Stephanie James Read online

  The footman bowed and ran about his business.

  “Shall I help you in?” Philip asked, extending his arm.

  “Thank you, my lord,” she said.

  Philip placed one hand beneath her elbow and allowed her to grasp the forearm of his other arm. “My pleasure,” he said, smiling.

  Olivia did not like the tender look on Philip’s face. He looked as though he was lost inside of his own thoughts, as though the rest of the world did not matter — except for her. It made her feel dreadfully uncomfortable. The last thing Olivia wanted anyone to do at the moment was look at her. She was far too hideous.

  “Stop looking at me!” she bellowed, unable to stand it any longer.

  “Sorry,” muttered Philip, and then looked away quickly.

  • • •

  As Philip patiently escorted a rather slow-moving Olivia into the hall, Lady Lillian watched with keen interest.

  “Amelia,” Lillian said, swatting her friend on the arm lightly to draw the girl’s attention away from the duke and Mr. Winter.

  “What is it, Lilly?” said Amelia, an annoyed tone in her voice.

  “Do your eyes see what I see?”

  Amelia followed Lillian’s fixed gaze over toward her brother and the girl he called Miss Olivia. “What do you see, Lilly? Philip helping the poor girl? I see nothing else.”

  “Of course you do! Just look at him, Amelia. You’ve only just missed how he was looking at her, but I’ve seen that look on his face before. He loves that girl, whoever she is.”

  “And I’ve seen the look on that girl’s face before on the faces of other girls, Lilly. That girl, whoever she is, hates my brother.”

  “She might indeed,” agreed Lilly, “but she shan’t hate him for much longer.” She giggled and then inhaled deeply as though she were taking in the perfume of the most delightfully fragrant flowers. “They will fall in love. I would bet my life on it.”

  “You’ve been reading too many of those novels of yours, Lilly. They have clouded your head with nonsense. Tea in the drawing room before dinner. That is what will happen next, Lilly. Not some grand display of love.”

  “Oh, no certainly not,” said Lilly. “It’s far too soon for that sort of thing, but believe me it will happen. He loves her, I am sure of it.”

  Amelia scoffed. “When will you snap out of this love phase, Lillian, and join the rest of us in reality?”

  Lillian smiled. “Hopefully never. I do so love a happy ending.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Olivia’s skin was still warm beneath her dress from her bath. The lavender scent from the bath oil she had used still clung to her skin and made her feel pristinely cleansed and relaxed. Oh, to again be clean! Having been covered in mud, even for so short a time (though it had seemed an eternity whilst her father proceeded to argue with the duke), had caused Olivia to forget momentarily what it felt like to be clean. The pain of her ankle had been greatly reduced by the heat of her bathwater, and she was able to forget that it was injured, and (more importantly) she was again able to walk on her own.

  She had been so relaxed after her bath all she had wanted was to lie down on the bed in her assigned room and simply fall asleep, but she could not. The house was full of guests (herself included), and she had to make an appearance at dinner.

  Once she had toweled the dampness from her skin, Olivia’s maid Betsy helped her into one of the new dresses her father had ordered for her during her recuperation. It was made up of two pieces, the first layer being pale pink linen with a rounded neckline and white silk embroidery on the bodice. The second layer was a mint-green silk overlay with sleeves extending to her elbows and sashes that, when tied at the back, produced a bow between her shoulder blades. It was an excessively feminine dress — not at all something she would have chosen for herself upon sight. But once she tried it on, Olivia had fallen in love with it.

  Her hair had been toweled but was still damp in its bun.

  A bun, yes.

  Olivia had instructed Betsy to fix her hair in a bun at the back of her head. It was a small compromise Olivia had decided to make for the occasion. Time and time again, she had flouted the convention of propriety in front of Lord Philip with a distinct amount of pride and satisfaction by wearing her hair down. But now she was to be in the company of a duke and duchess, which naturally left Olivia without the conviction to behave in an unbecoming manner.

  She therefore chose to arrive at dinner properly dressed and styled. But how was she supposed to behave? How was she supposed to greet her betters, or did someone have to introduce her first? Was she supposed to say “your grace” to each of them, or use “my lord” and “my lady”? She was fairly positive “your grace” was the accepted form of address, but she wasn’t exactly sure. Could she speak to them without having been spoken to? Or did she have to remain silent in their presence altogether? Where was the appropriate place to sit in the drawing room? Presumably not on the same sofa or chaise, but she wasn’t exactly sure. Did such sitting restrictions even exist? There would be at dinner, Olivia knew. The order of precedence would undoubtedly be followed. Where would she sit then? Was she so low in rank that a separate table would have to be brought in? She thought that might be the case, but she wasn’t exactly certain.

  Oh, good Lord, Olivia wasn’t exactly certain about one thing too many. She was going to make an absolute fool of herself, of that she was entirely certain. And right in front of the two younger girls too, which was a far more worrisome possibility for Olivia to comprehend than anything else. She feared the two younger girls more than any slip-up she could potentially commit.

  Olivia feared that they would behave just as nastily towards her as all the other young ladies she had encountered in London. And she was particularly intimidated by the girl with the dark hair. Her coloring was far too similar to the black-haired girl who had tormented Olivia at every available opportunity two years ago. It was silly after all this time to allow herself to be so affected by the memory, but since she’d known no form of kindness while in London, Olivia had been indelibly affected. Perhaps the girls were an exception and they were indeed pleasant, but if they were as snobbish about propriety as Lord Philip (and Olivia suspected they might well be), then they would not hesitate to ridicule her from the start.

  They were after all well-bred, and in Olivia’s limited experience, well-bred ladies were only pleasant when they sought to gain something. The rest of the time, however, they were horrid, especially to those they deemed to be underlings or outsiders. But this time around, Olivia was not outsider drowning in their midst. She was in the county of her birth and the girls were not. They were the outsiders this time. Her fists clenched at her side as she stood in front of her chamber door, readying herself to descend to the drawing room.

  She would not tolerate any sort of ill-treatment. Not this time. If they dare utter one cruel word, Olivia thought, I’ll have my revenge on them. I swear it.

  And with that thought empowering her for the moment, Olivia flung open her chamber door and marched out proudly, but with a slight lag thanks to her ankle (God, she hoped it wasn’t permanent).

  The stairs slowed Olivia’s proud gait a bit, as she was forced to take them one by one, and very carefully while clinging to the rail lest she fall and injure herself further. The slow tempo of her descent down the stairs gave Olivia time enough to appreciate the art that hung in a staggered pattern along the wall adjacent to the staircase.

  Lord Philip had good taste. She could not fault him in that aspect, but portions of the décor were rather obnoxious, as though they existed in the house to show off the amount of money Lord Philip obviously possessed. The paintings were of landscapes mostly, with a few being of some unknown person or another. Each portrait was bordered by a thick, gold filigree frame, which must have been very expensive. In between each painting was a tapestry of oriental design.

  Behind all of the dressings, the walls were papered with the most elaborate patterns Olivia
had ever seen, and lined at the top with finely chiseled designs. Olivia next surveyed the foyer when she had descended low enough down the stairs to see it. The walls there, too, were papered, and boasted sconces dripping in crystal. Tables were positioned beneath each sconce, and each bore large floral arrangements. Alabaster busts on marble columns appeared on either side of each table. The black-and-white tiles were polished to a high shine, and the ceiling bore a scene of heaven filled with angels and cherubs.

  How had she not noticed any of this as she had been helped inside? Quite suddenly, Olivia found her resolve slightly dimmed in the shadow of such opulence. Perhaps she was out of her element after all.

  When she reached the base of the stairs, she saw to her left a large, brightly lit corridor which led to the main entryway of the Hall. Directly in front of her was another grand staircase. Wherever it led was a mystery to Olivia, but she doubted it led to the drawing room where she was meant to meet everyone, so she chose another corridor — the one to her right.

  She wondered down the even more obnoxiously decorated hall until she came to an open door, out of which she heard voices.

  Was this the room? To be sure, she sneaked her head around the jamb just an inch. Immediately she spotted Lord Philip leaning with his back against the sill of a window, his right hand against the sill supporting his weight; his left held a frail china cup — filled with tea, she presumed. She studied his face.

  He unnerved her, but she could not deny that he really was a handsome man — a handsome man who had proposed to her so many months ago. She had said no, of course. What had he expected? For her to accept? They did not love one another.

  Love was not the reason why many couples married, true. But Olivia would not be forced into any sort of marriage arrangement where love was not present … though if she had said yes, she would have been able to kiss him again, she admitted to herself shamefully.

  She recalled the incident by the river and a chill ran down the length of her spine. Soon after it had happened, Olivia hated thinking of their kiss. She had felt too much as though she had failed in her father’s expectations by having behaved in such an intimate manner with a man. She had cried herself to sleep several times as a result of the guilt, in fact. But lately, months later, she thought of that kiss often. She thought of how it had made her feel — hungry and restless, though completely at a loss as to how to assuage the sensations. She felt that now-familiar tugging in her stomach as she bit her lip and peered covertly through the doorway to study him as he stood against the windowsill.

  His mouth was closed and fixed in an arrangement which did not denote any sort of amusement. His dark straight hair fell over his forehead, and just barely dusted the top of his brows, which were set in a scowl above his penetrating blue eyes. His gaze was set unblinkingly on something — the source of the male voice currently filling the drawing room perhaps? Olivia saw his lip beginning to curl. Good God, he looked positively murderous. Whatever could have put him in such a state?

  • • •

  Philip was again bored with his guests. It was nothing against them, to be sure. But after having seen Olivia covered in mud, he was much more desperate than before to see she had a pleasant stay. He stared out of the window of the drawing room at his front garden as he thought about the incident.

  For a moment during all the fuss — when he had first entered the scene — all Philip could notice about Olivia was the look on her face when she had first spotted him. She had been looking desperately back and forth from her father to the duke. She had obviously wanted to escape the embarrassing scene, and so when she had spotted him, her desperate look shifted instantly to one of relief.

  It had touched him in a way he could barely describe. Perhaps she would have looked that way at any man who came to help her in that moment. Perhaps she hadn’t even realized she had done it, but to Philip her look nevertheless had meant something to him. It had, after all, been the first time since the beginning of their acquaintance — since that first dinner at Whistler Manor, come to think of it — that Philip had seen her look at him with anything else in her eyes other than disgust or disdain.

  She had looked to him for help in that single, brief moment and he couldn’t help but find it endearing. She had not been hurt because of him either, and for that Philip was eternally thankful. The incident in his driveway allowed him the freedom to be marvelously and strangely removed from feeling any sort of guilt for her fall.

  He had been her savior this time, rather than her source of pain, and he quite liked the switch. He hated that she had been so dreadfully embarrassed, but if what had come from it was the ability to have been of assistance to her, to have had her look to him with such genuine relief, and for her to have taken comfort in his sudden appearance … well, then he didn’t regret it entirely.

  “Philip?” his mother called.

  He turned to face her. “Yes, Mama?”

  “We have all scarcely heard from you, my dear. How are you this evening?”

  Philip lightly swirled the tea in his china cup. “I am well, Mama,” he said.

  “And the state of your business?” asked the duke.

  “Busy, of course. Mr. Winter and I are doing quite well.”

  The duke nodded once in acceptance. “Well done.”

  The duchess smiled. “Of course, darling,” she said, “I knew from the start you would make a success of your ventures.”

  “Did you?”

  “Oh, yes I did indeed. You always have been quite headstrong when properly motivated.”

  Mr. Southerland sniggered.

  “What have you to say, sir?” Philip asked Mr. Southerland.

  “Nothing at all, to be sure, Ravenshaw,” he said. “I agree completely with her grace. In fact, I recall one instance in which our dear Lord Philip … ”

  As Southerland began to speak, Philip suddenly remembered his arrangement with Mr. Winter.

  Olivia needs a husband, Mr. Winter had said.

  And from among his three eligible male guests, Philip had been asked by his partner to select a possible suitor for Olivia. It was not a task he relished the opportunity to perform, but Mr. Winter wanted his daughter married, and so Philip surveyed each of the unattached men in his presence one by one.

  Lord Brighton was a gambler, among his many faults. He stayed out well past midnight at almost every opportunity and gambled away small fortunes routinely. His boyish looks — the blond hair coupled with the blue eyes — allowed him the ability to charm those to whom he was in debt into giving him extensions. They all believed him when he lied. The baby fat surrounding his face created such an innocent display that few could help but believe what he said. His father had covered many of his past debts, and would continue to do so for the foreseeable future. But when his father was dead, how long would the Chamberlain Viscountancy fortune cover Lord Brighton’s gambling habit?

  And on top of being a consummate gambler, Brighton kept many mistresses. Four, at Philip’s last count, and that was last year alone. Had he secured a few more since then? Had he tossed out the others on their ears? Philip did not doubt it, but he couldn’t exactly fault Brighton for keeping a mistress. Philip himself had done so in the past, and was looking into finding a live-in mistress to accommodate him at Tyndall Hall. But Philip knew himself to be the type of man who would be more than willing to give them up when he developed true feelings for another woman. And he would.

  Lord Brighton was not such a type.

  Would he be satisfied with just Olivia? Philip doubted it completely. He would give her children and ignore her in favor of other women. And to go along with his larger faults, Brighton had other small ones. He picked his teeth in public, ate his meals with deplorable manners despite his esteemed upbringing, and rarely kept his mouth closed when propriety demanded it. In short, he was not very diplomatic, and as a result he had quite a few enemies.

  Brighton was his friend, but the very nature of friendship allowed Philip to ign
ore the man’s most unseemly habits. Brighton’s wife would not be so lucky. If Olivia married him, she would be left with a disgusting and absentee husband, countless children, debt, and an overall miserable life. Philip thus scratched Lord Brighton from the list of suitors.

  Next was Lord Masters, and what a terrible match that would be. Masters was entirely too soft for Olivia. He was a terrible hunter as a result of that soft nature, too. His tales of his hunting mastery earlier had been entirely fabricated, Philip knew, but he would not dare call the man out. He would let Masters keep his pride. Oh, Masters had indeed killed that deer just as he had claimed, but Philip had spotted the remorse in his eyes on that particular day. Indeed, Philip rather thought Lord Masters missed his intended live targets on purpose ever since.

  Masters was to be Baron Riddle, a title which included a modest estate and fortune. Olivia would be able to live comfortably enough, much the same as she did now. Masters did not gamble and he rarely drank. He visited a few rather renowned brothels now and again, but again — Philip himself was guilty of the same crime. But Lord Masters’ virtues were ultimately not enough to cover what he was lacking.

  He was a sensitive fellow, though he would challenge any man who suggested such a thing to a duel. He preferred to walk in parks and take in the air. He enjoyed reading and writing poetry and loved the theatre. He had cried once during the opera for God’s sake, though he had naturally tried to hide it. Olivia needed someone far stronger than that. Not to suggest that she was incapable of being a delicate female now and then, though Philip had never seen and evidence of such a side, but she was still stubborn and strong-willed with a sharp, stinging tongue. She would positively devour Lord Masters. He would crumble under her temper, and spend most of their marriage hiding from her. Masters was better suited with a kind and gentle woman — one whose eyes were often downcast and who spoke barely above a whisper. And Olivia needed someone who could put up a fight, which is where Mr. Southerland entered the picture.