Oh, blast.

Lady Olivia Jackson just barely kept the expletive from crossing her lips as she took in her mother, Lady Sutcliffe, grasping the large envelope between her long bony fingers.

“Mother,” Olivia said with a nod as she entered the opulent drawing room, its rose walls, gilded ormolu Wedgwood chandelier and intricate roses carved and painted throughout portraying her mother’s touch. Lady Sutcliffe adored redecorating, and had transformed the London manor into a garish, elaborate little girl’s dollhouse brought to life. It suffocated Olivia, but any time she voiced her opinion to her mother, she was met with a harsh stare down her nose and a sniff, telling Olivia all she needed to know.

“Olivia,” her mother said in greeting, while Olivia’s sister, Helen, smiled at her from the settee in the corner of the room. Olivia had hardly noticed her, so quiet she was with her nose buried deep in the book in front of her.

“I just received the strangest correspondence,” Lady Sutcliffe continued. “In actual fact, I did not receive it myself; however it was delivered to our door. Jenkins was quite insistent that no one by this name lived here, but the delivery boy was not deterred. Have you ever heard the name P.J. Scott?”

Despite the fact she had never been one to hide a secret well, Olivia attempted to keep her expression light as she pushed down the alarm that rose from within.

“Ah, yes, actually, silly me,” she said with a tinkling laugh that sounded forced even to her own ears. “It is a name I have been using for … correspondence.”

Her mother raised her rather pointed eyebrows as her gaze focused on her eldest daughter.

“Correspondence with whom?”

“That is the point of the assumed name, Mother,” said Olivia, “To keep the correspondence hidden.”

“I am your mother, Olivia,” Lady Sutcliffe responded. “You need not keep such secrets from me.”

As her mother made to open the envelope, Olivia stepped forward, rather desperate as she panicked to determine how to stop her. She said the only thing she knew would keep her mother from opening the envelope and thus revealing its contents.

“It is simply a silly love note from a suitor, and he would wish to keep his thoughts for me alone,” she said in a rush. “I’m sure he would be quite embarrassed should my mother read his words. Not that he writes anything that would be considered inappropriate, it is simply —”

“A suitor?” A smile crossed the usually tight, drawn face, and Olivia knew she had said the right thing. She had distracted her mother with enough information to keep her thoughts occupied. “I am thrilled, Olivia. Who is this mysterious man?”

“Umm it’s … that is …”

Growing impatient, her mother picked up her letter opener from her small writing desk, intricately carved with the roses she so adored.

“Lord Kenley!” The name burst out from Olivia’s lips. Where in heaven’s name did that come from? She had met the man once at a house party. They had slightly flirted, to no great significance, and she had seen him but once since then, from across the room at her friend’s wedding. He was, to Olivia’s thinking, too handsome. He knew to what extent he attracted young woman and he used it to his advantage.

Sadly, Olivia realized she had thought of him likely because so few other men had given her much notice in the past few months. True, she was never without a dance partner and found many men to be friendly with her, but none had any serious interest in her for anything other than a flirt at the many social events she attended. At one time she had been highly sought after, particularly due to her rather large dowry, but not only did she push away men with her propensity to say anything that entered her mind, but she had refused a rather high number of suitors and proposals, and the men simply had stopped asking.

“Lord Kenley?” her mother murmured. “Well now, that is quite the news. He is an earl, is he not? His father a duke?”

“I believe so,” she said with a shrug, feigning nonchalance.

“Olivia.” The force of her mother’s brilliant blue gaze, similar to her own yet with such an icy steel to it, bore into her. “This is a very good match for you. You must not muddle this particular courtship.”

“Oh Mother, I do not believe anything shall come of it at all,” Olivia attempted to dissuade her mother, and to prevent her from taking any action regarding this ridiculous lie she had so quickly concocted out of desperation.

“Then you must ensure something does come of it, Olivia,” she said with a sniff. “You have been out now one season too many for a respectable young woman. Any more and you should be considered a spinster, and then no one will ever want you. Now, do hurry, we are expected for tea at Lady Branwood’s by four. Come and prepare yourself, Helen.”

With that, she threw the envelope down on the table and stormed out of the room. With a sympathetic glance her way, Helen, younger than Olivia by four years, followed in her wake. Helen was a sweet soul, but well under the thumb of their domineering mother.

While Olivia’s mother had always been concerned about her prospects, they had intensified of late, likely because of Helen. Her sister had now been out a season herself, her parents deciding they could no longer wait for Olivia to be married in order for Helen to begin her own search for a husband. Olivia knew her mother still hoped that she should find a suitable match first, however. It seemed to be becoming more and more unlikely, and Olivia knew her mother despaired of having two daughters left unmarried.

She shouldn’t have chosen the lie she did, but she knew her mother would not have relented, and it would have been far worse had she opened the package.

Olivia sighed as she picked up the envelope as well as the letter opener from her mother’s writing desk, and sliced through the seal.

This had turned into an utter disaster. She had known better than to have the correspondence delivered to the house. She had always been so diligent in picking up and dropping it off to the journal’s office herself, but with an engagement the evening prior that left her sleeping well into late morning and the tea planned for this afternoon, she had no time in which to leave the house. She had thought she would intercept the post before her mother saw it, but she had been too late.

She was eager to read the envelope’s contents, however, and hurried out of the parlor to the library, her own sanctuary. It was the one room in the manor that her mother had left untouched, and the masculine tones of the walls lined with the floor-to-ceiling mahogany shelves filled with leather-bound volumes provided Olivia with a sense of comfort. She took to the brass inlaid library table her father had set aside for her use as a desk in the corner of the room, and dumped out the contents of the envelope on its surface.

She set aside the note from Mr. Ungar and began to look more eagerly through the first query on the page in front of her.

“Dr. Mr. Scott,

I have been reading your column in The Financial Register and I find your thoughts quite provoking and extraordinary. I am looking for advice regarding a particular investment of mine.  Some months ago it was doing particularly well, and following the actions of a friend I placed a large portion of my income in such investment. I have now found the investment to be performing rather poorly. What should my next course of action be?

Sincerely,

Your Faithful Reader

Olivia sighed as she read through the words and sat down on her leather-upholstered chair. Why in heaven’s name would someone invest so much money simply because an acquaintance had done so? Well, there was nothing she could say to this man to better his current finances, but perhaps with a few sage words of advice, she could help others.

She tipped her quill pen in the ink blotter, and was about to begin her scrawl across the paper in answer to the question in front of her. She had read through the financial sections and journals over the past week, although this answer was simply plain common sense more than anything. She thought of the many people in the world who took such poor care of their finances, and she shook her head in frustration.

“Lady Olivia?”

Olivia cringed as she heard the voice of her lady’s maid, Molly, at the door. Oh yes, the tea. She did look a bit of a fright, and had to change for the visit before their departure. The simple white muslin morning dress she currently wore would never do.

She would have to return to this later, she thought with a frown, and tucked the correspondence deep into her pockets before scurrying out of the room and up the stairs to finish her preparations, bemoaning the time these functions took away from the research and writing she truly enjoyed.

* * *

She said as much under her breath to her friend, Lady Rosalind Kennedy, as they sipped their tea slightly away from the circle of women in Lady Branwood’s parlor later that afternoon.

Rosalind was one of very few people who knew of Olivia’s secret identity. She was Olivia’s oldest, closest friend, and luckily they often found themselves at similar functions.

Oh, how much easier it would be if she could simply be truthful and attach her own name to her work! She knew, however, that would never happen. No journal would ever publish financial advice from a woman, and no man would ever read her words seriously. She must be grateful that she had, at the very least, the ability to continue writing her financial column, even if that meant under an assumed man’s name.

She drew Rosalind away from the others to take a moment to fill her in on the latest developments.

“Are you sure this remains a good idea?“ Rosalind asked her with some trepidation as they stood by the tall sash window overlooking the street below, away from the prying ears of their mothers and other ladies of their acquaintance.

Rosalind looked rather pretty that afternoon, her long light brown hair pulled back off her face and into a low chignon at the nape of her neck. She appreciated Olivia’s work and admired her friend for not only her intelligence but her ambition; however, she would never have attempted anything such as this on her own.

“Perhaps you should leave this behind you for some time,” said Rosalind, “and focus on other things.”

“Other things,” Olivia snorted. “I assume you mean finding a husband for myself? I have told you, Rosalind, I am not sure how I am supposed to find a man willing to marry me for more than my dowry, who I find sufferable in return.”

“For a woman offering financial and investment advice to men across London and beyond, I believe you have the ability to solve the problem of finding yourself a decent husband,” said Rosalind with a wry grin.

“I have tried,” Olivia replied, jutting out her chin. “And I have not found who I am searching for. Perhaps such a man simply does not exist.”

“Oh?” said Rosalind, raising an eyebrow. “And who exactly is it that you are searching so hard for, who you have not found in five years at the balls you have attended and parties that your mother has arranged?”

“Someone who will not care that his wife is a financial columnist, who will give me the utmost freedom to do whatever I choose, who will stay out of my affairs, and yet, is enjoyable to speak to day in and day out,” said Olivia. “That is who I require.”

“Hmm,” Rosalind replied with a nod. “I can see your dilemma. Finding such a man could be quite impossible. You have high standards, Olivia.”

“I do, indeed,” she said, and smiled. “It’s my father’s fault, I suppose. If only I could find a man like him. One who is warm, friendly, who would love his children with all his heart, and who would allow his wife to chase her heart’s desire, whatever that may be.”

Olivia’s parents had an arranged marriage, like so many were. As high-strung and overburdening as her mother was, her father made up for it in his warmth and genuine love for his children. He cared not that he had only daughters, and encouraged them to do as they pleased. Olivia wished so desperately that she had the ability to follow in her father’s footsteps. She enjoyed listening to him as he rambled on about running the estate, about the finances to be managed for the household, the debts and the repayments.

In turn, he had treated Olivia as he would a son, and she had been enthralled with his every word, as much as most young girls were with the latest fashions of the day. If only she was a man. Then she could not only take on his title and his holdings, but also live as she wished, doing what she wanted, when she pleased, without having to answer to anyone — to a mother or a husband, or to all that was expected of her by society.

“How did you begin on this latest scheme, anyway?” Rosalind asked.

“Scheme? You mean my writings for The Register?”

“Yes,” replied Rosalind. “I hardly think it a natural circumstance for a young woman to be providing financial advice through a journal to the English gentry.”

“I wouldn’t say it’s unnatural, but it is rather unusual,” conceded Olivia. “My father subscribes to The Financial Register, you see, and I saw an article one day from a reader bemoaning his current situation. I wrote back to the journal with a response to him. I didn’t sign it, but it was published, with a comment at the bottom asking for the mysterious stranger to get in touch with him. I did, but of course not as myself, but an assumed identity. And so P.J. Scott was born. The initials are from my grandmothers’ names, and then Scott is simply in silent spite to my mother, who bemoans the bit of Scottish blood that runs through our veins from her own grandfather.”

“Well, I for one am proud of you, Olivia,” said Rosalind with a sigh. “It certainly must add some excitement to your life.”

Olivia smiled. “It’s wonderful, Rosalind — powerful even. You do remember, however, that you must tell no one of this. It is our secret and it must stay that way.”

“Of course,” Rosalind said. “You can trust me. Now, are you ready for Lady Sybille’s coming-out ball next week?”

“I suppose,” said Olivia with a shrug. “As much as I am regarding the rest of them,”

“Oh Olivia,” said Rosalind. “You cannot think that way. You never know what’s waiting for you if you pull your head out of your figures and take a good look around you!”

Lady Hester Montgomery chose that moment to join their conversation.

“Olivia, darling,” she said with a smug grin. “Are you still trying to find yourself a husband? After how many seasons, do you suppose, is it time to move on and accept that your time has passed?”

“Oh do shut up, Hester,” Olivia said with a roll of her eyes. “Why must you be such a witch at all times? You may not have as many seasons’ experience as I do, however it is not as though you are a fresh daisy yourself on the marriage market.”

Hester’s lips rounded into an O as she looked down her nose at Olivia.

“That mouth of yours is becoming rather low-bred, Olivia,” she said. “I should watch what comes out of it if I were you.”

As she flounced away, Rosalind looked wide-eyed at Olivia, who was nonchalantly sipping her tea as if nothing untoward had occurred.

“You must be careful with Hester, Olivia,” she said. “She’s a right nasty one.”

“Don’t I know it.” Olivia narrowed her eyes. “Never fear, Ros. I can handle a girl like Hester. I shall never understand why she feels she should be able to say such things to whomever she wishes. I do not stand for such women.”

Olivia looked around her now. Mothers and daughters sipping tea and eating pastries, as they discussed one another’s affairs, carefully guarding their words. Olivia always spoke her mind, which seemed to get her into more trouble than she bargained for. This was why she enjoyed her hidden identity. Under her guise with the journal, she could say whatever she wanted — as a man — and not have to worry about what she wrote.

If only life itself were the same.