Omega’s Gambit by Flora Quincy

Viola

It wasa day to visit Olivia, so I was home and sadly blue devilled for I would not see the duke today.

I intended to spend the visit complimenting the duke. How could I not, knowing what kind of alpha, what kind of man he was? A good one, the best. Whose reasons for marrying were honourable. Whose reasons for not mating understandable, now that I knew him so well. I sat in the drawing room with the countess and struggled to pay attention to what she said, for my brain was full of my conversation with the Duke. If he meant what he said, that in marrying the countess he would save her from the fate she must face once her period of mourning ended. That in not mating her, he would be saving both from an unhappy… That she could find a mate if she wanted, but that he never intended to take one. Even if they weren’t mated to one another… Could an alpha accept sharing their spouse with another? Could he truly do that? A man who required mastery in everything. I could not believe it, yet he had been in earnest. That firm mouth set in an unforgiving line. I swallowed at the memory and turned to face the widow in hopes of distracting my thoughts.

“Would you never consider marrying again?” I whispered. Our trysts, if one could call them that, were conducted in almost secrecy despite being so public. Her companion often interrupted when anyone spent more than a few moments in her close company. So our every conversation felt illicit; stolen moments as I tried to convince her that the duke would make the perfect husband.

Olivia, for that was how she desired I call her, now flushed prettily and shook her head. “Oh Miss Hartwell! Viola... You have no notion how... Awkward. I could not... The... The late Earl was most displeased with everything... I am...”

“Hush,” I laid a hand on her arm to distract her since the other visitors had turned to look at us. I angled my body, the better to shield her from their eyes. I lowered my voice. “Olivia, do not think that all alphas are like that. I know one... I cannot say it here. There are too many ears.”

For all that she had been so disastrously married, the omega before me clung to many of the romantic notions so typical of our dynamic. It was upon this that I sought to play and hopefully encourage her to think of finding a husband and save herself. If, when, she married the duke, she would have security. Given her agitation, it was the best I could hope for. She would give him an alpha heir. That is what he wanted.

“Sweet friend. Tell me, I implore you!” Came Olivia’s hushed plea.

“If, and I say this as a hypothetical, a mere possibility of a romance, shall I say. But if an alpha had perchance seen you, fallen for you, and wanted to profess the feelings he must bury deep inside... Who knows what lengths he might go to... For certain I would, if I had fallen deeply in love, would do anything. The poets would write songs about the feats I would accomplish to win her affection. Remember the play? Twelfth Night? How Duke Orsino will go to any lengths to win Olivia? How Viola, disguised, woos Olivia in his name? Think, I am Viola in the flesh. And you Olivia. I am here to woo… You see? How romantic would that be?”

I winced. My words were painfully on the nose, but I believed I must make my case as explicitly as I dared. I had no such romantic notions, but if my plan were to succeed I must convince her that love, and love with an alpha, would be the only way to escape her current circumstances. From our (albeit brief) acquaintance, I felt secure in the knowledge that painting her as the figure of some great romantic story was the way to go. I did not understand it myself. How a woman so traumatised could cling to the stories of daring rescues.

“I have... I have always wanted someone like you,” her bright eyes held mine. For the first time, I saw the girl she had been. Then it struck me, these tales of romance were what gave her hope that not all was lost.

“You deserve to find the alpha of your dreams,” I told her, my voice thick with emotion. Such a fragile omega had earned a happy ending after the tragedies she had suffered. I now desired to find her a mate. One who would make those dreams into a reality more precious than any she could imagine. “A mate. You deserve a mate who loves you. You deserved to be wooed.”

“Yes,” she breathed. “Yes…”

“Miss Hartwell!” Caroline Wilson’s sharp bark interrupted whatever Olivia had been about to say. “This note just arrived for you. I suppose you haunt our door enough...”

”Oh stop, Caro!” Olivia cried. “Viola is my dearest friend. Read your note, Viola. I am sure it is just your aunt begging you to come home before she forgets your face.”

I turned it over and my stomach dipped. Though the seal was plain I recognised the odd hexagonal shape and the rich green of the wax. The duke was writing me a letter? Here? Without thought or discretion, I opened it up.

Hartwell-

Your presence is desired at mine this evening for dinner. I have things to discuss with my secretary.

-Orley

I looked up to see Olivia’s face flushed. She looked like some romantic ideal, and when I compared myself to her there was a twinge of jealousy. I would never compete with one such as her. An alpha like the duke of Orley would never look at me when Olivia was in the room.

“You must leave me,” she said with a sad smile.

“I’m sorry, my dear, but duty calls.”

We rose together. “I—“

And with the hastiness of youth, she pressed her cheek to mine before running her nose along my neck. Scenting me! I realised with a start. No. Impossible. Omegas didn’t scent mark each other. “I’ll be back, Olivia. Don’t give up. I will be back.”

“If I could find an alpha as good as you…” she whispered into my ear. I blinked, her scent had spiked. It was cloying honeysuckle and sweet butter. I breathed through my mouth, trying to avoid taking too deep breaths. There was a reason that same-dynamic partnerships were so rare. Then why did Olivia’s scent spike? I froze. What if she could smell lingering wisps of the duke on my skin? My hair perhaps? Or… I remembered my greatcoat. I had worn it over my cloak in the carriage on the journey from Weymouth Street. That coat smelt of Iris, which as her sister I would never notice but might catch the interest of another omega.

As I was being handed into the carriage, I heard my name being called. Caroline skipped down the steps.

“For some reason, my lady has a liking for you. I do not,” she said.

“You’ve made that clear enough,” I smiled. “Pray, if you dislike me so much, what business have you with me?”

“Here. She begs I give you this,” she held out a twist of paper. I raised my gaze to the other woman in silent question.

“I did not read it!” She growled. “I’ve more love for her than that.”

I nodded still confused why Olivia would feel the need to send me a note when I had only just left her side. “Thank you.”

“Farewell,” the alpha snarled, and I felt the full force of her hatred. I watched in stunned silence as she ran up the few stairs and into the house.

“Methinks that she is rather in love with the countess,” my uncle’s coachman chuckled. “She’s as jealous as a fish wife.”

“You shouldn’t gossip or use such language,” I said but did not truly mean it. I was grateful for the explanation, but it begged the question of why she might be jealous of me, another omega. Unless! My earlier fear that I carried an alpha’s scent resurfaced. I raised my arm to my nose and sniffed. There was a faint trace of alpha on me, Iris’s alpha smell from having her clothes in the carriage with me,  perhaps that is what she had noticed? Unusual too, for an alpha’s senses were not as sharp as an omega’s. I shook my head, clearing it of all thoughts, and climbed into the carriage. The blinds were drawn, but I had grown used to at least beginning my transformation in near darkness. The first was to remove my gown and bundle it away. Then, removing my short stays until I was naked except for my thin chemise. Only then could I layer on two of Iris’s shirts. For their scent was beginning to fade. I had written to Iris asking for more. She’d responded she’d be in town soon and would bring more with her then.

When I felt that I was dressed enough to exit the carriage without drawing too much notice, I knocked, signalling to John Coachman that I was ready to be left in front of Orley House. I glanced out the window and saw I had time to read the note from Olivia. Her copperplate handwriting was wrinkled, but her words were clear:

You are all I have been able to think about since the moment I met you. My friend, you are the one good thing in my life.

I cursed. What madness was this? I was an omega. I was… I was not who she wanted. Hopeless Olivia was drawn to the traces of alpha that hung around me. Probably sensitive due to her isolation. Perhaps her heat was near. My cheeks flushed at the thought. Would that news reach the duke? Would he hear that and decide to act? To take matters into his own hands and press his suit. And what then? Did I have the right to stay by his side once he had a wife? I tried to imagine what it would be like to continue as his secretary while he married and rutted another omega through her heat. I could do it.

“Miss Hartwell,” My head jerked up. The carriage had halted, and Horne, the duke’s butler, held the door open for me. Since he knew I disguised myself as Viola, he had made it his business to ensure I could complete my transformation back into alpha, or so he thought. I thought he might see through me at first. That he might suspect I was an omega. But as the weeks went by I relaxed. Joked with him and Timms, His Grace’s valet, about the necessity of returning to my natural self after playing omega with the countess. I wrapped myself in Iris’ greatcoat and carried a bundle of men’s clothes under my arms as I entered the hall and ran up the stairs to the bedchamber where I could change in peace. Today though, I could not find it in me to smile at his teasing wink. Instead, I gave a small nod and rushed to change. I was careless with my cravat and the way I rubbed lemon over my wrists and neck to remove hints of omega. I reached the landing before realising I had not anointed myself with the oils that most closely mimicked Iris’s scent. It was always a risk, but one I was determined not to take. So I returned again to perfume myself. I looked into the mirror and was not surprised to see the frown and irritation reflected at me. I pressed my fingers to my temple and counted to one hundred in Latin, then Greek, before I was satisfied that I could keep my temper even and my passion under control. My anger had no target but myself.

* * *

“Call me Syon,” he said barely a minute after I entered the library, which had rapidly become my favourite room in the whole world. Inexplicably, his expression stern without the possibility of compromise. I winced at the all too familiar sensation of slick building between my thighs—his unforgiving alpha will tugged at my omega’s conviction this alpha was what I needed. I blamed the fact I’d spent the morning garbed in my omega’s clothes, sitting amongst my dynamic, and speaking with Olivia. Olivia, the omega he wanted to call wife. And now, when I felt exhausted and troubled by worries that I had brought upon myself, he was growling at me then smiling, in turn confusing me and softening me at once.

“I could not,” I objected. “It would be—“

“When we are in private,” he chuckled, his body relaxing when I argued—nonsensical alpha. “All this ‘Your Grace’ business becomes dull since you must always be calling my attention to this or to that phrasing of a letter.”

“I do not mean to interrupt...”

“Hartwell, you do not mean to do much yet you are always doing.”

“You don’t take me seriously. And if I must call you Syon then you must call me… Keep calling me Hartwell. I like it more than my own name.” I did not lie but wished the words back as soon as I’d given them voice. I damned myself for not thinking before speaking. But then while I longed to hear him speak my name, the sound of Hartwell made me weak because it made me feel like his equal—an unusual aphrodisiac. It was a nightmare in the making, and I desperately wanted to return to my nest and hide within its comforting warmth.

“Hartwell? Not Iris?”

“No one but you calls me Hartwell,” I told him. Goddess, what was I thinking?

“Hartwell, then. Come here. I want you to explain precisely why I am now supporting voting rights for omegas in a bill concerned with Pitt’s tax on powder for wigs… This is the third version of this speech that mentions an injustice and they change with each version… It is not your pet project of the Omega Property Rights Act. Explain yourself, Hartwell,” he lingered on my name, stretching it out like a caress. I moved closer, hypnotised by the sound of my name on his lips. He might have called me Hartwell before, but never like this.

“Syon?” I tried the name out. How it felt like a supplication when it came from my lips. “Call me Hartwell like that and I promise to always behave… I will never slip things into your speeches without informing you first.”

He startled and leant forward in his chair. I froze, realising he was sniffing. Had my scent spiked with my temper?

“You were at the countess’s residence this morning,” he stated. “You smell of omega.”

“I— Just as you say. I was with the Countess this morning. As we agreed,” I swallowed. I retreated to my small desk by the window. It would not prove to be a particularly sturdy defence against Syon if he chose to come after me, but it settled my scattered nerves to be close to the window. I opened it a crack and allowed the biting winter air to seep in. “You sent a letter to me there.”

“I had not forgotten. But, in future, bathe before coming here. And close the damn window. Do you want to catch your death sitting in a draught? Or do you plan to kill me?”

“Oh. I should not change here then?” I asked, confused.

“Is that what you have been doing?” He sputtered. “And how have you been coming into my house and not been noticed in a woman’s dress? Not to mention stinking of omega!”

I jumped at the bark that entered his voice.

“You find the smell offensive?”

He growled at me. “Answer the damn question.”

“I remove my gown in the carriage, which goes around the square until I have it off. Then I wear a cloak and enter and change in one of the bedrooms.”

He gaped at me. “And my servants are aware of this?”

“Your butler and valet.”

He ran a hand over his face and stood. I watched him, curious if he were to go and summon his butler and demand an explanation. Instead, and to my horror, he stalked to where I sat. Syon loomed over me, his pupils dilated until his eyes were almost black, his scent so thick I felt dizzy. To say I was prepared for the full expression of alpha aggression would be risible. I fought every instinct to turn and offer him my neck.

“I do not desire for you to ever wear your sister’s clothes in my house. Do you understand me, Hartwell?” he spat my name out, but I could not understand his anger.

“Do not get so angry,” I crooned trying to soothe his temper. “It seemed the most efficient way; otherwise I must return to Weymouth Street. By then, it is far too late in the day to come here.”

“Then do not. Your day off shall be on whichever day you are to see the countess. All other days you are to be here and not smelling of her.”

I bit down hard on the inside of my cheek. Irrationally, I wanted to argue with him that Viola, that I smelt just fine. But the haunting feeling his “her” was the countess sparked a fit of irrational jealousy. The thought he could smell her on me, despite how little time I’d had to pick up her scent, twisted my insides until I wanted to scream, primal and furious, that he preferred another’s scent to mine.

But he is not yours, I screamed right back. The alpha before you is no more yours to claim than it is possible to wish the sun and moon in the sky at the same time.

“I will try—“

“No trying. You will obey me in all things,” he barked. His alpha coming through so strongly that no alpha would have been able to stand up to it, especially in his own home where everything belonged to him—including me I realised. Whether he knew it or not, he owned my every thought in these past weeks. In retaliation, I sought to thwart him in matters as small as in how I mended his pens. He’d barred me from touching his pens a week ago, which was a shame because I loved to hear him curse when his pen sputtered. He returned the favour, aggravating me to the point I fantasied about strangling him in frustration over his alpha superiority. Then in the dark of my bed, forbidden thoughts crept into my imagination though I dared not put words to those too dangerous desires. Too often nights began with my face buried in my pillow, hands clutching the sheets, my core unsatisfied, and slick covered thighs pressing together—my body protesting at being denied.

“Now get back to work,” he commanded. I took a deep breath, grateful the cracked window had thinned our scents.

I would master myself, I must master myself if I were to survive my time with Syon.

* * *

The rest of the afternoon was tense. The air so charged that when Horne came in to ask if we wished for refreshments, I gasped at the fresh air that came into the room. Syon—how had I come to think of him in such a personal way and so quickly?—refused to look up from where he sat squinting at the broadsheet Horne had brought, crisp from being ironed to ensure Syon’s fingers didn’t become stained from the ink. After snapping at him he’d be better for eating something, I ordered a light repast, and when it came I had to coax him to eat. He growled that I was fussy, and I growled right back that if he continued to be like this I would quit and he could sort out his own messes both in the managing of his affairs both in business and pleasure.

Our eyes held. Daggers drawn, and ready for a fight I was unsure either of us would emerge from unscathed.

“You are a scamp. I don’t know why I put up with you,” he said with such resigned humour that I snorted. He sounded like any beleaguered alpha forced to endure the nagging care of an omega. And here I was, neither an alpha nor his omega, yet falling into the part with such ease that I had to see the humour of it or I would find myself running from his presence as if the Devil himself were hot on my heels.

“Dine with me this evening,” he smiled.

“What?”

“Dine with me; I already invited you to in my note. I desire your company. Besides…” he sighed, looking to the ceiling. “I should hear how your business with the countess goes.”

“I can tell you that now,” I said, somewhat bashful as I was not sure the propriety of my dining with him—though how a dinner could be more compromising than spending most days locked up with him, I did not know. “I believe my aunt will be expecting me.”

He snorted and bent over the speech, crossing out a line with purpose. I growled. A smile tugged at his lips. “I promise she can do without you for one evening.”

“Fine,” I snapped. “But only if you agree to consider the unaltered speech.”

“Convince me then,” he said with challenge and lounged in his seat, crossing his arms over his broad chest.

“To begin with…”

We finished later than was our habit. And if Horne had not come to announce dinner was ready, we would have continued to argue the merits of omega rights until the sun had risen on a new day.

I had not seen much of Syon’s London residence but was unsurprised to find that the dining room was dominated by a table I suspected could have entertained as many as eighty guests. He assured me only forty guests would fit about it but that he could fit near double that amount at Ayleigh.

“Do you entertain much?” I asked when the last of our excellent meal had been removed. I’d hardly noticed that there was no meat, for the food was delicious and filling. One day I would ask him why and when he had become a vegetarian and how he still managed to be so big and strong—an omega’s curiosity would eventually be satisfied.

“No,” he did not seem bothered by the fact. He’d turned his chair and stretched his long legs out before him, looking impossibly powerful and handsome. My core clenched and slick began to gather.

“Why? I can imagine you would have a great many dinners here. Political dinners, for instance...” I tried to distract myself by cracking more nuts than I could eat.

“There is no hostess, scamp!” He laughed and refilled my glass.

I had been drinking more than I ever had before but was enjoying the way the wine made me feel. A little reckless and far more intimate with Syon than I was sober.

“Come! You do not need a hostess to have your fellow alphas over!” I laughed.

“So says the daughter of the most famous omega of our times. Surely your sisters would raise their finely arched brows at your urging me to talk omega politics without one of you to keep us in line? Apologies, I meant one of your sisters.”

I giggled into my glass. “My Grace, your Syon—“

“You are drunk!” He said with some surprise. “You aren’t used to drinking… I shouldn’t have poured you that last glass.”

“Perhaps. But my point stands,” I huffed.

“And what point was that? You’ve made many throughout our acquaintance.” He smiled knowing my mind was foggy from drinking too much of his good port. I watched somewhat reluctantly as he took my empty glass away from me. But with my brain so fuzzy, I could feel just about my need to preen just a little in front of this virile alpha. Oh, how I wanted to be an omega like Olivia whom alphas could worship. Syon didn’t even suspect I was an omega. My size, my behaviour… How could he? How could anyone?

I absently blinked at him trying to remember what we had been talking about. Ah. Politics. Alphas. Omegas. My favourite topics seemed so… Trivial perhaps? Why were we talking about serious things when we could be doing serious things.

“Firstly,” I raised a finger. “Alphas are more than able to stand up for omegas. Second. Alphas are more of a mind to listen to other alphas. Therefore alphas talking to alphas without the supposed pressure of omegas...”

“Yes, Puss. I see your point.”

“Good,” I smirked, arms crossing under my breasts before my brow clouded in thought. “Did you call me Puss?” I asked, embarrassed by the endearment.

“You’ve claws but they cause no real damage. I’ve called you Puss many a time and you choose now to notice?” he laughed. “So you will come to a dinner I host and talk politics with my friends?”

“You don’t have friends,” I sobered instantly. It was not an accusation, though perhaps a man as proud as a duke would take it as such. More that, of a sudden, I realised his nights were almost solitary. His days too. Alphas spent their time at private clubs, but most days he was with me. His golden head bent over a letter, squinting a little. For a thought, his eyesight might be weaker than he would admit. If he was not with me, he was at Manton’s—how I wished to go!—or with Jackson to box.

“You are my friend. But in general, you are correct. I am not friendly with those I am not familiar with,” he said with equal gravity. “But in politics, you might call an alpha a friend over the table and curse him behind his back.”

“You wouldn’t do that,” I said with confidence. “You would never pretend.”

“Except with you. I am pretending in order to woo my future duchess. How exactly did you convince me? I must have been mad.”

“Most likely,” I grinned, but it was forced.