Chapter 5
Goodbye, My Lady
Olivia spent the next three days sulking in her bedroom, which was both a privilege and a curse of her newfound gentry status. In fact, she actually missed her work, because it would have helped take her mind off the misery that tormented her at every turn.
The Earl of Balton.
How she longed for him. She longed for those gentle, sapphire eyes. She longed for his hands, soft yet strong, and the clean smell of his clothing, and the glimmering clarity of his hair. But it was more than just a desire for his physical company. He represented something to her she never imagined could have existed: a smart, kind, educated gentleman who cared to listen to her desires and strove to better the world around him. During her enforced solitude, she inquired about his estate. She found that his workers were treated well and fairly, and that all his study in class conditions resulted in a positive effect on those he was responsible for. It was as if God himself had opened the curtains of heaven, and lowered a celestial hand to comfort the weary traveller, to say he did know of the traveller’s plight and suffering, and he was trying to do something about it.
Alas, it was too good to be true. But not Lord Balton. He seemed in every regard to be honest to Olivia. It was she who was too good to be true. In fact, she was a total lie.
Twice, Lord Balton called on the estate in his desire to see her. Twice, she had the butler turn him away. The first time should have been enough. It was considered extremely forward to attempt the second. And yet, Lord Balton apparently cared enough for her to try.
This made the second time all the harder.
She tried talking to Camille about her feelings, but she found the vacant woman did nothing but echo her sentiments, like an extremely well-groomed parrot. She was happy to listen, of course, always eagerly so, but she could never comment with thoughts of her own.
Several times, she had gone down to talk to Thomas, but nearly every time she saw him devotedly helping the real Isabella. She was grateful he was taking great pains to make sure this plan worked, but nonetheless she ended up even more melancholy after every one of these failed meetings.
Who she wanted to talk to the most, of course, was Lord Balton. And he was the last person in the world in whom she could confide.
Finally, when she could not take it anymore, she ordered her horse prepared. She would tolerate no chaperones. She wanted time alone, out in the countryside where she felt truly at home.
She mounted her horse like a man. The startled gasps of witnesses could not begin to dent the resolve she felt inside her. With a cry and a kick of her heels, the horse was off.
She had no clear plan of where she was going. The morning was wet with dew, and the fog heavy, but she did not care. She just wanted to pound out her pent-up energy in the endless thunder of the horse’s hooves, and drown the endless cycling of her thoughts in the wind that howled in her ears. She did not direct the horse, but let it choose its own path. She rode until her muscles ached and her horse was lathered with sweat. At last, her thirst and exhaustion compelled her to slow, and to amble to the stream that flowed nearby. She bent, and, like a servant, not a lady, splashed her face with its cool mountain water.
“To be that water, which touches upon your every feature,” said a wistful voice. Startled, Olivia gasped and whirled around. There, on the very tree over the stream where they had kissed, sat the Earl of Balton.
She gaped stupidly at him, water dripping down into her open mouth.
He chuckled, leapt from the downed tree with the grace of a cat, and approached. Lovingly, like he would for a child, he took the end of his coat in his hand and wiped her cheeks and chin dry.
“How did you know I would be here?” she whispered.
“I did not. I have been coming here for my own solace for several days now. It is, then, a divine symbol of fate that you should appear as well.”
“It was not my intention to see you,” she said, her heart pounding.
“I presumed that, when I saw you dunk your lovely head into the water beside your horse,” he said.
She felt like someone struggling for purchase on a sheet of ice. No matter how she placed herself, her feet would slip out from beneath her, and she would fall deeper and deeper in love with him.
Her lower lip trembled.
“Please, my Lord. Do not mock me.”
“I could never mock that which I admire. You seem … so much more in touch with life, with the immediate physical necessity, than any of the pampered princesses I usually meet who walk the halls of estates such as ours. How did you learn such humility?”
Olivia stared at him. For a moment, her secret trembled on her lips, like the edge of water fighting to overflow from a bowl. It would solve things, she thought, simply to reveal her shameful birth. He would flee her in an instant, and she would never be haunted by his handsomeness again.
But the horror his face would show … she could not bear it. And it would be betraying Isabella, who, privileged and entitled as she was, had afforded her this incredible opportunity.
When she did not answer, the Earl cupped her cheeks in his hands, and compelled her to meet his gaze. “I see that you love me,” he breathed into her. “It is written in your eyes. Why then, this fear? This hesitancy?”
Olivia’s self-control splintered. The tears she had been fighting so hard to keep back spilled over.
“I cannot be with you,” she said.
“But, my Lady, please – ”
“No, Lord Balton. All the loving words in the world cannot change this fact. I cannot be with you.”
“But, my Lady, I know! I know that.”
“Enough!” she cried, and for a moment, she really could have been born royalty. “I do not wish to see you! Why do you plague me with your presence? Be gone from here! These are my lands, and I no longer welcome you upon them!”
The Earl’s protests evaporated on his lips, like sweet drops of water beneath a scathing, merciless sun.
“If that is truly your desire,” he murmured. Then he stood. Despite the grief that wracked him, the grief that painted his eyes with gloom and made every breath a struggle, his shoulders were held straight, and his gait was dignified.
“Goodbye, my Lady.” He bowed and walked away. Through the fog, she could hear him mount his horse, and kick it into a gallop. She stayed where she was and listened until the sound was swallowed up by the endless silence of distance. Only then did she remount her own horse and plod steadily home.
Regency Romance: Each Other Page 5