Mary Balogh (17 page)

“Remember to buy yourself some pretty clothes, Olivia,” he had said, setting an arm about her shoulders after kissing their daughter farewell. “And don’t let Sophia drive you to distraction.” He had winked and grinned at their daughter. “I shall be watching for you in about a week’s time.”

And he had bent his head and kissed her—a firm kiss with closed mouth, neither too long nor too brief. A prearranged kiss, to reassure Sophia. The sort of kiss one might expect from a father or brother. Not one to dream about and live through over and over again in the mind just like a love-starved woman.

Which she supposed she was.

She had lain awake during the nights reliving every moment of their lovemaking in the hidden garden. Though lovemaking was hardly an appropriate term to describe what had happened. They had satisfied a voracious hunger and slaked a parching thirst. That was all. He had been away from the diversions of town and the arms of Lady Mornington for some weeks; she had been without a man for fourteen years. It had not been a lovemaking.

Yet she hugged to herself each night the memory of an uncontrollable passion that at the time she had mistaken for love. And had felt her body aroused anew by the remembered skill of his caresses. And had felt sick at the remembered evidence of his experience.

He had come to her dressing room the evening before, after she had finished dressing. He had opened the door from his own room after knocking, not waiting for an answer. She had flushed at the thought that she might have been undressed or even in her bath. Though doubtless he would have looked coolly at her and remarked that, after all, she was his wife.

“Have you further need of your maid?” he had asked.

“You may leave, Matilda, thank you,” she had said, and the girl had left the room quietly.

They had scarcely spoken to each other since the ball, when they had quite alarmingly begun to quarrel in the middle of the dance floor. They had never quarreled. It was something new in their relationship, something she had no idea how to handle.

“Sophia is upset,” he had said abruptly, his feet set slightly apart, his hands clasped behind his back. He had seemed to fill her very dainty dressing room. “She has seen through the facade of our amiability and believes it to have been adopted for the benefit of the other guests. And she has noticed the slipping of that amiability
since the day of the ball. She was in tears when I talked with her this afternoon.”

Olivia, sitting on the stool before her mirror, had twisted a brush in one hand. “Perhaps she will have to face the truth, Marcus,” she had said at last. “Perhaps we can protect her no longer.”

“No longer?” he had said. “Have we ever protected her, Olivia? If we had loved our daughter as we have claimed to do all her life, would we not have somehow patched up our differences and remained together for her sake?”

“Our differences,” she had said, laying down the brush and looking up at him. “You were the one who decided that a whore’s caresses were more exciting than mine, Marcus. You were the one who ruined life for Sophia.”

“Oh, no,” he said. “I am not going to carry the guilt of that indiscretion to my grave, Olivia. And I am certainly not going to add to the burden of my conscience the belief that I ruined our marriage and our daughter’s happiness. There is such a quality as forgiveness, you know. Unfortunately it is something beyond your capabilities.”

“I suppose,” she had said, “you have been celibate from the time of that whore until a few afternoons ago, Marcus. I suppose I am to believe that of you.”

“No,” he had said. “I would not like to damage your impression of me as a depraved philanderer, Olivia. I have done too much other damage to your life, it seems. But I did not come here to quarrel with you.”

“Did you not?” she had said. “Why did you come, then?”

“We had an agreement,” he had said, “to make this month a very special one for Sophia. Can we not keep to it? We have been selfish enough for most of her life, Olivia. Must we also have her in tears as she prepares for what should be the happiest day of her life? It was
the happiest of ours, was it not? Can we not at least do our part to see that it is so for Sophia, too?”

“And what about afterward?” she had asked. “Is it fair, Marcus, to allow her to believe that we have an affection for each other when immediately after her wedding she must know the truth?”

“She hopes that she can visit us together afterward,” he had said. “Will it be too much to do for her, Olivia? To spend some time together with her once or twice a year? Must we be bitter enemies just because I once spent an hour with a whore and because you would not forgive the transgression? Do you find me so abhorrent?”

She had looked down at her hands.

“You did not find me abhorrent two afternoons ago,” he had said.

She had looked up sharply at him. “That was the garden,” she had said, “and the sunshine and warmth and …”

“And appetite,” he had said. “It seems that we still find each other somewhat appetizing, Olivia.”

“Yes.” She had looked back at her hands.

“Well,” he had said, “short of resuming a marriage that seems to have died many years ago, can we at least be mutual parents to the child who survived that marriage? You will be away for a week. By the time you return there will be less than two remaining before the wedding. Perhaps once or twice a year in the future we can force ourselves to spend a week or so in the same house. Can we do it?”

“I suppose so,” she had said.

“She said she would give up Francis if only she could bring us back together again,” he had told her. “Foolish child. But she meant it with all the earnestness of youth, Olivia.”

She was twisting her hands hard in her lap, she had
realized suddenly.
Very well, then
, she had wanted to blurt out to him,
let us give her exactly what she wants, Marc. A marriage that is real
. But the words could not be spoken aloud. He had been standing stiffly before her, his manner businesslike, his voice abrupt and almost cold. He was trying to persuade her to agree to a workable proposition.

“We must try again, then,” she had said. “We did well for the first week.”

“This evening,” he had said. “We must remain in the drawing room together. Tomorrow morning, when you leave, I must kiss you just as I will kiss Sophia.”

“Yes,” she had said.

He had stood there for a while not saying anything, as she examined the backs of her hands.

“I wish I could come with you,” he had said. “I don’t like to think of the two of you on the road with only young Sutton and my servants for protection. You will be all right, Olivia?”

“I came here alone,” she had reminded him.

“You will have new clothes made?” he had said. “As many as you wish, Olivia, and have the bills sent to me with Sophia’s?”

“You give me a generous enough allowance,” she had said.

“My daughter is getting married,” he had said. “At least allow me to buy my wife new clothes for the occasion. Will you?”

She had nodded.

“There are enough servants left at the house in town to see to your needs,” he had said.

“Yes.”

“Well.” He had moved abruptly and set his hand on the knob of the door into his dressing room. “You have lived safely for fourteen years without my assistance. I daresay I need not worry about you now.”

“No,” she had said.

Come with us
, she had wanted to beg him quite unreasonably.
Three weeks is all the time we have left
. And the memory caused a tickle in her throat now as she sat with closed eyes in the carriage and did not even hear the occasional chatter of Sophia and Lord Francis. They could not expect to return within a week at the very least. A week—seven whole days!

But there would be countless years without him again after Sophia’s wedding, with perhaps the teaser of a week once or twice a year. She felt the desperate need to cry, but her daughter’s presence in the carriage forced her to resist the urge.

How foolish—how indescribably foolish—she had been fourteen years ago. Imagining that she could no longer love him because he had fallen off his pedestal. She had loved him anyway all those years, but had deprived them both of the chance of a mended marriage. She had deprived all three of them of the chance for a happy family life.

She wished, and felt guilty at the wish, that Sophia had not met Lord Francis again and fallen in love with him. She wished she had not seen Marc again. For now, having seen him, she knew with a new pain all that she had missed in those empty years. And all through her own fault. Not Marc’s, really. All people make mistakes and have the right to be forgiven—once at least. But she had refused to forgive. She had been afraid to forgive, afraid that their relationship would have changed. She had been too young and inexperienced to know that relationships are always changing, that they must change in order to grow and survive.

His lips had been warm on hers, his arm strong and sheltering. The side of her head was against the soft cushions of the carriage. She imagined that it was against his chest, his arm still about her, his cheek against the
top of her head. She imagined herself falling asleep in the shelter of his arms, warm and relaxed and assured of his love.

I
T FELT WONDERFUL
to be in London again. She had always loved being there right from the moment of her arrival for her come-out Season. It was there she had first seen Marc and admired him from across the width of a ballroom for several hours before he had suddenly appeared at her side, their hostess with him to perform the introductions. She had fallen in love with him during the set of dances that had followed.

And had not fallen out of love since, though her love had brought her joy for only five years and misery and heartache for all the years since. And Sophia, of course. Her love had brought her Sophia.

She had never been given to extravagance. Even during that first year, when her mother had taken her to a fashionable modiste to have new clothes made that would be more suitable for town living than the ones she had brought with her, she had been horrified at the large number that had been deemed necessary. She had been afraid that she would make a beggar of her papa. In the years since, she had used the modest services of a local seamstress and had even made some of her own clothes.

She felt alternately hot and cold when she discovered just how much Sophia’s bride clothes were going to cost. But Marcus had given her specific instructions to make sure that their daughter had all that was needed. Olivia supposed that her husband was a very wealthy man. He had had a comfortable fortune even before the death of his father. After that event, he had inherited a number of prosperous properties. He had also doubled her already generous allowance.

It was with only the greatest reluctance that she picked out patterns and fabrics for clothes for herself. But she would need some fashionable clothes for the week of the wedding, when Clifton would be overflowing with guests. Her own parents were even coming from the north of England.

Everything was to be made with the greatest haste, the dressmaker assured Olivia. She had received a letter from his lordship just a few days ago and had taken on extra seamstresses and deferred working on other orders so that Lady Clifton and Lady Sophia could take all their new clothes with them back to Clifton within a week.

And so they had four days to kill. Lord Francis took them to Kew Gardens and the Tower and St. Paul’s and they spent a few evenings quietly at home. But news of their arrival in town was quick to spread and several hasty invitations were sent by hostesses eager to entertain the newly betrothed couple or curious to see again the long-absent Countess of Clifton.

They chose to attend a soirée at the home of Lady Methuen. Young Donald Methuen was a friend of Lord Francis. Olivia felt apprehensive about attending. It was so very long since she had been in town. She fully expected to be confronted with a roomful of strangers. It was a relief on their arrival to find that there were still some people who remembered her, and who made an effort to include her in a group and draw her into conversation. Sophia and Lord Francis had immediately been whisked away by a group of young people.

It was really quite pleasant, Olivia thought, after an hour had passed. It was good to be back. And she still seemed to have the social skills to cope with a large town gathering. Lord Benson, looking considerably more portly and florid of complexion than when she had known him as a rather handsome rake and gentleman
about town, even tried to flirt with her. It was not altogether unpleasant to know that she was still young enough and was still in sufficient good looks to invite flirtation.

If she could only have left after the hour, she thought afterward, she would have been thoroughly charmed by the evening. As it happened, she did not leave, and the evening gave her a sleepless night.

A lady joined the group with which Olivia was currently conversing. Another lady, Mrs. Joanna Shackleton, a friend of Olivia’s during that long-ago Season when they had both made their come-out, took her arm firmly and would have drawn her away. But Olivia merely smiled at her and resisted the pressure on her arm. She was listening to a story being told by Colonel Jenkins.

“Good evening, Mary,” the colonel said when his story was at an end. “You are feeling better?”

“Oh, yes, I thank you,” the lady said. “It was just a slight chill, you know. Nothing to keep me at home for more than a couple of days.”

“James and I were wondering if your literary evening would have to be cancelled,” a lady to Olivia’s left said. “I do hope your recovered health will make that unnecessary, Lady Mornington.”

“Oh, absolutely.” The lady smiled. “I would not cancel those plans for all the chills of a cold winter. It promises to be an interesting evening. Mr. Nicholson is to be there.”

Olivia felt the pressure on her arm being renewed, but she ignored it. The lady was quite different from what she had expected. What had she expected? A tall, voluptuous woman with flaming red hair, she supposed, and scarlet lips. A woman whom one would only have to glance at to know her as a harlot.