Chapter 14

Dearest Constance,

Please forgive this unorthodox method of communication, but time is of the essence. I presented what we gathered so far to my creditors, but they were not willing to release me from my commitments. If your pin money is insufficient, perhaps there are objects in that house you could sell—statues or paintings gathering dust in dark corners that no one will miss.

Sincerely,

D

“Where did you meet this man?” Thel asked.

His daughter curled into the corner of the carriage, her arms crossed, her neck turned toward the window. Olivia sat beside her, chewing her lower lip between her teeth. Constance had not said a word since he had presented her with the letter they had taken from Olivia’s attacker. When faced with the prospect of being turned over to the Scotland Yard, the man had confessed that an unknown party had paid him to deliver the note.

He’d been unable to give any more information, but Thel was certain the incident was related to the lack of funds in Constance’s account and the letters they’d found in her room.

“How much have you given him?” he asked.

Constance tucked her chin to her chest. “It was my money to give away. John needed it.”

“John who?” Olivia asked. “Do you even know his last name?”

“Of course I do!”

Olivia hummed a sound that was both noncommittal and patronizing.

Constance turned back to the window. “If you must know, his name is John Dawson. I met him in the village.” She cupped her cheek in her hand and continued in a softer voice. “It was the night of the summer festival. I waited for Mrs. Quill to be distracted before slipping away to watch the dancing. Then a handsome man approached me and held out a handkerchief he’d picked up, asking if I’d dropped it. It was so sweet of him to ask, even though it wasn’t mine.” She gave a dreamy sigh. “Oh, John.”

Thel had never heard of the man, and his daughter’s omission of a “Sir” or “Lord” meant he was untitled.

“You might have told me you had a suitor before I engaged a matchmaker,” he said, taking great care to keep his tone level. It was embarrassing enough having Olivia in the carriage with them without resorting to shouting.

“John said you wouldn’t understand.” Constance pursed her lips. “He was right.”

He kept his response to himself. Events were occurring exactly as Olivia had predicted. It followed that an angry outburst from him would have the effect she had described, chasing his daughter further into Dawson ’s arms.

“He only needs my help for a few more months,” Constance said. “He’ll have more than enough money once his inheritance comes through. His father owned a rail company in America before he died.”

Thel was doubtful. A man who begged a woman for money, especially in such large amounts, was not a man who could be trusted to maintain a fortune. Every pound he swindled out of Constance was likely reinvested in the local pub.

The carriage rocked back and forth, the sound of footfalls and horse hooves coming from outside as they made their slow way through the crowded streets. Thel kept one hand near the door, fearing that the mysterious Dawson would throw it open and steal Constance away.

A foolish thought. If Dawson wanted to marry Constance, there were far easier ways to force her hand. They had only to look at young Miss Perry, who had been caught kissing Mr. Rutledge behind the rose bushes last season. Witnesses reported that the young bride had to be forced down the aisle by her parents, sobbing all the while.

The carriage slowed to a stop, and a footman opened the door. Constance flew down the steps and into their home like a blur. Thel stepped out and offered Olivia his arm, which she took. He clutched her close, and she did not complain even when she had to pause at the bottom of the steps for him to release her.

They entered the house, and she followed him to his office. He sulked to his desk and threw himself into his chair.

A servant rushed inside and prepared the fire while Olivia perched in the chair opposite him.

He had only been in London a fortnight. How had his life become so complicated so quickly?

The servant finished setting the fire and rushed out of the room, slipping on the floor in his rush to depart.

“We have to cut off Constance’s contact with this man,” he said.

Olivia shook her head. “She would never forgive you.”

She sounded so certain, and she’d been right about Constance being in contact with a man. Still, this was his daughter.

“How do you know?” he asked.

“Because that is what my father tried to do to me.”

All the anger flowed out of him. “Your father did not want you to marry the Earl of Allen?”

“Not at first,” she said. “My mother had hoped to use my family’s fortune to entice a duke or marquess, not a ‘mere’ earl. When they discovered the letters the earl had sent me, they accused me of ruining myself.” She smoothed her palms over the waist of her gown. “They were wrong. When we first met, the earl was adamant that we could only ever be friends. No unmarried man had ever told me that.”

“He made himself forbidden,” Thel said. It was a story as old as time.

“Yes. I could not resist falling for the one man I could not have. I believe that is how Mr. Dawson got to Constance.”

It was horrifying knowing his daughter was being manipulated and frustrating because there was so little he could do.

Olivia stood and paced the room. “There’s still something I don’t understand. If Mr. Dawson is motivated by revenge against me, marrying Constance would not accomplish that goal, unless he made it known I had failed in my duties by allowing him to ruin her, but if that were his only goal, he would have done so already.” She grimaced. “It is easy to force a young woman into a compromising position. There must be something else Mr. Dawson wants that he cannot get through marriage alone. I just don’t know what, or how he’s connected to the former earl.”

Thel thumped back in his chair. “There must be something we can do.”

If he had been willing to let Constance marry any man who was only interested in her dowry, he would have allowed Felix to select a husband for her. At least then she would have had the comfort of a title.

“How did you end up married to the earl?” he asked. “If Dawson is following the same pattern, maybe there is a clue in your past to how to stop this.”

Olivia pulled off her glove and stuck her thumbnail in her mouth. “When I told my parents the earl and I were only friends, they didn’t believe me. They demanded I marry the earl immediately. I refused.” She laughed. “I had convinced myself the earl didn’t want me, and I loved him too much to force him.”

Thel could imagine her, a much younger woman, standing stubbornly before her furious father. A shudder passed through him. If Olivia had not told him to heel, he had no doubt his own confrontation with Constance would have gone the same way.

“My parents kept me locked in the house as punishment,” Olivia continued. “When the earl found out, he got one of our maids to deliver a letter saying he would marry me if it would rescue me from my parents.” She sighed. “If Constance feels for Mr. Dawson the way I did for the earl, then she won’t give up on him.”

The truth of her words resonated with him and infuriated him in equal measure. He had initially hoped that by introducing Constance to society early, they would have plenty of time to find her perfect match. Instead, he had catapulted them into disaster.

Then a thought struck him. “What could your father have done to separate you and the earl before it was too late?”

Olivia frowned. “That is an excellent question. Perhaps if more time had passed. The earl acted on his best behavior for the few days we officially courted, but he could not have kept it up for long. If I had seen his true personality before we married, it might have been enough to shake my faith.” She paced the room. “What if we encouraged Mr. Dawson to court her?”

“You cannot be serious.”

He was of the opinion that they leave the city immediately. A few months away from Dawson would surely rid Constance of her infatuation.

Olivia stopped at the window and drew her finger along the condensation, forming a heart before crossing it out. “This is my fault. If it weren’t for me, he might never have targeted Constance. Now that he has her in his grasp, I worry he won’t let her go.”

The sadness and grief in her voice made him want to squeeze her tightly and protect her from the prying eyes of society.

The realization that he cared for her, truly cared for her, rocked him, and he saw, for the first time, the danger in their arrangement. If he allowed his feelings to grow, parting from her would scar his already bruised heart. They could have no future together. He had found and lost his one true love.

Unless God was giving him a second chance.

A fluttering started in his stomach and rose to his throat before he swallowed it down. He was getting ahead of himself. He didn’t even know how Olivia felt. For all he knew, she considered him nothing more than a temporary liaison. Asking for more than that to which they had committed might very well cause her to end their relationship.

No. He would not act until he was certain his feelings were reciprocated.

He came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist. “I don’t blame you.”

She leaned back. “You don’t understand. I’ve put you in a terrible position. If you overtly approve of Mr. Dawson, she’ll use that to overlook any flaws she sees. But if you make Mr. Dawson forbidden, as the earl and my father did to me, then he’ll become much more tempting. If we are to separate them, you must play a careful game of neither encouragement nor disapproval. Can you do that?”

It did sound complicated, but he would not abandon his daughter without a fight.

“I will try.”

A tap came at the door, and they quickly separated before it creaked open. “Your daughter wishes to speak with you, my lord,” Mrs. Quill said.

Constance stepped into the room with her head bowed. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about John sooner.”

Thel’s heart ached. Why couldn’t life be as simple as one of his stories? The conflict in them never lasted more than a few days before the characters reconciled and lived happily ever after. He wanted to sweep his daughter into his arms and chase her troubles away. At the same time, his coddling might have brought about her duplicity. All her life, she had come to him with her problems. Until now.

It was time she faced the consequences of her actions.

“Is that all?” he asked.

Mrs. Quill cleared her throat.

Constance wrapped her arms around herself. “He said he needed more money. He said you would never find out.”

Mrs. Quill tutted. “The girl has given this daft man most of her jewels.”

A pit opened in Thel’s stomach. He had done wrong by his daughter, insulating her from the world when he should have been educating her about evil men.

The future unfolded in his mind in horrifying detail. Constance would marry Mr. Dawson. Furious that he’d not gotten his way, Felix would leave the house, taking Thel’s nieces and nephews with him. Elijah would follow soon after, having no reason to remain.

He could not allow it to happen. Even if it caused a split between them, even if it wasn’t exactly what Olivia had suggested, he had to stop Constance from starting the chain of events that would lead to him being left alone again. “I thought better of you, Connie.”

“Thel. Don’t,” Olivia said, before he spoke over her.

“Lock her in her room.”

Constance let out a sob before running away, with Mrs. Quill following. As the door slammed shut, Olivia spun around. “What was that?”

Thel ran a hand through his hair. “I-I don’t know. I panicked.”

How could he explain that the very idea of living by himself terrified him? A highly independent woman like her would never understand.

She heaved a sigh. “Well, the damage is done. I will see what I can do to prevent this from getting any worse.”

There was nothing he felt he could say to that, so he only watched with a growing sense of desperation as she turned and walked away from him.

###

Mrs. Quill opened Constance’s door at Olivia’s gentle knock. The maid’s fair hair fell around her face and there were bags under her eyes.

“How is she?” Olivia asked.

“She cries,” Mrs. Quill said.

“Let me speak with her.”

Thel might not have seen it, because his life had been blessed in comparison, but she knew what it was like to be involved with a man who was an expert at strumming the strings of her heart. She knew the ecstasy that resulted from pleasing her manipulator, and the devastation that came from failure.

“Yes, my lady,” Mrs. Quill said, opening the door.

The curtains were drawn tight, with only a sliver of sunlight passing through, and the fireplace was cold. The room smelled of beeswax, originating from a stub of a candle burning on Constance’s writing desk next to a stack of papers and a pen.

Constance lay on her bed with her hair loose, wearing only her chemise.

As Mrs. Quill slipped out of the room and shut the door, Olivia approached the desk. She touched a half-written letter, which was unsurprisingly addressed to Mr. Dawson.

“Father hates me,” Constance said.

Olivia sat on the edge of the bed and put a hand on Constance’s back. Her heart ached at the familiar scene. There had been no one to comfort her when she had sobbed after the earl had dismissed her with words of anger.

When Constance’s sobs quieted, Olivia crawled onto the bed beside her and leaned into the headboard. “You might not believe it, but I was once a girl on the cusp of womanhood, as you are.”

Constance sniffed. “A hundred years ago.”

Olivia made a mock sound of outrage. “How old do you think I am?”

“Sorry. Is this the story of how you met Lord Allen?”

“It is. Although it is probably not the romance you are expecting. When I met Lord Allen, he was a much older man who was adamant that we could never be anything but friends. Despite that, I quickly grew to care for him because he was the only person who listened to me. Who treated me like an adult.”

The transition from friendship to infatuation had happened quickly. One day she’d been telling him about her frustrations with her parents, the next, she’d been daydreaming about becoming the Countess of Allen.

“After I admitted I held feelings for him, he changed. He told me the most beautiful things. That I was his true love. That he could not bear to be parted from me.”

She chuckled. She had only discovered later he had cribbed the poems from old archives instead of creating them himself. The earl had been like that, expending the minimum effort to achieve his goals. He’d preferred to convince others to do his bidding than to dirty his own hands.

“When we finally married, I was so happy. The earl was a perfect husband. He showered me with love and affection.” She paused, remembering the moment her world had turned upside down. “As long as I was the perfect wife in return.”

She recalled the day she had finally realized how badly she had erred. It had been the day after he had locked her in her bedchamber for the first time, because she’d dared to wear a gown other than the one he had selected. It had scared her so badly that she’d sobbed for hours, trying to reconcile the shouting, angry man with the man she had married.

Only her elderly butler, Boris, had dared to bring her food when the earl had been in a temper. All the other servants had been terrified of the earl and what he would do to them if they’d tried to help her.

Then the earl had died, and it had felt as if a thousand heavy chains had slipped off her shoulders. She’d maintained the strictest of mourning rituals for the required two years, and then slowly, ever so slowly, had emerged as something new.

Lady Allen. Countess Dowager. Flirtatious, enterprising, clever. A woman every lady wanted in attendance at her events and every man desired in his bed. The most successful role she’d ever played.

Constance slid her hand into Olivia’s and squeezed. “I’m sorry he died.”

Olivia sighed. “I’m not. He was a cruel man. Marrying him was the worst mistake I ever made.” Now was her chance to connect her story back to Mr. Dawson, although if Constance had not caught the connection yet, then the girl might never understand. “What if Mr. Dawson is the same as the earl? What if he turns into the worst mistake of your life?”

Constance stiffened and curled into a tighter ball. “John isn’t like that.”

Olivia sighed. The girl was not yet ready to hear the truth. That meant her best option was to negotiate.

“A test, then,” she said. “To confirm he truly is the man you say he is.”

Constance uncurled and looked up with her bright eyes, her eyebrows furrowed. “What kind of test?”

Olivia’s mind raced. How could she tempt Dawson into revealing himself without putting the girl in actual danger? It had to be something Dawson would believe Constance had thought up herself.

She tried to remember how she had felt about the earl during the early days of their courtship. She had been so desperate for approval that she had made long lists of the earl’s strengths and shared them with anyone who would listen.

Olivia could not side with Constance without risking setting her against her father, but she could use the girl’s desperation against her.

“A man who truly loves you would not marry you if you did not want to, correct?”

Constance scrunched her nose. “But I do want to marry him.”

“I recommend you tell him you want to wait until you are older to marry. That you want a longer courtship. If he agrees, then you will know he is a true gentleman.”

“And if he disagrees?”

Olivia shrugged. “Then he is not the man you think he is.”

Constance was silent for a long time. At last, she spoke in a whisper. “What if he doubts my commitment? I don’t want to lose him.”

“Would you truly want a man who would be chased away by something so simple as waiting for marriage?” She nudged Constance in the ribs with her elbow. “Your first season should be fun, not stressful.”

“I wouldn’t want to ask for something so important in a letter,” Constance said. “I’ll need a chance to speak to him in private. At home, I was able to sneak out of my room at night, but here, Mrs. Quill is always watching.”

Olivia pretended to consider this problem, so as not to give away her excitement. “Well, Mrs. Quill won’t be a problem if you arrange to meet at an event. I suppose I could distract your father.”

Constance’s mouth dropped open. “You would do that?”

“As long as you promise to be careful.”

“Of course I will.” Constance bounced on her bed. Then she scrambled off and ran to her writing desk. “Which event are we going to next?”

Olivia wanted to ask how Constance’s letter would reach its destination, if the girl knew where Mr. Dawson was staying, or if someone was helping them communicate, but Constance had already revealed more than Olivia had expected. She would attempt further questioning later rather than risk damaging the trust she had gained with the girl. “I thought Lord and Lady Wintermoor’s masquerade.” She doubted Mr. Dawson could secure a proper invitation, but a masquerade would be easy for him to sneak into.

Constance tapped her toes and squealed. “You are the best matchmaker, Lady Allen. I was worried I wouldn’t get many chances to see him. I'm going to write to him right now and I’ll let you know as soon as he responds, but I’m sure he’ll agree. He’s always asking me to arrange opportunities for us to meet.”

The admission made Olivia’s skin crawl. Everything Constance had told her suggested that Mr. Dawson shared the same unsettling obsession for Constance that the earl had had for her.

She could only hope that, given time, Constance would see that, too.