The Blackmailed Bride. Mandy Goff

entertaining than your usual attempts.”

      Danfield stared after Gibbons’s retreating figure, trying to discern whether he’d been insulted. It took him a surprisingly long time.

      In spite of her aggravation, Olivia couldn’t help but feel the faintest stirrings of pity for the young man. “I think we would better part as friends,” she suggested. Perhaps niceness would make her refusal easier to handle.

      Never one to take unnecessary chances, however, Olivia edged her way toward the door, hoping he would follow.

      “We have always been great friends, haven’t we?” he agreed, a little too enthusiastically.

      She nodded, wondering how two months in London gave the man leave to claim anything of permanence between them but willing to agree in order to speed his leaving.

      “Which is why we should marry,” he said with a nod. “It’s just as Mother said this morning, ‘The best marriages grow on mutual indifference that is rooted in the soil of friendship.’”

      “Your mother is…profound…beyond comprehension.” Which was the least insulting thing she could think to say about the staid, arrogant matriarch.

      A smile lit his face. “I’m glad you agree. And when I tell you Mother has graciously agreed to instruct you on the art of governing the household affairs after our nuptials…well, I can only imagine how delighted that must make you,” he said.

      “How magnanimous,” Olivia muttered through gritted teeth, wondering who he thought had overseen the affairs at Westin Park for the last five years. Whatever inklings of pity she’d felt dissipated.

      Danfield missed the warning in her tone. “We—Mother and I—are also concerned over your tendency to bury your nose in a book. That can’t be healthy for a woman. You’ll go blind. And, really, Lady Danfield suggested you learn to think before you speak. Your frankness is fairly scandalizing.”

      Olivia rolled her eyes. “Is it, now?”

      Danfield stiffened. “Most women would be grateful we are prepared to help.”

      “Well,” Olivia said, brushing her hands together, “you should begin looking for this other paragon. For the last time, Lord Danfield, I will not marry you.”

      The refusal seemed to register. His smile fell, and his shoulders sagged. “Will anything change your mind?”

      She shook her head.

      After a pause, he said, “I think, perhaps, this might.”

      He strode toward her, smoothly stepping around the furniture obstacles, and Olivia had no recourse but to retreat, until she was flush against the wall. Danfield’s hot breath puffed against her face.

      He was going to kiss her. And her reaction when she realized this was purely instinctual.

      She flailed her arms behind her and grabbed a vase off a side table.

      And hit him in the head.

      Hard.

      The young man fell to the floor with a dull thud, covered in bits of broken pottery.

      Wonderful. She’d killed a peer of the realm.

      Olivia knelt beside the viscount, wondering if she should loosen his cravat, find some smelling salts or perhaps retrieve a wet cloth for him. Although she doubted any of those considerations would be helpful if he were dead.

      Reaching out, Olivia shook his shoulder gently, hoping to elicit a response. A groan? A flinch? An apology perhaps?

      Nothing.

      If the worst had happened, however, Olivia reasoned that as the sister of an earl she would get special privileges in New gate Prison. Such as an extra cup of water a day. Or a stick to beat back the rats.

      She was so engrossed by her bleak future as a prisoner of the Crown she jumped at the pained moan of the supposedly dead viscount.

      “Lord Danfield?” she asked hesitantly. No response. “Are you quite well?” Still nothing.

      Olivia stood. If the man weren’t dead, he didn’t appear to be in a hurry to leave. She hadn’t the time to wait on him to do so, either.

      There was nothing to be done but tell her brother. If she caught him in a jovial mood, Marcus might find the situation amusing.

      Although, she thought, probably not.

      Fortunately—or perhaps not—her brother was easy to find.

      “Through already?” Marcus, the Earl of Westin, asked, startling her as he approached from behind.

      “I suppose you could say that.”

      He chuckled. “Amazing. I thought we would have to knock him out and drag him away just to get him out of the house.”

      “I suppose you could say that, too.” Olivia wrung her hands together.

      Her brother appeared oblivious to her distress. “An old friend of mine will be joining us for luncheon today…” But an anguished groan echoed through the hall, interrupting his thought.

      “What was that?” Marcus walked in the groan’s direction.

      “Let me explain before you—” Olivia tried, hurrying after him.

      She winced as Marcus bellowed her name before she could catch up with him.

      Marcus fixed her with a hard stare. “What happened in here?”

      “There was a bit of an accident.” She wouldn’t meet his gaze. “At least he’s alive,” she offered.

      Marcus stopped his pacing. “Was that ever in question?”

      Olivia thought it best not to comment. But then, she heard the crunch of a shard of vase under Marcus’s heel and cringed.

      Olivia watched as her brother knelt to pick up a fragment of his artifact. “Please tell me that’s not my Ming Dynasty vase in pieces on the floor?”

      “All right,” she said slowly. “It’s not—” only to be silenced by a wave of his hand.

      “Never mind that,” he huffed. “We have to get him back to his house.”

      She and Marcus were studying the unmoving viscount when Gibbons reappeared in the doorway. “Lord Westin, Lady Olivia, his lordship, the Marquess of Huntsford is here.”

      Nick processed the scene before him in less than two minutes. Then, he spent sixty seconds deciding whether he should turn and walk back out the door. His friend Marcus was staring at his butler, who was stifling a chuckle. What appeared to be the recently deceased Viscount Danfield was lying on the floor with pieces of pottery sprinkled around his head.

      After years of acquaintance fostered through attending the same schools and the same endless society functions, Nick could well sympathize with the desire to hit Danfield over the head with whatever came to hand, yet he couldn’t help but wonder who was responsible for the attack. Marcus certainly appeared murderously angry, but his eyes glared daggers at the butler, who was showing no signs of sorrow at the loss of Danfield’s company in such a permanent manner. And as for the last person in the room…

      The lady in the center of the fray made Nick forget everything else he’d seen. She was staring at him, her expression a mixture of surprise and something he couldn’t identify, couldn’t name—wasn’t sure he wanted to.

      The butler finally broke the silence. “You requested earlier, my lord, that I show his lordship in immediately upon his arrival.”

      “Would it not have been prudent to make sure our last guest had departed first?” Marcus asked.

      “Perhaps if the two of you would refrain from rendering your guests immobile, such conflicts could be easily avoided,” Gibbons sniffed.

      Nick’s head swiveled