Captive (12 page)

“That is none of your business, either.”

“If you say so.” She turned back to Olivia. “I’m trying, Livy. But it isn’t going to be easy.” A moment later she had left Olivia alone with her brother.

“I knew that girl would be a bad influence on you,” Lion said. “What is that you’re wearing?”

“A dress.”

“Why do you look so different?”

“Do I?” Livy asked.

“You don’t look like yourself.”

Livy felt the tension ease from her shoulders. It would take time for Lion to adjust to a sister who wore bright colors and believed she could attract a beau. It was taking time for her to accept that fact herself.

“Everything will be all right, Lion. I’m only going driving in the park. What could possibly happen to me with hundreds of other people around?”

“The last time I thought something like that, I ended up engaged,” Lion said.

Olivia smiled. “In my case, that wouldn’t be such a bad result.”

“Be careful, Olivia.”

“I will, Lion. Oh, believe me. I will.”

“Why did you choose violets?”

Reeve Somers, sixth Duke of Braddock, Earl of Comarty, Viscount Greenwich, Baron Hardy, and several other lesser titles, nodded to the couple in a passing carriage to avoid looking into Lady Olivia’s eyes when he answered her. “I should have thought that would be obvious.”

She fidgeted with the peach-colored ribbon that hung down beneath her bodice, drawing his attention back to it. He had suspected she hid a ripe figure beneath the awful bronze gown she had worn at Almack’s. The more fashionable carriage dress she wore for their ride in Hyde Park confirmed what he had only suspected. She had everything a mistress needed to make him happy.

Which made her the perfect foil in his plans of
revenge. His year of mourning was up. At long last, the Earl of Denbigh would be made to pay for the death of Reeve’s brother.

Reeve had been in India when he got the news of what had happened. It seemed the Earl of Denbigh had challenged the duke’s younger brother, James, to a duel for the most frivolous of reasons. The earl had not liked the way James tied his cravat.

The duel was held at dawn on the first day of July, with bets laid at White’s as to the outcome, considering the relative reputations of the twenty-one-year-old Lord James, and the twenty-eight-year-old Earl of Denbigh, with firearms.

James had fired his pistol and missed. The earl had not.

Reeve’s brother, his only living relative, the only person in the world who cared whether he lived or died, had been murdered. During the several months before the news reached him, while Reeve had been imagining his unlicked cub of a brother in London getting a bit of town bronze, James had been buried six feet underground.

Reeve’s first inclination had been to return at once to England and challenge Denbigh to a duel and end his life. But Denbigh’s death was not nearly enough recompense for what he had done. James would still be dead. Reeve would have to live a lifetime knowing his brother had died a senseless
death, while Denbigh was relieved of all mortal suffering. No, Reeve had needed more satisfaction.

He had hounded the earl and harried him, decimated his properties and ruined his investments. Then he had conceived the most fitting revenge of all … to destroy someone he loved.

Reeve had known from the beginning that the earl had a sister, but when he heard she was crippled, he had looked for someone else the earl cared about. To his surprise, he had discovered there was no one.

Then, quite by accident, he had discovered the sister was not as crippled as he had been led to believe. He decided on the spot that he would make the earl’s sister his mistress and ruin her reputation. When Denbigh confronted him to redeem his sister’s honor, he would take delight in killing him.

He had not delayed in putting his plan into action. He had sent a bouquet of violets and invited the earl’s sister to go driving with him.

Olivia sat rigidly at his side as they drove through Hyde Park, seeing the fashionable world and being seen by them. He had seen her surprise when he appeared at her door driving a curricle, since it meant her maid would have to be left behind. But she had not refused to come with him. She had clutched his arm once with her gloved hand when he took a corner too fast but let go as soon as she regained her balance. She was clearly agitated,
clearly uncomfortable. He needed to put her at ease, needed to gain her trust, in order for his plan to succeed.

“I sent violets because they have dark, mysterious depths. Like you,” he said at last.

She shot him a startled look, then broke into a radiant smile that completely transformed her face. For an instant she seemed almost pretty. Almost. Her features were too ordinary for real beauty. Except, perhaps, for her hazel eyes, which were wide-spaced and warm as the sun and unbelievably innocent for one of her advanced age. Aside from an occasional brief peek at him, she kept them lowered demurely. He felt the oddest urge to lift her chin and demand that she look at him.

“Charl—Lady Charlotte guessed that was why you sent violets,” she said. “I … I didn’t believe her.”

“You don’t believe you’re mysterious?” he teased.

An enchanting blush raced upward from her throat to land in two rosy spots on her cheeks. “No one has ever said so,” she confessed.

She was a green one, a mere babe in the woods, and not much of a challenge for an experienced rake of thirty-five. It was almost going to be too easy, Reeve thought. He wanted to draw out his seduction of the girl, goading Denbigh with his utter helplessness to prevent his sister’s ruination, so the
earl would suffer all the more when it became a
fait accompli
.

“Is this your first visit to London?” the duke asked, knowing that it was.

“Yes, Your Grace.”

“Are you enjoying the sights?”

“Yes, Your Grace.”

“Have you been to Astley’s to see the performing horses?”

She chuckled. “Lady Charlotte insisted we go there the day we arrived. If you can imagine, she was determined to see the Elgin Marbles, as well. My brother absolutely forbid it.”

The famous collection at the British Museum included several sculptures of nearly naked male bodies.

“Would you like to see the statues?” he asked.

She angled her head to observe him past the edge of a stylish straw bonnet that ostensibly protected her complexion from the sun, but also managed to keep her face neatly hidden from him when she looked straight ahead. “Are you inviting me to go with you, Your Grace?”

“If you would be interested in seeing them, I will take you,” he said.

He saw the flicker of yearning on her face before she slowly shook her head. “My brother would not approve, Your Grace.”

“Do you always let your brother dictate your behavior?”

She kept her eyes hidden, but her hands gave away her agitation. Her gloved fingers twined in her lap, the peach ribbon laced between them. At last she turned to face him, her eyes lowered so her lashes sat like coal crescents on her cheeks.

“I have not been out much in the world,” she said at last. “I trust my brother to have my best interests at heart.”

“What if I promised to protect you from the dangers that lay in waiting for a young miss in London?”

Her fingers went still. “I am hardly a young miss.” She took a hitching breath and announced, “I am five and twenty,” as though she were sounding the death knell for any possible relationship between them.

“That old?” he said with a chuckle. “But still in need of a protector, I hope.”

Her brow wrinkled in confusion. Protector was a term ordinarily used by a man in relation to his mistress.

The duke did not want to give away the game too early, so he clarified, “I stand ready to offer my services as your escort for any future outings in London.”

He could see she was still trying to sort it all
out. She turned completely away from him and stared at the passing carriages.

“Good afternoon, Lady Hornby,” he said, nodding to the notorious gossip.

“Good afternoon, Your Grace,” Lady Hornby replied. “Is that Denbigh’s sister with you?”

“It is.” He gave his prime cattle a taste of the whip to keep them moving, even though it was plain the old lady wanted to continue the conversation. It had served his purpose to be noticed with the girl. Driving alone with an unmarried woman in Hyde Park was tantamout to a declaration in some circles. That was to the good, if it helped him to mislead Lady Olivia regarding his designs on her virtue.

“You have not answered me, Lady Olivia,” he said when she had sat silently for five entire minutes. “Will you allow me to be your escort?”

“Are you …?” She stopped to clear her throat. “Why would you …?”

He turned his horses down a less used lane in the park where they would not be observed and pulled his team to a halt. He turned and reached for her balled fists, straightening her fingers and holding both of her hands in his. “Perhaps I have not made my intentions plain enough,” he began. “I find you …”

At the last moment he realized he could not say “beautiful,” because she would recognize it immediately for the lie it was. “… an admirable
woman,” he said. “And I would like your permission to court you.”

Her hands began to tremble. But she did not pull away.

“If only I could believe you.”

She had spoken so softly, he was not sure he had heard her correctly. “You don’t believe my intentions are honorable?” he said, acting affronted.

“No,” she whispered.

For the length of a heartbeat, he thought Lady Olivia was actually going to raise her eyes and look at him. He quickly wiped the calculating look from his face. Her lids rose slightly, then lowered again, along with her chin, and he was saved from her scrutiny.

“You see, Your Grace, I have no illusions about myself,” she said. “I cannot understand what a man such as you would find to admire about … about someone like me. And it is a well-known fact you bear a great enmity for my brother.”

He was surprised at her resistance to his proposition. The mamas of each new season’s crop of schoolroom misses had been trying for years to bring him up to scratch. Of course she was right to be suspicious. His intentions toward her were not, in fact, honorable. But he was a duke, and she was an ape-leader with no realistic hope of finding a husband. She could not really be refusing him!

“It is true there is no love lost between myself
and your brother,” he began. Better to admit a little of the truth to hide the wealth of lies. “But my interest right now is not in him.”

“Then you don’t mean to use me to provoke him to a duel?” she asked in a tentative voice.

That was plain speaking. Perhaps she was not as simple as he had first thought. “I am with you for the pleasure of your company, Lady Olivia.” It was not precisely a lie, merely an omission of the entire truth.

“And for no other reason?” she persisted.

“There is one other reason,” he admitted.

Her hands clutched his tightly. “What is it?” she asked.

He gave her the only answer he knew would stop her questions. “Because I find you desirable.”

She gasped and tried to withdraw her hands from his.

Reeve indulged the need he had felt the entire hour since he had taken her up in his curricle to turn her face toward him and lift her chin. “Look at me,” he said softly.

“I cannot.”

“Look at me, Lady Olivia.”

She raised her eyes, and he saw why she had kept them lowered. Everything she felt was bared for him to see. All her hopes and longings … and fears. For a moment he considered giving her a reprieve. Then he remembered the loneliness of
coming home to an empty house and the feel of the cold marble that marked his brother’s grave, and his resolution returned.

“Believe we can be together, Lady Olivia,” he urged, “and we will be.”

She swallowed hard. “Very well, Your Grace. You have my permission to court me.”

He made himself smile. It was more difficult than he had expected to present himself so falsely to her. He kept reminding himself she was a means to an end. She would suffer, it was true, but more importantly, so would her brother.

“May I take you to the theater next week?” he asked.

“Oh,” she breathed. “I would love to go. Could I invite Lady Charlotte to join us? She has been begging to go and Lion—my brother,” she corrected herself, “—has not had the time to take us yet.”

His smile became brittle, but he managed to keep it on his face. “Of course. The more, the merrier.”

Olivia was still floating on air when the duke set her down in front of her grandfather’s town house fifteen minutes later. The last person she wanted to see was the person who confronted her the instant she entered the door. Her brother followed her to the drawing room, where she drew off her gloves and untied the ribbons on her hat.

She turned to face him and said, “All right, Lion. What is it you want to say?”

“I am asking you, as a brother who cares deeply for you, not to see Braddock again.”

“He wants to court me, Lion. His intentions are honorable,” she said breathlessly.