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I nodded still confused why Olivia would feel the need to send me a note when I had only just left her side. “Thank you.”
“Farewell,” the alpha snarled, and I felt the full force of her hatred. I watched in stunned silence as she ran up the few stairs and into the house.
“Methinks that she is rather in love with the countess,” my uncle’s coachman chuckled. “She’s as jealous as a fish wife.”
“You shouldn’t gossip or use such language,” I said but did not truly mean it. I was grateful for the explanation, but it begged the question of why she might be jealous of me, another omega. Unless! My earlier fear that I carried an alpha’s scent resurfaced. I raised my arm to my nose and sniffed. There was a faint trace of alpha on me, Iris’s alpha smell from having her clothes in the carriage with me, perhaps that is what she had noticed? Unusual too, for an alpha’s senses were not as sharp as an omega’s. I shook my head, clearing it of all thoughts, and climbed into the carriage. The blinds were drawn, but I had grown used to at least beginning my transformation in near darkness. The first was to remove my gown and bundle it away. Then, removing my short stays until I was naked except for my thin chemise. Only then could I layer on two of Iris’s shirts. For their scent was beginning to fade. I had written to Iris asking for more. She’d responded she’d be in town soon and would bring more with her then.
When I felt that I was dressed enough to exit the carriage without drawing too much notice, I knocked, signalling to John Coachman that I was ready to be left in front of Orley House. I glanced out the window and saw I had time to read the note from Olivia. Her copperplate handwriting was wrinkled, but her words were clear:
You are all I have been able to think about since the moment I met you. My friend, you are the one good thing in my life.
I cursed. What madness was this? I was an omega. I was… I was not who she wanted. Hopeless Olivia was drawn to the traces of alpha that hung around me. Probably sensitive due to her isolation. Perhaps her heat was near. My cheeks flushed at the thought. Would that news reach the duke? Would he hear that and decide to act? To take matters into his own hands and press his suit. And what then? Did I have the right to stay by his side once he had a wife? I tried to imagine what it would be like to continue as his secretary while he married and rutted another omega through her heat. I could do it.
“Miss Hartwell,” My head jerked up. The carriage had halted, and Horne, the duke’s butler, held the door open for me. Since he knew I disguised myself as Viola, he had made it his business to ensure I could complete my transformation back into alpha, or so he thought. I thought he might see through me at first. That he might suspect I was an omega. But as the weeks went by I relaxed. Joked with him and Timms, His Grace’s valet, about the necessity of returning to my natural self after playing omega with the countess. I wrapped myself in Iris’ greatcoat and carried a bundle of men’s clothes under my arms as I entered the hall and ran up the stairs to the bedchamber where I could change in peace. Today though, I could not find it in me to smile at his teasing wink. Instead, I gave a small nod and rushed to change. I was careless with my cravat and the way I rubbed lemon over my wrists and neck to remove hints of omega. I reached the landing before realising I had not anointed myself with the oils that most closely mimicked Iris’s scent. It was always a risk, but one I was determined not to take. So I returned again to perfume myself. I looked into the mirror and was not surprised to see the frown and irritation reflected at me. I pressed my fingers to my temple and counted to one hundred in Latin, then Greek, before I was satisfied that I could keep my temper even and my passion under control. My anger had no target but myself.
* * *
“Call me Syon,” he said barely a minute after I entered the library, which had rapidly become my favourite room in the whole world. Inexplicably, his expression stern without the possibility of compromise. I winced at the all too familiar sensation of slick building between my thighs—his unforgiving alpha will tugged at my omega’s conviction this alpha was what I needed. I blamed the fact I’d spent the morning garbed in my omega’s clothes, sitting amongst my dynamic, and speaking with Olivia. Olivia, the omega he wanted to call wife. And now, when I felt exhausted and troubled by worries that I had brought upon myself, he was growling at me then smiling, in turn confusing me and softening me at once.
“I could not,” I objected. “It would be—“
“When we are in private,” he chuckled, his body relaxing when I argued—nonsensical alpha. “All this ‘Your Grace’ business becomes dull since you must always be calling my attention to this or to that phrasing of a letter.”
“I do not mean to interrupt...”
“Hartwell, you do not mean to do much yet you are always doing.”
“You don’t take me seriously. And if I must call you Syon then you must call me… Keep calling me Hartwell. I like it more than my own name.” I did not lie but wished the words back as soon as I’d given them voice. I damned myself for not thinking before speaking. But then while I longed to hear him speak my name, the sound of Hartwell made me weak because it made me feel like his equal—an unusual aphrodisiac. It was a nightmare in the making, and I desperately wanted to return to my nest and hide within its comforting warmth.
“Hartwell? Not Iris?”
“No one but you calls me Hartwell,” I told him. Goddess, what was I thinking?
“Hartwell, then. Come here. I want you to explain precisely why I am now supporting voting rights for omegas in a bill concerned with Pitt’s tax on powder for wigs… This is the third version of this speech that mentions an injustice and they change with each version… It is not your pet project of the Omega Property Rights Act. Explain yourself, Hartwell,” he lingered on my name, stretching it out like a caress. I moved closer, hypnotised by the sound of my name on his lips. He might have called me Hartwell before, but never like this.
“Syon?” I tried the name out. How it felt like a supplication when it came from my lips. “Call me Hartwell like that and I promise to always behave… I will never slip things into your speeches without informing you first.”
He startled and leant forward in his chair. I froze, realising he was sniffing. Had my scent spiked with my temper?
“You were at the countess’s residence this morning,” he stated. “You smell of omega.”
“I— Just as you say. I was with the Countess this morning. As we agreed,” I swallowed. I retreated to my small desk by the window. It would not prove to be a particularly sturdy defence against Syon if he chose to come after me, but it settled my scattered nerves to be close to the window. I opened it a crack and allowed the biting winter air to seep in. “You sent a letter to me there.”
“I had not forgotten. But, in future, bathe before coming here. And close the damn window. Do you want to catch your death sitting in a draught? Or do you plan to kill me?”
“Oh. I should not change here then?” I asked, confused.
“Is that what you have been doing?” He sputtered. “And how have you been coming into my house and not been noticed in a woman’s dress? Not to mention stinking of omega!”
I jumped at the bark that entered his voice.
“You find the smell offensive?”
He growled at me. “Answer the damn question.”
“I remove my gown in the carriage, which goes around the square until I have it off. Then I wear a cloak and enter and change in one of the bedrooms.”
He gaped at me. “And my servants are aware of this?”
