felt an unsettling feeling in her belly and a flush of heat spreading throughout her limbs. It wasn’t unlike the sensation she’d experienced when she’d kissed her Mysterious Midnight Rescuer. Was it the pictures themselves or her imagination picturing she and Phinn in such states? Did he mean for them to do all these things?
“What are these?” she asked, gesturing at the array of publications. Her voice sounded odd to her ears. Goodness, would he notice?
“Let me see,” he said, sounding as curious as she. Olivia handed him the one she’d been looking at and picked up another, a book, entitled 50 Ways to Sin.
She gasped when Phinn immediately snatched it out of her hands.
Instead she picked up another.
“Are these things you wish us to do? Are these instructional?” she inquired. Was he concerned that she wouldn’t know anything? She was supposed to be innocent, wasn’t she? Was this a new ladylike art that she was now to perfect, after careful research and daily practice? Her mother had just said, Ladies lie still and oblige their husbands.
Olivia had questions. Phinn did not have answers.
“No. Just never mind,” he said in a rush, turning very red. “You shouldn’t see these.”
“Because if this is depicting what I think it is . . .” Olivia said, frowning, unsure how to finish the thought. “My mother said I had to lie very still. But she didn’t mention lying still over a desk while . . .”
She wasn’t quite sure what to make of the strange sensations the pictures afforded or how to interpret Phinn’s clenched jaw and darkened eyes.
“Say no more, I beg of you,” he said. He sounded, oddly, as if he were being strangled. Then he rushed to gather up all the publications by the armful, but some kept slipping out and falling. As he tried to catch them, more fell to the floor. Olivia bent to help retrieve them. Their heads collided in the process.
“Oh!” she gasped, rubbing her cheek just below her eye, where it had connected solidly with his forehead.
“Are you all right?” Phinn asked, dropping them all to the ground to reach out to her, concerned. He tenderly touched the spot where they’d hit. She winced—but not from his touch.
“I’m fine. Are you?”
“Yes,” he said, rubbing his own forehead. That’s when she noticed the bruises on his swollen knuckles. “What happened to your hands?”
“Nothing,” he said, even though something had obviously happened. He rushed on, collecting all the scandalous materials. She noticed 50 Ways to Sin, again, and the title Wicked Wanton Women. One book fell open to a page of illustrations. Upon closer inspection, her mouth dropped open in shock as she took in prints of women with their skirts pulled up, exposing everything. Gentlemen, also in a state of undress, clasped and fondled the women.
“Are these yours?” she ventured.
“These are definitely not mine,” he said vehemently. “They belong to a friend.”
“A friend?” she asked, alarmed. “What kind of friend?”
Did he have a mistress already? What did she care, anyway? He could at least be discreet about it on their wedding night.
“Rogan. This is all Rogan’s doing,” Phinn said tightly. “And it’ll be the last time he meddles . . .” His voice was tight. His jaw was clenched. There was a faraway look in his eyes that frightened her.
“Phinn,” she said softly.
“I apologize,” he said stiffly. Then he fixed his gaze upon her face and took controlled and measured breaths, as if trying to restrain his temper. “Perhaps you’d like to lie down.” When she must have widened her eyes in alarm, he hastily added, “To rest! Just to rest. I have to go out for a moment.”
“Where? And when will you be back?”
“Just stay here,” he said sharply. So sharply that she was taken aback. In that moment she realized that until this moment Phinn had never spoken harshly to her.
Stay here, wife. Wait.
She’d been married for less than a day and it was already everything she’d been afraid of.
Phinn didn’t go very far because apparently Lord Rogan couldn’t leave well enough alone. She was alerted to his arrival by Phinn’s enraged bellowing.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
Olivia looked up from studying the one book that had slipped under the bed and that Phinn had failed to collect. She stuffed it under the pillow, opened the door just a crack and peered out.
“Just on my way to my club,” Rogan said jovially, as if oblivious to Phinn’s rage. “Thought I’d see how things were faring.”
“Has it never occurred to you to leave a man and his bride alone on their wedding night?”
“Found the champagne, did you?” Rogan asked. Then, dropping his voice, “And the other things . . .”
Phinn paused in his furious pacing to yell, “What the hell were you thinking, Rogan?”
“I thought I’d be helpful,” Rogan said, sounding remarkably impervious to Phinn’s temper. She wasn’t the object of it, yet still her heart raced as she stood hidden behind a lockable a door. How the man could stand there immune to Phinn’s rage was mystifying. He was either incredibly brave or very daft. Or he knew that Phinn was all bark and no bite, though the bruises on his fist suggested otherwise.
“You thought you’d help by terrifying her?”
“It’s supposed to be inspiring. Stimulating, if you will,” Rogan said, rocking back on his heels.
“Not to virgins.” Phinn bit out the words.
“And their prude husbands.” Rogan’s jest fell flat.
“Oh, that is not true,” Phinn raged, which Olivia found immensely intriguing. Of course he’d been with other women. He’d been married. Had they done the things in the pictures? She wasn’t quite sure how she felt about that. “What is true is that you have overstepped. You’ve gone too far this time, Rogan. I don’t know what’s worse—that you left such offensive materials in my wife’s chamber or that you’ve returned to see how we’ve fared.”
“Is that the thanks I get for all the advice I’ve given you?” Rogan replied, wounded. “The advice, which I might point out, has helped you land the girl.”
“There are so many things wrong with that statement I don’t even know where to begin.” Olivia watched through a crack in the door as Phinn pushed his fingers through his hair, frustrated. “Your advice was terrible.”
“What, showing her how strong you are?” Rogan asked.
“Not exactly the most brilliant idea when she thinks I’m a murderer,” Phinn said. And Olivia remembered that strange comment about “feats of strength.” And her fear of being carried off by him. “I’m not sure what’s worse: that or your suggestion that I impress upon her how large and remote my estate is.”
“How was I to know all the young chits were still gossiping about that?” Rogan challenged.
“And all those stupid lines!” Phinn went on. “Is your father a thief? Stars in your eyes? My God, what an ass I’ve made of myself at your direction!”
Olivia’s lips parted as the pieces started to come together. He’d been taking Rogan’s advice all along. Rogan’s terrible, horrible advice. But why?
“They’ve worked for me,” Rogan challenged, which only seemed to enrage Phinn more. In a more conciliatory tone, he added, “And anyway, I was only trying to help you out.”
“I don’t want any more of your help. I can’t believe what you have done,” Phinn said. And then, growling, “And that you are here.”
“Look, I just thought
that if things didn’t go well—” Rogan said, suddenly sound uneasy.
“What?” Phinn spat the word. “What did you think?”
“That you’d want some company,” Rogan said softly. Olivia ached for them both. He’d only been trying to help. But why did he think Phinn needed it so badly? Probably because she had reacted so horribly to all his previous efforts to gain her affections. She touched her lips. He’d only been trying to woo her with advice from his well-meaning but daft friend, and she’d made it impossible.
“Some confidence you have in your friend,” Phinn muttered grimly. Her heart broke a little then. “Just . . . get out.”
“But—”
“It is my wedding night. I do not want to spend it with you.”
The door to the suite slammed shut so firmly the door rattled on the hinges. Olivia softly closed her own bedroom door. She had answers to questions she hadn’t thought to ask.
Had she ruined everything from the moment she applied a little too much lip paint? And still, he’d returned. He’d never hollered at her the way he had at his friend. He’d never lifted a hand to her.
Olivia sank to her knees by her door.
But at the same time . . . that temper of his. It took her breath away to remember the flash of rage in his eyes and the barely contained fury as he paced about the room. As if to prove her point, the door slammed again. Had he left? She rushed to the window and peered out. After a moment she saw Phinn’s brisk determined strides down Brook Street.
She knew her marriage would be a disaster.
She just hadn’t expected the urge to fix it.
Later that night, Olivia was sitting on the settee, waiting for Phinn. Far too many questions about him and their disastrous courtship kept her from sleeping. She had tried to distract herself with a perusal of the wicked books that had escaped his notice, but they only raised more questions. Common sense kept her from venturing out into the streets of London to search for him.
Thus, she anxiously waited up for her husband on their wedding night. Was he with another woman? She somehow doubted that. Was he at his club? Or wandering the streets?
It was long past midnight when he finally returned.
“You’re still up,” Phinn said when he saw her.
“It’s our wedding night,” Olivia said softly.
“Aye, a wedding night that you didn’t want,” he said. There was no point in protesting. But now that they were here, she saw things differently.
“I was scared,” she explained. “And I didn’t realize . . .”
“Olivia, it’s late,” Phinn said, exhaustion in his voice. “We’re both out of sorts. This isn’t how it should be.”
This night wasn’t the perfect, romantic, or lovely wedding night anyone would have hoped for. She had been so fixated upon wanting the perfect courtship that she’d ruined what might have been a good one. Understanding as much allowed her to comprehend that perhaps Phinn had his own ideas of romance that she continued to thwart. She had pushed him away; thus she had to bring him closer if she wanted the loving marriage she still dreamt of.
Chapter 15
“Make your own rules.”
—OLIVIA’S MYSTERIOUS MIDNIGHT RESCUER
A few days later
At eleven o’clock in the morning Olivia found herself rummaging through her belongings in search of her embroidery basket. Even though she hated embroidery. But that was what she did at eleven o’clock in the mornings. She and her mother sat together, stitching and planning their visits for the day.
Olivia found her embroidery basket, sat down with it and started to sew.
It was soothing.
No, it was boring.
She looked around the drawing room. She was alone. Phinn had left at first light and gone off somewhere—to build the engine, she presumed. He returned late in the evening. This had been their routine for the past few days. He left, and she stuck to the schedule she’d been raised with because she didn’t know what else to do. She couldn’t exactly go out with this bruise upon her cheek either. She’d given the gossips enough fodder already.
But today she just couldn’t muster enthusiasm for embroidery or staying in. Nor did she think she had to.
Phinn wouldn’t know if she didn’t do her embroidery. He probably wouldn’t care. For if he cared about her, he probably wouldn’t have essentially disappeared.
Her mother wouldn’t know if she deviated from the schedule they had followed their entire life. Nevertheless, Olivia looked around furtively before taking the lot of her sewing and stuffing it under the settee.
Make your own rules, her Mysterious Midnight Rescuer had said. Following the rules hadn’t worked. Breaking the rules hadn’t worked. Perhaps there was merit to what he’d told her.
Perhaps she could go search for him.
She glanced at the clock. It was five after eleven. She was alone. Very much alone.
Thinking of the possibilities that afforded, a giggle escaped her. Why, she could board a ship and sail off to America if she wished it! She certainly didn’t have to spend an hour on her watercolors, and there was no pianoforte to practice on even if she wanted to.
Given the scandalous circumstances before her wedding, the fact that she had actually married the Mad Baron, and her residence at a hotel, she did not expect many callers. And if they were to arrive, she would just declare herself not at home. Perhaps she’d say she was indisposed.
The point was, Olivia thought as she reclined on the settee, she could do whatever she wanted with this day. Phinn obviously wasn’t concerned with how she passed the time, for if he cared he might have spent it with her. Or at least made inquiries. She avoided dwelling upon the strange sensation akin to sadness that she experienced at this thought. Almost as if she wished he were here to spend the day with her. There were so many questions she wished to ask him. What had happened to his hands? Why had he followed Rogan’s advice? What exactly were those people doing in those books?
Why did he not wish to spend the day with her?
Why couldn’t they talk, or try another picnic, or one of the wicked things from that book . . .
She had wanted Phinn to leave her—before they married when she might be able to find another match. It was more than a little vexing to have been left after the wedding. Why did he fight so hard to wed her if he were only going to ignore her?
Olivia decided she might enlist Emma and Prudence for a trip to the modiste rather than lounge around her hotel suite for another day.
She did just that. They traveled together in Emma’s carriage to Madame Auteuil’s on Bond Street.
“We thought you might have taken more of a honeymoon,” Emma said immediately, dispelling Olivia’s hopes that it wouldn’t come up. “With your new husband.”
“Dare we even ask how things are faring?” Prudence asked nervously.
“What she really means is, tell us about the wedding night,” Emma said with a mischievous grin that ordinarily would have made her laugh. Except their wedding night had been yet another disaster.
Olivia hesitated, recalling what she’d overheard during Phinn’s conversation with Rogan. And by conversation she meant argumentative interchange of sentences delivered at top volume. Oddly, it felt like a betrayal to reveal what she had heard—she wasn’t supposed to know the lengths he’d gone to court her. Even now she felt ashamed of her behavior and the desire to make it up to him.
“Well?” Prudence was impatient.
“Has it left you speechless? That’s quite a good sign,” Emma said.
“Nothing happened,” Olivia said. She couldn’t quite explain that the only something that happened was a fight she had eavesdropped on. What she had learned made her heartsick.
“Nothing?” Emma echoed.
“We toured our suite of rooms at the hotel. Then he went out,” Olivia answered.
“Did you at some point walk into a doorway?” Prudence inquired.
Perplexed, Olivia replied, “No, why?
”
“There is a bruise on your cheek,” she said.
“Oh, that,” Olivia said, lightly touching the faint bruise, which had faded considerably. She smiled at how she’d come about it. “We bumped our heads together.”
Both Emma and Prudence were obviously and immensely skeptical. After all, she was married to the notoriously dangerous Mad Baron. But it had been a silly accident during a ridiculous encounter.
“Is everything all right, Olivia?” Emma asked, leveling her with a stern, inquisitive look.
“It’s fine. I suppose,” Olivia said, sighing. Thank goodness the carriage had rolled to a stop outside of Madame Auteuil’s shop at that moment. “Now let’s see about procuring me a new wardrobe.”
Now that she was married—if only on paper and not in truth—she would no longer wear the white, ivory, and eggshell that made her seem like a washed-out angel or a virginal ghost. She selected the gowns she’d always wanted.
Emma and Prudence were excellent companions. They seriously debated the merits between a navy silk and a cerulean blue satin. Together, they earnestly considered whether a shade of ripe melon suited Olivia’s completion when anyone could see it did not.
“Perhaps you might need some underthings, Olivia,” Emma said discreetly.
“Why?” Olivia asked, but her mind wandered to those images she had seen. The women, if they wore anything at all, wore delicate lacy things, the likes of which she had never actually seen.
“Because I’m sure the ones in your trousseau are . . . not quite right,” Emma said, dropping her voice. “Mine weren’t.”
“She means plain, virginal, and not the sort of tawdry scraps of fabric that awaken a man’s wanton side,” Prudence explained, which begged the question of how she knew such things. Then again, Olivia suspected that no one led quite the sheltered life that she had.
“Do men have wanton sides?” she asked. “Or is that just women?”
“Are you avoiding the question, Olivia?”
