“I do fear at times that a thought erupts in my mind and immediately flows from my mouth.” She smiled and shook her head. “It is one reason why I make few appearances at society’s many gatherings. Some of the people I must deal with at such events tempt that unrestrained part of me a little too strongly.”
“I can imagine. So, what happens with all of these children you have taken in?”
“Many of them were not sold by their families but taken from them and have already expressed a strong desire to go home. I will send them if that is truly what they want but I will also give them enough coin to return to me if they find that their home is no longer so very welcoming. Wrong though it is, since what happened to them was not their fault, a lot of people can and will judge them harshly for it. The ones sold by their own family have no wish to return, as one would expect. That shall also be dealt with. You have your brothers with you now so that leaves only little Henry to worry about.”
“We must tell his father where he is.”
“True, we must, but perhaps we should attempt to discover why the boy’s mother sold him and why your mother was so very interested in him before we tell the marquis that we have his son. Have you ever met this marquis? The name sounds somewhat familiar to me but I cannot place the man so I must not have met him or met anyone who spoke of him much.”
“I do not know the man but I know of him as there was a scandal about him. He married beneath him and stepped away from a heavily disapproving society. The story I have heard is that his family was also outraged and he was nearly disowned, but then his wife gave him a son.”
“Henry. And thus all was forgiven because the all-important heir had now been born.”
“Not completely, but quite near to that. Rumors began that the wife, a daughter of a butcher in the village close to the estate, was not only utterly common but rather strange. Then the marquis retreated even more from society. The fact that we now know the wife sold the only living heir of the marquis for ten quid rather supports the whispered accusations that she is strange. As for my mother’s interest in the boy? She had that heir within her grasp and now knows some very ugly secrets about the marquis’s wife and his young son. Or, she intended to find the boy once a suitable, and very large, reward was offered for him. There may already be one offered and we were very lucky to find him still there and alive.”
“Your mother is a very cunning woman but do you truly believe she would murder a child?”
“Once she returned Henry to his father, the boy could have pointed a finger at her, revealed that she was not as she claimed to be, and, yes, to save herself, I believe my mother would do almost anything. I have finally accepted that hard truth.”
“We will send a message to the marquis right away then, but something suitably vague that will allow us to deny all knowledge of the boy if the father should prove to be unsuitable. I do not think he will as Henry shows no fear of the man, no reluctance about being taken to him. In truth, the boy was quite hurt and astonished that his father had not come to find him.” She reached over to pat Brant’s hand. “We will win this, Brant. It might take longer than we like, but we will win. You should set your mind on exactly how you will declaw that cat.”
Brant set down his brandy glass, clasped Olympia’s hand tightly, and pulled her toward him. He laughed softly when she stumbled somewhat gracelessly into his lap. This was what he needed. Passion eased pain, more so than any drink he had ever imbibed. Olympia stirred his passion in such a way it cleared his head of every thought save ones of her. He wanted that now, wanted his body and mind consumed by her and all that she made him feel.
“I believe we are behaving unwisely again,” she said but curled her arms around his neck instead of scrambling out of his reach as a little voice in her mind told her she ought to.
“Are you about to become the wise one and flee the room?”
“I think not.”
His kiss quickly cleared her mind of all thought save for how he tasted, how he made her body burn. Olympia knew she would not be pushing him aside this time. Brant made no secret of his hunger for her and that hunger soon infected her as well. As Olympia met the deep intimacy of his kisses, she helped him shed his coat, waistcoat, and neckcloth. She kissed the hollow at the base of his throat and breathed deeply of his scent, that of a clean man with only a touch of cologne.
“Bedchamber or floor,” Brant said, his voice no more than a husky whisper.
Olympia stared into his nearly black eyes and knew it was time to make a decision although, she thought with a touch of amusement eking in through the passion gripping her, he could have found a more charming way to push her to make it. “Bedchamber,” she replied, not surprised to hear that her voice was as husky as his.