Owen did not dignify that with a response, entirely because he couldn’t think of one which didn’t have him stamping his foot in denial, but silently seethed as he briskly stomped the mile to Covent Garden, hoping the chilly November air would calm his temper in time.
Blasted Randolph needed to mind his own business!
Except he had to concede it was entirely his own fault for making it his friend’s business the second he had heard the first hint of the rumour.
He had known that was a mistake the moment he had asked and witnessed the intrigued glint in his canny friend’s eyes. But what other choice did he have? Nobody could gather information like Randolph. Nor did anybody know him quite as well as his friend did. In the absence of proper clarity, because Lord alone knew Owen couldn’t see the wood for the trees himself, and with Randolph’s meddling wife’s interference, it was hardly a surprise his friend was putting two and two together and making five. One of these days he was going to strangle Randolph and enjoy doing it!
Cupid’s blasted arrow!
It would be laughable if it wasn’t all so tragic.
Owen hadn’t been hit by an arrow. An arrow was too delicate a weapon for the havoc she had caused. It had been a thunderbolt which had knocked him sideways the first time he had set his eyes upon Lydia all those years ago. It had been only his second day in the Barton stable when her carriage had rolled in. He had fetched the steps as he had been instructed, opened the carriage door and... Boom!
The spell was cast and all rational thought evaporated.
She smiled at him, took his proffered hand briefly and the earth seemed to shift on its axis. Then for a while all was utterly perfect in his world, simply because she was in it.
Until it all crashed around his ears and he was hauled off by the constable and sent to the other side of the globe in irons against his will, completely powerless to stop it and his tender heart and all his ridiculously romantic illusions about love and Lydia shattered completely.
Randolph and Gertie knew all of that. Every last sorry detail. Which was why they could make such fine sport of it at his expense.
But what Randolph and Gertie did not know, what nobody knew aside from Owen, was that he had been hit by another damn thunderbolt the second he clapped eyes on her upon his return to England!
And this one had knocked him backwards, sent him flying, then left him winded and dumbstruck. Until he finally battled through the mire and found the wherewithal to rationalise his wholly unexpected and monumental response properly. Something which had taken the last year and a half to achieve and still wasn’t fully formed in his mind—but it was close. Close enough that he had started to feel better about it.
Before news of her impending marriage had churned him all up again and confused the hell out of him.
Rationally, Owen needed to take this past week’s events out of the equation to focus on the absolute truths he now understood plainly. Only those would calm him down and hand control of the situation back to him. It wasn’t love this time. He knew that for sure. And perhaps it hadn’t been love all those years ago either? With maturity and experience came a level of understanding about the way things were between a man and a woman which he’d not had a clue about at eighteen. What had slammed into Owen that second time was lust. Lust as primal, all-consuming and as carnal as any he’d ever felt for any other woman—and all because Lydia possessed every one of the feminine attributes which specifically called to him as a man. It was as if all his desires and fantasies had been rolled into one being, made expressly for him by nature, to his specific design. On the outside, Lydia was the woman of his dreams. What flesh-and-blood man could fight that?
When she had been sixteen he had wanted to kiss her. Now she was all woman in every sense of the word, his body wanted to possess her. It was that basic and that simple.
It was that same lust which had made him continually seek her out in the months since. It did not take a genius to work out her impending marriage signalled the end of all hope of ever slaking it. Not that he had dared try. He did not like the way Lydia made him feel. The power she had held over him was as destructive as it had been disastrous. And if she made him feel all at sea from a distance still now, he feared he would drown if he ever got too close.
Therefore, Randolph and the fanciful Gertie were entirely wrong. He didn’t still love her, but he had always wanted her. That was his truth and his curse. Because Lady Lydia Barton was his own personal siren, calling him to the treacherous rocks he knew only too well and determined to make him suffer while he was pummelled ruthlessly against them.
He was so infuriated by it all, he almost collided with a handcart as he turned into Piccadilly, then only narrowly avoided backing into a hackney as he swerved too close to the road for comfort.
Urgh! More pointless philosophising to fire his temper when he needed to stop going around and around in circles! His face was aching with the force of his frown, when he needed to be charming and just a little bit mysterious and aloof with just a hint of ruthlessness and danger thrown in for good measure. The public face of the mythical Owen Wolfe.
He scrunched up his features to relax them as he stalked into Covent Garden and only just managed to smile as he walked through the theatre doors to greet his illustrious host. The Earl of Grantley was a good customer and a supremely well-connected one.
‘Owen!’ The Earl pumped his hand enthusiastically. ‘I was beginning to despair of you ever arriving!’
In a city where it wasn’t what you knew, but who you knew, it was these connections, these invitations, these occasions, which had seen his business and his fortune double in size in only six months. And with money came power. After spending most of his life at the mercy and whims of others, he was finally the master of his own destiny. Something which had taken ten long years to achieve and which he would protect until his dying breath. This was a much better use of his time than pontificating over Lydia.
‘My apologies...urgent business, I’m afraid.’ Unfinished business which would soon be well and truly finished. And he would welcome its end!
‘Not to worry and entirely understandable. A successful and popular man such as yourself must be pulled every which way.’ Grantley reminded him of a puppy. So happy to see him. So desperate to please. ‘At least you are here.’ The young Earl clearly considered his presence a coup. As did several others who watched impressed in the crowded lobby. Proof at how much effort he and Randolph had put into his public persona to cultivate the myth. ‘Allow me to introduce you to my other guests.’
A bevy of eager young gentlemen bounced on their feet as they surreptitiously looked him up and down. They had all doubtless bent over backwards to secure this introduction. They all knew membership to Libertas only came via a personal invitation from the owner, a strategy which Owen had initially had his doubts about when Randolph had suggested it, but which had absolutely worked to their advantage.
That was the fundamental element of the dance they had choreographed.
Nobody wanted to be in a club anyone could join and, as he knew to his cost, it was human nature to want what was repeatedly denied to you. Therefore, when he sent out just one invitation the next morning to the gentleman who had impressed him or irritated him the most, he knew it would only spur the unlucky four on to court him harder in the future—just like the over-keen Grantley. Libertas in the heart of well-to-do Mayfair, like White’s, Almack’s and indeed the King’s Royal Court, was the domain of the elite. The most exclusive of exclusive gaming clubs for the most preferential and superior of clientele. And Owen intended to keep it that way.
With no more pointless distractions.
‘This is Hugo Brent, heir to the Viscount Warley, Sir Peter Tyne of the Charteris family...’ Taking a mental note of all the names and pragmatically evaluating their provenance and potential value to his business, he shook five pairs of hands and made small talk, his mind struggling to stay focused, but spiralling back to her regardless.
Blasted Lydia...
Ten long years. Incarceration. Deprivation, hunger and back-breaking work on the other side of the globe. Injustice. Terror. Total heartbreak and the blackest despair. Owen had beaten it all, yet still the allure of Lydia held the power to hold him captive. It made no sense and he loathed it. Almost as much as he wanted to loathe her—but couldn’t.
Marry her! That was the absolute last thing he wanted to do, when he would rather never see her again. He didn’t want to have to constantly think about her either. He didn’t want to feel compelled to seek her out whenever fate provided him an opportunity or an excuse to do so. Owen did not want to be that unworthy smitten stable lad any longer. And he certainly did not want to keep wanting her either. She hated him and he hated that he didn’t quite hate her. Therefore, what was the point in even thinking about it? His obsession with Lydia was as unhealthy as it was irrational.
‘And this is my sister... Lady Annabel St John.’
A sultry pair of green almond eyes locked boldly with his, then when he took her proffered hand she squeezed his fingers in obvious invitation. ‘Mr Wolfe... What a pleasure it is to finally meet you. I have heard so much about you this past year I simply had to cast off my widow’s weeds and come tonight.’
And in that one sentence, he knew exactly where he stood. A blessed relief on the back of all the shifting quicksand that was Lydia.
‘Lady Annabel...’ He kept his gaze firmly on hers as he brought that bold hand to his lips. Took in the lovely face, the fine figure, the knowing glint in her eye as he lingered over the kiss. ‘The pleasure, I can assure you, is all mine.’
Ruthlessly, he suppressed the pang of guilt which always accompanied any flirtation with another woman. He had nothing to feel guilty about! If he was riddled with unspent lust, here was a prime opportunity to relieve himself of some of it. Lady Annabel was clearly ready, willing and able and Lydia was not his problem. A mantra which he had repeated often this past week when his brain continued to mull over her predicament and suggested he was somehow responsible for it. She was shallow and cowardly and not worthy of his concern. Kelvedon was welcome to her and she him. A loveless marriage to a wealthy peer was hardly as horrendous a punishment as seven years’ hard labour in Botany Bay for a crime he did not commit!
The call came for them to take their seats and without waiting for him to offer it, Lady Annabel took his arm proprietorially. ‘I insist you sit beside me, Mr Wolfe. I have so many questions.’
‘Such as?’ At her encouragement, they lagged behind the others as they made their way to the Earl of Grantley’s private box.
‘Well, to start with...’ Taking advantage of the privacy of the narrow staircase, Lady Annabel smoothed her other hand up his biceps. ‘I wanted to know if all the scandalous rumours about you are correct?’
‘Probably.’ He dropped his voice to a whisper. ‘Do you mind?’
The lusty young widow laughed the breathy laugh of a woman who knew how seductive she was. ‘On the contrary, Mr Wolfe... I cannot resist a scoundrel.’ In case he missed her implication, she positioned herself closer, until he felt the soft press of her ample bosom against his arm as they continued up the stairs.
If he played his cards right—and he already knew he had been dealt a hand of kings—he would warm her bed later. A prospect which should have excited him more than it did thanks to another unwelcome image of Lydia, looking as perennially hurt and disappointed in him as she had the day he’d been dragged away from her father’s house clapped in irons.
He almost growled in frustration at his brain’s inability to put the past behind him where it belonged, but instead forced a charming smile as he helped the earthy Lady Annabel into her seat and lowered himself to sit beside her. When she shuffled closer so that their bodies touched from hip to knee, then used the shield of her programme to disguise her hand as it brazenly stroked his thigh, he decided to seize the moment and to hell with his stupid blasted brain and damned Lydia!
She really was not his problem and in a few short weeks, he would be rid of the allure of her for ever, too. In fact, now he was rationalising it alongside the tempting prospect of pastures new, in a funny sort of way her impending marriage was probably the best possible thing which could happen.
It drew a line in the dirt.
A decisive halt to their relationship.
A fresh start which would finally release him from her thrall to channel his pent-up lust elsewhere and perhaps quickly to become Owen Wolfe, the legendary ladies’ man...
Now that was another layer to his mythical character he wouldn’t mind adding.
He was sick and tired of feeling disloyal if he as much as glanced another woman’s way when he should be glancing here, there and everywhere with unburdened impunity! Wouldn’t that be a splendid reward for all his years of hard work and suffering? And so much better than Randolph’s ridiculous suggestion.
In fact, he would start tonight and continue as he meant to go on. Once the wench was well and truly hitched, he would throw himself into the endeavour with the same determined vigour as he’d thrown into becoming the master of his own destiny. Something much more agreeable to ponder tonight than the unresolved ghosts of his past.
Already he was feeling better. Already the temptation that was Lady Annabel St John was starting to give his body other ideas. Much better ideas than the ridiculous one Randolph had just peddled. He would not waste a second on feeling guilty or feeling pity for the woman who so openly despised him.
No, indeed!
And while he was warming the luscious Annabel’s sheets, nor would he give a passing thought to the disturbing images of Lydia similarly ensconced in Kelvedon’s.
Enduring the smelly Marquess’s hands on her body was nowhere near as awful as feeling the lash slice your back or the constant chafe and dead weight of your chains around your ankles as you languished helpless in the bowels of a ship headed nowhere. Owen had had to make the best of his sentence just as she would have to make the best of hers. At least she had the peace of mind her punishment served a higher cause. Owen’s had served to rob him of seven long years he would never get back. Something Lydia’s mute betrayal had had a hand in. Perhaps if she had stepped forward? Stood up for him...
‘Can I tell you a shocking secret, Mr Wolfe?’ His new companion’s lips grazed his ear as she practically sighed the question into it. ‘I abhor the opera... I only came here tonight for you... Do you mind?’
‘On the contrary...’ Owen smiled and was about to allow his own hand to cover Lady Annabel’s unsubtle one on his leg when the atmosphere around him seemed to shift and he almost groaned aloud.
He did not need to see her to know she was here.
Every nerve ending positively fizzed with awareness.
Nor did he need to search for her frantically in the crowd. His eyes were instinctively drawn to her the moment she entered the box, just as they were always drawn to her whenever she was close by.
Which meant he saw the Marquess of Kelvedon enter directly behind her and saw, too, the hauntingly pained expression in her eyes when the old lecher placed his hand possessively on her elbow to guide her to her seat, then the utter disgust when he slipped it down to pat her bottom. Lydia brushed it away like a gnat, but it didn’t stop him, forcing Owen to watch Kelvedon’s ugly face contort into a cruel scowl and his filthy hand to head back forcibly towards her body as the auditorium dimmed.