A Lord for Olivia (10 page)

Nearby, one of the women engaged in spreading the grass looked up at them, alarm writ large upon her face.

Unaware or unconcerned, Corbright continued, “I have no doubt many will wish to return to your employ, so your harvest will be brought in on time. And as for me, well, my dear, I look forward to seeing you in local society, and in springtime I intend to be in London, too, admiring that bonnet!” He kissed his hand to her and turned his horse to ride across the field toward the lines of workers.

What have I done?
Olivia glanced nervously at her brother. The triumphant look on his face made it clear she had really said what she had no intention of saying.
My wretched temper,
she thought. “Always keep your tongue between your teeth when you are angry,” her father had cautioned her on numerous occasions when she spoke before she thought. And at twenty-one years of age, she still committed the same error over and over.

“Livvy! Darling sister! You are going to go to London! You are going to seek a husband!” Jason leaned over to hug her, half lifting her from her saddle.

“I am not!”

“But you said—”

“You know I spoke without thinking. The nerve of that man, supposing I am wearing the willow for him.”

“It is what everyone thinks. Including, until yesterday, Aunt Lavinia and myself.”

“Everyone?” Embarrassment flooded Olivia.

“Of course. As Corbright said, you never go about socially anymore. What else is one to believe?”

“That I have been too busy taking care of my business and yours to have time for such? For that is the truth of it!”

“Livvy.” Jason shook his finger at her. “You are not being honest with yourself, much less with me.”

“Oh!” Exasperated, Olivia turned her horse and galloped off, she hardly knew where.

 

T
hat evening the mood at Beaumont was celebratory. With the return of the workers Corbright had lured away, the harvest would speed up considerably. Rev. Milton Ormhill, Jason and Olivia's uncle, dined with them. Busy with his own farm as well as parish work, he had not heard the full story of the two wagers. He clucked his tongue disapprovingly as he heard the details of the marriage wager.

“Knew I shouldn't have left you at the tavern,” he growled, then deprived the rebuke of any sting by laughing heartily. “Not fair to Lord Edmund by half!” When he heard of Olivia's hay wain wager, he crowed, “Clever girl,” and urged them to tell him the tale in all its details. Jason gladly obliged. The elder Ormhill's craggy face glowed with pleasure as he listened to his nephew tell of his efforts to stack the hay, and Olivia's chortling reminder of the inglorious outcome. Lavinia vied with her niece in describing Jason's appearance as he emerged from the hay mountain, and Olivia's once he had revenged himself by pitching hay on her.

“And poor Lord Edmund, who quite successfully delivered his own load, found himself buried in hay at their hands for no other sin than being nearby.” Lavinia chuckled.

“It is a good thing Corbright came up when he did,” Jason said, waggling a finger at her, “or you would have been next.”

“You wouldn't have dared!”

“Oh, would I not have?”

Their uncle interrupted. “Corbright? What business had he there?”

Edmund inferred from the elderly man's tone of voice that Corbright was no favorite of his.

“Well, that is quite a tale,” Jason began.

Olivia cleared her throat loudly. Her uncle shared with his niece and nephew the tendency to a quick temper, so she preferred that he not hear all of Corbright's actions. When throat clearing and a kick under the table did not stop her brother's headlong determination to retell the story, she interrupted. “Uncle does not want to hear all of that, Jason. Only you will be very happy to learn, Uncle Milton, that Corbright handsomely apologized for paying such high wages that he monopolized the valley's workers, and has promised to return to the normal price.”

“What?” Lavinia looked, quite bewildered, from nephew to niece. “This is the first I have heard of it. When did this happen? For he behaved quite abominably at lunch yesterday, so much so that Jason forbade him to come on Ormhill land. And did you not have to go to High Wycombe today to hire new workers?”

Jason laughed. “You'll be pleased to know that just as we started, Corbright sent Olivia a note. And quite a note it was, too. You should have seen her blush.”

“He . . . he said certain things which I am not at all sure he meant. But as I said, he did agree to lower his wages.”

“Ah.” Uncle Milton smiled at last. “If he keeps to that, it will be excellent, for I, too, am having difficulty getting people to harvest my acres, few though they are.”

“Few! Tch. What will Lord Edmund think, our poor relation having so small a living to farm.” Lavinia clucked her tongue at her brother.

“At least
I
have a crop to be harvested,” the elder Ormhill retorted. “That farm of yours is all but abandoned.”

“I'll have you know I have received a very handsome offer to purchase that abandoned farm.”

“Purchase! You'd have to give it away.”

Olivia interrupted before hostilities could break out. The sight of their elders bickering was not an edifying one,
though all too frequent. “Lord Edmund will think far less of us for falling into a family feud.”

“No, nor have you yet heard the best of the day's news.”

“Jason . . .” Olivia's voice shrilled with vexation.

“Livvy has promised to begin going about in society again. To go to London for the Season, in fact.”

Pandemonium broke out. Livvy hotly denied such intentions, Jason just as hotly asserted that she must keep her word, Lavinia exclaimed and pressed for details, and Uncle Milton shouted praise to the Lord for the working of miracles, jumped up, and bussed his niece noisily on the cheek.

Edmund could not help laughing at the scene, and the servants who had been bustling about serving the meal observed with huge grins on their faces. Olivia, mortified, finally succeeded in quieting her family by screaming at the top of her lungs, “Please, do try for a little decorum.”

Astonishment stopped them all in midsentence, and though Jason muttered, “You are a fine one to talk,” the elder Ormhills subsided at once, chagrin written on their faces.

“Lord Edmund already knows us for a harum-scarum lot,” Lavinia said, flapping her hand at him. “What must he think now?”

“Bedlamites,” Edmund responded, smiling broadly. “I have never been more entertained. Please do not stop on my account.”

“Decorum be hanged. You told Corbright you would go to London for the Season, and go you must, or—”

“That will do, Jason.” The reverend Ormhill, when he wished to do so, spoke with authority, and Jason instantly closed his mouth, though he sat with a mulish scowl on his face for the rest of the meal.

A change of subject was clearly in order. “But do you then really intend to remain here, working for Olivia?” Reverend Ormhill turned toward Edmund.

“I do. She has agreed to teach me about estate management. It has always been my ambition to learn about advanced agricultural practices. I had hoped one day to farm my own estate, but shall have to content myself with
working for others, once I know enough to have something to offer a prospective employer.”

“I see.” Uncle Milton sucked contemplatively on his lower lip.

“Shall we have a game of whist after dinner?” Lavinia asked hopefully.

“The very thing,” her brother replied. “I propose, gentlemen, that we forego our port and join the ladies instantly.”

Jason had other ideas. “A glass of port first, I think.” He waggled his eyebrows significantly at his uncle, who acquiesced, reassuring Lavinia that they would not linger. “I wanted to tell you a bit more of the events of the day,” Jason said once the ladies had withdrawn. “Olivia is all in a pelter to keep matters quiet, but it may be that she and Corbright will make it up.”

Reverend Ormhill took up the port and poured himself a generous glass. “You think so? It is quite a surprise to me. He clearly intended to do serious damage to her purse—and yours—just a day or two ago.”

“A lovers' quarrel, is what he said. Unknown to us, he has been courting her through the mail and once in an accidental meeting. And he made amends most handsomely for the haying problem, or tried to. Had all of his estate workers out in the north meadow this morning, in an effort to help us catch up. She wouldn't accept it—descended upon him like some avenging angel—but he showed he'd learned something about her, at least. Said he had been wrong to criticize her for managing our estates, that if she'd have him, he'd leave the management of her land in her hands, that sort of thing.”

“How did the decision to go to London come about?”

Jason chuckled. “You know her temper, Uncle. He goaded her into it by claiming that she has been wearing the willow for him for three years. And she has, too.”

“I don't know. Certainly she was very upset at first, but I thought she had come to the conclusion she was well out of it. As had I.”

“It could have been sour grapes on her part,” Jason
declared. “At any rate, he said he intends to court her, and I wouldn't count him out.”

“I do not trust the man. What say you, Lord Edmund?”

Edmund frowned. If indeed what had gone on between Olivia Ormhill and Corbright was just a lovers' quarrel, he would not be thanked for throwing a wet blanket on their reunion. Still, he liked the Ormhills too well to withhold information that might prevent her from making a tragic mistake. “I know something of the man, from younger days. He was a treacherous friend and dangerous foe then. What mitigating effect age and a love that has survived three years might have upon him, I do not know.”

“You mentioned something about his luring you into a leaky boat, yesterday.” Jason put his elbows on the table and leaned forward.

“A childhood prank?” Reverend Ormhill sounded dismissive.

“Some might say so, though he was eighteen at the time. I was twelve. I wanted very much to be noticed and accepted by him and my oldest brother, Carl. I suppose I made a nuisance of myself. At any rate, I asked them to teach me to row a scull. Carl repulsed me as violently as he always did, but Franklin espoused my cause, or so it seemed. He promised to teach me when he found a suitable boat. A week later he put me up before him on his horse and with Carl following, took me to a nearby stream. I should have known from Carl's grin that all was not as it seemed. Franklin instructed me to get into a rather rickety-looking scull, then shoved it hard, out far enough from shore that it caught the current. Away I went, without oars. And it did leak. It is fortunate for me that I could swim.”

“Did Corbright intend the current to take you?” Jason asked.

“Under my father's angry questioning, he claimed that he did not.”

“Of course he would say that,” Milton mused disapprovingly.

“Is that all you know to Corbright's disadvantage?” Jason asked dismissively.

“That was the worst of several similar incidents.” Edmund shrugged, sorry to see that Jason took such cruelty lightly, or let his desire to see his sister wed blind him.

“Are you going to play whist or not?” Lavinia stuck her head in the door to the dining room and looked challengingly at the group.

They all rose and filed into the drawing room. Edmund wandered over to the piano instead of going to the table that was already set up for cards.

“Come, Lord Edmund. You must make up the fourth,” Lavinia bade him.

“I will have to beg off, being quite penniless.”

“Nonsense. We play only for chicken stakes.” Reverend Ormhill beckoned him to the table.

“However small the stakes, remember that Jason quite cleaned me out. I have only managed to win back a few items of my clothing at billiards.” Edmund smiled to show he felt no distress, and sat down to noodle at the piano.

“You misunderstood yesterday's stakes,” Jason said, cutting across Olivia's equally emphatic “You should have a fat purse, according to our wager.”

Edmund looked from one to another in surprise.

“Remember, I stipulated that if the two of you could not bring your wagons to the barn full of hay, you were to have your belongings
and
your winnings to the point that Jason began to drink heavily.”

Edmund thought back, not remembering her precise wording. “But we changed the terms—”

“Not that part of them.” Jason stalked over to the piano looking as if he meant to drag Edmund physically to the table. “I've a pretty fair idea of what I owe you, and will put it in your hands when we go upstairs. Now come along and let me win some of it back.”

“But Miss Ormhill won't be able to play if I join you.”

“I rarely play, and when I do, I usually manage to infuriate my partner,” Olivia assured him. “I have a good deal of bookkeeping to do, and welcome the opportunity to catch up on some of it.”

Edmund looked at the expectant faces of the other three
and surrendered. He would have preferred to look across the table at Olivia rather than Lavinia, of course, but found the older woman a canny partner. His fortunes had improved by several shillings when the card game broke up.

 

Olivia retired to her office, ostensibly to do some bookkeeping. But her real purpose could have been inferred from the magazine she half hid in the folds of her skirt as she excused herself.

After lighting the branch of candles on her desk, Olivia smoothed open her aunt's copy of
La Belle Assemblée
and began studying the current fashions depicted and described therein. It had been several years since she had paid much attention to London fashions, and she knew her wardrobe was sadly out of date.

At odd moments during the day Corbright's taunt had come back to her: “If you were not still wearing the willow for me, you would have found a husband by now.”

She simply could not bear that people thought she wore the willow for Corbright. She must take more care with her appearance, and begin going about in society. Was it only his taunt that made her feel thus, or his protestations of love? Or had someone else made her newly aware of herself as a woman? She knew only that, deep within her, feelings she had long suppressed were stirring. She wished to be attractive; she wished to have some pleasure in life, rather than the continual round of care and worry that had become her lot since her father's death.

“Then it is true?”

Olivia jumped, almost guiltily, at the sound of her aunt's voice. “What?” She attempted to hide the magazine under some papers on her desk.

“It is true that you are going to London for the Season?”