Cheryl Holt (31 page)

“So it doesn’t make any difference?”

“How can it? After last night, it’s quite irrelevant.”

Resigned and dolorous, she nodded. “Although I’m
sure I don’t merit any benevolence, I have a favor to ask.”

“Whatever I am capable of granting you, I will.”

Did he have to be so kind? It made her ashamed. “I have a niece. Her name is Helen. I want her to come and live with us.”

“A niece?” This was news, a hidden tidbit his lawyers hadn’t exposed. “I wasn’t aware that your brother had any children when he died.”

“She is . . . well . . . a . . .”

The term
bastard
was too risqué for her to utter, nor could she discuss her brother’s licentious tendencies, so she was saved when he reached out and patted her hand. “I understand.”

“She’s a tad peculiar.”

“How so?”

“She’s very quiet, and she doesn’t talk or play like other children.” Emboldened by her admission, but not wanting him to envision the worst, she hurried on. “But don’t worry. She’s very precious, and I’ll be responsible for her. You’ll never know she’s around.”

“I won’t mind having her here, Olivia”—his generosity had her feeling even more ungrateful—“and it will be pleasant, having a child about. Anything else?”

How calmly he’d received the information! When preparing for their trip to Salisbury, Olivia had been tormented by Margaret’s tales of how Edward would view Helen’s abnormalities. Olivia had accepted every horror story Margaret had spewed. Why?

Why had she let Margaret have such dominion over her? When had she become such a dunce? A fool?

Considering all that had ensued, she was terrified of Margaret and what she might do to Helen. So too she was troubled by Penny and the mischief she might wreak on Olivia’s marriage. Edward was amenable to
her wishes, and she wouldn’t bypass an opportunity to be shed of the two women.

“I should like it if Margaret and Penny did not reside with us.”

“On this matter, we are in complete accord.” He chuckled, but without humor, harboring his own aversion to the pair. Was he speculating as to their complicity, as was she?

“Their separate maintenance will be an additional expense.”

“Don’t concern yourself over it.”

“But I also need to request that you assist Winnie. I want her free of my stepmother. Could she stay at Salisbury, too?”

Edward assessed her, and it seemed there was a vital and urgent comment on the tip of his tongue, but after a protracted contemplation, he chose not to reveal it. “No, but I will provide for her.”

“Thank you.”

What more could she possibly seek? Her family was secure, her fiscal mire settled, an advantageous marriage about to transpire. He was being sympathetic and altruistic when there was no reason for him to be. Yet she was so miserable!

How could she be so unappreciative? So dissatisfied? What an ill-mannered wretch she’d grown up to be.

Embarrassed, disconcerted, it was her turn to stare off across the yard, and what she saw panicked her.

Phillip was marching toward them, his lengthy strides covering the grass, though he was limping, and she imagined his war wound was plaguing him. From his demeanor, there was no doubt as to his destination.

He looked fierce, imposing, assertive, and so very handsome. Magnificently dressed, he wore a tailored blue coat and crisp white shirt, tan breeches, shiny black
riding boots that came to just below his knee. With his fashionable attire, his noble bearing, his arrogant disposition, he was a sight to behold.

Edward noticed his approach, but by then, there was little either of them could do. He was almost upon them.

Olivia’s pulse thudded in her chest, so loudly her ears were ringing.

What did he intend? Would he tell Edward about their affair? Was he about to declare himself? What would Edward say? What would he do?

Scared out her wits, she was dizzy with apprehension.

With the smooth grace of a leopard, he hustled up the stairs to the verandah, strutting over to them.

Edward stood, uneasy, anxious, and as fretful as she about Phillip’s purpose. On this, the day of their betrothal, he simply couldn’t introduce Phillip to her.

Oh, the lies! The sophistry!

She wanted to jump up and shout that she knew his name, that she knew all about him. She yearned to claim him as her friend, to affirm a prior association, but she was a craven coward. For though he meant the world to her, she dawdled in her chair, like a lump of clay, pretending no recognition.

“Phillip, how nice to see you,” Edward began.

“Edward.” His regard was cold, his fury barely contained.

“I’m glad you stopped by. I’d been going to come down and advise you myself”—an outright fabrication, she was sure!—“that I announced my engagement this morning.”

“I heard.”

“Yes . . . well . . .” Edward cleared his throat. “May I present Lady Olivia Hopkins, soon to be the next Countess of Salisbury.”

Edward offered her his hand, inclined to support her
as she rose, and she frowned, knowing Phillip analyzed their every move. Yet she couldn’t snub Edward by refusing to take it.

Time ground to a halt, the three of them frozen in place.

She wanted to die! For the earth to open and swallow her up. To vanish into thin air.

Do it!
an inner voice screamed, and she affixed a bland smile, and linked their fingers. Once she was up, he tucked her arm in his, as he had when they’d strolled in the garden, so that it appeared as if they were sweethearts.

Phillip smirked, and she wanted to yank away, to push Edward off, or step back so that she could create space between them, but she did nothing. She said nothing.

To her eternal shame, she confronted him indifferently, as if he were a total stranger.

“Olivia, this is Phillip, my . . . my . . .”

Edward couldn’t finish the sentence, and Olivia wanted to weep with frustration. It was the most horrid, painful experience of her life.

Phillip was no help, standing like a defiant prince, daring his father to blurt it out.

“I’m your what?” he taunted.

“My . . . my . . . stablemaster,” Edward said, taking the coward’s route, just as she had done, and she winced at the feeble disavowal.

Oh, how they’d wounded him! The result was instantaneous, as he seemed to deflate, as if Edward’s renunciation had stabbed a hole in his being, and all the substance was leaking out. His cheeks flushed bright red, and his eyes were shiny, clogged with tears of ire or disappointment.

“Not anymore,” he stated.

“What?” Edward queried, confused, while Olivia comprehended what they’d wrought.

“I’m not your stablemaster any longer.”

“Of course you are. You always will be.”

“No. I quit.” From inside his jacket, he whipped out a letter of resignation and tendered it to Edward. “Effective immediately.”

Edward scanned it, then tore it to shreds, the pieces fluttering to the ground. “Well, I don’t accept it.”

“I don’t care.”

He spun on his heel, ready to stomp away, but Edward touched his arm, and the contact checked him. He glared over his shoulder.

“You’re not leaving . . .?”

“At once.”

“This is so sudden. What has happened to upset you?”

“Nothing of import ever
happened
here,” he caustically alleged, cutting her to the quick.

“Is there anything I can do?”

“No.”

Not having any success at swaying Phillip, Edward endeavored to exert pressure through his station. Imperiously, he contended, “You can’t go. I won’t allow it.”

“You can’t stop me.”

Phillip’s lack of deference had Edward stammering. “But I . . . I thought you were happy here.”

“Here?” Phillip questioned scathingly, and his attention drifted to her, his rage and sense of betrayal sinking in, before it gravitated back to Edward. “There’s nothing
here
that matters to me in the least.”

Edward was stunned, bewildered. “I don’t understand you.”

“You never have.”

There were so many undercurrents swirling, and she couldn’t abide any further upheaval. She’d observed the conversation as Edward’s silent, feckless conspirator,
and she was hampering the two men in their argument. They needed privacy for a final farewell that couldn’t be vented in front of her.

“Edward,” she interjected, “perhaps I should go inside so you can consider this more fully.”

“Don’t bother, milady,” Phillip chided, before Edward could respond. “The earl and I have naught to talk about. We never did.”

With that, he walked away, maneuvering down the stairs and striding across the yard. She and Edward watched him, lost in their own misery, but incapable of reacting. Her stomach churning, her heart aching, she felt physically ill.

Go after him!
her conscience shouted, but like a marble statue, she tarried, anchored to the crook of Edward’s elbow. As Phillip traveled farther and farther away, he grew smaller in size, so that he was a tiny speck, the only object she could perceive.

Was this to be the end between them? After the joy they had shared, were these pernicious, hateful comments to be the last they ever spoke to one another? Would she never see him again?

She couldn’t fathom how it would occur. In some far-off future, she tried to imagine him, merciful as to her sins, returning to the estate, older, wiser, maybe married, with a family of his own.

The vision was so excruciating that she suspected she might swoon. Her chair was behind her, and she eased down into it, needing to balance her weight against the cushion so that she could hide her distress from her fiancé.

As it was, he was so distraught himself that he scarcely noted her condition. He persisted in gazing across the lawn to where Phillip had disappeared into the stables.

“Would you excuse me?” he requested.

“Certainly.”

“I think I should probably . . . I should . . .”

Following after Phillip, he was mumbling, but she couldn’t decipher his ramblings. He proceeded to the stable door, and as he neared, Phillip rode out on a beautiful, roan-colored mount, a portmanteau tethered behind the saddle.

He was really going! Although she’d heard him say he would, and she was witnessing every detail as the scene played out, she couldn’t credit what she was viewing.

Edward called to him—he pronounced
Phillip
very sharply—and Phillip reined in. Edward went to the horse, and laid a comforting hand on Phillip’s calf, though it had no effect. They had a heated argument, with Edward gesturing to the numerous paddocks, asking Phillip how he could abandon his cherished animals. Phillip shrugged, and seemed to mention London, but it might have been any word. She was simply so desperate to know where he would be, so that she could picture him in some safe, distant location.

Already, she was visualizing him in the city. Where would he live? What would he do to earn a wage?

She suffered a ludicrous flight of fancy, of someday running into him in London, of meandering down Bond Street, rounding a corner and . . . there he’d be, smiling and merry and having forgiven her after the passage of so many years.

They’d chat and reminisce. Old chums reunited.

The exchange between father and son concluded, and though it was evident Edward was still trying to convince Phillip to stay, Phillip shook his head. He trotted away, down the tree-lined lane where they’d taken so many rides together.

The shadows swallowed him up, and presently, it was as if he’d never been there at all.

I’m sorry
, she mourned,
so sorry
.

Edward waited until he’d vanished, then he started toward the verandah. She shifted about, needing to flee so she could compose herself, but as she began to rise, Margaret pulled up the chair next to her.

“Was that the stablemaster?” she casually broached. “Penny told me she’d seen him strapping a bag onto his horse. Rumor has it that he’s quit his job.”

After the dreadful encounter Olivia had just endured, the sly innuendo was too much. “I’m unwell. I believe I could use a nap. If you’d make my apologies to the earl?”

“Don’t be silly, Olivia.” Margaret grabbed her wrist. To a passer-by, the move would have seemed innocent, but Margaret was squeezing so tightly, it was all Olivia could do to keep from squirming. “We’ve a wedding to arrange, and not much time to do it.”

“I’m not in the mood right now.”

“Nonsense. Every woman’s in the
mood
to plan her wedding.” As Edward approached the table, she compelled Olivia to seat herself. “And here’s Edward. We’ll want his opinion.”

“Hello, Margaret,” Edward said, smiling, though a tad frostily.

“Was that your stablemaster departing?”

“Yes.”

“Gone for good, I suppose. I swear, the lower classes have so little loyalty.” She motioned dismissively. “Ah, too bad for you. Competent employees are
so
difficult to find.” He had no retort, so she added, “Olivia and I were just discussing the wedding.”

“How nice,” he murmured.

“Let me tell you what I’ve accomplished so far.”

Olivia pretended to listen, and Margaret’s litany washed over her, smothering her with its false pleasantness.

She’d been seduced to folly and ruin by a combination of Margaret’s avarice and her own stupidity. Through her idiocy, she’d destroyed any number of lives. Her own. Phillip’s. Edward’s. Very likely, she’d wreaked even more havoc—of which she was, as yet, unaware. She hadn’t intended any disasters, so how could she have perpetrated so much harm on so many?

Weary, she closed her eyes, as Margaret droned on and on, so calm and unflappable that Olivia could barely refrain from screaming.

She was trapped, and there was no way out.

Jane stood at attention, stiff and unmoving as a soldier. Helen was beside her, her tiny hand clutched in Jane’s much larger one.

For days, she’d been anticipating this moment of reckoning. Mr. Sawyer hadn’t tattled right away, and she couldn’t figure out why. Every morning, she’d arisen, expecting to be ordered into Mrs. Graves’s office. Each hour had passed with agonizing slowness, each approaching footfall causing her pulse to pound, as she was positive it would be the message commanding her to report downstairs.