It was more of an opening than he’d anticipated. Guarded, yes, but still allowing for some possibility. “And what wouldneed to occur in order for you to have an answer to that question?”
“Atonement,” she said. “I have things I must put right first… and I’m not certain where to begin. Or if I can.”
He nodded. Taking that in for a moment. Letting it settle. “So you seek forgiveness.”
“Not forgiveness. But… understanding. Compassion for what I felt was an untenable situation with only one solution… Oliver, why were you at my mother’s funeral?”
It wasn’t the question he’d thought she would ask. It took him off guard, but he recovered quickly. “Your mother was a very kind woman. She sent for me, prior to her death. And she pleaded with me on her deathbed not to lose hope for you… She insisted that there were things I did not know, but she was growing weaker. I urged her to rest rather than pressing for answers. Then there were no more opportunities to question her. She passed that night. And… I could not allow her to be buried in a pauper’s grave. Not when she had been so very near to being part of my family.”
Lydia nodded. “I think I shall forgo tea today. I find myself needing a bit of solitude… I have a great deal to consider. But I must thank you for that kindness. I know my father must have harangued you terribly about it.”
“He did not have to. He asked. And I felt it the least I could do… and I would have hoped, had our situations been reversed, you would have had the same regard for me.”
Lydia stepped closer. She rose on her toes and pressed a kiss to his cheek. It wasn’t a heated gesture. It wasn’t about passion. It was about something much more precious to him than that. It was a gesture that spoke of the deeper connection they’d once shared… of love. “My regard never wavered… nor did my faith in you.”
With that, she walked away and he was left staring at the face of the woman he’d married and the retreating form of the only woman he had ever loved.
Chapter
Ten
“Iforbid it.”
Oliver glanced up to see his mother standing in the doorway to the drawing room. Neither Lydia nor Gemma had come down yet and there was little question in his mind that her immediate denial had something to do with one, the other, or possibly both of them. “Mother, lest it escaped your notice, I am a fully grown man and perfectly capable of making my own decisions.”
“Not in this instance,”she said. “Your judgment is clouded by sentiment and the lure of recapturing something from one’s youth. Do you think you are the only person to have ever considered reconnecting with a lost love? You are not. But may be the only one foolish enough to consider a second entanglement with a woman who left you but weeks before your wedding! I do not even know you now, Oliver. It’s like she has you in some sort of thrall… a daze, even. You walk about like a lovesick fool.”
“I do not,” he denied, but it lacked heat and connection even to his own ears. There were worse things in life than being a lovesick fool. There was being a hopeless morose fool. He’d doneboth and much preferred the former to the latter. “And even if such a thing were true, it is well within my right to do so. I am, much as this may surprise you at times, a fully grown man. Funnily enough, you only seem to recall that when it suits your needs.”
“I did not know, Oliver. I could not have known that your marriage would be so terribly unhappy. I had hoped that you and Amelia would find your footing together.”
“This isn’t about Amelia, mother. It’s about the fact that you question every choice I make for my daughter. If I wish to obtain a governess for her, you tell me I should not, that you will teach her. If I discipline her, something I loathe but does occasionally need to happen, you bemoan the fact that I am too firm with her. If she does misbehave, then I am not firm enough… You lambast me for taking the lavender you’d planted for pleasure and turning it into an enterprise to salvage the very roof over our heads and then you cut your eyes and offer a sour expression at the merest hint that we are in trade. And we are in trade, mother. And I daresay that by the end of this century, if our gentrified compatriots do not join us in such an endeavor, they will all be paupered.” It was a veritable litany of complaints, all of them relatively benign individually, but taken as a whole, representative of something far more damaging. She had no faith in him. Not in business. Not as a father. Not as a man capable of making his own choices in life.
“I have accustomed myself to our lowered standing?—.”
“Our lowered standing kept this roof over our heads!” He snapped. “How low would our standards be with our lands confiscated for lack of payment of taxes? Not everything, mother, is about appearances. I married Amelia for the sake of it, because I thought such things were important, I believed in it. And it did not save her. It might have even made her more miserable and unhappy. Perhaps, being trapped in a lovelessmarriage was the very thing that drove her over the edge?” It was a thing he’d never voiced aloud, a fear that had lurked so deep he’d never dared to acknowledge it.
“That isn’t true… It wasn’t appearances. Not only appearances. I truly hoped that you might find happiness with her and she with you. You were so lonely then, Oliver, so heartbroken. And poor Amelia had always been so very sad. I had hoped for her sake that marriage and children would alter that for her. After her disappointment—for lack of a better word—-it doesn’t really matter what I thought or hoped. Because I was wrong… about her ability to be happy. But tell me truthfully, if it meant not having Gemma in your life, would you alter it?”
“Of course not,” he said. “Gemma is my life. And has been from the moment she was born.”
“And Miss Mercer? What of her? What will her presence do to the well ordered life you have created here for yourself and Gemma? She is a threat to that. To you and to Gemma because she will break your heart again… and she will break Gemma’s heart. And she will leave. That is the only thing about her one may count upon!”
Oliver shook his head. “You are wrong about her, mother. Whatever it was that compelled her to leave before, it wasn’t that she did not love me or that she did not wish to be married to me. There was something else, something as yet unknown, that was the cause of it all.”
Lady Charlotte threw her hands up in exasperation. “Then demand your answers of her and send her packing.”
There was no time to answer her as he would have liked. The sound of Gemma’s excited chatter reached his ears before he could utter a word in response. Rather than upset his daughter or give Lydia any further reasons to feel unwelcome in his home, he settled for, “If you do not like my choices, mother, the dowerhouse will be ready shortly. In the interim, perhaps a stay at one of the spas nearby would improve your humor.”
Lydia enteredthe drawing room and the tension within was palpable. While the room, with its slightly faded wallpaper and worn carpet was still quite luxurious, it offered no comfort. At least Gemma seemed oblivious to it, which was something of a relief.
“Good evening, Miss Lydia. Gemma,” Oliver said in greeting.
“Lord Hartwell, Lady Charlotte,” Lydia said.
“Grandmama, we played Spillikins this morning and this afternoon Miss Lydia taught me how to play Graces. It was ever so much fun!” Gemma exclaimed excitedly, running over to her grandmother and taking her hand as she all but jumped up and down. “And tomorrow, if it’s warm, I’ll have more swimming lessons!”
“Well, Miss Mercer is certainly keeping you very busy, isn’t she?” Lady Charlotte said. It hardly sounded like a compliment. Not that Lady Charlotte would ever offer such to her.
