Mary Blayney

by Traitors Kiss; Lovers Kiss

  He had come to believe that was what all intimate relationships were like, each one giving only as much as the other.

  Lady Olivia had no such thought in her recipe-filled head. She shared everything she had and everything she was. There were times that he wondered if his fascination with Olivia was because she was such a novelty. Reminding himself of that helped him to keep his distance, but every time they were together it proved more and more of a challenge.

  When Olivia slapped the table with her hand, Michael knew there would be no sigh of pleasure today. Taking the bowl, she emptied its contents into the bin that would be taken to the pigs.

  “Aha, I see there will be no new recipe today but the pigs will have a wonderfully spiced dinner.”

  Olivia put the bowl on the washboard and came to stand next to him.

  “I’ll try again tomorrow. I am sure with the right blend of spices I can make a seasoning that will be as easy to store as it will be to use.”

  “Lady Olivia.” Michael raised his hand. In the last few weeks he had also learned that she would talk endlessly about her latest food experiments. “While I take great delight in eating what you cook, in watching you prepare it, I am not at all interested in how you invent it.”

  “Well!” He could tell she did not know whether to be annoyed or to laugh.

  “You must have been told that before.”

  “Yes, I have, but I was hoping you would be different.”

  It was the honesty of her sentiment that made him worry about any number of things, from how long he could ignore the way she tugged at his heart, to how long it would be wise for him to keep working here.

  “There are times, Miss Lollie, when I would happily listen, but today I am to finish the circuit of the castle with a tour of the Long Gallery.”

  “Oh, oh, I want to show you that. Besides the kitchen, the Long Gallery is my favorite room in the castle.” She pulled off her cap and smock and smoothed her dress and stopped short. “You have been here this long and still not seen the entire castle?”

  “Lord David showed me all that he felt was pertinent to my work, and I have awaited the pleasure of Winthrop for the other rooms.”

  “It is a busy time of year for him and the weather has not cooperated at all. Did you know that one of the rugs was completely ruined when rain started precisely when it was not supposed to? The sky was clear one minute and rain-filled the next.”

  “Yes, that is all they were talking about at dinner last week.”

  “So I am guessing that Winthrop will not mind if I show you the Long Gallery.” She stopped one of the footmen to ask him to take the message to the majordomo.

  It was moments like these that made Michael realize how spoiled Lady Olivia was. The world ran very much as she ordained it. She had no idea that what she wanted to do was not what others might think was just the thing.

  “Do tell him that I will be there this afternoon to read to Mrs. Winthrop. I have the latest fashion magazine as well.”

  And this time, as with every other time he’d had the thought, Olivia would redeem herself as she had just now. It did not make her less spoiled but the spoiling hardly mattered when compared with her generosity and genuine caring. He thought back to Mrs. Blackford’s description of her friend. Stubborn and sweet. Generous and willful. On most days the sweetness and generosity far outweighed the stubbornness.

  30

  AS SHE HURRIED HIM down the hall, Olivia chattered on about the treasures in the Long Gallery.

  “Why is it that you never walk if you can hop, skip or dance down a hall?”

  “I have no idea, but I assure you that I do know how to behave properly.” She stopped and slowed to a very decorous walk. “It is only that we know each other”—Olivia stopped, faced him and rose on tiptoes to whisper—“so intimately”—she began to dance down the hall again—“that I feel I can be my most relaxed self when I am with you.”

  God help him, he prayed, he could feel her breath on his ear and his whole body responded.

  She grabbed his hand and pulled him through the giant double doors that were wide open but unattended.

  “That is quite enough, my lady.” He pulled his hand from hers. “You are almost twenty-one, and I have told you before that no man likes a tease.”

  “But I wasn’t. I was—” She bit her lip and closed her eyes for a moment. “I’m sorry, Mr. Garrett. I was teasing you.”

  With a small curtsy she drew dignity around her and smiled with such perfect condescension that it convinced Michael she had learned quite a bit in her one London Season.

  The room ran the entire length of one side of the castle. The classic Elizabethan version of a way to take some exercise on a rainy day.

  “This is my favorite painting in the entire house.”

  It was rather poorly executed, not a great work of art by any means. “Because it looks exactly like you,” he guessed at the risk of insult.

  “Precisely, Mr. Garrett.” She had her hands folded at her waist and sounded like a very pleased teacher. “My mother showed me this when I was twelve. That was when I asked her where they had found me.”

  “Found you?” he asked, as she seemed to be waiting for the prompt.

  “You see, I do not look like any other Pennistan. Yes, I have my mother’s hair and eyes but she is a Lynford. Mama was thin as a waif and only grew more stout after we all were born.”

  She stepped closer to the picture, and if it were not for the old-fashioned dress and the obvious age of the woman in the portrait he would have thought it was Olivia.

  “This is my great-great-great-great-aunt Lucretia. She was born a Pennistan more than a hundred years ago and Mama said that every few generations another version of her makes an appearance. It is the sole reason that this portrait is still here.”

  “It must have been very reassuring.” He did not know what else to say. There were any number of families in England who had siblings that did not bear any resemblance to one another. As a matter of fact he thought that given the rampant infidelity in the ton it might make it the rule rather than the exception.

  “Reassuring. Yes, that is a very good word, but I would actually say it was more consoling. Since I so wanted to be tall and blond like my brothers. Consoling.” She made the word a challenge he could not resist.

  “Comforting.”

  “Cheering.”

  “Heartening.”

  “Oh that is a very fine word, Mr. Garrett. All right, this portrait and my mother’s reassurance were heartening.” She reached up and touched the frame. “I swear to heaven I had worried since I was at least ten that my parents had found me in the garden and decided that they would keep me so they could have a daughter.”

  She blew a kiss at Aunt Lucretia and escorted him the length of the hall, identifying the former dukes. There were two. Next she introduced him to their wives’ portraits.

  “I know you must think Lynford is an unusual name. But you see it is a family tradition that the firstborn son takes his mother’s maiden name as his first name.”

  “Thank you, my lady. I had wondered about that.” This was turning out to be a more informative session than most of the time he had spent with Lord David.

  “Yes, and Rowena’s maiden name was Rexton, so that is their boy’s name.”

  “What would happen if a future duke married someone from Germany or Russia?”

  Olivia laughed. “You do not even have to go abroad to run into that problem. There are any number of English names that are unappealing. So far there has not been a problem. But someday.”

  “If one of the dukes married a widow, that would present a problem.”

  “Oh, stop being difficult. It is a tradition, hardly a commandment.”

  “Yes, my lady.” Michael bowed to her and she laughed.

  He loved that she so rarely held her annoyance and that he had never seen anger. Fear and panic masquerading as anger—but that had been completely understandable, given th
e circumstances.

  They moved on and Olivia waved at several portraits of the Meryon earls who preceded the dukedom. “Does your family have any traditions?”

  “Yes, the second son studies for the church.”

  “Oh, really? Which son are you?”

  “The second.”

  “Oh dear.” She bit her lip. “That must have been awkward.”

  “I see you can be a true diplomat when you wish to be, my lady.” He smiled to show her that the memory did not hurt, knowing full well that an expression could lie as truly as words. “When I refused the living I was offered it caused the emotional equivalent of a volcano erupting. The army commission was a way to rid the family of an embarrassment.”

  “But were they not happy to see you come home from the war?”

  “They thought I was dead and preferred it that way.” That was all he wanted to remember, much less say, about his family. “Who brought home all the sculpture?” He raised a hand to the parade of pieces in marble that lined the walls at this end of the gallery.

  Olivia accepted the change of subject with a small sigh. “Papa brought most of this back from France. Here is Houdon’s bust of my father. Houdon is the most amazing talent. Even in marble he has captured the look in Papa’s eyes.”

  It was impressive. Better, even, than the portrait nearby. No wonder the duke’s children found their father so hard to forget.

  “I have heard so much about the second duke, I almost feel as though I’ve met him.”

  “You remind me of him.” Olivia smiled and nodded.

  Michael could not help but laugh. He should be flattered, but it would be quite a blow to his male pride if she thought of him as a father.

  “Stop laughing. You are much too young and your hair is dark, but there is something about the way you command a room, the way people really listen to what you say.”

  “You think so, Lady Olivia-the-generous? The night I came here to tell the duke you were safe, Hackett would not allow me inside.”

  “That is precisely my point. Hackett realized, even on first glance, that you are a man to be reckoned with.”

  He could not disabuse her of the thought and prayed to God that she would not mention it to either of her brothers, to anyone.

  “The portrait of your mother is in the duke’s study, is it not?”

  “Yes,” Olivia said, apparently pleased with his powers of observation. “You truly noticed it.”

  Because it reminds me of you. He bit back that ill-advised sentence. “I am being paid to notice things, my lady.”

  “Now you sound like Lyn. There is no reason to try to squelch my good spirits. Unless you are afraid of them.”

  “Absolutely terrified.” He said it with a perfectly straight face and her smile faded abruptly. He had no idea how any other woman would have taken God’s honest truth, but Olivia Pennistan stood rooted to the ground as she tried to understand what he meant. He could show her, was tempted to show her, with a kiss neither one of them would forget. He thanked all the powers of heaven, and hell, when Patsy interrupted them.

  “I beg your pardon, my lady. Ruth is supposed to clean in here today. When will you be finished with Mr. Garrett?”

  “Thank you, Patsy.” Olivia’s cheerful voice showed no annoyance. “We are done here.”

  Good God, did Patsy know what she had implied? Michael stepped away from Lady Olivia and gave the maid a look that would have frozen a hot spring.

  “I beg your pardon, sir,” Patsy said awkwardly, as though not at all sure for what she was apologizing.

  If the servants were beginning to make snide comments, it was definitely time to change his daily routine so that they were less in each other’s sight. Or he would be the one who ruined her reputation.

  “I SIMPLY DO NOT understand him, Annie.” Olivia sat across the table from Annie Blackford and concentrated on untangling the skein of wool that one of the vicarage cats had used as a toy. It made her feel better to help Annie while she tried to sort out her sensibilities.

  “First, Olivia, there is nothing simple about men.” Annie Blackford had her own tangle to unravel and was making much better progress than Olivia was.

  Olivia dropped the wool on the table and shooed the cat away when he came towards it. Annie bent over it. “You actually made some progress with that.”

  “Thank you. I am making no progress at all with Mr. Garrett.”

  “Progress towards what?” Annie raised her eyes from her work for a moment, her head still bent.

  “Knowing him better.” Was that not obvious?

  “To what end, Lollie?” Annie looked back at the knots on the table and waited.

  “Just to know him the way I know most of the staff.”

  “Olivia.”

  She recognized that tone of voice. Annie thought she was lying.

  “All right, Annie, that’s not quite the truth, but he seems to want the same thing, and just as we are growing closer he backs away.”

  “He strikes me as a man who is a gentleman at heart. Perhaps he is worried that you are still overset by your experience.”

  “Do I seem overset?” All right, maybe she did still have nightmares and did not care to be out without someone with her, but with Mr. Garrett she was never afraid.

  “No, you do not. But I imagine you are having nightmares, are you not?”

  “He said that I terrify him.”

  “He said that?” Annie looked up from her work.

  “Yes.”

  Annie put her tangle aside, either because it was now un-tangled, which it was, or because she wanted to give this issue her full attention.

  “Olivia, what do you want from him? The truth.”

  “You know, he is not beneath me in birth. His father is a bishop and his mother the daughter of a baron. If we had met in London during the Season he could have asked to be introduced and we could have danced together as easily as any member of the ton. It’s like he is punishing himself by taking a position so far below his birth.” She did not go on. She did not have to. The Season was all about courtship and marriage.

  “He has to support himself somehow if he is estranged from his family.”

  “I suppose.” Did Annie mean that if they were to marry, she would have to live in the gatehouse on his salary? That was absurd. He would move in with her.

  “Olivia, do not tempt him. Your brother wants him at the castle for a reason. I know you are no longer in danger of being kidnapped but the duke must have other concerns.” Annie folded her hands and twisted them.

  “Have you heard something?”

  “The vicar tells me there is some real worry that we could face a revolution every bit as devastating as the one in France.” Annie spoke in a rush.

  “I do not believe that. It could not happen here.”

  “Yes, it could, my lady. You live in a very protected world and do not know how difficult it has been since the war ended. As a matter of fact, Mr. Garrett is proof that the world is changing. The son of a bishop and a baron’s daughter is working for his keep.” Annie reached across the table and took her hand. “Dearest, let Mr. Garrett do his work and do not disturb him. It is unbecoming for a woman to pursue a man.”

  “Now you sound just like Tildy.” They were both sad for a moment at the mention of Annie’s mother, but Olivia refused to let her be forgotten. “Do you ever hear anything from her?”

  “Not for two years now.” Annie shook her head as she spoke and Olivia squeezed the hand that was still holding hers, only she was the one giving comfort to Annie now.

  “Do you think…” Olivia’s voice trailed off. She could not speak the words. It was hard enough to even think them.

  “I do not know. Sometimes I think it would be a blessing for her misery to be over, and other times I want her here, brandy and all.”

  Olivia nodded and did her best not to let the tears that filled her eyes fall. “I am so sorry to bring my stupid, girlish woes to you when you have so muc
h more important things to worry about.”

  “Nonsense, I am happy to advise you. Sometimes you even listen to what I say.” Annie raised her index finger in a gesture they both knew had been one of Tildy’s favorites. “Leave Mr. Garrett alone. Do you understand me?”

  “Yes,” Olivia said, “but it is very difficult when he comes to the kitchen every morning. I am not a saint, you know.” Which left Annie laughing, which was exactly what Olivia had intended.

  31

  THE NEXT DAY, putting action to thought, Michael stopped in the kitchen with the briefest of good mornings, sure that if he simply did not show up someone, someone named Olivia, would come looking for him.

  With an intriguingly flavored rosemary and olive savory bun for sustenance he made his way around the castle, a route he knew as well now as the way from the harbor to his favorite tavern in Le Havre. Michael had not thought of Aux Trois Oiseaux in weeks. That must have some significance. He was not going to search it out but let the past stay where it belonged.

  He had surveyed the walled windows of the old castle dozens of times on his nightly circuits of the grounds and never seen any sign that any of the panels had been moved. Nothing seemed any different from the way it had looked the first night he had espied the panels, but this morning he was going to see if the old castle could be entered from the outside.

  Michael climbed onto the ledge of the most convenient opening, and his heart began to beat faster. On either side of the wood, holes were cut, in the right spot for a man’s hands. It could be each panel was like this. The holes could be easily explained, but their existence did not feel innocent. He’d learned to respect that sensation in his gut.

  Michael bent down to look through one of the holes. It was an awkward effort and a fall would hurt. There was no light. He heard no movement on the other side. Straightening, he put his hands on either side of the covering, carefully setting it inside. He sat on the window ledge and surveyed the room as the morning light, weak though it was, outlined what the room held.