Chapter 13
Next day
Olivia squinted and contemplated the cup of coffee before her.
On a usual morning, she took it sweet and creamy. Today, black and bitter tempted the part of her that needed a cleansing, the pleasures of life stripped away. As a lesson in denial.
She risked one tiny sip, then another, and attempted to, if not like, then, at least, accept the strident brew as her penance. Her face scrunched up, and her resolve slipped away. She reached for the cream and sugar. Just a little. To soften the edge.
What was the use in denial anyway? Look where it had gotten her last night: inside her studio, evidence of her denial strewn about the walls for him to see. That was one form her denial had taken.
Of course, it could be said that denial had saved her from herself last night, if not from another restless night. The dark circles beneath her eyes attested to the fact.
And then there was a separate, but related, fact that had plagued her into the night: apart from what they’d done, and not done in her studio, what had the dratted man been doing there in the first place?
Lucy bounded into the room on a wave of bright energy. “Good morning, Mum.” She landed a fat kiss on Olivia’s cheek and plopped into her usual seat. “Last night was a raging success. Definitely the best soirée you’ve held in ages.”
“Oh?” Olivia replied. She couldn’t agree with her daughter. She remembered it as an exercise in humiliation.
A bit more than humiliation, a tiny voice reminded her. As if she needed reminding.
“Mum?”
A particular, tentative note in Lucy’s voice sounded Olivia’s motherly alarm. “What is the matter?”
“Last night,” Lucy began and stopped.
Tension coiled inside Olivia. Was it possible that Lucy had seen her with Lord St. Alban? “Yes?”
“Cousin Hugh mistook Miss Radclyffe for a servant.”
Relief surged through Olivia, even as her stomach sank. “Oh, no.”
“I’ve never felt more ashamed in my life.”
“Lulu, it’s not your shame, dearest.” Olivia reached for her daughter’s hand and gave it a squeeze.
“I feel ashamed for Hugh and people like him,” Lucy said, her reticence shifting into passion with each word she spoke. “I’m ashamed that I belong to those people.”
“You can’t control the attitudes and prejudices of others, only your own. I’m certain Miss Radclyffe understands this. Besides,” Olivia continued, “anyone who has ever met you knows that you belong wholly and only to yourself.”
The beginnings of a smile hung about Lucy’s lips, but Olivia could see that her daughter’s heart wasn’t in it. Then Lucy glanced at a point to the left of her plate, and the smile that had begun, dropped. It was another letter from Percy. Lucy slid it out of sight and began buttering her toast with a bit too much force, the knife a determined, choppy scrape across its brown surface.
The Duke strolled into the room, a whistle on his lips, and took his customary place across from Olivia.
“Good morning, Your Grace,” Olivia said. “Isn’t today Monday? Shouldn’t you be breaking your fast with Lord Exeter?”
“Michael needed to move our breakfast to tomorrow.” The Duke’s smile reached all the way to his eyes. “Alas, you will have to put up with me this morning.”
Olivia couldn’t help but return his smile. “You’re always welcome at our table.”
Six days a week, the Duke took his breakfast with Olivia and Lucy in their apartment in the east wing. The seventh day was reserved for his heir and Percy’s elder brother, Michael, the Marquess of Exeter, and his ever-increasing family in the west wing, which they had gradually taken over. At last count, there were five boys, the eldest of whom was Hugh, second in line to the dukedom behind his father. It was a boisterous table in the west wing, which even Lucy at her most precocious couldn’t match.
Usually, Olivia enjoyed easing into the day across from the Duke and Lucy, but not today. Today, she would feel more at ease breaking her fast in a hole in the ground.
“Still reading nonsense, I see.” The Duke picked up his serious-minded Morning Chronicle and gave his eyebrows a waggle.
Olivia lifted her copy of the London Diary a notch higher. “Now and then, everyone needs a little nonsense in their lives, Your Grace.”
“Not according to Miss Scace,” Lucy piped up, her mouth crammed full of strawberry jam and toast.
Olivia was relieved to find her daughter somewhat restored to her usual ebullient self. The world could be such a foul and ugly place.
“Miss Scace says,” Lucy continued, “that every bit of nonsense one puts into one’s brain”—She now mimicked the no-nonsense Miss Scace through her mouthful of toast—“forces out ten bits of good sense.” She washed down her toast with a gulp of tea. “Or something like that.”
Olivia suppressed the impulse to laugh outright at her impertinent daughter. “I’m certain she is absolutely correct, but, at times, I enjoy taking a little nonsense with my morning brew. Now, eat up, Lulu, you’re off in five minutes.”
“Oh, Mumsy, make it ten,” Lucy whined, holding up a book, “I must complete this chapter before school, or I shall expire from anticipation. Drummond will understand. He always does.”
“And what does the venerable Miss Scace have to say about that bit of nonsense you’re reading?” the Duke asked, his eyes shining with good humor.
“This?” She held up Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto. Olivia had been equally fascinated with that novel at Lucy’s age. “She says it’s the worst sort, I’m afraid. A gothic romance.” Lucy shivered dramatically and stuffed the rest of the toast into her mouth before opening her book and becoming instantly engrossed.
The Duke shook his head in silent indulgence and returned his attention to his morning paper. Olivia squelched a pang of guilt before it surfaced. Contrary to Lord St. Alban’s belief, she wasn’t acting behind the Duke’s back to secure her townhouse. She was exercising her right to pursue her future independently. She didn’t expect a viscount to understand that which he took for granted every day of his privileged, male life.
Speaking of Lord St. Alban . . .
Her pulse quickened. It was entirely possible that he could stride into this room at any moment. As the Duke’s protégé, of course. Not as her . . .
One kiss didn’t make him that. No matter that he might have been if Mrs. Landry hadn’t done God’s work and interrupted them. Denial came in many forms.
Olivia stifled the humiliated groan that wanted release. How was she ever to face him again? How badly did she want her own townhouse? How badly did she want her independence?
She could endure the shame of facing him again. What wouldn’t she endure for a life dependent on no one for her well-being and happiness?
Why didn’t her goal ring as true today as it had yesterday?
“Mum?” A quizzical Lucy stood at Olivia’s side. “I said I’m leaving now.”
“Oh, yes, dearest. Love you,” she replied to Lucy’s retreating back. This left her alone with the Duke. She peeled away the buttery layers of her croissant until it was nothing more than a flaky mess on her plate. “Will Lord St. Alban be joining us this morning?” The question hadn’t aired quite as nonchalantly as she’d hoped.
The Duke peered at her over the top of his paper. “He sent a note around this morning that he had other matters to attend.”
“Ah,” she replied.
“In fact,” the Duke continued, his gaze fixed upon his newspaper, “I’d be shocked if he returned at all. At least, for my mentorship. Other reasons might bring him back.”
Her heart gave a solid kick. “I can’t imagine.”
“No?” the Duke returned, but remained otherwise silent, leaving her to stew.
It had gone too far, and now the Duke sensed something between her and Lord St. Alban. She must find a way to put an end to whatever it was, but how? She was being swept along by a force entirely out of her control and beyond her experience: her desire.
She needed to be alone. She pushed away from the table and stood. “I shall be in my studio if you need me.”
Her feet carried her through the maze of corridors leading to her studio. But the closer she drew to her destination, the heavier, the more leaden, her feet became. She wouldn’t be alone in her studio, not really, for he had taken it over. In more ways than one after last night. Even in the privacy of her apartments, her face flamed.
What she needed was a restorative rest. Small wonder she was anxious. She hadn’t had a proper night’s sleep all week. Well, she would remedy that deficit immediately. Instead of pointing right toward her studio, her feet went left and didn’t stop until she reached her bed.
She hadn’t avoided her studio—and the evidence of her denial—at all.
~ ~ ~
The dream hadn’t come to her in years.
It was the night of Olivia and Mariana’s debut ball. Olivia had never seen her parents’ ballroom illuminated so magnificently: light casting halos about the hundreds of guests, the servants, too; champagne bubbles effervescing their way up crystal flutes in a glittery little dance; and the chandeliers were too brilliant for words. They sparkled. They glimmered. They twinkled. They received the light and threw it out in a million little ways.
At the head of the grand staircase, she gazed across the crowded ballroom, excitable nerves clanging about her body. This great multitude of people was here for her. She brushed her fingertips across the diamond brooch pinned just below her shoulder. Hundreds of sapphires of varying sizes and shapes set in platinum formed a perfect closed rosebud, one petal peeking open, on the edge of coming into full bloom. Mother and Father had given Mariana a nearly identical brooch, hers in rubies and gold.
Mother’s steadying hand squeezed her shoulder. “Are you ready, dearest?”
She nodded. She was too full of light and life to speak, to do anything other than glow and smile.
The orchestra struck up yet another waltz. She and Mariana had requested no music other than waltzes be played tonight, and their parents had indulged the slightly scandalous request. The night was perfect. Almost. But for one person she’d prayed would be here . . .
Mariana, cheeks flushed with high color, rushed up the staircase toward her. “Olivia!” she breathed out, each syllable a short burst. “He’s here!”
A rush of anticipation clamored through her veins, heating her up, body and mind. He was the boy, the young man, they’d spotted on Rotten Row, not once, but three separate times this week. Little conversations here and there revealed him to be the Duke of Arundel’s youngest son, up from Cambridge.
The mere sight of him had made her heart miss every other beat. What would it be like to be near him? Were his dark brown eyes as deep and soulful up close as they were from afar? She wanted to be close to him and far, far away from him all at once.
Her gaze roved across the tops of heads until she, too, spotted him, laughing and joking with a group of his friends gathered round in a jocular circle. She’d never seen him without a smile in his eyes or a laugh ready on his lips. It was possible that she had enough light inside her to illuminate this entire room, all of London.
She stepped forward in his direction and a staying hand clamped onto her shoulder. A vaguely familiar voice whispered in her ear. “You need not be in such a rush.”
But when she turned toward the voice, she saw no one there. Without another second’s hesitation, she took Mariana’s arm in her own, and the two of them flitted across the ballroom floor.
~ ~ ~
It was here, at this point in the dream, that an older Olivia began watching her younger self from across the room. Young Olivia looked straight through her. She always did, never seeing her older self.
Of course, her younger self never saw or heard anything that deviated from her own wishes and desires. Such a willful girl. A girl who had never known any troubles, therefore couldn’t anticipate any.
As Young Olivia and Mariana floated toward Percy’s group, she tried calling out again, “Dance with a few others first. You never know . . .” she trailed off.
It was no use. Olivia watched Young Olivia dare to introduce herself to Lord Percival Bretagne under the censorious gaze of the ton. A willful, spirited, even foolhardy, girl. The ton’s critical eye soon turned adoring as they watched Young Olivia and Percy fall instantly and madly in love. A genuine love match, a testament to true love within their ranks . . . the kind of love that had eluded so many. Within the hour, they would be the Sweethearts of the Season.
A wave of melancholy stole through her. She would like to wake up now. This dream always ended the same.
In the next instant, her body shifted in sleep, and a riot of conflicting sensation—hot, cold, parched, wet—swept over her. It was the thrill of anticipation, and it drew in toward one specific point in her body: the apex of her thighs. Her legs kicked the sheets off her body, too hot, too sensate. This was new to the dream.
Then she felt it. A presence, sensuous and demanding, hovering behind her. She didn’t need to see him. She knew him. She should feel shame, but she didn’t. Brazen, unabashed pleasure at the perversity of experiencing him in front of the entire ton spread through her. Not that they saw her. They only had eyes for Young Olivia, their darling.
A gorgeous, capable hand snaked around her waist and pulled her backward, leaving her no choice but to melt into his hard, unforgiving length. His breath traced a warm trail across the back of her neck, his mouth teasing but never touching, releasing goose bumps down the length of her spine. She was one exhalation away from madness, desiring only that his lips touch her skin.
How could he be so close, yet so far out of reach? Frustration, demand, need, all kicked inside her, clamoring for release. Would he never give her what she needed?
At last, his lips found the nape of her neck, and his hands tightened at her waist before roving up to her breasts, cupping them, his fingertips taking her nipples between them, squeezing them through the fabric of her dress. Her head arched back in mindless abandon.
Through a haze, filtered by lust and hunger, she watched her younger self accept Percy’s arm as he led her to the dance floor.
Then, his mouth found her ear, and she was lost, utterly lost. That boy across the room had never made her feel like this. But, then, he and Young Olivia had never known the other capable of this level of sensuality.
The expanse between them and herself and him stretched beyond the span of a ballroom to a distance of a hundred miles. Suddenly, Percy and Young Olivia were dressed for their wedding day. She wanted to cry out, to warn her younger self that the extraordinary, unique feeling would begin dissolving, moment by moment, day by day . . .
Then he pulled at the fabric of her skirts, pulled her attention toward him, toward matters more urgent, and began lifting the fabric, fold over fold, until her ankles . . . her calves . . . her thighs . . . her mons pubis were exposed. He operated not by sight, but by an expertise driven by instinct and demand, his gorgeous, capable fingers trailing across her hips, branding her with their touch, locating a bud, taut, wet, wanton, orgastic—
A loud moan erupted from her throat, and her eyes flew open . . .
To find herself alone in her bedroom, bed sheets twisted around her ankles, morning dress tangled above her waist, hand clenched between her thighs.
She flung her arms above her head and released a moan borne of dissatisfaction and denial. She’d made a mess of her sheets. A perfect, little mess . . .
Of a sudden, clarity shined its light on her.
Her feelings for Lord St. Alban had naught to do with love or matrimony. They didn’t interfere with her goals or intentions. This was desire, pure, simple, raw . . . implacable.
She swung her legs off the bed and hopped to her feet on a wave of relief and determination. She must take a risk. It might be her only chance to rid her system of him.
Denial wasn’t working. The time had come for her to try the opposite approach.
Before this day was done, she would make another perfect, little mess.