Cheryl Holt (33 page)

Could she inflict such discord?

No!

The loud answer reverberated through her, and she wanted to rail and rage, to moan and weep, over the unfair options available to her. She had acted so impetuously, had allowed herself to be inundated by ardor and passion, and she’d courted catastrophe with a reckless abandon. In every direction, damage had been accomplished through her imprudence.

Would the ramifications of her selfishness never cease?

“We can’t confess, Phillip. He’d be devastated. He’d never forgive you.”

“I don’t care.”

“Yes you do.”

Phillip chewed on his lip, digesting her statement, and accepting it. Then he grasped both her hands, squeezing tight, making her feel as though he were a tether, securing her to the earth.

“Then come with me. Right now,” he declared. “We’ll elope to Scotland. My horse is behind the stables. We’ll take another one for you. We’ll simply ride away from all this.” He moved toward the window, tugging her with him. “Let’s do it! We’ll send a note later, explaining where we’ve gone and why.”

The window loomed like a yawning hole in the universe, ready to suck her through into the unknown. She was an unmitigated coward. She couldn’t propel her feet toward it, couldn’t step through.

Could she lope off with only the clothes she was wearing? Was he mad? Was she?

Phillip had no job, no income, no home to which they could return after a hasty trip to the north. Though Edward was a compassionate man, he had his limits. He’d never permit them onto the estate after they’d humiliated him.

So what would they do? Where would they go? How would they support themselves? What about Winnie? And Helen?

She understood the lengths to which Margaret would go to ensure the success of her machinations, and she was alarmed as to Helen’s fate. If she trotted off with Phillip, what might Margaret do to Helen in revenge?

Edward had offered to provide for the people Olivia loved, the only ones to whom she had any connection in the entire world. Dared she cast them to the vagaries of circumstance? Could she forsake them to Margaret’s plotting and intrigue?

Without a doubt, Margaret’s retribution would be swift and horrible. She would never pardon Olivia for spoiling her scheme, but Olivia would be safe in Scotland, while
Winnie and Helen would be in London, unprotected and subject to Margaret’s retaliation.

Her head was spinning with uncertainty. She yearned to escape with Phillip, to let him take her away from her predicament, but her rapaciousness had already caused significant adversity.

Was there no end to her arrogant behavior? How much, precisely, was she willing to relinquish in order to gain her heart’s desire? Could she renounce Helen and Winnie? Could she make an enemy of Edward when he’d been naught but kind to her?

“I can’t decide what’s best, Phillip,” she wailed. “There’s so much you don’t know, and so much I need to tell you. What you’re asking is so difficult.”

“It’s not
difficult
,” he contended. “It’s easy, and it will work out. I love you and you love me, and that’s what matters. The rest will fall into place.”

He was so confident, so upbeat, while she was dying inside, overwhelmed by choices for which she wasn’t prepared.

He stopped their steady progress toward the window, shifted away, and scrutinized her. “Unless I was wrong,” he said. “Perhaps this love is a tad one-sided?”

“I love you, too,” she affirmed. “I do, but . . .”

There was a dangerous pause. “But what?”

“This is so sudden, so unexpected. There are so many people counting on me. I need to reflect on what you’re requesting.” At a loss, she held her hands out, palms up, pleading for understanding. “You’re demanding that I make instant, life-altering decisions in a thrice, but whatever I do, will affect many more people than myself. Helen has been—”

“I don’t give a bloody damn about Helen or anyone else,” he claimed, cutting her off. “Just you and me.”

Footsteps sounded in the hall, and they froze. Someone rapped on the door.

“Olivia, are you in there?” Margaret summoned.

She rattled and spun the knob, when thankfully, a person down the corridor distracted her. Hesitating, she conversed, furnishing them with a few more valuable seconds.

Olivia’s trepidation was spiraling out of control. She hadn’t had the chance to apprise him of Margaret’s threats to Helen, so he didn’t comprehend her anguish. He was angry, thinking her flighty, fickle. After so many repeated upheavals, her nerves were raw, her strength depleted, her spirit crushed. She truly, truly could not abide one more tribulation.

“It’s now or never, Livvie,” he murmured, escalating the pressure to an unbearable degree. “What say you?”

He extended his hand, beseeching her to seize it. It hovered there, in the air between them, a lifeline, a reprieve, a salvation.

Take it!
her braver self shrieked.
Grab hold! Don’t let go!

But she was paralyzed, unable to respond or react.

“Don’t do this to me. Please,” he begged. “Don’t marry my father. Don’t break my heart.”

“Olivia,” Margaret called, once more.

Frantically, Olivia peered back and forth, between the door and the spot where Phillip tarried, imploring her.

She needed more time! More space! More options!

But though she was silent, Phillip heard her with a stunning clarity.

“So be it,” he spat out. “I hope you’ll be very
happy
.” Whirling away, he climbed out the window. In a flash, he’d disappeared.

On the inside, she screamed and cried out his name, and she imagined him acknowledging her shout, that he was reaching for her, smiling and glad at her boldness. She saw herself as courageous and assured and running with him across the yard. Laughing and joyous, she felt him lift her onto her mount, felt the wind in her hair as they dashed away through the darkness.

“There you are,” Margaret snapped from behind her, irritated at having had to search. “Your guests have arrived, and the earl is waiting for you to attend him.”

Olivia shut her eyes, letting it sink in, that blissful vision of what might have been. Then she shuddered, wrestling with a despair that was killing her.

Almost in a stupor, she turned and followed Margaret into the hall.

Phillip strode down the London street, cursing under his breath every step of the way. He hated the crowds and the noise and the smells, but this was where any employment opportunity would be located.

He wasn’t sure what type of position he wanted. Of course, it would never hold the prestige of managing Edward’s stables, but he was confident he could find something palatable.

With valorous military service to his credit, and work experience for a respected lord as his reference, there had to be somebody who would hire him. But whatever the post, he prayed it would be out of the city. If he wound up having to labor in the middle of town, he wouldn’t last long before the swarm of the metropolis drove him mad.

His first stop had been to parley with his old commander, Stephen Chamberlin, whose father was the Earl of Bristol, but he’d been disappointed to learn that Chamberlin was still convalescing at the familial estate. Spain had been a bloody, messy rout, and the battle had rendered many of his colleagues crippled and maimed, with the ill-fated ones left behind, buried on foreign soil, without a marker to denote the spot. At least Stephen was alive and had the chance to recover.

Well, there were other fellows about; he was convinced of it. His regiment had been full of the third and fourth sons of the aristocracy. Those who’d been fortuitous enough to come home had incomes and horses,
and he intended to prevail on the friendship of every one of them.

There had to be a man who could use his skills and assistance.

Luckily, he had sufficient money to tide him over through his search. Edward had paid him a decent salary, and when he’d resided at Salisbury, there’d been no need to spend any of it. The cash guaranteed that he could rent a room, bide his time, and pick his situation, without having to hurry.

If worse came to worst, he could always pack it in and travel to his sister Anne’s house in Bath. Much as she’d grumble, she’d welcome him.

Anne operated a women’s health emporium and bathing spa, and he grinned, attempting to picture himself hauling mineral water and filling tubs for the rich, obese patrons who frequented her business, but the image wouldn’t gel.

A group of boys ran toward him, and he pressed his coat to his chest, ensuring that their nimble fingers couldn’t lift his wallet as they flitted by.

How he abhorred seeing so many homeless waifs! Though he’d been raised by his mother, with no support from Edward, they’d had a roof over their heads and food in their bellies.

Who birthed these urchins? Who abandoned them so that they wandered like wild animals?

At the corner, he dawdled, assessing his direction, when a girl approached and held out an orange.

“Would you like one, sir?”

With a fair complexion and auburn hair, she must have once been fetching, but she was skinny as a rail, appearing half-starved, and so grubby that he was loath to touch the piece of fruit. A very tiny girl stood at her side, silent and detached. With white-blond hair, and the
biggest blue eyes, she looked like a little doll, and his heart went out to her.

Who could have forsaken such a precious lass?

“Is she ill?” he asked the older child, gesturing toward the other.

“No. She doesn’t like to talk.” She offered him the fruit, again. It was wilted and inedible. “The orange, sir?”

Just then, the young one peered up, her gaze piercing into him so sharply that he felt it probing and jabbing inside him. The sensation was eerie, and he shuddered, wanting only to be away. The pair made him terribly uncomfortable.

“Keep your orange,” he said to the older one, and her enthusiasm faltered. “Sell it to another.”

Overwhelmed by guilt, he slipped several pound notes into her hand. It was a fortune for someone as downtrodden as she, and if any of the other street scavengers espied what he’d given her, she’d be robbed.

The girl gaped at the money.

“This is too much.” An honest soul, she tendered the wad of bills, trying to decline the boon.

He wrapped her fingers around it, shielding it from passers-by. “I have plenty more,” he affirmed. “I’m happy to share.”

She studied him. “Thank you.”

“Hide it, and guard it carefully.”

“I will.”

He started off, when the mute stared at him once more. Her keen regard had unsettled him, and he was inordinately affected by their plight. She had him pondering Olivia’s niece, who was also mute, but safely lodged in the Hopkinses’ grand town house in Mayfair.

Even with the trappings of the nobility, Helen had a difficult future. What would it be like to have less, to be unable to converse, but as a poverty-stricken vagrant?

The depth of his worry emphasized that his final quarrel with Olivia had rendered him overly emotional.

He never should have gone back for her!

From the moment he’d heard about her engagement to Edward, he’d been angry and hurt, and his initial impulse had been to depart and never return. His temper had invariably been his most unruly trait, and it had regularly landed him in trouble. Once again, he’d let it guide his actions, and he’d ended up alone and tormented.

After the horrid scene with his father, followed by the miles of riding through the quiet countryside, he’d calmed and begun to reflect rationally upon what had occurred.

With an abiding certainty, he’d concluded that a dreadful calamity had transpired at the manor, that Olivia had been dragged into the betrothal against her will. During their last tryst, she had sworn to him that she would never marry Edward, and he’d trusted her.

Only a catastrophe could have forced her to break her vow.

He’d traveled back to Salisbury, prepared to rescue her, merely to discover that she was in no predicament. That she didn’t need saving. She was content with events, and ready to proceed to matrimony.

When he visualized the two of them—his father and his beloved—strolling arm in arm around the estate grounds, accepting the congratulations of the servants, he gnashed his teeth. When he envisioned them chatting and enjoying a romantic meal on the verandah, he yearned to smash something.

Though he’d wanted it to be otherwise, Olivia’s composed capitulation wasn’t feigned, and the actuality hadn’t hit home until he’d embarrassed himself by begging her to elope.

He couldn’t say what had him more chagrined: the fact that she’d refused him, or the fact that he’d made
such a complete and total fool of himself. Whenever he recalled his asinine profession of undying devotion, he blushed with shame.

What had he been thinking? It was obvious she didn’t love him! Despite her tepid claim.

How had he convinced himself that she could harbor an affinity for a common bastard? The sole explanation he could devise was that his feelings for her were authentic and true, potent and unwavering, so he’d blindly discounted the realities of their stations.

She was the daughter of an earl, born and bred to the Quality, and her trifling with him had been naught but a fling. While it had been easy for her to pretend affection while they were together, when push came to shove, she’d gravitated to her own kind.

He sighed. He should have expected nothing less, but lust had rendered him oblivious.

Up ahead, he detected the notorious Stevens brothers’ gambling hall for which he’d been searching. Previously, he’d amused himself there, sowing his wild oats before hieing off to the madness in Portugal and Spain. The establishment was popular with the aristocracy, and he hoped some of his old chums would be drinking and wagering inside.

He entered the lavish foyer just as another person was exiting, but he’d been so fixed on his destination that he wasn’t paying attention, and they collided. Glancing up, he was surprised to note that he’d bumped into a female.