“Then why did she kill herself?”
His heart stuttered as she asked the question. “Is that what you've heard people say? What they whisper?”
“It is… but that doesn't mean she did not love you. Your mother was simply ill, Gemma, in a way that we cannot understand and cannot cure. Not yet. Perhaps someday. If she could have been happy, she most certainly would have. No one would do such a thing when fully capable of making a choice. I fear she was not.”
Gemma nodded at that. “But you don't want to talk about Mama.”
She was so remarkably astute and she could level him with a single glare when she needed to. There was no question in his mind that Gemma had inherited the best from her mother and, thankfully, not the worst.
“No. I do not.”
“Are you the gentleman Miss Lydia was supposed to marry a long time ago?” Gemma asked again as she stroked the kitten's head while it batted playfully at the ribbon securing her braid.
“You are the most clever girl, Gemma… Yes. When Miss Lydia explained her past to you, she was talking about me. This was long before your mother and I married. But I still have feelings for her and she still has feelings for me. And I'd like, if it is alright with you, to ask her to marry me… again.”
Gemma put the kitten down and rose to her feet. Then she hugged him. “Will I still call her Miss Lydia or will I have to call her Mama?”
“I think she'd be happy with just Lydia… no one will ever replace your mother, Gemma.”
“I don't remember her. Not really. But she's still Mama.”
Oliver hugged her a bit tighter, offering comfort as much as receiving it. “Of course, she is. Are you afraid Lydia would try to do that?”
“Oh, no! Not at all. That's why I think you should marry Miss Lydia. I think she is wonderful and I should like to have her with us forever!”
Oliver let out a relieved sigh. “Your Grandmama will not like it very much.”
Gemma cocked her head to the side and considered it for a moment. “Not at first, but when she sees you happy, she will change her mind.”
Oliver wasn't so sure, but he hoped that would be the case. He knew that his mother worried for him, that she was afraid that Lydia would break his heart once again. Perhaps there was a part of him that worried the same, at least in some small way. But he also knew that what potentially lay ahead was worth the risk.
“I suppose I should go and propose then, shouldn't I?”
Gemma nodded. “If I can't have a kitten, will you get me a puppy?”
His lips quirked. “We'll see. More than likely, yes. But we shall see.”
Lydia was workingon lessons for Gemma in the schoolroom when Oliver entered. Moving her books and papers aside, she smiled up at him. “Good afternoon… Did Gemma enjoy her visit with the kittens?”
“She did,” he replied, taking a seat on a comically small chair which was dwarfed by his size. It creaked ominously and he raised one brow. When the chair held, he continued, “She's asked to keep a kitten. If she cannot keep a kitten she's asked to be given a puppy… and I've asked her if she would be amenable to having you as her stepmother.”
Lydia's heart stuttered in her chest as the quill she'd been using clattered onto the desk, ink splotching the paper beneath. “What?”
“I asked Gemma if she'd like to have you as her stepmother. Would you like to know her answer, Lydia, or are you content enough as a governess that it does not matter?”
It was a craftily worded question. One that would spare him the pain of a refused proposal and her the discomfort of refusing him. “I think I should like to know.”
“Well,” he said, “in that case, I should inform you she is quite keen on the notion. As am I. Now I suppose the question is whether this is something you'd like to do immediately or if you feel you need time to accustom yourself to the notion.”
“I do not need time. I've had twelve years, after all, to experience the alternative and, quite frankly, I'd rather not waste another day,” she said. Tears burned her eyes, but they were not tears of pain or loneliness. These were not the tears of a woman who had lost her chance at happiness. Rather, they were tears of relief, of gratitude for the second chance that had been presented to her through his perseverance. “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For looking for me. For having the strength of will not to give up when you had been presented with every reason to dojust that,” Lydia answered. “I promise to give you no cause to regret it.”
Oliver rose and crossed the distance of the schoolroom from the small chair to her desk. There, he leaned over and kissed her soundly. When he pulled back, a smile hovered about his lips.
“If it's all the same to you, I think we should forgo the reading of the banns this time. It didn't work out so very well when last we did so. Common license? It's too late today, but we'll go by carriage into Northampton tomorrow.”
