Page 36 of Mesmerized

“Good. I saw Stephen try to talk to you—” She hesitated, then went on. “I trust you will not think me a busybody, but I have noticed that you avoided Lord St. Leger all day.”

“Oh! Oh, no!” Olivia replied, a flush stealing up into her cheeks. “I wasn’t avoiding him. I was merely, um...”

Pamela let out a light laugh. “It’s all right. I am sure no one noticed but me. I, you see, have some experience in that area.”

Olivia looked at her blankly. “I beg your pardon?”

“I’ve known Lord St. Leger for some time. I have seen him at work before. He is a terrible flirt. A charming man, of course, but it’s dangerous to take him seriously.”

Olivia flushed even more. “Oh, no, you mustn’t think—I am sure Lord St. Leger has not been flirting with me.”

Pamela gave her a knowing look. “Well, consider it a forewarning, then. He has trifled with the affections of more than one young lady.”

Olivia stared at her. Admittedly, she was a novice in the affairs of men and women, but she had trouble believing that. Stephen simply did not seem like the sort of man who indulged himself in flirtations and toying with the affections of naive young women. And why was Pamela suddenly so concerned about her feelings?

Pamela apparently saw Olivia’s disbelief on her face, for she went on. “I speak from experience. You see, I fell in love with Stephen many years ago, before I had even met Roderick. Stephen broke my heart. Left me and sailed off for America. Thank heavens, Roddy was there to help mend it. I suppose I should be grateful to Stephen, for without his hurting me, Roderick would never have sought me out to try to apologize for his brother.”

“What?” Olivia could not imagine Stephen being so callous.

Pamela quirked an eyebrow and said with some irritation, “It’s the truth. Why on earth would I make up something like that? It scarcely reflects well on me.”

“Yes, of course. I did not mean to imply...” Olivia trailed off to a self-conscious halt.

“Merely a word to the wise,” Pamela said, then turned and walked back down the hall.

Olivia, with a sigh, went into her room and shut the door. She felt suddenly sad, as if she wanted to weep. Had she been so wrong about Stephen? Was he really as Pamela said, an accomplished, coldhearted flirt?

She would not have said that he had flirted with her. Of course, there had been that kiss... Certainly she was no expert on flirtation. And Pamela was right—Pamela wouldn’t pretend to have been rejected by someone; it would be an embarrassing thing to admit, certainly not the sort of thing she would make up. Olivia had noticed the coolness that lay between Stephen and his brother’s widow, and Pamela’s story would explain it.

Perhaps Stephen really was as Pamela had said, a hardened flirt. Perhaps he had broken Pamela’s heart and the hearts of other girls, as well. If it were true, then his kiss the other day had certainly meant nothing.

She had already told herself that it had not, of course. But it was a bitter pill to swallow to have the fact confirmed. If he had rejected a woman as beautiful as Pamela, there was little hope he had any real interest in her. Tears filled her eyes, and she blinked them back angrily. It should not matter to her that Stephen did not want her, she knew. Unfortunately, whatever her mind might say, in her heart she knew what Stephen St. Leger wanted was beginning to matter to her very much.

Chapter Seven

WHEN OLIVIA AWOKE the next morning, she refused the dress that Joan offered and instead put on the only one of her dresses she had brought that Kyria and her maid had not altered, a plain brown frock with no ornamentation. She also turned down Joan’s services as a hairdresser, pulling her hair back into the tight, simple knot in which she had worn it for years.

She was through trying to dress herself up, she decided. She was here purely for business, and the only thing she needed to appear was businesslike.

She marched downstairs to breakfast, determined to put her relationship with Lord St. Leger back on the correct footing. They were colleagues. Working partners. Whatever emotion he might have seen on her face the other night, it was impossible for him to have known what she had been dreaming about. And she would behave in such a way that he would realize that whatever he thought he had seen, he had been wrong.

Her determination lasted until she had finished eating breakfast, when one of the footmen handed her a note from Stephen requesting her presence in his study as soon as possible. She felt suddenly as if her stomach had dropped to her feet, and it took all her willpower to force her feet to turn to the study.

She knocked on the door, and when he called to her to enter, she wavered for a moment, then drew a deep breath and went inside.

“You asked to see me?” she said on a note of inquiry, proud that she was able to keep her voice light and cool. She could not, however, quite look him in the face, so she chose a point just over his shoulder at which to gaze.

“Uh, yes. Please, sit down.” Stephen’s voice sounded not quite as usual, either.

Olivia stole a quick peek at him. He looked—could it be nervous?

“We, um, never had a chance to speak yesterday. I thought you might want to know about the—” he paused and cleared his throat “—research I did.”

“Oh?” Perhaps he had not realized what she had been dreaming about, Olivia thought, for the first time looking him full in the face. There was certainly no leering knowledge there. He looked, if anything, rather ill at ease. “What sort of research?”

“Well, I—” He stopped and looked at her searchingly for a moment. “Olivia... I... I dreamed the other night when I fell asleep at my desk.”

It was such an abrupt change of subject that for a moment Olivia could only stare. “Excuse me?”