A Season of Hope (5 page)

Olivia craned her head back until her neck ached. She caught her lower lip between her teeth and studied the towering tree. Each year, she looked forward to Christmas with a breathless anticipation. This year was so vastly different. She’d been at her grandfather’s for a full week and instead of the budding excitement for the carols, yew boughs, and holiday trappings that would come on the eve of Christmas, all this season represented was an end.

An end to her time here.

A new start.

A new life.

One that did not include Marcus Wheatley.

Her time here was nearing an end.

Feeling his gaze upon her, Olivia looked to Marcus.

He held her stare and then slowly winked.

Her heart froze. Why must he do that? If he were the same, snarling boor who’d mocked her and taunted her upon her arrival, then it would be at least bearable to leave Danby Castle and forget him.

Liar. She’d never be able to ever forget Marcus Wheatley.

Marcus seemed to remember his need for seriousness and glanced away.

“This is what you two came up with?”

Olivia jumped at her grandfather’s booming question.

“It’s lovely,” she said, defending the fourteen
-foot yew tree.

“You’ve seen the size of this parlor, girl?”

Her gaze did a quick sweep of the gold and red parlor with its towering ceilings adorned in fresco murals. The duke could fit the whole of Almack’s inside the grandiose setting.

“It is just a touch small,” Olivia said, a touch of defensiveness in her words.

Danby snorted. “Just a touch? I’d say it’s the ugliest tree yew tree I’ve ever seen.”

She studied the tree yet again and angled her head. “That is wholly unfair, Your Grace.”

Marcus interrupted the duke’s response. “Let me say, Your Grace, if you were to see the first tree selected by Lady Olivia, you’d be more than pleased with the final selection.”

Olivia’s brow furrowed. She wasn’t entirely certain that was much of a compliment. “Mr. Wheatley also aided in the selection.” If she were going to earn Danby’s displeasure at the first Christmastide task set before them, well then, Marcus would take ownership
for their decision as well.

“Bahh
.” Danby slashed the air with his hand. “I don’t care if it were one of you or both of you. It’s a miserable tree.”

“It will look mu
ch improved when we decorate it on the eve of Christmas,” Olivia ventured.

Her grandfather continued to eye the tree, with no small amount of
skepticism. “No, I rather think it will not.” He banged his cane twice upon the floor. “And I’m old, girl. I don’t want to wait. Dress up this tree and parlor.”

“Your Grace?”

“You heard me,” he barked, and then Danby turned on his heel and stomped off.

“
Are you certain, Grandfather?” Olivia called out, her voice echoed throughout the empty space of the parlor. “It isn’t tradition…”

The aging, old duke didn’t break stride. “
I don’t give a plum fig for tradition. See to the trimmings.”

When he’d gone,
Olivia tapped her finger along her jawline. “It really is a lovely tree.”

“Absolutely,” Marcus said.

She turned in a small circle and surveyed the room. “You know, I do believe it isn’t the tree that is the problem but rather this place?”

“Oh?”

Olivia pursed her lips at his bored tone. “You might not take this particular responsibility seriously, Marcus, but I do.” She walked the perimeter of the parlor, all the while aware of him standing off to the side of the room, his gaze trained upon her.

How to convert the duke’s home into a festive, Christmastide setting?

“Perhaps
we might be better served visiting Cook and seeing what pastries she’s prepared for the day,” Marcus said.

Olivia shook her head. “Marcus, I’m going to need more that fruit p…” Her eyes widened.

She all but flew across the room and clasped his hands in her own. “You brilliant man!” She leaned up and placed a kiss upon his cheek. “We need servants! A good deal of them.”

Marcus hesitated a moment, and then called over the footman who stood at the entrance of the parlor.

The young man in his precisely tailored uniform came over. “Mr. Wheatley?”

Marcus gestured to Olivia. “Lady Olivia has a request.”

The servant turned to her.

“Servants,” she be
gan. “At least twenty of them. And fruits. Apples. Oranges. Plums. We’ll need no fewer than a hundred yew boughs cut and brought to the parlor. Oh, and almonds and paper, and beading!”

“Will that be all, my lady?”

Olivia steepled her fingers beneath her chin. “Walnuts. I also require walnuts.”

***

Nearly ten hours later, Marcus stared at the bevy of servants as they departed the transformed hall. Candlelight played off the walls and fairly gleamed at the masterpiece Olivia had created.

A raise. Every last one of the servants who’d assisted in Olivia’s venture would see an increase in their funds.
They had so flawlessly executed her vision, and had done so with smiles and laughter. More than that…they were responsible for the joyous sparkle in her eyes.

Olivia clapped her hands and spun around. “It’s lovely
, isn’t it?”

None of this which she’d created in the duke’s parlor could even compare to her radiant beauty.
The blue of her eyes sparkled like the same stars that now dotted the night sky.

Marcus gave his head a shake, in desperate attempt to dislodge such foolish musings. If he continued to study her so, he would do something foolhardy, like beg
forgiveness for having left, and plead with her not to wed Lord Ellsworth.

“Well?”

Marcus looked at the wonder she’d created. The gold parlor had been transformed into an enchanted world. Yards of yew boughs draped along the perimeter of the hall, adorned in bright fruits and beading. Almonds and raisins draped in paper peeked out throughout the boughs.

Marcus’ throat bobbed up and down. After he’d returned from France,
he’d been so focused on not feeling anything ever again. To feel made one vulnerable. It drove the knife of pain deep inside, and was unrelenting. Seeing such beauty in the duke’s normally empty, cold monstrosity of a home filled Marcus with a searing warmth. He should want to tamp down the growing weakness, but in that moment, he felt alive…for the first time in years, and he was loathe to lose grasp of it.

“It’s remarkable, Olivia. You’ve
given the duke something very special.”

Her smile grew, like he’d handed her the king’s crown and not a mere compliment. She swatted at his arm. “
We’ve
done something very special. You did this, too.”

“But it was your vision.”

“You were always ever so modest, Marcus.”

Not really. He’d been a cocksure youth so certain he’d return from battling French forces, none the different for his experience.

“Why do you look like that?”

“Like what?” he asked.

“Sad, of a sudden. What are you thinking?”

He’d not spoken to anyone of the hell he’d endured. There’d been a time he’d never have concealed anything from Olivia
, but what he’d done, what had happened to him…he’d not sully her purity with such ugliness. Especially not at this perfect moment.

He held out his arm. “Will you dance with me?”

Olivia started. Her smile grew. “I’d be honored, Mr. Wheatley.”

She placed her hand in his and allowed him to waltz her around the festive parlor to the sound of
un-played music that only they could hear. Marcus twirled her in dizzying circles, heady with the taste of the past. Olivia’s eyes slid closed and it was as though she as well had drifted off into the world he imagined for them. He increased their rhythm, willing time to go back to before he’d left, and before he’d become the monster before her.

Olivia lost her footing and stumbled. Marcus caught her against him, pulling her close to his chest. Their breath mingled, blurred as one.

Several gold-kissed locks tumbled free of her haphazard chignon. Marcus caught the tresses between his thumb and forefinger. He inhaled the floral scent that lingered in her hair and wondered if her whole body carried the scent of summer. “Like silk,” he said, and jerked as he realized he’d spoken aloud.

Long golden lashes flu
ttered, and she leaned into him and, God help him, he was lost. His physical disfigurement, her upcoming marriage to the earl, all of it, slipped away as he lost himself in the remembrance of her kiss.

His lips slanted over hers as he
reacquainted himself with the pink bow-shaped flesh.

Olivia moaned and arched against him. She looped her hands behind his neck and raised herself up.

Marcus slipped his tongue inside and explored the taste of her: cinnamon and chocolate, a heady sensation. He’d never taste the like again without remembering this moment.

Her fingers smoothed the expanse of his shoulders and then traversed a path along his jaw.

Marcus’s body jerked as though he’d been shot. He set her away and took several retreating steps back from her. God, if he didn’t put distance between them and soon, he would do something utterly foolish, like take her in his arms again.

Olivia touched her fingers to swollen lips. “Marcus?” she whispered.
“I have missed you.”

He took a steadying breath. “
This was a mistake.”

The cold, flat delivery of his statement seemed to rob Olivia of speech. She shook her head several times
and then found her words. “Don’t say that. You still love me as I…”

Marcus
strode over to her. The rapidity of his movement sent her scurrying until she froze, and then held her ground. He ripped the patch off his empty socket and revealed the depths of his physical scar.

Olivia gasped. A hand fluttered to her breast.

Her reaction struck him like a lash across the back. “This,” he hissed. “This is why it is a mistake. I’m a beast. A monster.”

She reached tremulous fingers toward him. “You aren’t.”

“Don’t lie to me,” he cried. “I know what I am. I’m the scarred second son of a viscount and you,” he raked a gaze over her, “are to be the wife of a wealthy earl. Now, go, Olivia.”

Go before I get on my knees and beg you to never leave.

“Go,” he roared.

Olivia fled as though the hou
nds of hell were nipping at her heels and mayhap they were.

It would appear he was a beast, after all.

The Duke of Danby walked around the Gold Parlor and took in Olivia and Marcus’
s work.

Olivia and Marcus stood off to the side, silent,
unspeaking.

“I’ll say you both did a splendid job.
Who’s the fool that said decorations shouldn’t be put up until the eve of Christmas? If you ask me, it seems like an awful amount of work for two mere nights. Mark my words,” he said. “Soon the rest of the
ton
is going to be following suit.”

The words meant a good deal coming from the normally disapproving duke.

“Thank you,” Olivia and Marcus said in unison.

Danby turned around with such rapidity that he began to cough.

Olivia took a step toward him but he waved her off.

He removed a kerchief from his pocket and covered his mouth. “What’s all this about?” he barked, stuffing the linen back into its place.

Marcus answered for them. “Your Grace?”

“Don’t play the fool with me, boy. You two look as grim as if Cook took away all your rations of plum pudding.”

Olivia glanced down and shuffled the tip of her slipper along the Italian marble floor. Her body was held so tight, Marcus imagined all it would take was a strong winter wind to shatter her.

God, he hated seeing her like this.

She looked up.

A sheen of tears glossed the ice blue of her eyes.

Oh, Olivia.
He’d rather take a bayonet to his other eye than witness this defeated side of her.
What have I done to you?

“Grandfather, I’m not feeling well,” she whispered. “W-will you excuse me.”

She didn’t wait for the duke’s blessing, but instead turned on her heel and fled.

When the echo of her slippered feet had faded, the duke turned to him. “What the hell was that about?”

“What the…?”

“Oh, don’t you treat me like
a fool. I may be old and sick, but I am not a fool.” He levered his cane in Marcus’ direction.

Marcus sighed and swiped a hand
over his eye. “I don’t know what you expected in bringing Olivia here, Your Grace.”

Danby snorted. “You think you’re wiser than me?”

Marcus managed a chuckle. “Hardly, Your Grace.” Over the course of the years, Marcus had made enough faulty missteps; some that had nearly cost him his life. But he didn’t know what game the duke played with he and Olivia.

“You could have gone anywhere, Marcus.”

The duke’s statement gave Marcus pause. In all the years he’d spent at Danby Castle, Marcus had been
boy
and
Wheatley
but never Marcus.

“Your Grace?”
he said, hesitant with the duke’s statement.

Danby gestured around. “You could have found work anywhere. You could have lived comfortably with your father
, and yet you accepted my offer. Why is that?” He didn’t allow Marcus to respond. “Because of Olivia.”

Marcus swallowed and stared at the boughs he and Olivia had hung earlier that day? Or was it a lifetime ago?

“It’s too late. I appreciate your…intervention,” he lied. He didn’t. He wanted to rail at Danby for breaking open wounds he’d thought firmly closed. “I’m not fit for good company, let alone your granddaughter.”

“Are you saying my granddaughter is a shallow cit?” Danby’s voice boomed throughout the parlor.

Marcus held his hands palm up. “I’m saying I don’t deserve her, Your Grace.”

“
Why?”

Marcus looked away. The scars about his mouth throbbed and ached in reminder of what he’d become.

“Because of some scars?” Danby snorted.

Marcus growled. “You say that rather flippantly, Your Grace. I lost an eye. I’m not fit for good-company.”

The duke laughed, until a cough wracked his frame. “You think you aren’t fit company because of a missing eye and some scars? I’d choose you with no eyes and no limbs for my granddaughter before any of those fops in London.”

Danby made it sound so simple. Marcus sighed. Even if he weren’t a bloody monster, there was still Olivia’s betrothal to the Earl of Ellsworth. His hands curled into tight fists at his side.

“Tell me this, Marcus. Who does deserve, Olivia? That fat, blubbering fool Ellsworth who my fat, blubbering son-in-law is going to marry her off to?”
A torrent of images flooded Marcus’s mind. Olivia with Ellsworth. In his arms. His fat, corpulent frame covering her. He closed his eyes.

“I like you, Marcus. And I don’t like anybody.”

Marcus mustered a grin.

“But do you want my opinion?”

“I suspect you’ll give it, regardless of my answer.”

Danby nodded. “
Demmed right, I will. You’re one of the bravest men I know. Anyone who could survive what you did in France

“Thank you.”

“Let me finish. You’re also one of the biggest cowards. This is Christmastide, a time of renewal and hope. Don’t go and ruin this now, Wheatley.”

So they were back to Wheatley.

“I’m done here. Think about what I’ve said and don’t disappoint me, boy. I don’t like to be disappointed.”

Marcus stared after him. Invariably the duke was going to be disappointed
in him. Danby, a step below royalty, was one of the most powerful peers in the realm. No one would be wont to deny the man anything. The duke didn’t know what it was like for the rest of Society; especially mere second sons of viscounts, covered in scars.

And Danby was wrong. Olivia deserved more. Far more than a man like him.