The Matchmaker

by Rexanne Becnel

  Olivia graced him with a curt nod. “We’ll see about that. Who do we have behind you?”

  Mrs. Wilkins was the cook, a beefy but meek-looking woman of indeterminate age who bobbed and nodded but kept her mouth wisely shut. Mr. Hamilton’s sister-in-law, as it happened. The work-worn lass behind her was their niece, a girl of simple mind but willing disposition who gave Olivia a lopsided grin that revealed several large gaps where teeth ought to be. Milly’s grin turned into a muted “Ouch,” when Mrs. Wilkins gave her a pinch. When Olivia sent Milly to start the laundry fires, the girl scurried off, smiling her relief to escape the tension in the kitchen.

  “Now,” Olivia began. “Mrs. Wilkins, I’d like you to prepare a soup or stew or some other such this morning, something that will not require too much of your attention. For today we clean. All of us,” she added, glancing pointedly at Mr. Hamilton.

  And so they did. Every curtain and rug was hauled out of doors and draped over fences, clotheslines, and even sturdy shrubs. Mrs. Wilkins sent word to two of her sisters, and by noon a small army of women appeared, each of them eager to earn a coin or two in service at Byrde Manor. By midafternoon every window gaped open, spewing pillows and mattresses airing out. One team of women dusted and swept, while another group followed them wielding soap and mops and scrub buckets.

  The previous night’s storm had dissipated into a fair day, allowing the washing to dry without mishap. Olivia toiled alongside the other women, forgoing her desire to explore the grounds. Only when the sun inched down in the western sky and the hired women began the half-mile trek back to the village and their own households did Olivia pause.

  “Three of the women are willing to do day work, but I’m still in need of two live-in girls,” Mrs. McCaffery said, fanning herself as they perched wearily upon a bench outside the kitchen door. “And a couple of lads to see to these pitiful gardens.” She fanned harder with the pleated kitchen fan. “If I were you, Olivia, I’d give serious consideration to finding a steward who attends a mite better to his duties than does Donnie Hamilton.”

  Donnie, was it? Olivia glanced curiously at Mrs. McCaffery. “How long have you and Mr. Hamilton known one another?”

  The woman’s lips twitched, then pursed in disapproval. “Too long. I’d have thought the old coot dead by now. By rights he should’ve died in boyhood—he was that wild. A hooligan then, and a ne’er-do-well ever since.”

  Smiling, Olivia swept her palm across her damp neck, lifting several stray curls that stuck to it. “The fault lies less with him than with me.”

  Mrs. McCaffery made a huffing noise. “I’d hardly think—”

  “Now, Mrs. Mac. How many times have you remarked on the need for a tight hand with underservants?”

  “Yes, but he’s no underservant.”

  “He’s had no guidance to speak of from me or my mother or any of her solicitors. Other than the twice-yearly accounting of income and expenditures, we have left him entirely to his own devices.”

  Mrs. McCaffery snorted. “You’re just makin’ excuses for him, and don’t think I don’t know it.”

  “Perhaps. But I intend to give him the opportunity to redeem himself. If he does his duties well, then he will retain his position.”

  “And if he doesn’t?”

  Olivia smiled and patted the indignant woman on the knee. “Coming back to Byrde Manor has been unsettling for all of us. Mr. Hamilton. Me. Even you. And I suspect it will be especially so for Mother. But in time I believe we shall all be the better for it. This is my home,” she added, startled by the sudden quiver of emotion in her voice. Still she went on. “My childhood home. I was happy here once upon a time. I want to be happy here again.”

  “Ach, child.” Mrs. McCaffery covered Olivia’s hand with her own red-knuckled one. “You will be. In time you will be.”

  The next three days passed in a blur of polished brass fittings and crystal lamps, of oiled wood floors and waxed furniture, of washed windows, and cleaned-out gutters, and scrubbed-out chimneys and flues. Mrs: McCaffery commanded the servants with a fervor that would have done a colonel in the Royal Guard proud.

  As the house began to rise from its neglected condition, Olivia turned her interests to the estate it commanded. Of all the outbuildings, the stables were the best maintained, for when it came to horses, Mr. Hamilton’s interest coincided precisely with her own, even though there were few animals housed there. The rest of the grounds, however, were completely overrun, practically a thicket surrounding the house, like the vining thorns around the castle in the childhood tale of the sleeping princess.

  Under her watchful eye three lads labored long hours, slashing away at dead brush, aggressive weeds, and overgrown shrubbery. They rediscovered slate paths, repaired stone walls, and unearthed treasures Olivia barely remembered, but which Mrs. McCaffery clearly did.

  “Come April these rhododendron will bloom again,” the housekeeper assured Olivia.

  “I hope so.” Olivia scrutinized the manor’s forecourt. The driveway was at least passable now. The holes and ruts in the carriage court were daily being filled. A few shrubs in the matching cast-iron planters beside the front steps and the place might actually be termed handsome, she decided—if not by town standards, at least by country ones.

  The two women stood there a few moments in silence, while the hum of work proceeded around them. A wheelbarrow squeaked as a young man fetched a load of gravel across the yard. An ancient pony whinnied at the corral, calling to Mr. Hamilton for its afternoon treat.

  Mrs. McCaffery’s eyes narrowed as the old steward hobbled across her line of vision, heeding the animal’s call. “He ought to be ashamed to show his face around here,” she muttered.

  “He’s done everything I’ve asked of him,” Olivia countered. “With good grace, I might add.”

  “Harumph,” was the only answer she received.

  Olivia flexed her back. She was tired and hot, and she needed a reprieve. “I think I shall take a walk down to the river. I won’t be long.”

  “You should take someone with you.” Mrs. McCaffery rose reluctantly from the wooden bench rediscovered in a rose garden grown amuck but newly sheared.

  “You needn’t accompany me. I know you’re tired.”

  “I was thinkin’ of Sarah. Where has that child got to? Sarah!” she cried in carrying tones.

  In short order Olivia and her sister were trekking down the curving drive, accompanied by the old dog, Bones, who’d become as completely enamored of Sarah as she was of him.

  “He’s smart as can be,” Sarah boasted. “Watch this.” The girl patted Bones’s head and waved a stick in front of his face. “Fetch, Bones. Fetch.” Then she flung the stick as far ahead of them as she could.

  Bones, watched the stick tumble end over end, then land in the middle of the drive. But he did not evidence any indication of fetching it back.

  “Smart as a whip,” Olivia wryly echoed her sister.

  “Just you watch,” Sarah protested. “You’ll see.”

  Sure enough, when they reached the stick, old Bones nosed it around, looked up at Sarah, and yelped once. “Fetch,” she repeated, and he did.

  Sarah took the stick from him amid much petting and hugging, and even planted a kiss on his graying forehead. The dog wriggled and wagged his doggy pleasure, whacking both Olivia and Sarah with his eager tail.

  “A stupid dog would run like a fool, exhausting himself on the hottest day ever,” Sarah said, as they resumed their walk. “But Bones knows how to pace himself. A lesson,” she added pointedly, “that you’ve yet to learn.”

  “So you say. But you overlook the fact that I have infinitely more energy than this ancient mutt, not to mention a world of responsibility.” Olivia scrutinized her sister, attired in an everyday dress protected by a sturdy apron. “For all your complaints, you don’t look any the worse for wear.”

  As they approached the front gate Sarah picked up another stick and tossed it clean across the road. “If I
never have to hang wet, tangling bedsheets and curtains out to dry for as long as I live, it will not be soon enough.”

  Olivia laughed at the girl’s puckered expression. “Should I interpret that to mean you enjoy polishing silverware?”

  “No! Nor brass knobs. Nor crystal. Do you know how many crystals hang upon that dining room chandelier? Do you? Well, I do. One hundred sixty-eight!” She heaved another stick. “This isn’t even the sort of house that’s supposed to have crystal chandeliers.”

  “Be glad there’s only one,” Olivia retorted. But she smiled fondly at her sister. Despite her complaints, Sarah had been a great help, for the hired women did not dare shirk their responsibilities when the entire family worked so hard beside them. Olivia tucked a stray curl into one of the girl’s bedraggled plaits. “What do you say we take a dip in the river?”

  At once Sarah’s eyes lit up. “I say yes.” They stared at each other a moment, then in the same instant, both of them made a mad dash across the road. With their skirts held high, their laughter unfettered, and poor Bones baying in their wake, they plunged into the shady grove that separated the road from the river beyond.

  Olivia had an impression of sycamore trees and holly bushes. She heard irate squirrels and scolding wrens, and caught the fecund scent of damp growth and crushed ferns. She’d tramped these woods with her father years before, and like then, she felt an overwhelming sense of freedom in their green dappled shade. She was no sensible, responsible woman here, but rather a simple, happy child. Sarah’s laughter drew out her own, freer than it had been in years. By the time they made the riverbank, Sarah a step ahead of her, they were winded, as much by their robust laughter as by their madcap chase.

  “I win!” Sarah crowed. “Now you must do as I say.”

  “We had no bet.”

  “Coward. Come on, off with your shoes. You must test the water with your bare feet and let me know how cold it is.”

  Olivia needed no real convincing, for at that moment the constraints of social and familial responsibilities seemed as inconsequential as the feathery clouds above them. Besides, she meant to do more than simply dampen her feet today. They were sheltered from view from the road, and across from them lay more forests. With no fishermen in sight, they had the river to themselves, or at least this portion of it. Grinning at her sister, she tossed her shoes and stockings aside, then shed her apron. Sarah did the same.

  Olivia unfastened the coil that restrained her hair and shook it free. Sarah’s brows lifted in surprise, but she mimicked her sister’s move. Then Olivia raised her skirts and wriggled out of her single petticoat.

  With understanding dawning in her eyes, Sarah giggled and slid just as quickly out of her own. They stared at one another in perfect sisterly attunement.

  “Chemises only?” Sarah’s eyes glittered with excitement.

  “Chemises only.”

  If it passed through Olivia’s mind that she was far too old for such shenanigans, she buried the thought in her haste to remove her hot, sticky gown. What harm in an afternoon swim? Who was to see or to care that two sisters frolicked together as they had not done in years?

  On the opposite bank of the meandering river Tweed, Neville heard feminine laughter and it stopped him in his tracks. The wind was capricious, rustling through the willows and sycamores that crowded the river banks. The forest creatures were alive with sound this afternoon, twittering, scurrying, chattering. Perhaps it was not laughter at all, but something else. Still, he cocked his head, listening past all the ordinary sounds for the extraordinary one he could not have imagined. It came again, a little shriek, a peal of laughter—and the certainty that it must be Olivia settled over him. It must be her, for he knew now that she had a penchant for riverbanks.

  Though a true gentleman would not spy on her, Neville could not resist.

  Dismounting, he led his horse through the cool shade, following the voices—there were at least two—upstream a short way. Then a flash of movement, a splash, and a shriek, accompanied by a child’s unfettered laughter, drew him to the edge of the willow glade, and to a sight he could hardly credit. Sarah Palmer stood knee deep in the river wearing only her chemise, and laughing so hard she could barely keep her balance.

  But it was Olivia who took his breath away.

  Olivia rising soaking wet from the river. Olivia with her long autumn-colored hair clinging to her shoulders and arms. Olivia with her knee-length chemise painted wetly to her skin, displaying the curve of her derriere, the shape of her thighs, and—when she flung her hair over her shoulder and turned laughing to pursue her sister—the perfect shape of her perfect breasts.

  “Damnation.” The oath whistled past his lips without conscious thought. His eyes, however, remained very conscious of everything they saw. Her arms were pale and bare; her knees and calves as well. And beneath the wet, revealing lawn of her undergarment, the rest of her would be pale and shapely as well—save for the taut peaks of her breasts. Those would be darker. Dusky. Rose-hued.

  He let out a muffled groan when she pivoted away from him, denying him a frontal view and a longer glimpse of those pebbled nipples shadowed behind her flimsy garb. When she bent to direct a spray of water at her sister, however, the view of her lovely posterior was just as delectable, and he felt the heat of desire pool low in his groin.

  He’d deliberately avoided Olivia for the past few days, allowing her and him some distance from one another. He’d also needed to master the nausea and shakiness that the absence of liquor had visited upon him. But he was feeling better today, and so had decided to ride over to Byrde Manor to see how his new neighbors were faring and make an offer of assistance to them. In truth, however, he just wanted to see Olivia again. He’d been desperate to do so.

  Well, he could see her now, more of her than he’d dared hope. More of her than was wise, it would seem.

  His eyes followed her, how she sank shoulder-deep in the river, how her hair spread like a dark red mantle around her. He watched her float, first on her back, then on her stomach. When she rose and beckoned to her sister to venture deeper with her, he shifted from one foot to the other. She was a nymph, a woodland goddess. Were she naked, she could not appear any more desirable, any more delicious than she did in that film of clinging, translucent linen.

  “… won’t let you sink. You were close to swimming when we had your last lesson,” she cajoled Sarah.

  “I don’t trust you. James said he would not let me sink either, but I very nearly drowned.”

  “Surely you cannot compare me to our lunatic of a brother. He thinks everything is a joke.”

  From his position beneath a cascading willow, Neville watched Sarah frown. “You promise not to let go of me? Not to let me sink or let my head go under?”

  Olivia stretched her arms wide and once more her lovely bosom appeared in profile, and this time her nipples showed, darker and peaked. He groaned in true pain.

  “We will not even be over your head,” she said. “Look, Sarah. You can stand up whenever you like.”

  It seemed to take forever. Neville remained as still as stone in his leafy bower as Sarah slowly waded deeper. Olivia was reassuring but firm, and Sarah grew braver as the lesson progressed. She floated a while, then finally ducked her face and came up laughing. It reminded him of training horses, the same sort of patience. The same sort of affection.

  When Olivia and her sister finally chased one another out of the river and disappeared behind a stand of lilies and arrowheads to don their clothes, however, it seemed that time had sped by too fast. He blinked, trying to clear his eyes and his head, then with one hand rubbed the back of his neck.

  Once more he’d played the cad, observing Olivia in a private moment that a better man than him would have respected. A gentleman would have turned away and not stood there gawking. A gentleman would not have succumbed to the wave of desire that rose in him now.

  “… just strip off your wet chemise and put your dry petticoat and dress on,”
he heard Olivia tell her sister. “No one will see us. And even if someone should come along, they would never know.”

  Someone would, Neville decided, banishing the gentleman he ought to be. Olivia sans undergarments, her hair wet and clinging to her disheveled gown. He could no more miss this opportunity than he could cease dreaming about his sweet and starchy neighbor. His prim yet wanton Hazel.

  So he mounted Robin and began to whistle, and after a moment guided the animal through the woods, onto a narrow cowpath, and out into plain view along the grassy riverbank. Nary a sound came from the dressing grove across the way, and he did not look in that direction. He just kept whistling the same pretty melody he and Olivia had danced to, and guided Robin hock-deep into the merrily tripping waters.

  “Lord Neville—”

  “Shh.”

  “Hello?” He looked up, feigning surprise at Sarah’s call—and Olivia’s vain attempt to silence her. “Sarah, is that you? Have you come to fish? You know, there are better spots just downstream.”

  The child burst through the thicket, wet and grinning, but fully dressed. “We weren’t fishing at all. I was just having a swimming lesson. It’s fortunate you did not arrive two minutes earlier for you would most certainly have been surprised to see me and Olivia—”

  “Sarah!”

  Belatedly, Olivia stumbled from behind their verdant dressing screen. Her hair was twisted into a heavy damp rope and lay across one of her shoulders dampening her bodice. Otherwise, she looked reasonably presentable. But Neville knew she wore no chemise. Why that should send a surge of heat rocketing through him he did not understand, for she nonetheless remained entirely covered, neck to wrists to ankles. But she had not been just minutes ago, and his new knowledge of what lay hidden beneath all that female frippery—or perhaps because it was hidden—made his heart thud with unnatural violence.

  Damn, but he wanted her!

  That her green and golden brown eyes were wary and tinged, perhaps with guilt, only strengthened that reckless desire. She feared he knew and that he’d seen them.