Fool Me Twice (34 page)

She was doing a good job now of staring impassively at the sights. It was the very blankness of her expression that gave her away. When was her face so deadpan, unless by dint of effort? “Is it as you remember?” he asked.

“Of course.” She spoke without inflection. “A place like this never changes.”

“You don’t like returning here.”

She shrugged.

He felt a strange lick of anger. She was forever needling him, provoking him, asking him what she had no right to know.
Did you love your wife? Will you not return to public life?
But she never offered him her own secrets. She required him to pry them out, to make guesses, stabs in the dark. “You grew up here,” he said. “Did you leave no friends behind?”

That earned him a strange look. “The daughter of the fallen woman?” She offered him a slight smile. “This corner of the world takes virtue very seriously. Stop here,” she added, sitting forward. “This is the house.”

*  *  *

The atmosphere in the little, holly-decked parlor felt strongly familiar to Alastair. As introductions were made and tea served, he tried to identify it.

Their hostess, Mrs. Hotchkiss, was the widow of the man who had leased this house to Olivia’s mother. She was slim, nervous, elegantly graying; she kept forgetting how to address Alastair, cycling rapidly between “Your Grace” and “Your Lordship.”

Her friend Mrs. Dale, whose visit they had interrupted, made no attempt to contribute. Her attention
was all for a button on her cuff, which she picked at skeptically, as though testing the skill of a seamstress she was hoping to find reason to sack. She marked each of Mrs. Hotchkiss’s blundering addresses with a loud, pointed sniff.

Mrs. Hotchkiss was reeling off the fates and fortunes of various villagers whom Olivia presumably must have known. Country folk in these parts were apparently prone to early deaths, financial misfortunes, and accidents involving ladders, horses, and wells. Just as Alastair’s patience began to wear thin, Mrs. Hotchkiss said, “But gracious me! How I ramble—I haven’t asked about you, Miss Holladay.”

“Yes,” Mrs. Dale said in a voice as dry as month-old porridge. “It is a matter of curiosity, no doubt.”

“It’s clear you’ve done very well for yourself in London,” Mrs. Hotchkiss went on brightly. “Such company you keep now!” Here she turned on Alastair a marveling look.

“
Quite
interesting,” Mrs. Dale said.

Olivia faced her in a sudden, forceful manner. “Is it, Mrs. Dale? Pray tell, what precisely interests you so?”

Mrs. Dale’s mouth crimped. “I couldn’t say. I’m certain I lack the knowledge required to speculate. One does wonder, of course, what happened to your
face.
But perhaps that is common in your circles.”

Olivia touched her bruised cheek. For his part, Alastair finally located the cause of his déjà vu. The profusion of doilies, the women’s narrow, outmoded skirts, the framed prints of the Queen, the ticking of multiple clocks, and the pretty fragrance of wilting Christmas wreaths had all briefly disguised it. But the last time he’d found himself in an atmosphere so charged with
tension, he’d been on the floor of the Commons, faced with a last-minute betrayal before a very tight vote.

“I fell,” Olivia said calmly. “I was distracted by an evil sight—not in London.” She then shifted in her seat, turning her back on the woman. “Yes,” she said to Mrs. Hotchkiss, “London has treated me very well, ma’am. Thank you for asking.”

“And what is it you
do
there?” Mrs. Hotchkiss asked.

Olivia’s expression remained studiously neutral. “I trained as a typist. Since then—”

“And was that what led you into His Grace’s company?” Mrs. Dale glanced toward him. Her eyes were dark, shining, without depth. “Or was it, perhaps, some
family
connection?”

Mrs. Hotchkiss made some abrupt gesture—distress, quickly controlled.
Ah.
Alastair understood now: Mrs. Dale thought he was unaware of Olivia’s bastardy. Accordingly, she was angling the conversation toward that subject.

He broadcast mild puzzlement. “No, indeed. Miss Holladay served as secretary to my aunt, in fact.”

“And now you play her escort.” Mrs. Dale gave him a thin, skeptical smile. “How
unusually
decent.”

She clearly imagined their relationship to be the opposite of decent. In the middle ages, she would have been the first to light a faggot when it came time to burn the witch.
Charming
.

Alastair shrugged. “It was my aunt’s last request that I see Miss Holladay settled.”

Mrs. Dale lifted one thin, dark brow. “I am surprised she required help. She was always so very
clever
at her business. It must have slipped Mrs. Hotchkiss’s mind,” she added to Olivia directly, “to mention that I am a
grandmother. It was a very happy day when my son wed Miss Crocker. She is everything one could wish for in a daughter.”

Ah.
He gathered that at one point, Mrs. Dale’s son had glanced Olivia’s way instead.

“A grandmother!” Olivia said warmly. “But I should have thought you a great-grandmother at the least!”

Mrs. Dale’s mouth tightened.

“Well, but then you must have some purpose in coming here,” said Mrs. Hotchkiss hastily. “That is—if His Grace is helping you to settle matters, Miss Holladay.”

This was his cue. He rose. “Perhaps, Mrs. Dale, you might walk with me. I should like to hear about the history of Allen’s End.”

Mrs. Dale did not rise. “For Mrs. Hotchkiss’s sake, I must remain while she speaks with Miss Holladay.”

That statement held a dozen possible inferences, all of them profoundly insulting to Olivia—and by extension, to any man who had seen fit to give her the care of his fictional aunt.

Very evenly, holding her reptilian eyes, he said, “You will walk with me, Mrs. Dale.”

The lizard had another moment’s mutiny in her. Then, folding her lips, she rose. “Very well. Miss Holladay . . .” She looked down her nose at Olivia. “I assure you, His Grace will find Allen’s End much changed, much
elevated
, since your departure.”

She stalked out in a crunch of old-fashioned taffeta. He lingered a moment, not caring to offer her his arm as she made her way to the road.

“I am sorry for that,” Mrs. Hotchkiss said softly—not to him, but to Olivia, who shrugged.

“It’s all right,” she said. “I expected no better.”

*  *  *

Outside, the temperature had plummeted, and gray clouds were gathering, pressing low toward the earth. Alastair spotted Mrs. Dale hurrying off down the lane, her skirts twitching briskly. How remarkable. In his experience, there was never a shortage of country matrons who wished to boast that they had strolled with a duke.

He stood by the gate, rubbing his hands together against the chill. Nearby, the horses stirred, causing the coachman to murmur some soothing remark. To the right lay a panoramic view of curving fields and grazing sheep. To the left, down the winding road they had traveled, stood a stretch of shops and cottages. It was a scene from some painting of a pastoral idyll, but he was gathering it had been far from paradise for Olivia.

He heard the door open. Only a single set of footsteps tapped down the stones. Olivia looked composed but pale. “Nothing,” she said. She crossed her arms against a sharp breeze. “She’s been living here for two years. There’s not a nook, she says, that she hasn’t looked into.”

Her dispirited tone disturbed him. In the gray light, her skin looked bloodless, her bruise livid. How had he not thought to ask after her cheek this morning? “Are you in pain?” he asked.

She touched her face. “It’s only a bruise,” she said, and then laughed. “Or a brand of infamy, depending on whom you ask. I should have bought a pair of horns to wear, too!” She glanced around suddenly. “Where did she go?”

“Hustled off before we could even have our walk.”

“You sound very sorry about it.” A cynical smile came
onto her lips. “She’s gone to spread the news, no doubt. Shall we walk? Let them have a look at the jezebel?”

He hesitated, frowning. Why on earth would she want to linger in this cesspool? “If there’s nothing of use here—”

“But I’ve had an idea.” She started down the road toward the shops. He snapped to the coachman, signaling him to follow, and fell into step beside her. As they passed the next house, he saw a curtain twitch in the front window, as though someone indeed had been alerted to watch for them.

“ ‘The truth is hidden at home,’ ”
Olivia said. “But this was never her home, was it?” Her profile looked serene; she did not seem to notice they were being spied upon—not only from the house to their left, but from the house on the other side of the lane, where, in the front window, Alastair could make out a shadowy form blending into the darker drapery. “She never meant Allen’s End. She meant Shepwich!”

“It’s possible.” But he said it absently, for uneasiness was prickling over him. The overcast sky, paired with the empty road scoured by brackish wind, lent this place a forsaken quality. How it had produced a woman like Olivia, he could not begin to guess.

Up ahead on the wooden boardwalk, a small group of matrons emerged from a shop to huddle together in conversation. He picked out the paisley shawl of Mrs. Dale.

Olivia’s steps seemed to quicken. She took a firm grip on his arm, hugging it to her—an embrace far more comprehensive than propriety allowed. He looked down into her pale face, not deceived by her pleasant smile. “These fools aren’t worth your time,” he said.

The wind pulled loose a strand of her brick-red hair, fluttering it gently against her cheek. “True,” she said. “But I am taller than them now. And I have a duke on my arm. Let them see it.”

Another truth struck him, distasteful, bitter. “I’m worse than a bruise,” he said. “You know what they will assume.”

“And they’ll be right, won’t they?” She said it lightly. “But I’ll wager I can outstare them, and that will satisfy me greatly.”

Mrs. Dale broke away from the group, hurrying off down the road, while the other women turned as one to watch their approach.

Anger was building in him. “Stop this,” he bit out. “Why would you willingly make yourself a spectacle?”

“You yourself said it, didn’t you? I’m brazen. Shameless.”

He sucked in a breath. “I never meant—”

“Didn’t you?” Their boots thudded hollowly on the wooden steps that led up onto the promenade. “Be at ease, though.
You
have nothing to fear. I’m certain they will bow and scrape very nicely to you. Even if you weren’t a duke, the
man
is never blamed for it.”

He groped for words. But the only reply was very simple. “I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “I spoke recklessly, earlier. Without thinking.”

“Of course.” She jerked her chin toward a bakery, where someone was drawing down the shades. “The baker, Mr. Porter, was very kind to Mama—but not his wife. She turned away from my mother in the street.”

“Fools,” he said.

“Virtuous churchgoers, in fact. It was Mrs. Porter, along with Mrs. Dale, who conspired to have Mama
expelled from the congregation. She had no proof of her christening—that was how they got her.”

Christ. That was unspeakably petty and cruel—and also the quickest, most effective way to isolate someone in a community as small as this. He turned his hand in hers, tightening his grip.

But she snorted and pulled free. “I was glad of it. The vicar gave the most tedious sermons!”

He forced Olivia to a stop twenty paces from the cluster of staring women. He remembered his own words to her in the coach:
Did you leave no friends behind?

Once upon a time, he had never been so carelessly cruel.

“I was lonely, too,” he said. “As a boy. My parents were judged, mocked, ostracized. That should not have been my burden to bear. And this is not yours.”

Something naked and vulnerable came into her face then, which he never wanted to see again. It was in his power, surely, to make certain she never looked so. Otherwise, what was the use of power?

“Not everyone was so awful,” she said softly. “The vicar told her it didn’t matter. But she never went back to church. In fact, she rarely went out at all after that.”

Something clicked inside him. He took a sharp breath. “She wouldn’t leave the house.”

Gently she said, “You thought you were the first to discover that solution?”

He felt stunned, as though he’d been slammed into a wall. “But you never hid.” Was that bitterness in his voice? Or mere, raw wonder?

“They were never worth hiding from.” She looked over his shoulder. “And there is the milliner,” she said. “Bertram had to bring hats from London. Mr. Ardell would not sell to her. His wife forbade it.”

“I’ll buy you every damned hat in the place.”

She wrinkled her nose and locked eyes, over his shoulder, with the women at the end of the boardwalk. “I shouldn’t want any,” she said, loud and distinct. “They’re all quite dreadful.”

He turned to join her in staring. Two of the women were near to Mrs. Hotchkiss’s age, but the third was young enough to be Olivia’s peer, though her expression looked so sour that it aged her. “It is unfortunate,” he said, “how these little towns tend to collect all the rubbish.”

The elder two women whirled away and thudded down the stairs to the road. After a moment, the sour-faced girl snatched up her skirts and followed.

“Oh,” Olivia whispered. “That
did
feel pleasant.”

The coach had drawn up beside them, the horses stamping. “You’ve run the gauntlet, then,” he said. “Let’s leave this pit.”

Olivia allowed him to help her into the coach. But when the door closed, she said immediately, “It was no gauntlet. A gauntlet hurts those who run it. But I never cared for their good opinion.”

“Of course not.”

“Really. I didn’t.” She gave him a strange little smile. “Don’t imagine I wanted them to apologize for the past. I only wanted to walk in my mother’s footsteps for a minute—now that I’m fully qualified to do so. But as it turns out, I can’t. For she always did care what they thought. And when I was young, I decided that nobody would ever be able to ruin me but myself. Only today I know that I’ve kept that vow. Their stares made no difference to me.”