by June Calvin
Suddenly tears began to flow as she thought of all the times she had accused him directly or indirectly of being a fortune hunter.
“What is it, dearest?” Lavinia hurried to her side.
“Oh, Aunt Lavvy! He doesn’t want to marry Mary Benson!”
“No, I didn’t think so.”
“But she stands to inherit one of the greatest fortunes in England. Oh, Aunt. When I think of all the times I hinted . . . How it must have hurt him.”
“Yes, I think it did,” Lavinia said, gently blotting at her niece’s tears with her handkerchief.
“He told Mr. Benson his affections were otherwise engaged. Who do you think he meant?”
“Now, Livvy, don’t be hopelessly dense.”
“How long have you known? Why did you not tell me?”
“I only just now learned it for sure, from you. But anyone who has seen how he looks at you when he thinks he is not observed would have suspected. If I, or anyone else, had told you, would you have believed them?”
“Likely not. I have become too suspicious, haven’t I?”
“You have reason, dear,” her aunt said, giving her shoulder a comforting pat. “Do you . . . is it possible you feel the same for him?”
This gave Olivia pause. She was attracted to him, and had enjoyed the trip to London with him enormously because of his gentle humor and good-natured tolerance for the demands two women travelers put upon him. Could it be their friendship might ripen into something more? Had it already, and she had simply not been willing to see it? She pulled out of her aunt’s embrace. “I . . . I am not sure. Oh, I am so confused. Why has he not courted me? No, don’t tell me. I have treated him so!”
“It is not too late, Livvy.”
“Do you think not?” Olivia wiped at her tears.
“If it is not too late for this old maid, it is not too late for you. You must make the first move, though. Edmund is a proud man, and his lack of fortune weighs on him, as do all your aspersions on his character. But do be sure how you feel before encouraging him, for I like Edmund so much, I would not wish to see him hurt.”
“I don’t wish to hurt him either.” Olivia sighed. “Nor do I wish to be hurt again. You can’t know what it feels like. . . . Oh! Speaking of someone being hurt, I mislike your allowing Mr. Barteau to continue to court you. It is a great pity he turned up here tonight, for I fear he will write Corbright and bring him to London.”
Lavinia’s mouth turned down. She drew away from her niece. “I don’t believe that.”
“But Aunt . . .”
“We must have this conversation another time, Livvy. We are attracting a good deal of attention. Besides, Peter awaits me downstairs. Dry your eyes, dear, and come down with me.” She bustled out of the room before Olivia could respond.
Olivia entered the ballroom with trepidation, knowing her eyes were still red. She had promised the supper dance to Lord Pilter, a young man particularly recommended to her by Cynthia Bower as a rising star in the political world. Since Olivia had reasoned that a wealthy, powerful husband would be less likely to be a fortune hunter, she had given him considerable encouragement. Now she regretted it. Even as he approached her, her eyes sought out Edmund, wondering whom he would take in to supper. And during the meal, she could scarcely keep her attention on Lord Pilter, for studying Edmund as he entertained a handsome older woman she did not know.
Because she had her eyes on him so often, she realized that he often looked over at her. The third time this happened, her heart lifted with pleasure and she smiled and nodded to him. Instantly his face changed. The polite smile he had worn became genuine as he nodded to her in turn. After supper was over he sought her out.
“Is it possible that you have a dance available?” he asked, looking adorably unsure of himself.
Shamelessly ignoring her partner, who was just behind him, she laughed. “This one, as it happens.” And she joyfully danced a spirited Scottish reel with him.
This time Edmund’s dance caught the eyes of another man, markedly more hostile than Mr. Benson. Lord Heslington stood next to Cynthia Bower, avidly watching the interplay between his brother and Miss Ormhill.
“Corbright will not be pleased,” Cynthia purred insinuatingly.
“No, he won’t. What is she doing here anyway? Thought she was to join Frank in Scotland.”
“ ’Tis my opinion that his suit is in vain. I think Olivia came here to find a husband.”
“Nonsense. She loves Corbright, has since she was sixteen,” Heslington snapped. “My little brother shouldn’t poach on another man’s preserves.” He left the ballroom with a determined glint in his eyes.
By the time they returned from the ball, it was so late there was no opportunity for Olivia to speak to Edmund that night. The next day they were to go shopping for clothes, and Mr. Barteau insisted on accompanying them, so Edmund excused himself to conduct some personal business. He had looked at Olivia challengingly, as if daring her to hint that he sought out Miss Benson. And Olivia felt shame at knowing she would have suspected just that before last night.
That afternoon they had many callers, and that evening they attended a lecture on mesmerism, again with Mr. Barteau. Once again Edmund took the opportunity to absent himself, saying he had been invited to dine with friends he had encountered at the War Office that morning.
Olivia was vexed by her inability to find a moment with him to formally apologize for her insulting belief that he had been after Mary Benson’s fortune and, more important, her own. Determined to have her say, she crept back downstairs once her aunt had gone to bed, and settled down in the drawing room of their rented Mayfair town house to wait for Edmund’s return.
She had a long wait. At length she sent the sleepy footman to bed and took his place in the chair near the door. The hall clock was chiming four A.M. when she awoke to a knocking at the door. She opened it and sleepily blinked at Edmund, who stood on the stoop looking somewhat disheveled.
“Olivia!” He grabbed her arms and pushed her inside ahead of himself, closing the door. “What is wrong?”
“N-nothing.” His nearness, his touch, awoke her fully.
“Then why are you here?”
“I have something to say to you.”
He had not released her. If anything he drew her closer. The scent of cigar smoke clung to his clothes, and brandy perfumed his breath. Was he foxed? Aware suddenly of the impropriety, nay, the downright danger of this moment, she pulled away from him, though she wanted nothing more than to close the distance, not widen it. She started walking toward the stairs.
He accompanied her, a worried look on his face. “Something is wrong. I know it!”
“No, but perhaps we had best discuss it tomorrow. It is late, and I—”
“Sorry about that. I met some men I served with on the peninsula and we went to White’s to catch up on one another.” He lightly touched her arm, anxiety furrowing his brow. “Please don’t leave me in suspense until morning! And I have a piece of news, too, which I am eager to share.”
Judging him to be sober, she decided to go ahead with her planned conversation. After all, she might not have another opportunity to be alone with him for some time.
“Very well. Will you step into the drawing room?” She sat down on a settee in front of the banked fire, and he sat at the other end, somewhat tentatively. “You go first,” she said. Her heart lurched erratically. Had Mr. Benson been mistaken, or simply toying with her? Had he in fact proposed to Mary?
“No, you go first.”
“No!” She said it so emphatically he jumped a little.
His brow knitted again. “Very well. It is just that I have received a rather handsome offer. I may not take it, but at least it proves to me that I am not utterly without value in the scheme of things.”
Olivia couldn’t speak, so she nodded. He refers to Mary Benson, was all she could think.
“You may not know just how useless and hopeless I felt when I arrived at the Bla
ck Lion that evening in July and fell into that fateful card game with Jason. You pretty well summed me up the next day.” He smiled, rather sadly. “A penniless gamester, cast off by his family. A fortune hunter. Well, I really wasn’t a gamester, exactly, but . . .”
Olivia felt tears tickling the back of her throat, knowing she had helped contribute to his sense of worthlessness.
“At the time I met you, I hadn’t much of a future. You and your family took me in and gave me one. For that I shall always be grateful.”
He looked away, cleared his throat, then looked back at her. “The long and the short of it is, I told my friend the Earl of Marcoombe what I was doing. Described your estate system and how much I was learning from you. He has just inherited, you know. Viscount Baringdon during the war. Knows next to nothing about estate management and has little desire to learn. He has offered me employment!” he finished on a triumphant note, his eyes gleaming with pleasure.
“Oh! Oh!” Livvy put her hand to her mouth. She wanted to share his joy, but this would take him away from her.
“Of course, I won’t leave you beforetimes. I committed myself to you for a year, and I’ll keep that promise.”
She swallowed hard, took herself in hand, and replied, “Nonsense. You aren’t bound to stay. As if Jason and I would hold you to that agreement, which was intended for your benefit. One cannot force a winner to take his winnings, after all.” She tried for a smile.
“I don’t want to leave early. Told Marcoombe even if I accepted, I’d a great deal to learn yet. He was vastly intrigued that a young woman could be so accomplished an agriculturist. Wants to meet you, in fact.” He looked down and sighed a little. It would cost him dearly to introduce the woman he loved to so eligible a man as Marcoombe, but if she would marry him instead of Corbright, she would be much better off. Of course, in such a case he would not work for Marcoombe, for he could not bear to be that near to Olivia and her husband, any more than he could accept Jason’s offer that he work for him, if she married Corbright. Her repeated references to his being a fortune hunter had convinced him that he stood no chance with her. Though last night she seemed different somehow, he thought, studying her face for some sign of her thoughts.
Livvy had by this time gotten herself well in hand. “I think that if you go to work for Marcoombe he will have the best of the arrangement. You will be a valuable asset to any great landowner.”
His eyes grew warm. “Ah, Livvy. It is a balm to my soul to hear you say that.” Though I could wish you were not so willing to let me go, he thought, then thrust the notion aside. He had learned to face hard realities in the peninsula; he could do so now. “So, tell me why you are up at such an ungodly hour, waiting for me.”
“Actually, I have already begun.” He quirked an eyebrow in question. “I once apologized for insulting you the first time we met, but it wasn’t the only time. I have said things I shouldn’t, several times. In particular, I have made disparaging remarks about your relationship with Mary Benson.”
He jumped up, fist clenched. “There is no relationship with Mary Benson. You still think me a fortune hunter!”
Livvy leaped to her feet, too. “No, no, Edmund. That was not my meaning. I wished to say that I know you are not a fortune hunter. That you in fact have passed up the chance to marry one of England’s richest heiresses. And to say I am heartily ashamed that I ever thought it of you.”
Edmund still stood stiffly, regarding her with suspicion. “What has caused this change of opinion?”
“Well, nothing you did,” she snapped. “You positively encouraged me to think so!”
“Then what?” He relaxed a trifle.
“Mr. Benson told me himself.”
“Ah.” This did not seem to please Edmund, who frowned down at her. “What else did he tell you?”
“N-nothing.” She couldn’t interpret his look, but it didn’t have the aspect of a man eager to declare himself. “But I realized how wrong-headed I had been, and I wanted to apologize.”
He nodded, studying her face carefully, waiting to see if there was more.
“And to ask if we could begin again.”
“Begin again?”
“Yes. I wish to know you as you are, without this veil of prejudice between us. And I hope you will no longer feel the justifiable anger that has kept you so distant from me. In short, I hope we can be friends.”
Low, almost throbbingly tender, came the question: “That is all, Livvy?”
She met his eyes, his soft brown eyes, which just now seemed darker than dark, his pupils were so dilated. She felt she could drown in them. She swayed toward him, in fact, before recollecting the place, the time, and her own as-yet-unresolved feelings. “That is all, Edmund. For now.”
His smile grew slowly into a joyous and sensuous sideways grin. “Ah, Livvy.”
Mindful of her aunt’s warning not to hurt Edmund, she answered firmly, “That is all. For now.”
“I understand. For now.”
“Well, then. Good night.” She started to turn, but he put his hand out, lightly touching her arm.
“Shall we begin this friendship by doing something I have yearned to do ever since I returned to England?”
Remembering what had followed on another occasion when he had said something similar, Olivia’s heart began to race. She felt warm all over, and knew it was desire. She knew she should run, would run, if he tried to kiss her. And knew she hoped he would stop her.
“What, Edmund?” It came out a hoarse whisper.
“Go to Week’s Mechanical Museum. I have long wished to see the mechanical jumping spider.”
She lifted her chin. The look in his eyes was a bit too knowing for her comfort. “That would be a perfect place to begin.”
Chapter Nineteen
The next two weeks were the most enjoyable of Olivia’s life. She and Edmund went to the Tower of London, Westminster Cathedral, and various other sites around London like the veriest tourists. They were usually accompanied by Aunt Lavinia and Mr. Barteau. Olivia had given up trying to prevent Corbright’s uncle from escorting her aunt, though she still mistrusted him.
The restraint that had lain between Olivia and Edmund from the first melted with their new understanding. Though she often yearned for time alone with him, Livvy avoided it, and Edmund did not appear to seek it either. Instead, as if by explicit agreement, they concentrated upon knowing one another as friends before any more kisses could turn them into lovers. They found they shared not only agricultural interests but a similar view of society in general. They laughed at the same things often, and brangled without rancor about those areas where they disagreed. These, however, were surprisingly few. Edmund joined her in deploring the state of the poor in the country, and feeling that the rich and powerful spent far too much of their time and treasure on frivolities. While they both could and did laugh often, they found they shared a fundamentally serious turn of mind.
By the time Olivia received a letter from Jason that his ankle was well enough to join them, she hardly wished for it, and wrote him back to take his time. His previous letters to her had been full of his activities on behalf of the estate, and a simple pride in his ability to manage glowed through in them, which satisfied Edmund as much as it did her, when she shared them with him.
They occasionally came across Lord Heslington, and he appeared to take little pleasure in these meetings, barely acknowledging them and then frowning sourly upon them from afar. Thus, when Heslington was announced just as the two couples prepared to leave for a visit to Kew Gardens, all four of them looked apprehensively at one another.
“Show him in, Kittrick,” Olivia told the butler they had hired for their stay in London. The earl entered the room stiffly, greeted Mr. Barteau and her aunt perfunctorily, then asked if he might speak with Edmund and Olivia privately.
“We will promenade on the square while you talk,” Lavinia said, and left on Peter Barteau’s arm, glancing back worriedly at Olivia as she did so.
“They are smelling of April and May,” Heslington observed disdainfully.
“They have grown to be fast friends,” Olivia responded.
“As have you and my brother, Miss Ormhill. I should warn you that some people have drawn the same conclusion about the two of you.”
“Did you come here to retail gossip, Carl?” Edmund’s voice vibrated with anger.
“No, I came here to warn both of you. Miss Ormhill, you should know that your relationship with Lord Corbright is in serious jeopardy because of your presence here in London when he expected you to join him in Scotland.”
“That is none of your affair, Lord Heslington.”
“Perhaps not. But Corbright is my friend, and I know the affection he holds for you. I do not like to see him betrayed.”
“I cannot betray him, for I owe him nothing. We have no understanding, sir.” Olivia’s voice rose with anger.
“Do you mean to marry my brother, then?”
“You go too far, Carl,” Edmund growled. “I think you should leave.”
“Leave you to lure this innocent creature away from a man who adores her and can give her everything, into the hands of a man who can give her nothing?”
“Nothing but himself,” Olivia corrected, looking at Edmund tenderly. “Which, if a woman should be fortunate enough to attach him, would be a great deal.”
“What of your father’s will? He required you to marry a titled man.”
“Really, Lord Heslington, this is outside of enough.”
Edmund stood, fists clenched. “Come, Carl. I will show you out.”
“Not quite yet. Miss Ormhill needs to know the risk she runs. If you continue to pursue her, I will do what I should have done the day my father died: seek to have his marriage to your mother set aside. In case you don’t know the law—”
“Oh, I know it. You taunted me with it enough when I was younger. Such a marriage is not void but voidable.”
