Sir Harvey held out what appeared to be a corner of a book’s frontispiece. Hargreaves nodded.
Simon indicated the men examining the scraps. “A photograph, Miss Dougall, please, to show all the vouchers were destroyed. And that these men witnessed that Lord Hargreaves was winning, despite Glengarry’s and Ramsay’s cheating, and that they were using his vouchers as a wager. Which means the viscount owes them nothing.”
Hargreaves looked startled, but everyone else accepted Simon’s decision, including Sir Harvey.
Miss Dougall’s camera flashed, capturing the image for posterity.
“The Hall is free and clear?” Hargreaves asked in uncertainty. “I haven’t lost it?”
“It’s Olivia’s for a lifetime,” Simon reminded him harshly. “I think she’s earned the right to live there peacefully, don’t you?”
It was only breaking what remained of his heart to say so.
Later, much, much later, Simon located Olivia sound asleep on a straw pallet with the children. She’d curled up in a plaid. One of the kittens had crawled in with her. Three blond heads crowded around her. Simon threw more blankets over the lot and returned to the other room where the nursemaids and Emma looked anxious.
“Go on back to the house with the rest of the staff,” he told them. “They’ve carriages and wagons so you needn’t walk in the cold. Everyone has the day off tomorrow.”
As he had with the staff downstairs, Simon slipped each of them a coin from his pouch. It was nearly empty, but worth every farthing for the loyalty they’d displayed this evening.
“We didn’t earn this,” Daisy protested.
“Emma, explain ‘above and beyond the call of duty’ on the way home, please. I’ll stay here to keep guard.” Simon settled into a rocking chair.
Emma winked and tucked her coin away. “You won’t get rich enough to build me a conservatory this way. I’ll have to build my own.”
“I daresay you will.” Simon settled back and wearily closed his eyes. Being wealthy had never been his goal.
He heard Lily fetch her infant, and the whispers as the women departed, but he was sound asleep before the door closed.
He had nightmares of Olivia leaving him to live in velvets and silks in a palace he could never enter.
Late the next afternoon, Olivia hugged Phoebe and Drew at the train station. She shook hands with Miss Dougall and Dr. Dare and extended an open invitation to visit any time.
She just wasn’t certain to which house she was inviting them. She simply knew she meant to stay in Greybridge, one way or another. The people here had gathered around her when she needed them. They didn’t call her witch or turn their backs. She could not let them down, even if she hadn’t the power or wealth to do much.
She hadn’t seen Simon since last night. He’d sent a carriage to take her back to his house this morning. Any evidence of a battle had disappeared by the time she arrived. The children had run up to the nursery for breakfast. Since the staff had the day off, she’d joined the children in cold toast and tea heated over the grate.
Emma excitedly reported the sheriff had been around to collect the captured arsonists and the card-cheating frauds.
As the train left the station, Simon’s driver assisted Olivia into the carriage. She had the urge to ask him to take her to the Hall. But Emma was alone with the children, so she let the driver take her where he would. Perhaps Simon had given him orders to take her to Letty’s Cottage.
He’d not trusted her enough last night to tell her about the threat to his home and everyone in it. He’d abandoned her with the children this morning. She was too confused to understand.
She thought he might respect her a little, but it was painfully obvious he didn’t need her anymore, if he’d ever needed her. Hargreaves would surely sign over the strip of land Simon wanted. He had a school for Enoch and nursemaids for the twins. Her task was done.
She’d actually fought and won a battle. She should feel triumphant. Rabbits didn’t beat villains. Did she dare take her courage one step further and fight for love?
Because she was pretty certain her heart was telling her she’d found a man she could love, if the obstinate beast would let her. He was no easy-going Owen, but she wasn’t the weak woman she’d been either. She could shout at him and sometimes even change his mind, and that was rather exciting. But she needed love and understanding too.
The carriage turned down the road in the opposite direction of Simon’s home—so he was sending her to the Hall. Olivia closed her eyes in disappointment and tried to turn her thoughts to what needed to be done. Was Hargreaves there? She didn’t think she could live with him. She’d rather use her small savings in repairing the cottage than repair the Hall for him.
Aloysius was waiting on the front steps when the carriage pulled up, and she guiltily remembered this should be his home. He eagerly put down the carriage steps, although he wasn’t of much use in helping her out. He was large for his age, but he was still only nine. Since her best petticoat was ruined, Olivia was back in her simple governess dress. She managed the carriage steps without aid and fondly ruffled the dark hair Owen’s son had inherited from his mother.
“Lady Phoebe chased out the rats!” he said, trying to appear solemn but beaming with delight. “I’ve never seen the like.”
“And I assume she left kittens in the kitchen,” Olivia said, lifting her skirt and following him up the stairs. A lot had happened while she slept off her headache.
“She did.” The boy beamed. “Will we live here now? Everyone is cleaning and scrubbing and returning furniture and things.”
She didn’t want to live here now. Olivia kept that woe to herself. “We’ll see,” she said absently, listening for the deep bellow that would indicate this was where Simon had spent his day.
Not hearing him, she lingered in the once lovely parlor. The high ceilings were intact, but the paint was fading and the artwork missing. The ancient upholstered furniture Owen had inherited was a disgrace. She supposed a few of the sturdy wooden pieces might be saved. The draperies were in rotted tatters. She fished a kitten out of one and continued down the hall.
She heard female voices upstairs. Simon had given his staff the day off, but she thought she recognized Lily and Susan. Their loyalty to the Hall fed her courage. She continued on, still listening for Simon. Or maybe he was with Hargreaves, drawing up deeds.
She realized she really, really didn’t want to live here again when she reached the small withdrawing room with the hidden stairway. Too many bad things had happened in this house. Even a good smudging couldn’t cleanse her memory.
She’d always wanted a home, the one she’d never had growing up. She wanted laughing children and cozy fires and her own things around her. The Hall had never belonged to her. Only Owen and Bobby had made it home, and they were gone.
Her heart ached, and tears filled her eyes. She continued on, going downstairs to the kitchen. Mrs. Jameson apparently hadn’t taken the day off either. She was here, weeping as Olivia wished to do. The rats had torn apart the larder and left their droppings in the neatly scrubbed pots. She had no encouraging words to offer. She couldn’t afford a staff until the Hall created an income again. She patted the woman on her plump shoulders and commiserated.
Could she run the Hall’s lands from the village? Did she have to live here to rebuild? Or perhaps she could live in one of the tenant cottages.
She finally asked if anyone had seen Mr. Blair. Everyone said he was here. No one knew where. Aloysius ran upstairs to look.
Without fires, the house was freezing. Olivia still had Miss Willingham’s plaid and wrapped it around her pelisse now. She’d meant to return it when she’d been in town. If she stayed at the Hall, maybe she could buy a good wool plaid of her own from Mr. Mackle.
She forced herself to return to the withdrawing room where Glengarry had raped Lily. The furniture was solid, she supposed. Perhaps this one small room could be refurbished.
That’
s when she noticed a small table rolling under the window—without wheels. It shifted from one side of the window to the other, she swore it did.
She froze, a dozen reasons running through her mind. The logical assumption was that the floor tilted. The illogical assumption. . . She pushed the latch on the mantel and opened the stairway.
She’d expected Enoch.
Simon sat there, his broad shoulders hunched, his elbows on his knees, his eyes closed—in a classic Enoch posture of concentration.
Huffily, she sat down on the step below him. “Stop that. The table doesn’t need to move. Why are you hiding in here?”
He opened one eye, glared at her, and shut it again. “I’m not hiding. I’m learning.”
She wanted to be angry with him, but he’d done so much. . . She was too easy. In exasperation as much with herself as him, she asked, “Why would you want to learn to give yourself headaches?”
“Is that what magic does? I didn’t notice it last night.” He rubbed his temple as if testing for an ache.
She thought back to last night, the overturned table, the wind dousing the lamps. . . “That was you? I thought the wind had just picked up when someone opened the door.”
“No wind, just me. I have no control,” he said in resentment. “Did Letitia leave me with this madness?” He opened both eyes and scowled.
Olivia sighed and leaned against his knee. She simply couldn’t be angry with this man who said whatever he thought. Most of the time. “Why weren’t you honest with me last night about the warning note? You’re painfully straightforward with everyone else.”
“Because I thought a deceptive witch would understand that I don’t need to distract you with problems I can manage,” he said recalcitrantly. “Letitia was the same, never telling me things she thought I didn’t need to know. Now I’m cursed with these energies, and I don’t know myself.”
“You always had these energies,” she reminded him. “You are not a quiet person. You bellow and bluster and fling knives about. I’m thinking that hiding anything—as you did last night—bottles up the energy until it explodes. Or maybe, when you’re afraid—as you were with Letitia and the carriage—your fear needs a physical outlet.”
“You terrified me last night,” he admitted, pulling her up to his lap as he had that awful night when they’d been trapped. He hugged her. “I thought I was about to lose you too, and I couldn’t bear it. I wanted to blow off the roof. It was Letitia and the carriage all over again.”
Olivia wanted to resist, but she couldn’t. She empathized with his fear too well. She leaned her head against his shoulder. “I’ve lived most of my life in fear of one sort or another. Deception is how I learned to deal with it. It’s not easy being weak.”
He grunted a laugh. “It’s not easy being strong. I’m supposed to be tough and shout until everyone does what I tell them. But women. . . I can’t shout at you. I can’t make you do anything you don’t want to do. But you’re weak and I’m strong and you should listen and when you don’t. . .”
Olivia laughed and kissed his cheek. Her pulse beat a little faster as she understood his dilemma. She opened her inner eye just a little to verify what she was feeling. The orange-red of his lust was strong, but on the edges—the pink of the love and tenderness she knew he possessed gleamed more brightly than she’d ever seen it.
“Do not throw me down the stairs,” she whispered into his ear. “Don’t blow over any more tables, please. Just listen a bit, will you?”
His glare was suspicious, but he hugged her closer and pressed a kiss to her hair. “If this place had a decent bed, I’d listen better.”
She yanked his hair and gathered her new-found courage. “Then I’ll be brief. I love you.”
Thirty-four
The door at the bottom of the stairs slammed, trapping them in this narrow passage. Simon figured it was his fault.
He had the world’s most beautiful, most clever, most caring woman in his arms and she’d said. . . what? The distraction was sufficient to squelch fear.
“Me? You love me?” he asked dubiously. “Why?”
She expelled a long sigh. “Because obviously I’m a woman with not enough sense to recognize the disadvantages of a loving, caring, honest man. I must be all aboot in my heid.”
She mocked him. Simon understood that better. He squeezed her tighter. “You’re a viscountess,” he all but shouted. “You inherited this grand Hall and all the lands and ye can have an earl if it pleases you. You could earn a fortune at a card table and own half the kingdom!”
She yanked his hair harder. “Do you love me?”
“Of course I love you!” he shouted. “Great bloody fool that I am, I’ve fallen for another deceptive, devious witch who will run right over me and spin me in circles daily. Do ye think I want to go through this again?”
“Yes.” She placed her palms on his jaw and covered his mouth with hers.
That, Simon understood. He cupped her bosom with his big hands and squeezed until she kissed him harder. He plunged his tongue halfway down her throat while his cock strained to bury itself in her.
He pushed her back, gasping. “You’d carry my babes?” he asked incredulously.
“Of course. Why else would I want a big lump like you?” Laughing, she cradled his jaw again, covering his face with kisses.
He wanted to tell her that he was of no use in polite drawing rooms, that he’d never be a diplomat or even a gentleman, and that he’d fight with his stubborn mule-headed neighbors until the day he died—but her kiss said she knew all that, and didn’t mind.
“Oh, thunderation, I love you, woman,” he whispered in disbelief. “And if I don’t have you in bed soon, I’ll most likely blow off the roof.”
She licked his ear. “Control. It’s all about control. Can we leave the staff and Aloysius alone? What happens if we go back to the house with the children all around?”
He lifted her and slammed open the door with his boot. “We’ll figure it out.”
“Together,” she murmured, laughter still in her voice.
As she’d predicted, as soon as the carriage dropped them off at the door, life intervened. Hargreaves was the first.
“We need to talk to the solicitors,” he announced in a more assertive tone than normal.
Simon growled at him and refused to release Olivia’s hand. “The Hall belongs to Olivia. She’ll need the income to restore the muck you made of it.”
“That’s fine. I don’t care. But you said you wanted to buy some of the land. I need the money. Who gets that?” Hargreaves placed his skinny fists on his skinny hips.
Simon was twice his size and could snap him in two. If Olivia hadn’t been holding him back. . .
She shook off his fist and stepped between them. “I don’t want the Hall, but someone must tend it. Any money Simon provides for the Hall’s land needs to go into a trust for restoration of the lands and buildings.”
She didn’t want the Hall?
“Must we do this now?” Simon asked, needing to haul her upstairs and start planting babies so she wouldn’t bewilder him anymore and take back her promises to love him.
Olivia wouldn’t take back her promises, he suddenly realized, and his temper mellowed. He needed to find out why she didn’t want the Hall, but that was a long discussion. Instead, he studied her ruffled hare stance with affection as she faced down her brother-in-law. Damn, but he loved the lass with every fiber of his soul. How had he not seen that? He was the coward here, not her.
Viscount and viscountess glared at him, and he chuckled.
“You,” he pointed at the young viscount. “You need an education. I’ll not give you a farthing until you learn to care for those lands or attend university or make something useful of yourself. The people of Greybridge depend on the Hall. Olivia knows that. Young Aloysius knows that. You, on the other hand, seem to forget that you’ll be an earl someday, with far greater responsibility than this barren place.”
Olivia�
��s beautiful blue eyes widened. “That’s an excellent idea! Hargreaves, tell your father you want to attend the university. Make him pay for it. You can learn what it takes to tend an estate. I’ll teach you about Owen’s, but it is nothing compared to what you will someday inherit.”
Instead of looking resentful, Hargreaves looked interested. “I’m no farmer,” he agreed. “But I suppose I ought to know something so I won’t be cheated anymore.”
“Good.” Holding Olivia’s hand again, Simon dragged her past the stripling. “Owen’s son is at the Hall. Go talk with him. And then we’ll go to the solicitors and have them draw up a new deed and a trust for the money I’ll be paying for that strip of land. Your brother meant for his estate to go to his son, and it should, with no interference from the earl. We’ll do all that on the morrow. I’m busy today.” He headed down the hall for the inside stairs.
The stairs the girls currently ran down.
“Will I never have you to myself?” he roared when Olivia stooped to swing Evie up in her arms.
With the twins clinging to her skirts, she laughed up at him. “No, never, not without doors and strong locks. I still love you.”
“I need to hear that,” he growled, lifting the twins away from her. “I need to hear that about two dozen times a day.”
As the boys and dog descended to join them, and Emma and Lily appeared to demand his attention, Olivia laughed. Even wrapped in ratty old wool, she radiated happiness, and Simon’s heart swelled with love and joy. It was good to know he still had a heart.
“I’m marrying this woman and bringing her here to stay with us!” he bellowed at the top of his lungs.
Aware that he’d startled everyone into silence, and that heads peered from behind every door in the damned house, Simon handed the twins to Emma, gave Evie to Lily, and picked up Olivia. She threw her arms around his neck and didn’t utter a protest as he marched her to his room, where he slammed and bolted the door behind them.
A Bewitching Governess Page 28