I also felt on the verge of being caught any time his scent heightened and my body responded. The longer I spent with him and the more sensitive I became to his moods, the more readily my body betrayed me.
I shook my head to clear my thoughts. My plan could not be said to have reached the halfway point. There would be many more days spent with Syon before the bill went to a vote.
He must marry Olivia. My heart rebelled at the thought, but it was the only way to save her. There were other alphas, but she needed rescuing and Syon was the only one I trusted to treat her with the respect and care she deserved. I thought of Caroline, of how she pined for Olivia, of how she would not be able to pay Olivia’s omega price.
“Viola? Go home, child, and rest,” Mrs Markham touched my shoulder. I nodded and trooped across the street.
As I climbed the stairs to my room, I heard voices—my aunt and uncle’s caught in a fiery argument. Despite their chilly relationship, I had yet to hear them fight. I crept closer until my ear was pressed to the drawing room door.
“Yes, you would use her,” my aunt sneered. “Anything for Charles’s children. Anything to get ahead in your career. You should have married him. But Christina proposed first. I know that is why you married me. I know that you never loved me or wanted me beyond my proximity to Charles.”
“Maria—“
“Do not call me that. You are a coward. You offered me security. A roof over my head. Promised to respect my needs and desires. Then you forced a mate bond on me.” Her voice was thin, harsh, and so full of anguish. “You took away my choice! You took it away and then you abandoned me when I did not give you children. But did you ever think that it wasyouwho did not givemechildren?”
“I am… I cannot express how…” My uncle’s voice dropped, and I could not hear what more he had to say.
I sagged against the door frame, the little pieces of the puzzle falling into place. My uncle, in love with my father? My uncle... It made its own kind of sense. His steady correspondence but my father’s sporadic responses. How he had asked for his letters to be returned on Papa’s death. Mama’s cold response that she had burnt them. How my aunt had conceded to my stay in London only when Mama had been forced to leave for France.
My heart pounded in my chest, and my hand crept up into my mouth. Only then I smelt the faint smell of Syon’s release. I muffled a moan and escaped to my room to fuck those fingers into my cunt. For a moment, I forgot that not all couples received the blessings my parents had.