Page 2 of Waiting for Love

She hadn’t expected him. A captain in the king’s army, he was always coming and going to and from the peninsula. Apparently, he was one of General Wellington’s couriers, and when the great man called, Crispin jumped. Because of this, he’d missed Reg’s wedding. She was relieved he was not going to miss Jasper’s.

Crispin leaned forward a hair, allowing Olivia a glimpse of the man standing beside him. For a moment, her feet felt like deadweight, and she nearly stumbled. Benjamin. Unmistakably Benjamin. But he wasn’t alone. He held a pretty, dark-haired child in his arms.

Olivia continued her march to the altar, a huge smile on her face that was now decidedly false. When she reached the front of the church, she nodded to Jasper, who looked calm and lordly, then gave Hazard a quick punch on the arm before taking her place. She turned to watch Vanessa enter the church, heard Jasper’s breath catch, and watched sister-in-law-number-two walk down the aisle.

She didn’t look at Benjamin. She couldn’t. Not when she felt so ridiculously betrayed. Why hadn’t anyone told her? It didn’t matter. Of course, it didn’t. It made sense he would be married with children by now. It made no difference. She was no longer in love with him. She never had been. She’d been a child!

So why did it feel as though her whole world had just been emptied of joy?

*

Mr. Benjamin Carroll knew he should not have come to the wedding. He was steward to the Earl of Iversley, not Jasper Taverston’s friend. Those boundaries were not porous. The fact that Jasper was marrying a commoner changed nothing. Or, if it did, it meant Jasper should enforce the boundaries in his other dealings more rigidly, not less so.

And yet, once Crispin had slipped into the pew beside him, laughing at the world and poking fun at Jasper behind his back, Benjamin forgot himself. He joked in return. It was as if they had parted ways yesterday not years ago. He relaxed and allowed himself to admire, once again, the beautiful old church with its shadowed niches, dark mahogany pews, candle-wax scent, and startlingly colorful windows. He had always enjoyed accompanying the family here for services. For nearly an hour, he fell back into the role of an old Oxford chum.

Until the processional music began. And he glanced toward the door. And there she stood.

Olivia. It knocked the wind from him. She was, of course, no longer the skinny, braids-in-her-hair hoyden who had relentlessly tagged after them, all over the Taverston estate, when he’d accompanied Jasper and Crispin home on break from university. Nor was she the earnest, embarrassed, blossoming young girl who’d horrified him with her ill-suited pink ruffled dress, wide eyes, and utterly inappropriate declaration in the billiard room. With no one else present.

She was…a blow to the chest.

In that billiard room, he’d been as gentle as he could under the circumstances, but she’d still burst out sobbing. This girl who could bark her shins on a wooden boat or tumble down a rocky slope and skin her elbow raw without shedding a tear, had cried because of him. Lud. He’d thrust a handkerchief into her hand, fled the room, fled the Taverstons’ estate. He’d fled to godforsaken Canada.

He should have stayed there.

Benjamin shifted his attention to Hannah, the little Canadian squirming in his arms. He had intended to leave the girl with Miss Jamison, her nanny, but the combination of the long coach ride from London and the strangeness of the Danforths’ cottage had the poor child terrified and he couldn’t abandon her. She was well-behaved, generally, so long as he was near. He was probably spoiling her, as Miss Jamison warned, but Hannah had suffered far too much in her two-and-a-half years. He wouldn’t allow her to suffer anything he could prevent.

Upon joining them, Crispin had assessed the situation correctly, which somehow didn’t surprise. After greeting Benjamin, he offered his hand to Hannah with a winning smile. When Hannah turned away to bury her face in Benjamin’s shoulder, Crispin didn’t tease her for shyness or insist upon being acknowledged or, worst of all, pat her head and exclaim about her curls. Instead, he withdrew his hand and ignored her. Tantrum averted.

A change in the sounds around him from fidgeting and coughing to delighted “ahs” alerted Benjamin to the fact that the bride had appeared. He turned with the rest of the congregation to face the back of the church. So this was the woman who had won Jasper’s heart. She was very pretty, with thick chestnut hair and a pleasing figure, though not the stunning beauty one might have expected. No simpering debutante, she possessed an air of maturity that made sense, given her history. A war widow as he understood it, from Jasper’s telling. And she’d been making her own way these past several months, imagining marriage between an earl and a mill owner’s daughter turned courtesan to be an impossibility. Leave it to the Taverstons to make the impossible possible.

Along with the rest of the congregation, Benjamin pivoted as Vanessa walked past on the arm of a proud young fellow who could be a cousin or brother. Benjamin followed her with his eyes until she reached the altar. To stand beside Olivia. It was wrong to think it, but the bride paled in comparison. Olivia’s smile captivated. Her golden hair, piled atop her head, shone like sunlight. The gray gown she wore set off the cream of her skin, skimming the curves of her slender frame. Benjamin dropped his gaze, his face warm. He had no business noticing her curves.

Age was not the issue. No doubt the now-marriageable young woman would soon be betrothed to a gentleman older than Benjamin’s twenty-seven years. But she was a lady. And he was her brother’s steward.

His throat tightened. This train of thought was absurd. He had never considered Olivia in these terms. She’d been a child. And he didn’t know the young woman she had become. It would be disastrous to start thinking of her with any sort of familiarity now.

Thankfully, she could not still be carrying a torch for him. Nevertheless, he would continue to reject Jasper’s suggestion that, for everyone’s convenience, he should move into a wing of their home. Not until after she married and moved away. Just in case. An infatuated Olivia was one complication too many.

The music ended and the rector exhorted them to bow their heads. Benjamin scarcely listened to the rote words but “Amen-ed” after And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love. He started at the emphatic amen echoed by Crispin. Then smiled at Hannah’s “menmen” and her tentative patting of Crispin’s arm. Crispin goggled-eyed her, and Hannah laughed her sweet baby laugh.

The ceremony began. When the rector asked, “Who gives this woman…” the young stranger answered, “I do,” in such a forceful tone that no one questioned his right to do so, not that anyone would have questioned the Earl of Iversley’s right to claim her.

It warmed Benjamin to the core to see Jasper’s expression as he made his heartfelt responses. Vanessa too. Their happiness had been hard-earned.

He only hoped it would last. There was no greater recipe for marital disaster than the clashing of the classes.

Chapter Two

The wedding breakfast was a lovely tradition, one that allowed the newly married couple to finally eat after the nerve-wracking preparations of the morning. The guests too.

Olivia clutched her sausage-and-bread-roll-laden plate while surveying the dining hall. Instead of their long, formal dining table, tea tables were scattered around the room. It made for a comfortable, casual arrangement that would permit the family and guests to circulate as they sampled the fare—cakes of every sort, brandied pears, dried berries and cream, sausages, kippers, sliced ham—all arrayed temptingly on the buffet. The tall windows along the east wall were closed against the October chill, but the silver velvet drapes were pulled back to let the sun warm the blue-and-white tiled floor. Olivia and her brothers made fun of Chaumbers’ architectural irregularities, but none of them had ever complained about the dining hall.

She was looking for Alice. They had become fast friends a year earlier when Alice accompanied Georgiana to Chaumbers.

There. Alice sat at a corner table with Hazard. Olivia hesitated to join them because they were engaged in a serious-appearing tête-à-tête. Which was odd for Hazard, who was the least serious man Olivia knew. It was odd, too, that Hazard was not sharing Jasper and Vanessa’s table along with Reg and Georgiana. He’d been Jasper’s dearest friend forever, and, from what Olivia had heard, he’d also established a close bond with Vanessa.

But Hazard and Alice? Olivia had noticed that the two were friendly, but she’d immediately dismissed the thought of any romance between them. Alice had been a debutante just last Season. She was twenty years old to Hazard’s…forty? He was going a bit gray at the temples. Though that alone needn’t be a deterrent to a courtship. True, Hazard required an heir and Alice needed a husband. But Hazard was a confirmed bachelor. Only recently had Olivia come to understand what that meant. It had dawned on her while watching Hazard’s face at unguarded moments—while he watched Jasper. It had seemed bizarre to her at first. But then, she’d thought: well, why not?