Page 3 of This Marquess of Mine

She swallowed, her mind oddly numb. “Caroline is going to have a baby.”

A baby.Her stepmother was pregnant.

It was silly to be so bemused by the news. Her father married Caroline more than a year ago. She knew this day would come eventually. Still, the image of her father with a new little family had always seemed strange and abstract, a reality for the distant future.

That it was nearly upon her now…

She could not seem to wrap her mind around it.

“I see,” Aunt Augusta said softly, her gaze trained on Olivia’s face. “Well, your father will be pleased.”

Olivia huffed out a humorless laugh. “He certainly will be if the child is male.”

The words stung her throat, and her chest ached, though she knew it shouldn’t. Not anymore. She’d had these last twenty years to accept her father’s disregard, after all. So why did it still hurt so much?

“Are you all right, my dear?” Sympathy shone in her aunt’s eyes.

Olivia forced a smile she knew would fool no one, and chirped, “Of course! I knew this news was imminent. It is the reason my father decreed this will be my last Season, and the reason I must find a husband before it ends. Father needs to economize.”

Her gaze fell to the letter in her lap, and she absent-mindedly smoothed her fingers along the creases in the paper. She hated that her father was forcing her hand this way, making her choose a husband to keep him from choosing one for her, even as a part of her understood his reasons. A London Season was not inexpensive, and he’d granted her three of them. Three Seasons ought to be plenty of time for an earl’s daughter to make a satisfactory match.

Still, it hurt that he didn’t seem to care who she married. And that his new family mattered to him so much more than she did.

“I’m sorry, dearest,” Aunt Augusta said with a squeeze to Olivia’s shoulder. “I wish I could talk some sense into your father. I wish I could change things for you.”

Olivia nodded. “I know you do,” she said. “But there is no sense in dwelling on that, is there? And I’m thrilled for Caroline. Truly I am. I know how much she longs to be a mother.”

“Yes,” Aunt Augusta said. “She will be a wonderful mother. And you will be a sister soon.”

Olivia stilled as the words penetrated her brain. The thought hadn’t occurred to her. How strange. “Yes, I suppose I will,” she said softly. Though how well she would come to know her new sibling remained to be seen.

Aunt Augusta’s gaze was assessing, her silence probing, and Olivia rose to her feet, eager to escape. “Well, I think I shall change out of this gown now and do a little pruning in the garden.”

With her letter in hand and her smile firmly in place, she headed for the door, hopeful that some time spent in her little garden amongst the marigolds and lavender and the warm spring sun would set her to rights again. Or, at the very least, distract her.

“Olivia, dear…”

Aunt Augusta’s voice beckoned her to stay, but Olivia did not pause on her way to the door. She already knew what her aunt would say, and she had no desire to listen to words of comfort. Not when her emotions were so close to the surface.

She was happy for Caroline. She’d meant that. She did not know her stepmother well, but she liked her, and liked that she seemed to make her father happy when he’d had so little happiness since Olivia’s mother died.

Caroline would make him happier still with the birth of this child. Perhaps it would be the boy he’d always wanted, the boy he’d always wished Olivia had been.

Perhaps Earl Blakely would finally get his heir. And then, perhaps, he would finally stop hating her.