In a moment, she was back with paper and a pencil. “I thought that might do better, my lady.”
Olivia held out her right hand and Petty unwound some of the ridiculous muffling bandages. Finally, Olivia’s individually bandaged fingers were partially released. She pulled away, trailing a long banner of white from her wrist, and began to write furiously, large and clumsy and with great pressure.
She thrust the sheet at Dane. He took it and read aloud. “‘You’d rather I be injured and lost and nearly dead than safe and sound and with another man?’” He looked up, confused. “Well … yes … I mean, no, of course not! But …”
She was writing again. She threw it at him.
“‘But yes,’” he read aloud, although he needn’t have. “‘Go away. I don’t fancy you anymore.’”
Dimly Dane heard Petty turn and leave the room. Looking at Olivia’s bleak expression, he couldn’t blame the maid. He felt desperation rising within him. He’d done everything wrong with his sweet Olivia, from the very beginning.
And now he was losing her. He knew it, felt it as she gazed at him, her eyes more than sad, more than grieving. Her eyes said that she was done. Done with him, done with any chance they had.
Words threatened to choke him, words he knew he could never say. The truth stood between them, a secret that could never be told, knowledge that would only endanger them all …
And yet he spoke.
“Olivia … there is something you must understand. There is a reason why I have been so unwilling to trust you … . I cannot trust anyone outside a select few … . I should not tell you this—”
She scrawled something.
“‘Then don’t. If you have so little faith in me, then don’t.’”
He looked up at her, startled. She met his gaze and he went very still. Those were not Olivia’s eyes looking back at him. Those were the eyes of a woman who believed in nothing and no one. His shock must have shown on his face, for she laughed sharply, a gasping, bitter sound.
“‘Everyone has their secrets, everyone has their uses for me, everyone has their hoops for me to leap through like a circus animal.’” She seemed to have no trouble putting her thoughts to paper. “‘Yet you had no faith in me. Now I am supposed to have faith in you?’”
She was going to leave him and he deserved to be left. Even now, with all that he knew, he could not quite dismiss his reservations.
“‘You made a mistake, my lord. I am tired of paying for it. All I have ever tried to do is please you, yet I am never enough. It is an impossible task. Frankly, I’m weary of trying. So please, tell me nothing. Do not burden me with more of your insurmountable requirements.’”
Dane sat there, inches from her, holding pages and pages of her pain in his hands, unable to meet her eyes again. What had he done to her?
He’d drained her, devoured her generosity and heart and sweetness, then turned around and asked for more. More proof, more evidence, more security that she was good enough for him. She’d taken her anguish to Marcus and Dane had blamed her for it. She’d made a friend in the Prince Regent and Dane had thought the worst of her.
She’d done for him what no other woman had ever dared, and he’d suspected her of treason.
She’d even tried to bring back his traitor and he’d thrown her away, discarding her pitilessly.
Her parents have admitted to the plot. She was meant to win you over. You must question her.
He closed his eyes against the voice of suspicion that still lived within him. Yet it was possible that everything she’d done was meant to make him throw everything he was away, all for love.
Love.
He stood as if he’d been burned by her nearness. “I shall disturb you no longer, my lady.” Was that his voice, so strained and tight? He forced himself to look at her. Her head was dropped back on the pillows and her eyes were closed, but the tension within her told him she was not sleeping. She was only waiting for him to go.
He obliged, quietly closing the door on his own silent damnation.
Olivia slumped wearily when she heard the door latch click. Then she rolled carefully over, reaching beneath her mattress for her diary.
The pencil was making her fingers ache, but she forced her eyes to focus on the blank page before her.
Every moment he was in the room, a part of me longed to throw myself on him and weep away my fears and longing. I love him so … .
The pencil faltered. The problem was, she was beginning to believe that the man she’d fallen in love with had never truly existed. She’d dreamed him into being, fooling herself with her own fantasy of some valiant lord of old, a man who would love and treasure her forever, a man who would never hurt her.
What a ridiculous idea. The world was full of pain. There was no such thing as love that lasted forever.
She’d been a silly child. Silly children believed in magical tales. Olivia felt solid, cold reality filling her, hardening her former wispy dreams into strength and resolve.
She snapped the diary shut and flung it across the bedchamber, the pages fluttering with the force of her rejection. She missed the fire, but the book hit the mantel with a satisfying thud and fell out of her sight.
I am not powerless. I am not a princess locked in a tower. I am Lady Greenleigh.
Then the door opened and the doctor entered, his bag of instruments in his hand.
And Dane had taken the flask.
Dane paced the hall outside Olivia’s bedchamber. Her hoarse, broken cries of pain had barely been loud enough to penetrate the solid door, yet each one had stabbed through him like a sword.
He stopped and pressed his forehead to the cool wood. He couldn’t bear another, he thought, then scoffed at his self-absorption. He wasn’t the one with the knife digging in his leg, was he?
Yet no more cries came. That made him more worried than ever. Why had she stopped? Was the doctor done? Or had she—?
The door opened before him. The physician stood there, coat on, hat in hand, bag strapped up, and ready to leave. “The bullet is out and her concussion is becoming less serious. Her ladyship will be fine,” he said cheerfully. “Provided she does not develop more fever and die.”
Dane stared at the man, who nodded briskly and passed him by. Physicians existed on a separate plane of Society, it seemed. Well aware of their necessity, they rarely paid due respect to high birth.
Then Dane’s weary brain took in the man’s words. Olivia was going to be fine.
Fever.
Fear of that mysterious ailment filled him. He ran through the sitting room to Olivia’s bedchamber, bursting through the door.
30
Lady Reardon was there, bathing perspiration from Olivia’s pale face. “Shh,” she ordered without turning. “She finally passed out, thank heaven. Bloody damned ham-handed doctor.” Her voice was tight. “I feared he was going to take forever.”
“What of fever?”
Lady Reardon shook her head. “She’s very strong, not like I expected at all. There’s a bit of heat in her, but nothing that won’t pass now that we’ve the bullet out.”
Dane sank to the chair that had been pulled up on the other side of the bed. “Oh, thank God.”
Lady Reardon shot him a disbelieving glare. “Hmph. Nathaniel told me you still have her mother and father locked up. You haven’t even allowed them to visit her.”
Dane didn’t back down. “Lord and Lady Cheltenham have been in the employ of a very dangerous French intelligence agent—”
“Who coerced them into this.” Willa put down the damp cloth and tucked the covers more tightly around Olivia. “Have you never been at someone else’s mercy, my lord?”
I love you, you phenomenal ass. All I ever wanted was to be your lady.
“Once,” Dane said, his voice a thread. “Just once.”
Lady Reardon stood. “I think it’s safe to let her sleep,” she said. “I’ll send one of the ’Etty sisters in to watch her.”
“I’ll
stay,” Dane said quietly.
“If you swear you won’t tie her up or arrest her, or something else ridiculous.”
Dane slid his gaze her way. “Not tonight, at any rate.”
Lady Reardon folded her arms. “I don’t like you, Lord Greenleigh. Nathaniel thinks I’m being an idiot, of course. It is our first real argument, in fact. I think you’re hard. He thinks you’re well aware of your duty.” She turned to go but stopped at the door. “I want to ask you one question.”
Dane didn’t turn. Olivia looked so very pale. “What is that?”
“Why did you marry in the first place if you were never going to put your faith in a woman?”
Dane shook his head. “Good night, Lady Reardon.”
She left, and the room fell silent. Dane moved his chair closer to reach for a strand of Olivia’s hair that clung to her damp cheek.
“Your hair is always a mess,” he whispered to her. He let the silky strand trail through his fingers and drop to the pillow. “I dream about your hair.”
The doctor had rewrapped her hands. Dane carefully picked one up and brought it to his lips. “What am I going to do with you, my lady?” he said softly. “You make me understand how my father could have done what he did.”
He let out a breath and closed his eyes. “I never told you about my father, did I? Of course not. I never told you about anything.”
He leaned back in the chair wearily, keeping her bandaged hand gently in his. “You must understand, he was a demanding man, but I was proud of that. I felt such high expectations were the sign of superior standards and ethics. When I was able to please him, I knew I’d done better than ‘well enough,’ better than ‘quite good.’ I knew I’d done just a bit beyond what he’d expected me to, that I’d reached a level somewhere just short of perfection.”
Dane sighed, remembering. “Yet he was only human, after all.” All too human. That scene in the study came back to him in full clarity. “I was so proud to be … who I was, so damned sure that I knew everything. I disdained him, accused him, renounced him to his face. There wasn’t a drop of sympathy or compassion in me. I appointed myself judge, jury, and executioner.”
She didn’t comment of course, but Dane could well imagine what Olivia would tell him, the same as Marcus had.
Suicide was your father’s choice.
Dane shook his head against that fact. “Suicide was the only option I left him. I was so angry, so betrayed … I told him I had sent a letter to the Prime Minister, informing him of everything. But I hadn’t.”
He rubbed his other hand over his face, trying to wipe away weariness and that suspicious moisture leaking from his closed lids. “I’d written it. It was still on my dressing table because I couldn’t bring myself to post it. But I wanted to hurt him, strike out at him, shake him like he’d shaken me.”
Old anger surfaced. “He should have seen it through. He could have faced the consequences and served his sentence.” Dane made a dark noise, contradicting himself. “Of course, his sentence might have been hanging. He’d given vital plans to her, battles that we lost, men that we lost. Then again, perhaps it wasn’t because of me. Perhaps he simply couldn’t live with himself.”
He opened his eyes and gazed at his sleeping wife. “Or live without her. She disappeared just then, doubtless running back to France. He loved her, you see. He loved her above everything. Above his country, above his duty, above even …”
Above even me.
Dane stood abruptly. “Well, this is just ridiculous,” he muttered to himself. “Sitting in the dark talking to no one.” He turned to leave the room. He ought to have one of the ’Ettys take over the watch.
A piece of paper crackled under his shoe. He automatically bent to pick it up and kept going. He had important matters to see to, after all.
Then he left, closing the door on the woman who watched him from the bed with wide-open eyes.
He was in the library before he recalled the scrap of paper in his hand. He opened it and examined it idly. It was a fragment of a page, a corner torn away, filled with tiny cramped writing.
Frowning, he moved closer to the candles.
Only three lines remained.
… mistaken adoration honestly/so that it might not leave me when he finds out the truth?
Might he then be tricked into loving me?
Ah, his suspicious inner voice rejoiced darkly, I knew it.
Dane gazed at the torn bit of paper, forcing himself to face the truth.
She was not a victim of her parents’ plotting. She’d known the entire time.
And he didn’t care. He wanted her anyway.
Black fear threatened to choke him. He wanted her anyway.
His emotions chased one another madly though him, leaving cuts that bled out anguish. She was going to be fine. She was part of the plot. She’d given him the gift of passion. She had said she loved him. She had been tricking him into loving her. She’d tried to stop Sumner. He’d left her out there, alone and injured.
She was a liar.
She was Olivia.
Guilt. Passion. Shame. Suspicion.
Duty. Olivia.
He turned and strode from the library. There was only one person who could help him with this, only one who could understand.
The study door was locked, the key gone. Dane kicked it open without a pause. The room was icy and cobwebbed, the furniture shrouded in dust cloths. Dane ripped them all away, tossing them into a corner.
He dropped to his knees on the floor where a jewel-toned carpet had once lain, one that had been burned because of the blood and brains that covered it.
“Father, help me.” His hoarse whisper filled the dead room. “What am I to do?”
He knelt there until his limbs were cold, until the dust had settled, until the moon set and the room went entirely dark.
His father wasn’t here. The study wasn’t full of Henry Calwell, who had loved and lost himself. It was only a room, cold and unused.
Dane bowed his head. And he was only a man, no better or worse than his father. He was weak and inconsistent and subject to all the vagaries of other men.
Yet he was the Lion.
Therefore, he knew what he must do.
Early in the morning, two days after Olivia had been shot, she found herself on the road again.
Dane had explained that she need not go immediately.
“But I must go,” she’d pointed out to him. “So I should like to go as soon as possible.”
He’d only nodded. “I shall ride with you to Greenleigh—”
“Cheltenham,” she’d said, her head high. “I will go to Cheltenham.”
I am not powerless. I will decide where I will live. And I will live at Cheltenham.
Since she doubted Dane would like the world to see her in rags, she was fairly sure she would be receiving an allowance. An allowance she would pour into Cheltenham. Her parents were still young enough to enjoy many years there, but then it would be hers and hers alone.
She would never be Dane’s lady, but she would be mistress of Cheltenham.
He’d agreed easily enough. And why not, when his sole purpose was to dispose of her as soon as possible?
She allowed a footman to carry her to the bottom of the stairs, but then she insisted on walking. She would not heal properly if she never used her leg.
“You are a most durable woman,” Lady Reardon said with a sad smile. “You make me feel rather puny.”
Olivia shook her head. “Not nearly durable enough.”
They walked past a room that was having a much-needed clearing out, by the look of it. “That is where the former Lord Greenleigh died while cleaning his pistol,” Lady Reardon said softly.
“Ah.” Olivia willed herself not to feel a thing for Dane’s loss. He didn’t want her empathy. “Think you the weather will hold?”
Lady Reardon glanced at her. “It seems as if you will have good travel,” she answered easily. “I pray our journey will go as
well in a week.”
Lord and Lady Reardon were staying out the entire week, as were the Prince Regent and the Duke and Duchess of Halswick. The other guests had cleared out sometime after Olivia had been brought back bloody and gun-shot, apparently, including Miss Absentia Hackerman. Imagine that.
Fled back to the rest of Society with a mouthful about the new Lady Greenleigh, no doubt. Olivia found it rather difficult to care. She couldn’t even remember being the girl who’d been so desperate to please the world with her Hunt Ball entertainment.
Outside in the drive, organized chaos reigned once again. Dane was going to ride Galahad, leaving Olivia the carriage. Petty popped up at her elbow. “Are you sure you won’t need me with you, my lady?”
Olivia shook her head, forcing a small smile. “I’m only going to rest, Petty. Cheltenham is not far over the border. We’ll be there by nightfall. I shall be perfectly well on my own.” She was panting to be alone, to tell the truth. Constant nursing did bring one’s health back, but it also drove one mad when all one wanted was a good howling cry.
She looked down to see her lockbox in the maid’s hands. It reminded her … .
“Petty, did you pack my diary?”
Petty swallowed. “Oh, my lady, I—you threw it in the fire, my lady. I thought you didn’t want it.”
Olivia sighed. “No, that’s fine. As long as it’s gone.” God forbid someone should read her childish dreams and scribbling about Dane.
Running hoofbeats down the drive caught her attention. She stepped back warily. The last thing she needed at the moment was another fall. Horses had the oddest tendency to run into her.
Lord Wyndham leaped down, covered in road dust.
Dane strode out of the house to greet him. “Hellfire man, did you gallop from London?”
Wyndham shrugged. “I changed horses on the way.” He flicked his sharp-eyed gaze at where Marcus and Lord Reardon stood. Dane watched as both Nate and Marcus turned instantly. The Royal Four had that instinct about them, didn’t they?
Celeste Bradley - [Royal Four 02] Page 24