Lady Olivia's Forbidden Protector
Autore
Christine Merrill
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Chapter One
Michael Solomon came down the stairs to breakfast in his house on Gracechurch Street, thoroughly satisfied with the fineness of the morning and life in general. It was often thus at the beginning of a new assignment, when he was still confident in the ease of the task put to him. He would likely feel different by supper tomorrow, after a full day of dealing with the nobility and their foolishness. But at least for the moment all was well.
He kissed the woman waiting for him at the table, feeling equally magnanimous towards her. ‘Good morning, Mother.’
She beamed at him, pouring out his coffee before he asked for it. ‘Did you sleep well, my dear?’
‘Excellently, thank you,’ he said, smiling back at her and heaping his plate with eggs and ham.
She nodded in approval. ‘It is always best to start a job well rested and fully nourished.’ Then she steepled her fingers and leaned forward eagerly. ‘What is it to be this time? Chasing jewel thieves? Thwarting blackmailers? Intercepting French contraband?’
He shook his head, partly in denial and partly in frustration. His mother never seemed to understand that enquiry agents were hired for their discretion and were not supposed to share the details of their employers’ business with all and sundry. ‘Nothing so exciting as you imagine. I am to be a bodyguard for an heiress.’ His description made the job sound far more interesting than it was likely to be. The risks to the girl were minimal, other than those she created for herself.
‘Is she very pretty?’ his mother asked, eyebrows raised.
‘I do not know,’ he said. ‘I have not met her as yet.’ Most likely, she was. In his experience, enough money and sufficient rank could make even the plainest girl seem handsome. It hardly mattered one way or another. It was not his job to have an opinion on such things, nor was he the sort to covet women he could not have.
‘And why does she need a bodyguard?’ Her eyes widened. ‘Is it kidnappers?’
He sighed. ‘She has formed an inappropriate liaison, and I am to prevent the elopement.’
His mother seemed to deflate, disappointed. ‘Why would you do such a horrible thing as to stand in the way of young love?’
‘Someone must,’ he said, silently amazed that she, of all people, would not see the reason for it.
‘For all you know, it is her only chance at happiness. At the very least, it is terribly romantic.’
‘Far from it,’ he countered. ‘I would call it foolish. She is the sister of a duke. It is up to her brother to decide who she will marry. If he does not like this fellow, then he cannot be worthy of her.’
‘The sister of a duke,’ she said, snatching at a piece of information he had not meant to reveal. She put a finger to her chin. ‘Now let me see. Who has a sister of marriageable age? Exeter? Norfolk?’
‘You know I do not like to discuss the identity of my clients,’ he said, trying to focus on his breakfast, as if it might halt her speculation.
‘Folbroke is an only child. Felkirk has a brother.’
‘You should be the enquiry agent, rather than I,’ he said. ‘You ask questions enough to be one.’ Then he took a large bite of toast to make an answer impossible.
‘Do not say it is Scofield,’ she said, watching him carefully and searching for a reaction. ‘It is, isn’t it? Oh, dear.’
He waved his napkin in surrender and continued to chew.
‘I do not need words to get the truth out of you,’ she said, taking his silence for assent. ‘You should not work for such a man. It is common knowledge that he is a murderer. He stabbed his father to death, then took his title and his seat in Parliament without even a day of mourning.’
‘Just because everyone knows a story does not make it true,’ he said. From what he had learned before taking this assignment, this was the exception to that rule. There had been a murder, and the new Scofield had likely killed the older. He had worn black at the funeral, but few had given him credit for it, since he had not seemed the least bit sorry at his father’s passing.
But a lack of tears was not enough evidence for a conviction, and it was not Michael’s job to speculate. ‘There is no reason for you to be concerned on my account. When I met the man, he did not seem any more murderous or mad than the other peers I have met. And he is not likely to kill me since he has nothing to gain from doing so.’
He had meant to make light of the situation, but the humour was lost on his mother, who clucked her tongue in disapproval.
‘He wishes you to thwart the love of his sister, who only wants to get away from him,’ she said, shaking her head, obviously disappointed in him.
‘More likely, he has some other, more appropriate man in mind,’ Michael said, trying to be reasonable. ‘It is his duty as her guardian to keep her from marrying the wrong man.’
‘And I assume you have investigated the fellow she wants to run off with,’ his mother said, eyes narrowed. ‘What is the trouble with him?’
‘None that I can see,’ Michael said with a shrug. ‘He seems unexceptionable. But as long as the Duke is paying me, it is not up to me to judge the man. It is merely my job to carry out his commands. If he wishes Alister Clement to have no contact with his sister, Lady Olivia, so shall it be.’
‘And I suppose there was no mention of the other sister,’ she said, frowning. ‘The gossip sheets say there has been no sign of her for some months. Given Scofield’s reputation...’
‘There is nothing particularly ominous about it,’ Michael said as he reached for the toast rack. ‘It was another elopement. Scofield probably regrets that he did not hire me earlier. And you should not waste your time obsessing on the affairs of the ton,’ he added, knowing it was pointless to tell her so. They were both far removed from that part of society and he could not understand her fascination with the comings and goings of people she would never meet.
His mother sighed, then said, ‘Your father and I eloped.’
‘I am aware of that,’ he said.
‘It was quite the scandal at the time.’
He did not reply, trying to concentrate on his breakfast.
‘Mr Solomon, God bless his soul, used to say to me...’
‘Please,’ Michael said, pinching the bridge of his nose and closing his eyes against the story likely to follow. ‘May we not have any discussion of that man’s opinions? Since I never met him, his words of wisdom have been useless to me.’
His mother sighed again. It was a watery sound designed to make him regret his lapse in patience. ‘His words were all that were left to give to you. It is not as if there was an inheritance to offer. When we married, his family cut him off without a penny.’
‘Of course, they did,’ Michael said with his own sigh, which was dry as dust. It was good that at least one of the people at the breakfast table had sense and skills enough to provide for them, since the phantom of John Solomon had been no use at all.
‘When he disappeared, I was quite at a loss as to how to proceed,’ she said with yet another sigh, tugging a handkerchief out of her sleeve and dabbing at her eyes.
‘So you have told me,’ Michael said, not adding a thousand times, merely thinking it. ‘But it has been twenty-nine years or more.’
‘And yet my time with him is as fresh to me as if it happened yesterday.’
‘Of course,’ Michael said, methodically chewing and swallowing to prevent him from speaking his mind. If the loss was as fresh as she claimed, she would not change the story each time she told it to him. Nor would she have quite so many words of wisdom from a man who had been with her a year at most. Through his childhood and manhood, she had told him so many tales of his father that she might have lived a lifetime with the fellow.
He had realised the brutal truth long before he was old enough to shave. His mother had a penchant for fiction and used it against him in the hope that he would form some attachment to a paragon that did not exist so he would not ache over the lack of a father.
Some men thrived because of their parentage, but he had done so in spite of it. Realising that he was alone and unwanted by his father had been the spur that goaded him to become the man he wanted to be. He took extra pride in his own achievements, knowing they had come from his own hand. Though his mother might still need a crutch, he had little use for fairy tales nor any use at all for Mr John Solomon.
Then she smiled. ‘You and Lady Olivia will have something in common, being fatherless as you are.’
‘Of course,’ he said through gritted teeth. No matter how he wished to lash out at his mother, he contained himself. She had given every last bit of herself to keep him and deserved nothing but gratitude in return. But of all the nonsense she had prattled in his life, this was probably the furthest from the truth. No matter what she might think, there would not be an inch of common ground between the daughter of a deceased duke and an unacknowledged bastard.
Lady Olivia Bethune’s hand tightened on the handle of the last basket as her brother’s carriage pulled to a stop in front of an unfashionable house in an equally unfashionable neighbourhood.
Across from her, her maid Molly awakened with a snort, lurching upward, and tried to pretend that she had not been sleeping between stops.
Liv held up a reassuring hand and gave her a sympathetic smile. ‘It has been a long day for both of us. You needn’t come in with me this time if you do not wish.’
‘But His Grace says...’ the maid began.
‘What my brother does not know will not hurt him,’ Liv assured her. ‘And even he would not make a complaint at my visiting Mrs Wilson without a chaperone. She is past eighty and near deaf. What harm could she possibly do me?’
The maid nodded in agreement and gave her a proud smile. ‘It is most kind of you to bring a basket of dainties to her and the other widows, my lady. My sister is in service at the Earl of Enderland’s house, and her lady is not near so generous and thoughtful as you are to those less fortunate.’
Liv smiled back to hide the twinge of guilt tightening her throat. ‘It is what my brother wishes for me, I am sure. If he means to keep me a spinster, I had best get used to a life of good works.’
She had spoken too honestly, for Molly looked back at her with a worried frown. ‘But you do not look on it as a burden, I am sure. You are ever so much happier after the weekly visits you make.’
‘Of course,’ Liv said, relieved. ‘It does me good to know that my ladies are happy. And I mean to see that they continue to get their baskets, even when I am gone.’
‘Gone?’ the maid said, surprised.
Liv forced a laugh to hide yet another misstep. ‘Back to the country, of course. We cannot stay in London all year and I do not wish to leave disappointment in my wake.’
‘Ahh,’ Molly said, relieved.
‘Nor do I want you to be overtaxed, fetching and carrying these hampers for me,’ she said, smiling at the maid again. ‘I can handle this one myself. I will have a nice chat with Mrs Wilson, and then we shall go home.’ Before Molly could object again, she was out through the door that the coachman opened for her and halfway up the stairs to the widow’s tiny flat. Once at the door, she rapped smartly on the panel, well aware that no amount of pounding would bring the deaf old woman to let her in.
It swung open almost before she was done and she was pulled quickly inside, the door shutting and locking behind her. ‘I had begun to think that you would not come.’ Alister Clement was waiting for her, just as he did each week when she made the last stop on her charitable visits. Now, he pulled her close for a brief kiss, which was interrupted by the cleared throat of the old woman in the corner.
‘I will have no slap and tickle in my parlour,’ Mrs Wilson said, shaking an already shaky finger. ‘I will not stand for nonsense.’
‘Of course not, Mrs Wilson,’ Liv said in a loud voice, stepping away from Alister to prove her respectability. ‘We would not dream of imposing after you have been so kind as to chaperone our meetings.’ Then she pressed the basket she carried into the woman’s hands. ‘And here we have some calf’s-foot jelly, a loaf of bread and a very nice cheese for you. Also, a bag of the boiled sweets you like so well.’ She did not mention the bundle of coins tucked into the cloth that wrapped the Stilton. It seemed rude to acknowledge the extra bribe included for the lady’s silence.
And silent she was, gathering the basket to her chest without another word and thrusting her withered hand into the bag of sweets. As Liv turned back to her beloved, the air filled with the scent of cloves and the sounds of industrious sucking.
‘It has seemed like for ever,’ she said, taking Alister’s hand and letting him lead her to a sofa that was out of line with the view from the windows.
‘Only a week,’ he reminded her. ‘Not as often as we were seeing each other when your brother was focused on containing your sister Margaret. But there is nothing to be done about that.’
In Liv’s opinion, there was definitely something that could be done, but it was not her place to suggest it. Though Alister had been courting her for over two years, at times they seemed no closer to marriage than they had on the first day they’d met. To plan her own elopement seemed both unladylike and ungrateful of the attention he had given her, so she said nothing. Instead, she made sure that her expression was overbrimming with a proper amount of devotion and hinted for all she was worth. ‘I miss you terribly when I cannot see you every day. With Peg gone and only my brother for company, it is very lonely.’
Alister nodded sympathetically and cast a glance in Mrs Wilson’s direction before gathering her hand to his lips for a brief kiss. ‘I understand completely. And now that Peg is finally out of the way, I see no reason for us to delay our future any longer.’
‘Finally?’ she said, her loving smile slipping for a moment.
‘Well,’ Alister said, adding a sound somewhere between a laugh and a huff of disapproval. ‘Though one can hardly condone her unfortunate choice in husband, it is a relief to see her settled somewhere.’
Liv managed a response in a voice that was ever so slightly tight at the edges. ‘She does not think it unfortunate, I am sure. My brother allows me no contact with her, since he thinks she will be a bad influence on me, but from what little he has let slip about her, she and Mr Castell are quite happily married.’
‘And I suspect he is still a newspaper reporter,’ Alister replied, his voice equally tight. ‘Not the best connection she could have made, and it does your family no credit. But if she is happy, then that is something, I suppose.’ He wrinkled his nose as if her sister’s joy had the stench of the unwashed lower classes.
‘She is much better off than she was when living under Hugh’s thumb,’ Liv insisted. ‘It was intolerable.’
‘Then she will not be tempted to return to Scofield House with her tail between her legs, seeking forgiveness,’ he said with a smile. ‘And since Hugh has banned her from associating with you, we will not have to worry about her washing up on our doorstep once we have married.’
She blinked for a moment as the image of her sister, bedraggled and in need, knocked on imaginary doors, only to be turned away by both brother and sister. Then she brightened. ‘I will not be bound by my brother’s rules once I am your wife.’ She disentangled her hand from his and walked her fingers up the front of his waistcoat. ‘Surely you will not begrudge me a visit from my sister and new brother, should they be in the vicinity of our home.’
There was a pause before he answered, almost as if that had been exactly his intention. But apparently he did not want to spoil the mood any more than she did, and eventually he replied, ‘Of course not.’
‘That is good,’ she said with a smile, relieved to have won this small argument about a thing that might never occur if Alister could not manage to come up to scratch and wed her.
‘And it is not as if she would be coming to live with us,’ he said, unable to keep the relief from his own voice. ‘I know you feared that might be necessary when she was still at home and your brother would not allow her a season.’
‘I did not precisely fear it...’ she allowed. In fact, she had been looking forward to it. She had assumed that they would be inviting her sister into their home, once she and Alister had wed. Of course, since she was oldest, she had also assumed that her marriage would have happened long before Peg found a husband. She had been wrong in that as well.
Whenever she and Alister had discussed it before, something had always stood in the way of an elopement. Either the weather was wrong for a trip to Scotland, or Alister had some business that he could not manage to leave, even for a week’s journey. And if not those reasons, then perhaps her brother was in a mood and watching too closely for her to get away. But, talking to him now, it seemed that there might be another, unspoken reason that had trumped them all.
‘Well, it is good that we no longer have to care about housing Margaret,’ Alister said with a smile, relaxing against the seat they shared and allowing his arm to drape behind her in a way that was almost an embrace.
Without intending to, she leaned forward, away from his arm, then turned to look at him in surprise. ‘Would it really have bothered you so much to have her stay with us?’
The answer was preceded by another unfortunate delay, as if he had realised his misstep and was searching his mind for a way to minimise it. ‘Of course not. But it is never ideal to have a guest in the house at the start of a marriage. I would not want you to have been distracted by her.’
Liv wanted to argue that there was nothing distracting about her sister, and that she was family and not a guest. But it seemed foolish to pick another fight over a point that had been rendered moot by Peg’s elopement.
When she said nothing, Alister chose to take her silence for agreement. His hand closed on her shoulder, pulling her gently back to lean against his arm. ‘Now that the matter is settled, we can begin to plan for our future.’
She rested uneasily against him, for until today she had not really known that there had been a hindrance to such plans. Apparently, he had been waiting until such time as he was sure that Peg was gone before proceeding. In some ways, this seemed an insult to her beloved sister.
But it might have been worse. He might have spirited her away to Scotland before telling her of his aversion to housing and launching Peg. Then, the poor thing would have been left to manage their brother on her own. Hugh being what he was, it would have been disastrous. Instead, the reverse was true. Peg was gone, and Liv was the one who was trapped. But her escape was finally imminent.
She smiled at Alister, reminding herself that it should be easy to forgive him for a thing that had not actually happened, and nodded in agreement. ‘As you say, it has all worked out for the best. If you have plans, I am eager to hear of them.’
He started to speak and then glanced at the old lady in the corner, who was starting on another piece of candy. She showed no signs of having heard anything that they had said thus far, nor did she seem to care what might come next. Then he turned back to Liv, giving her hand a squeeze. ‘Next week, come to see me here, as you always do. But include an extra hamper in your stack of gifts. Fill it with a change of linen, and any personal possessions you cannot do without. We will leave by the back stairs of this building, take a hired carriage to Scotland and be married in one week’s time.’
One more week.
It was so soon. But she must remember that he had been waiting years for her, ignoring the refusal and scorn of both her father and brother. He had stood with her through the period of mourning, while ignoring the foul rumours about her brother’s part in the death. Now that he was ready, it was unfair of her to keep him waiting a moment longer.
She smiled again and squeezed his hand in return. ‘Until next week.’
He nodded, satisfied, and gave her a chaste kiss on the cheek. ‘And now you must return to the carriage before the maid wonders at the delay. We will see each other again soon.’ The look he was giving her now was different from the ones he had given her before, full of a warmth that was exciting and, if she was honest, a little frightening.
She took a deep breath to steady her nerves. ‘The sooner the better.’
