“
That’s all the motivation one needs,” Alex said, twisting his lips. He removed his spectacles and rubbed his nose. “Why was I never told of his before?” His voice was flat and dry, almost disinterested, belying the nervous excitement coursing through him.
Father shrugged. “I always assumed you’d find a bride on your own, thus voiding the agreement per the conditions on the last page. With that assumption, I didn’t tell you when you were younger because I didn’t want to heap this upon your head then. As you both got older, I saw what kind of a girl Lady Olivia had become, and I assumed her father would let you out of the agreement altogether. However, since he passed away last year, I’m not sure you can count on that possibility. Her period of mourning ended less than two weeks ago and I received a letter from the solicitor yesterday. That makes me think the agreement has not been forgotten.”
Alex sighed. He couldn’t fault his father for not telling him this. The poor man must have been living in a delusion thinking Alex would somehow find a young lady who would actually want to marry him. When in reality, some would think marrying Lady Olivia was the only fathomable solution to marriage for a gentleman who had somehow acquired the nickname Arid Alex.
Smoothing the covers and rearranging the pillows, Alex did what he could to make his frail father comfortable before leaving his sickroom.
Dorset it was, then. He needed to go see Marcus post haste.
Chapter 2
Caroline Sinclair stared at her cousin Olivia in pure bewilderment. “Pardon?”
Olivia rolled her eyes and breathed an exaggerated sigh. “Caroline, have you considered investing in an ear horn?” She kicked her slippers off and propped her feet up on Caroline’s lap. “Could you pull those stockings off for me?” she fairly shouted.
Caroline looked at her quizzically. “Why?” She curled her fingers into the fabric of her skirt and commanded herself to breathe through her mouth if possible. She’d spent enough years in her cousin’s company to know that breathing through one’s nose once Olivia had taken off her slippers was a guaranteed way to make one’s last meal reappear.
“
I can’t reach them.” Olivia wiggled the toes on her bunion-covered feet.
“
Then perhaps you should decrease your body’s density,” Caroline muttered to herself. She used her thumb and forefinger to grab the top of Olivia’s stocking and pulled until five unclipped and slightly yellow toenails were exposed. Closing her eyes to the view in front of her, Caroline flung the stocking as far across the room as she could before doing the same with the other stocking. “All right, now what was it you were saying?”
“
Hmm?” Olivia reclined on an overstuffed pillow. “Rub those, would you?”
“
Not on your life,” Caroline retorted beneath her breath. She cleared her throat. “I can’t,” she lied. “I seemed to have hurt my hand yesterday.”
Olivia frowned.
“
I was outside collecting—”
Olivia groaned. “Say no more. I don’t want to hear another word of it. You’re as much of a dullard as Arid Alex Banks. It’s unfortunate enough I’ll have to listen to him drone on and on about his scientific nonsense for the rest of my life. At least I’ll still outrank you and be able to tell you to stuff it.”
Stung, Caroline swallowed an unladylike retort and nodded. Olivia had always belittled anything Caroline found interesting. If they weren’t cousins and Lord Sinclair wasn’t her guardian until her twenty-first birthday, Caroline would have distanced herself from Olivia and her rude manners years ago. Unfortunately, she still had another six months to endure Olivia’s ill-treatment.
“
So then you’re going to marry him?” Caroline asked to be polite.
“
Yes.” Olivia curled her lip and sniffed as if marrying Alex Banks would be the worst fate on the planet. “Not that I want to. I’d rather marry just about anyone else.”
To Caroline’s way of thinking, Olivia was the more fortunate of the two. Not that she knew Mr. Banks well. In fact, she’d only met him once or twice. But having known Olivia all her life, it wasn’t hard to distinguish who’d been dealt the losing hand.
“
I swear, Caroline, if you would do something about that hearing problem of yours I wouldn’t have to repeat myself on this matter. In less than thirty days, I shall be Mrs. Alex Banks, and shortly after that, I shall be a baroness.” Her tone was full of excitement, a stark contrast to the pout contorting her face.
Caroline tried not to show her disgust at Olivia’s tactlessness. Olivia should be happy some gentleman was going to marry her despite the title he would one day possess, or that he’d been nicknamed Arid Alex due to his slightly unusual personality. But what got Caroline’s hackles up more than that was Olivia’s excitement over the prospect that the current baron might die soon. Actually, it did more than get her hackles up. It made another round of nausea pass through her—one which outdid the wave she’d experienced earlier.
“
You should be a bit more compassionate,” Caroline said firmly and a tad sharply. She may not be particularly fond of Olivia, and she really didn’t like it when Olivia got into one of her “moods,” but Caroline wasn’t going to sit idly by while Olivia planned her future father-in-law’s funeral in her head. If risking a black mood and a possible week of attending Olivia’s sickbed was the result of speaking her mind, so be it.
Olivia sniffed. “
You
should be more compassionate. I’m the daughter of an earl. I should be marrying an earl or higher, not a baron.” She crossed her arms and sneered. “He won’t even be a baron when we marry. He’ll only be a mere mister for who knows how long. Well, unless his father dies even sooner.” A small smile tugged on her lips.
“
You’re heartless,” Caroline said without thinking.
Olivia shrugged. “No. I’m practical. I always have been. I never wanted to marry for love, and I shan’t. Nor do I have any disillusion that he has any such feelings for me.”
“
That’s not what I meant,” Caroline said tersely. “I was talking about the blackhearted way you’re speaking of his father as if his death means nothing to you besides gaining a title.”
“
Doesn’t it?”
“
Yes. It does mean something. It’s going to mean a lot to Alex when his father dies, and as his wife, you’re going to be the one he turns to for comfort.”
Olivia shuddered. “He can turn elsewhere for any comfort he requires. Besides the consummation of our marriage, I have no intention of acting as an outlet for his ‘needs’.”
Caroline tucked a long tendril of her dark brown hair behind her ear. “You do know it will be your duty to give him an heir.”
Closing her eyes, Olivia said, “Then he had better hope he gets it right on the first try.”
Caroline nearly laughed at the absurdity of Olivia’s proclamation. “He has no control over that.”
“
And how would you know?”
“
I just do,” Caroline said evasively. “Some couples conceive right away, and some don’t.”
“
If he wants an heir, he had better hope I conceive right away. I have no interest in the activity, and I’m only enduring it with him once.”
“
Or what?”
“
Either he’ll have no heir, or a cuckoo,” she said evenly, inspecting her nails.
“
What?”
“
You know, a child that he technically is not the father of.”
“
I know what a cuckoo is,” Caroline said, closing her eyes and willing herself not to pull her hair—or Olivia’s—out in frustration. “But you just said you have no interest in the activity. Why would you want to do it with someone else?”
“
I said with him. I might enjoy the activity with someone else.”
Caroline shook her head. Poor Mr. Banks. “You might enjoy it with him.” Knowing Olivia had no desire to be faithful, let alone a desire to give the gentleman in question a chance before declaring she’d need to seek comfort elsewhere, was disheartening.
Olivia snorted. “I won’t.”
“
How do you know?” she countered. “Just because he wears spectacles, talks consistently about science, wears his clothes slightly askew, and has been publicly dubbed Arid Alex, doesn’t mean there’s not something you might find enjoyable about him.”
“
There’s not,” Olivia assured her. “Anyway, I can just imagine how awful our first—and only—time will be. ‘Now, hold very still, I’m going to insert my penis,’” she said, imitating a man’s voice.
Caroline’s eyes went wide.
She
knew the mechanics of procreation because she liked to be outside and from time to time she’d helped with the animals. But how Olivia had learned such a thing was a mystery she didn’t wish to uncover. “He won’t say that.”
Olivia rolled her eyes. “It doesn’t really matter.”
Caroline shook her head. It was probably best not to mention that in England, the law was on the husband’s side with regard to bedroom affairs. It really wasn’t her business what did or didn’t take place in any bedchamber apart from her own.
She had no idea how Olivia had snared an unsuspecting Mr. Banks into agreeing to marry her, but she had, and the poor gentleman was surely going to suffer for it.
Actually, how had they become betrothed? Caroline was just about to ask when a commotion sounded down the hall.
“
I wonder who that could be.” Olivia mused in a voice that was so sugary sweet Caroline had to take a second glance.
Resisting a groan, Caroline shut her eyes and counted to ten. Olivia only spoke in this tone and adopted that ridiculous smile when she was about to play nice for company.
“
Could you gather my stockings, dear?” Olivia asked, trying to sit up straight on the settee.
Caroline was tempted to pretend she couldn’t remember where she’d tossed them and let whoever was here see Olivia in all her indescribable glory. But then pity for their caller overtook her and Caroline couldn’t bring herself to subject anybody to such a fate. “Just a moment,” she murmured, walking across the room to pick up the stinky stockings. Pinching them between her thumb and forefinger, she brought them to Olivia, and tossed them on the settee next to her. “Here you go. I’ll be right back.”
“
Where do you think you’re going?” Olivia asked with a growl. “I need help with my slippers.”
Ignoring Olivia’s pout, Caroline stepped away before Olivia could clutch onto her skirt and keep her at her side. “I need to go get Marcus.”
“
Why?” Olivia demanded, still pouting.
“
I glimpsed out the window that our guest is a gentleman. I need to ask Marcus to act as a chaperone.”
Olivia pursed her lips then gave a single nod.
Caroline left the room and darted down the hall in the direction of Marcus’ study. Ever since Lady Sinclair died five years ago, Marcus had been forced to act as their impromptu chaperone whenever necessary. Which wasn’t very often. Between Olivia’s beastly attitude and Caroline’s being a poor relation with no society polish, gentleman callers had been rare at best between the two of them.
Before he died last year, Olivia’s father had successfully pressured his widowed sister-in-law into acting as Olivia’s chaperone for things like house parties and whatnot. But that hadn’t happened very often, either, and never was Caroline included.
Now that Marcus, Olivia’s brother, had inherited, there still wasn’t anyone to act as a proper chaperone. Marcus had written to all of their female relatives asking them to come stay at Ridge Water, but they’d all found some reason or another to refuse. It didn’t take a great mind to know why. Olivia’s demeanor was truly
that
awful. As it was, if Caroline and Olivia were to go anywhere, a maid went with them, and on the rare occasion a gentleman came to call, Marcus would join them in the drawing room and brood in the corner.
Caroline brought her knuckles to the door, gave three quick knocks, and then waited for Marcus to bid her to enter.