Lady Farquhar's Butterfly (8 page)

He indicated
for her to pour him another cup of tea. When he spoke again his
tone was intimate, collaborative. ‘Only you and I know
all
the terrible things you have done in Lucien’s name, but there are
enough who have been a party to those events which have tarnished
your reputation; some would say, forever. I, however, believe you
can be redeemed. And I believe it is God’s will that I try.’

Another nail
in the coffin which housed her hopes and dreams. Max had risked his
life for king and country. Honour and valour distinguished him. He
could never understand, much less condone, the things Olivia had
been forced to do, the wicked, terrible things to which Nathaniel
referred.

Still, she
could not bend her will to Nathaniel’s so easily. Her stubborn
spirit which had been the undoing of her in the first place finally
came to the fore.

‘Your offer
does me great honour, Reverend Kirkman,’ she said, drying her eyes
as she banished her emotion. With dignified calm she gazed at the
man who would be her husband; a man to whom she owed a great deal
and who had eased some of the pain of her marriage, but whom she
had no wish to marry. ‘Pray, allow me a day in which to consider
it.’

He appeared
unfazed and relief washed over her. She hadn’t known how Nathaniel
would react if she’d thwarted him. ‘A very proper request, my
dear.’ He drained his tea cup, pushed back his chair and rose.
Bowing, he said, ‘I shall return tomorrow afternoon to receive your
answer.’

She found her
aunts waiting in the parlour like a couple of impatient schoolroom
misses. They greeted her from the window embrasure which afforded
an uninterrupted view of the summerhouse.

‘Did he ask
you, Olivia?’ Aunt Catherine looked just like a little pea hen, the
fluffy grey hair beneath her lace cap matching her dove-grey gown.
Her kind, twinkling blue eyes were full of excited expectation.

‘Did you
accept?’ Aunt Eunice’s voice cracked like a whip, her interest
completely counter to her sister’s.

‘Come now,
Eunice, why won’t you admit that marriage to the reverend is the
best future Olivia could hope for?’ Catherine appealed to her
taller, more formidable sister.

‘I said I’d
give him his answer tomorrow.’ Olivia sank into the chair beside
the window and picked up the book lying there, as if her recent
assignation was of little account.

‘You will, of
course, accept, dearest.’ Aunt Catherine lay her mittened hand upon
Olivia’s shoulder briefly, before taking a seat on the sofa,
opposite. Her myopic blue eyes blinked rapidly. ‘He is quite set
upon it, you know.’

‘Should
Olivia’s feelings not take precedence?’ Aunt Eunice’s tone was dry,
as she took a seat beside her sister. ‘Let the girl alone,
Catherine, and stop trying to force a match if Olivia’s feelings
are not in accord with the reverend’s.’

‘Marriage to
Mr Kirkman will enable Olivia to be reunited with Julian,’ Aunt
Catherine argued. ‘He is guaranteed success. As a Godly, pious man
he has the character required.’

‘I’m hardly
likely to do better. Certainly not in my current situation.’ Olivia
put down the book and sighed. The lines of worry etched on her
aunts’ faces reinforced the pain she had caused them.

She was no
longer an impulsive child. It was time to act as an adult, and in
everyone’s best interests.

If she could
only tame her spirit to obey.

Aunt Eunice
sounded gloomy. ‘Far better to remain alone, Olivia, than subjugate
yourself to a man who makes your repentance and submission his
mission.’

‘Sister!’

‘I’ve
considered that.’ Olivia cut through Aunt Catherine’s predictable
admonition. ‘Yet if I cannot get Julian back any other way—’

‘Mr Kirkman is
not the only Godly, pious man on the planet. Have patience,
Olivia.’ There was an edge to Aunt Eunice’s voice. ‘Can’t you wait
until your heart is in accord with one of the many men who fit this
broad description? Max Atherton is not the fiend his cousin was.
You said so yourself. He’d surely grant you the latitude to find a
man you preferred, even one whose Godliness fell a little short of
the reverend’s.’

‘And what else
do you know of Max Atherton, Olivia?’ Aunt Catherine asked. ‘You
spent two days with him and his sister. Can you imagine how anxious
we were, despite the assurances you wrote us?’

Olivia
shrugged. It was too painful to dwell on Max and all that might
have been had circumstances been different. ‘Men of integrity,’ she
said, ‘tend not to find women like me to their taste, Aunt Eunice.
I fear that Mr Atherton will need to be doubly satisfied that my
husband is a Godly reformer.’ She gave a bitter laugh. ‘Mr Kirkman
undoubtedly fits that description.’

‘Good Lord,
Olivia, that is not reason enough to marry him.’ Aunt Eunice
scowled. ‘You talk as if you were so sunk in vice no decent man
would have you in the same room with their wives.’

‘They
wouldn’t.’

‘But if they
knew the truth—’

Olivia stopped
her Aunt Catherine from continuing. ‘Who is going to tell them?’
She swallowed, the old bitterness banishing her blitheness. ‘Who,
in the world, is going to champion me?’

‘Well,
somebody should! Mr Atherton should, though it sounds as if your
appeal fell on deaf ears. Your reputation has been tarnished by
nothing but rumours.’ Aunt Eunice tried to sound dismissive, but
Olivia heard the defensiveness in her tone. She suddenly felt very
protective.

‘Aunt Eunice,’
she said, gently, ‘you know as well as I that the moment I’m
introduced to anyone remotely respectable they won’t see me as Lady
Farquhar.’ She shuddered as she recalled the shame Lucien had
heaped upon her when he’d made her perform at his debauched
gatherings. ‘They will think only of Lady Farquhar’s Butterfly.’
She had started her speech defiantly. Now her voice dropped away.
‘What man is brave enough to get beyond that stumbling block? I
shall answer the reverend’s question in the affirmative tomorrow.
There can be no other way.’

CHAPTER FIVE

‘MAX, YOU
PROMISED you would accompany us to church this morning.’ Amelia
looked cross as she marshalled her boys, and her husband, into an
orderly line before the front door. ‘You’ll be late! Why, you are
still dressed for riding!’

Max hesitated
at the top of the sweeping marble staircase and looked down at his
sister in the hallway below. Jonathon, Amelia’s longsuffering
husband, raised his sandy eyebrows heavenward as if mentally and
physically preparing himself for another spat between the
siblings.

‘Sorry,
Amelia,’ Max responded, carefully, ‘but I am not prepared to be
seen out with you dressed like that.’

Jonathon and
Amelia swept their eyes over her cornflower-blue gown, topped on
this chilly spring morning, with a smart white spencer. Jonathon
looked startled, Amelia indignant. The two little boys giggled,
scuffing their shoes on the marble flagstones.

It was the
gown Amelia had lent Olivia.

Max descended
a couple of steps and Amelia snapped as realization dawned. ‘She
was a little trollop trying to insinuate herself into your
affections, Max. She thought you would make her gifts of more than
simply my gown. Hasn’t her continued silence made that clear
enough? Though why you felt it necessary to break off your
understanding with Miss Hepworth I don’t know! She was the ideal
consort.’

‘She was very
pleasing,’ Max agreed. ‘Ah, Frensham, I wondered where you’d got to
with my valise.’

‘You are
surely not accompanying Julian to his new home?’ Amelia stamped her
foot. ‘You agreed it would be kinder not to.’ She closed her eyes
as if marshalling patience. When she spoke again her tone was
gentler. ‘Your investigations regarding The Reverend Kirkman’s
character and your meeting with him satisfy Lucien’s idea of an
acceptable husband for that scandalous wife of his – you knew you’d
have to return the boy, sometime.’

Jonathon
cleared his throat. Max waited patiently, watching his
brother-in-law’s breath mist in the cold air, the profile of his
weak chin thrown into relief as the sunlight slanted through a high
window and pooled across the flagstones.

‘Max,’ he
said, ‘I know it’s hard, but it’ll be harder on you both if you do
your leave-taking under the noses of Julian’s mother and her
betrothed.’

It was true.
He’d thought it himself. ‘I know it,’ Max agreed, his shoulders
slumping as he came down the stairs, ‘but the lad hasn’t stopped
crying since he woke at dawn this morning.’

‘Perhaps
Charlotte will take his mind off his troubles better than you will,
Max.’ Jonathon clapped him on the shoulder as he drew level.

‘Say your
farewells here, as you’d planned. Pretend you’re merely sending him
off on a grand adventure and that you’ll be seeing him again
shortly.’

Max shook his
head. ‘Funny,’ he reflected, ‘I had no idea what to do with the boy
when Lucien saddled me with him.’ He swallowed past the lump in his
throat. ‘Now I’ve no idea what I’ll do without him. Lord knows what
I’m sending him to. I do at least owe him that! To find out, I
mean. After all, Lady Farquhar was indisposed the day I met
Kirkman. What do I know of Julian’s mother? Considering the
stories, it’d be negligent if I did not satisfy myself as to
her
character.’ He looked appealingly at Jonathan and his
sister who had just directed one of the servants to take their boys
to church ahead of them.

‘I’d share
your misgivings if you were returning him to his mother’s care,
alone. But, Max’ – Amelia’s voice had lost its sympathetic edge –
‘you’ve established that Mr Kirkman is a pillar of the church, a
fine upstanding citizen who will lead by example. He has made it
his mission to redeem this wretched woman. Come along, Max!’ she
urged.

‘You’re worse
than a clucky mother hen. It’ll take you five minutes to change
your clothes and we can still make it to church in good time.’

‘I hope you’ve
made no promises to the boy’s nursemaid.’ Nathaniel tucked Olivia’s
hand into the crook of his elbow as they strolled across the vast
expanse of carpeted floor. All around the edges of the room the
furniture was shrouded in dust sheets, lending The Lodge, Olivia’s
old home, a neglected, shuttered air. Soon new tenants would make
themselves at home here, the only means Olivia had of managing the
financial upkeep on the nearby small dower house she shared with
her aunts and in which Lucien had allowed her to live during her
lifetime.

He frowned.
‘We need to decide for ourselves if she is a fit and proper person
to keep charge of the lad.’

‘Charlotte has
cared for Julian since he was born! Her loyalty is beyond
question.’

Their gazes
locked. Both of them knew this all too well. To Olivia it was a
comfort. She swallowed as doubt stirred within. But to Nathaniel,
Charlotte’s loyalty could represent a threat.

To her relief
he conceded, ‘It is perhaps best to keep her close.’ They stopped
just inside the dining room. Olivia closed her eyes.

The smell of
dust and damp were different from the beeswax and woodsmoke she
remembered, but the draughty remoteness was just the same. She and
Lucien had entertained regularly in this room. It had been the
setting for countless lively, raucous dinners, charades and games
of cards for ridiculous wagers. She shuddered as Nathaniel took her
past the long, mahogany table which could seat thirty, and upon
which she had regularly been made to dance.

All but
naked.

Nathaniel ran
his hand over its dust-sheet-covered surface and glanced at
her.

The look in
his eye told her he remembered, too.

But his tone
was bland as he reminded her, ‘Mr Charleston will arrive at the end
of the month. I thought it appropriate Julian should be given some
time, first, in which to settle in.’

Olivia did not
say she wondered at the wisdom, even questioned the kindness, of
putting a boy so young into the charge of a tutor whom she had not
yet met. Years of being Lucien’s wife had taught her caution; to
think before she spoke. At least she had a little time to assert
herself if she were unhappy at Nathaniel’s choice of tutor. The
most important thing was that Julian would be with her.

She must not
think of Max. She squeezed her eyes shut. She would think of
anything but Max, though recollections of his charming, easy manner
and the kindness of his smile were constant reminders.

‘Reverend
Kirkman, forgive the intrusion—’ Olivia faltered.
The voice—!
Oh, dear God, no!

They were at
the foot of the sweeping staircase about to ascend to the rooms
above. Turning at the sound of footsteps and their visitor’s voice,
Mr Kirkman’s face creased into a smile of welcome. Ushering Olivia
forward, he extended his hand.

‘Mr Atherton,
delighted you chose to accompany the lad.’

Olivia could
not bring herself to raise her eyes. She gripped Nathaniel’s
forearm, her gaze fixed upon the sweeping stairs as if they
provided refuge. Heat and shame flooded her. She was exposed.

Yet was it no
more than she deserved?

‘Excellent,
excellent. Pray, allow me to introduce my betrothed, Lady Farquhar.
Alas, she was indisposed when we met.’

Dignified in
the face of what must be his inevitable horror and disgust, Olivia
slowly raised her head.

‘Mr Atherton,’
she said quietly, extending her hand, glad it was clad in neat fawn
kid so he could not feel its clammy iciness.

She saw his
shock, quickly smothered by good manners as he bowed, brushing the
back of her hand with his lips, murmuring, ‘What a pleasure it is
to meet you,
Lady Farquhar
’ – she could swear he almost
bared his teeth as he added – ‘having already met your
betrothed
.’