Whenever Mrs. Baxter offered a position, Lydia's first question was never the salary nor the family, but the county. There were places she had deliberately avoided for twelve years. Places where memory lingered too readily and where anunexpected encounter might undo the life she had spent so many years constructing. She had declined excellent situations rather than venture too near them. Was it foolish of her to have assumed that Mrs. Baxter would apply those rules without her having specifically demanded it on that occasion?
She would never have accepted the offer of employment had she known it might jeopardize her anonymity, the disguise that she’d worn for so very long it felt more like her true identity than that of the girl she’d once been.
The carriage rounded another gentle curve. A small stone bridge crossed a narrow stream, and beyond it stood an ivy-covered chapel that she knew only too well. Abandoned since the reformation, stripped of anything of value, it was little more than a ruin. But she’d gone there with Oliver. Countless times. They’d slip away from the inn as their families traveled to Hartwell to make wedding plans and to redecorate his house to their standard. And they’d walk amongst the fallen stones and occasionally slip from view long enough for a stolen kiss.
She gulped in air and grew lightheaded as she was unable to expel it. Her lungs had seized entirely. Panic. It was nothing but pure panic which had her in its thrall. Is it? The tiny voice whispering in her head would give her no peace. Because it wasn’t simply panic. It was grief. It was pain she’d buried so deeply for so long that she feared it would overwhelm her entirely given a single opportunity.
Lydia closed her eyes, forcing herself to relax, forcing the tension from her body until at last she exhaled sharply with a loud whoosh. Then as they passed through the village, just beyond it, the road forked and the carriage turned left. All other possibilities were forfeit at that point because that road had only one possible destination. Hartwell Hall.
Try as she might, she could not force herself to sit back, to not greedily drink in the sights that should have been hers daily.And when the carriage turned off the lane onto the pebbled drive leading to the house, she took as much of a steadying breath as she could muster. There was a strange kind of calm that came with the notion that what was about to occur was inevitable. She would do this. She could get through this. After all, she’d gotten through so much worse.
Lydia allowed her gaze to pan the scenery. At first she thought the color a trick of the light. A faint haze of violet lay across the hillside, so delicate it scarcely seemed real. But as the horses continued steadily forward, the color of those blooms deepened. Row upon perfect row of lavender plants spread away from the road, the breeze carrying the unmistakable scent through the open carriage window.
Not a garden, she thought. It was a crop. Acres upon acres of lavender stretched out before them. Even had she not recognized the scenery, she would have known. Hartwell lavender was much in demand. On her pittance of a governess’ salary she could not afford to purchase it, but that didn’t alter the fact that many a maid had spent their last guinea to have the small luxury of clean-smelling, sweetly scented clothing.
He’d often complained about his mother’s obsession for her lavender plants. And then he’d done something that was uniquely Oliver. He’d found a way to make it work, to use that to salvage his estates. Would he still have done that had they married? The idea that her sacrifice might have been for nothing struck so deeply it felt like a blow. But then she quickly dismissed it. There was no point in second guessing things she could no longer change. The only option available to her was to move forward, and that meant confronting all that she’d walked away from so long ago.
But that was easier said than done. When the carriage rolled to a halt before the house’s main entrance, every instinct she possessed told her to flee. To run. To escape the agony thatsurely awaited her inside. Had he known? Had he ever imagined that it might be her who Mrs. Baxter would send? Instantly she dismissed the notion. She had been so careful. She’d avoided working with any families that had been known to either of them before, staying primarily with landed gentry who remained in the countryside or even working with the bourgeois who so desperately longed to bridge the divide between the haute Ton and themselves.
For several moments she remained exactly where she was. At last the door opened and the footman lowered the steps. "Miss Mercer."
Twelve years. Twelve long years. She was no longer Miss Lydia Whitby. She certainly was not Lady Charlotte. There was one role for her to fulfill within the walls of that esteemed house. She was Lydia Mercer, a most excellent governess. And there was a child inside—his child—who needed her.
She accepted the offered hand, though she scarcely trusted her own feet to carry her. The moment she stepped onto the gravel she became acutely aware of the house itself, every familiar window seeming to watch her return. For all her bravado about being needed there, she felt very small and very insignificant. Because he had moved on, had he not? He’d married another, as she’d hoped he would. But hoping for it in theory and facing the painful reality of it were two very different things.
The front door stood open. Another servant waited just inside. Stedmore, the butler who had tended the family for three generations. His slightly rheumy eyes met hers only briefly before widening in unmistakable recognition. The expression vanished almost instantly beneath impeccable discipline, yet she had seen it. Neither age nor tired eyes had dulled him. He knew her. Within a second of looking at her. He knew.
As she crossed the threshold, she became conscious of other glances. A maid carrying fresh linen slowed almost imperceptibly.A groom passing through the entrance hall looked twice before remembering himself.
Not a single one of them spoke. In fact, a pin drop would have sounded like the crack of thunder in that hall.
Stedmore appeared almost immediately, his expression revealing nothing whatever. "My lord is expecting you, Miss Mercer."
The deliberate use of her assumed name afforded a measure of relief she had not expected. "If you would be so kind."
He inclined his head and led her across the entrance hall. The familiar scent of beeswax mingling with lavender drifting through the open windows. It would have been her home.
Every step, limited as they were, felt like a canyon. Every second between her current location and the door that stood between her and fate was torture. She alternately wanted to run to it and from it.
When they did finally reach the study door, her pulse had become so violent she feared Stedmore must surely hear it. He knocked softly and waited to be bade enter. Only then did he open the door. There he stood, blocking her entrance and her view—keeping her from seeing the man who had haunted her dreams for a dozen years. Another obstacle.
"My lord... Miss Mercer has arrived."
"Show her in."
The voice beyond the door had deepened with the passing years, yet she knew it instantly. Stedmore opened the door wider, urging her in. On legs that trembled, Lydia crossed the threshold.
Oliver stood before the windows with his back toward her, one hand resting lightly upon the mantel as he looked across the lavender fields beyond the lawn. For one impossiblemoment she saw not the gentleman before her but the young man who had once stood in this very room arguing, with entirely unwarranted confidence, that chartreuse wallpaper had redeeming qualities if only she would permit him to prove it.
As shocking as the site of him was the room itself. It was like stepping backward into time. The study itself seemed scarcely altered. The same desk stood before the windows. The same books lined the shelves. The same globe occupied its place beside the hearth.
Of course. Oliver had always been stubborn. If he had once determined that nothing ought to change, she could think of no force on earth likely to persuade him otherwise.
The door closed quietly behind her and she jumped even at the low snick of the latch. Her nerves were fraught from the day, from the realization that she could no longer run from her past.
Oliver turned. The years had marked him. There were threads of silver at his temples and a gravity to his expression that youth had never known, but it was unmistakably the same face she had carried in memory for twelve years.
His expression betrayed nothing. Neither surprise nor satisfaction showed on the hard planes of his face or within the fiercely blue gaze that had locked solidly on her. Then he spoke, his tone as dry as if they were just being introduced at Almack’s. ”Hello, Lydia.” He allowed only the briefest pause before continuing with quiet civility. "You are looking well. I trust your journey was a pleasant one?"
