“I purchased the perfect book for him at Hatchards,” went on Caro. “I’ll just slip the letter inside it. Now all you have to do is write a note to the earl, and the explanatory note to Prescott. Then we’ll have Freddie deliver it first thing in the morning.” Rolling onto her back, she clasped a pillow to her chest. “Oohh, what fun. This is even more romantic than Anna’s latest chapter on Count Alessandro’s secret meetings with Princess Miranda.”
“You know…” As Olivia watched the scudding moonlight play over Caro’s dreamy expression, she felt a slight twinge of foreboding. “I have to confess, I am having second thoughts about this scheme. What if something goes wrong?”
Her sister’s face fell. “What could possibly go wrong? The worst that could happen is that Lord Wrexham goes ahead and marries the stiff-rumped Steel Corset. And, according to Prescott, that’s already a certainty unless we help save the earl from himself.” The squeezed pillow emitted a feathery sigh. “Look at it this way—we are doing a good deed.”
“I’m not sure that the earl would agree.” However, she didn’t have the heart to quash Caro’s hopes of having a small adventure here in London. “Quite likely I shall regret this.”
“No you won’t,” assured Caro.
Gathering up her scattered hairpins, Olivia dropped them one by one into their silver box.
“Oh, hell. Bring me a pen and paper.”
“That’s the spirit!” said her youngest sister.
“Neither spirit nor imagination is anything the three of us lack,” she murmured, as her youngest sister hurried away to fetch the requested items. “It is restraint over our creative impulses that we all might exercise a little more often.” A sigh momentarily fogged the looking glass. “But in for a penny, in for a pound, I suppose.” Caro was right—there seemed to be little harm in setting up one more meeting with the earl’s son. He had looked so vulnerable in the park, looking for Lady Loose Screw to show up.
I can’t very well leave him in the lurch.
Olivia quickly scribbled off the two short notes when Caro returned, and handed it over before she could change her mind.
“But remember,” she cautioned, “your mission with Prescott is going to be to explain, albeit gently, that for compelling personal reasons, Lady Loose Screw can no longer be considered a candidate for marriage. And then to offer some counsel on how he might try to give the Steel—er, that is, the lady in question—a second chance.”
Caro made a face. “I still say we should sell her to white slavers. She doesn’t sound very nice.”
“No, she doesn’t, but that does not give us the right to interfere,” replied Olivia. “Our agreement is that you will pass on my advice to the lad without your own embellishments, or…” She held out her hand. “…You can return my note and the plan is off.”
“No, no, I’ll do as you ask.” Caro hastily tucked the paper up her sleeve. “But I still say we ought to come up with something more romantic than that.”
“Enough of romance,” she muttered. “I need to turn my thoughts to more practical matters—like finishing my essay.”
Caro made a sympathetic sound as she turned for the door. “I’ll leave you the pen and ink. Along with some peace and quiet.”
“Thank you.”
But the ensuing silence, lit by the soft, soundless flickering of the candles, did not quite calm the agitated whisper of thoughts in her head.
Mistresses. What imp of Satan had compelled her to bring up such a subject with the earl?
“Even for me, that was beyond the pale,” she said to herself.
That he was planning a speech on the very issue that was so near and dear to her heart ought to have provoked something other than a deliberately tart comment on courtesans. It was as if she wished him to find her company repulsive.
Which I do, I suppose.
Olivia took pride in being forthright and honest, especially with herself. So honesty compelled her to admit that she found the earl intriguing. Attractive. Intelligent.
He was also all but engaged to be married.
She was willing to take intellectual risks—Good Heavens, it would stir a swirl of scandal throughout the beau monde if it became know that the radical political essays in the Mayfair Gazette were penned by a woman—because the reward of stirring Society’s collective conscience to action made it worthwhile.
However, there seemed little chance that an emotional risk would bring anything other than disappointment. The oh-so-proper Earl of Wrexham and the oh-so-outrageous Hellion of High Street? Ha! And it was not only their temperaments that were diametrically opposed. He was rich as Croesus and she was poor as a churchmouse.
Enough of indulging in mindless fantasies. The Beacon had real work to do.
Clearing a spot on her dressing table for a blank sheet of paper, Olivia dipped her pen in the inkwell and began to write.
Chapter Twelve