Normally you would dine at home or at your club?” Or with his mistress, but she’d heard that relationship had ended.
“There is actually. I need you to send an invitation to my neighbor, Mrs. Fennelworth, for your ball on Saturday night,” he said.
“Fennelworth?” she gasped. “You detest them. They’ve been your neighbors for years and you’ve never even spoken to them. Those horrid children!”
“They’re children,” Burke protested.
“No,” Olivia said. “They are not. One of their poor governesses wound up in an asylum. They never kept a single one for more than a couple of weeks at a time. And those were the heartier ones.”
“Indeed,” Algernon agreed. “They are something altogether worse. But this invitation needs to make very clear that the intended guest is actually Mrs. Fennelworth’s sister, Miss Persephone Blake. She’s knew to town, I think, relatively. Met her this afternoon. Charming woman.”
And that was when Burke’s ears perked up. He sat up straighter in his chair. “What scheme have you laid for this poor girl?”
“Not a scheme,” Algernon said. “A proposal. And she’s no mere girl, but a woman grown. I need a wife. She needs a husband or she’ll wind up being de facto governess to her sister’s abominable children for the rest of her days. Given the nature of those children, said days will likely be numbered.”
Burke let out a sharp bark of laughter. “You don’t even know this woman! I hope she refuses you. The whole plan is utterly mad.”
“No, it isn’t,” Olivia said. When Algernon had entered the room, there’d been a lightness about him, a spring in his step that she had not seen for some time. And looking at him closely, she could see that his eyes were dancing with a kind of happiness she’d never seen in him. Whoever this Miss Blake was, she was a very special woman. “And she won’t say no. She’ll say yes.”
Algernon looked away. “Her sister’s a bit of a miser. You’ll call on her tomorrow morning and take her shopping. I’ve told her she’s not permitted to refuse. Get her something lovely and grand and that will make Daphne Fennelworth green with envy, will you?”
“I’ll make her the belle of the ball,” Olivia promised. “There is only one problem… I’ve invited Lady Sheffield.”
Algernon’s face went blank for a moment. He was clearly taken aback that she knew of that relationship. But then he shrugged. “We parted on friendly terms. It should make no difference.”
“Well, then, I shall call on Miss Blake tomorrow… and she will assist me with my own shopping and a gown or two might make its way to her when I reconsider my purchases,” Olivia offered in a conspiratorial tone.
“Good. Right. Then I’ll leave you to your dinner,” Algernon said. As he rose, he spared a glance at Burke’s still lean middle. “Wouldn’t want to hinder your husband’s very hale appetite, would I?”
When Algernon had gone, she looked at Burke and smiled. “He’s in love with her."
“He’s only just met her!”
“It doesn’t matter,” Olivia said. “Did you see him, Burke? I mean really see him? He was positively happy. I’ve not seen him smile like that since… well, since long before the two of you had your falling out.”
Burke tossed his napkin on the table. “You mean the one where he lied and said that you’d refused my offer to court you when he’d never bothered to present it to you at all? That falling out?”
“Yes, that one.” Olivia reached for his hand. “I know it was a long road to get to where we are today, but I’m glad of the twists and turns in it. You and I both know, now, just how much we mean to one another and how far we were both willing to go in order to be together. That’s a perspective, husband, that so many people will never have. We are blessed with it.”
Burke looked away. “Don’t expect me to thank him.”
“No. Never that,” she said with a grin. “But tell me, in your heart, that you aren’t a little bit happy for him? He was your friend for the better part of your life!”
“And now he’s infatuated with some woman whose family he detests,” Burke stated. “There’s not a lot to be happy about in that, is there?”
“Oh, yes. But there is. Because I know, that if he was willing to brave Daphne Fennelworth, then this must be much, much more than simple infatuation,” Olivia said with a wide grin. “If he’s willing to