He resisted the paternal impulse to pat her hand in comfort. “May I ask your given name?” It was the sort of question a gentleman courting a lady might ask.
“Anne,” she replied simply, the sound of it curt to his ears.
“It suits you.”
“It does, doesn’t it? Short and plain.” She waved her free hand before her, as if she was a vendor displaying her wares. “That’s me.”
Brittle. That would be another word he would use to describe her. But he would keep that one to himself.
He really took her measure for the first time. It was true, she was short in stature. And petite, waifish even, not a curve on her. Indistinct brown hair and gray eyes. She had the lovely kind of skin, translucent and clear, that young ladies likely envied, yet she wasn’t the sort who would draw his eye in the normal course of events.
But did that matter? Perhaps those very qualities made her the perfect match for him. Miss Fox would never invite gossip or excite scandal, unlike—
He stopped the sentence in its tracks. It wouldn’t do to think of her in the moment he was coming around to Miss Fox.
“Short, yes,” he began, “but to the point. I was thinking more along the lines of classic and English.” He could stop there, but he wouldn’t. A bit of kindness might blunt her sharp edge. “I think another word could be used to describe you.”
“And what word would that be, my lord?”
“Pretty.”
A deep blush spread from her modest décolletage, and he intuited this was no contrivance to display maidenly modesty. Miss Fox didn’t want to blush, but couldn’t help herself. It was possible she’d never been called pretty. How very young she appeared, how very vulnerable. Likely no one ever noticed her vulnerability, hidden as it was beneath her prickly exterior.
The birds trilling in the trees and the mellow sway of the breeze through the canopy above, they strolled in silence, and unease dissipated beneath the gentle persuasion of a lovely spring day.
They rounded a bend in the path, and she emitted a squeaky, high-pitched, “Yip!”
“Miss Fox, are you injured?”
Her hand disengaged from his arm as she struggled to his right with an adversary he couldn’t make out. “My skirts have been caught by a tenacious gooseberry bush,” she said as she continued to wrestle with her verdant adversary. “The Green Park is quite a wilderness.”
Jake stepped forward, intent on helping Miss Fox, when a familiar figure snagged the corner of his vision. In the distance, the figure stood bent over a sketchpad, charcoal a whir across paper. Two weeks ago, he wouldn’t have given that figure a second glance. Today, it stopped him in his tracks.
Olivia. His gaze drank her in like desert sand consumed the first drops of a monsoon rain.
“She is the sort who draws the eye, isn’t she?” a voice with an edge of tempered steel cut into thoughts he had no business having.
Of course. Miss Fox had noticed. “My apologies, if I—”
“No need to apologize, my lord,” she said, hands patting and smoothing her rescued gown, pretty blushes a thing of the past. “I’m made of sterner stuff than that.”
He didn’t think she could have said anything that could have made him feel more like a cad. But Olivia stood in his line of vision, and he was powerless to look away. She hadn’t yet noticed them, immersed as she was in the world she was creating on that piece of paper. He found himself in the strange position of envying a piece of paper. This was the man she reduced him to.
Of a sudden, her hand stilled, mid-stroke, and she froze, her gaze trained straight ahead of her. Suspense held his breath tight in his chest. One by one, she slid her materials into a black leather case before unexpectedly pivoting to face him and Miss Fox. Her gaze darted back and forth between them, once, twice, and she swallowed, drawing his eye toward the undulant column of her ivory throat. He’d licked a bead of sweat up its length only yesterday.
His mouth went dry. Only another lick would satisfy this particular thirst.
As he and Miss Fox drew close, he saw that Olivia understood what he was doing in the Green Park with Miss Fox. Hands at her sides, bland smile pasted onto her lips, she awaited their approach, her entire countenance placid and unmoving.
“Lady Olivia, how remarkable to find you here,” he said once they’d drawn within comfortable speaking distance.
“Indeed,” she returned. Her bland, little smile, the mask she employed for Society, hadn’t budged a jot. She didn’t want to give anything of herself away in front of Miss Fox. Or him.
How unlike the Olivia he’d known only yesterday. For all the world she looked as if she’d succeeded in purging her system of him. A pit opened up inside him, and a roil of nausea flipped his stomach over.
As they stood in an uneasy triangle, awkward silence charged the air. Neither lady appeared willing to speak to the other, and judging by the fact that their gazes rested on indistinct points in the distance, neither appeared willing to look at the other, either. “Are you acquainted with one another?” he asked, choosing a direct approach.
Olivia’s lips quirked to the side, and her gaze, at last, found his. The pit in his stomach no longer felt bottomless, not with her eyes meeting his, her mask for Society unable to reach there, not with him. “We’ve exchanged a pleasantry or two,” she said, “but never been properly introduced.”
Another silence, awkward and confused, expanded between them. Miss Fox shifted uncomfortably at his side, and Olivia’s eyes rolled to the sky. “Lord St. Alban,” she began, her voice longsuffering as if she was addressing a particularly imbecilic pupil, “I believe this is where you introduce Miss Fox to me.”
The exasperated huff in Olivia’s tone was impossible to miss, but he also sensed her pleasure in giving him another Society lesson. “Of course, my apologies”—He was forever apologizing today—“Lady Olivia, may I introduce Miss Fox to you?”
Olivia inclined her head, and Miss Fox dipped into a shallow curtsy before her social better. “My lady.”
Again, Olivia nodded, her smile cool, bland, and implacable. Then her eyes shifted to meet his, and her head canted to the side. Jake felt Miss Fox’s gaze darting between the two of them. It was reckless and contrary to his stated goal of securing a proper wife, but he couldn’t summon the energy to care.
As long as he held Olivia’s gaze, she couldn’t leave. That was his sole concern.
He would hold her gaze for eternity, if need be.
Chapter 17
She should break from his gaze. But through some strange, tenebrous force unique to them, it held her rooted in place. Didn’t he understand that Miss Fox’s shrewd, vulpine eyes missed nothing?
Well, he would soon enough, if they began a courtship.
Began? Clearly, they’d begun. And she was here to bear witness to it. Delightful.
She must leave this instant. She couldn’t watch Jake court Miss Fox. It was too much. She stepped backward, making her intention clear. “Miss Fox, it was nice to make your acquaintance, but I have some matters to attend and must bid you fare—”
Jake held out his arm, halting the flow of her words. “Lady Olivia, would you care to stroll with us?”
Her heart beat out a hard thud, and her skin tingled with anticipation. Anticipation of what? With her next heartbeat came the answer. His touch.
She took one halting step forward, then another, drawn in against all will and reason. She placed her hand to hover above his forearm, wild electricity racing between that half inch of air, invisibly connecting them. She inhaled the irked sigh that wanted release and placed her hand down.
Beneath the layers of fabric that lay between them, she knew the naked feel of the arm beneath her palm, its smoothness, its fine dusting of hair, the flex and release of muscle that ran in hardened rivulets u
p and down its length. She knew what those muscles were capable of. A flush of heat pinpricked her skin, and she shrugged inside her pelisse beneath confining layers of muslin and light wool.
Miss Fox cleared her throat. “Lady Olivia, do you stroll the wilds of the Green Park often?”
“Never.”
“Yet, here you are. I can only imagine what brought you out today”—Miss Fox looked around, presumably searching for Olivia’s companion—“Alone.”
Olivia had the distinct feeling that she was being hunted by Miss Fox. “I was cutting through the park to calculate a distance when a rambunctious pair of wrens distracted me.”
Jake’s face angled left, and his gaze caught hers. “What sort of distance?”
Awareness shot through her, and she was powerless to do anything but tell him the truth. “The distance from St. James’s Square to Queen Street.”
A trio of silent footsteps fell behind them, and she sensed in the quiet that he understood why she’d been calculating that particular distance, the distance from the Duke’s address to the house she was considering purchasing.
Good. It was good for him to understand that all the loose threads of their association would be tied up soon.
Not that it mattered. He was well on his way to a proper wife, and she wished him the best of luck with her. He would need it.
“St. James’s Square, I understand,” Miss Fox cut in like a razor blade. “After all, that is the Duke of Arundel’s address, but what, pray tell, could be on Queen Street?”
“It was just a notion,” Olivia said. She was most definitely being hunted by Miss Fox.
“Speaking of the Duke of Arundel,” Miss Fox began. How Olivia was coming to hate the chit’s tone, as if each word contained a sneer especially for her. “I received an invitation to a ball to be held two days hence at St. James’s Square. Such an impromptu affair in the middle of the Season is creating quite the stir about Town. But, of course, everyone will drop everything for the Duke of Arundel’s ball.”
“I daresay,” Olivia said in the hope that agreement would quash this conversation. Miss Fox would extract no currency for gossip from her.
She risked a quick glance up at Jake, but his features gave nothing away. Likely, he’d never been held prisoner between two ladies politely discussing balls and parks while waging a silent war of wills with each other just below the surface. He had so much to learn about Society.
“Curious,” Miss Fox pressed on. “One can only wonder why the impromptu ball.”
“One will find out two days hence, I suppose.”
An unhurried succession of footsteps passed, and Olivia realized that she’d shut the chit up. She almost felt badly for her. Almost. It was deuced difficult to feel badly for Miss Fox.
It was time for her to bid them farewell and best of luck on their future union. Well, maybe not that last part.
As she opened her mouth to speak, Miss Fox beat her to it. “If you will forgive me, I must see to Miss Markley. It seems the tenacious gooseberry has claimed another victim.”
With that, Miss Fox excused herself and left Olivia alone with Jake.
Jake. Enlivening sensation scattered across her skin at the mere thought of his name. He would ever be Jake to her. And now she was alone with him.
“My solicitors have informed me,” he began, “that you’ve looked at another house since I last—” He stopped himself. “That is, since we last—” Again, he stopped himself.
But it was too late. What they’d been doing the last time they saw each other solidified into a near tangible presence between them. She swallowed and addressed the first part of his sentence. “That is correct.”
“Was it to your liking?” he asked, his voice calm, measured, the fluster of moments ago gone.
For all the world, they appeared to be having a calm and measured conversation. How deceptive appearances could be. “It was serviceable enough,” she said, “but it lacked a specific something.”
His gaze lit upon her for the span of a single second before returning to the path ahead. “Magic.”
How she wished her heart didn’t race at that word, at the velvet in his voice when he spoke it. She needed to find a different subject to occupy them, one that had naught to do with magic. “It appears that your wife hunt is progressing nicely.”
“It does appear so.”
Another silence, charged and stubborn, snapped in the air about them. She should make her excuses and go, but she couldn’t. Nor could she stop herself from saying, “Undoubtedly, Miss Fox is the sort who will make someone a proper, spotless wife.”
“Undoubtedly,” he echoed back at her.
She might have detected a hollow note in that single word. But it might be what she wanted to hear. Was it, though? “Well, I wish you the best of luck.”
Beneath her hand, the muscles of his forearm, muscles hardened by years of sweat and toil, flexed and released, and an unruly frisson of excitement purled up her spine. She liked his forearms very much.
“Luck won’t be involved,” he said. A distance sounded in his voice. A distance that was good for both of them. “Marriage is a contract.”
His words were the splash of cold water her body needed. Perhaps she liked his forearms too much. “What a romantic courtship you and Miss Fox will have,” she replied. “How the ladies will envy her.”
“Any lady I marry will understand that romance has naught to do with my needs in a wife. I need a stepmother for Mina and, by extension, a partner for me.”
“A partner? What a strange way of putting it. Like a business equal?”
A curt nod of his head was his answer.
“That would make you different from any man and wife I ever heard of. But you may have the right of it. Marriage isn’t a romantic enterprise, and yet women keep getting tricked into thinking it so.”
“Tricked?”
“Most definitely tricked. If young women truly understood marriage, they would run as fast as their feet could carry them the instant a man got down on one knee. Marriage changes nothing in a man’s life. But for a woman? It changes everything.”
“And not for the better?”
“Not in my experience of it.”
“And what was your experience of it?”
Strangely, a moment that should have scared her witless and sent her fleeing turned sideways and went soft and intimate. A thrill of joy ribboned through her at the curiosity and concern in his voice, at the very gravity of it. It was a seriousness that spoke to the secret craving she had to give up her secrets. His seriousness told her it was safe to do so.
Possibility budding within her, she glanced over her shoulder to see if there was any chance Miss Fox would return. All she saw was an empty path behind them. Miss Fox and her chaperone had quietly taken themselves away. Mayhap that wasn’t the most auspicious start to Jake’s courtship with the lady, but it wasn’t Olivia’s concern, now or ever.
It was safe. That was her only thought. It was safe to tell him. He wasn’t a suitor to her, not really a friend either, but he was safe. She could tell this man anything.
Even the truth about her marriage.
She inhaled, pulling air deep inside her lungs, and allowed it to expand and buoy her into speaking words she’d never spoken aloud to anyone, not even Mariana. On the release, she said, “Shall I tell you how marriage is for a woman?” Her words sailed forth on a cool, blithe breeze, providing the distance she needed to speak them.
“I wish you would,” he said, his words anything but cool and blithe.
“Well, Lord St. Alban,” she began, bright, chirpy, and false, the sort of façade she needed to hide behind if she was to tell him. “The newly wed couple steps out of St. Paul’s on a bright and sunny day, a future of domestic bliss stretching befor
e the optimistic bride. At last, she has everything she ever desired: a handsome husband, her own household, her own curricle, everything Society told her she ever wanted. She’s never felt so happy.”
“You speak of the husband as if he’s an object of the same value as the curricle.”
“That is, indeed, how the average Society wife views her husband.”
“And is that who we’re speaking of? The average Society wife?”
“Who else would we be speaking of?”
Her question was met with silence, stubborn and unconvinced.
“A week later,” she continued, “she wakes to find herself in bed, alone, her husband off to sport his newest horse on Rotten Row. She might feel a bit hurt that he didn’t include her, but she has plenty to fulfill her. Remember, she is the mistress of her own household, even if it is technically part of a duke’s household and doesn’t much involve her. And she has social calls to make, even if she has begun to find them endless exercises in tedium. And, lest we forget, she has the shiny, new curricle. She won’t allow herself to consider that she might be the B word.” She lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Bored.”
“And why can’t she be honest with herself?”
“Because she might search for the root of her boredom, and that wouldn’t do at all. She’s entirely too young and the marriage entirely too new for such notions, so she tucks them away. It’s only when her husband begins excusing himself after dinner to spend the odd evening out with his friends that the notion pokes up its nasty head again. The odd evening soon becomes every evening, and she must admit that she’s not only bored, but lonely, too.”
“And this wife can’t tell her husband how she feels?”
“By the time she’s able to put her feelings into words, it’s too late, the gap between her and her husband, too wide. You see, by now the rumors have started.”
“Rumors?”
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