Five years ago.
Oliver woke to the sound of loud pounding. As he opened his eyes, he winced at the sound – a rather all-too familiar symptom of a bad hangover following a night replete with sin and debauchery. His temples were throbbing. He dimly registered that he was not at home or at his club and his clothes were missing.
The door – for it was the door that was being literally pounded upon in fitting accompaniment for the sensation in his head – was flung open and in rushed his best friend. Breathing heavily, Viscount Thomas Merlyn's eyes were wild with fear and concern.
"Ollie, you must leave before they get here," he bent, presumably to retrieve discarded clothing from the ground while Oliver frowned in confusion, shifting his weight as he tried to roll to his side to better see his friend.
"Tommy?" he managed. His voice was hoarse. "I don't quite – "
Tommy approached the bed, flinging a shirt and breeches at Oliver. "Damn it, Oliver! We need to remove the sheets – they are evidence…" Trailing off, he began tugging at the corner of the bed.
Oliver forced himself to sit up. His head spun from the sudden movement and he was filled with a strong sense of bewilderment as he tried to figure out where he was and what had transpired before he awakened.
"Has…was someone here with me?"
"I thought she would be here with you given that the whole ton saw you both slip out of your own engagement ball!" snapped Tommy. His shock had given way to anger and his mouth was set in a hard line as he pulled the bed sheets out from under Oliver's body. There was a tell-tale red stain marring the pristine whiteness of the sheet and Oliver felt a stab of alarm.
"Did I –" he began.
"I don't bloody know but it's safe to say you have caused the greatest scandal of century by seducing your fiancée's sister on the very night of your betrothal!" Tommy turned to glare at him, dark eyes flashing. "What the devil were you thinking, Ollie? Never mind the goads that your rakehell reputation would suffer upon marrying – did you have to choose Laurel's sister to ruin to prove your damn self? I have stood by you all these years – hell, I have engaged in all manner of unsavoury activities with you but I don't know how we're going to deal with this at all."
Oliver pulled his breeches on gingerly, trying to process Tommy's words through the drunken haze of his mind. He barely remembered what had happened but his longtime friendship with Tommy told him that his friend spoke the truth. Yet a part of him was unwilling to accept what he had been told as it was.
"Tommy, what exactly happened?" he said slowly. His tongue felt heavy and forced an overly lugubrious edge to the way he enunciated.
"That is precisely the question I find myself asking you more often than not." A new voice entered the conversation, one that Oliver recognised as his father's.
Standing in the doorway, the duke's expression was one of upmost gravity, not without a strong measure of disappointment, the latter of which Robert Queene did not fail to inject in his tone as he addressed his son.
"Oliver, put your clothes on and come with me. Viscount Lance was riding fast just behind me and I do not wish to deal with him without hearing your side of the story, especially in light of the fact that his daughter is not in this room. Thomas, your loyalty is appreciated, but please leave the premises and hand those sheets to my man downstairs. This is a family matter."
There was naught to do but to defer to the Duke of Starling's instructions. Tommy left the room, shooting Oliver a desperate look of alarm as he descended the stairs. Oliver turned to face his father.
"I can explain," he said, not really meaning it.
"Yes, as always." His father had never been more ducal in his dismissal of Oliver's attempted explanation. He turned to leave the building – an inn, Oliver now identified.
Oliver hastily pulled on his shirt, scooped up his cravat and coat and followed suit.
They emerged into a foggy night with nary a sliver of moon to guide its inhabitants. Oliver dimly registered the gleam of the ducal seal on the family carriage as he clambered into it, sinking into the plush leather of its seats.
The Queene carriage was the sole means of conveyance on the dusty road outside the inn, a road that led southward and one that Oliver had spent many a wild night riding down when headed towards a debauchery or another in the outskirts of London. Had there been a party that evening? Why did he wake up in a coaching inn? And where was Sara, whom he inferred had been with him?
His thoughts dredged up the image of white sheets stained with blood. What had he done?
Having given directions to return to the family mansion on Grosvenor Square, his father entered the carriage and sat opposite his son, thinly veiled disapproval discernable in his expression and the way he held his cane at his side.
The carriage wheels began rolling towards Mayfair, meeting an occasional small bump in the uneven roads. The duke remained silent, and Oliver noted that his father's knuckles were clenched tight and white on the head of his cane. Daring not to look up into the duke's countenance without being addressed first, he casted futilely about in his mind for details of what had happened or for a plausible explanation with what little had been imputed to his agency earlier that night.
The silence was taut. Sensing the weight of his father's gaze and desperate to end the tension, Oliver raised his eyes from his hands to meet his father's expectant ones and hastily looked down again. He knew he was fidgeting, his fingers rubbing together in a childhood habit that emerged as a manifestation of his uneasiness. At the second bump that the wheels met with as they hurtled towards Mayfair, Oliver opened his mouth and met his father's eyes again.
"Father, I can explain."
"Indeed." Robert raised a single brow. "Explain away. Tell me how it is after you promised me to reign in your rakehell tendencies last week after I confronted you about the young woman who came into my study to tell me that you seduced her and left her with child, you manage to repeat the same sort of behaviour and this time choose an innocent to ruin. That matter has been dealt with – the woman did not want the child, but this time, Oliver, do explain to me how is it your bachelor activities extended to debauching a lady of the ton and your fiancée's sister, nonetheless."
Oliver winced. He did have nothing to explain – the events of which Tommy and his father were accusing him of were not at present anywhere in his memory. He recalled the wager made in the betting books at White's the night before his engagement ball: that his impending marriage to Miss Laurel Lance would tame the biggest hellion London had ever seen. He remembered having a drink too many before the ball – blasted brandy! – and staggering onto the ballroom to see a blonde masked woman with a wide smile.
Christ. He could remember kissing the woman in the middle of the ballroom and pulling her away into a balcony, dropping her mask onto the ballroom floor at the same time.
"I see the impact of your actions has somewhat entered your inebriated mind." His father observed, his quiet anger still focused on Oliver.
"Laurel – What did Miss Lance see?"
Robert Queene, Duke of Starling paused. His choleric bent gave way to a somewhat defeated air. "The ton has seen enough to give Viscount Lance cause to challenge you to a duel. Suffice to say your marriage, though as of yet unannounced, might be taking place with a different Lance sister."
He let out an exasperated sigh, bringing his cane onto his knees as his thumb rubbed its carved head in a way not unlike Oliver's own disquieted fidgeting earlier. "Oliver."
The man addressed kept silent in recognition that his father was unfinished.
"Oliver." Robert said again, his attention to the top of his cane, which was a rich emerald that rather resembled an arrowhead, an allusion to the bow and arrow on the family crest. "Oliver Jonas Queene. You are my son, and…I know that there always has been something of wildness in our family. It's not in the nature of our Queene men to…fail to notice beauty. But there are lines we must observe as men, Oliver, and not just about how to act on this particular one of our urges."
He looked into his son's eyes, his own replete with agitation. Oliver had the impression his father's mind was no longer on the scandal tonight's debacle would cause, but on something far more compelling and acute.
"There are times, Oliver, when I want to tell you of more important things, when I tell myself that you are but twenty and despite being sent down from Oxford for your behaviour within one term and your consistent occupancy of the scandal sheets, that the person you are under all that will someday make me proud. There are times when I want to entrust you with knowledge – knowledge that only a responsible and capable man would be able to really inherit from our Starling legacy."
Oliver's brow furrowed. "Father, are you talking about the estate?"
The Duke of Starling's expression was one of incredulity, bordering on scorn. He opened his mouth to correct his son, but turned his head to the side sharply.
The carriage had ceased moving and the surrounding rhythm of noises one could expect of a city teeming with people was neither the shady trading of moonlighting citizens nor the merrymaking of the aristocracy. In fact the activity on either side of the streets surrounding the carriage could not be heard from within it.
"Father, is there something wrong?" Oliver began to pull on his coat.
Robert Queene raised a hand sharply, straining to hear around him. He started to get up from his seat, hand tightening around his cane in case he had to wield it defensively.
Then the carriage lurched violently to the side and Oliver felt a sharp pain in his side before losing consciousness.
It is not often that biblical tableaux play out in the ton but it has not escaped anyone's attention that London's own prodigal Lord O_ Q_ has returned! The missing heir to the duchy of S_ and well-known rake was presented to his family yesterday afternoon after an absence lasting five years following the mysterious carriage accident wherein his father the Duke of S_ and Miss S_ L_ too disappeared. It is said that the previous duke perished in that accident. Much to this writer's chagrin, Lord O_'s exploits and the whereabouts of Lady S _ L _ during those five years remain presently unknown, but we must consider yet another important question: will the newly returned Lord O_ maintain his previous unparalleled reputation as the Lord of Scoundrels?
London, 1812
"I don't remember." Oliver made a small wistful smile. "There was something…just a fragment of a thought, that told me that I had to return to London because there was something waiting for me, even if I didn't know what it was and who I was then. And now I look upon both of you and know that it was always you."
At his words Thea opened her mouth, seemed to change her mind and threw her arms around him, while Moira, ever the proper duchess, smiled at both of them, the love in her eyes evident. "I am just grateful that you have returned to our family again."
From the corner of his eye, Oliver saw the family solicitor flush and clear his throat, embarrassed to be privy to such an intimate scene. "Your grace, I will return when the paperwork for his grace's return and the formal process for his assuming his father's title is complete."
His mother turned to regard the solicitor. "That will be acceptable." Casting a quick glance at the window, she continued, "Thea, we will still need to make our morning calls this afternoon, and in particular, pay a visit to the modiste."
Lady Thea Queene straightened. "Surely Ollie will need to visit a tailor as well – all his clothes are hopelessly outdated by now!"
"Your brother can see to his duties in due course – I will not be parading a duke around Mayfair when it is only my son who has returned as of now." His mother stood, gesturing for the tea tray to be cleared. "We will hold a ball in six weeks' time to reintroduce him to the ton. Meanwhile we must make preparations."
Thea was delighted, her excitement evident from the way she clapped her hands in instinct at Moira's suggestion.
"We will have to have new dresses for the occasion!" she laughed. "Oh Ollie, you must make sure you visit the best tailor – get Tommy to bring you to his – the ball will be splendid! And how different you look," she paused to survey the changes his absence had wrought to his appearance.
Oliver waited patiently, knowing that his skin had been tanned a deeper brown than that of the young bucks she met in ballrooms and that his hair, while not as unkempt as it had been when he first arrived in England, was fair from fashionably cut. More ostensible was the muscle he had put on since she last saw him; Oliver had always been an avid rider and fencer before the incident but there was no hiding the way he filled out his coat and breeches now as he stood before his family.
Thea beamed, and there was no censure at all in her countenance or tone. "You will cut the most dashing figure in the ballroom," she declared with certainty, albeit also with a twinkle in her eyes, "and I will be the proudest sister in the world to know that the very tall, handsome and highly desirable, if somewhat hulking, man in the corner is my big brother. My value in the eyes of the ton will increase because of you."
"Thea," Moira chastened, though the twinkle in her eyes indicated her own enjoyment of the jest. "Ladies should not speak in such a manner!"
There was animated chatter about what ladies should, in fact, discuss as they left the drawing room. Oliver waited for silence to fall before he removed his father's ring from his last finger. Turning it over in his hand slowly, the smile he had practiced at length before he dared complete his plans for returning to London fell from his face.
They, too, believed his incredulous tale of how he had lost his memory partially upon the accident and then had been mistaken for an escaped prisoner from a nearby riot on a prison hull. The story was dashing indeed: Oliver was transported to the Caribbean and had only found his way back to London with great difficulty, guided with only the knowledge of his name and his nationality, and some scattered recollections of his lifestyle and skills that suggested he was a gentleman. Coupling that with a strong urge to go to London, Oliver was reunited with his family at last and legally speaking in time before he was declared dead.
It had been easy to fool the family solicitor; the man was not someone Oliver had been close to and while thorough in collecting the details of Oliver's return to London, could not be an accurate judge of when Oliver was lying. If his mother and sister believed him, then it was possible that Oliver would succeed in his mission.
He traced the worn edges of the family insignia of the ring he had pulled off his father's corpse, that generations of Queene men had worn and that he knew he had no right to wear in a world of justice.
"I will not fail you, father. I will avenge your death."
Thanks for reading this first chapter. To my readers from Byline - I'm so sorry I haven't updated that and instead have been working on this. Byline was started during my finals as a way to destress and I write that when I'm inspired so I don't have an overarching plot plan the way I do for this. Please do bear with me (sign up for story alert) and I will update as soon as I figure out what happens to Lois and Clark. To my fellow Arrow fans - I hope this is a good way of getting through hiatus. I had to add an e to 'Queen' because setting it in Regency London would not have worked with the name as it was. I apologise if that distracts you and will try to keep it to a minimum. I hope you enjoy reading this and do leave a comment if you have any feelings about the way I'm adapting it :)
Edit: I thought it would be useful to tell people here what to expect beyond the obvious mystery plotline. Because this is an adaptation, we will see Oliver run through the gamut of his love interests though his endgame will be Felicity. Other couples may make an appearance, but only where I can fit it into the plot in a natural way. Let me know if you want to see something happen.