Lady Charlotte glowered at her son. “You should have consulted me… I would have happily come to stay and taught dear Gemma all that she needs to know to get on in life and in society! Have I not told you that?”
“Yes, mother,” Oliver agreed. “And you also allow Gemma to run roughshod over you and everyone else. A governess was the only solution that would not see Gemma more spoiled than she already is!”
Lydia listened to the exchange with interest. She’d never seen Oliver stand up to his mother in such a way. Oh, there hadn’t been reason to do so during their previous involvement because they had all been doing precisely what Lady Charlotte wanted them to do. But this was different. This wasn’t Oliver who was her son. This was Oliver who was very much Gemma’s father first. That distinction was instantly obvious to her because it was so very different from her own father. That resentment had not faded. Not in a dozen years and she’d begun to doubt that it ever would.
Lady Charlotte’s gaze snapped to her once more. “Do not think to use my granddaughter to squirm back into my son’s life. You had your chance to be his wife and you tossed it away.”
“I have no such intentions,” Lydia assured her. “I am here to act as governess for a delightful child and to impart whatever knowledge I have to her.”
“Within reason, of course,” Lady Charlotte stated, her eyes glacial and her tone even colder. “We wouldn’t want your understanding of what it means to keep a promise to take root in her, after all.”
Lydia said nothing in response to that. There was no defense for it without uttering the painful and ugly truth. She’d failed Oliver and she’d failed herself. Because she’d made the assumption that her squandered fortune was the only way. She’d underestimated them both. “I will teach Gemma all the things she should know. And nothing that she should not.”
Lady Charlotte drew herself up, her spine rigid and her head held high. To Stedmore she issued a singular command that said all it needed to about her opinion of Lydia. “Have a tray sent to my room… For every meal until I can return to the dower house.” Then the woman turned on her heel and strode out, sparing not even a backward glance.
Oliver spoke, his deep and painfully calm voice splitting the silence of the room. “I think we shall all dine in our rooms this evening. Have Mrs. Weddington feed Gemma in the kitchen. She always enjoys that.”
“Yes, my lord. I’ll see to it.”
Lydia was still standing there. Her fists were clenched at her sides and she could not manage to put one foot in front of the other.
“Why don’t I have one of the maids show you back to your chamber, Miss Mercer? It’s been a trying day for you… no doubt you are quite fatigued from your journey.”
It was the offer of an escape. It was also a thin shred of dignity returned to her. Lydia swallowed past the lump in her throat. “Indeed, my lord. I am more tired than I realized. Butyou needn’t send a maid. There’s little point in creating more work for someone else when I obviously know the way.” With that, Lydia gathered her shredded pride about her, and exited the room.
Chapter
Five
The following morning dawned bright and clear, as though the previous evening had never occurred.
Oliver had risen before six, more from habit than necessity, and spent the better part of two hours in the saddle inspecting the southern fields where the lavender would soon be ready for its first cutting. It was a relatively mundane task and one he often saw to in much less time. But he’d been eager for a few minutes away from the house, away from the unexpected tangle that had been created by his mother’s sudden arrival. That was a complication he had not foreseen and one that would require some adjustment of his plans.
Regardless of the very ordinary nature of the task, he’d been unable to truly attend to it. That morning he could scarcely have recalled a single word exchanged with his steward. Every path he chose seemed eventually to return him toward the house. Now, on the return home, he could admit, at least to himself, that seeing Lydia, hearing her voice and watching all too familiar expressions cross her face—it was a situation that created complications he had not anticipated. Because when he looked at her, he could never forget that she left. Likewise, he couldnever forget what had transpired before that day. Those were the memories which now bedeviled him.
By the time Hartwell came into view once more, the sun had climbed high in the sky, casting the whole of the gardens in a hazy glow. The lavender plants swaying there were not for cutting. They were the ornamental ones that his mother had planted first, the source of it all, really. No one had imagined when she did so that it would be the very thing which allowed Hartwell to sustain itself at long last. But it was not the lavender which had him transfixed. He slowed his horse as he approached the terrace, more from instinct than intention, his attention drawn almost immediately to two familiar figures making their way along one of the gravel paths.
Lydia walked with Gemma at her side, pausing here and there to point out specific flowers and shrubs. Her voice carried on the breeze, calm and assured. He couldn’t help but wonder if that was all an act, or if she felt as rocked by his presence as he did by hers.
The question had no more than crossed his mind when she glanced over her shoulder in his direction. She hadn’t searched for him. She hadn’t scanned the garden to discern his location. Her gaze had found him instinctively, it seemed. He might have dismissed that simply as one’s natural instinct for self-preservation, had she not immediately diverted her gaze while her posture became unaccountably stiff and tense.
He found himself unable, or possibly simply unwilling, to sacrifice such an opportunity. So he tethered his horse and walked toward the pair of them.
“If they are both lavender,” Gemma pointed out, almost mutinously, “Why do they look different?”
“We are both people and we look different,” Lydia answered her smoothly. “There can be different varieties of the same plant just as there can be people with blonde hair, brown hair, redhair… Has your father not taught you to identify every different breed of lavender growing at Hartwell, yet?”
“No. I don’t spend very much time outside… Papa says I’m so pale I could burn to a cinder out here!” Gemma explained.
He heard Lydia’s laughter and the sound cut like a knife. How often had he heard it? How often, over the years, had he longed for it? It had been the not knowing that’d been the greatest hell. Until he’d seen her at her mother’s funeral, that brief but unmistakable glance, he hadn’t known if she was dead or alive. He’d tormented himself countless nights with horrific imaginings of what terrible fate she might have met.
At that moment, Gemma spied him. She let out a delighted shriek and began running toward him. He caught her just as she leapt into his arms.
“Papa! You’re back. You’ve been gone forever,” she insisted.
“Gemma, it’s been two hours… perhaps a bit longer,” he corrected. “It’s nearly time to harvest and decisions had to be made on which fields are ready and which may need a bit more time.”
She pouted prettily as she crossed her arms over her chest, “You didn’t have breakfast with me this morning. You always have breakfast with me!”
