Page 52 of My Best Friend’s Earl (Bluestocking Booksellers #2)

As Constance turned to leave, a small rectangle caught her eye.

She groaned, sending up a futile prayer for sanity.

“Bloody hell.” She snatched the paper off the counter—the note she’d written Oliver, then apparently forgot to send—and stormed toward the front door.

Holding up the tin, she announced, “We have biscuits. And I think I forgot to eat today.”

Caro cheered. “Aunt Mary is my hero. Eat in the carriage, then we will go ruin Oliver’s day. Where’s Hattie?”

“Visiting Widow Fellsworth. She should finish soon.”

Outside, Connie jiggled the key in the door, willing the lock to do its damned job.

Caro paced in front of the window. “Hurry up!”

“I’m trying! The lock sticks. You know that,” Connie grumbled.

“Uncle Owen still hasn’t fixed—is that my husband?”

A carriage bearing the ducal crest barreled toward them, the coachman yelling “outta the way” at anyone unwise enough to linger in his path. The women plastered themselves against the shop window, narrowly avoiding a wave of water and muck from the wheels.

Dorian opened the door and hopped down before his horses came to a complete stop. “Thank God, I caught you. This arrived after you left.” He thrust a missive toward his wife. “I don’t know what is going on, but it had better involve Oliver walking away a free man.”

Constance read the contents over Caro’s shoulder.

Your Graces,

Oliver and I request your presence in the Forsyth library at 9:30 tonight.

Althea Thompson

“What the devil?” Constance asked no one in particular.

“We need to find Oliver. His damned misplaced sense of duty will cost his entire future at this rate. Vague, dramatic notes might work in your novels, Caro love, but this whole situation makes me peevish.” Dorian handed them up into the coach, then directed Caro’s servants to return home with her carriage.

When he returned, he was still muttering about having heart palpitations. “Wait, where’s Hattie?”

“Tutoring a widow’s children down the road. We hoped to pluck her off the street,” Caro said.

He stuck his head out the window. “I see her!” With an order to his coachman to intercept the last member of their party, the carriage rolled into the street, then slowed a few moments later.

Connie threw open the door. “Get in, wench. We’re off to make a grown man cry.”

Oliver thanked his valet, running a hand down the front of his most comfortable traveling coat.

He wore the ridiculous pink and lime-green waistcoat, for two reasons.

First, in hopes that it would make Constance smile.

And second, as a symbol of his willingness to bend and accept chaos into his life.

Heartbeats thumped in his ears in a tattoo. Thump thump . Breathe. Thump thump . Leave the ace of spades on the table. Slip his mother’s ring into his pocket. Thump thump . Downstairs.

And so on, until he arrived at the dark windows of Martin House.

“Shall I wait here, milord? It appears the place has closed for the night.” The coachman’s voice reached him through the open window.

Oliver murmured a curse. He’d never called on Connie before.

Sure, he’d visited the shop. But with the storefront closed, he didn’t know how to access the family quarters.

Did he bang on the door like a debt collector, and make a spectacle of himself?

Was that how he wanted to introduce himself to her parents in this new role of potential son-in-law?

He could see it now. Sorry for scaring a year off your life.

I’m here to convince your daughter to marry me.

“Drive through the alley. There might be a door to their private residence.”

“As you wish.” The coachman clicked to the horses, and they were moving again.

Behind the store, all was wet and gray with soot and grime. Doors dotted the back of the brick and stone buildings, but few held identifying markings.

Disappointment gripped him. This might ruin his plan for tonight, but at least Althea and Wellsley could still leave.

He’d return tomorrow, and he could follow with Connie immediately after, if she agreed.

Surely there’d be a way to meet Althea on the road somewhere.

Yes, the plan could adapt. Adaptability went hand in hand with spontaneity, after all.

Even though this new plan made sense, it didn’t feel right.

Constance had put so much time and effort into helping Althea convince him to search elsewhere for a wife. Well, here he was.

The women hadn’t given up, and he wouldn’t either. Oliver jumped out of the carriage. “I’m going to knock on doors. Wait here.”

At the first door, he met a local solicitor. Very polite man, although bewildered to find an earl wearing an ugly waistcoat on his doorstep after dark.

No one answered door number two.

Door number three opened, and Owen Martin greeted him with equal parts worry and confusion.

“I apologize for disturbing you, Mr. Martin. I’m not sure you remember me, but I’m a friend of Constance’s. The Duke of Holland introduced us a few years ago. May I speak with her?”

Holding his gaze, Mr. Martin called over his shoulder. “Mary, do we know who Caro and Connie went after?”

A woman’s voice replied, faint but discernible. “They didn’t say. Why? Is there actually a body?”

Well, that was concerning.

Mr. Martin lowered his voice. “Son, if you’re the one my daughter shot out of here to deal with, I’m going to give you some friendly advice. Either grovel or run. Good luck to you.”

The door closed in Oliver’s face, leaving him in the dark alley once more. What the hell just happened? Why were Caro and Constance angry?

Back at the carriage, he told his coachman, “Bloomsbury. Duke of Holland’s residence.”

Unfortunately, Hastings, the Holland butler, didn’t have happy news. “I apologize, milord. Their Graces are currently not home. They left separately, both in quite a state.”

“Damn. Nothing is going as expected tonight.” Oliver ran a hand through his hair and bit back a growl. “Are they planning to attend the Forsyth soiree?”

“Yes, milord.”

Returning once more to the carriage, Oliver grumbled to his coachman.

“The Forsyths’ on Hill Street.” He’d intended to propose to Connie back at the shop while Althea and Wellsley made their scene at the Forsyth event.

They’d agreed to meet at eleven o’clock in the mews behind the pub on Hill Street, then leave Town from there.

Except, Constance wasn’t home. She was with Caro, and God only knew where Dorian had rushed off to. If he’d be at the Forsyths’, Oliver would track him down and work backward from there to find Constance.

Who… might be angry with him, although he wasn’t sure why. Whatever it was, Constance’s mood warranted her father doing everything short of reading last rites over Oliver on their doorstep.

Whatever was wrong, they’d talk it over as they had in his carriage on the way back from Kent.

That one trip out of Town had entirely reshaped Oliver’s idea of what he wanted for his future.

One morning of waking up beside Constance, and everything in him sat up, begging, more of this, for the rest of my life .

To make that possible, the last two days had been frantic, without a moment to himself.

Preparing Wellsley for his new position, coordinating with Althea and her beau in planning their elopement as well as his, filled every hour.

When she heard about all he’d done, Constance would probably tease him about painstakingly arranging an event most people did impulsively. Among a dozen other things, he’d needed to visit Gerard Bellmore for more marriage documents.

Someone needed to protect Constance’s future.

Especially since she hoped to hold equal ownership in Martin House.

What she did with that share was up to her, but he wanted Constance to retain the right to make that decision.

Because although he craved becoming one with her in the “making the beast with two backs” sense, under law she’d cease to exist as a separate person once they wed.

He couldn’t imagine Constance disappearing, even if it was only in the legal sense.

Thus, another trust. Another pile of legal paperwork from his poor solicitor, although he left these for her to file when they wed.

Since Althea and Wellsley were bound for Scotland, he and Constance would be too. Then, all that dimpled sunshine and teasing laughter would be part of his days forever. Assuming she accepted his proposal, of course. Nerves turned his stomach a bit touchy at that thought.

Oliver searched for his usual calm as the coach’s wheels clattered over cobblestones.

It would do him no favors to walk into the Forsyths’ with every worry parading across his face, especially as he hadn’t dressed with a soiree in mind.

Oliver ruefully examined his most weathered, and therefore comfortable, boots.

Appearing in traveling garb was the least scandalous sin he’d planned for this evening, so his attire wasn’t worth worrying over.

As the London streets passed by in seemingly endless blocks of stone or brick houses and businesses tacked one on the end of the next, that familiar reserve settled over him.

The buildings changed, growing larger and finer.

Architectural nods to the classical lines of Rome crept over the marble structures transforming the facades into things of beauty rather than shelters designed purely for durability.

Sharp, wet night air filled the carriage. Misting rain peppered his face, but Oliver didn’t close the window. The cold was bracing, like dunking one’s head in a frigid stream.

So he heard the Forsyths’ house before he saw it.

Coaches lined Hill Street off Berkeley Square, inching forward as they waited their turn to belch their passengers at the Forsyths’ door.

Outside, the pavement teemed with finely dressed members of the ton brave enough to subject their evening clothes to the night’s drizzle.

Gas lamps lined the street, causing yellow circles of illumination to spark off the jewels encircling necks and winking from artfully styled curls.

Patrons at the Coach and Horse lingered with pints in hand outside the pub doors, watching the hubbub, as if the people were animals in a zoo.

“I’ll walk the rest of the way,” Oliver called to his driver.

Donning his hat, he joined the mass of London’s elite.

Nodding and smiling greetings at the others walking toward the brightly lit house, he ignored their curious stares at his clothing.

Patting his pocket for the outline of the ring, he tried to appear unruffled.

Grand gestures were nerve-racking. Novels never mentioned that part.