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.
