Chapter Five
That man.
After he strode away from her, Olivia closed her eyes and rested her head against the brick wall of the alley. A few minutes later, she was still shaking. His otherworldly blue eyes bearing down on her, the evidence of his arousal—it had stopped the breath in her chest. Not only for what it called up in her in the present, which alone was enough, she was sure, to bring any woman to her knees, but for what it recalled of her past. A past that she had put away long ago and endeavored to never think about.
But standing in this alleyway, shaking and wanting, Olivia had no choice but to remember.
He hadn’t been her first lover, and she had not been his, but it hadn’t mattered. They had been so young—each twenty years old—that they might as well have been each other’s firsts. The fumbles with kitchen boys and footmen that had constituted her experience before Augustus had barely left a mark on her. The truth was that her spirit had been just as pure and untouched as if she had been a virgin in fact.
She had been a maid in his mother’s house. At the orphanage, where she had grown up, girls didn’t usually get placements at such fine houses. The orphanage had been a sober place, even a grim one, but it had also been an efficient and an effective institution. They had taught her to read and write—skills in which she had always exceled, relatively speaking—and the housework that was to secure her employment in the future.
She hadn’t started out in the home of an earl. At the age of thirteen, she had left the orphanage and gone to work for a rich widow. She had served the woman for two years, so grateful for the little liberties allowed to her, but she had been lonely, separated from anyone her own age. She was used to being around other children and she had found her work in a household of adults strange and terrifying. The work had been hard, too. What she remembered most from those two years, besides the loneliness, was the hard stone on her knees and the way she coughed cleaning the ash out of the grates.
When the widow died, she left Olivia five pounds and a sterling character. The character got her placed in the Dowager Countess of Montaigne’s London mansion, a place that, in comparison to the widow’s, was bursting with life. The staff was twice the size and there were many more people her age employed there, in addition to the children that belonged to the family. Of course, the servants didn’t usually converse with the Carrington children on familiar terms, but their mere presence made the house lighter, the environment more familiar to her. And the Dowager Countess kept a happy home. It hadn’t been stiff and formal in that ways that she soon learned other aristocratic houses were. She was na?ve to have been deceived by that environment of openness, but she had been young.
How she and Augustus had come together had been so simple—you would think, given the differences in their stations, that it would have felt complicated. But it never had. Even now, she couldn’t bear the taste of caramel. It made her remember too much. It made her too sad.
Olivia opened her eyes.
She was a fool for indulging in such reflections.
A crude gesture from Augustus Carrington, the Downstairs Menace, was not an expression of desire or regard or fond remembrance. She wasn’t a wide-eyed maid any longer, who thought that any sign of interest from a man meant that you had won his admiration. She knew how the world worked now. He had meant to degrade her with his attraction, to show her that she was still within his power.
He likely still had his sights on Natasha. His brother had seemed besotted, it was true. But Augustus was the earl. He could easily push his younger brother out of the way. He was used to plucking what he wanted, damn the consequences.
She pressed the palms of her hands to her eyes.
Stop,she scolded herself.
She mustn’t think about the past.
*
By the timeOlivia reentered the townhouse, the suitors had vanished, and she found Eloisa, Natasha, and Nathanial in the middle of a row. From the sound of their voices, she knew exactly the scene that would stand before her when she entered the drawing room. She had witnessed many such before.
“Your hypocrisy is astounding, mother,” Natasha said, her languorous tone doing nothing to conceal her temper, “You won’t bar him from the house because his presence here is a boon to my prospects, but you nevertheless prohibit me from thinking of him seriously.”
“Natasha,” Eloisa countered, “Neither of those men can be trusted. One is an earl, and the other is his brother. I have explained to you our position in England. At best, they are merely curious. At worse, they have designs on you that are not honorable.”
“At the risk of defending a pair of Englishmen, they did only—”
“Oh, quiet, Nathanial, no one cares what you think on the subject!” Natasha hissed.
“I was about to take your part, sister,” Nathanial spat back. “But now I won’t trouble myself.”
“I don’t need your help. As I plan to do what I want regardless of what either of you say.”
“Natasha!” Eloisa broke in, her pitch rising to one that she only used when she was deadly serious. “If you think such a show of impudence will get you anywhere, I will take you back to Paris tomorrow. I have clearly mistaken your maturity.”
“Mother, you wouldn’t!” Natasha exclaimed, dashes of pink appearing on her cheeks.
“I will do what I need to for this family,” Eloisa said, regaining her composure, “Just as I have always done.”
“I promise not to give Lord Percy my exclusive notice,” Natasha placated. “And I will be careful. But I don’t see the harm in seeing whether he is sincere or not.”
“Very well,” Eloisa nodded.
Olivia was not surprised to see her friend so expertly maneuver Natasha. Eloisa had raised her children to speak their minds, but, underneath their free-spirited, opinionated demeanors, lay a bedrock of respect for their mother.
And the conclusion of this argument brought back to Olivia what currently sat in her pocket. Her lustful thoughts of Augustus and the tumult of her memories had chased the vouchers from her mind—but she knew she needed to reveal them now.
“While I hate to risk reigniting this debate,” she interjected, “I have yet another complication to introduce to our association with the Carringtons.” She fished the vouchers from her pocket and put them on the table. “Lord Montaigne himself stopped me in the street and gave me these. They are vouchers—to Almack’s.”
Exclamations of surprise filled the room. Six brown eyes moved from her to the table.
“Not truly?” Eloisa said, moving to inspect them. “Why would Lord Montaigne do such a thing? I thought they had merely come to gawk—they presumed on such a slight acquaintance—but this—”
“You see, mother,” Natasha said, jumping up from her sofa with an unusual alacrity. “Lord Percy and his brother can’t mean us harm if they have provided us entry into the most respectable establishment in London. Ah, mon dieu, but it is such a gesture.”
“I have heard that the food at Almack’s is some of the worst in England,” Nathanial broke in.
“It may be,” Olivia said. “But admission is practically synonymous with acceptance into the ton. For Lord Montaigne to have secured these, he would have had to exert quite a bit of influence with the right people.”
“How could he do it?” Eloisa said, looking down at the vouchers in wonder. Red seals at the corners nearly shined off the white paper. The elegant blue scroll carried the type of understated power that was used to not having to announce itself.
“His friends, surely,” Olivia supplied, thinking through the possibilities. “He has long been close friends with the Marquess of Leith, whose mother practically runs Almack’s. But he has other friends, too, who could do such a favor for him. The Duke and Duchess of Edington are perhaps the most popular couple of the ton. It is said they have influence anywhere.”
“The ball is for tomorrow night,” Natasha said, running her hand over the ink on her own invitation. “We will go, of course?”
Eloisa looked pained.
“I suppose,” she finally said, “I suppose we have to.”
Natasha let out a whoop of elation. “I must speak to Betty about my gown.” She swept from the room.
Nathanial walked over to the table and picked up his own voucher. Giving herself and his mother a significant look that, nevertheless, remained opaque to Olivia, he followed his sister through the doorway.
“Merde,” Eloisa said, plopping herself down with exhaustion on a nearby pink-striped armchair, “I knew that London would be a challenge, but I have to admit that I did not expect this.”
Olivia took the chair opposite Eloisa’s. “Neither did I anticipate such problems. Do you think it is wise to go to Almack’s?”
“We have no choice,” Eloisa said, shaking her head. “The compliment is too great to be ignored. I wish I knew why Lord Montaigne has bestowed it.” Her friend paused and then peered at her with a smirk. “I must say, however, knowing your history with the man, I am even more alarmed.”
Olivia started. “I do not catch your meaning.”
“I can’t know, of course. But I presume the man has done it for you.”
“For me? No, Eloisa, that is not—it is impossible.”
“You dismissed him so definitively the other night, Olivia. He may have seen it as the only way to keep you close. And using that piddling association between Natasha and his brother to appear here? It nearly has the air of desperation.”
Glacier blue eyes and the smell of bergamot flooded Olivia’s senses once more. Could that desire have been more than contempt? More than an attempt at control or degradation?
No. She wouldn’t let herself think it. It was too dangerous.
“I feel certain that I am not his object. In fact, I am worried that—well, he seemed to be ingratiating himself with Natasha.”
“Natasha?” Eloisa’s brow furrowed. “What would the earl want with my daughter?”
“I don’t know but such behavior worries me. I do not want her to get hurt.”
“If the earl hoped to turn my daughter’s head, he failed today. She only has eyes for his brother.” Eloisa looked pensive. “And he gave the vouchers to you.”
“I—well, I must confess that I ran after him. Once I saw his manner to Natasha. I wanted him to know that I could see what he was about.”
“Still, he could have presented them to me or her. But he didn’t.”
Olivia opened her mouth in objection, feeling that Eloisa was missing the danger posed by Lord Montaigne. But her friend held up her hand.
“I will watch Lord Montaigne. I am not about to let my daughter be seduced by a notorious scoundrel. And I certainly don’t want to see her lose her heart to Lord Percy, who may only be indulging a whim of the moment and using his powerful brother to do it. But, to be honest, Olivia, where the Carringtons are concerned, I am more worried about you than my daughter.”
“You do not need to worry about me, Eloisa. Especially not when you should save your concern for Natasha.” The last thing she wanted was to burden Eloisa. Especially, since, technically, she was supposed to be serving her. “You forget my position in this house. I know we are friends, but—”
“Olivia!” Eloisa protested. “How can you say such a thing? You are one of the family.”
“And yet you pay me wages.”
“That does not make you any less one of us. Think of them as a stipend for forbearing with myself, my children, and our quarrels, if you must.”
“Be serious, Eloisa. It is for me to make sure that you have what you need, not the other way around. I do not want to distract you from Natasha’s season.”
“I am concerned for my daughter,” Eloisa conceded, “But she has a protector—a mother who would do anything for her. Who is protecting you, Olivia? I can keep my daughter safe from the Carrington men. But where Lord Montaigne is concerned you are vulnerable. No, don’t protest. I see how he watches you. And I see how you watch him. I don’t want you hurt again. I want you returned safely to Mr. Laurent.”
“I have not yet accepted him, you know,” Olivia reminded her friend, unsure why she felt the need to raise such a reservation. She and Eloisa knew the match was all but set.
After all, Mr. Laurent was the type of safe, orderly man that would promise her a stable, secure future. He kept rooms in Paris and had a small country manor in the same village as Nathanial and Eloisa’s estate. He lived with his elderly mother and saw to her care. Her children with Mr. Laurent would want for nothing and have every opportunity when they came of age. As a woman raised in a London orphanage, it was a rise seldom seen, and one she could not fail to appreciate.
“But you plan to. And he knows it.”
She nodded. “Yes.”
Again, the memory of the alleyway, of Augustus looking down at her, of his warm, strong body pressed against her filled her mind and heated her blood. Did it matter that Mr. Laurent had never inspired in her even a flicker of such wanting? Wasn’t it safer that way?
“I don’t want the earl to interfere with what you have waiting for you back in France.”
She shook her head. They were both being ridiculous.
“He won’t. Augustus means nothing to me now. I have told you—how he treated me. How could I ever lower myself to accept his advances again? Even if he renews his attentions, I could never accept them. I want security, a life, not to be used and then discarded.”
She sounded convincing, she thought. Almost. Even if the words had an air of recitation to them. It was how she felt, wasn’t it?
But, again, she was in the alley with him. They were so close to kissing that she could smell the tea on his breath. And she wanted nothing more than to feel his lips on hers—just one more time.
“Ah, you see I am right,” Eloisa declared, with a laugh. “If you could see your face at this moment, Olivia, you would understand why I worry.”
If Augustus had merely been the man she had imagined before her return, the roué, the beautiful boy who had been lost to vice, then it would be easy to resist him. And yet he didn’t fit that part. His face contained too much of the tenderness, too much of the yearning, that it had back then. But surely, it was just one of his tricks. A practiced ploy to make his prey all the more vulnerable. He had likely honed such postures with a thousand women since they had had their summer of stolen pleasures at Carrington Place.
Olivia almost covered her face in embarrassment. Part of her wanted to admit that her friend was right—that she was vulnerable. Part of her wanted to beg Eloisa to help her have fortitude in the face of the temptation she shouldn’t feel.
But she couldn’t even admit that frailty to herself. Not fully. So, instead, she lied.
“Do not worry, Eloisa.” She managed a laugh. “The man I want is Mr. Laurent.”