“Why, thank you, sir. I do seem to have finished this one already. So absorbed in your conversation, I didn’t notice.” She simpered, quite unable to gather her thoughts beneath the power of those warm, merry eyes and that crooked smile.
Anthony took the cup from her, his fingers brushing hers lightly as he did so. The lady quivered. Anthony turned away the instant before Olivia reached him.
Olivia recollected herself. She must tread very carefully, follow his lead, learn the steps of deception. Whatever he was, whoever he was here in the great hall of the governor’s mansion in the presence of the king, he was not the pirate master of Wind Dancer.
She glanced around and saw that Phoebe, still standing where she’d left her, was watching her with a puzzled expression. Olivia didn’t appear to be heading for the stairs leading to the retiring room. Olivia threw her a tiny reassuring smile.
Anthony was exchanging the empty cup for a full one at a sideboard standing against the fireside wall. He was separated from her by a trio of deeply conferring men.
Olivia stepped around the trio. As Anthony turned to go back to his previous companion, she glanced around as if looking for someone in the throng, stepped blindly sideways, and knocked into the pirate.
The cup he held spilled its contents over her gown. “Oh, look what’s happened!” she exclaimed, giving him a fairly convincing glare. “It’ll stain, I know it will.”
“Oh, mercy me! Pray forgive me, madam.” He set the cup on the sideboard behind him, tutting and chattering all the while. “Such clumsiness. How could I have done such a thing?”
He whipped out a handkerchief from his pocket and nourished it. “Let me dry it for you… oh, I cannot believe I could have been so clumsy… so unlike me. I pride myself on… oh, and such a beautiful gown… such elegance… I am mortified, madam. Absolutely mortified.” He dabbed at her gown with the handkerchief. “We must hope that as it’s white wine it won’t stain.”
Olivia listened incredulously to this stream of words, the sighs and the tittering laugh that accompanied them. He didn’t sound in the least like himself; even his voice was pitched higher.
“Pray don’t concern yourself, sir,” she said, twitching her skirts free of his hold as he continued to dab ineffectually at the damp patch.
“Oh, but I must concern myself. I do so trust that it’s not ruined,” he lamented. “To spoil such a bewitching gown would be nothing short of criminal.”
“Please do not blame yourself, sir,” Olivia said in some desperation. If she’d known her ploy would have turned him into this blathering jackass, she would never have used it.
He straightened at last and for a second he met her eyes. The noisy crowd around them seemed to recede, leaving them standing alone, locked together.
Then Anthony bowed with an elaborate flourish. “Edward Caxton at your service, madam,” he said. “I have never been so mortified. How may I make amends?”
Olivia’s eyes flickered. So in the king’s presence Anthony had become Edward.
“Pray… pray tell me how I may make amends,” he insisted.
“If you could but slip out of the gown, I could try to… oh, but, of course, how could we manage such a thing here?”
Olivia shook her head and murmured, “Stop it!”
“I protest, madam, you cut me to the quick,” he responded solemnly, placing his hand over his heart. “To refuse to allow me to do what I can to pay for my clumsiness.”
Olivia didn’t know whether she wanted to laugh or scream. “Believe me, sir, it is nothing.”
“Ah, how kind of you to say so.” He sighed heavily. “But how well I know that such denials so often mean quite the reverse. I recall such an instance just the other morning.” He regarded her with a fatuous smile on his lips and a pointedly sardonic gleam in his eye.
Olivia opened her fan with a flick of her wrist. Her voice was cool and even. “Are you often in the king’s presence chamber, Mr. Caxton?”
“When I have business,” he answered, with the same smile and the same look in his eye.
Business? But of course, a mercenary’s business. Olivia recalled his cynical statement that he sold his services to the highest bidder. Was the king the highest bidder here?
“And your business requires you to play the idiot?” she asked softly from behind her fan.
The gleam in his eye intensified. “Madam, I must protest. ‘Tis too unkind of you,” he murmured. “But I can bear such arrows when they fly from the quiver of such a beautiful lady.”
“Olivia… Olivia, is all well? Does your head ache? I saw you stumble.” Phoebe was suddenly beside her. She regarded Olivia’s unknown companion with a faint hauteur.
Anthony offered another vapid smile and once again began his lament. “So doltish of me… I fear it was all my fault. Such clumsiness. I was-”
“Phoebe, allow me to present Mr. Edward Caxton,” Olivia interrupted firmly. “Mr. C-Caxton, Lady Granville.”
Anthony bowed so low his head almost touched his knees. “Lady Granville, I am delighted. I wish only that we could have met in happier circumstances.” He gestured sorrowfully to Olivia’s gown.
Phoebe curtsied automatically but she looked inquiringly at Olivia. Something was going on here. Olivia was so obviously on edge and Phoebe could see no reason why this Mr. Caxton with his asinine smile should cause that. He was undeniably attractive with his commanding figure and golden hair, but Olivia did not suffer fools gladly, and this one bore all the marks of a prize nitwit.
Of course, being forced to be in his company could easily explain Olivia’s agitation, Phoebe reasoned. She’d been on an urgent visit to the retiring room and had been interrupted by this buffoon. Rescue was required.
“I’m looking for a poet to enliven things a little. My husband promised me there would be one, but I don’t seem to have found him yet. I don’t suppose you would happen to know if there’s a poet around, sir?”
Anthony inclined his head and gave her a bewildered smile. “I beg your pardon, dear lady?”
“Phoebe is a considerable poet herself,” Olivia explained coolly. “My father enticed her here with the promise of a poet to talk to. Though not a good one, he said.”
“A poor poet is better than no poet at all,” Phoebe declared, looking around them as if the man she sought would be carrying some identifying mark. “That man over there. The one in the rusty black coat and lank hair. He looks rather distrait and otherworldly. Could that be him?”
Anthony followed the direction of her gesturing fan. “I believe you’re looking at Lord Buxton, madam. He’s more interested in cattle breeding than poetry. Indeed, I should be surprised to find he can pen his own name.” He simpered at his own witticism.
“You seem very knowledgeable, sir. Are you acquainted with most people in the hall?” Olivia inquired, plying her fan languidly.
“I see no poet, madam,” Anthony responded with another irritating little laugh.
“I shall ask my husband to find me the poet at once,” Phoebe stated. “Will you come, Olivia? I’m sure Mr. Caxton will excuse you.” She gave the gentleman in question a cold stare.
“I must visit the retiring room,” Olivia said. “I was on my way there when I… uh… ran into Mr. C-Caxton. I’ll join you shortly.”
Phoebe looked at her with close concern. “Are you feeling quite well? Would you like me to come with you?”
“No, I thank you,” Olivia said hastily. “Really, I am quite well, Phoebe. I’ll join you shortly.”
Phoebe hesitated, but Olivia didn’t appear to be in distress. She nodded at Mr. Caxton and went off with purposeful step in search of her husband.
“What are you doing here? Who are you?” Olivia demanded in an undertone.