Lady Farquhar's Butterfly (10 page)

‘Finally he
rose and called me over. I stood by the table, awaiting his
pleasure while he and the other men looked me over like a horse.
They were leering and sniggering. I was terrified, humiliated, but
there was nothing I could do. Then Lord Grimble nodded at Lucien
and said he thought sampling Lady Farquhar’s butterfly with a kiss
would be bargain enough at which point Lucien ordered me to
disrobe.’ Her voice trembled. ‘Right there, in front of them all.’
She squeezed shut her eyes. ‘I was too afraid to disobey. Lucien
was so ingenious at inventing the cruellest tortures. Besides, I
thought one of the men in that room would surely protest.’ Olivia
swallowed as she rested her head against the door. She felt the
memories close in on her. Felt her breath start to leave her.

Then she was
in Max’s arms and he was crushing her tightly against him, kissing
her hair, her eyes –

– her
lips.

CHAPTER SIX

SHE RESPONDED
LIKE a wilting flower receiving rain. Her heart opened like the
floodgates of a weir to receive … hope? Happiness? Except that
there was no hope and, as ever, happiness would be fleeting. Still
that didn’t stop her twining her arms behind his neck and
responding to his kiss with all the ardour of their last encounter.
She could not deny her passionate nature when it was aroused.

Older and
wiser, she knew the price of happiness. Since she could not afford
it beyond the moment she intended to take all she could while it
was offered: Max’s arms around her, his hard, strong young body all
muscle and desire, binding her with his need.

His kisses
were incendiary, inflaming her with a desperation to throw all
caution to the wind and seal their love upon the four poster in the
centre of the room, and she would have had she been able to offer
him marriage.

But, of
course, there could be no taking it to the next level while she was
a woman, betrothed, on a visit intended to explain and reinforce
this uncomfortable truth.

When she felt
his reluctant but undeniable withdrawal it was like mourning what
she’d been unable to mourn before.

‘If I told you
I believe everything you’ve told me’ – breathless, he chose his
words carefully, his dark eyes searching hers as he still held her
against him – ‘would it be worth my asking you, again, to marry
me?’

Olivia covered
her face with her hands and stepped out of his arms. This was not
supposed to happen.

He looked so
desperately, heartbreakingly sincere, his expression so full of
yearning she had to force back the tears. And trammel down the
desire to throw herself back into his embrace.

She couldn’t
let him see the answering want in her own eyes. Stumbling towards
the light, she again sought the sanctuary of the window. Here she
could support herself against the cold glass, stare out into the
grey afternoon light and wonder, briefly, why she had been cursed
with the kind of beauty that made men want to possess her and
punish her in equal measure.

For Nathaniel
wanted her as badly as Lucien ever had. She was not fooled by his
restrained manner. He would fight Max for her using every unsavoury
titbit of scandal, every damning piece of character evidence at his
disposal.

And he had
plenty of it. Nathaniel was a formidable adversary. Max’s kindness
and honour were no match for Nathaniel’s ploys.

Yet hadn’t Max
just accepted, at face value, everything Olivia had told him in
exoneration of her behaviour? Didn’t that mean he’d forgive her the
rest? All he wanted was the truth. Surely it was worth the
risk?

She gripped
the window sill as she stared vacantly into the stable yard. All
she need do was say: ‘I will be yours if you can forgive me the
fact that Julian is a bastard who has usurped your position as the
rightful Viscount Farquhar.’

She gathered
her breath. She could say it.

Then she
remembered that not only her happiness hung in the balance.
Declaring Julian a bastard meant condemning him to society’s
scrapheap. He would be entitled to nothing: no social standing, no
financial support.

She crumpled
against the window pane. She could not do it. She wanted Max above
all except the wellbeing of her child. She simply couldn’t take the
risk.

‘Olivia?’

She had to
answer him. Soon. Even as she turned, her mouth opening to respond,
she hesitated, the truth balancing on the faintest of breaths.

It was as her
gaze registered the empathy and compassion in his expression that
she knew she’d say no.

Not because of
Julian; not because of her fears for him, for Max had honour and
decency, she knew that.

But because of
her own deficiencies.

She did not
deserve him. Max was good and pure of heart. A gentleman, not a
cruel tormentor. It wouldn’t be long before those eyes which melted
her soul with their gentleness would soon kindle with
disappointment.

What did it
matter that she had not deserved Lucien’s treatment? The fact
remained: he had corrupted her. What did it matter that she had
wept every night at the seductive, wanton acts she’d been forced to
perform with a smile? The fact remained that she’d danced all but
naked in a transparent shimmer of gauze on the dining table and men
had lined up to kiss her breast with its famous butterfly
birthmark.

Regardless of
how much she bared her soul to Max now, she did not think she had
the fortitude to bear his increasing disappointment, his dawning
realization of her unworthiness.

‘I’m so sorry,
Max,’ she whispered. They were the hardest words she’d ever said. A
slap in the face for him and the death knell for her own hopes of
happiness. She swallowed. ‘I cannot renege on my promise to
Nathaniel. Please try to understand.’ She turned her face a
fraction, caught the flare of surprise in his eyes, the blanching
of his skin indicating, more than words ever could, his
wounding.

She went on,
resting the small of her back against the window sill, ‘For more
years than I care to remember Mr Kirkman has salvaged my dignity in
situations too awful to revisit.’ She swallowed again, almost
elaborated about the table dancing and everything else, but bit
back the words at the last moment. He’d need to know if he were to
be her husband. Since that wasn’t to be, at least let him leave
with a less tarnished image of herself.

‘I’d like to
know what the worthy reverend was doing at Lucien’s debauched
gatherings in the first place?’ Max ground out, as he regarded her
from the centre of the room.

Olivia gave a
helpless gesture. ‘Lucien liked to balance vice with piety.’ She
took a deep breath. ‘Nathaniel accepted Lucien’s invitations
because the only way he could help me was to be in attendance.
Usually with a linen sheet on hand to wind around me as the music
stopped whereupon he’d whisk me upstairs while I sobbed upon his
shoulder. I think he disapproved of Lucien’s wicked ways, but what
could he do?’

It was true
and this, if nothing else, should have decided her. After a
lifetime of vanity rewarded by her fall from grace she ought to
have accepted the time had come to pay her dues to him.

Feeling like
an old woman, she picked up her bonnet and retied it as she moved
towards the door, with one final look at Max. ‘I owe Nathaniel so
much. An unspoken understanding has existed between us from the day
Lucien died that once my mourning period was over Nathaniel would
claim me. He intimated as much as he outlined my best course in
reclaiming Julian.’ She paused, her hand on the door knob. ‘I am
only doing my duty.’

In two strides
Max had crossed the room and taken her by the shoulders. ‘Duty?
What has love to do with duty?’ he rasped, his face close to hers.
‘Nathaniel has no claim on you. He merely did what any decent man
was obliged to do.’

Olivia
wriggled out of his grasp, pulling down the veil as her hand groped
for the door knob. Salvation demanded she make her escape now. No
matter that it tore her heart in two she had to do this.

‘And
Julian?’

His voice was
thick with a mixture of anger and misery as he let her pull out of
his arms. ‘If you marry Nathaniel I will not see you again; would
not want to, for it would be more than I could bear. But what about
Julian?’ His voice cracked. ‘When Lady Farquhar made no effort to
contact me, I, fool that I am, allowed myself to become attached—’
He took a breath. ‘You read me well enough to know that I would
never exercise my authority to keep the boy with me.’ He dug the
palm of his hand into his eye socket as he dragged out a breath.
‘Am I to lose everything?’

‘You may see
him whenever you wish,’ Olivia whispered, her wretchedness
threatening to consume her. She could not bear to see him like
this.

‘Provided
Kirkman sanctions it,’ he muttered.

Olivia gulped,
nodding. Then, opening the door herself, she stepped out into the
corridor and fled.

‘I thought Mr
Atherton was leaving this morning.’ Aunt Catherine looked anxiously
between her niece and her sister. ‘Mr Kirkman has just sent a
message to say the two of them will be joining us for dinner.’

‘Mr Kirkman
sent the message?’ Olivia put down her sewing and frowned at her
aunt who shared the meagre warmth of their little fire from her
favourite seat opposite.

‘Apparently
he’s been entertaining Mr Atherton. They rode to the abbey ruins
earlier and—’

‘Olivia?’

Olivia jerked
her head up at Aunt Eunice’s sharp tone and cursed herself for
allowing her feelings to be so transparent. She wasn’t glad he was
coming, and that, clearly, was what had excited her aunt.

‘I … just feel
anxious. What if he’s decided to renege and take Julian back?’ she
said, feebly, as she returned to her stitching.

‘Mr Atherton
appears as unlike his cousin as is possible.’ Aunt Eunice regarded
her with interest. She had always known how to read her.
‘Catherine, why don’t you tell the kitchen? One extra place is
hardly worthy of all your frowns, Olivia. Mr Atherton seems a very
easy-to-please gentleman. I doubt he’d be too concerned if we
served him bread and dripping on account of the short notice.’

Olivia said
barely a word as her aunts welcomed Max into their fold before
ushering everyone through to the drawing room for some Madeira
before dinner.

She wished she
could simply disappear, taking Julian with her, and never return.
She’d leave them all in a heartbeat, she decided, watching Aunt
Catherine fawning over Nathaniel, and Aunt Eunice’s sharp eye
roving over all, as if trying to understand that which Olivia
wished heartily to keep from her.

Why
had
Max come? Why hadn’t he just let her get on with her life according
to their understanding of yesterday? Despite her long experience in
play-acting she did not know how she would manage to behave towards
him as if he were a mere stranger she had met the previous day. As
for Max, what did he even know of play-acting? He was as
transparent as the gossamer gowns her late husband had liked her to
wear.

She was
terrified.

Smiling
faintly, she refused the seat Nathaniel offered her as they
congregated in the drawing room before dinner, going instead to the
corner of the Wilton carpet to kneel with Julian and Charlotte to
play with the tin soldiers Max had bought for his nephew.

The little boy
seemed as subdued as she, though perhaps a little more responsive
towards her than he had been during the few days she had spent at
Max’s home. Quietly they lined up the soldiers in a neat row and
distractedly Olivia stroked her son’s soft dusky curls, listening
to the drone of conversation and feeling sick with dread.

Would Max
expose her visit to Elmwood in front of Nathaniel? She doubted that
was his motive. Wearily she accepted he was making one final bid to
win her back.

Misery
overlaid all. She couldn’t bear it. She’d well and truly accepted
her fate.

‘—isn’t that
so, Lady Farquhar?’

She jerked her
head up at the sound of her name. All eyes were on her. Max’s, most
particularly. Without his good-natured smile and the gentle humour
that softened his features he looked frighteningly like his
cousin.

‘I’m sorry,
did I alarm you with my sudden question?’ Max frowned in polite
enquiry.

Olivia’s heart
pounded like a drum. The tin soldier fell from her grasp. ‘You look
so much like Lucien,’ she whispered.

It took a
moment for him to register this. There was shocked silence. She put
her hand to her mouth. Mentioning Lucien in her household was akin
to mentioning the Devil.

Max smiled and
although it was not his usual open, kind smile, his resemblance to
Lucien dissolved upon the instant. ‘Forgive me, I keep forgetting
my cousin was your late husband.’

With a nervous
cough, Aunt Catherine said, ‘You do indeed bear a striking
resemblance to the late Lord Farquhar.’

Max’s cool
tone was tinged with surprise. ‘It is not usually remarked
upon.’

‘For there is
no resemblance when you smile, Mr Atherton, and I think you are
generally a good-natured gentleman.’ Olivia gave a shaky laugh.

‘Please don’t
stand on ceremony with me.’ Max gave a rather thin smile. ‘We are
surely sufficiently close to call each other by our Christian
names.’ Was it only Olivia who heard the irony?

She blushed
and turned away as an image intruded of Max’s hot feverish kisses
and her equally feverish response.

‘You were
away, was it six years, Mr Atherton?’ Aunt Eunice intervened,
indicating to the servant to bring the Madeira.

‘My regiment
was sent overseas shortly before Lucien and Olivia were married. I
returned to live at Elmwood after Lucien’s death.’