by Maya Rodale
“That would be preferable,” Phinn agreed. “I wouldn’t care to share my wife’s company with other men.”
“I also drink to excess,” Olivia said. To punctuate this she took another sip of a very unladylike size. When she set the glass down she felt marvelously warm and quite dizzy. She wished to lie down, in fact. But she had to point out all the ways they were wrong for each other. “If you wish for a respectable wife, you mustn’t shackle yourself to a drunk who cavorts with rogues.”
She had never imagined saying such things about herself. She also had never imagined that she’d be so desperate to prove to a man that she was unsuitable and he definitely should not marry her.
It didn’t escape her notice, however, that there was a grain of truth in what he said—the papers had been cruel and would quite possibly ward off all other suitors. If Phinn didn’t marry her, she’d be a spinster. She would be the one failure in the history of Lady Penelope’s School for Young Ladies. But a true love match seemed more important than that.
“I cause scenes, as you know,” she carried on. “I’d probably drive you mad with all the scenes I would cause. I suppose your previous wife drove you mad.”
“Sometimes,” Phinn admitted. “But I had taken a vow. Till death do we part. I took that very seriously. So I did my best to honor that vow.”
Olivia paled. And reached to her reticule to ensure that the embroidery scissors were still there just in case she needed them. Assured, she took another sip of wine. It wasn’t quite making her forget herself, but it was loosening her tongue tremendously.
“Did you murder her because she drove you mad?” she asked in a whisper.
Phinn sighed. He sighed! What did that mean?
“Are you still hung up on the whole ‘mad baron murdered his wife’ gossip?”
“Yes! Yes I am. Any woman would be. Is that why you spoke to my parents about courtship before even meeting me? Because you knew I would refuse?”
“What the devil are you talking about?” Phinn asked, pushing his fingers through his hair. “Ashbrooke warned me—”
“You were talking to Ashbrooke about me?”
“Obviously. How else would I have known about this place?”
“While exploring for secluded places where you might ravish and dispose of a young woman. Obviously.”
Phinn scoffed. “Fond of gothic novels, are you? If you want to know, the duke offered a bit of advice about wooing reluctant women. He said that Emma said—”
“Emma said!” Olivia exclaimed incredulously. “I cannot believe her!” she muttered.
She took another sip from her wineglass. Found it empty. She reached for the bottle, but Phinn stopped her.
“I think you should have some water,” he said.
“No thank you,” she replied. “I am a wanton lady who drinks to excess, remember?”
He cracked a smile. Completely disregarding her wishes, he filled her wineglass to the brim with water.
“I find it interesting, Lady Olivia, that all your reasons we might suit focus on you. I can’t help but notice you haven’t mentioned anything in my character.”
“Well . . .”
“Do you find my appearance objectionable? I know the scar is a bit frightening. It was just the result of an unfortunate collision with a broken dish.”
Olivia looked at him, really looked at him. The scar wasn’t that frightening at all—just a white line slashing from his temple to his eye. Otherwise, his skin was flawless. His hair was dark and tussled. He pushed his fingers through it when he was frustrated, she had noticed. Given the state of his hair now, she had been bothering him quite a bit today.
“No,” she said softly. She did not find his appearance objectionable.
“Do you find me dull?”
She considered their interactions. He’d terrified her. Made her laugh. Vexed her. But he didn’t bore her.
“No,” she admitted.
“Is your heart set on another?”
“No.”
Phinn pushed his fingers through his hair. Gave a short exhale. He was growing impatient with her. She could see that, even with the ridiculous bonnet that obscured her vision.
“Do you truly fear that I will hurt you?” he asked. Since he asked, she thought she might as well give him an honest answer.
“I have brought my embroidery scissors in my reticule. Just in case.”
Phinn stared at her. Then he burst out laughing.
“Do you really find it amusing?” Olivia demanded.
Once he stopped laughing, he answered. “It’s not funny at all. But the alternative to laughter . . .”
Phinn leaned forward. “I am drawn to you, Olivia. You must marry someone. I would like to marry, and I’d like a different marriage from my first. In spite of all the ways you claim we will not suit, I think we will. For example, I was so glad to hear from you, your parents, and everyone, really, that you had so many hobbies you enjoyed. Pianoforte, painting, floral arrangements. You won’t need me to keep you amused all day, so I’ll be able to focus on my work.”
“And at night?” She realized she must be drunk to actually voice such a question.
“I want a wife at night, too,” Phinn said in a low voice. It sent a shiver up and down her spine. A sudden warmth inside. A curious longing. And fear. She couldn’t be that for him. She was too scared to be at his mercy like that. Naked, under him . . .
She turned a furious shade of red, then took another sip of her drink. Then she desperately wished to be elsewhere.
It wasn’t fair that she’d gone to great lengths to tarnish her reputation—and it hadn’t mattered. And he was the one man who wasn’t bored to tears by her ladylike pastimes. The unfairness of it all was suddenly just too much.
“I hate embroidery,” she burst out. “If I never sewed another sampler in my life, I’d die happy. I find the pianoforte dull. I’ve spent hours practicing the same scales over and over and I only play the same songs that my mother thinks are suitable for young ladies. Sometimes I think about playing bawdy songs in a proper musicale, but I am never asked to play because I am not as popular as the other girls. If I have to paint another assortment of fruit, flowers, and precious keepsakes I will go mad.”
“What do you like?” he asked, as if it were as easy as that. As if he wasn’t at all ruffled by her outburst.
“I don’t know. I never had a chance to know. And I never will know if I am shut up in the attics of your remote Yorkshire estate while you build all your dangerous contraptions! All the while, I shall be cowering in fear of the day that I meet the same violent fate as your first wife!”
Olivia clamped a hand over her mouth.
Young ladies do not have emotional outbursts.
Phinn had once performed an experiment that did not yield the intended outcome. He thought it a failure until a year later, the knowledge he’d gained proving to be essential in solving a far greater problem. This picnic was similar. He’d hoped to know her better. It seemed he did now, though not how he had expected.
She was afraid of him, still. Fear drove people to do things they’d never imagine themselves capable of just to avoid it. Perhaps she wasn’t Prissy Missy. Perhaps she wasn’t, deep down, a painted, wanton woman prone to drink, in spite of the persona she’d endeavored to project. Somewhere in between those two extremes was the real Olivia, the one he was drawn to. She was scared.
He could, perhaps, assuage her worries by telling her the truth about Nadia, the accident, the end. He was about to do just that.
And then everything went to hell.
Phinn’s attentions were wrenched away from Olivia only by the sound of intruders. He saw Rogan driving an open carriage, full of lords and ladies engaged in tests to see how far they could lean out of the vehicle without toppling to the ground. He suspected they were not factoring calculations of weight, gravity, and other such physical matters, as he would have, but leaving everything to chance.
“Hello there, y
oung lovers!” Rogan called out, interrupting everything. Just this once, Phinn did consider murder.
Rogan tossed the reins to his companion, jumped down from the carriage and strolled up the steps of the gazebo. As if he had been invited. Which he most definitely had not been.
“Olivia, you remember, Lord Rogan, a man I used to call a friend,” Phinn said sharply.
“Partner in crime is a more apt description for the likes of a rogue like me,” Rogan said, which was exactly the wrong thing to say. Olivia’s eyes widened as she looked from one man to another. Then she took the bottle of wine to her lips and took a long sip. Rogan eyed her curiously, and when he spoke next his tone was more subdued. “Just thought I’d see how your romantic picnic was faring.”
“We’re fine. Be gone with you.”
Olivia set down the empty bottle of wine on the table with a thud that rattled the cutlery and china. Phinn glanced warily at the carriage of people avidly watching Prissy Missy drinking wine straight from the bottle.
“Does anyone need any more wine? I can fetch more from the carriage,” Rogan answered. Phinn did not want to know why he was driving around at midday with bottles of wine tucked away.
“Actually, I should like to go back to the carriage,” Olivia said, standing and holding onto her chair. “I’m feeling a bit out of sorts. My eyelids feel heavy. And my brain feels . . . fuzzy.”
“Drinking wine on a sunny afternoon would make anyone feel drowsy and unwell,” Phinn said as she wavered on her feet. He jumped up and linked their arms together, intent on escorting her back to the carriage or perhaps on a short stroll away from these intruders.
She gazed up at him, her blue eyes full of questions. Once he got rid of Rogan, he would provide the answers she sought.
Olivia found herself leaning against Phinn. She was oh-so-drowsy and a bit unsteady on her feet, and he was a strong, solid, towering wall of support that she could lean on. Drinking the last of that wine had been a terrible idea; she hadn’t wanted more but felt it was necessary to prove her point.
What was her point? All she knew was that it was happening again: desire warring with fear. His gaze was so warm and affectionate now, but she’d seen the cold distance in his eyes when he’d become angry.
For a moment it was easy to forget about the picnic crashers and just focus on Phinn’s lips. He dipped his head. Would he kiss her? Olivia’s heart started to pound. People were watching! And if they weren’t?
“Put something in her drink, did you?” Rogan asked with a grin. “Clever.”
Olivia looked from one man to the other.
“Did you poison me?” Olivia gasped. She did feel awfully drowsy and weak. “Oh goodness, I’m dying,” she muttered.
“Olivia, you’re fine. I would never do something like that,” Phinn said insistently. “I would never hurt you. Rogan doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”
“But I feel so ill,” she mumbled. She yawned and rested her head on his shoulder, inadvertently swatting him in the face with her atrocious bonnet. She was too tired to care.
“It’s just the effects of the wine,” Phinn explained.
“How much did you give her?” Rogan asked. He shifted his concerned gaze from Olivia to one much more critical at Phinn. “She looks like she must be suffering from alcohol poisoning.”
“Wrong choice of words, Rogan,” Phinn said sharply.
Olivia felt him tense. His grasp on her arm tightened. Peering up at him, she saw his jaw clenched shut. His breaths were short and shallow. Rogan was making him angry. If Rogan had any sense, he would stop. But she was too tired to say that. Besides, what if Rogan was right?
Rogan peered curiously at her. She looked blankly at him.
“And what are you still doing here?” Phinn managed to ground out the question through a fiercely clenched jaw.
“She does look ill, Phinn. Definitely alcohol poisoning.”
“Poisoned? Have I been poisoned?” Olivia gasped. She struggled to keep her eyes open. What was she to do? Rogan wasn’t any help; she’d have to save herself. She tried to disentangle herself from Phinn so she might fetch her embroidery scissors.
Phinn held her steady.
“You have not been poisoned,” he said firmly. And then he turned on Rogan.
“And you—what the hell do you think you’re doing here?”
“Only trying to help,” Rogan said, carefully stepping backward. Phinn’s grasp on her tightened. This is what she was afraid of.
“You know my temper Rogan. You have precisely ten seconds to make yourself—and your friends—scarce. Otherwise . . .”
“I’ll just be off, then,” Rogan said, attempting to sound jovial. Then he scrambled off to his carriage as Olivia felt faint.
Between her tightly laced corset, confining gown, wine, and the afternoon sun, she was simply overcome. Vaguely, she was aware of her knees giving way.
Phinn caught her.
She was aware of him lifting her up, holding her like a precious damsel in distress as he carried her to his carriage. Her head rested against his chest. The steady beat of his heart lulled her. She stirred a bit when she realized he was carrying her off and everyone was watching . . .
“Feats of strength!” Rogan called out after him. Had she more strength, she would have bashed Rogan with her parasol. And then she fell asleep.
“Never refer to a woman as a feat of strength, you fool,” Phinn said through gritted teeth.
He glanced down at Olivia’s peacefully slumbering face. The tightness in his chest eased. He drew a deep breath. His pulse started to subside. She soothed him. And thus, slightly soothed, Phinn could see that Rogan meant to help but only had a knack for making things worse.
For example: the carriage load of loud, gossipy companions now bore witness to the sight of the Mad Baron carrying an unconscious woman from a secluded location to his awaiting carriage.
He expected rumors of her death at his hand within the hour, which would inevitably be confirmed by everyone who saw him attempt to drive the carriage back to the Archers’ house with one hand, whilst using the other to keep Olivia upright. Her body was limp. Her eyes were closed. He knew how this looked. And he cursed his luck—or did he?
Chapter 11
Lord Radcliffe, better known amongst the ton as the Mad Baron, did nothing to dispel rumors that he murdered his late wife when he was seen carrying the unconscious form of Lady Olivia Archer from a secluded gazebo in Hyde Park, where they had been enjoying a picnic. The word poison was overheard. It is now impossible that Lady Archer not marry him, given that she has been so thoroughly compromised. Whoever thought she’d be London’s Least Likely to survive the wedding night?
—“FASHIONABLE INTELLIGENCE” BY A LADY OF DISTINCTION,
THE LONDON WEEKLY
“This is not good,” Prudence said, setting down the newspaper after reading the latest installment of “Fashionable Intelligence” that had the ton talking of nothing else. Prudence and Olivia had rendezvoused at Emma’s as soon as they’d read the papers.
Olivia groaned and buried her face in her hands. No one had to tell her how “not good” it was.
“In fact, I would even go so far as to say this is bad,” Emma said grimly. Olivia flung herself back on the settee.
“Also not good,” she said, “my mother fainted when Phinn brought me home, limp and nearly lifeless in his arms after our disastrous picnic. Even worse: my father has had a word with him. Given that I doubt they fought a duel, I am sure the archbishop has been called upon.”
Not good. Bad. Terrible.
“Olivia, what exactly happened?” Emma asked.
“Besides the part where I was poisoned?” Olivia replied.
“With what?” Prudence asked, greatly intrigued.
“Wine,” Olivia said. “Perhaps something else.”
“You were just drunk,” Prudence scoffed. “Why were you drunk at a picnic? It’s one thing to be intoxicated at Almack’s when one has
spiked the lemonade. But in the afternoon?”
“I was a nervous wreck, fearing that he was going to ravish and murder me in the woods,” Olivia confessed. “The wine seemed to soothe me.”
“You’d think you’d want to keep your wits about you in that instance,” Prudence remarked.
“Thank you, Prudence, for telling me that now.”
“Obviously he did no such thing,” Emma pointed out. “Neither poisoning, ravishment, nor murder.”
“No. We merely conversed,” Olivia replied. “At his request, I listed all the ways in which we would not suit.”
“And did he agree with your assessment and offer to break the match?” Emma asked.
“No,” Olivia said glumly. “He pointed out that because of our little wager, it was his fault I had been provoked into tarnishing my reputation, thus, he was honor bound to stand by me.”
“Very noble of him,” Emma said. “If dreadfully inconvenient for you.”
“I didn’t see that coming,” Prudence said softly. “Who knew the Mad Baron was a man of honor? Makes one wonder what else we might have underestimated about him.”
“It’s worse,” Olivia muttered. She told them everything—from her agonies over whether to wear the bonnet, to the minute Lord Rogan showed up to spoil everything. If it weren’t for him, and his gossiping friends, she and Phinn might have had a chance of returning to her home undetected. Everyone saw. Everyone talked.
No one would have her now. Perhaps some tradesman’s son or solicitor would, but then she’d be cut off from society just as much as if she’d been whisked away to a dungeon in Yorkshire.
“I’m afraid I’ll have to marry him,” she said with such a forlorn sigh she made herself even sadder. “In spite of all our efforts.”
She’d never know the first blush of true love, the delicious anticipation of waiting for a suitor to call, or the sweet pleasure of waltzing with an adoring beau who didn’t terrify her. It was too late for her to know herself now—she’d wasted so much time being the perfect lady when she could have been the perfectly lovely Olivia. As the Mad Baroness, alone in Yorkshire with her household to manage and while doing embroidery, she’d never know, never share a meeting of hearts and minds with a man who made her heart beat faster with love, not fear.