The Seduction of Lady X

by Julia London

  Mr. Tolly choked on his tea.

  Edward’s eyes darkened. He leaned back, studying her. “I think you need to be reminded that the gospel cautions that a wife should revere her husband.”

  “Does it?” Olivia asked with a doe-eyed look, then shrugged lightly. “I recall very little of the verses, really . . . Except,” she said, lifting one finger, “I do recall the verse that says a husband should render the wife due benevolence.”

  Mr. Tolly’s coughing suddenly worsened. “I beg your pardon,” he said hoarsely and stood up, walking to the sideboard.

  Edward, predictably, was not the least bit amused. “I think you mean to provoke me.”

  “Not at all!” Olivia said sweetly. “I never mean to provoke you.”

  Edward’s lips disappeared into a thin line.

  “If I may, my lord,” Mr. Tolly said as he returned to the table, “there is much we have to accomplish before your departure.”

  “Departure?” Olivia asked.

  “Yes,” Edward said tightly. “Departure.”

  Olivia resisted the urge to leap for joy. “Where are you going?”

  Edward suddenly stood. Mr. Tolly stood, too. “I am to London. And before you inquire, I shall tell you straightaway that you are not allowed to come.”

  If she hadn’t despised him, Olivia might have kissed him. “I would not dream of burdening you with my presence,” she said sweetly.

  Edward tossed down his linen. “Mr. Tolly, please endure the company of my wife for a few moments. I find I am in the need of a bit of air before we begin,” he said and, looking pointedly at Olivia, he strode out.

  Mr. Tolly remained standing until he’d gone, then turned about and looked at Olivia, a soft smile on his face. “Ephesians,” he said as he resumed his seat.

  “We are very select in our readings here. But never mind that—Mr. Tolly, I have been desperate to speak to you.”

  “Of course.”

  She leaned forward and stretched her hand across the table. “You cannot mean to marry Alexa! I cannot allow it.”

  “Of course I—”

  “No, no,” she said, shaking her head. “It was very chivalrous of you to offer, and God knows I cannot thank you enough for it.” She spoke quickly, certain that Edward would appear at any moment. “But I will not allow you to saddle yourself with an unwanted marriage and wife for the rest of your life.”

  “It is—”

  “Are you mad?” she whispered, glancing nervously at the door. “There is no life, no happiness in marriage to someone you cannot love. Your heart was pure, and you meant a kindness, but you and Alexa cannot make such a grave mistake. Think of it,” she begged him. “Don’t you want to marry a woman you love?”

  Mr. Tolly’s jaw clenched. He swallowed hard. Olivia believed she understood him—he’d offered in haste and he regretted it. In a wretched moment, he’d seen a woman in distress and he’d believed, as Olivia had, that all would be lost for Alexa if someone didn’t step in to prevent it.

  “Mr. Tolly . . . you have been so good to me,” Olivia whispered. “Alexa has ruined her life, but you cannot allow sympathy for her to ruin your life forevermore. My heart breaks for my sister, truly it does, but she and I cannot drag someone as good as you—”

  Mr. Tolly suddenly reached across the table and covered her hand with his, squeezing gently. His touch startled Olivia right out of her thought. She stared down at his hand, twice as big as hers, at his fingers wrapped securely around hers. “You will make yourself ill,” he said low. “And surely you know me well enough to know that I am not an incautious man. You must understand that I did not make such an offer lightly. I need a bit of time to think of another way that she and I might avoid it and yet save her reputation—and yours.”

  The feel of his hand on hers was powerful in a way that made Olivia’s heart pound. There was so much in his touch—protection, assurance. Do not let go my hand, never let go my hand. “It’s so unfair,” Olivia murmured, her gaze fixed on his hand, on a small freckle on the back of his thumb. “Where is she? Is she all right?”

  “She is at the dowager house.” Mr. Tolly made no effort to remove his hand from hers, and Olivia imagined that he was infusing her with his strength. She could almost feel it flowing between them.

  “She is understandably upset and confused,” he continued, “but she will be quite all right. Lady Carey, look at me,” he commanded softly.

  Olivia didn’t want to look away from his hand. She wondered when that freckle had appeared on his thumb, if he’d spent his youth in the sun. She wondered so many things about him—

  Mr. Tolly squeezed her hand, and she reluctantly lifted her gaze to his.

  “Do not fret,” he said. “I will see that your sister is well cared for.”

  “I have no doubt that in your hands, she will be better cared for than she has ever been. But I fret for you, sir. What of your personal affections and desires? You are a young man, scarcely older than me. You will want your own love and children, and yet you will throw all that away?”

  Mr. Tolly’s gaze dropped to Olivia’s mouth, and she instantly felt a draw from her toes, spiraling up her legs and into her spine, warming her cheeks. Her heart skipped; her fingers curled around his.

  “If I may be so bold,” he said, as if weighing each word, “my personal affections lie with a woman I can never marry for a number of reasons. If it comes to it and I marry Miss Hastings—and I am not convinced that it will—you must believe that the arrangement will suit me perfectly.”

  The sound of Edward striding down the hall reached them; Mr. Tolly’s hand slid across the table and into his lap. He continued to hold her gaze as Edward entered the breakfast room. Just as Edward looked up from the papers he was holding, Olivia picked up her teacup and brought it to her lips, hiding behind it. It was empty; she daintily replaced it in the saucer and surreptitiously glanced at Mr. Tolly.

  “Olivia, you may take your tea to your rooms,” Edward said dismissively.

  She stood. “Good day, Mr. Tolly. Edward.” She could feel Mr. Tolly’s gaze follow her as she walked around the table. Her heart was fluttering as she walked out of the room, her head filled with the image of those gray eyes, and a small shiver was sneaking its way down her spine at the intensity with which he had looked at her.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Sunday evening, Harrison had a small contretemps with Miss Hastings, his would-be fiancée.

  “You sound like a husband, Mr. Tolly, and the vows not even said,” she petulantly complained.

  As Harrison had never been a husband, he had no idea how one sounded. In his opinion he sounded as if he were the only reasonable person in the drawing room. Miss Hastings was determined to go to her sister and weep on her shoulder, but Harrison was just as determined that she not do so until Lord Carey had departed Everdon Court.

  Carey’s mood had been particularly foul that afternoon after Harrison explained that his younger brother, Lord Westhorpe, had made a series of decisions for the Carey estate in Surrey that had cost a significant sum. Lord Carey did not tolerate mistakes in anyone. He thought himself above making them, and expected others to be above them as well.

  “David will ruin us,” he said sharply. “After centuries of building this family’s fortune—since Edward the Second sat the throne!—he will bring it down with his spendthrift ways and inattention to details!”

  Harrison considered himself fortunate that, for whatever reason, the marquis listened to him. Carey heeded his advice, sought his counsel, and, for the most part, treated him as an equal in the management of the vast Carey holdings, which rivaled those of the richest men in the kingdom.

  Harrison was an excellent and capable steward, trained by the best in England. But he was not so naïve as to believe that he was somehow immune from instant dismissal. He’d seen it happen too many times.

  He liked to think he had prevented some of that at Everdon Court. He couldn’t help but feel protective over the se
rvants there—they were powerless people, displaced on the whims of powerful men like Carey, and he’d spent too much time in their shoes as a child. He’d watched his mother worry herself ill and struggle to keep the gentlemen who provided for her engaged in any way she might, for when they were finished with her, that was the end of their largesse. One of Harrison’s most painful memories was the night his mother had learned that her benefactor had been seen in the company of a younger paramour. She’d collapsed in a heap, sobbing, and he’d felt a deep uselessness. He could not help his mother. He could not give her peace.

  A fortnight later, they moved to meaner surroundings—him with his books, his mother with the jewels she used to pay for their living.

  Now, Harrison was in a different position. He was powerful in his own right, because the Carey family trusted him.

  Harrison firmly believed that he’d remained in good favor as a result of the relationship he’d enjoyed with Lord Carey’s late father. The marquis’s father had employed Harrison based on the recommendation of one of his mother’s lovers. He had kindly overlooked Harrison’s situation and had grown very fond of Harrison. He’d always treated him as an equal. His son had followed his lead and had come to rely on Harrison just as his father had.

  Today, however, Harrison had detected a slight change in the marquis’s tone, and it had to do with Alexa Hastings. As Harrison had gathered his things to leave, his lordship had stopped him with a question: “What do you intend to do with the whore?”

  Harrison bristled at the term—Miss Hastings was an eighteen-year-old girl who’d made a singular, life-altering mistake, but he resented the judgment of her. “I intend to search for a situation that will suit everyone involved, and if I cannot find it, I intend to marry her,” he’d said flatly.

  A dark look had come over Lord Carey’s face. “I am shocked. I have given you every respect, and this is how you repay me? By taking a whore as your wife while in my employ?”

  “I beg your pardon if I have offended you,” Harrison responded evenly. He knew how to appeal to Carey’s ego. “But if someone does not marry the girl, the scandal could very well be ruinous.”

  Carey hadn’t said anything to that, but had eyed him shrewdly.

  “It is my duty here to look after the estate,” Harrison had said, and had steadily returned his gaze, daring him to challenge that he’d been anything but steadfastly loyal in every way.

  Carey had finally looked away. “I cannot understand your desire to meddle in the affairs of the Hastings family and ruin your own life in the course of it, but if that is your desire, so be it. I will insist you find a solution quickly, whilst I am away,” he said, turning his attention to the papers before him. “And send her somewhere out of my sight. I cannot bear to look at her and she is unwelcome in my house. If you find that objectionable, keep in mind that I’d sooner banish her for good.”

  Harrison knew that Carey meant what he said. The marquis had banished his own cousin for racking up unmanageable gambling debts two years ago. He’d reduced his stipend and sent him off to Scotland with the promise that he’d remove the stipend altogether if he dared show his face in England again. “Very well,” Harrison said, and took his leave before he said something he regretted.

  He’d left Lord Carey humming a jaunty little tune.

  He’d returned to the dowager house, wondering why he’d stayed in his post as long as he had. Was it the generous salary? No—money was not everything. Was it because of the Rues of the world, who needed someone like him to look after them? Perhaps. The work? He liked what he did.

  Whatever the reason, Harrison stayed and endured the prejudices and bigotries of the marquis. Even if this Fish fellow were to be believed, he could not leave here.

  Harrison didn’t care to think of Ashwood. Of the possibility that there was a place for him to go, to belong, to be his own man. If he thought of it, he felt unsettled, a sensation he didn’t care for in the least.

  Yet he was feeling quite unsettled when he’d entered the house the Careys had graciously made his while he was in their employ. The dowager house was a manor house that was, in some ways, vastly superior to houses owned by other lords and ladies. It was far too large for one man.

  Rue was on hand that afternoon to take his wet things. “Is it raining yet?” she asked, holding his dripping coat.

  Harrison suppressed a small smile at the obvious. “It is. Where is Miss Hastings?” he asked as he started for his study.

  “She’s putting on her cloak and such. She’s to the big house.”

  “Is she,” he drawled. “Where is she now?”

  “In the drawing room, my lord.”

  “Sir,” he corrected, and proceeded to the drawing room.

  He found Miss Hastings in her cloak, fitting her hands into gloves. “Good afternoon.”

  She glanced at him from the corner of her eye. “Mr. Tolly.”

  “May I inquire where you are going?”

  She suddenly whirled about to face him. “You sound like a husband, Mr. Tolly, and the vows not even said. You cannot keep me from my sister!”

  Harrison clasped his hands behind his back and lowered his head. “I have no intention of keeping you from your sister,” he said, as if speaking to a child. “I hope that over the fortnight, while the marquis is away, you may spend every possible moment with her. But he has not yet departed and you must stay here until he does. It is not open to debate.”

  “Why?” she demanded. “He cannot do anything to me. He is not my father.”

  “I beg to differ,” Harrison said. “There are few men in this land who are as powerful as your sister’s husband. If he wants to see you publicly ruined, he can do so with a word. A single word, Miss Hastings. If he wants to banish you, he will do it, and no one will challenge him. No one.”

  She winced at that. “I just want Olivia, Mr. Tolly. I want to be with my sister. You cannot imagine how difficult this is for me.”

  “Your sister desires to be with you, as well,” he assured her. “Nevertheless, you must trust me that it will be to your benefit to wait. His lordship is to London on the morrow, and when he is gone, you may come and go as you please.”

  “Thank the saints,” she muttered, and glanced down at her gloves.

  “So . . . if you will kindly remove your cloak and gloves,” he said.

  Miss Hastings did not remove them. She glanced up at him, chewing her bottom lip. “Mr. Tolly . . . I should not like you to think I am ungrateful for your intervention on my behalf, for I am not. But I do not wish to marry you.”

  Surely the foolish girl didn’t believe that he did. “I understand completely,” he said. “No need to say more—”

  “On the contrary, I quite desperately need to say this,” Miss Hastings said earnestly. “I realize that I am in no position to argue, but I really cannot, in good conscience, marry you, for I do not . . .” She glanced around the room as if searching for something, finally fixing on a small porcelain angel Rue had put on an end table. “I do not love you,” she said softly.

  She said it as if he’d made some declaration of his esteem for her, and Harrison couldn’t help smiling. “Of course you do not love me. You scarcely know me.”

  “Yes, well . . . there is also the matter that you are a steward. I had hoped for a better situation.”

  Miss Hastings’s gall was as fascinating as her brutal honesty. But that remark put a small hole in Harrison’s bubble of goodwill. “I am indeed a steward,” he said. “And you are carrying a child out of wedlock.”

  Miss Hastings blushed furiously. “How dare you speak of it?”

  “How dare I not?” Harrison countered. “You surely must realize this is hardly an ideal situation for either of us. I sincerely hope that I might find a way to avoid a marriage, for both our sakes—”

  “I can’t wait to learn what way that might be,” she muttered sarcastically.

  “But if I cannot,” he continued, ignoring her skepticism, “you mus
t keep in mind that you are in rather desperate need of a husband, and it is my duty to keep scandal from the Carey name—”

  “Why?”

  The question astonished him. “Why?” he repeated.

  “Yes, Mr. Tolly, why is it your duty to keep scandal from the Carey name? I cannot see that you would suffer from it.”

  Harrison shifted uneasily at the truth in that.

  “It seems to me that you would wish to marry someone whom you esteem, someone you find compatible in temperament and station.”

  “Naturally that would be my preference, but I think perhaps it is too late for me. And, I daresay, too late for you.”

  “Why is it too late for you?”

  For the second time today, Harrison was forced to say aloud a secret he’d carried for many years. “As it happens, Miss Hastings, the woman who holds that particular allure for me is regrettably unattainable. That is all that needs to be said of my situation. We are speaking of your situation.”

  “Who is she?” Miss Hasting asked curiously.

  “That is neither here nor there.”

  “I say that it is. If we are to be married, I have a right to know.”

  He arched a dubious brow. “Are we to be married, then?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Who is she?” she asked again.

  He smiled as patiently as he could manage, given the uncomfortable direction of the conversation. “Let us call her Lady X.”

  Miss Hastings laughed. “Lady X? Who might that be? Olivia?” She laughed at her jest, and Harrison smiled, too. “Is it Olivia?” she asked, her eyes wide with surprise.

  “That is an absurd suggestion.”

  “Oh, I know who it is!” she said suddenly, her smile brightening. “Lady Martha Higginbottom. Yes, it must be! Olivia said she calls quite often, and she never has much of anything at all to say.”

  Harrison chuckled. He’d played this guessing game at the Cock and Sparrow as his friends teased him about his mysterious Lady X. They had their theories, as well.