She was in the midst of a dreamless sleep when it happened: the meeting upon which her whole life had been focused for more than a year, the reason she was here.
Jolting awake at the sound of a carriage drawing up before the front door, her ears seemed suddenly acutely sensitive to the crunch of the gravel under what sounded like a dozen little feet, and the joyful chorus of young voices.
Then the drawing-room door was thrown open unceremoniously and three small boys burst into the room.
‘Uncle Max! Uncle Max!’ they cried, as they leapt upon him.
Olivia opened her eyes. Gripping the side of her chair for support she stared at the three youngsters, all jostling for prime position on their Uncle Max’s lap.
Fourteen months. It had been fourteen months since she had last seen Julian. The baby who had been removed from her care when Lucien had fallen ill was now a boisterous and sturdy toddler with a mop of dark curls and a sunny smile. His cousins were both fairhaired, a little older than he, but just as comfortable with their Uncle Max whom they were now pummelling with cushions.
‘Boys! Boys!’
The nursery maid clapped her hands for calm. Olivia could only stare. Charlotte, who had accompanied Julian to his new home fourteen months earlier, smiled. She’d been told to expect Olivia but to say nothing. Her pride in her young charge was clear, however the small, thin woman who followed in her wake was less forgiving of the youngsters’ unruly behaviour.
‘Boys, your manners!’ she cried, when she saw Olivia. ‘Your uncle Max has a visitor. And Max, you’re no better, the way you encourage them.’
Mr Atherton exhaled on a long-suffering sigh as he stood up to greet his sister. ‘Afternoon, Amelia. They make me feel young again and I missed them,’ he said, his grin half apologetic. ‘And Mrs Templestowe doesn’t mind. She likes small boys. At least, you gave me to think you do.’
His laconic smile, as he turned back to her, suddenly became one of concern. ‘My dear Mrs Templestowe, are you all right?’ He took a couple of quick strides across the room and bent to clasp Olivia’s hands.
‘Amelia!’ He swung round. ‘Your vinaigrette, or burnt feathers, or whatever it is you ladies use. Mrs Templestowe had a nasty fall earlier and is still recovering.’
‘I’m all right,’ Olivia managed, faintly, as Max with great solicitude, patted her arm and eased her back into her chair.
‘I’ll send the boys away,’ he said. ‘Boys! We can play as soon as I’ve ensured our visitor is—’
‘No, please! I’d love the boys to stay.’ Olivia was aware of the urgency in her voice, which she hoped would be interpreted as politeness, as she struggled upright in her chair. ‘Tell me your names, boys, if you please.’
The exuberance had been knocked out of them. Almost sullenly they ranged before her, fidgeting, anxious no doubt to be out of doors and away from this strange lady. Olivia’s heart nearly broke.
Julian didn’t recognize her. Even when she took his hand to shake it, solemnly, there was no recollection in his eyes. He was as restless as his cousins, turning his bright gaze upon his Uncle Max as if begging to be reprieved and dismissed from the room.
‘So, you’re Julian,’ she repeated, forcing a tremulous smile. ‘I’m very pleased to meet you, Julian.’
‘Can I go now, Uncle Max?’
Not two minutes in her company and her darling boy couldn’t wait to leave. She meant nothing to him.
She closed her eyes, briefly. Why should she? If his Uncle Max thought it, Julian thought it, too. She had abandoned him. Forsaken him. Without a second thought.
A terrible lump formed in her throat. She couldn’t swallow past it. She felt the tingling, swelling in her glands as the tears forced their way up and out.
Releasing Julian’s hand, she fell back into her chair. She tried to take a breath, choked on it, then shuddered, burying her face in her hands as she let out a strangled wail.
When rational thought returned, the boys had gone. Amelia, whom she’d barely even greeted with the requisite courtesy, was sitting on the sofa opposite her, regarding her over the top of her tea cup.
At least, she could see part of Amelia. The rest of her was obscured by Mr Atherton.
Dear Lord, she was squeezed up against him, her head upon his chest, her face wet with tears. She supposed she must have been sobbing like a mad creature.
He gave a short laugh when he saw her obvious dismay at the state of his coat sleeve.
‘No cause for concern. I’m dressed like a country rustic and it’s not as if I’m unused to ruined jackets, Mrs Templestowe, being so often in the company of snotty-nosed little boys,’ he said, bracingly. He rose, perhaps realizing their closeness no longer appropriate now that her tears had ceased. ‘Wonderful! A smile,’ he said, his own warm and sympathetic as he gazed down at her. ‘Seems as if a good cry was just what the doctor ordered.’ He stooped to place a comforting hand on her shoulder, and his eyes met hers, their expression tender and enquiring. ‘Would you care to tell me what that was all about?’
‘Max!’
‘It’s not impertinence.’ Mr Atherton sounded defensive as he turned to face his sister. ‘If Mrs Templestowe is going to start sobbing in my drawing room for no apparent reason, then I believe it’s a fair question to ask what might have upset her. You, Amelia, are wearing a most unbecoming bonnet, which is surprising, for you are generally in the first stare. If that is what upset Mrs Templestowe then I would be relieved to know the fault did not lie with me, for I was up before Frensham was on hand to dress me. Perhaps I’ve committed some unpardonable crime in the manner in which I’ve mixed a green and black waistcoat with buff pantaloons. If the fault lies with me, I’d much rather be told.’
‘You are entirely blameless, both of you,’ protested Olivia with a weak smile, sitting up straight as embarrassment at her emotional outburst washed over her. ‘It’s just …’
Her words trailed into expectant silence. Stammering, she tried to come up with a plausible reason for her distress. ‘Julian.’ Her voice became a whisper. ‘I lost my baby a year ago. When I saw Julian—’
She couldn’t go on. She took another heaving breath, trying with all her might to resist another embarrassing deluge of sobs. Finally she managed a tremulous smile, blushing at being the focus of attention.
‘I’m all right now,’ she said, waving away Mr Atherton who looked like he was going to enfold her in his bear-like embrace once again. There was nothing like sympathy to bring on a bout of self-pitiful and selfindulgent wailing.
Yet hadn’t all her efforts been with this portentous meeting in mind?
Success seemed within her grasp.
There was Mr Atherton, the man to whom Lucien had entrusted Julian’s future, and who was therefore responsible for Olivia’s happiness, looking at her with transparent sympathy and admiration. As if she were the most precious and novel creature ever to have crossed his threshold. She acknowledged the look with a mixture of hope and dread. She was used to men’s admiration but it had been a long time since she had courted it. Her beauty was a poisoned chalice. Mr Atherton was kind and decent. If she revealed to him her real identity he would be instantly disgusted. Even if he chose to dismiss the rumours that had blackened her name it wouldn’t be long before he discovered the rottenness within. Lucien had tainted her. She knew better than anyone that the beautiful mask she presented to the world concealed a soul that was destined to writhe in the flames of Hell with her late husband.
Hadn’t The Reverend Kirkman told her a thousand times?
It only strengthened her quest to regain Julian in this life. At any cost.
‘I’ll see that Charlotte is preparing the boys for nursery tea,’ Amelia excused herself.
‘It looks like rain yet again. My sympathies, Mrs Templestowe.’ Amelia hesitated in the doorway, looking at Olivia as if she couldn’t quite make her out. ‘I cannot imagine what it must be to lose a child.’
CHAPTER TWO
IF
OLIVIA HAD been sleeping, the loud crash of thunder and rattling of the casement would surely have woken her. As Max’s new house guest she had retired to bed two hours ago. The soothing pastoral scene upon the wall had proved anything but that. In fact, she’d been staring at it with increasing desperation when the enormous crash rattled the house.
It startled her so much she nearly fell out of bed.
Shivering under the quilt, she wondered if Julian were as afraid of thunderstorms as she. When he’d been a baby she’d taken him into her bed where he’d always slept, contented and oblivious to the wildness without.
Now he seemed barely able to tolerate her. When Charlotte had brought him down to say good night he’d climbed on to his uncle’s lap and twined his little arms around his neck for a good night kiss before coming to stand, at Mr Atherton’s instruction, dutifully before her. With downcast eyes he’d parroted: ‘Say good night to Mrs Templestowe’ before being released, with obvious relief, skipping off with Charlotte to join his cousins.
Olivia recalled with pain his tense little smile, just before Charlotte had led him away to bed. Her brief reunion in the corridor earlier with Julian’s nursemaid had reassured her she did not risk an unmasking for the moment. Charlotte’s joy was not in doubt, just as her loyalty had never been. But when Charlotte had reassured her that Mr Atherton was ‘the most good natured of masters’ Olivia had not been ready to relinquish her fear that Mr Atherton’s disgust at learning the identity of his unexpected visitor would override his supposed kindness.
Another crack of thunder was followed by what sounded like an eerie, distant cry. More than anything, Olivia wished the flash of lightning could bathe the room permanently in light.
What if Julian was lying in his bed, too afraid to find his Charlotte? Perhaps Mr Atherton had demanded that little boys needed to learn courage, and should not be offered comfort.
These, and similar fears, chased themselves around her head until she thought it would burst, until she had no choice but to force her fear into submission.
Rising reluctantly, she pushed her feet into slippers, threw her shawl around her shoulders, lit a taper and crept into the passage. She knew exactly where the boys were sleeping.
What mother would not?
But a tower room would be more exposed to the elements and if, for some reason, Julian had been placed into a bedchamber apart from his cousins, he would be terrified.
Olivia studiously ignored the probability that the boys would almost certainly be together, and that in this household no two year old would be abandoned to face his childish terrors, alone. It was her duty to ensure her little boy was not sobbing with fear.
Swiftly, she glided along several passageways, found the stairs to the tower, and was soon turning the handle of the room most likely to contain Julian.
No sound of sobbing greeted her. She pushed open the door fully and raised her taper high. The picture that greeted her was one of the deepest domestic bliss. All three boys were cuddled together in one large bed, eyes closed, oblivious apparently to the storm raging outside. An adjoining door was open through which Olivia could hear the gentle snoring of the nursery maid.
She stood for a few moments surveying the scene. Or rather, studying the face of her little boy. At least now she could gaze upon it to her heart’s content.
Long, dark eyelashes swept his chubby, rosy cheeks. His thumb was in his mouth and he wore a half smile, as if he were dreaming of something pleasant.
Olivia drank in the sight that must sustain her until she was able to claim him for her own … in three months? Two months? When would she finally be granted the legal right to be a mother again? she wondered with a pang.
It all hinged on Mr Atherton. She felt another pang. A very different one.
If only she had confessed her true identity the moment she’d opened her eyes: Mr Atherton was the most charming, good-natured of men.
Yet when honesty was required her courage had failed her.
She tried to dismiss the fear bound up in her lie. When the right moment came, she would tell him. Soon she would leave Elmwood and Mr Atherton – she felt a pang of regret – and from her home with her aunts she would compose a letter that struck the right note, asking for her rights as a loving mother to be respected.
For so long The Reverend Kirkman had convinced her that his plan to reclaim Julian was the only way.
Now that Olivia had broken free to follow her own instincts and had met Mr Atherton, already she felt the reverend’s influence over her diminishing. Mr Atherton was open to reason, and weren’t truth and reason the source of success and happiness?
A crack of lightning illuminated the room, the accompanying thunder making Olivia gasp with fear and Julian to stir in his sleep. She heard Charlotte’s bed creak.
With her hand on the door knob she prepared to tear herself away, swallowing past the painful lump in her throat as she acknowledged the foundation on which her past and, now her future, were built: deception.
She felt the strong, cold fingers of her reality squeezing the chamber of her heart, moulding her mind. However much she liked Mr Atherton he could only ever be the means of restoring Julian to her. For her lie required more than a simple unmasking of her identity. Revealing the full extent of the truth threatened the future of her son.
*
No amount of thunder and lightning and howling wind could wake Max from a deep sleep.
Ghosts and goblins were another matter. Especially if they caused the floorboards in the passage outside his bedchamber to creak.
Someone was tiptoeing about the house in the middle of the storm, he realized, groggily. The thought that it might be a small boy sleepwalking or seeking comfort caused him to drag himself from the cosy comfort of his bed, draw on his thick silk dressing gown, push on his slippers and softly open his door. He did not want to alarm the little lad.
There was no point in lighting a taper. He now knew this house like the back of his hand, and the glow from his fire reached sufficiently into the passage for him to see clearly enough.
A crack of lightning and roll of thunder was accompanied by a highpitched squeal of fright not two feet from him, and a taper wavered and nearly went out.
Max found himself staring into the terrified eyes of his new house guest, Mrs Olivia Templestowe.
For a moment he thought it was his sudden entry into her nocturnal path that had nearly frightened the wits out of her. However, when another flash lit up the entire house and the thunder created a din fit to end the world he saw that the young woman’s terrors were wholly on account of the storm.
‘Let me take that,’ he murmured, removing the wavering candle from her grasp. ‘What are you doing roaming the house at this time of night? Come, I’ll take you back to your room.’
She looked lost and frightened, but her vacant gaze suggested she had not registered his presence.
He put his hand under her elbow and began to guide her in the direction of her chamber when another boom of thunder caused her to shriek again. This time she clung to him, burying her head against his chest.
Placing her taper on a low table, he put his arms around her shoulders and held her lightly. She was just the right height for him to rest his chin on top of the fine linen nightcap that covered her glossy light hair.
For some minutes she trembled while he fought the almost overpowering urge to enfold her in an embrace far more intimate. Her breathing was completely dominated by the storm: regular when it subsided, fast and shallow when the thunder roared and the lightning flashed.
Observing this fascinating phenomenon, Max was disappointed when she suddenly tilted up her head, crying out, ‘Mr Atherton!’ She looked shocked though she did not step back. ‘I thought the boys might be afraid,’ she added, dropping her gaze.
‘Not nearly as afraid as you, it would appear.’ He put his finger beneath her chin to tilt her head up again. They were the most amazing eyes he thought he’d seen: layers of blue disa
ppearing into fathomless depths. And she was the most amazing creature he’d met. He could not make her out, and was looking forward to trying. ‘You were very brave to venture out alone.’
‘Brave?’ she repeated in a whisper. He thought the look she cast him was rueful. ‘I only wish I were.’
He realized he still had his arm about her. That she was looking up at him in almost childish entreaty and that she had made no effort to pull away. She was so very lovely. Far lovelier even than he’d imagined she’d be before she washed her face. And she certainly did not recoil from his embrace. He sensed she desired their closeness as much as he.
When she caught her breath at another roll of thunder he relished the chance to hold her tighter. Acknowledging the potential danger of their situation, he released her with a sigh. ‘Come, I’ll take you back to your room.’
She clung to his hand, resisting as he drew her along with him. Her face looked ashen in the next flash of light.
‘Please don’t leave me alone,’ she whispered, when they reached her bedchamber. ‘I am so terrified of storms.’
‘It’ll pass soon enough,’ he soothed. Reluctant though he was to say goodnight, he knew they couldn’t remain freezing in the passage much longer. Well, he wasn’t freezing; his blood was fairly up just at the sight of her, but he could feel her shivering.
She closed her eyes, took a deep breath as she put her hand on the door knob and asked, ‘You’ll not lock me in?’
‘Lock you in your room?’ he repeated, trying to understand her.
‘Good God, is that what your parents did?’
She shook her head. ‘Not my parents,’ she said, leaning against the door as if she were rallying all her fortitude. Another crack of thunder sent her lurching back into his arms and as she fixed him with her extraordinary luminous blue eyes he knew he was undone. That he was as enslaved as any man could be when she begged him in a low voice, ‘Please don’t leave me alone.’
He needed no more encouragement. Feeling like a fearless conqueror Max scooped her up and strode all the way back to his own room. Easing himself into the large, comfortable armchair by his bed, nicely warmed by the fire, he settled her across his lap. Her head, heavy with exhaustion, settled upon his chest and the staccato breaths soon became regular.
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