Page 8

T he rain continued to slide down the windows of The Harp & Thistle while Ollie watched the squiggly patterns it made on the glass. It was hypnotizing in a way. Oddly calming.

Searching for a break in the crowd, Ollie got a brief glimpse of the group still at the bar.

His brothers, Vivian, the marquess. They were all much older than Ollie.

In a different season of life. Marriage, families…

At least that was the case for all of them except Victor, but even he had found his place in life.

Then there was Ollie. An outcast. A joke.

Never would he admit this out loud, but he was incredibly hurt his brothers were treating him as their employee and not their equal.

Ollie tore his attention away from them and back out the window.

His jaw set tight. They didn’t trust him.

He knew they found his antics irritating at times, but he was so much younger than them.

Victor and Dantes had led similar lives in their twenties, hadn’t they?

Hadn’t they often attended parties and shuffled around women?

Surely, they had. Everyone he knew in their twenties did that.

Surely, it had been the same when his brothers had been his age.

But then, he wouldn’t really know, would he?

Dantes had been breaking out in his boxing career, while Victor had still been working on the docks.

Ollie had been away at school and, he supposed, and didn’t truly know what they’d done during that time.

Ollie’s thoughts about this were cut off when a hansom stopped in front of the pub. Usually, their patrons walked here from work, so this was a bit unusual.

Someone dressed head-to-toe in white climbed out and talked to the driver momentarily. Ollie squinted. It was difficult to see through the sheet of rain on the window, but was that a bride?

The pub’s door opened, but Ollie couldn’t see the new arrival through the crowd.

And his curiosity piqued further when the entire pub went completely silent.

Ollie weaved his way through the crowd and finally was able to see that it was, in fact, a bride!

A soaked-to-the-bone and violently shivering bride, at that.

Trying not to panic, the bride seemed to be searching for someone in the pub crowd.

Had her husband-to-be abandoned her at the altar? Was he here hiding?

The woman turned her pinched face in Ollie’s direction before looking the other way at the bar and began making her way over to it.

Ollie’s eyes nearly popped out of his skull as he realized the bride was Miss Sparrow.

The pub crowd resumed their loud chatter, mostly about the soaking-wet bride who had appeared, but Ollie watched Miss Sparrow with intent curiosity.

He stared as she walked through the crowd, people separating to allow her to pass, and she stopped to talk to Ollie’s brothers, whom she reached first. Ollie wanted to go over there but was frozen in place.

Miss Sparrow, the most straight-laced woman he had ever known, demanded attention in her white dress.

Not because it was a bridal dress in a pub, but because she was the most stunning bride he was sure had ever existed, even with the rain’s affect.

He couldn’t hear anything said, but he could see the mix of surprise and concern on their faces. While Victor and Dantes watched with discomfort, Vivian and Lady Litchfield did their best to comfort Miss Sparrow.

Vivian searched for and found Ollie in the crowd and waved him over, her face grim.

Why would Miss Sparrow have been in a wedding dress? In the months they had known each other, she had never once mentioned an impending wedding. Or a betrothal. Or a fiancé.

A strange feeling of regret hit him, but he didn’t understand why.

“Miss Sparrow,” Ollie said, the surprise in his voice ringing clear. “What are you doing here?”

Evelyn whipped around. Strings of dark-red hair clung to her forehead and cheeks. A long veil and the hem of her white dress had turned gray with London street filth.

Her breathing was erratic. “I didn’t know where else to go.”

Ollie looked her over. “Were you at a costume ball?”

Victor groaned audibly, and Ollie immediately felt like an idiot.

But Miss Sparrow didn’t seem to think anything of his question. “No. Quite unfortunately. I have just run off from my wedding.” She added a nervous chuckle at the end of this.

Victor addressed the group. “Everyone, in back. Dantes, stay up here, if you don’t mind.”

Dantes agreed to this, as well as covering the fare for the hansom Miss Sparrow had evidently told him about, and everyone followed Victor into the office in back.

Once everyone was inside, Victor shut the door while Ollie lit a fire.

Miss Sparrow and Vivian sat in the chairs.

Lady Litchfield and Victor exchanged a prolonged look while standing near the door.

But Miss Sparrow had all of her attention on Ollie.

Ollie cleared his throat. “Perhaps you could start from the beginning.”

And so she did. Miss Sparrow told a wild tale of what she called “ten years of freedom.” During that time, she’d studied at a college in America, interned at the Louvre, and ended up here in London with her job at the museum.

Of course, he already knew about those travels.

He had not , however, known about Miss Sparrow and the Earl of Wellingham’s betrothal upon her return to London.

“That was why I was so upset yesterday.” Miss Sparrow couldn’t look Ollie in the eye.

“The earl is not someone with whom I wish to spend my life and in fact, I was beginning to find the thought horrific . But it was part of the bargain, that I marry whomever my parents chose without a fight.” She looked down at her dress, lifted her heavy skirts, then released them while letting out a singular laugh.

“I suppose I refused to believe what was going to happen, perhaps hoping by some miracle the wedding wouldn’t occur. ”

“But…it didn’t occur, did it?” Ollie said.

Miss Sparrow looked up at him again, as if realizing for the first time she had escaped an unwanted marriage. “No, I suppose you’re right. Not today, at any rate.”

“What do you mean?”

She shrugged. “I can’t imagine my family will relent on this marriage.”

“But you’re safe from it. For now, at least.”

She gave him a small smile. “Yes, I suppose you’re right.”

Despite their argument from earlier, Ollie turned to his brother, exchanging a look with Victor.

Victor held his eye. “Do you know the earl she’s talking about?”

“I’ve heard of the Earl of Wellingham, but I doubt he’s someone our grandparents associate with.

” The McNab brothers’ grandparents were Scottish nobility—or “nobs,” as Ollie privately referred to aristocrats—with lukewarm feelings about the English.

They ran with a much wilder crowd than he suspected Miss Sparrow’s family did.

That was another thing. In all this time, Miss Sparrow had never mentioned being the daughter of a baron, either. Not that he’d much thought about it, but he’d figured she’d been middle class, if anything.

Ollie watched Miss Sparrow put her attention on the fire. Her gloves had been removed at some point and her bare hands reached out to the warmth the fire provided.

She’d mentioned she hadn’t known where else to go. But why would she have come here, of all places?

“You need a place to stay,” Ollie concluded out loud.

She didn’t turn toward him, and instead closed her eyes.

“I can’t go home tonight, of course. Nor can I go to a friend’s—I know my family will be looking there for me.

This was the only place I know of where I had the best chance of hiding safely.

When I ran, I didn’t have anything with me.

No coin, no clothing, no food. But I can’t go back.

” She gave him a pleading look. Please don’t send me home.

Vivian and Lady Litchfield whispered together as Ollie went over to Victor. There was a cautious, guarded look in his brother’s eye.

“What about the flat upstairs? Dantes’s old place?

” Ollie asked quietly. Dantes used to live in the flat just above the pub, until the building had caught on fire earlier in the year.

It had since been redone and refitted with furnishings.

Victor was planning on leasing it out to traveling businessmen because it would come fully furnished.

And he could charge a higher rate for that.

“No,” Victor replied darkly.

Ollie narrowed his eyes and lowered his voice further. “I wonder what Lady Litchfield would think if she knew you so easily refused to help a woman running a bad situation. Didn’t she recently separate from a horrid husband?”

Ollie had noticed over the past few months that Victor and Lady Litchfield had become good friends.

So much so, the marchioness hardly seemed to feel out of place at their pub these days, as she now drank whiskey alongside Vivian and talked quite easily with other patrons.

Ollie decided to take advantage of this fact.

Victor’s face remained blank and gave nothing away.

However, he did stop arguing about it. “Fine. She can stay for a few days if she wishes. But that’s it. ”

“Thank you.”

The two brothers studied each other for a long moment, and Ollie got the sense they were both trying to uncover the other’s true motives. But he didn’t arrive to a satisfactory conclusion.

Vivian and Lady Litchfield ended their whispering and Vivian sat up straight. “Miss Sparrow, you are also welcome to come stay with me or Anne. We have plenty of space. I think my home would be better than Lady Litchfield’s, as she has young children in the house.”

“Oh,” Miss Sparrow replied, and she seemed to hesitate.

“We have a flat right upstairs, as well,” Ollie added. “It isn’t currently being used and you’re welcome to stay there.” He found he wanted to keep her close, but of course he would feel protective over any friend in need.