by Julia Parks
Sheridan managed a smile. “Not at all. I am not one to throw myself at a female. I will simply bow out.”
“It might be for the best. Mind you, Olivia does not appear to me to be interested in Sir Richard in that manner, though she has been spending a great deal of time with him. And he is charming. There is no denying that.”
“Never mind,” came his flat comment. “We still have each other, you and I. Unless your good doctor is lurking about in one of the corners.”
“No, he had patients to see, drat the man.”
“So, are you going to put him out of his misery?” asked Sheridan.
“I have not decided yet. It will not be anytime soon, I can tell you. I have waited a lifetime. I can wait a bit longer. Now, enough of this depressing tattle,” said Amy, getting on her feet and taking his arm. Glancing up at him, she said, “Shall we stroll on the lawn and laugh at all the young men making cakes of themselves over the ladies? If we are lucky, perhaps one of them will actually fall in the water.”
“I am at your service,” he replied. They wandered away from the tent, their path taking them ever closer to the river.
“Only look at that young man trying to punt along the shore.” They watched the youth push away from shore with a long pole, leaning out farther and farther as the boat slipped away.
“If he is not careful, he’s going to come a cropper,” said Sheridan.
Amy laughed. “Why I think it is Mr. Campion. I am surprised his mother is not sitting between him and the young lady. Oh, dear. Look how the boat is wobbling.”
Sheridan chuckled and pointed to the long, narrow punt. “So it is, and I fear young Mr. Campion is not content with only upsetting his own boat.
“Look out!” called Sheridan, running toward the shore as the young man managed to pluck the long pole out of the mud, losing control as it flew overhead. It fell with a resounding crack across the bow of another punt.
Her voice shrill, Amy shouted, “Sir Richard! Watch out!”
It was too late. Richard, who was standing in the other punt, lost his balance. Clinging to his pole, the punt shot out from under him. While he held onto the pole, the punt rammed the shore, sending its lone passenger into the shallow water.
“Olivia!” screamed Amy.
Sheridan plunged into the chest-high water and gathered Olivia into his arms. Richard finally let go of the pole and stood up, sloshing through the water to shore.
“Of all the ham-fisted things to do,” snapped Sheridan.
“Are you speaking to me?” demanded Olivia while she struggled to get free.
“No, I am speaking to that gudgeon there,” said Sheridan, depositing her on the shore with a grunt. He turned to help his friend out of the water. “Letting a little pole upset you. You’ve lost your touch.”
“At least I once had a touch. You don’t go near the things because you know you will end in the river.”
“One time!” shouted Sheridan, beginning to enjoy himself.
“One time you would admit to. What about when you took your fancy piece…but I am forgetting myself. Are you all right, Olivia?”
Servants with blankets rushed up, wrapping the warm woollen cloths around their shoulders, but Sheridan didn’t notice. Richard’s use of Olivia’s given name made him remember his complaint with his friend. “If you will excuse me.”
Sheridan turned away as Olivia said, “Drew,” but people were crowding about them, and the disgruntled marquess didn’t hear.
“Leave him be,” said Richard, tugging on her arm to lead her to the house. “There is time enough to worry about him. At the moment he is too jealous of me to see reason.”
“I begin to doubt it, Richard,” she whispered.
“Then you must try harder to believe me. Let him stew in his own juices a few more days. Then, when he decides it is time to make his declaration, you can tell him what a lobcock he has been. Trust me on this.”
“I am trying to, Richard, but it is becoming more and more difficult. The hurt in his eyes when he saw me in the boat with you—it was almost unbearable.”
While servants were dispatched to their various houses for clean clothes, Sheridan, Olivia, and Richard waited in separate bedrooms. Hot baths were drawn.
Being the restless sort, Richard was soon fidgeting with knickknacks, staring out the window, and finally, opening his door to see if he had heard someone in the hall.
“Damn,” he muttered. A door opened, and he pulled his to, peering through the narrow aperture.
“Will there be anything else, m’lady?” asked a maid as she left the room next door.
Richard waited for the maid to leave, and then he tiptoed down the hall. A gentle knock brought a muffled, “Come in.”
He pushed open the door and entered, shutting it silently behind him.
“What is…Sir Richard!” gasped Olivia. Clutching the loose neckline of her dressing gown, she said, “I thought the maid was returning. What are you doing in here?”
“I was bored. Do you have any cards? We could play a hand of piquet to pass the time.” As he spoke, he wandered toward her, looking about him.
“Certainly not!” she said, backing toward the bed as he came closer. This was a tactical error, and she began to back toward the door to the adjoining room. Was she fast enough to zip through the door and lock it from the other side?
Stopping, he gave a quiet laugh. “Surely you are not afraid of me, are you?”
“Not afraid,” she breathed. “But how would it look to anyone coming in? You don’t wish to compromise me, do you?”
“Who would come in?”
“My aunt, for one,” said Olivia, still edging toward the door.
“I just spied her down by the river talking to Maddie. Look, no one is going to find out. I am bored,” he whined. “I need someone to entertain me.”
“If you think Lady Olivia is going to entertain you, Richard, you will have to come through me first.”
For the first time in her life, Olivia swooned. Sheridan, slipping inside the room from his adjoining one, caught her handily before she hit the floor.
“Now see what you have done,” said Sheridan, carrying her easily to the bed and laying her on it. He tucked her dressing gown around her legs. Looking at her pale face, he smoothed some blonde tendrils of hair from her brow before turning to his friend.
Richard was still chuckling as he said, “Me? She was quite conscious when she was speaking to me. You are the one who caused her to faint. Bully!”
Sheridan, however, was deadly serious. “Get out, Richard, before I call you out.”
Richard fell silent. His nostrils flared and his lip curled. He glanced away. When he looked back, the usual gleam was in his eyes and he said, “I would not accept, Sheri and you know it. I would be signing my own death warrant because I would refuse to fight, and you would have to kill me. Then you would be put to death, and it would be such a terribly messy affair. Neither of us wants that. Why don’t you go back where you came from, and l will do the same? No one will be hurt.”
“Go on. I’ll leave when I have made certain she is unharmed.”
Richard shrugged and backed out of the room.
Sheridan heaved a sigh of relief. His friend might be a rogue, but he was still a man of honour and occasional good sense. Richard was wrong about one thing, however. Drew knew he would never have been able to fire either.
He went to the basin and wet a cloth. Returning to Olivia, he began bathing her face.
The foolish smile faded, and Sheridan cursed himself for a fool. What was he doing? Was his first forced marriage not enough? All he needed was to compromise Olivia and force her to wed him. She would not be with child like Anne had been, but if someone discovered him in her room, both of them half-dressed, the
result would be the same.
Besides, am I really so sure that she was backing away from Richard? Perhaps she was merely going to check to see that the door to his room was locked.
No, that couldn’t be it. She had looked afraid.
But of whom?
“She called me Drew,” he said aloud.
And she called him Richard earlier.
“Hell and blast,” Sheridan muttered through clenched teeth.
Olivia’s eyes fluttered and opened. She caught his hand and tried to sit up. He pushed her down gently.
“It was not what you thought, Drew.”
“I am certain of that,” he assured her. “Are you all right?”
“Yes, I…I don’t know what came over me.”
“The shock of seeing me in your chamber, no doubt.” He handed her the cloth and walked across the room to the adjoining door. “Don’t worry. I will leave you alone now.”
“But Drew…”
“Rest well,” he said, going through the door.
Glancing back, he gave her a quick smile and shut the door.
Olivia jumped off the bed and then grabbed the table to steady herself as the room began to spin. Taking even breaths, she walked slowly to the door and opened it.
Crossing the room to the fire where he sat, she stood before Sheridan, her hands on her hips.
Mustering all her frustration and anger, she snapped, “You are the rudest man I have ever encountered!”
“In what way?” he said calmly, his very composure fuelling the flames of her anger.
“You know very well, in what way. I told you nothing happened between me and Sir Richard, and you didn’t believe me.”
“If I recall correctly, I did say that I believed you, my lady.”
“And that is another thing. Why is it Richard calls me Olivia, but you do not?”
He actually smiled at this, reached out, and took her hand. He held it in his, turning the palm up and tracing her lifeline. She shivered.
“Am I to be judged by Richard’s standards?” he said, his voice so soft and seductive, she forgot to breathe.
Olivia felt light-headed again and looked for someplace to sit down. He sensed her need and took her onto his lap. It seemed the most natural thing in the world to put her head on his shoulder.
“Am I?” he whispered.
“No,” she replied, her breath coming in short rasps as he took her chin and lifted it to meet his kiss.
Slow and deep, stirring her soul, robbing her mind of any thought except the hope that it would continue. Hands moving and touching, thrilling her body in a way…
“I came at once, my lord! ” exclaimed Fenwick as he opened the hallway door and minced across the room carrying one of Drew’s coats above his head.
Olivia leapt up and stumbled toward the adjoining door. She was gone before anyone else entered the room.
“Come along, Olivia. Mr. Jenson has surprised me and driven all the way out here for the evening. He has asked me if l might waltz with him. He has been taking lessons to please me, you know.”
“How kind of him, Aunt,” said Olivia. “Aunt Amy, do you know how to waltz?”
“Of course, I practiced it several times, and how difficult can it be when your partner guides you through it.”
“Not too difficult, I hope,” said Olivia, managing to refrain from uttering the nervous giggle that was begging to escape.
By now, they were at the top landing of the stairs. Olivia put out a hand to stop her aunt.
“I don’t know if I can do this,” she whispered.
“Not go through with it? Rubbish! Of course you can go through with it. You are not some milk-and-water miss to be vanquished by a couple of men. Besides, you should be flattered to have two such handsome men fighting over you.”
“They are not fighting over me so much as…oh, I don’t know. At times, I would like to horsewhip both of them!”
“If you ask me, Sheridan…”
Two ladies passed them on the stairs, and Olivia and her aunt remained silent until they were alone again.
Olivia waved her fan to cool her heated face as she recalled that kiss. She had thought the kiss they shared at Vauxhall was breathless. She hadn’t realized a kiss could make one absolutely mindless.
“So what are you going to do?”
Olivia smiled and shook her head. “I grant you, he is maddening, Aunt, but oh, when he smiles…”
“I smile, you smile, everyone smiles, my dear child. Calm yourself!”
“I know, I know,” she said, taking a deep breath and beginning the too-short descent.
“There is Charles,” whispered her aunt. “You will be all right?”
Olivia nodded and gave her aunt’s hand a squeeze. Then she was alone, poised to enter this ballroom by herself. Never had she felt so unsure of herself.
“May I have the pleasure of sitting with you while you wait for the next dance, my lady?” asked the boring Mr. Campion.
“Certainly,” she replied and took his arm.
He led her to a small alcove where they sat down on a sofa.
“I wanted to apologize for upsetting your friend’s punt. I did not spend a great deal of time practicing such sports when I was at university.”
“Do not trouble yourself about that, Mr. Campion. None of us came to any lasting harm,” she said, hoping that was all he was going to say. Oh, to sit there quietly with her thoughts, but it was not to be.
Mr. Campion liked the sound of his own voice very much, and he proceeded to drone on about boats and steam engines for the next ten minutes. Every once in a great while, he required some response. Being the good listener that she was, Olivia paid enough attention to fill these short gaps.
The music ended, and Tony asked for the honour of that waltz. Olivia was glad. If it had been Richard, she would have been tempted to turn him down, especially with Drew watching.
Now that she thought about it, she couldn’t recall seeing Drew since he had come into her room.
As the evening progressed, Olivia felt her nerves were being stretched to the limit. Drew never left the dance floor, but he never approached her. Had their kiss given him a disgust of her? She prayed it had not. She certainly had not felt one iota of disgust—only raw passion.
Waltzes, cotillions, quadrilles. All passed without Drew approaching her. Finally, she sat out one dance with Mr. Pendleton. The music ended, and the old man rose to speak to other guests.
When a shadow fell across her lap, Olivia glanced up and drew in a quick breath.
“Good evening, Lady Olivia.”
“Good evening, Lord Sheridan,” said Olivia. She knew she was smiling like a looby, but she could not stop herself.
“Lady Olivia, might I have the next dance?”
She smiled up at him and held out her hand. Rising, she followed Drew onto the floor.
“It’s about time,” she whispered as his hand clasped hers and his other arm encircled her.
“Yes, old Pendleton is a nice enough fellow, but after sitting out with him for a whole dance…”
“Not because of that,” she said with a carefree laugh. “Quite true, of course, but what I meant to say was that I wanted to explain about this afternoon, Drew. I didn’t get the chance when I came into your room.” She blushed at the remembrance of what she had done in that room.
“Shh, not now. I am counting the beats.”
She glared at him. There was no reason for him to count beats. He was now quite accomplished at the waltz. He was merely doing this to avoid conversation with her.
“Here we go. One…two…three. One…two…three.”
Shaking her head at this nonsense, she said, “You are not going to allow me to explain,
are you?”
“No. I might not like your explanation, and that would put me in an abysmal mood, so I think we should not speak of it at all. Well, would you look at that? How wonderful!” he exclaimed, nodding to her aunt and the doctor as they struggled by in each other’s arms.
“How do you make this look so easy?” demanded her aunt.
Drew shrugged, and the older couple lumbered off. Olivia giggled.
“Shame on you for laughing at their efforts, my lady.”
“I cannot help it. He has taken perhaps two lessons. My aunt has only tried it once or twice. How could she have thought it would be easy?”
“I applaud them for trying,” he said, leaning closer to her as he spoke. “Bravo for them.”
Olivia could not tear her eyes away from his.
She wanted to speak but had lost the ability. The afternoon’s fiasco with Richard stood between them. Their passionate kiss stood between them. Until she explained…and now she could not find the words.
“Breathe,” he whispered.
She gulped down some air and said suddenly “It was not what it looked like. I mean, me and Sir Richard.”
“I never dreamed that it was,” he said, smiling now.
Olivia returned that smile and inched closer as their dance continued.
“You are not angry?”
There was that smile again. “No, I don’t believe I am,” he said, his dark eyes gleaming with mischief.
Olivia frowned. “What happened to Richard? I haven’t seen him all evening.”
Drew tried to look innocent, but he couldn’t fool Olivia. “You did not fight, did you?”
“Certainly not, I merely suggested that Fenwick, my valet, might wish to help Richard because he was not feeling well.”
“And how did he help Richard?” she asked.
“Richard couldn’t sleep, and Fenwick happened to have some laudanum in his bag. He merely…”
“That is too bad of you, Drew! ”
