Chapter 24
An olive to pluck
A viscount fair dares to dream
Far more than a good—?
Olivia was right: the latest London Diary haiku was a delight.
Except Jake wasn’t being ironic. To be sure, it was crude, uncivil, and even made a crass stab at rhyme. No matter. It served his purpose that he and she be known.
He’d only just stepped foot inside the Duke of Arundel’s opulent ballroom, and already found himself the recipient of no fewer than five knowing, appreciative nods from his own sex and five knowing, flirtatious smirks from the opposite sex.
Oh, yes, they were known. That feeling from the night he’d met her infused him with its galvanizing spark. Interested, engaged, and alive.
But the feeling had been inconvenient, so he’d shut it away . . . tried to shut them away. Suppression hadn’t exactly worked.
Tonight, the feeling would be given free rein. Tonight, he was a man with a purpose, and no one would stand in his way.
“St. Alban!” His name emerged crystalline and bright through the dull, monotone roar of the ball.
He braced himself and turned toward the Dowager. Avoidance would be futile. He bowed at her approach, and she placed her palm on his forearm. “Take a turn with me.” As their feet found a pace conducive to conversation, she said, “Do not cut out early tonight. There will be an announcement later, and I’m requesting the presence of all my family.”
“Whatever you require, Your Grace.”
“Speaking of marriage”—She squeezed his arm—“how goes your courtship of Miss Fox?”
“We found that we don’t suit,” he replied in a carefully neutral tone.
“Oh? I’m so rarely wrong about that sort of thing. Take Nathaniel and me, for instance.”
“Nathaniel?”
“The Duke of Arundel, of course.”
Jake’s brow lifted, and a smile worthy of the Sphinx softened the Dowager’s features. He intuited in an instant the subject of tonight’s announcement. “May I be the first to congratulate you?”
“I accept your congratulation, my dear, but you are not the first to congratulate me. I have congratulated myself aplenty.” Her smile transformed into one triumphant and not a little self-satisfied. “The Duke of Arundel is quite a catch. And I know of, at least, one other lady who’d set her cap at him. But I landed him.”
No one could accuse the Dowager of false humility.
She began twirling a string of pearls with her free hand, a signal that she was about to state her business. “Now, let us discuss your marriage prospects. Even if Miss Fox won’t do, you’ve made a splash this Season. If you play your hand capably, you could be married by Michaelmas, or, at the very least, engaged.”
“I shall take that under advisement.”
“What sort of bride would you like?” The Dowager pointed in the direction of a girl dressed in pale pink muslin. “One who blushes for the first year of your marriage?”
A note of alarm clanged inside Jake’s head. “I’m not certain Mina would be well-served by a mother so near her own age.”
“You’re seeking an older woman?” A tiny frown of concentration pulled at the Dowager’s mouth. “Not many men in your position show that sort of fortitude when presented the array of possibilities that lie at your hand.”
A snort escaped him. It wasn’t fortitude guiding his choice of wife, but the Dowager needn’t know that. What he felt for Lady Olivia Montfort had naught to do with strength of character. It was its very opposite, in fact.
Weakness . . . Powerlessness . . . Something deeper, too . . . Something they must discuss tonight, privately, away from the prying, knowing eyes of the ton.
“How about”—The Dowager pointed toward a lady seated next to the punch bowl, blissfully unaware of their scrutiny—“a lady who has been on the shelf for a few years?” Her fingers stopped mid-twirl. “I know what you’re thinking, St. Alban, and you couldn’t be further from the truth. Certain ladies are like fine wines, and the shelf only enhances their flavor. Take my dear friend, Miss Dunfrey, never married, poor dear, but the details that woman knows . . .” the Dowager trailed off, her countenance taking on a dreamy cast. She gave her head a shake and resumed twirling her pearls. “Suffice it to say, she let me in on a few secrets the Duke will appreciate on our wedding night.”
Jake fought to keep his gaze expressionless and trained ahead of him, all gentlemanly concern for the safety of their progress. He wouldn’t betray a thought on that particular matter, not even to himself.
“Or how about a respectable widow?” the Dowager persisted. “One with children of her own, but safely within childbearing years, of course. The viscountcy must be secured, St. Alban. Now don’t get the wrong end of the stick. I don’t begrudge you the fact that the viscountcy fell out of my branch of the family tree. I made my peace with that turn of events a year ago. But if you die heirless, the title will revert to the Crown. Not a felicitous state of affairs, not in the least.”
He nodded, pretending to seriously consider the matter. In truth, he didn’t give a fig about the security of the viscountcy. However, a widow did coincide precisely with his intentions. Well, a former widow. An outright unrespectable, former widow.
“Ah, here we are,” said the Dowager, her tone grown soft and very unlike itself. Jake glanced up to find they were approaching the Duke. “Your Grace, St. Alban and I are discussing his prospects for an advantageous marriage, and we are agreed that a respectable widow is exactly what he needs.”
Jake couldn’t help noticing that wives and husbands were nothing more or less to the Dowager than commodities on the marriage market. A wife was what he needed, not who he needed.
Not so very long ago, he’d been in agreement with her. No longer. A wife must be more than a thing. She was a she, a person. A person with no value on the open market as she would be invaluable . . . priceless. Only one woman lived up to that standard.
The Duke’s piercing blue gaze lit upon Jake and turned hard and assessing. “A widow, you say? I think I can see exactly the sort of widow Lord St. Alban wants.”
Jake held his peace. The word want could mean lacking. It might have even sounded that way to the Dowager, but he caught the Duke’s true meaning. The man was speaking of desire. Specifically, Jake’s desire for Olivia.
The Dowager clapped her hands together and held them clasped before her. “Now that’s settled, whispers are floating about that the champagne may be running dry, and I must see to its resolution. There is no happiness at a ball where there is no champagne.”
With that, the Dowager flounced away and disappeared into the crowd, leaving Jake and the Duke alone.
“Lady Olivia,” the Duke began in a voice that wouldn’t carry beyond them, “may not be my daughter by blood, but she is my daughter in here.” He jabbed his thumb into his chest just above his heart.
“I understand.” More than the Duke could possibly know.
“And her interests will ever be mine.”
Jake understood what the Duke needed to hear. “I hope to make them mine, as well, Your Grace.”
The Duke nodded once in approval, and muscles that Jake hadn’t realized were tensed relaxed in relief. He watched the Duke follow his future duchess at his own ducal pace and vanish into the crowd.
A waiter appeared at his side with libation, but he shook his head. Champagne was all well and good, but he found himself in need of a more substantial drink. A drink conducive to plotting out one’s plan for the evening. In short, he needed whiskey.
He located a stocked sidebar and poured himself a finger of the silky, amber liquid, downing it in a single, grateful gulp. He and Olivia were known by the Duke. And he’d secured the Duke’s approval. Two hurdles cleared, but ultimately meaningless if he didn’t secure Olivia’s as well. Speaking of Olivia . . .
His gaze cut across dancing couples sweeping gracefully atop glistening parquet floors, certain he would find her amongst their number. He didn’t.
He began singling out small groups of ladies scattered about the periphery of the dance floor, engaging in lively conversations, again certain he would find her amongst their number. Again, he didn’t.
His brow knit in confusion, and his search expanded toward the outer edges of the room, over the old, the infirm, the spinster, and the wallflower, certain he would not find her amongst their number . . . He did.
There stood Olivia, her back pressed against a wall, her eyes following the dancers. He wasn’t certain if it was the atmosphere of the ball—enthusiastic violins singing the rhythms of a mazurka; golden light filtering through chandeliers vibrating alongside the hum of music and crowd; fashionable bodies radiating the excitement and tipsy joy that only a ball could induce—but she was part of it and above it all at once.
Clad in a distinctly unvirginal ivory gown of near-transparent silk shot through with threads of gold, light and music swirled, casting her as the goddess of the ball, its Aphrodite. And like a goddess, she stood apart, alone. Yet alone didn’t quite capture it.
Olivia looked lonely.
Comprehension of her place along her little spot of wall hit Jake all at once. Amongst the old, the infirm, the spinster, and the wallflower, she was the divorcée, equally odious to polite Society. Protectiveness and outrage warred inside him until his blood coursed hot and fast through his veins.
Olivia should be dancing.
Englishmen were a lot of spineless cowards if they couldn’t traverse the treacherous distance of a ballroom floor to ask the crowning jewel of this ball to dance. No woman in this room—nay, in all of London—was her equal. She was a diamond cast before swine.
This couldn’t stand. His feet moved forward. Though she may resist, he would coax her onto the dance floor to take her rightful place, and they would stand before this lot, united.
Before this night was through, he and Olivia would be known, properly.