“Gulliver’s Travels. It is one of my favorites,” she said, moving closer, until she was nearly in his lap.
He almost nestled her closer, safe in the shelter of his body where she could read to her heart’s content, but then paused just as she began extending the volume toward him. The letters meant nothing to him, simply a string of markings he’d never be able to decipher. In his line of work, one did not encounter books … ever.
To his horror, she gazed up at him with anticipation in her eyes, seeming to expect him to take it.
“Would you read it to me? I’ve always thought your voice is perfect for telling stories, Niall.”
His throat clenched, and his mind did battle over which emotion to dwell upon—flattery that she’d ever given any thought to the sound of his voice, and dismay that she had attempted to hand him a book and ask him to read it.
Did she not know that stable grooms had no reason to learn to read or write? That he had been born for one purpose—to breed and care for her stepfather’s horses, and eventually, Adam’s horses, until the day he grew too old to continue?
Tearing his gaze from the book, he glanced up at her, his lips parting but no words coming forth. The guilelessness of her stare told him that she did not know … of course she could not have known. She was still young, sheltered, and had not fully grasped the differences between the two young men she had dubbed her ‘knights’. It would never occur to her that one of her chosen defenders was an illiterate simpleton.
For some reason, being unable to identify strings of letters brought him a shame he’d never known, and he leapt away from her as if she’d burned him.
“Niall?”
Ignoring her, he stalked toward his pile of clothes, leaving his apple to roll down the embankment. It did not matter that he was barely dry, or that Adam now watched him with both understanding and regret in his eyes. His friend knew what Olivia did not, but understood better than to speak of it. Not now, while Niall yanked his shirt back on, his heart hammering as the desire to flee overtook his entire body.
Coming to her feet, Olivia clutched her precious book against her chest. “Niall, what’s wrong?”
“I have’ta go,” he muttered, scooping up his shoes without bothering to put them on.
Then, he stormed off through the trees, putting Olivia and her damned book behind him as fast as he could. Guilt assailed him at the sound of her calling out to him, but he did not turn back. To his relief, Adam urged her to let him go, allowing him to retreat with what was left of his dignity. He jerked on the rest of his clothes as he went, slipping his feet into his shoes and pulling his braces back over his shoulders.
For so long, he had not understood why his father had harped on and on about the importance of remembering one’s place. Conall had never let him forget that even if the earl’s son befriended him, he would never be anything but the lowborn stable boy whose highest aspiration could only ever be that of Stablemaster. Now, he understood. For the first time in his life, he finally grasped what his father had meant when he’d told Niall that fine things weren’t to be touched by him, that he was not to aspire to stand head and shoulders with his betters. How could he, when he could not even read or write?
Fortunately, he had been gone long enough that when he opened the door of the cottage, he found his da passed out before the fire, the bottle resting empty on the floor beside his chair. His maw had probably retired for the night. Ignoring Conall’s heavy snores, Niall retreated to his room and fell into bed. He hid his head beneath his pillow and attempted to forget the shame of being found lacking by the one person who had always thought of him as good, brave, and smart. The loss of such regard would hurt him far more than any beating his da had ever given.
Humiliation could not keep him hidden for long. Inevitably, the sun rose, forcing him to emerge and go about his duties. He refused breakfast, his stomach too twisted up in knots for him to endure a single bite. He chose to begin his day’s work early, even arriving at the stables before his da.
It was there Adam found him an hour after sunrise, pulling Cally out of her stall to lead her into one of several paddocks for an hour of exercise.
“Niall,” his friend called out, leaning against the wooden fence, watching him with eyes far too perceptive. “She didn’t know.”
He could only nod, still too ashamed to speak.
“She felt awful about it,” Adam added. “So awful, she cried after you left.”
He flinched, just the thought striking him like the lash of a whip. “Tell her it’s all right. I know she didnae understand.”
“Tell her yourself,” his friend countered. “She’ll be waiting for you in the schoolroom after you finish your duties.”
“I cannae,” he protested, his guilt not quite enough to blot out the disgrace weighing so heavily upon him. “Too much to do.”
“That’s a load of shite, and you know it,” Adam snapped. “You’ll come and make her feel better about it, or I’ll pound you into the dirt.”
Niall glared up at Adam, nostrils flaring. The two had come to blows on more than one occasion, the overabundance of masculine energy coursing through the veins of men so young making it difficult to keep their tempers under control at times. It always ended with lots of laughing and pained groans as they swiped the blood from their noses and chins and returned to being the best of friends. But, they had never fought over Olivia before. As badly as Niall felt about it, he might just stand there and let Adam pummel him. Perhaps that would chase away the pain he felt at knowing he’d made her cry.
Instead of meeting the challenge with one of his own, he grunted, then turned his attention back to Cally, who had grown restless. Taking this as acceptance, Adam left him alone, retreating back into the house.
Throughout the day, Niall found himself unable to focus fully on his work, his gaze straying to the windows he knew encompassed the floor Olivia occupied. Her bedroom sat just down the corridor from the nursery and schoolroom, where she would wait for him at day’s end. Could he face her after the events of yesterday?
As it turned out, he could. Once he had completed his duties, as well as his chores, he could not have stayed away. Sneaking in through a servants’ entrance, he made his way to the schoolroom, his shaking hands clenched tight at his sides. Of course he could face her. He had no choice. If Olivia wanted something, he would give it. No force on Earth, not even his own pride, could have stopped him.
He paused in the open doorway, and found her pacing before a large, blank slate board. Hands clenched behind her back, she appeared older than her years just now, brow furrowed, mouth pinched, hair pulled into a severe knot. If he did not know her, he might think he had stumbled upon a governess awaiting her pupil.
“Livvie,” he said, calling her attention to him.
She gazed up with wide eyes, her mouth falling open at the sight of him. For a moment, she seemed shocked that he had come, which he found amusing. She was so oblivious of the power she held over him, of how easily she could have anything she wanted if only she would ask.
“Niall,” she whispered, her lips twitching with the ghost of a smile. “I was not certain you would come.”
He leaned against the door frame, watching as she began to approach, hands now folded demurely before her. “Adam said ye were upset, so I came t’ apologize. I didnae mean—”
“But, I am the one who is sorry,” she protested. “You are so much like Adam sometimes … so brave and strong and, yes, smart, that sometimes I forget …”
“That I’m only a stable boy?”
She shook her head. “You are more than that, Niall. I think you and I both know that.”
He’d often felt as if he ought to be, that he’d been born in the wrong body, to the wrong family, in the wrong place and time. Something deeply rooted in him craved more, even if he had no notion what ‘more’ entailed.
“Then, ye aren’t angry with me?”
The furrows of her brow deepened, and she
came even closer, reaching out to take one of his hands. Her little fingers were surprisingly strong as she began pulling him farther into the schoolroom.
“Of course I am not angry,” she insisted, pointing to a single chair facing the blackboard. “Sit, please.”
He glanced over at the little desk she must sit in for her lessons, realizing that he’d never fit behind it. Thus, this chair, he supposed.
“What?”
“Sit,” she insisted, impatience lacing her voice. “We do not have much time, but while Papa is gone, we will take an hour or two each day to practice. You seem to learn things quickly … I do not think it will take very long.”
“What won’t take long?” he asked, baffled.
He did not understand what she was about, even as she placed a slate into his hands, then offered him a piece of chalk. He accepted both in silence. It wasn’t until she wrote something on the board that he understood. His hands began to shake as she made two symbols, then turned to face him.
“Livvie, we shouldn’t—”
“No one should live without having experienced Gulliver’s Travels,” she declared, with a look that said she’d take no argument from him. “No one should live without being able to read, to go on grand adventures in their minds. I will not enjoy such adventures if you cannot come with me, Niall. I will read to you myself until you’ve learned to do it on your own. Now … we shall begin with the alphabet.”
A wide smile broke out over his face, and despite knowing there would be hell to pay if they were caught, a tremor of excitement rolled down his spine. She was going to teach him his letters … his little Livvie was going to teach him to read!
He was still smiling when she pointed to one of the symbols she had made with the chalk.
“This is the letter ‘A’.”
CHAPTER FOUR
livia had always known that Niall had a voice for the telling of stories. As she lay shivering and struggling to breathe, her teeth chattering so hard she was surprised they did not crack, his voice broke through the gloom clogging her mind. It warmed her from the inside, even when she couldn’t stop shivering. It was a voice that thundered and roared when he read descriptions of sword fights and battles, that softened to cradle lines of prose depicting love and passion. It was the sort of voice that comforted and soothed, even when her mind and memories betrayed her. Even when no one else could reach her.
She was not certain how much time passed between the moment she’d decided to cease depending upon laudanum and the moment her coherency returned. All she knew was that she felt as if she floated on the surface of a black river, a starless sky hanging above her. And as she drifted along this never-ending river, bursts of light and color would explode across the sky—memories dancing over the abyss in a macabre display. She could not close her eyes to blot out the demented grin of the demon, looming over her with sharp teeth and curved horns, licking her virgin’s blood from his clawed fingers. The dragon came next, spewing her insults and flames, a Bible clutched in her talons as she spoke of the place whores occupied among the damned in the lake of fire. She saw her daughter, Serena, the single brightest spot in her otherwise bleak existence. She was crying as faceless men attempted to take her away. Olivia remained powerless, unable to do anything but lie in a river of black tears and weep, watching as men who looked like her demon—men with red hair and cold blue eyes—dragged Serena into the dark sky and disappeared.
She shivered and shook, weeping and retching for days. Her throat burned as she spewed what felt like gallons of poison, her body convulsing in powerful surges to force it all from her body. Sweat slicked her skin, and she felt as if tiny needles impaled her through every pore, sinking deep. Pain flared hot where numbness had once ruled, and she felt everything she had attempted to run from in the past five years—the pain, the grief, the fear. It seemed larger now, more insurmountable, and as she wept and floated in her river, she almost cried out for an end to it all. She wanted to beg anyone who might hear to pour that sickly-sweet liquid down her throat and offer her true oblivion.
Instead, she clenched her teeth, balled her hands into fists, and focused upon Niall’s soothing timbre as he read to her, his voice sounding miles away, yet still strong enough for her grasp onto.
She’d taught him to read herself, the memory of that summer in Edinburgh bursting through all the misery and shining down upon her like the North Star. She latched onto it, letting it wash over her with recollections of secret meetings in the schoolroom and stolen sunsets near the pond with stacks of books.
It had broken her heart to discover he could not read, and she had found it incredibly unfair that no one had ever thought to teach him. Yes, he was only a stable groom, but could his father not see how intelligent he was, how strong, and how wonderful? It had angered her that no one cared enough to see those things in Niall, so she had become the one to discover all those hidden jewels.
The love stories had been her favorites, but Niall had liked the adventures the best—tales of heroes who overcame evil, or discovered lost treasures, or sailed uncharted seas. Even after her stepfather had returned, she’d found ways to go to him and read while teaching him how to decipher the words. He’d gone from stumbling over even the smallest words, to reading full sentences without stopping … from asking her to remind him which letter was the ‘b’ and which was the ‘d’, to writing with a fluent, neat hand.
That she had taught him to read and write proved fortuitous, for the following year saw her sent to school, where she had been away from her home and family for months at a time. Adam had begged the earl not to send her away, but Rowland had insisted. She was a young lady and must learn more than a mere governess could teach her. As well, he thought her too wild, always running off with her brother and the stable groom to swim in ponds and climb trees. She needed refining if she would make a good match someday, and what better place for her to get it than at an exclusive school for the daughters of titled lords?
Adam had not been happy about it, but he’d written to her constantly, ensuring that Niall’s own letters were included in the envelopes that came to her in the post. Their missives had gotten her through those miserable months stretching on between the few holidays they were allowed, sustaining her through the homesickness that, at times, became so horrid she thought she might die from it.
Her memories of school passed her by in sporadic blurs—monotonous days of scratchy wool uniforms, drafty classrooms, and nights spent whispering in the dark to the three girls who shared her living quarters. In between those blurs, the recollections of her holidays shone through like bursts of white light. It was because each return to Dunvar marked the progression of the growing attraction between herself and Niall.
Olivia could clearly remember the day she’d realized that he no longer saw her as the little doll he used to carry about on his shoulders. Each holiday before this realization had seen her greeted with a boisterous hug and a loud smack on the cheek, and would then be followed by romps and rides and time spent near their swimming hole with stacks of books. Most days, Adam would join them, but sometimes, he would not. Even in the summers, his tutor worked him relentless under the orders of the earl—who wanted his son to be well-versed in the duties he would someday undertake.
However, the summer after she had turned four-and-ten, everything changed. The conveyance that had been sent to school to retrieve her pulled up before the stable and carriage house. Through the window, she’d spied Niall, returning from the paddock astride one of her father’s roan geldings. At the sight of the carriage, he had dismounted, a wide grin overtaking his expression. She had waved, the boredom that had overwhelmed her trip home melting away at the sight of him. Olivia never felt as if she had truly arrived home until she’d laid eyes upon Niall.
She’d bounced in her seat with impatience, waiting for the carriage to roll to a stop, hardly pausing for a footman to open the door before throwing herself to the ground, boots landing with a thud.
<
br /> “Niall!” she’d cried out, yanking loose the ribbons of her bonnet and letting it fly off her head without bothering to see where it landed.
He’d handed the reins off to another groom, and after a quick murmured word, had rushed toward her. She’d been thrilled to see him, familiar, but changed by the months that had separated them. It wasn’t until they had both slowed, coming within a few inches of one another, that the very air around them had shifted. Olivia had stumbled to a stop, suddenly breathless. Her chest had heaved, and an unfamiliar awareness had made the surface of her skin tingle and her mouth go dry.
Her eyes had gone wide as she’d stared up at Niall, who’d appeared to have transformed in the blink of an eye. From ungainly stable boy, to large, strong man. He must have gained at least a stone of weight since the last time she’d seen him, if not more … and all of it appeared to have gone straight to the chest, shoulders, and arms, bulging against the seams of his shirt. His proportions were completely altered, his long arms and legs graceful instead of awkward. His hair had been in its usual wild, black tumble, matching eyebrows shadowing equally dark eyes. The face that had been so dear to her hadn’t looked the same. His lips were fuller, his jaw more powerful, his nose no longer too big for his face. At least two days’ worth of hair had sprouted along his cheeks, dark and bristly, giving him a rakish aspect.
She’d never been more aware of the differences in their sizes than she had at that moment, with his shadow falling over her and blotting out the sun. He’d made her feel childish and frail by comparison. At least, until she’d realized that he had stopped smiling and was now watching her as intently as she watched him. And she’d no longer felt like a tiny little girl. The way he’d looked at her had made her feel powerful, feminine.
His gaze had slid down her body, taking in the changes she had begun to notice happening month by month herself. Her face had thinned, losing the roundness of youth and giving way to an angular jaw and cheekbones. The shift made her lips appear fuller, her eyes larger. She had grown a bit taller, but not much, and had come to terms with the reality that she would always be petite. Her midsection had lost the last of its girlish softness, growing taut as her waist nipped in at the sides. Her hips had widened and rounded out, and while her breasts were no more than a handful, they’d grown enough that they showed through the layers of her stays, chemise, and gown.
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