Lady Farquhar's Butterfly (4 page)

Julian didn’t
recognize her. Even when she took his hand to shake it, solemnly,
there was no recollection in his eyes. He was as restless as his
cousins, turning his bright gaze upon his Uncle Max as if begging
to be reprieved and dismissed from the room.

‘So, you’re
Julian,’ she repeated, forcing a tremulous smile. ‘I’m very pleased
to meet you, Julian.’

‘Can I go now,
Uncle Max?’

Not two
minutes in her company and her darling boy couldn’t wait to leave.
She meant nothing to him.

She closed her
eyes, briefly. Why should she? If his Uncle Max thought it, Julian
thought it, too. She had abandoned him. Forsaken him. Without a
second thought.

A terrible
lump formed in her throat. She couldn’t swallow past it. She felt
the tingling, swelling in her glands as the tears forced their way
up and out.

Releasing
Julian’s hand, she fell back into her chair. She tried to take a
breath, choked on it, then shuddered, burying her face in her hands
as she let out a strangled wail.

When rational
thought returned, the boys had gone. Amelia, whom she’d barely even
greeted with the requisite courtesy, was sitting on the sofa
opposite her, regarding her over the top of her tea cup.

At least, she
could see part of Amelia. The rest of her was obscured by Mr
Atherton.

Dear Lord, she
was squeezed up against him, her head upon his chest, her face wet
with tears. She supposed she must have been sobbing like a mad
creature.

He gave a
short laugh when he saw her obvious dismay at the state of his coat
sleeve.

‘No cause for
concern. I’m dressed like a country rustic and it’s not as if I’m
unused to ruined jackets, Mrs Templestowe, being so often in the
company of snotty-nosed little boys,’ he said, bracingly. He rose,
perhaps realizing their closeness no longer appropriate now that
her tears had ceased. ‘Wonderful! A smile,’ he said, his own warm
and sympathetic as he gazed down at her. ‘Seems as if a good cry
was just what the doctor ordered.’ He stooped to place a comforting
hand on her shoulder, and his eyes met hers, their expression
tender and enquiring. ‘Would you care to tell me what that was all
about?’

‘Max!’

‘It’s not
impertinence.’ Mr Atherton sounded defensive as he turned to face
his sister. ‘If Mrs Templestowe is going to start sobbing in my
drawing room for no apparent reason, then I believe it’s a fair
question to ask what might have upset her. You, Amelia, are wearing
a most unbecoming bonnet, which is surprising, for you are
generally in the first stare. If that is what upset Mrs Templestowe
then I would be relieved to know the fault did not lie with me, for
I was up before Frensham was on hand to dress me. Perhaps I’ve
committed some unpardonable crime in the manner in which I’ve mixed
a green and black waistcoat with buff pantaloons. If the fault lies
with me, I’d much rather be told.’

‘You are
entirely blameless, both of you,’ protested Olivia with a weak
smile, sitting up straight as embarrassment at her emotional
outburst washed over her. ‘It’s just …’

Her words
trailed into expectant silence. Stammering, she tried to come up
with a plausible reason for her distress. ‘Julian.’ Her voice
became a whisper. ‘I lost my baby a year ago. When I saw
Julian—’

She couldn’t
go on. She took another heaving breath, trying with all her might
to resist another embarrassing deluge of sobs. Finally she managed
a tremulous smile, blushing at being the focus of attention.

‘I’m all right
now,’ she said, waving away Mr Atherton who looked like he was
going to enfold her in his bear-like embrace once again. There was
nothing like sympathy to bring on a bout of self-pitiful and
selfindulgent wailing.

Yet hadn’t all
her efforts been with this portentous meeting in mind?

Success seemed
within her grasp.

There was Mr
Atherton, the man to whom Lucien had entrusted Julian’s future, and
who was therefore responsible for Olivia’s happiness, looking at
her with transparent sympathy and admiration. As if she were the
most precious and novel creature ever to have crossed his
threshold. She acknowledged the look with a mixture of hope and
dread. She was used to men’s admiration but it had been a long time
since she had courted it. Her beauty was a poisoned chalice. Mr
Atherton was kind and decent. If she revealed to him her real
identity he would be instantly disgusted. Even if he chose to
dismiss the rumours that had blackened her name it wouldn’t be long
before he discovered the rottenness within. Lucien had tainted her.
She knew better than anyone that the beautiful mask she presented
to the world concealed a soul that was destined to writhe in the
flames of Hell with her late husband.

Hadn’t The
Reverend Kirkman told her a thousand times?

It only
strengthened her quest to regain Julian in this life. At any
cost.

‘I’ll see that
Charlotte is preparing the boys for nursery tea,’ Amelia excused
herself.

‘It looks like
rain yet again. My sympathies, Mrs Templestowe.’ Amelia hesitated
in the doorway, looking at Olivia as if she couldn’t quite make her
out. ‘I cannot imagine what it must be to lose a child.’

CHAPTER TWO

IF OLIVIA HAD
been sleeping, the loud crash of thunder and rattling of the
casement would surely have woken her. As Max’s new house guest she
had retired to bed two hours ago. The soothing pastoral scene upon
the wall had proved anything but that. In fact, she’d been staring
at it with increasing desperation when the enormous crash rattled
the house.

It startled
her so much she nearly fell out of bed.

Shivering
under the quilt, she wondered if Julian were as afraid of
thunderstorms as she. When he’d been a baby she’d taken him into
her bed where he’d always slept, contented and oblivious to the
wildness without.

Now he seemed
barely able to tolerate her. When Charlotte had brought him down to
say good night he’d climbed on to his uncle’s lap and twined his
little arms around his neck for a good night kiss before coming to
stand, at Mr Atherton’s instruction, dutifully before her. With
downcast eyes he’d parroted: ‘Say good night to Mrs Templestowe’
before being released, with obvious relief, skipping off with
Charlotte to join his cousins.

Olivia
recalled with pain his tense little smile, just before Charlotte
had led him away to bed. Her brief reunion in the corridor earlier
with Julian’s nursemaid had reassured her she did not risk an
unmasking for the moment. Charlotte’s joy was not in doubt, just as
her loyalty had never been. But when Charlotte had reassured her
that Mr Atherton was ‘the most good natured of masters’ Olivia had
not been ready to relinquish her fear that Mr Atherton’s disgust at
learning the identity of his unexpected visitor would override his
supposed kindness.

Another crack
of thunder was followed by what sounded like an eerie, distant cry.
More than anything, Olivia wished the flash of lightning could
bathe the room permanently in light.

What if Julian
was lying in his bed, too afraid to find his Charlotte? Perhaps Mr
Atherton had demanded that little boys needed to learn courage, and
should not be offered comfort.

These, and
similar fears, chased themselves around her head until she thought
it would burst, until she had no choice but to force her fear into
submission.

Rising
reluctantly, she pushed her feet into slippers, threw her shawl
around her shoulders, lit a taper and crept into the passage. She
knew exactly where the boys were sleeping.

What mother
would not?

But a tower
room would be more exposed to the elements and if, for some reason,
Julian had been placed into a bedchamber apart from his cousins, he
would be terrified.

Olivia
studiously ignored the probability that the boys would almost
certainly be together, and that in this household no two year old
would be abandoned to face his childish terrors, alone. It was her
duty to ensure her little boy was not sobbing with fear.

Swiftly, she
glided along several passageways, found the stairs to the tower,
and was soon turning the handle of the room most likely to contain
Julian.

No sound of
sobbing greeted her. She pushed open the door fully and raised her
taper high. The picture that greeted her was one of the deepest
domestic bliss. All three boys were cuddled together in one large
bed, eyes closed, oblivious apparently to the storm raging outside.
An adjoining door was open through which Olivia could hear the
gentle snoring of the nursery maid.

She stood for
a few moments surveying the scene. Or rather, studying the face of
her little boy. At least now she could gaze upon it to her heart’s
content.

Long, dark
eyelashes swept his chubby, rosy cheeks. His thumb was in his mouth
and he wore a half smile, as if he were dreaming of something
pleasant.

Olivia drank
in the sight that must sustain her until she was able to claim him
for her own … in three months? Two months? When would she finally
be granted the legal right to be a mother again? she wondered with
a pang.

It all hinged
on Mr Atherton. She felt another pang. A very different one.

If only she
had confessed her true identity the moment she’d opened her eyes:
Mr Atherton was the most charming, good-natured of men.

Yet when
honesty was required her courage had failed her.

She tried to
dismiss the fear bound up in her lie. When the right moment came,
she would tell him. Soon she would leave Elmwood and Mr Atherton –
she felt a pang of regret – and from her home with her aunts she
would compose a letter that struck the right note, asking for her
rights as a loving mother to be respected.

For so long
The Reverend Kirkman had convinced her that his plan to reclaim
Julian was the only way.

Now that
Olivia had broken free to follow her own instincts and had met Mr
Atherton, already she felt the reverend’s influence over her
diminishing. Mr Atherton was open to reason, and weren’t truth and
reason the source of success and happiness?

A crack of
lightning illuminated the room, the accompanying thunder making
Olivia gasp with fear and Julian to stir in his sleep. She heard
Charlotte’s bed creak.

With her hand
on the door knob she prepared to tear herself away, swallowing past
the painful lump in her throat as she acknowledged the foundation
on which her past and, now her future, were built: deception.

She felt the
strong, cold fingers of her reality squeezing the chamber of her
heart, moulding her mind. However much she liked Mr Atherton he
could only ever be the means of restoring Julian to her. For her
lie required more than a simple unmasking of her identity.
Revealing the full extent of the truth threatened the future of her
son.

*

No amount of
thunder and lightning and howling wind could wake Max from a deep
sleep.

Ghosts and
goblins were another matter. Especially if they caused the
floorboards in the passage outside his bedchamber to creak.

Someone was
tiptoeing about the house in the middle of the storm, he realized,
groggily. The thought that it might be a small boy sleepwalking or
seeking comfort caused him to drag himself from the cosy comfort of
his bed, draw on his thick silk dressing gown, push on his slippers
and softly open his door. He did not want to alarm the little
lad.

There was no
point in lighting a taper. He now knew this house like the back of
his hand, and the glow from his fire reached sufficiently into the
passage for him to see clearly enough.

A crack of
lightning and roll of thunder was accompanied by a highpitched
squeal of fright not two feet from him, and a taper wavered and
nearly went out.

Max found
himself staring into the terrified eyes of his new house guest, Mrs
Olivia Templestowe.

For a moment
he thought it was his sudden entry into her nocturnal path that had
nearly frightened the wits out of her. However, when another flash
lit up the entire house and the thunder created a din fit to end
the world he saw that the young woman’s terrors were wholly on
account of the storm.

‘Let me take
that,’ he murmured, removing the wavering candle from her grasp.
‘What are you doing roaming the house at this time of night? Come,
I’ll take you back to your room.’

She looked
lost and frightened, but her vacant gaze suggested she had not
registered his presence.

He put his
hand under her elbow and began to guide her in the direction of her
chamber when another boom of thunder caused her to shriek again.
This time she clung to him, burying her head against his chest.

Placing her
taper on a low table, he put his arms around her shoulders and held
her lightly. She was just the right height for him to rest his chin
on top of the fine linen nightcap that covered her glossy light
hair.

For some
minutes she trembled while he fought the almost overpowering urge
to enfold her in an embrace far more intimate. Her breathing was
completely dominated by the storm: regular when it subsided, fast
and shallow when the thunder roared and the lightning flashed.

Observing this
fascinating phenomenon, Max was disappointed when she suddenly
tilted up her head, crying out, ‘Mr Atherton!’ She looked shocked
though she did not step back. ‘I thought the boys might be afraid,’
she added, dropping her gaze.

‘Not nearly as
afraid as you, it would appear.’ He put his finger beneath her chin
to tilt her head up again. They were the most amazing eyes he
thought he’d seen: layers of blue disappearing into fathomless
depths. And she was the most amazing creature he’d met. He could
not make her out, and was looking forward to trying. ‘You were very
brave to venture out alone.’