“Surely you see the wisdom in this arrangement.”
“I doubt I, or anyone else, would call a union between us wise.” Olivia hated her necessary cruelty but, goodness, this was his third proposal.
“But your brother has consented,” he said, grabbing the corner of a table and struggling to his feet.
“Marcus agreed you may ask. He never guaranteed my answer.”
Judging from Lord Danfield’s confused expression, he didn’t understand the difference.
At the less-than-discreet sound of a throat being cleared, both Olivia and Danfield turned toward the open door of the morning room.
Gibbons, the family butler, stood in the entryway with a brocade pillow. “I see I have not been quick enough,” the elderly man said with a sigh. “Should I leave this here for the next time he proposes, Lady Olivia?”
Olivia smothered a laugh, grateful—for once—for Gibbons’ penchant for eavesdropping. “That will be fine.”
After depositing the pillow on the nearest chair and turning to leave, Gibbons looked back at Danfield. “Next time, my lord, might I suggest a bit of poetry and perhaps a song or two?”
The obtuse viscount furrowed his brow. “Would it work?”
“No. But I, for one, would find it vastly more entertaining than your usual attempts.”
Danfield stared after Gibbons’s retreating figure, trying to discern whether he’d been insulted. It took him a surprisingly long time.
In spite of her aggravation, Olivia couldn’t help but feel the faintest stirrings of pity for the young man. “I think we would better part as friends,” she suggested. Perhaps niceness would make her refusal easier to handle.
Never one to take unnecessary chances, however, Olivia edged her way toward the door, hoping he would follow.
“We have always been great friends, haven’t we?” he agreed, a little too enthusiastically.
She nodded, wondering how two months in London gave the man leave to claim anything of permanence between them but willing to agree in order to speed his leaving.
“Which is why we should marry,” he said with a nod. “It’s just as Mother said this morning, ‘The best marriages grow on mutual indifference that is rooted in the soil of friendship.’”
“Your mother is…profound…beyond comprehension.” Which was the least insulting thing she could think to say about the staid, arrogant matriarch.
A smile lit his face. “I’m glad you agree. And when I tell you Mother has graciously agreed to instruct you on the art of governing the household affairs after our nuptials…well, I can only imagine how delighted that must make you,” he said.
“How magnanimous,” Olivia muttered through gritted teeth, wondering who he thought had overseen the affairs at Westin Park for the last five years. Whatever inklings of pity she’d felt dissipated.
Danfield missed the warning in her tone. “We—Mother and I—are also concerned over your tendency to bury your nose in a book. That can’t be healthy for a woman. You’ll go blind. And, really, Lady Danfield suggested you learn to think before you speak. Your frankness is fairly scandalizing.”
Olivia rolled her eyes. “Is it, now?”
Danfield stiffened. “Most women would be grateful we are prepared to help.”
“Well,” Olivia said, brushing her hands together, “you should begin looking for this other paragon. For the last time, Lord Danfield, I will not marry you.”
The refusal seemed to register. His smile fell, and his shoulders sagged. “Will anything change your mind?”
She shook her head.
After a pause, he said, “I think, perhaps, this might.”
He strode toward her, smoothly stepping around the furniture obstacles, and Olivia had no recourse but to retreat, until she was flush against the wall. Danfield’s hot breath puffed against her face.
He was going to kiss her. And her reaction when she realized this was purely instinctual.
She flailed her arms behind her and grabbed a vase off a side table.
And hit him in the head.
Hard.
The young man fell to the floor with a dull thud, covered in bits of broken pottery.
Wonderful. She’d killed a peer of the realm.
Olivia knelt beside the viscount, wondering if she should loosen his cravat, find some smelling salts or perhaps retrieve a wet cloth for him. Although she doubted any of those considerations would be helpful if he were dead.
Reaching out, Olivia shook his shoulder gently, hoping to elicit a response. A groan? A flinch? An apology perhaps?
Nothing.
If the worst had happened, however, Olivia reasoned that as the sister of an earl she would get special privileges in New gate Prison. Such as an extra cup of water a day. Or a stick to beat back the rats.
She was so engrossed by her bleak future as a prisoner of the Crown she jumped at the pained moan of the supposedly dead viscount.
“Lord Danfield?” she asked hesitantly. No response. “Are you quite well?” Still nothing.
Olivia stood. If the man weren’t dead, he didn’t appear to be in a hurry to leave. She hadn’t the time to wait on him to do so, either.
There was nothing to be done but tell her brother. If she caught him in a jovial mood, Marcus might find the situation amusing.
Although, she thought, probably not.
Fortunately—or perhaps not—her brother was easy to find.
“Through already?” Marcus, the Earl of Westin, asked, startling her as he approached from behind.
“I suppose you could say that.”
He chuckled. “Amazing. I thought we would have to knock him out and drag him away just to get him out of the house.”
“I suppose you could say that, too.” Olivia wrung her hands together.
Her brother appeared oblivious to her distress. “An old friend of mine will be joining us for luncheon today…” But an anguished groan echoed through the hall, interrupting his thought.
“What was that?” Marcus walked in the groan’s direction.
“Let me explain before you—” Olivia tried, hurrying after him.
She winced as Marcus bellowed her name before she could catch up with him.
Marcus fixed her with a hard stare. “What happened in here?”
“There
