“With letters?” I asked. She shook her head and I realised she meant Viola had planned to flood parliament in the most literal sense possible. “Where would she get the water? The Thames?”
“Of course.”
I looked at Hartwell, really looked, and was alarmed by my response. The desire to take her hand and assure her face in my hands and kiss away her worries. The Countess would become my wife, and be spared a miserable existence as an unmated, childless widow of a peer. Then Hartwell could go back to Oxford, complete her education, travel, and return for a brilliant career. I would sponsor her. We could be… friends. We could only ever be friends. Yet “friend” seemed so inadequate, as I’d grown to realise I wanted more.
“Your Grace?”
“Apologies, I was woolgathering.”
“Shall we return to business? I am sorry for… My outburst was inappropriate.”
“It is close to your heart. Your passion is admirable.” I gave in to impulse and took her hand in both of mine, patting it. “Everything will be fine, Hartwell. You’ve your votes. We’ll rescue the countess.” My lips quirked at the image of us, knight and page riding off on some ridiculous quest. “All’s well that ends well. Isn’t that what thealphaShakespearia wrote?”
“Omega,” she grumbled, but I caught the hint of a smile in those violet eyes.
* * *
I found myself at Manton’s again, hoping to gain some mental space from Hartwell and the memory of her face as she wrote letters in my name. Yes, I needed to get the young alpha out of my head because when I’d teased her about her handwriting as pretty as her sister’s, she’d gone red, the flush disappearing down her neck. I had almost given in to the temptation to pull her never neat cravat free and see just how far down her neck her blush went. The flutterings of attraction bothered me one day and felt so natural the next. I put it down to the subtle whiffs of Viola that seemed to constantly hang around her. I could sniff out Viola more clearly every day—an addict desperate for the taste of juice of the poppy.
“You’ve been coming here more often than I remember,” Paxton said as he watched me take aim, a faint frown marring his handsome features.
“What? Am I not permitted to leave my own house?”
“That’s not what I mean, Orley,” he sighed. “You spend so much of your time in the country that seeing your face in London on more than one night in a year is an oddity.”
“I plan on marrying,” I told him, seeing no reason to hide my purpose for being in London.
“Oh? And who is the lady?”
“It is still in negotiations,” I smirked.
“Not one of Hartwell’s sisters? I beg you not to get involved with that family more than you already are.”
“And what is the tale there?”
“Beatrice Hartwell is a menace to polite society. Dressing as a man in an attempt to have her paintings shown at the Summer Exhibition. I saw them. Her work is without equal, but I’ve never witnessed such careless, reckless disregard for personal safety. An omega in a room of alphas! What’s more—the paintings… She went too far.An Omega’s Progressdepicting—thinly veiled, mind—the Countess of Kellingham’s journey about an indigent farmer so poor he sold his omega daughter off to the highest bidder. And now she is a widow without a penny to her name.”
I snarled. I’d known my intended bride had not been born into a noble family but it seemed her tale was even more tragic than I’d known. Hartwell was right. She needed a light hand rather than my own brand of wooing.
“Ah, Paxton on his favourite topic? The delectable Miss Hartwell?” Fordom sauntered over. Next to Paxton, he appeared stocky, but I’d sparred with him at Jackson’s and knew him to be all muscle. I’d put my money on him were he to enter the ring against any professional. He raised his quizzing glass to his eye and faked being startled to see me. “Orley, but this is a rare pleasure.”
“Keep your mouth shut,” Paxton growled. “The Misses Hartwell as a collective unit are a menace to polite society.”
“You used those same words not a minute before. Are you certain you do not protest your dislike too much?” I asked. “And to answer your question. No, the Hartwell omegas are not where my interest lies.”
These alphas did not need to know that it was the alpha Miss Hartwell that truly called to me.
Fordom smirked at us. “The pair of you tied up in a family that delights in causing scandal. Two alphas, both alike in the indignity of omegas stepping out of their allotted roles. Taken down by the Hartwells. Miss Beatrice Hartwell shall be your downfall Pax, and Miss Viola Hartwell for you, Orley, since I have heard she is as dangerous as Beatrice.”
“And Hippolyta?” Paxton asked.
“I have already retired from the lists. Hartwells ain’t for one such as I. As for Hippolyta Hartwell…” Fordom laughed. “They don’t call her Queen of the High Toby for nothing. Beatrice is by far the most level headed Hartwell omega to have drawn breath in this century… And the most beautiful.”
The last seemed dragged from him as if it pained him in that moment to recall her face.
“You speak of the Hartwells?”
I turned to find Caroline Wilson, an alpha a few years below me at university, standing just to the side watching us. She was the eldest child of a vicar, and the last I’d heard she planned to join the army… Yet here she was.