Robin Lee Hatcher (27 page)

He shot across the room and threw himself into her arms, hugging her tightly. “I’ve missed you, Libby.”

She couldn’t stop the tears from falling. “I’ve missed you too.”

Sawyer pulled back and looked into her eyes. Then he reached up and brushed the tears from her cheeks with his thumb. “You oughta come back to the Blue Springs. You ain’t happy here.”

“Aren’t happy.”

“Aren’t happy. And you
aren’t
happy . . . are you?” But it wasn’t really a question.

Olivia forced a tiny smile. “You don’t understand, Sawyer. It’s so very complicated.”

“Remington told me everything. He’s sorry. He wants you to come home with us.”

She
straightened, turned away.
Home.
She mouthed the word. Her chest hurt.

“I want you t’come home too.”

She walked to the window and gazed at the carriage waiting for her at the curb. She looked at Spencer Lambert, the man her father wanted her to marry. And so she would marry him, because she wasn’t strong enough to fight her father any longer.

Remington’s betrayal hurt deeply. She couldn’t bear to be hurt again. “I can’t go back to the Blue Springs, Sawyer.”

“You’re wrong, Libby,” a deep, familiar voice said from behind her. “You could go. Your father couldn’t stop you.”

She closed her eyes.
I won’t feel. I won’t think. I won’t
let him touch me or hurt me.
She didn’t have to turn around to know Remington had moved closer. She felt him entering the room.

“I’m glad you came, Libby.”

She turned, holding herself stiff and straight.

Remington stood in Sawyer’s place. “I need to explain, Libby. You owe me a chance to explain.”

“I don’t
owe
you anything, Mr. Walker.”

“I didn’t tell your father I’d found you. I sent him a telegram saying he should give up the search, that I couldn’t find you. I didn’t want his money. Not after I fell in love with you. My plan was to sell this house and my agency so I could pay your father back everything. I swear it’s true.”

“You, Mr. Walker, are an accomplished liar.”

“I never lied about loving you.”

“You never said you loved me until last week. I only thought you had.”

“I wanted to make things right first.”

“And how were you going to do that?” Not waiting for an answer, she stepped around him and walked toward the entry.

“I’m not giving up,” Remington called after her. “We have something between us that is too special to lose.”

She stopped and turned. “
We
have nothing between us.”

“Ask your father to show you my telegram.”

He’d lied to her about who he was, about why he’d come to the Blue Springs. He’d lied about his home in Virginia. Why did he persist in heaping more lies on top of those that had gone before? Why couldn’t he let her be?

The anger drained from her, leaving her tired, so tired she wondered if she could make it to the phaeton. Her shoulders drooped, and her reticule felt like a heavy weight, pulling on her arm.

“If you really loved me,” she said softly, “you would leave me in peace.” She turned again. “Tell Sawyer I’m sorry.”

Northrop was in a fury when he descended from his carriage that evening and strode up the front steps at Rosegate. Flinging the door open, he bellowed, “Olivia!”

Anna appeared in the doorway of the parlor, looking alarmed. “Northrop, what is it?”

“Where’s that daughter of mine?”

“I believe she’s in her room. But what in heaven’s name is—”

“Olivia!” He stared up the dark-paneled staircase. “Get down here.” Turning to his wife, he said, “Send her to my study. I’ll wait for her there.”

“But, Northrop—”

He ignored her, striding down the hallway.

He would not allow it. He would not allow Olivia to defy him again. If he had to lock her in the house, in her room, then so be it. He would make a prisoner of her if he must.

Olivia arrived just as he settled onto the chair behind his desk. “You wanted to see me, Father?”

“Come in and sit down.”

She did as she was told.

Northrop leaned forward in his chair. “Is it true?”

“Is what true, Father?”

“Has that detective returned to New York? Have you seen Walker?”

There wasn’t so much as a flicker of emotion on her face. “Yes.”

Northrop slammed his hands on his desk and rose from his chair. “I won’t have it! You’ll not jeopardize your marriage prospects by consorting with that man. Do you want the whole world to know how I found you? You’re going to stay away from him. Do you hear me?”

“You needn’t shout, Father.” She stood, looking cool, regal, remote. “I have no interest in
consorting
with Mr. Walker.” Without waiting for his dismissal, she turned and walked toward the door. Before reaching it, she paused and glanced behind her. “Has Lord Lambert asked for your permission to marry me?”

Her question surprised him. “Not yet, but I expect he will soon.”

“I see. Will it be necessary for us to have a long engagement?”

“I suppose not.”

“Good.” She disappeared into the hallway.

Frowning, Northrop stared after her. The interview had not turned out as he expected. When he heard today that Remington Walker was back in the city and had been seen talking to Olivia at the Harrisons’ soiree, he suspected trouble was afoot.

He sank onto his chair, steepling his hands in front of his face.

He wasn’t a fool. He’d known the moment he saw Olivia at that miserable ranch that his daughter wasn’t the naive, pliable girl who’d run away from Manhattan. She did seem earnest now in her proclaimed disinterest, but Northrop wasn’t convinced it would last. Not when the man moved in the same social circle as the Vanderhoffs.

He could possibly discredit Walker, but it would be risky. He didn’t want to ruin Olivia’s reputation at the same time, not when others might learn it was Walker who found her. The fabricated story of her sick friend could be exposed for the fiction it was. The truth would ruin everything.

He tapped his forefingers together, staring into space.

It seemed Olivia’s plan was best: get her married to the viscount and packed off to London as soon as possible. Northrop stood to gain plenty from an alliance with the Lambert family and the influence it would bring the Vanderhoffs in England and throughout the British Empire. This arrangement, in fact, would be far more valuable than the railroad he’d lost seven years ago. After the wedding, Remington Walker could be dealt with in an appropriate manner.

Yes, he would have to speed along Spencer Lambert’s courtship of Olivia. The quicker the two of them married, the better.

Twenty-Eight

THE LAST OF THE SEASON’S roses bloomed in the Rosegate gardens even as sharp autumn winds rattled drying leaves loose from tree branches and sent them rolling across the ground. But Anna noticed neither the wind nor the fading blossoms as she strolled among the rosebushes a week after Northrop’s outburst.

Anna’s concern for her daughter mounted with each passing day. Two days ago the future earl made his coveted proposal, and Olivia accepted without hesitation or joy. The
New
York Times
announced the match in yesterday’s edition. Today a steady stream of well-wishers arrived at Rosegate, many of them expressing friendly envy. Olivia seemed content, but trouble pricked Anna’s heart. Appearances could be deceiving.

Olivia wasn’t in love with Spencer Lambert, nor did the viscount love Olivia. And Anna so wanted her daughter to be in love. Happily in love. She wanted Olivia to have so much more than an arranged marriage
founded on the empty values of wealth, property, and position.

She stopped and stared toward the house. Rosegate had been one of the first large mansions built in Manhattan at a time when most Knickerbockers were content to reside in their modest, comfortably uniform brownstones.

But Northrop had never known contentment. He wanted great wealth and power, beyond what his father possessed. And he’d achieved it too, thanks more than a little to the hardship that befell others during the Civil War.

Anna first met the dashing Mr. Vanderhoff during those war years. They were introduced at a ball to benefit the wounded soldiers of the Union army. Within days of Northrop’s first call at her home, she thought herself in love with him. During their few chaperoned meetings together, she fell completely under his spell.

“I was so young,” she whispered. “So naive.”

She didn’t see beyond Northrop’s handsome veneer. Not once did she inquire about his likes or dislikes. Not once did she question if the two of them were well suited. Worse still, she never broached the subject of faith, even though belief in God was important to her.

Anna sank onto a concrete bench and folded her hands. “‘And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.’”

She released a sigh. Perhaps the difficulties in her life, in her marriage, had strengthened her faith, deepened her love of God, ensured her dependence upon Him. And yet Anna felt she had compromised her faith too often, using some misunderstood notion of submission as an excuse to do nothing when she should have acted. Had she set a godly example for her daughter? Did Olivia know what was important in a marriage, or did she see it only as a duty, as an obligation, even something to be feared?

Another verse from the Bible entered her thoughts, one that seemed brand new to her when she read it that morning:
And unto the married I command, yet not I, but the Lord, Let
not the wife depart from her husband: But and if she depart,
let her remain unmarried, or be reconciled to her husband.

God hated divorce—as did society. And the apostle Peter had also written that a wife’s submissive behavior might win an unbelieving husband to Christ. For years, those two Scriptures were first and foremost in her thoughts, even when she learned of Northrop’s affairs, even when she learned he had illegitimate children, even when he struck her.

But and if she depart, let her remain unmarried.
Anna straightened on the bench. “I would not want to marry again.”

Father, even if Your Word gives me leave to separate
because of Northrop’s adultery, where would I go? I have no
one. I have nothing. I’m unable even to protect my daughter.

She pulled her cloak more tightly about her, feeling the wind cut through the wool cloth, chilling her to the bone. She remembered the yellow gown, still wrapped in tissue and hidden in a box beneath her bed. That dress symbolized all that was wrong with her marriage and with her life. Somehow she had to protect Olivia from the same future, from the same failure.

As she did so often of late, Olivia stood at her third-story bedroom window. A delivery wagon moved along Seventy-second Street, headed toward Madison Avenue.

Madison Avenue. Where Remington lived.

“I never lied about loving you . . .”

But he had. He had lied.

“I’m not giving up. We have something between us that
is too special to lose . . .”

But there wasn’t anything between them. Not anymore. She would marry Spencer Lambert. She would leave America and live in England, where everything was different and she could forget.

Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth: for thy love
is better than wine.
The words from the Song of Solomon tormented her.

Tears welled in her eyes. “Remington.” She hated him for making her remember all that she had felt for him. She hated him for overpowering her resolve not to cry. She preferred the numbness, the safety of a stone-cold heart, the absence of feeling.

“Ask your father to show you my telegram . . .”

She covered her ears with her hands and squeezed her eyes closed. “Leave me alone. Please, leave me alone.”

But he was there, in her head, in her heart.
“I never lied
about loving you . . .”

She heard the knock on her door but ignored it. She wanted no more congratulations, no more comments about her good fortune.

“Olivia?” The door opened. “Dearest?”