Chapter 8
Olivia,
I refuse to allow a stupid mistake from three years ago come between us now. Meet me at Scandal Lane. Eight o’clock. Please, sweetheart.
I’ll send a carriage and meet you there. And if you don’t come, I’ll simply call on you at home. In front of your entire family. Don’t think I won’t. This is too important. You are too important.
Alexander
The man was a nuisance.
But he was a determined nuisance, and Olivia knew he meant what he threatened. He would cause a huge scandal rather than allow her to ignore his summons. He really was that stubborn.
And, truth be told, Olivia was worried that she was being rather ridiculous.
After all, it was three years since that dratted day, and they’d shared more than an innocent peck since then.
She certainly felt differently. Couldn’t she trust that he did too?
After she’d gone back to the party, she’d been surprised to see that Jane wasn’t ensconced with Mr. St. Clare.
Instead, she was alone in a corner and looking thoroughly miserable.
The sight pained Olivia. Much as she’d been frustrated with her sister these past few weeks, she knew Jane was taking their fall to genteel poverty worse than she was.
Jane had jumped at the chance to go home so they’d scurried off, refusing his lordship’s carriage and hurrying home in miserable silence.
Olivia sighed now and paced her bedchamber as she had been doing for hours.
She’d have to go to Hyde Park. She couldn’t risk Alex coming here.
A knock sounded on her door and for one mad moment she was afraid Alex would be standing on the other side of it.
It was Jane who walked into her room, however, and perched on the edge of her bed.
Olivia snatched up Alex’s letter from beside where her sister sat.
“Are you meeting Alexander?” Jane suddenly demanded.
Olivia didn’t know what to say.
There was no point in denying it. Jane was clearly already suspicious, and she’d notice if Olivia suddenly disappeared.
“That’s none of your concern,” she said with a sniff rather than deny it.
“Do you realise this is Alexander?” Jane demanded, crossing her arms, ever the bossy big sister. “You despise each other. Sworn childhood enemies and all that.”
“Do you realise you’re being quite the hypocrite. What about Mr. St. Clare? Don’t think I don’t know that you went sneaking off to meet him the other day.” Olivia shot back, hating feeling so defensive.
“Yes, well. You don’t have to worry about seeing Mr. St. Clare again. He – that is, we – well, we are no longer friends.”
Olivia saw the flash of hurt on her sister’s pretty face and immediately felt contrite. It wasn’t Jane’s fault that Alexander Stratford had her tied in knots.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” she said through gritted teeth. “What happened?”
Jane laughed though the sound wasn’t exactly happy.
“And you accused me of being a bad liar,” she quipped.
“You’re not sorry at all. But then, neither am I, I suppose.
He turned out to be rather more dishonourable than I would have liked.
Do you know, he took me to Hyde Park the other evening and tried to get me to take a stroll down Scandal Lane, as though I didn’t know what it was.
As though I would be depraved enough to go anywhere near that place or let him take liberties with me without so much as a proposal! ”
Olivia felt suddenly rather ill as shame and confusion bubbled inside her.
There she’d been, piously judging her sister and she’d turned out to be the disgraceful one. She’d turned out to be the hussy.
Did the fact that she was desperately in love with Alex change anything? Probably not. Yet she couldn’t bring herself to regret what they’d shared either.
What a mess she’d gotten herself into.
The clock chimed the quarter hour and Olivia realised she’d be late if she didn’t get a move on.
“Well, I’m glad you’ve seen his true character and the error of your ways, Jane. Now you can concentrate on meeting a nice man who will truly care for you.”
She knew she was practically shooing her sister out the door but if Jane didn’t leave then Olivia couldn’t leave, and that meant that Alexander would arrive on their doorstep.
Sending Jane off with a hearty ‘chin up’, Olivia waited until her footsteps padded down the hallway then swept quickly from the room.
Alexander couldn’t believe how anxious he felt as he checked his watch once again and resumed his pacing.
What if she refused to come?
Well, he’d meant what he’d said. He would bang her door down if he had to.
Of course, he wasn’t quite sure what he’d do once he’d gained access. All his ideas very much involved not having her family around.
He couldn’t believe that one stupid conversation three years ago had gotten them so off course. But he would fix it. Somehow, he would make her see what she had come to mean to him.
Too restless to stay inside his carriage, he’d jumped from the conveyance and started wandering aimlessly in the direction of Scandal Lane.
He’d come here in his youth, he had to admit.
There’d been a particular liaison with a very bored but very married marchioness that had nearly ended badly for him. And he’d often met Lucia, his Italian opera singer mistress here on a balmy summer evening.
Now, he didn’t particularly want to be anywhere near the place. And he definitely didn’t want Olivia near it.
But he was a sentimental sop and wanted to do this here, where he knew he’d fallen in love with her. Where he hoped she’d fallen in love with him.
Besides, as insalubrious as the place was, she wouldn’t come to any danger with him.
Provided she actually showed up.
Biting back an oath of frustration, Alex turned to make his way back up the lane.
If she didn’t come, did that mean he had no hope at all?
Well, either way he was determined to find out.
He’d forced her to come, and he wasn’t even in his dratted carriage to meet her.
Olivia scowled in frustration as she stood warily at the entrance to the notorious lane trying to avoid eye contact with the people going in and out. Some she recognised from the other day. Some, she didn’t want to look at long enough to see if she recognised them.
Where on earth could Alex have got to?
“Why, Miss Darington. This is a surprise. A very, very pleasant surprise.”
Olivia spun around, her heart hitting her toes as Elliot St. Clare leered down at her.
Judging from the smell, and the way he swayed unsteadily in place, the man was well and truly foxed.
“Mr. St. Clare, good evening,” she answered with stilted politeness.
The man’s grin only widened.
“You don’t like me very much, hmm?” he asked.
“No,” she answered pointedly. After all, she’d always prided herself on her honesty. “I don’t.”
“I know you’d be a tough nut to crack. That’s why I reckoned I’d a better chance with your sister. Of course, she turned out to be a bit of a disappointment. But it seems as though you’ve more fire in you than she does. Perhaps we might get along, after all.”
Olivia shuddered at the blatant lasciviousness in the man’s gaze.
This was why she’d wanted Jane away from the cad. This was why she felt safe with Alexander and never would with one such as Elliot St. Clare.
“I have no interest in getting along with you, Mr. St. Clare.”
“So, you’re here to meet someone else, is that it? I didn’t know you had it in you, my dear. It’s not Fincham, is it? He always was a lucky bastard. Everything handed to him on a platter just because he’s a firstborn. Bagged himself the right sister while I got stuck with the prude.”
“Come on, let’s have a drink.”
He reached out and clasped the material of Olivia’s cloak causing her to stumble towards him.
“Let go of me, I’m not going anywhere with you.”
“Not good enough for you, hmm? Because I don’t have a title? Come now, Miss Darington. We all know your father is ruined. Soon enough, you’ll be begging men like me to take an interest in you.”
Olivia knew she should be scared. But she was merely furious. Furious that he would say such things to her, furious that he would treat poor Jane so abominably. And furious that he would besmirch Alexander in such a fashion. Alex was nothing like this wastrel.
“If you don’t let go of me this instance, I shall – I shall –“
“What?” he snorted derisively. “What shall you do?”
“Probably something like this.”
Olivia caught a brief glimpse of Alex’s murderous expression before his fist darted out and connected with St. Clare’s face.
She didn’t see where he’d hit, but she heard the sickening sound of bone crunching seconds before St. Clare’s hold on her loosened and he dropped to the ground, blood spurting from his nose.
She watched slack-jawed as Alex bent down and pulled his friend into a sitting position by the lapel of his coat.
“Your things will be removed from my home this evening. You are never to darken my doorstep again. And if you go anywhere near Olivia or her family again, I’ll kill you with my bare hands.”
When he was done speaking, he dropped the other man like a sack of potatoes and only then turned to face her.
“Did he hurt you?” he growled, and Olivia felt a shiver snake down her spine at the fierce look in his eyes. He would never hurt her, of course. But he looked rather intimidating all the same.
“N-no,” she stammered.
She watched the intense relief flash across his face before he reached out a hand and wordlessly pulled her from where St. Clare lay groaning and bleeding at her feet.
“Why did you want to meet me?” she asked quietly as they walked.
This was the hard part, Alex knew, and he struggled to get his temper under control. Every time he pictured Elliot’s hands anywhere near her, he wanted to go back and wring the bastard’s neck.
But Elliot wasn’t important right now. Nothing was except her.
Alexander had spent all deliberating over what he should say. Did he try to apologise again for what a fool he’d been that day three years ago? Or did he just admit that he was desperately in love with her, that he wanted more than anything to make her his wife?
And suddenly, the words wouldn’t come.
He was as skittish as an unbroken horse.
He searched frantically for something to talk about, but it was so hard to concentrate.
Every time she touched him, even on the sleeve of his coat, it set his heart racing.
They’d arrived at the carriage he’d come in. He’d sent the other home. Olivia gazed up at him, her beauty in the moonlight nearly bringing him to his knees.
How could it be that only days ago he’d thought he hated her? He should have known from that moment three years ago that he’d only ever be able to love her. It felt like she was the only reason he existed.
“I wanted to talk,” he said feebly.
She raised an impatient brow, and he couldn’t contain his grin. It was so very like her to be completely unaffected by being accosted by a blackguard then watching Alex knock the blighter down.
“Well, I assumed as much. Are you trying to figure out how to form coherent sentences? Because I’ll probably freeze to death before you manage it.”
Alex growled at her impudence, but in truth he was as enamoured of her feistiness as every other part of her.
And he would tell her so. But first, he would do something he’d been itching to do from the second he’d laid eyes on her again.
He threw everything he felt into that kiss, reaching up to capture her face in his hands, loosing himself in the feelings she brought out in him. Her response was immediate and intense, and it was only seconds before they were both caught in the storm of their desires.
Alex knew he could stay like this forever. As long as it was Olivia he was holding.