“I see.”
Strangely, to his annoyance, she didn’t look all that surprised.
“So you excused yourself for bed hours early and without dinner or a late supper to…get away from me?”
He adjusted his body in his chair. “Perhaps.”
She chuckled very softly. “Dearest brother, I didn’t think I was all that frightful to a man of your stature.”
Sam discerned an odd, restless tension envelop them both, not because she teased him for his supposed cowardice, but because she called him brother. The more he thought about it, the less he liked her thinking of him in that regard, especially since the more he knew her, the more he thought of her sexually.
“What are you drinking?” he asked in a purposeful attempt to change the subject. If she was surprised by the turn of conversation, she didn’t show it.
“Warm milk and honey, actually. It helps me fall asleep when I’m having trouble doing so. Would you like a cup?”
“Uh, no thank you,” he replied, pulling a face. “Sounds positively awful.”
She smiled. “Didn’t your mother ever suggest it when you couldn’t sleep?”
He smirked. “I didn’t really know my mother.”
The look on her face was very telling, though he couldn’t decide if she was shocked or appalled.
“Didn’t know her?” She tipped her head to one side speculatively. “Edmund said he left for the Continent before she passed on and that business kept him from attending her funeral.”
“She died seven years ago,” he confirmed. Shrugging, he amended, “But I’m sure you’re aware that in my world I wouldn’t have interacted much with my mother. Instead, I knew my nanny, then my governess, my personal valet, my riding instructor, my music instructor, various tutors… shall I go on?”
To his strange delight, her expression fell flat and her forehead creased in frown.
“No, I understand,” she admitted softly, sinking a little into her chair. “Although Edmund said he had a very loving childhood, with wonderful memories of his parents—”
“Edmund lied,” he cut in through a snort.
She blinked. “Lied… Of course.”
He regretted his utterance almost at once as he watched her falter, her body shudder as if trying to repudiate such a thought. Then she clasped her upper arms with her palms and hugged herself, lowering her gaze to the tabletop.
He cleared his throat, feeling rather subdued by her despondency over another confirmation regarding his deceitful, cheating, brother. “You have to understand that Edmund and I certainly have different perceptions of our childhoods.”
She offered him a tentative smile again, looking back into his eyes. “I’ve no doubt. Siblings always seem to.”
“True,” he continued. “However, we were raised exactly the same way, with the same disciplines that provided us with nearly identical opportunities. The only difference in our upbringing is that, in the end, more was expected of me.”
“Because of your birth order,” she interjected.
He nodded and lifted one of the bright red apples out of the bowl in the center of the table, studying it without thought as he twirled it around slowly in his hands. “Even today Edmund has freedoms I never had and never will, including the luxury to do as he pleases. But my brother resented the fact that because I was born three minutes before him, by a stroke of luck, whether ill or good, I will always receive opportunities and fortune he could never have. This is one of the key reasons he left a decade ago.”
“And yet he managed to marry first,” she remarked after a long pause of consideration.
His brows drew together. “Yes.” He wasn’t sure if he dare add that Edmund had no obligation to marry and had never wanted to, at least not when he’d last seen his brother.
“Why aren’t you married, Sam? That would, naturally, be your greatest duty to fulfill.”
Such a personal question took him by surprise. It was the first time she seemed more curious about him and his life and motives than she did Edmund’s, which, frankly, both bothered and pleased him.
“Unlike my brother,” he started, replacing the apple with great care in its rightful place in the fruit bowl, “I’ve not yet met a lovely heiress to fulfill my marital… expectations.”
For a split second he thought she might actually laugh. She blinked and rubbed her lips together, then sat forward and placed her arms on the table, palms down, her mug just beneath her chin.
“For a man bound to his duty, your grace, I’m amazed that you can afford to be so picky when a bride had to have been chosen for you years ago. Are you telling me there are no eligible ladies of gentle breeding who are willing to succumb to your good charms?”
He didn’t know whether to snap back in irritation or chuckle from her ingenuity. But he felt certain that Olivia Shea was purposely teasing him, the first step in a more relaxed stand between them.
“A bride was chosen for me, the very lovely Lady Rowena Downsbury, daughter of the Earl of Layton. But alas, in the end she did the unthinkable and eloped with an American sea captain, sailing to the United States five weeks before our wedding.”
“How positively scandalous,” she murmured, her wide eyes sparkling from a combination of lamplight and awe.
He grinned dryly, drumming his fingertips on the tabletop to reply, “You’ve absolutely no idea.”
She said nothing for another minute, absorbing the details, it seemed. Then her smile faded a little. “I suppose that must have hurt you. Emotionally, I mean.”
He frowned fractionally and tilted his head to the side. “Hurt me? No. I only wish she’d left sooner, saving me the money I’d spent on wedding and honeymoon arrangements. Of course in the end her father lost the most and remained the angriest.”
“Naturally.”
Sam straightened when her sarcasm hit home, though he had to wonder if she took aim at him or her father.
“I was not in love with Rowena,” he explained, then wished at once he could take that ridiculous statement back.
She smiled fractionally. “I wouldn’t have thought that you were. Marriage isn’t about love, especially in our class.” She folded her hands in her lap. “I’ve learned my lesson well, your grace. Never trust a man who says he is in love with you.”
Such an announcement irked him irrationally—and indescribably. “I suppose Edmund told you he was.”
“In love with me?”
“Did he?”
She eyed him directly, lashes narrowed as if she studied him to evaluate his trust. Or deception.
“I have been wooed by many men, your grace,” she replied evenly, returning to a bit of formality between them. “Most of them desired either my… innocence, or my inheritance, for nefarious purposes. Fortunately, until I met Edmund, I was blessed with a keen mind where men are concerned and was quite able to resist them.”
“But not Edmund.”
She thought about that for a second or two. “Edmund was different.”
“You mean he behaved differently?” he prodded with growing interest.
“Yes, in a manner of speaking.” She frowned. “He didn’t…he didn’t react to my appearance like other gentlemen, which, I admit, had me a little perplexed in the beginning. I suppose it appealed to my vanity to make him notice me.”
That truly shocked him. “You’re telling me, madam, that he didn’t take notice of your unusual beauty?”
His frankness made her blush. He could see the pinkness fill her cheeks even in lamplight, and the look was striking, affecting him again at a base level, which he tried hard to ignore.
After rubbing her nose with the back of her hand and brushing her palms across her lap, she shifted uncomfortably in her chair, crossing one leg over the other. “Not exactly.” She hesitated, then continued. “Edmund told me he thought I looked lovely on many occasions, but it’s more complex than that. He took a rather…peculiar interest in me. He seemed to thoroughly enjoy my company, and liked
to be seen with me socially. But he—” She shrugged and shook her head. “It’s very hard to explain.”
He nodded, then urged, “And yet I really need to know.”
She wasn’t sure if she believed him. He could sense it, see it in her wavering gaze. But his persuading seemed to work.
“He took little interest in my family, my past, but he cared immensely about my abilities as a businesswoman and my work at Nivan,” she carried on slowly, voice lowered. “He seemed very proud of me, my appearance, my accomplishments. But he…he didn’t think of me…”
She paused once more, fidgeting with her hands in her lap.
Sam waited, finding her embarrassment altogether charming and enjoying the moment far more than he knew he should. And he was, quite frankly, fascinated by this revelation.
Her lashes fluttered downward; she couldn’t look at him.
“Although Edmund said he loved me, and that he married me for love, he never seemed to discover… passion with me. There was nothing remotely passionate about our relationship. I admit that after a while that bothered me.”
For the first time in years Sam sat motionless, stumped beyond words. “I see,” was the only response he could think of.
After another slight hesitation, she looked up again, directly at him, breathing deeply for confidence. “You have to understand, sir, that when I met your brother, and he reacted as a gentleman should in all ways, I found it refreshing. I was… drawn to him because he seemed to genuinely… like me. There was something different, something… friendly about the marriage that appealed to me.”
Now he understood. Sort of. “It sounds very much like a marriage of convenience.”
“With all things considered, sir, marriage to your brother wasn’t—and hasn’t been—all that convenient.”
That quick comeback amused him. “No, I suppose not.”
After a moment of silence her brows drew together in reflection. “Edmund said he loved me, and I believed him. But since he’s left I’ve come to realize that it’s more accurate to say he liked me, but he loved only what he loved about me. Does that make sense?”
Only to a woman. “Not exactly,” he replied.
She expelled an irritated sigh and rubbed her forehead at her temples with both hands. “What I mean is, Edmund loved—wanted—what he loved about me—my wealth, my appearance, my intelligence, my social standing, my contacts in the community. Maybe even the power of Nivan as a business patronized by the empress. But in the end, even though Edmund found me enjoyable to be with, he never loved what I truly am. He never loved me. I only wish I had realized that before I spoke my vows.”
His chair creaked under him as Sam sat forward, elbows on knees, and clasped his hands together in front of him. “He used you, Olivia.”
She sat straighter in her seat, eyeing him defiantly. “That’s putting it rather simplistically.”
He shrugged. “And yet, in a word, that’s exactly what he did. Married you for everything but you.”
For the first time since he’d met her, she seemed on the verge of tears, blinking excessively and gazing at the ceiling for a few long seconds. Frankly, he loathed it when a woman cried, and yet this time it almost seemed appropriate. It was a defining moment, because in that instant he decided he felt something for her beyond the extremes of irritation and lust. She had roused a compassion in him that he didn’t think he’d experienced for a woman before, although rationally he admitted to himself that such a feeling came from the fact that she was now his responsibility. At least he hoped that’s where it came from. Then again, she could be playing him for a fool; most women tried to. Being compassionate certainly didn’t mean letting his guard down where she was concerned.
She cleared her throat and shook her hair back again. “Most people of our class marry for those reasons, your grace. This is nothing new. I was, and am, prepared to experience a solid marriage without romantic notions or love. I don’t need that to be satisfied.”
“Yes, but most ladies who marry for convenience, or arrangement, get something in return for the lack of romantic interest from their husbands. Whether there is love or not, they gain satisfaction from the stability of the union, from their children, family, social causes related to the marriage. My brother apparently left you with nothing, and that not only seems unfair, it’s deceitful.”
Instead of breaking down, as he expected any other lady might have, she tipped her head to the side a fraction and gazed at him thoughtfully for a moment or two, eyes narrowed and just a trace of a smile appearing on her lips.
“Apparently?” she repeated very softly.
“Yes,” he murmured.
He hadn’t wanted her to catch that inference. But at this point he couldn’t lie about the skepticism that remained regarding her disclosures about his brother. Whether he liked her or not, he wasn’t about to completely believe her without proof. For all he knew, she and Edmund were in this together as co-conspirators, though the more acquainted he and Olivia became, the less he thought it likely. Still, he wasn’t about to let her know that yet.
She continued to eye him expectantly for a few seconds longer, seemingly waiting for him to explain. When at last she must have realized that he had no intention of doing so, she offered him a knowing nod or two and wearily stood. They’d reached an impasse.
“I have brandy, if you’d prefer that,” she offered softly.
He slowly pushed his fingers through his hair. “Prefer that?”
“To the warm milk.” She swallowed. “To help you sleep.”
Awkward silence reigned, though Sam could hardly say the room, or the apartment, was quiet, given the variances of city noise—laughter, drunken singing, and the like—drifting in from the street below. Yet that hardly mattered when not only her scrutiny but her sweetness captured him suddenly, drawing him in, enveloping him in an unanticipated, static charge of total awareness.
Her eyes widened and she gripped her empty mug between her palms.
She feels it too…
“No thank you,” he whispered, slowly raising himself and moving forward a step to stand in front of her. “I’m sure I’ll doze off eventually.”
He gazed down to her face, noting the smoothness of her complexion, the hesitancy in her eyes, her pulse beating rapidly in her temple.
Edmund might lose.
It was a stunning, explosive idea, and the satisfaction he felt at that moment, coupled with a myriad of confusing possibilities, overwhelmed him.
Edmund had taken Claudette. And here his brother’s wife stood before him, sweet and innocent and uncommonly beautiful, fighting the urge to be seduced. But would such a game work if Edmund didn’t want her?
“Are you off to bed, then?” she asked, interrupting his thoughts with a delicate crease in her forehead.
He shook himself back to the moment. “I am, Lady Olivia,” he replied with a slight, formal nod.
Her lips pulled back into a gentle smile. “Livi.”
She had mesmerizing lips. “Pardon?”
“Those who know me best call me Livi,” she said softly.
They simply looked at each other for a few seconds more, then she withdrew first by leaning over to extinguish the lamp, offering him a fast but captivating view of the movement of bare breasts beneath her cotton nightgown.
God, how could Edmund not want her?
“Good night, Livi.”
In total darkness she replied in whisper, “Sleep well, Sam.”
He turned away from her and left the kitchen, walking silently back to the guest room by pale moonlight through shuttered windows, aroused and uncomfortable, his mind on only one thing:
Edmund has already lost.
Chapter 7
It was a lovely day for a tour, at least seasonally speaking. The predawn showers had given way to brilliant sunshine and dewy fresh air, promising a day of warmth to bathe the bustling city. Of course, she had slept fitfully after their rather friendly discussion of the night b
efore, tossing and turning between the sheets, her mind racing, filled with the continuous, confusing, and positively… indecent thoughts of him. So much for enjoying springtime. And the warm milk obviously hadn’t worked.
Her personal maid, Marie-Nicole, Normand’s youngest daughter at fifteen, had arrived at precisely seven o’clock, as she did every morning, to help her with her toilette and the donning of her dress, today’s choice being a modest yellow chiffon day gown with a raised, square neckline of white lace and puffed half sleeves. After braiding her hair into two loops and lifting them to fasten daintily on top of her head with mother-of-pearl combs, Marie-Nicole departed, leaving her alone to face the Duke of Durham.
He walked beside her now as they left her apartments for the boutique where she would be giving him a basic understanding of the history and necessity of perfume and its industry. Theirs had been a rather fast breakfast, more silence than awkwardness between them, both taking coffee, fruit, and cheese but keeping conversation to a minimum. Olivia supposed they were both a bit uncomfortable after the shared verbal intimacy of the night before, though perhaps it was more accurate to describe him as distracted.
In truth, she had enjoyed their time together last evening. He hadn’t seemed to notice her bedtime wear, which, under the circumstance, wasn’t exactly indecent since her nightgown covered her from chin to toe. He, on the other hand, held her captivated by his casual attire and somewhat more open demeanor. She had never been in the presence of a man half dressed before, even her husband. Then again, her brother-in-law hadn’t been exactly exposed, either. He’d worn trousers and a shirt, but his feet were bare, and she could scarcely avoid staring at his magnificent chest, where a trace of dark hair had escaped the low vee at his neck. She only hoped he hadn’t noticed her preoccupation with his person. He hadn’t seemed to, anyway, at least not until the very end of the conversation when that shiver of… something passed between them.
Duke of Scandal Page 9