His Wicked Heart (26 page)

The duke handed his wife into a chair away
from the fireplace where Olivia had been pacing. “We’ve come to
join Louisa for luncheon. We understand she had a bit of an
accident.”

Olivia couldn’t help but note it took them
two days to come when Benfield was only a short ride from Town.
He’d also pointedly said they’d come to join
Louisa
, not
Louisa and Olivia. “How kind of you. Yes, she turned her ankle but
is feeling much better. In fact, we’re to return to London
shortly.”

The duke’s mouth pulled into a thin specter
of a smile. “After luncheon, I presume. I daresay I’d be
disappointed to have come all this way for nothing.”

Her Grace studied Olivia as if she were a
curious object. No, that was too benign. Perhaps an old pair of
shoes she’d forgotten she possessed—and didn’t particularly care
for. “What are your plans, Miss West, now that you’ve
Louisa’s…assistance?”

Like their son, they doubted the veracity of
her relationship to Louisa. Why did none of these people accept the
word of Louisa, a member of their own family? As much as Olivia
loved Louisa, she was glad she needn’t claim these people as
relations.

“Yes,” the duke said, “do tell us what you
plan.”

Olivia glanced at the door, willing Louisa to
arrive. “It’s enough for me to enjoy Louisa’s company.”

The duchess peered down her long, thin nose.
“Surely you have grander designs than that.”

Was Olivia so different because she didn’t
possess their brand of ambition? She could never explain to these
people that until a fortnight ago, she would’ve been quite content
to someday own a tiny embroidery shop. “No, not really.”

The duchess’ eyes narrowed almost
imperceptibly. “You are doing well in the role of companion. We’ve
been suggesting such an arrangement to Louisa for years, lonely as
she is.”

The duke continued to stand behind his wife’s
chair, his gloved fingers intermittently drumming against the top,
just above the duchess’s head. “And where is it you hail from
again?”

“Devon.”

He nodded once. “Presumably you’ve been
decently educated.” He glanced at the book Olivia had discarded.
“You were just reading?”

Olivia bit back a sarcastic retort in which
she said she’d tried but had stopped upon reaching the word
insufferable
. “Yes, Your Grace. I was raised in a
vicarage.”

The duchess turned and looked up at her
husband. “A vicarage? I don’t recall Merriweather being related to
a vicar.”

Olivia inwardly cringed. Jasper was right.
She couldn’t keep the truth from being discovered.

The duke returned his wife’s gaze. “To my
knowledge, Merriweather didn’t have an impoverished branch to his
family, vicar or otherwise.” Slowly, he turned his attention back
to Olivia. “We assume you were without financial support since you
journeyed all this way to search for family. How fortuitous you
found my sister.”

Olivia didn’t know how to respond, so she
didn’t.

The duchess settled back against the chair
and pinned Olivia with another withering stare. “No doubt you could
take on work as a governess should you decide you don’t like being
a companion, or after Louisa passes on.”

They speculated about Louisa’s death? Olivia
gritted her teeth. “I like living with Louisa as
family
. I
truly have no other aspirations.”

“Not even marriage?” Her Grace lifted a
shoulder. “It’s not impossible you might draw the interest of a
decent young man. You are rather pretty, despite the red in your
hair.”

Olivia prayed Louisa would arrive soon and
that she was ready to leave for London immediately. Dash the duke
and duchess and their plans for luncheon.

“Mmm, you’re quite right, my dear,” he said.
“Still, I don’t think Louisa need expend effort husband-hunting,
especially if Miss West isn’t particularly interested. She may,
however, change her mind.” He gave Olivia a pointed look that
clearly said he didn’t believe her lack of ambition, and that he
would be watching.

Devastating as it was not to know her
father’s identity, she was only glad he wasn’t someone like the
duke. She felt a pang of pity for Jasper.

No, she felt more than a pang of pity. She
felt a surge of longing that warmed her chest and spread out to her
extremities. Also, a wave of protectiveness. He’d given her solace
yesterday when she’d needed it most. As evidenced by her encounter
with Aunt Mildred, there were so few people who truly cared.

Could Jasper be one of them?

“What’s that on the chair?” the duchess
asked.

Oh, dear. The pieces of Jasper’s waistcoat.
Olivia quickly stashed it back into her sewing basket. “Just some
embroidery I’m working on.”

The duchess looked as if she would say
something else, but Louisa limped into the library with her
cane.

“Oh, here you are, Olivia dear.” Louisa
inclined her head toward her brother and his wife. “Holborn, Your
Grace.”

Olivia looked at the duke, surprised and
perturbed he wasn’t helping his sister. Yes, she was exceedingly
glad
he
wasn’t her father. She rushed to offer her arm to
Louisa.

“We’ve come to ascertain your health,”
Holborn said. “And to take luncheon with you.”

Louisa pursed her lips. “Mmm. Well, I’m
feeling quite splendid enough to return to Town, thank you. Pity
you came for luncheon, and we’re just leaving.” Her brittle smile
and oversweet tone said it was anything but. Olivia tried very hard
not to grin and only just managed to succeed.

“Oh, come, come. You simply must stay.” It
sounded like an order instead of a polite request.

“Why, because you deigned to visit?” Louisa
tsked
. “Cook will serve an excellent luncheon. One I daresay
you’ll enjoy as much without my presence as with. Besides, Olivia
has a watercolor lesson later this afternoon.”

Olivia perked. With everything else crowding
her head, she’d quite forgotten the appointment. She retrieved her
sewing basket, anxious to leave.

“She’s every bit the gifted artist Merry
was.”

Olivia wasn’t sure she evidenced as much
skill as Lord Merriweather, which only added to her doubt. If he
wasn’t her father, she had no right to be here with Louisa.

Yet hadn’t the duke said Louisa needed a
companion? Furthermore, she clearly held strong affection for
Olivia. Was pleasing an old woman enough reason to continue a lie?
If it was a lie. Could Olivia find the truth?

Suddenly, she was eager to return to
London—and not just to escape the nauseating company of the duke
and duchess. Perhaps there she could seek answers regarding her
paternity. Surely someone who knew her mother could help her
determine which man had fathered Olivia.

“Olivia, dear? Are you all right?” Louisa
asked.

Too late, Olivia realized the conversation
had continued without her. She managed a sheepish smile. “I was
just wondering what Mr. Landsdowne might want me to sketch today.
We painted fruit the last time.”

The duke and duchess narrowed their eyes.

Olivia began to understand. It mattered
little if she were intelligent or well-spoken. With a dubious past
and inferior ambition, her traits and skills were without
consequence in this world. Of much more value were her background
and her potential for future success—as defined by Society. Lord,
how could she ever hope to fit into Louisa’s life?

Louisa steered Olivia toward the door. “Come
dear, our coach is ready. Enjoy your luncheon, Holborn.”

The duke watched their departure with
heavy-lidded disdain.

JASPER guided his phaeton along Piccadilly,
the mid-afternoon traffic thicker than usual. Beside him, Sevrin
perused the people strolling the sidewalk below.

“I appreciate your invitation this afternoon.
Spectacular vehicle, Saxton,” he remarked. “I feel as if I’ve
perhaps arrived. Surely to be seen in the coveted seat beside you
will elevate me from wretched degenerate to rakish libertine.”

Jasper’s mouth ticked up in a half smile,
despite the regrets and concerns oppressing his brain. “You’re both
of those and more.”

Two ladies peered up at them from beneath the
wide brims of their bonnets. Sevrin tipped the edge of his hat.
“True enough. But why me? This illustrious space is usually
reserved for your…
acceptable
friends. Penreith. Or
Black.”

“Does it matter why?” Jasper didn’t want the
company of his “acceptable” friends. Being with Sevrin made his
reclaimed, albeit secret, status of “ruiner” slightly more
palatable. At least with Sevrin he was amongst his own
kind—wretched degenerates and rakish libertines they were.

“No,” Sevrin said, peering at him sideways.
“It’s just unlike you. And last night at the club, you barely
strung a sentence together, which is also unlike you. If the club
has devolved you to some form of grunting wild man who prefers the
company of scoundrels, perhaps I’ll disassociate you.”

Jasper threw him a sour look. As he did so,
his eye caught a figure moving amongst the pedestrians on the
sidewalk.
Olivia
. It had to be. If she tilted her head up
just a bit…there!

He drew the horses to a halt. What was she
doing here on Piccadilly?

“Why’re we stopped?” Sevrin asked.

Jasper turned in his seat, uncaring that he
held up traffic.

“What the devil are you doing, Saxton? You
can’t stop in the middle of the street.” Sevrin craned his neck.
“What are you looking at? Wait, is that Miss West?”

Jasper handed him the reins. “Here.”

“What?” Sevrin stared at him as if he’d grown
another nose. “No.”

“I need to talk to her.” Find out why she was
out walking alone. Her background was troublesome enough, but need
she draw even more attention to herself?

“You don’t.”

“I
do
.”

“Move along!” someone called behind them.

With an oath, Jasper ripped the reins from
Sevrin’s slack grip. “Worthless. I
should’ve
brought
Penreith or Black. They don’t talk back.”

“If you prefer the company of sycophants, I’m
definitely disassociating you from the club.”

“Fine.” Jasper watched Olivia disappear into
the crowd. “Maybe I’ll start my own society.”

“I’m having a bit of fun, Sax.” Sevrin
studied him intently, his ever-present veneer of joviality gone.
“You’re clearly not. What the hell is going on with Miss West?”

Jasper clutched the reins and turned his
head. “We’ll follow her.”

“No.” Sevrin put a firm hand on Jasper’s arm.
“You can’t go trailing her. She’s not some nobody actress anymore.
You run after her, it’ll be the meatiest gossip on everyone’s plate
tonight—and not in a good way. Trust me, I know what it’s like to
be the butt of scandal. You don’t.”

“Only because I’m Holborn’s son.”

“Are you saying without that name to hide
behind, you’re no better than me? I don’t believe it.”

Suddenly Jasper knew why he’d invited Sevrin
today: to unburden himself. His insides twisted. “Believe it.
I’m…like you.”

Sevrin stared at him. “Like me?”

Jasper didn’t look away. He deserved whatever
Sevrin would say, and more.

After another long moment, Sevrin’s nostrils
flared. “You ruined her—Miss West.”

The feel of the reins lightened in Jasper’s
hand, as if he lost his grip with everything around him. “Yes.”

“Don’t think that makes you like me.”
Sevrin’s dark eyes narrowed slightly. “Everyone knows about my
past. No one has a clue you got carried away with your aunt’s new
charge.”

Here was his chance to…what? Seek absolution?
Understanding? Commiseration? He blew out a pent-up breath. “And a
girl ten years ago.”

Sevrin turned toward him in the seat.
“
What
?”

Jasper stared ahead at the vehicles crawling
in front of them. “She lived near Edgewater—my estate in
Yorkshire.”

“You ruined another girl?” The
incredulousness in his tone was almost amusing.

“You see, I’m no better than you.” He tossed
Sevrin a cynical smile. “Worse actually. I’ve got one up on
you.”

“What happened? Why didn’t you marry
her?”

She thought of Abigail, but oddly, the
features of the trollop from Coventry Court entered his brain
first. He searched for the memory of Abigail’s face, but it seemed
blurred. What he did recall, however, was his consuming need to
possess her. And the feeling had been reciprocated. Neither one of
them could wait to bed the other, and so they had—propriety be
damned.

He gave Sevrin the truth. “The duke wouldn’t
allow it.”

Sevrin gaped at him. “You let him make your
decisions for you? If you wanted to marry her, you should have
done.”

“I would have, but she left.” She and her
family had disappeared. The duke had “consoled” him by saying she
wouldn’t have made a very good duchess, and that as a country-bred
girl she would’ve been miserable in Town. “It was several months
before I learned Holborn had sent her away.” He rasped the words
out, emotion hardening his voice.

Sevrin shook his head. “What happened to her
is terrible, but you have to let it go.”

The traffic began to loosen. Jasper urged the
horses to a steady walk. “Is that what you did?”

He looked away. “You have a new situation
now, one you can do something about.”

Sevrin was right. Olivia needed his help. He
had to keep her safe from Holborn’s machinations. Somehow, he had
to bury the secret of her parentage.

“I need you to help me,” he said.

“Don’t ask me to drive your phaeton again
while you chase after Miss West.”

“Actually, I do need you to do that, but not
so I can chase after Olivia. You’ll drop me on Queen Street so I
may speak to my aunt.” Jasper needed to tell her he knew the truth,
and that he planned to ensure Olivia stayed with her. “I also need
you to talk to those women who come to the Black Horse. Ascertain
what they know of her background. If any of them know she’s Fiona
Scarlet’s daughter, they can’t reveal the relationship to anyone.
Offer them any sum.”