A Season of Hope (2 page)

A thundering boom echoed through the house. It bounced off the plaster and carried through the empty halls.

Olivia’s ears perked up. Father was in another of his tempers.

A maid went tearing down the hall, past Olivia, all but stumbling over her skirts
in an effort to hide from the master’s wrath.

Hmm. After Father’s meeting with Lord
Ellsworth, Olivia had assumed he would be all but waltzing around the house, humming Christmas ditties. Not that father waltzed. Or hummed. Or did anything remotely silly.

Unless…she paused mid-stride, a smile played on her lips. Unless the earl had rejected Father’s proposed arrangement. Hope stirred to life in he
r breast and she rushed to the Blue Salon.

She
closed the door with gentle precision and hurried over to the hearth situated at the left side of the room. Much like she had as a small child, Olivia placed her ear alongside the plaster.

Silence met her efforts. She angled her head a bit.

Still nothing.

Olivia
furrowed her brow.

“I don’t care if God himself summoned her! She is not going!
By god, I’ve just accepted the earl’s offer for her hand. I’ll not have Danby interfering.”

Olivia jumped at the unexpected outburst.
Her eyes slid closed in despair.

So she was to wed the Earl of
Ellsworth. Her stomach flipped and she had to swallow back a wave of nausea.

Her mother’s muted reply was lost to the plaster wall.

“She is my daughter and I’m working out the arrangements with…” The name was garbled but Olivia knew well with whom he was working out arrangements.

“A fortnight? You want me to let her go for the fortnight.”

“He is alone for the Christmastide season. Let her go for the time he asks. She will return and then you can…”

Fortunately
Mother’s words trailed off.

Regardless, Olivia knew what would happen upon her return. She turned and borrowed support from the wall. A giggle bubbled up from her chest until her shoulders shook. It mattered not that she’d be forced to wed the earl.
For now, all that mattered was that Olivia had been granted a reprieve.

The door opened and Olivia jumped. “Mother,” she greeted as her mother closed the door behind her.

“I imagined I’d find you here.” Her mother’s glance slid away, off to a point beyond Olivia’s shoulder.

Olivia
bit the inside of her cheek, a frisson of unease raced along her spine. She smoothed her fingers along the edges of her ice blue skirts.

“I gather you heard all that?”

There was no point in lying, so Olivia said nothing.

Mother glided across the room. She paused in front of Olivia and held out an envelope. “Here.”
She all but thrust the note into Olivia’s hands.

Olivia took it, this missive that represented freedom
, and turned it over in her hands. She studied the broken seal.

Oh
, Grandfather.
Her eyes slid closed on a benediction that was his name.

Danby.

The Duke of Danby, to be exact.

The ton revered him. The family feared him. Not many saw him.

Except when he summoned you. When you were called, you went.

Father had said it mattered not if God himself had called for
her, even as he’d surely known that one did not defy the duke.

“Read it,” Mother urged.

Olivia pulled out the note.

“Tewkesbury, you fool. Send me my granddaughter. Not the married one.

Post Script

And Tewkesbury, send her immediately.

~Danby

A smile pulled at her lips.

“Do be sure to wipe that pleased grin from your face when you see your father.”

Olivia tried for a solemn nod but ruined it with a giggle.
“What does His Grace want?”

Her mother lifted a shoulder in a shrug. “To see you? Company at Christmas? To torture your father? It could really be any of those things.”

Yes, one never knew with Danby.

She fought the urge to bury her head in her hands and weep
with relief. A smile formed on her lips. Since the earl’s departure, yesterday morn, Olivia had held her breath in dreaded anticipation of her father’s call. She’d known that her future had been decided and she’d just waited for word on it from her cold, heartless father. Oh, at three and twenty she knew she could resist an arrangement with the earl. Yet, Olivia was not so very foolish as to believe she could remain unwed forever.

She’d only just begun to accept that it didn’t matter who she married. It mattered not the age of her future bridegroom, the amount of teeth in his mouth, the wealth he possessed. No one could ever be Marcus and so she would resign herself to a life with Lord Ellsworth.

An acceptance of her fate, however could come after Christmastide. Olivia was determined to allow herself joy
at this holiday season.

“You know, dear,” her mother began, gently
, “this will not change what is to come in a fortnight. You know you’ll return and Father will see you wed to the earl.”

Olivia managed a nod. “I do. I know.”

But, all she knew for now was that there was a reprieve. It fueled Olivia’s hope.

Anything could happen at the holidays.

She smiled. Danby had proven that on many scores.

“When do we leave?”

Mother brushed her hand along Olivia’s cheek. A tremulous smile on her lips. “He didn’t summon me, Olivia.”

Olivia frowned. “But surely…”

Mother pressed a finger to her lips, silencing her words. “He didn’t summon me. One does what the duke requires and he requires your presence. If he’d wanted me to accompany you, then the note would have indicated as much. Just as your sister’s note had.”

Olivia remembered back to the summons her sister Alexandra had received some seven years ago. The missive had required Olivia, Mother, and
Alexandra be present at Danby Castle. Father had been ordered behind. In no uncertain terms. At that time, the duke had been playing matchmaker.

Her lips quirked. It was rather an unlikely image of the staid, frowning duke—matchmaker. Ultimately that is what he’d been and Alexandra had found her happy ever after with the Earl of Pembroke.

Olivia’s smile died. She folded her arms across her chest and tried to rub warmth back into them. There’d be no matchmaking for Olivia. The only man she’d loved…well, Danby was all powerful but he was not God. He could not bring a man back from the grave.

“I should begin packing.”

“I already instructed your maid.”

Of course she had. Olivia did something she’d not done in many, many years. She threw her arms around her Mother and held on tight much like she’d done as a small girl who’d had night terrors.

Mother smoothed small circles across Olivia’s back. “Oh, dear. My sweet, beautiful child.”

Tears flooded Olivia’s eyes. She’d not been a child for more than a lifetime. It felt like the simplicity of cherry tarts and dolls and carols at Christmas all belonged to another woman. No, life had proven hard and ugly and unfair.

They’d not printed that in any of the Gothic novels her mother so loved.

Olivia blinked back the salty drops. She’d not
cry. She’d shed her last tear five years ago when she’d been an innocent girl of eighteen. She took a step back.

“Do you believe I’m in trouble with the duke?”

Mother arched an elegant brow. “Why? Have you done something to earn the duke’s displeasure?”

Oh, outside of deliberately scaring off every and any
respectable lord, oftentimes with antics well-beyond scandalous? She crossed her fingers behind her back. “I’m certain I can’t imagine anything I’ve done that would be considered untoward.”

Mother snorted. “Don’t go repeating that to your father.”

They shared a smile.

Olivia studied her mother for a long moment. The elegant arch of her cheeks, the pale hue of her creamy skin, the narrowness of her waist all marked her as a woman far, far younger than her five and fifty years. She was the
counter opposite of Father’s balding, rotund frame. Not for the first time, Olivia wondered at their match.

“Do you regret having wed him?”

Mother’s glance slid away, past Olivia’s shoulder, and to the warm fire that crackled in the hearth. She said nothing for a long moment and Olivia believed she might not respond. “How can I regret having wed him when I have such beautiful daughters?” She gave Olivia a gentle nudge. “Now, hurry above stairs and oversee the packing. As it is, the snow is going to delay your travels.”

Olivia placed a kiss on Mother’s cheek and all but flew from the room, filled with the first real excitement she’d felt in a very long time.

Talks of marriage to Ellsworth had been silenced.

That had to be enough.

For now.

Seated behind the
mahogany desk, the Duke of Danby glowered. “You there, I’m waiting for a visitor. Anyone arrived yet?”

Marcus Wheatley,
steward to the Duke of Danby, looked at his employer from across the room. Even with the eye-patch that concealed his empty socket, Marcus could see the displeasure creasing the old codger’s face.

“Not to my knowledge, Your Grace.”

The duke waved at the leather-winged back chair across from his desk. “Sit. Sit. You know, first bring over a decanter of brandy and two glasses.”

Marcus hesitated, but only a moment, before he fetched the brandy and glasses.
He pulled the stopper bottle and poured two generous glasses full of the brown brew. He glowered at the shimmery liquid. He’d sworn years ago he’d never touch anything French but had made an exception in terms of brandy. When a man had to deal with the physical pain and secret demons that haunted Marcus, well, then partaking in bloody French liquors was a minor betrayal of his promise, really.

He slid into the comfortable folds of the seat.

The duke took a sip of brandy and frowned back at him. “Must you always wear that nasty scowl? I’m the only one who's supposed to scowl in this household.”

A partial grin tilted the corner of Marcus’
s lips until he flinched. Even after five years, the scar tissue still ached.

He took another sip. “How can I help you, Your Grace?”

The duke rolled his tumbler back and forth in his hands. All the while he studied Marcus the way he might an insect trapped under a glass.

“It’s Christmastide and you’re here with my miserable self. Why is that?
Don’t you have any family of your own?”
Marcus hesitated. Remembrances flashed through his mind. He’d returned from war. His father had taken a single look at him and a sea of horror and revulsion had swept away any warmth the Viscount had felt for his son.

“I don’t,”
he replied truthfully. Nor, for that matter, would he leave his responsibilities for the Christmas season.

“
Humph,” the duke said. “I’m expecting company for the season.”

Marcus shifted in his seat. Now that was a surprise. The duke didn’t receive guests.

“Damn you, Wheatley. I swear you’re the only blighter not nosy enough to ask questions. Don’t you want to know who I’m expecting?”

Marcus shrugged and took another sip. “Not particularly, Your Grace.”

The duke chuckled. “That’s why I like you, Wheatley. You’re one of the only ones who don’t stand on ceremony with me.” He glanced out the window over Marcus’s shoulder. “Should have been here yesterday.”

“Is that correct?”

The duke appeared unimpressed with Marcus’s feigned interest. “You never asked how you got out of that rotten French prison.”

The blood froze in Marcus’
s veins. His entire body went immobile and he blinked one good eye at the unexpected shift in conversation.

Danby waggled his brows.
“Ahh, I see I’ve nabbed your attention now.”

Two years in a French prison had made a mark on him.
Marcus had been tortured. Beaten. Humiliated. He came out of prison a patient man.

The duke
rapped the desk with his fist. “Come now, in the three years you’ve been in my employ, you’ve not acknowledged who I am.”

Marcus downed the remaining contents of his glass. “And who is that, Your Grace?”

His Grace slammed his glass down on the desktop. “You rapscallion. I’m Olivia’s grandfather.”

“Olivia….”

The duke’s hand slashed the air. “Oh, come, now….don’t take me for the fool. You think I’d allow my granddaughter’s love to remain in the hands of the French? You think I’d let you return and be the subject of gossip and scorn? But I’ve been patient long enough. You owe Livvie more than this. So get that angry frown off your face, son. We’ve got company and I want you on your best behavior.”

For the first time, a frisson of unease traveled down his spine, a sense that all was not well.

“Your Grace?”

The duke grinned back at him.

A knock sounded on the door and the butler appeared.

“Your Grace, the young lady has arrived.”

The duke folded his arms across his chest. “Finally,” he muttered under his breath. “Have her brought down immediately.”

A dull humming filled Marcus’
s ears. The young lady could be anybody and yet, Marcus knew with the same sickening insight that had saved him countless times in battle that this wasn’t just any lady.

Lady Olivia
.

He closed his remaining eye.

Christ, the Duke of Danby had plunged him back into hell.

***

Olivia squinted at the ormolu clock atop the fireplace mantle in the room she’d been designated. It was nearly eight o’clock in the evening. “He wants to see me, now?” She’d only just arrived from a grueling carriage ride two hours past.

Mrs. Ealey frowned at her. “No. His Grace wanted to see you yesterday.”

“There was snow,” Olivia said, hurrying to keep step with the duke’s loyal housekeeper.

“
Humph.” Mrs. Ealey seemed to believe the Duke of Danby’s wishes should supersede the weather.

They wound their way through the imposing castle without any further words, and only stopped when
they reached the Duke of Danby’s office.

Olivia frowned. Now that she’d
escaped, for the present, her father and Lord Ellsworth’s proposal, the dread of having to deal with her grandfather’s summons overtook her. “Mayhap I should wait…”

Mrs. Ealey knocked. “Lady Olivia has arrived, Your Grace.”

“Well then, show her in,” the duke thundered from the other side of the wood panel.

Olivia jumped, a hand at her breast.

Taking a deep breath, she entered the duke’s lair.

He stood
but didn’t move out from behind his desk. “Come here, gel. Let me get a look at you.”

Olivia hesitated and then came forward
.

He raked a disapproving gaze over her. “You’re old.”

Olivia bit the inside of her cheek at the insult. “Yes. Far older than the last time you saw me, Your Grace.”

“You’ve been giving your father a hard time, girl.”
It wasn’t a question. “Well done.”

And it would appear Danby d
idn’t know her name.

He peered down his long, hawk-like nose at her.
“Don’t give me that look.”

She frowned. “What look, Your Grace?”

“The one that says I don’t know your name.”

Olivia
knew enough to remain silent.

“It’s Alexandra
,” he barked.

She clenched her lips so tight her teeth snapped.

He snorted. “Get over here, Olivia.”

Olivia chuckled and
crossed around the desk to greet the duke. It seemed as the years slipped by, the old duke let his guard dip a bit more. She reached up and placed a kiss on his wizened cheek.

“None o’ that, now,” he said, his voice gruff from discomfort
at her display of emotion.

All the nervousness at his ducal summons dissipated. Danby may scare most of his off-spring, but when Olivia was around him, she was reminded that he was as gruff
and loveable as one of father’s old hunting dogs. “You summoned me?”

The duke patted her on the shoulder in an awkward gesture of affection. “I
have always enjoyed your directness, Olivia.”

She inclined her head. “Then you would be the first and only. My
father—"

“Is a fool
,” Danby cut in. He folded his hands behind his back. “Trying to marry you off to Ellsworth.”

A glass fell. The shatter of crystal filled the room
and Olivia spun around.

In the dark shadows of the room, illuminated only by the
blaze in the fireplace, stood a towering figure.

Olivia took a step closer to her grandfather
who chuckled in response. “Not normally that clumsy, old fellow.”

The man stepped deeper into the shadows,
managing to make himself one with the wall.

A pull of awareness coursed through Olivia. She peered into the corner of the room but the
old fellow
remained cloaked in darkness. She cocked her head, Danby forgotten. Olivia moved out from behind the desk, closer to the center of the room, and then paused. There was something ominously familiar about her grandfather’s—

“He’s my
steward.”

Her brows knitted together. “Is he?”

And still, the man said nothing.
“You have anything to say to my granddaughter, Lady Olivia?”

A blush heated her chest and climbed up her neck. It was all she could to keep from reprimanding her grandfather. One didn’t correct the Duke of Danby
, even for terribly gauche manners.

Apparently Danby’s steward considered himself exempt from the duke’s orders.

Determined to exert the years of genteel propriety drummed into her by governesses over the years, Olivia walked over to the steward. “Hullo, Mr.….?”

He retreated a step in an apparent attempt to halt her forward advance.

Silence met her question.

She
pointed her eyes at the ceiling. It really needn’t surprise her that the Duke of Danby’s new steward was equally laconic and rude and impossibly unsmiling.

Olivia had to deal with unpleasantness from her father
, but she certainly didn’t need to accept it from this stranger. With a snap of her skirts, she turned back to face grandfather. “Forgive me, I should allow you to return to your business,” she said.

The stranger in the corner finally spoke. “I’ll return
later, Your Grace.”

A shiver coursed along her spine at the gravelly quality of the steward’s voice which appeared rusty from ill-use. And yet, her heart paused
; something so wrenchingly familiar about that tone touched her.

It felt as though she knew
him, and yet, she’d never met grandfather’s steward in five years
. Bah. Foolishness
.

“
Don’t be daft!” Danby barked. “I’m getting on in age, gel. I…I’m not well. Might be my last Christmas and all.”

The duke’s
pronouncement knocked the air from her lungs. She peered at her grandfather, the stranger in the corner forgotten.

Impossible. The Duke of Danby was invincible. A veritable fortress of a man. Yet there were new wrinkles cr
easing his aged, sallow cheeks. His color a pallid white.

Goodness. That was why he’d summoned her.
Olivia froze. She’d assumed he’d sent for her to save her from a match with the Earl of Ellsworth. It would appear there was far more to his summons.

Danby believed this would be his last Christmas.

It couldn’t be. He was the pillar of her family. Oh, he was a gruff, old codger most of the time, but he’d made it his personal responsibility to look after all Danby off-spring.

“Don’t look at me like that,” he
snapped.

“Grandfather,” she said
, hating that she was unable to quell the tremor in her voice. The Duke of Danby abhorred weak display of emotions.

He waved her off. “I don’t want your pity, girl. I want your help. If this is going to be my last Christmas…”

“It’s not going to be your last Christmas.”

“
You don’t determine when it’s my last Christmas, I do. I want this holiday done right, girl. And you’re the easiest one to get here because you don’t have a husband.”

A small
laugh escaped her. So she’d been summoned as a last option. It mattered not. Danby was ill, and she wanted to be here for him, but oh, how she wished Mother had come. Mother would know how to help care for the sick duke.

The duke coughed into a monogrammed kerchief, a shudder wracked his reed
-thin frame. “I’ve got some important work for you to see to.” The aged lines on his gaunt cheeks tightened as if in pain.

“
Perhaps we should speak later, Grandfather. When you are feeling better.”

Danby’s brows dipped. “
I’ll say when we’re finished up here, Livvie. And you, where do you think you’re going?”

Olivia looked over her shoulder.

Apparently grandfather’s steward had made a move to exit the room. He stood, his back to her and the duke, saying nothing.

It was foreign, this. Those in the duke’s employ, even family
, deferred to his desires because simply put, the old lord would have it no other way. How very interesting that he’d tolerate such insolence from his steward.

Olivia
shuffled back and forth on her feet. Her discomfort had little to do with the ache in her lower back from days’ worth of traveling, and everything to do with the miserable, scowling man in Danby’s employ.