Omega’s Gambit by Flora Quincy
Syon
The first impressionof my new secretary—hired at the recommendation of Florey, who had approached me, begging that I take on his niece—was not good. She stood in the library door, by all appearance a poor excuse for an alpha, so young and small that I almost mistook her for a schoolgirl. But no child carried herself like that. A straight back and easy air, dark hair with beautiful violet coloured eyes. To be fair to the youth, she was of medium height, like a beta perhaps, with good shoulders and a bearing that exuded confidence. Then she moved, and I saw the secret to it all. A fencer, no doubt trained by one of the great instructors in an art increasingly less popular. Modern fashions favoured pistols, which took little skill and lacked the sheer power of a sabre in hand. When it came down to it, a quick foot and nimble wrist were as deadly as a long arm and strength. Perhaps when I knew her better, we could cross swords. Yes, the thought pleased me greatly. Even so soon upon meeting her, I wanted to bend this creature to my will.
“Come, girl,” I beckoned her further into my sanctuary. I had no time to beat about the bush. My time was too valuable, and the need for a helping hand too great, for in recent years my eyesight had deteriorated. These days I struggled to keep up with my correspondence without suffering a headache. Not something I wished to broadcast, but which I must accept. “Why’d you want to work with me? Your uncle was keen to put you forward despite your youth and complete lack of experience.”
“Because of my youth and lack of experience, Your Grace,” she said, her voice light yet there was a husky quality. On an omega, it would have been pleasing. Instead, it only added to the small alpha’s irregularities. “My father was Charles Hartwell. Perhaps you know him? If you do, then you know my family’s politics. My chances of a career in politics…”
“Is that your aim, alpha Hartwell?” I asked. Yes, I knew of her family. Her mother was an alpha who could not but be respected and was currently attempting to establish diplomatic relations with the revolutionaries in France. Her father, well, even in death Charles Hartwell could not be ignored. Perhaps her omega father and alpha mother explained why this stripling was not as large as one might expect in an alpha, even a female one.
“Yes,” she confirmed, folding her arms across her chest, her chin tilted as if she didn’t appreciate my prying into her plans.
“And do my politics—”
“I believe in learning every position, Your Grace,” she interrupted, with more coherence than I’d expected since she spoke through gritted teeth. The youth flushed and something inside of me responded to that flair of… What? Embarrassment that could so easily be mistaken for arousal on, say, an omega, which this alpha was not. No omega would dare speak over an alpha in their own home. They might rush their response but never interrupt.
“No need to snap, child,” I warned. “A student of politics then. And staying with your uncle?”
“Yes, Your Grace. I admit I am anxious to keep an eye on my youngest sister, Viola, who is presented this year.”
“I do not need you to explain your domestic arrangements.” Though it was not surprising she’d want to stay close to her omega sibling.
“Of course not. May I ask what tasks… That is if you will take me on.”
“That is the plan. But must you ask what you will do? You shall do whatever fulfils my needs,” I smirked. “But to ease your mind, hot head, you answer my correspondence, letters of business, anything I do not wish to do myself. However, there is a task that, while not of primary importance, must be dealt with. You will do some, ah, research into the Countess Kellingham. I realise that is not what you might normally expect of your duties, but my secretaries are involved with all my business. At present, the Countess is the primary aim. To marry her is my meaning if you can’t parse it.”
“The Countess?“ she frowned as if I belonged in Bedlam. “You want me to look into her?”
“What engagements she has, which social events I might meet her at when she comes out of mourning in the next few weeks,“ I continued as if Hartwell hadn’t spoken.
“Your Grace, I should warn you that the Countess is known to me a bit through my aunt. And from suffering omega’s talk…” her lips twisted.
I smiled in sympathy. How could I not? Omegas could prattle on about nothing.
“I know the Countess has forsworn alphas and men. You say your aunt knows her? Use your skills to persuade and convince her to get access. Should you desire to go into politics, tasks less savoury than this will be asked of you. Eventually, you shall ask it of others. Not the wooing of a spouse, but jobs you might normally turn your nose up at. Politics ain’t pretty business but dirty dealings, researching your opponents, and using the knowledge to your advantage. It’s why I hate the whole race of politicians.”
Her eyes flashed. Oh yes, this little alpha would afford me many hours of pleasure.
* * *
Hartwell provoked my temper within a week of her arrival.
“Would you be so kind as to explain to me why I must hunt down my secretary in my own home?” I barked on entering the drawing room.
She scrambled to her feet and attempted but failed to straighten the already poorly tied cravat at her neck. I’d come down to the library after my morning ride to find it empty. No dark head bent over some piece or other of correspondence. No violet eyes glancing up or quick smile before returning to work. Instead, I must find her here lounging at a lady’s writing desk and looking at home. As always, she was peculiarly arranged so that her body sat parallel to the desk, with the paper lying in a similar manner. Her left elbow, for she wrote with that hand, resting on a small book and with her right hand she moved the paper progressively upwards as she wrote. One might think this impeded the flow of her writing but it was not so. Her words appeared on the page with such rapidity that must be witnessed to be believed, and, when it came time to review, there was little to complain of. This was no instant genius, but by her own admission, she would sit in silence, staring at a blank page, deep in thought before beginning. As if she composed the entire piece in her head before committing thoughts to paper. It was probably the only time she paused before forcing her opinions on others. Her mouth was different, words pouring forth like blood from a mortal wound. An alarming experience one could only imagine became easier to understand with time.
“The light was poor. This room is south facing,” she fiddled with her cravat. It was loose so I could not understand how it might bother her. Watching her fidget, it occurred to me that I did not know her scent, and yet there was an underlying hint of pheromones that soothed my temper, a surprise for sure given that Hartwell was an alpha.
“Are there not windows, even a candle, in the library?” I asked after a moment, dumbfounded by this strange change in location. She lay down her pen and tidied the desk.
“There is no economy in using candles when the sun is out. And I couldn’t move the desk on my own. So I asked your butler Horne and came here instead.”
“I can afford whatever candles you might require. Or call a footman to move the desk for you,” I felt like pulling my hair. Surely the Hartwell estate was not so small that they did not use candles in the dead of winter. Unless they wrote so prolifically that they never once needed to use a candle as automatic as it was for them to fill pages with sentiments of liberal passion and righteousness.
”I could not take advantage...” she pressed her lips together. “I am not used to such extravagance. I am used to sitting in the window.”
”Then we can move your desk. It is not such a great thing, little alpha.”
“There are betas shorter than I!” she snapped. “I am… I know I am the wrong height for my dynamic. But please do not call me littlealpha.”
“Then what should I call you?” I asked, amused by her sensitivity.
“Hartwell. I prefer when you call me Hartwell.”
“As you will.”
“You are not what I expected,” the words burst from her. While I had grown resigned to the readiness with which she pronounced her every thought, this admission demonstrated her youth in a charming manner. With her politics, thoughts on the management of the estate—so far as she was privy to my correspondence—all that she spoke with a surety that no longer surprised me. Then in other moments, her impressions on something or other, some person, some book she found on my shelves, a comment on her home life, which I’d begun to suspect was more complicated than she let on, she showed her newness to the world. There existed a purity in her soul that, given her choice of profession, might be destroyed with very little work. I did not want that. I did not desire another cynic to populate the world or become a politician. Now that I had felt the fresh breeze of Hartwell, I desired to protect it in hopes it would blow away the stuffiness I found so oppressive.
“How’d you mean?” I asked, holding back a smile. There was something about Hartwell I liked in an obscure way. Not in any intimate way… I shut that thought down before it had a chance to mature.
“I thought you would be proud. But you are no more proud than you ought to be. You take your responsibilities seriously. Your tenants are fairly treated, though perhaps your time spent in the country accounts for that.” she glanced out the window as if something caught her attention before looking at me once again with those unusual purple eyes. “You ain’t cold. They call you the Parson Duke. But again, again, again! you defeat my expectations. You ain’t mean with your money or time with your tenants and dependents. I said that already. You might not eat meat and be a teetotaller, but you are addicted to sport.”
”If I’d known you would hardly take a breath between periods, I’m not sure I would have hired you. Oh, do not frown at me cub... Hartwell,” I corrected myself with a chuckle. She flushed, lowered her head, and proceeded to look up at me through ridiculously long lashes. A coquettish tactic for an omega. Charmingly innocent on this peculiarity I had introduced into my life. “But do not hold a mirror to catch my likeness before examining your own.”
“Oh! You ask me so charmingly to decline some invitation or to tell your steward to take on some new task... Then you must go and wrap censure in silver paper.”
Impulsively I tilted her chin so that our eyes met. By all the saints, one could drown in those violently violet orbs, which conveyed every feeling in the cosmos. I could believe the poets, who said eyes were the window to the soul. But now I needed her to see the sincerity of my next words. “You. Are. A. Scamp.”
She gasped, and a little pink tongue licked her lips, which I followed with a strange clenching feeling in my chest I had not experienced in a while.
“Come. Let’s have that desk moved. I won’t have you working here for fear you urge my people to some mad scheme. I must keep an eye on you should you start a rebellion in my absence.”
My words urged action, but we stood there a little longer in a strange battle of wills. There were few peaceful instances of physical contact between alphas. This, however, felt so natural that I did not wish to break away. It took restraint not to allow her to stay here and move my own work here. I was surprised to find myself considering such an indulgence. But this was my house, and I would be the one to hold my ground and not bend to youth. I had expected some upheaval to my home with the introduction of this young alpha, but nothing could have surprised me more than my ready acceptance of her daily presence. Such was the ease at which she slotted into my routine that I considered returning to the topic of the widowed countess. Since that first day when I’d taunted her with the idea that she would be responsible for easing my way into the countess’s life, neither of us had raised the subject again. I forgot it except in passing. Then forgetting again when I was in Hartwell’s presence. When I remembered, it did not surprise me that she hadn’t raised the issue either. I made plans to do so the next day, but before I had the chance my surprising secretary had a bone to pick with me. I bit back a smile as she stood before me, the speech she had written, which I had read and balled up ready for the fire, tight in her fist.
“You… Your Grace must see how very important it is for this bill to pass,” she ground out.
“And why is that?” My gaze flicked to her face and stayed to observe the play of emotions. Those violet eyes were addictive and soothed my soul more effectively than any cure known to man or the Goddess. Even when they flashed with anger and barely suppressed frustration, I found a perverse comfort in them. “Well, secretary mine...”
”Lady Clare,” she bit out. “Lady Clare, the countess you seek to marry. If this bill passes she, my sisters, all omegas will be protected should they become widows without a mate bond... Or should they have no alpha children or siblings to inherit what parts of the estate that are not entailed.”
Her chest heaved when she finished. I leant back, observing Hartwell as if I’d never seen such a strange creature before. One both far-seeing beyond her years and yet blind to the realities of our society.
“Sit,” I ordered. Her jaw clenched. There was rebellion in her eyes. I nearly chuckled. She looked ready to rip my throat out. There would be no warnings before she moved to end my existence. I would be dead in a second if she had her way, and all because I ordered her to sit as if she had not delivered such an impassioned speech. “Sit. I will talk to you of this bill and why its outcome shall not alter my plans.”
Ever irascible, Hartwell, instead of taking the chair in front of my desk, came around and dragged one of the side chairs over, allowing its legs to pull against the fine Abyssinian carpet. “Petulant child. I seek to open your eyes, not lecture you.”
“Well?” She crossed her arms and sat back. “Instruct me, Master.”
Masterhad my blood heating, though perhaps not in the way she would like. The vision of instructing my secretary took a turn in my imagination. Let her learn how dark the desires of a fully grown alpha could be. I’d put that mouth to better use. Have those violet eyes flash with a different kind of passion. I would school her, and she would say thank you.
“You’ve read the bill?” I asked, already knowing the answer.
”Yes.”
”You’ve read it and still do not see that it won’t come into law until after her period of mourning.”
”But that is no matter!” she said. “Our laws do not prohibit ex post facto. They can come into effect prior to their passing. I can list… I admit this is not well-conceived for many reasons, but in this case—“
”Do you really believe that the Crown would willingly give up such an estate as Kellingham?”
“Are you arguing with the law?”
”That isn’t how the world works,” I growled. “The Crown will do what they can to hold on to the estate. And,” I scrubbed at my face. “And we must consider that Clare died almost a year ago. They shall take it into account and use it against your petition. A prohibition on ex post facto is central to common law.”
“But...” her face fell. I moved to stand before her.
”If perhaps it had been a month, we could have petitioned the Crown. But a year? No. I’m sorry,” I rested a hand on her shoulder. “Come have a drink.”
“You don’t drink.”
“That might be, but it don’t mean I don’t keep a cellar for recalcitrant secretaries,” I poured her a glass. “Drink.”
“Tell me. If I were to offer the countess in exchange for the votes, would you accept?”
“Votes?” Her proposition blindsided me.
“For the Omega Property Rights Act. I want to see it passed more than anything.”
“No.”
She gave a stiff nod and returned to her desk, keeping her head down for the rest of the day.
* * *
By the middle of February, the weather had become unseasonably mild. On the chance the roads were passable, I dreamt of escaping back to Ayleigh. I could bring Hartwell with me since I still needed her services. We could gallop across the fields, or I could take her shooting. As I lay in bed, the wicked part of me fantasised about giving up my quest to find a wife. There were plenty of omegas in the world. I was not so ancient that I needed a wife now. It could wait a year or two. No, better get it over with—like a tooth being pulled. The immediate pain would be worth it in the end rather than risk infection.
So instead of my carriage, I ordered one of my stallions, Orsino, to be saddled. The poor beast wasn’t used to life in the city and probably craved a morning gallop as much as I.
At this dawn hour, Rotten Row could be found empty of casual riders. Only those who wished for an undisturbed gallop exercised their horses. I took the moment to enjoy the silence of a winter morning. Despite the lack of bite in the air, there was a fine mist creeping within Hyde Park and drifting across the path. The sharp look of a frost on the ground and cold light shining in a cloudless sky. Freedom rang through me for the first time since my grandmother’s death.
I watched a pair go by and recognised Hartwell. I nearly called out to her, but seeing her companion gave me pause. A dark-haired woman in a well-fitting riding jacket who on sight could only be Hartwell’s sister. I pulled to the side, jumping down to fiddle with Orsino’s bridle so that I might better observe them. The most obvious being their similar build and dark hair. I wondered how often they’d been mistaken for identical before Hartwell had presented as an alpha. Interestingly, Viola Hartwell’s posture displayed none of the natural shyness one expected of her dynamic. I could not catch their conversation, but there was a directness to her body language that gave the impression of a strong will and purpose I’d never once seen in an omega. Even my grandmother had kept a veneer of subservience when dealing with alphas. Not so Miss Hartwell, who carried herself more like an alpha than omega or even beta. As to her seat, it was better than my secretary’s. Though Hartwell did not seem uncomfortable, her twin appeared to be born to sit in a saddle. Even when her filly danced, she laughed at its antics and chided her alpha sister for trying to catch her bridle. Her mount spun, eager to run and across the stretch our eyes met. At this distance, I could not tell if the omega Viola shared Hartwell’s fine violet eyes, but on seeing me, she instantly took control of her mischievous mount and took off in the other direction. Hartwell shook her head and galloped after her.
I found my mouth twitching into a smile. Now I understood her passing comment that she desired to watch over her twin. Viola Hartwell was wild. Nothing like the kind of omega I could imagine as my duchess.