Captive (11 page)

Olivia had sat poised, quill in hand, at the desk in her grandfather’s library for almost an hour, trying to make up her mind whether to accept the duke’s invitation.

She knew all the reasons why she should refuse. None of them held as much sway as the one reason why she wished to accept.

Braddock was the man of her dreams.

To refuse him would be to give up her dreams forever, because a man of his prominence was not likely to pursue her without encouragement. She could not give up the hope that he had some other
motive for inviting her than revenge against her brother. She dipped her quill and began to write.

“You’re up early.”

Olivia turned and saw Charlotte standing at the door. “So are you. Did something awaken you?”

“I couldn’t sleep,” she admitted.

Charlotte wandered around the library, picking leatherbound tomes from the shelves and leafing through them before replacing them again. Olivia was afraid to continue writing for fear Charlotte would want to see her missive. She had hoped to have at least this first meeting with the duke without fanfare. That way, she could ask him his intentions and determine his motives before she let herself fall any more deeply in love with him than she already was.

Eventually, Charlotte settled into one of the two leather wing chairs in front of the fireplace. Except, since it was Charlotte, instead of sitting with her feet on the floor, she had draped herself sideways in the chair with her legs hanging over one arm.

Olivia had just dipped her quill again when Charlotte asked, “Can you spare a moment to talk?”

Olivia laid down her quill and rose from the desk, turning her letter, with its revealing salutation, facedown on the blotter, in case Charlotte should start to roam the room again and come upon
it. Then she crossed and sat properly in the other brass-studded leather chair. “What is it, Charlie?”

She gave a long-suffering sigh. “Lion.”

Olivia smiled. She couldn’t help it. Personally, she believed Charlotte and her brother were well suited for each other. Lion was too rigidly set in his ways and often authoritarian. He had become an embittered man after Lady Alice had abandoned him at the altar. Many times over the past year when she had heard about her brother’s exploits, she had feared he would end up dissipated or dead.

Everything had changed since Charlotte came into their lives. As far as she was concerned, Charlotte was Lion’s salvation. Charlotte would help her brother learn to enjoy life again.

“What about Lion?” Olivia asked.

“I can’t marry him, Livy.” She scooted forward over the arm of the chair and said earnestly, “I’m going to look around and see if I can find someone else.”

“Oh?” It wasn’t necessary to say more than that with Charlotte. She could easily carry a conversation all by herself.

“Your brother doesn’t want to marry me any more than I want to marry him. We fight like dogs and cats, like weasels and wolverines, like—”

“Husbands and wives,” Olivia inserted. “Every couple has disagreements. The secret is to learn how to compromise.”

Charlotte shook her head. “We’re too different. And he’s too stubborn to change his mind.”

“And you’re not stubborn?” Olivia queried.

“I can be reasonable.”

“Prove it. Give Lion a chance. Try to understand him. Try to like him. Try to see his point of view.”

Charlotte wrinkled her nose. “What purpose would that serve?”

“You might find out Lion is nicer than you think.”

Charlotte bounded out of the chair as though the stuffing had exploded under her. “I think you’re wrong, Livy. But since it’s your brother I’m going to be rejecting, I suppose I owe it to you to give him a fair chance. How long do I have to be reasonable?” she asked.

Olivia laughed. “Is a month too long?”

“Oh, Lord. That’s
forever!
”

“Three weeks then.”

“All right,” Charlotte conceded. “For the next three weeks I’ll try to understand his point of view. But I’m going to keep my eyes open for someone else to marry.”

“That sounds fair,” Olivia said.

“Thanks, Olivia,” Charlotte said. “Oh, by the way. Be sure to give the duke my regards.”

Olivia’s cheeks grew hot. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“I saw the violets, Livy.”

Olivia looked at her questioningly. “How did you know they were mine?”

“Who would send me violets?” she said. “Violets are for someone mysterious and delicate and lovely. That isn’t me at all. That’s you, Livy.”

“Mysterious?” Olivia repeated. “Delicate and lovely?”

Charlotte nodded. “Tell him yes, you’ll go driving with him, Livy. And have a wonderful time.”

She was gone before Olivia could argue with her. Olivia could find nothing mysterious about herself. She was plain and ordinary and forthright. And how could someone who walked like a lopsided duck be delicate? Lovely was the worst lie of all. She knew how plain she was. She had lived with her looks long enough to be honest with herself.

She put her hands to her warm cheeks. Was that really how the duke saw her? Could he really find her intriguing? Could he really find her lovely?

She rose slowly and returned to the desk in a daze. She lifted the quill and wrote, “I will be glad to go driving with you this afternoon.” She signed her name and folded the letter and sealed it with wax. She stared at it for a few moments more before she called Galbraith to come and deliver it.

The instant the note was gone, Olivia wished it back again. She was a foolish old maid, long past her Last Prayer, who was only going to be hurt by a
vengeful man. Charlotte’s fanciful explanation for the violets was no more than that. It would probably turn out that Braddock had asked his steward to send the flowers, and he actually had no idea what variety the man had chosen.

But the dream was too strong to die.

She wanted to be mysterious. She wanted to be delicate and lovely. She retired to her room alone to transform herself into the vision Charlotte had painted for her.

It wasn’t easy.

It amazed her to discover that despite the fact she had purchased as many gowns from the
modiste
as Charlotte had for her trip to London, everything in her closet was a shade of brown or green—including the gown she had worn last night to Almack’s. Had she really chosen those faded, unfashionable colors for herself? Something bright at the end of the row of dresses caught her eye. She pushed everything else aside and drew it forward.

She remembered the dress very well. Charlotte had picked the soft peach-colored muslin over her protest and the design from a stack of fashion plates she had already rejected, saying, “The day will come, Livy, when you will want something special to wear. When you look through your gowns, there it will be.”

She took the high-waisted dress out of the wardrobe and laid it on the bed. It had a deeply cut
square neck and a ruffled hem. She was tempted to call for her maid to help her, but she knew the woman would be likely to remark on something so foreign to what she usually wore. Olivia already felt self-conscious about dressing in something so obviously intended to attract a man’s attention. She decided she would have to manage alone.

Once she had the gown on it became apparent the bodice was cut even lower than she remembered—Charlotte again, she was sure. Weren’t such short, puffy sleeves too youthful for a woman of her age? The ribbon tied beneath her breasts emphasized the difference between her slender body and her bountiful assets.

She walked slowly to the mirror over her dresser, almost afraid to look at herself.

A stranger peered back at her. Her ordinary brown hair, which she kept pinned up and out of her way, had taken on red highlights. Her hazel eyes looked as warm and rich as sherry. And against the peach fabric, her skin looked vibrantly alive.

Olivia smiled and received another pleasant surprise. The lady reflected in the mirror was no schoolroom miss, but a mature woman, serene, poised, and … No, she was not beautiful. That would have been saying too much. Not even pretty, if she were brutally honest. But soft and lovely, like a violet.

“Livy, why is the door locked?” Charlotte called from the hall.

“Because otherwise you would burst in without knocking,” Olivia answered with a laugh.

“What are you doing in there? I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”

Olivia crossed to the door, opened it wide, and stood waiting for Charlotte’s verdict. Charlotte, being Charlotte, didn’t disappoint her.

A smile as big as the ocean split her face. She grabbed Olivia’s hands and whirled her exuberantly in a circle. “Oh, Livy, look at you! You’re a beauty! You’ll have the duke on his knees declaring himself before you know it. He won’t be able to take his eyes off of you. When is he coming? Can I be there when he does I want to see his face. He won’t believe it’s the same Livy he met last night.”

That was what worried her. Braddock would know she had gone to a great deal of effort to improve herself for him. Would he mention the difference? Would he appreciate it?

“I’d rather meet the duke alone, if you don’t mind,” she said. “I’ll be nervous enough without someone there to watch every move I make.”

“I won’t say anything. I promise I’ll be as quiet as a mouse.”

Olivia arched a disbelieving brow.

“All right, so I wouldn’t be able to keep my
mouth shut for long. But I wouldn’t say anything to embarrass you.”

The brow arched higher.

“At least, not on purpose. Oh, please, Livy, let me be there,” Charlotte begged.

“I suppose I owe you something for insisting I have this lovely dress made,” Olivia said. “All right, Charlie. You may be present in the drawing room when he arrives. But you must promise to act like a lady.”

“I’ll do my best,” Charlotte said. “Now, before the duke arrives, we need to do something with your hair.”

Olivia reached up to touch her neatly arranged hair, looking for something out of place. “Is anything amiss?”

Charlotte wrinkled her nose. “You might as well put on one of those old-maid lace caps of yours. That hairdo cries out for one.”

Olivia hurried to the mirror and stared at herself. The look of serenity was gone from her eyes. Panic had replaced it. “What can I do, Charlie? I’ve always worn it like this.”

“Always?”

“Since my accident, anyway.”

“Then it’s time for a change, Livy. Sit down, and let me see what I can do.” Charlotte urged her onto the cushioned bench in front of the mirror and
began pulling pins willy-nilly from her hair. It fell in soft waves around her face.

“My goodness,” Charlotte said. “I had no idea your hair was so long. Or so full of curls.”

“I can’t get it to hang straight,” Olivia complained. “So I keep it pinned up.”

“Look how bouncy these curls are on your shoulders,” Charlotte said as she brushed Olivia’s hair. “We’ll just pin a little of it away from your face and let the rest hang free. There. That’s perfect!” Charlotte announced.

Olivia looked at herself in the mirror. Another transformation had taken place. Now she was almost pretty.

It was terrifying.

“Put it back like it was, Charlie.” She quickly gathered her hair back against her head, stabbing pins in so hard they hurt her scalp.

“What are you doing, Livy? You’re messing up my creation.”

“It isn’t me, Charlie. I’m not that woman in the mirror. I’m plain and ordinary. Any man who wants me will have to want me for who I am inside. I’ll never trap him with my looks.”

Charlotte stood aside without interfering while Olivia pinned her hair back smooth again, brushing every single stray wisp into place.

“Why are you so afraid of being pretty, Livy?” Charlotte asked quietly.

Livy turned startled eyes on the girl, who saw too much for one so young. “I’m not afraid of being pretty. It’s just that I know I’m not. Lion has told me so.”

“Lion doesn’t know everything, Livy. I thought you had learned that lesson by now.”

Olivia wasn’t sure where the anger came from, but it bubbled up inside her like some witch’s brew. “You don’t know everything, either, Charlotte. I—”

Her brother appeared in her bedroom door like some apparition. His shirt points were wilted, as though he had slept in his clothes. His neck cloth hung shapeless at his throat. Theobald would probably have an attack of the vapors when he saw the ruin of his handiwork.

Olivia would not have minded having one herself. It would have allowed her to avoid seeing the look on Lion’s face as he perused her from head to foot.

He leaned against the door frame, layered his arms across his chest, put one booted foot over the other, and asked in a lazy voice, “What is the occasion, Olivia?”

“For your information, she’s going driving with the Duke of Braddock this afternoon,” Charlotte answered for her.

“You may speak when you’re spoken to, Lady
Charlotte,” Lion corrected her in a chilly voice. “I was addressing my sister.”

Charlotte’s lower lip formed a six-year-old’s pout, and her eyebrows lowered mutinously over angry green eyes. “Don’t think you can stop her,” Charlotte warned. “She’s going whether you like it or not.”

“This is none of your business,” Lion retorted, legs and arms coming uncrossed at the same time as he settled his weight on both feet, ready to take up the cudgel and fight. “I’ll thank you to keep your nose out of places where it doesn’t belong.”

“Both of you stop!” Olivia cried. Her brother and his ward both looked at her as though she were the scapegrace for interrupting their argument. “I am going driving with the Duke of Braddock this afternoon,” she told her brother.

“I forbid it,” he replied in a stony voice.

“I am not seventeen, I am five and twenty. I am not your ward, I am your sister. You have no authority over me, Lion. I may do as I please. And I am going driving this afternoon with Braddock.”

“Hurrah for you, Livy!” Charlotte cheered.

“As for you, Charlotte,” Olivia said, “You made a promise to me earlier today. Have you forgotten it already?”

Charlotte grimaced. “Do I have to?”

“A promise is a promise.”

Charlotte rolled her eyes and turned to the earl.
“I guess Livy can take care of herself.” She sniffed the earl’s breath and said, “Have you been drinking this morning?”