A Season of Hope (6 page)

The Gold Parlor, bathed in candlelight, leant a magical feel to the decorated hall. Hundreds of sconces flickered and danced off the silver and red beading strewn through the room. Brightly wrapped packages littered the base of the tree.

The duke had declared the yew boughs
that had been draped around the perimeter were not nearly enough, and Marcus and Olivia had been charged with bringing in additional greenery.

Olivia stared up at the mistletoe
, which had been hung from the chandelier at the center of the room.

Marcus leaned close, his hot breath fanned her cheek. “Who would imagine His Grace was romantic
?”

She smiled. “If I were to tell my family, they’d never believe it.”

“And the proof of his Christmastide spirit will surely be swept away so swiftly that no one will ever know.”

No one, but them.

Her throat worked painfully. The days had ticked by faster than the beats of a clock, counting down the time until she’d have to leave. This was the eve of Christmas; a time that should be wrought with merriment and laughter and yet, all she could think was that in two days, she’d be gone. She would return to London, where she would wed the Earl of Ellsworth, Marcus would remain here, and the beauty of this season would be nothing more than a haunting memory.

Marcus stroked his fingers along her jawline. “There is no room for sadness. Not on the eve of Christmas.”

Her eyes caressed the angled planes of his face. No, on this night nothing else mattered—just this moment.

“Are you two going to sit?” the duke barked from across the room.

Olivia and Marcus jumped apart as if a canon and gone off.

Danby stomped across the parlor floor, gesturing to the gold brocade sofa. “Sit.”

Marcus’ lips twitched. “Does it often feel like His Grace is speaking to a terrier?”

“I heard that, Wheatley. I may be dying but I’m not deaf.”

Olivia greeted her grandfather with a kiss on the cheek. “You aren’t dying,” she assured him. He was aging, ill, and more gaunt than she ever remembered him, but she’d realized in her time visiting, the Duke of Danby wasn’t dying. The duke might not ever admit it, but he’d summoned her because he hadn’t wanted to be alone for the yule season. “In fact, I would venture you have at least another twenty Christmastides to still celebrate.”

He frowned and shuffled over to a King Louis broad
-framed chair and sat heavily. He opened his mouth to no doubt deliver a stinging rebuke at Olivia’s insolence.

Marcus cleared his throat. He held
out an arm. Olivia placed her fingers along his sleeve and allowed him to guide her to the sofa. He hesitated and for one long moment, she believed he would claim the chair next to the duke but then he sat beside Olivia. His tan breeches brushed the fabric of her skirts and her breath caught. She stole a peek from the corner of her eye to see if Marcus was as affected by the subtle touch, yet could read nothing in his firm stare.

“Time for songs now.”
The duke raised his monocle and glared over in the general direction of the small orchestra that had been assembled.

The musicians immediately set their strings to bows and began to pluck out the hymn,
Angels from the Realms of Glory
.

“Sing,” the duke barked.

Marcus whispered close to her ear. “I believe he is speaking to us.”

“I do believe you mean, commanding,” she said, her tone dry.

Marcus chuckled.

Olivia’s voice blended with Marcus’
s gruff baritone. He’d always possessed a smooth, mellifluous tone when he spoke. Now, with time and what he’d suffered, there was almost a grating, rough quality to his voice when he sang or spoke. It suited him. His voice was that of a man.

Angels, from the realms of glory,

Wing your flight o'er all the earth;

Ye who sang creation's story,

Now proclaim Messiah's birth:

Come and worship, come and worship

Worship Christ, the newborn King.

Shepherds, in the fields abiding,

Watching o'er your flocks by night,

God with man is now residing,

Yonder shines the infant light
.

As the chords drew to an end, Marcus and Olivia exchanged a smile.

“I’ve got something for the both of you,” Danby
said, interrupting the stolen interlude.

A servant seemed to materialize at the duke’s pronouncement. He
and one small, brightly wrapped package and a thick, velum envelope. He held the envelope to Marcus, and then handed the present over to Olivia.

Olivia turned the
gift over in her hands.

“Go on, open it. The both of you,” Danby said, with a wave of his hand.

Olivia first opened the sealed envelope and read the scrawl in her grandfather’s hand.

Remember Livvie, Christmas is a time of second chances. Don’t disappoint me by going and doing what your fool father wants you to do.

Post Script

Here is something to remember this Christmastide. I still say it was an ugly tree.

~ Danby

She worked loose a bow and then slipped
a nail underneath the green velvet, floral fabric. She opened the small box and looked inside.

A gasp escaped her. The Italian wood jewelry box had painted upon it a festively decorated yew tree. She lifted the lid an
d stared unblinking down at a branch of the yew tree she and Marcus had selected.

Olivia fought back a swell of emotion and gently closed the lid with a slight click. “It is perfect, Grandfather.”

“Humph,” he said and stamped his cane into the floor. “You next, Wheatley.”

Marcus hesitated. He waved off the servant
, who rushed over with a tray that contained a blade to open the envelope.

Olivia studied his long, bronzed fingers as he broke the Duke of Danby’s seal. He withdrew several parchments.

His gaze scanned them with rapid precision.

She had to tamp down the urge to lean over his shoulder and peer at the documents that held Marcus so enrapt.

As if he felt her gaze on him, Marcus quickly folded up the sheets and stuffed them back inside the envelope. “Thank you, Your Grace.” He tucked the gift in the front pocket of his jacket.

The duke stood. “It’s late for an old man. I’m going to find my bed.”

Olivia set aside her gift, and she and Marcus both scrambled to their feet. She dipped a curtsy. “Merry Christmas, Grandfather.”

“Merry Christmas, Your Grace,” Marcus said, with a bow.

The normally stern set to the duke’s lips turned up in the hint of a smile. “Yes. Yes it was, wasn’t it?”

He left and the orchestra picked up their instruments. They began to play
This Endris Night
.

Marcus held out his hand. “Will you dance with me, again?”
Olivia placed her hand in his and followed him the sweeping movements of the waltz. “This time there is music,” she pointed out.

His solitary green eye nearly pierced her with the
intensity of emotion she saw there. “We never needed music. Did we, Olivia?”

Olivia remembered back five years when he’d danced her about
her mother’s expansive garden. Their laughter had drowned out the shocked gasps of Olivia’s maid, who’d pleaded with them to remember propriety. “No, we didn’t.”

She wet her lips with the tip of her tongue as she thought of Grandfather’s note and gift. Olivia would never be able to live with herself if she didn’t tell Marcus all that was in her heart.
If you couldn’t’ tell a person how you felt at Christmastide, when could you?
“Marcus, I need to say something.” She rushed on before he could speak. “I do not care about the…the scars. It would have never mattered. I loved you.”
I love you.
“I waited for
you
.”

Marcus dropped his gaze to the top of her head. “It matters.”

“Only if you let it.”

“You are betrothed…”

Olivia stopped dancing, and forced him to follow-suit. She reached up and framed his face in her hands. “I don’t want to marry the earl. I want to marry you.”

Marcus sucked in a breath. He tried to disentangle her fingers from his person. She shrugged off his efforts.
“I don’t want to leave, Marcus. I want to stay here. With you. I want to be your wife.”
His eye slid closed. “You don’t know what you’re saying,” he said, the words ripped harshly from deep within him.

“I do,” she said so gentle as to not frighten him into setting her aside. “Don’t let me go. Not again. I’ve only just found you.”

He stood there unmoving, his body whipcord straight as he appeared to wage an inner battle.

When he opened his eye, she knew; she’d lost him. Again.

“I’ll never be the same man, Olivia. I won’t wed you…”

“Why?” She flinched, knowing she was humbling herself before him.

“I don’t want to.”

Pain
knifed through her heart and she dropped her hands from his cheeks. Olivia stumbled away from him, a hand to her breast. She glanced down expecting to see the stain of blood upon her fingers from the agony of his rejection.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “M…Merry Christmas, Marcus.”

Then with all the dignity she could muster, Olivia retrieved the duke's present, and bade Marcus a good night. As she exited the Gold Parlor, for the first time in five years, tears fell freely down her cheeks.

Olivia stared mutely at her neatly arranged trunks in the duke’s foyer.

She pulled her red, velvet cloak close and sought warmth from the expensive Italian fabric. The chill within her had nothing to do with the frigid winter’s air and everything to do with the loss of Marcus.

“You know I didn’t give you leave to go a day early, girl.”

She spun around to face the duke. The wrinkles at the corner of his eyes indicted his displeasure.

“I…I know, Grandfather.” She tugged on her white gloves. “I need to leave.” If she didn’t, if she remained here with Marcus’
s indifference, his rejection of her affections, it would destroy her in a way that even his five-year-long absence hadn’t managed to.

“Never took you for a coward, Olivia.”

Olivia bit back a stinging retort and drew in a deep breath. Grandfather loved her. He wanted what was best for her. At the same time, he didn’t know how she’d humbled herself before Marcus last evening. He didn’t know Marcus had rejected her. “We are two different people, Grandfather. We’ve both…changed, and we can never be the people we were.”

The
remembrances she had of Marcus Wheatley from this near fortnight, would have to be enough. When she was the lonely wife of a doddering lord, when all her hair had turned gray, she would think back to this Christmastide and remember the snowball fight, decorating the Gold Parlor, and waltzing to the orchestra’s Christmas carols.

A squeak escaped her when Grandfather folded her in his arms. He patted her on the back. “Thank you, Olivia. You’ve made this a wonderful last Christmas.”

She pulled back and gave him a tap on the arm. “This is not your last Christmas.”

He grinned. “No. I suspect you’re correct and this old man has a good number of years left in him.”

The smile disappeared and back in its place was a scowling mask. “You know you’re welcome to stay as long as you like, girl. I’d like nothing better than to thwart your father’s plans to wed you off.”

Yes, Grandfather had always seemed to take an unholy delight in tormenting
her father. A person could almost feel bad for the Marquess of Tewkesbury. Almost.

“I’m three and twenty,” she pointed out. “It’s time I wed.”

She couldn’t live forever under her father’s house. Young ladies had very few options outside of marriage. It mattered not that Ellsworth was old enough to be her father; she could have been betrothed to a man half his age with a head full of perfect hair and a beauty to rival Adonis—it wouldn’t matter. Her foolish heart would forever belong to Marcus.

The duke didn’t argue the point with her and for that she was grateful.

The front door opened, and her toes curled inside the serviceable boots she’d donned for the long carriage ride back to London.

“Is my lady ready
?”

No
!

“Yes,” she said.

Olivia reached up and placed a final kiss on the duke’s cheek. “I will write,” she promised.

“See that you do,” he growled.

She peered around the empty foyer, searching, searching, and finding no one. He hadn’t even come to say good-bye. Olivia swallowed down a ball of pain that had lodged in her throat and threatened to choke her.

That was fine. It was easier this way.

Except she knew it wasn’t. Pain coursed through her.

Olivia pulled he
r red velvet hood atop her head, and left.

***

“You can come out of the shadows now, boy. She’s gone.”

Marcus hesitated a moment and then moved out from the corner of the marble foyer.
He’d told himself to stay away, to be content with the final memories he’d made with her in the Gold Parlor. Olivia, however, had always been like a tonic he needed to survive.

So Marcus had made his way to the foyer to watch her leave his life—once and for all.

He’d lived without her for almost five years and had convinced himself her departure wouldn’t be painful. It wasn’t supposed to feel like he’d been gutted with a blunt knife and yet, it did.

“You happy about this?”

Marcus stared at the solid black door, his gaze riveted to bough neatly arranged above the frame, dotted with red holly that matched the cloak she’d worn. His eye slid closed.

All the pain he’d endured; the lash of a whip, the bayonet as it slid into his skin, the solitary time he’d spent in a French prison were nothing compared to this all-consuming agony. He wanted t
o throw his head back and roar but that would accomplish nothing.

She was gone to him.

He waited for Danby to hurl words of shame upon him: coward, fool, bastard.

The other man’s insults would have been better than this silence, which only fed Marcus’ regret.

The duke left and Marcus was, as he had been for many years—alone.

She’d told him she loved him, that she wanted to be with him
—as his wife.

And he’d let her go.

Marcus buried his head in his hands. In the short span of time they’d spent together, Marcus had managed to forget about the wounds that covered his body. He’d laughed when he thought he’d never feel happy again—and it had all been because of her.

Olivia had the courage to do what he hadn’t. She had asked for a new beginning with him.

Why don’t you?
A silent voice teased.
She is anything and everything you’ve ever wanted
.
If you let her leave, she will return to London, wed that letch Ellsworth, and then she will be forever beyond your reach.

Marcus dropped his hands, his jaw hardened.
He might not deserve Olivia, but that fool nearly three times her age, most certainly wasn’t deserving of her.

He pulled out the envelope from within the front pocket of his jacket and extracted Danby’s Christmas gift.

I hope you don’t believe I’d ever let a legal contract stand in my way, Marcus.

Marcus shuffled through the sheets and stopped on the third parchment.

He needed her.

“Olivia,” he shouted.

The butler seemed to anticipate Marcus’ actions, and held open the front door.

Marcus cursed his faulty vision as he
ran out of the castle and peered after the carriage as it pulled down the long drive.

He flew down the steps
. His Hessian boots tossed up snow and ice but he didn’t feel the cold. He needed to get to her, needed to stop her.

“Olivia,” he cried and raced down the drive after the Marquess of Tewkesbury’s carriage. His lungs felt near to bursting from the exertion of his efforts but he urged his legs to move faster. “Olivia!” he cried again, her name coming out as a raspy, gasp of air.

The conveyance disappeared from sight and he stumbled to a stop.

He hunched over, his palms pressed against his knees as he desperately tried to suck in a breath.

Gone. He’d lost her.

“No,” he whispered and then the enormity of his loss ravaged him.
“Olivia,” he shouted, her name carried through the barren winter sky.

“Yes, Marcus?”

Marcus jerked upright and he spun around.

Olivia shoved the hood of her cloak down and looked at him. Her head, cocked at an endearing little angle.

Dreaming. He was dreaming. He looked from her to the point where the coach had disappeared.

“I didn’t go
.” She held her gloved hands, palm up. “I couldn’t leave you.”

Tears flooded Marcus’
s one good eye and he blinked it back.

“I saw you leave.”

She shook her head. “No, you saw me walk out the door. I didn’t leave, Marcus. I love you,” she said.

“I don’t deserve you,” he rasped.

A mischievous little smile tilted the corner of her lips, red from the cold. “Most of the time you do.”

Marcus closed his eye again, a laugh thundered within in his chest and grew and grew until his entire frame shook with relieved amusement.

Olivia took a step toward him.

He held
up a palm.

Then, reached inside his jacket and pulled out the envelope. He withdrew the Duke of Danby’s gift and shook it in the air. “This is a special
license from the Archbishop of Canterbury.”

Her eyes went wide, the deep blue of her irises a splash of color in the grayish-white day.

Marcus dropped to a knee. “I want to marry you, Olivia.” He frowned. “No, that is, I need you. Rather…”

Olivia flew across the drive, her long strides
eating up the distance between them. She launched herself into his arms until Marcus toppled backwards into the snow.

His fall was braced by the blanket of snow
, her body soft and gentle against his. Olivia touched her nose to his. “Yes, you daft man. Yes, I’ll marry you.”

Their laughter blended together with the sweet promise of hope for the New Year—and all to come.