“Yes, for your happiness and that of your future bride.”
“Clearly you and Miss Evans are not the bosom friends you believe yourselves to be if you haven’t been enlightened as to why that is an impossibility.”
“Your father can’t be made to come around?”
“No, but it’s got nothing to do with that.” He went on to explain that despite the ways in which Julianna and he were entirely unsuitable as a match—despite the strait between them—the fact remained that she wouldn’t have him. “She won’t marry me,” he finished. “She is vehemently, one might even say violently, opposed to the institution of marriage.”
“Hmm.” Olive twisted the string of her reticule as she stared into space. She did this sometimes, disappeared for a moment as she retreated into her scheming. “She won’tmarryyou.”
“Yes. That’s what I just said.”
You said it differently. “You said, ‘She won’t marry me,’” with each word given equal emphasis. I said, ‘She won’tmarryyou.’ ” She winked. “Do you catch my meaning?”
“I do catch your meaning, and I tried that already!”
“How so?”
“I proposed we continue to see each other. She has—” He’d been going to say ‘She has done it before,’ and though he was certain Olive would not be overly scandalized by that tidbit, it really wasn’t his tid to bit. “She was not open to the suggestion.” That still stung, that she had carried on with her prior lovers, for a time at least, but wouldn’t do the same with him. “I assure you, I would have taken whatever was on offer. I still would.”
Olive set down her cup, leaned forward across the table, and laid her arm on his sleeve. “Oh, Effie, I’m so very sorry.”
He shrugged. “At least we have regained our previous friendship.” They had, yes? “She was as warm as ever when we went to her to help with the coloring, was she not?” He suddenly required reassurance.
“She was very warm. I can’t speak to ‘as ever,’ as that was the first time I’d seen you interact, but I got the sense of the two of you as long-standing . . . friends.”
“And we are writing to each other more than ever. I daresay we are writing to each otherfuriously.” It was enough. It would have to be.
She came around and sat next to him on the settee and laid her head on his shoulder. He slung an arm around her.
“You know what I appreciate about you, Olive?”
“I assume there are so many answers to that question that we’d be here all day if you were to recite them all.”
“You understand heartbreak. You’re a schemer, and a bit of a romantic, I daresay, beneath your blithe exterior, but you know when to fold. You know when a cause is hopeless.”
She began to speak, but he cut her off. “It’s not all doom and gloom, for although I have indeed lost the love of my life, it turns out I have gained a brother.”
“I beg your pardon? Are you and the earls opening your brotherhood to another? That’s rather hard to fathom.”
“No. A long-lost brother.” He hadn’t been planning to tell anyone about Kenver yet, but he found himself moved to confide in Olive. “A literal one.”
“What?” she shrieked.
“Indeed. He’s been right under my nose for a while now, and it turns out he is rather wonderful.”
He told her everything, and his bearing grew lighter as he did so. He was walking around with a broken heart, but the key bit was that he was walking around. He had the boys—and a new brother. He had Olive. He had a sister he probably ought to pay more attention to, and he resolved to do so when she came home. He had already written to her with his report of the ball.
He had Julianna, too, didn’t he? His friend, Julianna. It would be enough. If he just kept walking around, perhaps his heart would mend, bit by bit.
“I feel that you are at a crossroads,” Olive said.
“What do you mean?”
“Something is about to change. Perhaps you aren’t going to get exactly what you want, but I have the oddest feeling that you are going to be all right. Better than all right.”
* * *
It started the same way it always did, with disbelief. Incredulity. Surely, they hadn’t locked him in the wardrobe and left? After an initial interlude of shouting and pounding on the inside of the door, Effie ceased his efforts. Father was trying to make a point. It would probably go better for him if he sat quietly for a while, ceased his struggling. Acted like a wayward boy who had learned his lesson.
