“It has been over six months since you acquired the debt, but much more than that since the debt has been owed,” said the second man, not quite as affable as the first. “You have had more than enough time. Your debt is due. Besides that, did you not recently marry the daughter of an earl of means? Surely she came with a pretty dowry that could more than cover what you owe.”
“I will not use my wife’s money to pay off my father’s debts.”
“Your wife’s money? ‘Tis yours now.” The man looked at him, perplexed.
“Be that as it may, I shall pay my own debt back without any help,” Alastair insisted. He sighed. Olivia had made one point that he should follow through on. “May I pay you installments?”
The man tilted his head, considering his words.
“May I speak with my colleague in the corridor?”
Alastair nodded. When they returned, they agreed to terms of installments, however first required a lump sum to be paid within the week. A sum that Alastair currently did not have, aside from Olivia’s dowry. He nodded his head grimly. He would find a way. There was no other choice.
Alastair rang for the butler to show the men out and post the letter he had composed to Mr. Scott, but as he addressed the enveloped he realized he would be passing by the journal’s office when he took Anne to the modiste’s shop. He tucked it into his pocket, and decided to take it himself.
As the carriage trundled down the cobbled roads of London, Alastair regarded his sister and decided it had been a wise decision to invite her along. Had she not accompanied him, he would be stewing in his own despondency. Instead, she chattered away incessantly about everything and yet nothing in particular. She told him of Lady this and Lord that, and who were supposed to make the best matches throughout the season. Guilt washed over him as he realized how he had neglected her, with first his father’s death and then his own hasty marriage. Her first season had been cut rather short due to the former duke’s passing, and her return this season had been put on hold due to his mother still being in mourning. Now, however, it was time for him to focus on determining how she could best make a match, and what she wanted of her life.
“Anne, what sort of man are you interested in marrying?” he asked her, noting how her cheeks flushed a deep pink at his question.
“Oh, I’m not entirely sure,” she said, suddenly extremely interested in the material of her muslin gown, picking at its threads in her lap. “Whoever you best deem to suit, I suppose, and whoever might be interested in me.”
He regarded his sister. She was a pretty thing, her tawny hair pulled away from her face, with eyes a mixture between his own green and a light hazel staring back at him. He had never looked at her as anything other than a child, really, and yet he realized she was likely more ready and interested in marriage than he had ever been.
“Is there a man in particular you have set your sights on?” he asked, raising his eyebrows as he bade her to look at him.
“Perhaps,” she said, chewing on her bottom lip. “However, I do not wish to discuss it.”
“Why ever not?” he asked. “Mayhap I could arrange an introduction following your return. Do I know the lucky gentleman?”
“You do know him,” she said. “But please, Alastair, leave it be. He hardly acknowledges my existence, and I should not like to embarrass myself.”
“All right,” he said with a shrug. “Should you change your mind, you have only to tell me and I shall see what can be done.”
She gave him a small, wistful smile. “Thank you, Alastair.”
They made a few stops, at his barrister and his tailor, before traveling onto the modiste Anne so loved on Bond Street.
“I will meet you within shortly,” he said to his sister. “I have merely to deliver a note to the office of the journal next door.” As she nodded, the carriage came to a slow in front of the nondescript Financial Register. Alastair alighted from the carriage and turned to help Anne out.
“I say, Alastair,” she said as she poked her head out of the door, “but is that not Olivia?”
He turned and saw only a volume of skirts through the front window of the office. He helped Anne down and led her to the front of the office, where they peered through the window.
“It is her! Should we enter and speak to her?” Anne asked, but Alastair answered her with a shake of his head, pulling her away so she wouldn’t be seen.
“No, we shall remain out here,” he said. “Keep yourself back from the window. I am mightily curious as to what my wife is doing at such an office, if it is her as you say.”
Somehow he knew it was. The woman was forever in places and situations where she had no business being involved.
He kept himself and Anne tucked in the shadows of the building. Anne giggled. “Alastair, I feel as though I am involved in espionage!” She said before he shushed her. As he saw Olivia, her friend Isabella in tow, step away from the desk of the man inside, Alastair all but pushed his sister into the nearby dress shop, where he hid behind a mannequin attired in a brilliant arrangement the color of a sunrise.
He looked up to see Anne laughing at him.
“Would it really be so difficult to simply speak with Olivia?” she asked. “Look at yourself Alastair, you are hiding behind a dress in a modiste’s shop.”
He quelled her into silence with his glare, though a small smile remained on her face. “Take your time in here,” he said. “I shall return shortly.”
Ensuring Olivia was nowhere to be seen, he entered The Financial Register, bidding the man within a good day.
“I have correspondence for the columnist P.J. Scott,” he said. “Would you ensure he receives it?”
“Of course, sir,” said the rather round man in front of him. “Though it is quite unfortunate timing. The man’s secretary was here but moments ago. She shall not likely return until next week.”
“His secretary? Are you referring to the blonde woman who was here, accompanied by another woman?”
“She’s the one,” he answered with a nod. “I’ve never met the man. He’s a peculiar one, though clearly brilliant. He will not leave an address, so I’ve no method of contacting him directly. He only sends the woman, who returns every week to retrieve any correspondence and his pay, and to submit the column for the following edition. Not that I overly mind. She’s a beauty, and a kind one at that.”
Alastair processed the man’s information as he purchased the latest journal, one he had not yet read. As he did so, he noted two envelopes lying on the man’s desk. One, in fact, bore his name. As he looked closer, he realized the handwriting was somewhat familiar, and he took note of it as he returned outside with his journal. He sat on a bench outside the shops as he waited for Anne and turned the pages, soon finding the latest column by P.J. Scott. It was, as always, witty and humorous while offering sound advice and wisdom that was, more or less, common sense spelled out. What was Olivia doing working as the man’s secretary when she —
A smile bloomed across his face as a sudden realization washed over him, hitting him like a slap across the cheek. What a fool he had been. No wonder Olivia had been so upset when he pushed away her advice. He had thought her interest one of a woman who wanted only to meddle in his affairs. Instead, she had been offering expertise to help him and had resorted to corresponding in letters under a pseudonym in order to get through to him. He realized now she had tried to disguise her handwriting in her notes to him, but when he now connected his wife with the writer, the samples would be close enough.
He shook his head. Not only had she saved him with her skill at the card tables, but she was also single handedly saving his entire estate from ruin. What had he done in return? Nothing but rebuked her sensible logic.
His wife was P.J. Scott. Imagine that. He shook his head. What a woman. His admiration for her, as much as it had been to begin with, increased sevenfold. The fact was, he had never told her what he thought of her, what he felt for her. Indeed, he had tried to show her with ph
ysical loving, but that had not been enough for her. It was no fault but his own that she was gone.
Now, he must make things right. He knew he did not deserve such a woman, but he would spend the rest of his life trying to live up to what she wanted, what she needed in a husband. Knowing she was at his old friend Bradley Hainsworth’s London home, he would go to her, and beg for her forgiveness.
“Anne!” he called loudly, running into the modiste’s, where women turned to look at him as if he had gone quite mad. His sister looked up at him from where the woman was fitting her. “We’ll take whatever it is she wants. Deliver when it’s ready,” he shouted to the woman. “Come, Anne, we must retrieve my wife!”
24
For how long have you been the secretary of Mr. P.J. Scott?”
Olivia and Isabella exited the office of The Financial Register together, Isabella’s curiosity of her double life apparently stoked by the actual trip to the journal.
“Just short of a year now,” Olivia admitted. “I did not necessarily set out for it to become a secret life, but rather I was unsure of how to tell even my closest friends. For it is not a typical pastime for a young woman, that is for certain, and if too many people were to find out — well, it could be the end of P.J. Scott. My greatest wish is for my work to be regarded for itself, not due to who is writing it.”
Isabella nodded. “That is understandable. And Alastair has no inkling?”
Olivia gave a short bark of laughter. “None whatsoever. Anytime I even tried to broach the subject of finances with him he would brush it off as the silly, random thoughts of a woman without enough to occupy her time. No, Alastair has no idea. He is, however, a rather avid fan of P.J. Scott, which is how our correspondence began. Perhaps he would respect the work if I told him, but it has been a lie for too long now.”
Olivia had informed Isabella about the letters exchanged with Alastair, and how she was able to provide him advice. She did not, however, provide the full detail of Alastair’s financial affairs. As close a friend as Isabella was, it was not for Olivia to share.
“And we just delivered your final correspondence to him?”
“Yes,” Olivia said, keeping her head high so as not to show the hollow feeling that entered her when she thought of another bond between them broken. “I took the opportunity to tell him some things that I felt he should know, that he would not care coming from his wife, but would hold in esteem from a man he deemed important enough to confide in. I have also decided that I will no longer write for The Financial Register. If I am to return to Alastair’s home, despite the fact we will no longer truly be living as husband and wife, it will become too difficult to hide the truth from him, and therefore I am finished with it.”
Olivia saw the concern across her friend’s face as she seemingly picked up on her hurt, anger, and regret, though Isabella said nothing of it.
“Shall we now join Rosalind for tea?” she asked. “We are to meet at Gunter’s within the hour.”
“Absolutely,” answered Olivia. “I am looking forward to it.”
The teashop was in Mayfair, and when they arrived, Isabella instructed her driver to meet them in two hours time. When they entered through the doorway they found Rosalind was waiting for them in the crowd of the shop, and once they decided on ices and sorbets, they took them outdoors to Berkeley Park across the way. Rosalind and Olivia had not seen one another since the Duchess of Stowe’s ball, and she seemed quite concerned over Olivia’s disappearance.
“Whatever happened?” she asked, once they were seated on a bench and pleasantries had been exchanged.
Olivia told her what she had seen, what Frances Davenport had told her, and a look of bemusement came over Rosalind. “You say you saw him with Lady Hester Montgomery in the gardens at the beginning of the seventh set?” she asked. “For it was but moments afterward when he came round the ballroom looking for you. I had not seen you in a few minutes, but it cannot have been long after you left.”
Olivia shrugged. “I suppose I could have come upon them at the end of their dalliance,” she said. “However long the duration, it does not matter. Now, Rosalind, tell us about your viscount. Have you decided when you are to be married?”
Finished with their ices, they rose and began to stroll through the park, their discussions now on wedding preparations and Lord Harold Brecken, who Olivia was not fond of, though she would never tell Rosalind for she seemed so enamored with him. They were deep in conversation when a tall shadow came to rest on the grass in front of them.
“What have we here?” came a familiar voice. “Three of the most beautiful women in all of London together in one park?”
“Billy!” Olivia exclaimed, thrilled to see her friend. “How wonderful to see you. Would you care to join us?”
“Please do, Mr. Tell,” added Rosalind, but he gave a shake of his head in regret.
“As much as I would like nothing better than your company, I must be off to meet a friend,” he responded. “I am sorry, Olivia, that I did not have the opportunity to converse with you at the Duchess of Stowe’s ball the other night. Your husband, however, is becoming quite proficient at his card games. We spent some time in the library, where he won a pretty penny off me, until he realized the time had passed to escort you in a dance. I cannot imagine from where he has suddenly become rather gifted in the likes of whist and piquet. Perhaps he has enlisted a mentor.”
He winked at her as he twirled his hat in the air. “Good day, ladies,” he said, and he turned on his heel and walked out of the park to his waiting carriage, Rosalind staring after him with bright cheeks and a wistful look in her eye that Olivia almost missed, so preoccupied she was with what Billy had said. She soon forgot about Rosalind’s stare, however, as Isabella captured her attention.
“Olivia, it seems that Alastair was with Billy the entire night,” she said to Olivia. “He must have retired to the library following his dance with Hester, and remained there until he came looking for you and Rosalind saw him.”
A sense of relief floated over Olivia as she registered the information. “He was never with Hester,” she murmured. “I never saw his face in the gardens, I just assumed it was him.” Her face fell, as the relief was soon replaced with a roiling guilt. “How stupid I was. I allowed Hester and Frances to manipulate me into thinking so poorly of Alastair. A few choice words from Frances, a glimpse of Hester in the garden and I came to a conclusion that was entirely false. I left Alastair because of it. Oh blast it all, what have I done?”
She looked at her friends in horror, aghast at her actions and her own stupidity.
“I pride myself on my intellect. I give people advice. I make fun of the silly nitwits of the ton. And yet I fell into a trap that should not have fooled even the most gullible of women. Why did I not trust him?”
Isabella placed a hand over hers to stem the words that continued to flow. “Do not be so hard on yourself. The strength of our emotions have the power to overcome all of our rational thought and common sense. The love you feel for him, the fear that he would revert to his previous ways, perhaps the doubt in your relationship with him, all led to your conclusions. You cannot change what has happened, but you can better your future.”
Olivia nodded, her fears somewhat alleviated by her friend’s gentle tone. “What does it mean, however, that he never came after me? Did it not bother him that I was gone?”
Isabella tilted her head and regarded her without judgment but with her practical advice that Olivia could always rely on. “You left without a word to him. Perhaps he was hurt, or unsure of what sort of reception to expect from you. There is no way to truly know for certain unless you ask him yourself.”
Olivia nodded, resolve flooding through her. “I must make things right. I will make things right.” A sudden thought entered her mind and she looked about for the carriage. “I must return to your house immediately, Isabella. Do you mind awfully, Rosalind? I am sorry for leaving so suddenly.”
“Not at
all!” her friend replied. “In fact, I insist. Be honest with him, Olivia. Tell him you love him, and then you will know for sure what you wish to do going forward.”
Olivia nodded, fear burning through her at the thought of telling Alastair how she felt, only for him to not return her sentiments. Rosalind and Isabella were right, however. They must be forthright and honest with one another if she was to have the marriage she had always wanted.
Returning home with Anne, Alastair escorted her into the house and bid good day to his mother. “I shall return shortly,” he said. “I am off to visit Olivia.”
“Oh, splendid,” his mother said. “Please tell her we miss her.”
Alastair nodded in response, a lump in his throat. Olivia had brought so much light and brightness to their home. She had become one of their family so quickly, her presence had left a hole that only she could fill.
He was doffing his hat once again when the butler came striding down the corridor to deposit the day’s mail in Alastair’s study.
“A boy just delivered a letter to you, Your Grace, from The Financial Register,” the man said. “You had previously asked that I notify you whenever correspondence arrived from the journal.”
Alastair had previously been most interested in the financial advice he was receiving; now he was quite pleased that he had been so eager for the letters for an entirely different reason.
He followed the man into his study, and sat back in his wide chair as he found his letter opener and ripped open the seal. A smile spread over his face as he read the contents of the letter, warmth enveloping his heart as his eyes roved over the carefully written words.
She cared for him. She must, if the letter was any indication. Not only that, but now as he read the wit within the wording of the letter, the intellect behind what she said, he was overcome with the brilliance of the woman he had married. He had previously known of her joyful approach to life and her headstrong ways, but there was so much more to the woman that he could have never expected. His thoughts returned to his first days of marriage, how concerned he had been to be trapped into a life with one woman. Now, he realized that this one woman was more than he ever needed, or even truly deserved. Her inner strength shone brighter than anyone — man or woman — he had ever met, and he would be blessed to spend the rest of his life by her side, if he could only convince her to have him once more.
He's a Duke, But I Love Him Page 16