When the Earl Desired Me (The Rake Chronicles Book 3)

Prologue

London, England

February 1820

Until the day he died, Augustus Carrington, the Earl of Montaigne, would remember the exact moment he saw Olivia Watson again.

He had, somehow, found himself at the Royal Opera. He was attending with the Viscount of Tremberley, one of his best friends, and his wife, Henrietta. Lady Tremberley, as she was now known in society, happened to be the sister of his other best friend, John Breminster, the Duke of Edington. They were in the Breminster box, and the seats were extraordinarily good. With the right lorgnettes, a fellow could see everything in the house.

Montaigne had been coming to the opera and sitting in the Breminster box for more than fifteen years. Despite his familiarity with his environment, he did not find the opera particularly enjoyable. In fact, he was not sure how he had let himself be cajoled into attending this evening. He supposed it was because he didn’t have anything better to do.

As he sat there, surveying the other members of the audience and ignoring the music, he didn’t feel much at all. In his nearly four-and-thirty years of life, he had experienced, at times, great pain, but tonight was not one of those instances. At least, not yet anyway. Instead, he felt an almost pleasant numbness as he looked out at the vast crowd.

Then everything changed.

He was scanning the pit of the theatre. He did not often cast his gaze that low. He knew fewer people who sat in the cheap seats, after all. They were, also, harder to see, given their distance from the Breminster box.

But he would have known her anywhere.

The final aria rang out and he combed the crowd with his lorgnette.

His heart stopped in his chest.

Olivia.

For an instant, he couldn’t believe it.

A moment later, he was as certain as he had ever been about anything.

Her eyes were on the stage. Her cheek curved away from him. From here, through his lorgnettes, he could see the faint pattern of her brunette plait.

Montaigne rose to his feet, determined to reach her.

As he did so, the audience thundered with applause.

The show had ended.

Without so much as a word to Trem and Henrietta, Montaigne bolted out of the box.

“Monty!” Trem shouted.

Montaigne ignored him.

He dashed through the hall that led from the box to the stairs. He attempted to take the stairs downwards as quickly as possible, but soon found himself swept up in the stream of departing patrons. When he reached the lobby, it was packed with bodies and, despite his height, he struggled to find her.

Then, as if by a miracle, he glimpsed her.

It was her.

It had been thirteen years.

Thirteen years of wondering and wanting and trying to get himself to give her up.

Trying and failing.

He strode across the room, knocking patrons in fine dress out of the way, not caring who he overset.

She moved towards the exit, where the carriages would be brought round. He lunged for her, grabbing her arm.

“Olivia,” he said, turning her so that she would face him.

He said her name the way he would a prayer.

Olivia Watson turned. When she saw him, she startled and tried to step away.

At that moment, he knew two things were absolutely true.

First, Olivia Watson was as beautiful as ever. He had told himself for years that, in retrospect, he exaggerated her comeliness, that he had been a lovelorn boy who hadn’t known any better. But, before him, she was all the same—wide brown eyes the color of honey, her full body the epitome of loveliness—and her effect on him was just as he remembered. He could feel, even in this charged, mad instant, that keen desire for her that he had always had. His fingers tensed on her wrist. Even that slight contact tantalized him.

And second, Olivia Watson did not look happy to see him. She reeled back in disgust, pulling her wrist from his fingers as if his touch scalded her.

Olivia backed away. A dark-haired woman a decade older than herself brought a hand to her shoulder, as if trying to shield her. That lady was flanked by a young man and a young woman hardly out of their teens, both of whom looked at him with perplexed expressions. He had no idea who these people were or why they were with Olivia. Before he could even contemplate the question, they filtered out the door, taking Olivia with them.

She was vanishing again.

“Olivia!” he bellowed.

Montaigne did not care if he made a scene. He pushed into the crowd, even though he could no longer see her.

He ran out into the night air. When he gained the steps of the theatre, he was just in time to glimpse her profile in the window of a departing carriage.

She was gone.

But he would reach her.

He would find her.

Tonight.