Aunt Eunice turned on her. ‘Cousin Mariah, I believe you were quite specific in your instructions to Olivia.’ She glared, first at her cousin, then at Max. ‘Atonement and honour, I believe were the words Cousin Mariah used to shame Olivia into helping her with her plan to ensure Lucy was under no illusions that her admirer was a philanderer.’
‘How dare you accuse me—’
Aunt Eunice cut her off, her accusing glare still turned upon Max.
‘Now my poor Olivia has been returned to Nathaniel Kirkman! Against her wishes, for I suspect your anger overruled your judgement, Mr Atherton, did it not?’
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
LINED UP SIDE by side on the wooden table in Nathaniel’s room the two gold coins looked surprisingly dull. Worthless, unless she had known otherwise.
They were to have been Olivia’s passport to happiness; atonement to Max, they were to have won back his love.
‘You’re cleverer than I thought, Olivia,’ Nathaniel murmured, tearing his gaze from the coins. ‘After all these years you’ve found the fortune which sent Lucien mad.’
‘But only I know where it is, Nathaniel,’ she reminded him.
Nathaniel chuckled. ‘It’s a wonder we never bumped into one another, my dear, during our mutual nocturnal quest. For years I’ve searched every priest hole, nook and cranny I could think of.’
‘I never believed the stories,’ Olivia said stonily. ‘I stumbled upon it by accident.’
His hand darted to the key around her neck. ‘Then why this?’
She shrugged, then laughed. ‘This is not the key Lucien gave me. It is the key to Elmwood where I shall soon return.’
Pressing against her side Nathaniel clapped her on the shoulder and gave a humourless laugh, his gaze returning to the gold. ‘Ever the dreamer, Olivia. Still, no matter if it is not the right key as you are clearly able to lead me to the prize.’ He took her arm. ‘Besides, I was not leaving anything to chance. I had my own copy made.’ Pocketing the coins, he turned. ‘Time to order a carriage.’
‘I have no intention of meekly leading you to the gold.’
‘There is nothing meek about you, Olivia, when your blood is up.’ He pinched her cheek. ‘It’s one of the things I’ve always liked about you. Of course you have no intention of leading me to the gold, just as I have no intention of leaving open the possibility of your escape, since leading me to the gold is exactly what you will do.’
He strode to the door. Grasping the knob he smiled at her. ‘You must be patient, my dear, until I’ve returned. And save your breath if you’ve any plans of shrieking for help. I shall tell the publican you’re a lightskirt who has stolen from me and that I’m off to fetch the magistrate.’ His gaze travelled the length of her costume, so revealing and inappropriate in the light of day. With another chuckle he added, ‘The way you’re dressed they’ll not disbelieve me.’
Olivia sank on to the bed and buried her head in her hands when Nathaniel had gone. Once, she had believed he had her interests at heart; that he had cared when Lucien had beaten or humiliated her. What a fool she had been.
Graft and gain had been his motive the entire time.
For a while she wept, curled upon the counterpane. It was a relief to choke out the sobs which racked her body until she felt it had no more substance than the clothes she wore.
And what clothes! How appropriate, she thought bitterly, that she should be dressed like a whore as her dreams exploded in her face. Yet what could Nathaniel do to her that her espousal of the truth to the world could not?
Sitting up, she sucked in a breath, trembling with the realization of what she must do. She had been waiting for direction from Max. Just as she had since the day she married Lucien, she had been waiting for a man to tell her what to do. The time had come to make her own decisions, and remain true to them.
Please, let there be time! she thought, as she ran to the desk where Nathaniel had been in the midst of writing a sermon when she’d arrived. How she wished she had done this the moment he’d left the room. She had no idea how long she’d been weeping.
She was scribbling upon the second page when Nathaniel returned.
Horrified, she tried to hide the parchment, but his gaze from the doorway took in her stricken, guilty look before it travelled towards the hand she concealed behind her back.
‘You’ve shown admirable restraint,’ he remarked, crossing the room towards her. ‘The servants haven’t heard a peep from you. Now, let’s see what this drama-filled tale of imprisonment contains.’ He put out his hand for the paper.
When she refused to give it to him he snatched it from her, reading it with interest and chuckling several times.
‘You don’t believe in half measures, do you?’ His tone was admiring.
‘A full and frank baring of the truth, no less.’
‘It is not finished—’
‘Yes, there is a little editing to be done.’ Nathaniel continued to pace before the grate, still studying the parchment. ‘If we dispense with the first paragraph in which you claim to be held prisoner against your will, I think it will do very well.’ He frowned. ‘Had you planned to throw this out of the window, my dear, in the hopes of being rescued? Foolish of me not to have thought of it, yet I am pleased you have so conveniently orchestrated an alternative future for yourself. I had not decided what was to be done with you once you’d furnished me with the gold.’
His cryptic words filled her with panic. She tried to snatch the parchment from him but he held it above his head, gripping her shoulder with his other hand.
‘It is not finished, Nathaniel!’ Olivia cried again, her hands tearing the air in her desperation to reclaim the document, so damning in its truncated state.
‘But you are, Lady Farquhar!’ he responded grimly, ‘and so are your dreams of cosy domesticity with your heroic Mr Atherton.’ He pushed her away from him as he made for the door. ‘Where is he now?’ he sneered. ‘Where is the hero who delivered you into my very hands?’ He tapped the paper before turning the door knob. ‘You are confessing to the very crime of which he believes you guilty. He’ll not disbelieve it when he hears your burdened conscience has prompted your flight far, far away where nobody will ever find you.’
She felt the knot of fear and hope pull tighter when he said cheerfully, ‘It would however appear Mr Atherton’s conscience is pricked by his shabby treatment. He was asking for you a short while ago.’
Olivia stopped her pacing and gripped the bedpost for support.
Max was here? He had returned?
Surely it could mean only one thing? That he had realized the error he had made and had come to take her home.
She could not believe Nathaniel would resort to violence, like Lucien. Yet his insidious character had begun to frighten her more than Lucien ever had. Lucien’s anger found its outlet upon the instant. He was not a man who would patiently plot his revenge.
She realized Nathaniel had told her so he could enjoy her suffering.
‘What lies was he told?’ she asked dully.
‘I informed the publican that you were, on account of your nervous disposition, on your way home to Mortlock. Your outrageous rig-out helped persuade him you were not quite right in the top loft.’ He chuckled. ‘If you made no noise he may well have presumed you’d already left. Now!’ Striding to the table he pulled out more paper and dipped his quill in the ink. ‘To business, my dear. There are several letters for you to write in addition to putting your signature to the bottom of this delightfully damning little document.’
‘Max will find me!’ Olivia declared, firming her grip on the back of the chair by the still unlit grate, refusing his offer of a seat at the desk.
‘Once he learns that infidelity is not amongst my crimes he will pursue me to the ends of the earth! And then you!’
‘He’ll have to be persistent to get that far!’ Impatiently, he tapped the paper. ‘Come over here, Olivia and take up your pen. Mr Atherton is on horseback so I’d
give him an hour before he turns back after failing to pass us on the road. As soon as we’ve done this’ – he picked up the quill and put it in her hand as he dragged her over – ‘we shall leave, taking a more circuitous route. We should reach The Lodge by early afternoon.’ He rubbed his hands together after pushing her down upon the seat. ‘By this afternoon I shall be a rich man.’
Olivia let out a bold laugh as she shrugged out of his grasp. ‘You think the gold is hidden there? Why, you have no idea where it is and nor shall you, for I swear, Nathaniel, I shall not reveal my secret unless you plan to murder me for it and then what would it profit you?’
He shrugged, as if her intransigence was of no account. ‘You misjudge me, Olivia, if you think I had not considered I might have to resort to extraordinary measures to overcome your reluctance. Mary!’ In response to his shout the door opened and across the threshold stepped one of the inn servants, a dirty, dishevelled girl bearing a squirming toddler in her arms.
A look of delight crossed the boy’s face as he was deposited to the ground. Running across the floorboards he held his arms wide.
‘Mama!’ he cried.
She was allowed to hold him on her lap. Julian wrapped his arms around Olivia’s neck and rubbed his plump rosy cheek against hers in a rare burst of spontaneous affection.
‘When your touching reunion is over you can write the first letter to your aunts, reassuring them that you will be waiting for them at the dower house tomorrow. He held up his hand to stay her objection, his plump oily face twisted with malice. ‘If you do not, Olivia my dear, this is the last time you will see your little bastard alive.’
Max was back in Bath by mid morning but with no stomach for the eggs and haddock on which his sister and her husband were no doubt sustaining themselves, judging by the smell which wafted out of the front door.
Wearily, he entered the house. He needed to take stock and decide what to do next before he walked the few streets to Laura Place to inform Olivia’s aunts of his failed mission.
‘Max! You look like the devil!’ Jonathon greeted him cheerfully, looking up from his laden breakfast plate.
‘Like you haven’t been to bed,’ Amelia added, dabbing her mouth daintily with her napkin.
‘I haven’t!’ Max snapped, sinking into a chair, accepting the cup of coffee his sister poured for him.
‘Surely you haven’t spent all this time looking for Lady Farquhar?’ Amelia grunted her disapproval. ‘Miss Dingley was asking after you. Apparently her niece took it into her head to return to Mortlock without informing anyone.’
Gulping down his coffee, Max leapt to his feet. ‘When was this? Did she’ – he hesitated, reluctant to speak the reverend’s name – ‘travel alone?’
Amelia shrugged, leaning back in her chair. ‘Really, I’ve no idea. Miss Dingley merely said she was here to reassure you that Lady Farquhar’s disappearance following Lady Glenton’s masque had been adequately solved.’ She slanted Max an assessing look. ‘Was there some mystery, Max? And do you think Miss Hepworth enjoyed herself?’
Max grunted as he made for the door. ‘Capitally, I’m sure,’ he muttered.
‘Where are you going, Max?’ Amelia called after him. ‘Not to see Miss Dingley, I hope. She said she was retiring to sleep for a few hours. And so must you, Max. You look terrible!’
‘Your best behaviour, now, Lady Farquhar,’ Nathaniel cautioned, as he led her past a couple entering the inn. ‘You don’t want to parade your insanity on top of your notoriety.’
Hating the feel of his fingers digging into her wrist, wincing as the cold wind hit her face once they stepped outdoors, Olivia hissed, ‘By God, Nathaniel, you had better keep your promise.’ She exhaled on a sob, squinting at the grey sky after the gloominess of indoors. ‘If you won’t tell me where you’ve sent Julian, at least swear to me he’ll come to no harm.’
‘He’s perfectly safe and happy with Charlotte enjoying the hospitality of an old acquaintance of mine,’ Nathaniel said, opening the door of the waiting carriage he had ordered. ‘Someone who owes me a favour and will be too afraid not to follow instructions.’
Olivia bit her lip. She had not the fortitude to dwell on this cryptic reassurance. Better to concentrate on keeping her eyes open for an opportunity to escape. ‘As for notoriety,’ she added venomously, slipping on the wet cobblestones in her flimsy dancing slippers, ‘that was not something I brought upon myself.’
‘You thrust your charms at Lucien and he reacted with the predictability of a trained puppy, bless him.’ Nathaniel assisted her into the carriage, climbing in after her. It seemed the coachman already had his instructions for with a straining and creaking of harness the carriage lurched forward and began its lumbering progress along the rutted road that led from town.
‘I was seventeen. A child wrapped up in foolish fancies.’ Olivia glared at him. ‘Am I to have that forever thrown in my face, Nathaniel?’
‘You sealed your fate with the flutter of your eyelashes, my dear. Lucien could not resist you and I sanctioned it. I made you Lady Farquhar.’
In the dim, grey interior, she saw him close his eyes and shudder. Revulsion? When he raised his eyes to hers they glowed as if lit from within by some secret knowledge.
She felt her skin crawl with the caress of a thousand spiders’ legs. It was her turn to shudder.
Why had she not seen the truth eight years ago?
‘Lucien wanted me above all others,’ she whispered. She had to believe at least this. It had been her undoing, but it upheld her powers of attraction. Without those, she truly was the empty shell Nathaniel derided.
‘Lucien wanted a lot of things, my sister among them.’ Though his voice was soft it contained a note of savage hatred she’d never heard before.
Convulsively, her hand went to the locket at her neck. She could have been living at Elmwood had it not been for the monster before her.
‘You have a sister?’ she asked. So the philandering had been going on long before she’d even suspected. When he nodded she said with dignity, ‘I did not take Lucien from another woman.’
Nathaniel’s look was shuttered. ‘Dorothy was a sweet, virtuous child.’ He tore his eyes from her, as if the sight disgusted him. ‘So different from you, Olivia. I would not want to make comparisons with the woman who won Lucien’s heart and the one who stole it.’
His voice dropped to a snarl. ‘Had she lived, Dorothy’s piety would have redeemed the monster Lucien became. The monster you turned him into, Olivia, with your vanity and pleasure-seeking and need to be admired.’
‘You lie!’ Shocked, she went on, ‘Lucien never mentioned Dorothy during our entire marriage. Nor did you. No one did.’
‘No one did because their love blossomed before Lucien went to London where he was corrupted by the society in which you thrived.’ Nathaniel’s voice rose. ‘No one mentioned her because she died a miserable, unworthy death.’
‘Is there no end to what you will blame me for?’ Olivia whispered, turning her head.
‘My sister was among the most virtuous women who ever lived. Lucien broke her heart. She poisoned herself, Olivia, because she could not bear his betrayal. The tragedy was that Lucien was coming back for her. He never got over the guilt, the grief.’
‘I am very sorry to hear about your sister’ – she spat out the words – ‘but I did not steal Lucien from the arms of another woman. Certainly not a worthier one.’ Who knew what women from the lower ranks he was consorting with at the time? It was something she’d not considered as a seventeen year old.
‘Dorothy was already dead when Lucien saw you for the first time,’ Nathaniel conceded. ‘But his soul was black. Blackened beyond redemption for what he had done.’ He pushed aside the curtain, his breath clouding the dirty windows. ‘When I accompanied him to London he knew it belonged to the Devil, but he was not yet ready to go there. He turned to me for his salvation.’
She felt a terrible gnawing in the pit of her stomach. He had not been
in jest, earlier? ‘You advised Lucien to marry me?’
Nathaniel nodded. ‘He needed an heir, and I knew what kind of wife would be best. Someone with a face and figure that would instantly appeal to him, but with a character that was’ – his smile was so transparently gloating she felt ill – ‘unformed. Someone who was so bound up in their own powers of attraction they could not see the danger they courted in a man like Lucien: a man who had lost all compassion.’
‘Lucien wanted me!’
‘Oh, yes, he wanted you. He was enslaved by lust’ – Nathaniel grimaced – ‘if that’s so important to you. And yes, Olivia, you were the season’s most dazzling debutante. Why, I even wanted you myself.’
‘I’d have turned up my nose at a low creature like you.’ How could she not have recognized the evil in him before? Because she had been so bound up in her powers of attraction? Through dry lips she whispered, ‘You’d never have had me willingly.’
‘I’d have been a delusional fool if I’d thought I could.’ Her barbs had no effect. ‘As delusional as you, my dear, when you thought you could make something of your spectacular union with Viscount Farquhar. No, Olivia, I realized you would never have me willingly, but I sanctioned Lucien’s union with you, nay, encouraged it, for I knew if I bided my time, I would be rewarded for my good advice.’
‘But I’m no longer going to marry you.’ For a brief moment she felt almost triumphant. As if she wielded the power. How pitiful she was.
‘No,’ he agreed, sadly. ‘I must content myself with memories of enfolding you in my arms as I lifted you, all but naked, from the dining table after your titillating little performances for Lucien and his friends.’ He reached forward and squeezed her hand. ‘You needed me then, my dear. For most of your marriage, in fact, you turned to me for comfort. At the time it was enough, though I should have seen my dream would never be realized. Still’ – he gazed once more through the window and sighed – ‘I wanted the lost fortune more than I wanted you, so in that respect I have triumphed.’
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