“Shocking, I know. Especially considering the lady in question was married.”
Oh.
The marquess jostled the bolt, and with a begrudging, wince-inducing grate, it slid back. Then, after delivering a small kick with his booted foot, he pushed the gate open on protesting hinges.
“There we are,” Lord Sleat said with a gentlemanly bow. “I trust this serves your needs.”
“Yes, it d-does. Most adequately.” Transferring Peridot to one arm, Olivia held her torn skirt with her other hand and dipped into another small curtsy. “Thank you again, my lord. For everything.”
“The pleasure has been all mine, I assure you.” He caught her hand and brushed a kiss over the back of her fingers, making Olivia blush to the roots of her hair. “And just in case you ever need to rescue Peridot again”—he winked—“I’ll leave the gate unlocked.”
Olivia inclined her head. “You’re too kind.”
He laughed, and mischief glinted in his eye. “You wouldn’t say that if you really knew me, lass.” Leaning closer, he added in a seductive, velvet-soft voice, “I’m afraid wickedness runs in the family, so you’d best leave before a sinful scoundrel like me is tempted to ruin more than your reputation. Farewell, my lovely Lavinia.”
Goodness. She couldn’t quite believe a man like Lord Sleat was flirting with tangle-tongued, quiet-as-a-church-mouse Olivia de Vere. She muttered a stammered farewell in return, then ducked through the small gateway and the curtain of ivy on the other side. When she emerged into the garden, she heard the door scrape shut. And her heart fell at the thought that she might never see her mysterious marquess again.
With a heavy sigh, she rounded a small knot of rosebushes and made her way back to the house with Peridot in her arms. No, she wouldn’t let disappointment weigh her down. Because even if Bagshaw tore strips off her, and her aunt and uncle locked her away in her room for the next week, she would not regret a single thing.
She’d finally met Lord Sleat, and he was everything she’d imagined him to be—ruggedly handsome and roguish, yet essentially a gentleman. A small smile played at the corners of her mouth. The memory of their fleeting yet thoroughly stimulating encounter would sustain her for many a long, lonely night to come, of that she was certain.
However, all her pleasant musings about Lord Sleat fled when she gained the upper gallery leading to the bedchambers. To avoid her aunt, uncle, and cousins, she’d given the drawing room and library a wide berth. Indeed, she didn’t encounter anyone besides a pair of housemaids lighting the last of the upstairs lamps . . . until she reached her room.
No sooner had she turned the brass handle than another door a bit farther along clicked open. And then a voice she both dreaded and loathed floated down the hall like a malevolent spirit.
“O-liv-liv-livia . . .” The singsong taunt, the mocking tone, was all too familiar. “How are you, my sweet little c-c-cuz?”
Damn, blast, and drat. Olivia opened her bedroom door and pushed Peridot inside before turning around to face her cousin Felix de Vere. The veritable bane of her existence.
The man her aunt and uncle wanted her to marry to keep her fortune within the de Vere family forever.
When pigs fly. Tamping down her dislike and dismay as best she could, Olivia pasted a neutral expression on her face as she forced herself to meet Felix’s frost blue gaze. He swaggered toward her in his perfectly tailored, ton-buck attire—purchased with her inheritance money, no doubt—then propped a shoulder against the beveled oak doorjamb. He was so close, crowding her in, attempting to intimidate her, she could smell the brandy on his breath. See the glints of gold in his evening beard.
For a man who was five-and-twenty, he was as immature as a playground bully. Not to mention as vain as a peacock.
“You, you’ve returned f-from abroad,” she stated as smoothly as she could. Considering her pulse was skittering around like a panicked field mouse about to be set upon by a weasel, she was surprised she could make her mouth work at all.
Felix smirked as he tossed a thick wave of tawny hair out of his eyes. “Clearly. But you haven’t answered my question.” His insolent gaze traveled down her body, and then he laughed. “Good God, Livvie, you look like you’ve been tupped. Torn skirts. Flushed cheeks. Disheveled hair.” To emphasize his point, he plucked an ivy leaf from the top of her head and crushed it between his