The Ninth Day
Eli’s eyelids sprang open. It was dark. Mostly dark. The edges around the curtains were visible, indicating the sun would soon be on its way up.
And he was in Olive’s bedchamber.
She was curled into him, her cheek half on the pillow, half on his arm. He had never seen a more beautiful sight. If they weren’t under imminent risk of discovery, he would have happily snuggled her close until late afternoon.
He eased his arm out from under her and tucked the blanket in close about her. It was their first night together and hopefully not the last.
Quickly, Eli slid on his clothes. He retrieved Olive’s apparel from the various places they had dropped or thrown each piece, and folded it all neatly, lest her maid be scandalized upon entering the bedchamber.
The maids! He opened the door as carefully as possible. His heart nearly stopped when the hinges gave a last-second creak.
Poking his head into the corridor like an emerging mole would be no less scandalous than walking out boldly. Eli chose swiftness over subtlety, and dashed from Olive’s chamber down the short corridor to his own.
He heard a murmur of distant voices around the corner, but managed to slide into his room and bolt the door without being called to account for his actions.
Before a maid or footman caught him standing about in fashionable but suspiciously wrinkled apparel, Eli washed with the basin of cold water and donned fresh, unwrinkled attire.
What now?
He raked a hand through his hair as he gazed about his guest chamber.
When he’d first arrived, he hadn’t expected to stay for more than a day, and as such, had packed more books than clothing. A few days with Olive wasn’t enough. He wanted to spend a lifetime with her. He wanted—
His books.
He stared bleakly at years of meticulous, hard-won research piled atop the dressing-table he’d been using as a makeshift desk.
There had to be a way to save lives without destroying Olive’s in the process.
But how?
Once his father learnt of Eli’s romantic interest in the daughter of his mortal enemy, there would be no funding for future cures. No further research at all.
Father would forbid chemists and botany and physic gardens altogether.
There would be no hope of helping women like Eli’s mother. No lessening the chances of the same tragedy befalling children, helpless babies, like Eli had once been.
He put his books away. Without Olive, nothing else mattered.
No matter what life threw at her, she didn’t just climb back in the saddle. She adapted, she raced ahead, she beat Fate at its own game.
Every time she heard “Ladies don’t do...” she went out and did it. She’d trained the most infamous horse in all of England.
Eli would have to do the impossible, too.
He had to deal with his father.
Swiftly, he retrieved his hat and coat, and strode out of the front door and into the bracing air.
Father would be awake at this hour. As far as Eli knew, the marquess never slept. He was too busy plotting revenge against all perceived wrongs.
It was no way to live.
Eli chose Olive. Even if he could never convince her to marry him, even if all they could ever be was lovers, even if all they had was one more night, his answer did not change. He chose her.
He chose love.
Despite the early hour, the castle doors were wide open. The staff bustled about the interior, stoking fires, arranging the refreshment table, attending to guests.
Eli walked past them. He headed up the marble stairs, his pace never flagging despite the knowledge that he was walking into war.
The Marquess of Milbotham’s lair was the true enemy territory.
Eli rapped on the door.
It was wrenched open at once, almost breathlessly so, as though the London under-butler had perched at the threshold for an entire week without sleep, just in case Eli chanced to call.
Well, here he was.
The marquess turned from the window as though he’d been expecting this meeting. He probably had. The Harper farm was visible in the distance. The marquess would have seen Eli step outside and plotted his next move accordingly.
Father’s eyes glittered. He rubbed his narrow hands together, his crafty smile resembling that of a scarecrow.
“Tell me you’ve accomplished it.”
Ah. He had not been preparing to strike. He had been preparing for victory. It had never occurred to the marquess that his wishes would not be obeyed.
“No,” Eli said.
The word echoed in the stone chamber, simple and clear.
Father’s hands slashed through the air. “Why are you dragging your feet? This is a simple mission, Elijah. If you’re not persuasive enough to win the hand of a long-in-the-tooth spinster, just humiliate her some other way, so we can go home and celebrate.”
“No,” Eli said again. Louder. Clearer.
“Don’t tell me.” The marquess shook clawed hands at the heavens. “You’ve fallen in love with the impudent chit whose heart you’re supposed to break.”
“I won’t do it,” Eli said.
“You will,” said his father, “if you care about your pretty flowers.”
“It’s not about beauty,” Eli burst out. “It’s about the cures chemists can create using the properties of certain plants. It’s about saving lives. It’s about—”
“It’s about time you realize none of that is going to happen.” Father’s smile was rapacious. Wolfish and sharp. “If you disobey me, you will become as poisonous as hemlock. There will be no more physic gardens. No more precious research. Not a single soul will work with you, for fear of losing their own livelihoods. There will be no cure.”
Eli clenched his teeth. “Before I left, you promised you wouldn’t do that.”
“Did I?” The marquess lifted a shoulder. “I give, and I take away. The choice is yours.”
“I gave you my answer.” Eli repeated it louder this time, drawing the word out for emphasis. “No.”
Servants fled the room as if fearing an apocalypse.
“I see.” The marquess steepled his long fingers, tapping them together rhythmically. “If you embarrass that hoyden and her father as instructed, I will dissolve your responsibilities to my farm and to me, and fund botany research for the rest of your life, if that is how you wish to spend the family money. I’ll sign a legal contract to that effect.”
Eli opened his mouth.
The marquess cut him off. “However. If you deny me in this matter, you will be disinherited completely. As of this moment, you will have no home to return to, no allowance to spend, and no friends or colleagues left in London. It will be as though you were never born. As though you had died along with your mother rather than lived to disappoint me.”
Eli kept his fists stiff at his sides. “You disgust me.”
“Then we have something in common after all.” The marquess smirked. “Do you think I won’t do it? Of course I can. As you are so fond of pointing out, I’ve only a courtesy title. I’m not obliged to hand anything down to an ‘heir.’ If you side with the Harpers over your own father, I’d sooner entail my holdings to a dog than give a farthing of it to you.”
Splendid. Absolutely the outcome Eli had been hoping for when he’d knocked on the door. He was homeless, penniless, and prospect-less, in addition to being a deceitful two-faced blackguard.