Leading Lady (23 page)

“What’s wrong, Noah?” she asked as his arms loosened about her.

“I’m afraid . . .” Sniffing, he raised his right boot to peer underneath, then his left. “Uh-oh.”

“Chaucer!” Olivia said, stepping back.

Noah could not remove his left boot without sitting, so he angled it so that his weight rested upon the heel. He looked about the marble flooring for other telltale signs. Fortunately, there were few.

“Is that . . .” she asked.

“It is. Will you find me some cleaning rags?”

“Cleaning—”

“But check your shoes first.”

She raised the hem of her gown just enough to inspect both shoes, then the hem itself. “I think I’m all right. But I don’t know where to find rags, Noah.”

“Then a towel, please. I’ll replace it. Do wet it good and rub some soap on it.”

Olivia turned and left the entrance hall, only to reappear seconds later. “I rang for Joan.”

“Are you serious?” Noah glanced at his watch. “Olivia, it’s after midnight.”

“Well, we can’t very well have everyone tracking it about in the morning.”

“But I can have it clean in five minutes. You didn’t have to wake her.”

He remembered that Vernon kept some rags beneath the box in the family coach so that passengers could clean their shoes on muddy days before entering. Would a coach used in the city have the same? He turned on his heel, walking on the side of his left boot and avoiding suspicious areas, and took hold of the doorknob.

“Where are you going?” Olivia asked.

“Send her back upstairs,” Noah said over his shoulder. “And please get a beaker of water and some soap.”

“Shall I take care of it, your Lordship?” Alan said, handing down a frayed flour sack.

“Just stay where you are. We don’t need more tracks.” Noah shook his head, muttered, “Vile little creature!”

“At least he’s not a Great Dane, eh, m’Lord?”

Noah had to grin. “If he were, you’d be down here too.”

With the coachman’s soft chuckling at his back, Noah walked circumspectly to the side of the dark walkway leading to the front steps, hoping for no more surprises. Inside, Olivia stood with arms folded. And hands empty.

“The water, Olivia?”

She stared back as if he had lost his faculties. “Noah. Just think for a minute. I cannot stand by and allow you to stoop to that level. You’re an
earl,
for heaven’s sake.”

“You’re making a mountain out of a molehill, Olivia,” he replied. “I can’t see the sense in hauling someone out of bed for a two-minute chore.”

Her cheeks flushed. “Carey Hall has four times the servants we have. Do you do all their work for them?”

The whole argument was getting more and more ludicrous. He could have cleaned the floor, stolen another kiss, and been on his way home if she had just brought him a towel. Flopping the rag over his shoulder, he began easing out of his left boot. He supposed he would have to go for the water himself. “Our servants work. But we don’t mistreat them.”

“
Mistreat?
And what of our coachman out there? You don’t mind his losing sleep.”

“It’s not the same. Your father insisted, and besides, you know I tip him well.” Noah got down on one knee. “Olivia, for the last time, will you get some water and soap? Or must I hop through the—”

He sensed a presence and looked toward the arched doorway to the side of the staircase. Joan, clad in gingham
wrapper, pillow-matted brown hair wound into a hasty knot, gaped at them.

“You rang for me, Miss?” she asked with sleep-thickened voice.

Olivia looked at Noah, then back at the parlourmaid. She raised her chin a fraction and said in a tone that was civil but devoid of warmth, “I accidentally pulled the cord, Joan. Now, go back up to your bed.”

But the maid caught sight of the rags in Noah’s hand. Her puffy eyes widened. “Please, Lord Carey . . . you ain’t supposed to be doin’ that.”

“We’ll take care of it,” Noah said. “Go on upstairs.”

****

“You’ve a letter from Jude,” Noah’s mother said three days later as she stepped onto the terrace.

“Yes?” Noah laid
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
on the flagstones beneath his wicker chair without bothering to mark his page. It was a relief to have something to think about other than the incident at Olivia’s house. As he tore open the envelope, his mother eased her plump figure into another chair.

Hello, Big Fellow!
the letter began. Noah smiled and gave the first paragraph a cursory skim. His eye latched on to what he had hoped to see. “He has a part!”

Mother clasped her hands. “Wonderful! Where?”

“I’ll read it to you.”

“You don’t have to . . .”

“He won’t mind. I’ll just skip over the part about the drunken rows.”

He could feel her smile without even looking up. They both knew Jude was as moral as they came, in spite of his father’s certainty that he was on the road to perdition.

“I can just picture his face,” Noah said, and continued.

“Ronald will be disappointed,” Mother said.

Noah smiled. His cousin, Uncle Bertram’s eldest son, had dropped several hints that he would be only too willing to serve as a substitute.

The latter part made Mother chuckle, but it only caused a tug of sadness in Noah’s chest. He lowered the letter, finished save the closing, and looked at her.

“Were you ever disappointed in Father?”

“Yes,” she replied without blinking. There was a hint of awareness in her expression, as if she had sensed this had something to do with his lethargy of the past three days. Her quick reply was surprising and a little disturbing to hear, for Noah considered his parents’ marriage the best he had ever witnessed.

“How so?”

“Your father was a good man. But it took him years to learn to say ‘I love you.’ The Careys didn’t express affection verbally, and it was as bread and butter to my family. I needed to hear it.”

“But you knew he loved you. He just wasn’t in the habit of saying it.”

“When you care enough about people, you change your habits.” A faraway look passed over her softly lined face, and then she smiled. “And he eventually did, for which I’m thankful. What’s troubling you, son? Did you and Olivia have words?”

He shrugged. “A minor disagreement.”

For, as disagreements went, it would probably be considered tame—Olivia weeping as he cleaned the floor and him feeling like a boor for making her cry. They had apologized, kissed, and made up, and when he telephoned her the following morning he was relieved to find her in good spirits, enthusing over a cashmere shawl an aunt had brought by for her trousseau.

“It’s normal even for people in love to have disagreements,” his mother said. “You shouldn’t feel disappointed over the fact that Olivia has some opinions you don’t share.”

“I wouldn’t want her to share all of my opinions,” Noah protested. Otherwise, he may as well marry himself, the only person with whom he agreed one hundred percent of the time.
Or at least ninety percent of the time,
he thought. He would hope, however, that he and his future wife would share the same
values.

But since the little scene in the Ryces’ foyer, other scenes had trickled through his mind, incidents he was apparently too love struck to pay much heed when they had occurred.

Such as when he knocked the lemonade into her lap last September. Once she recovered from the shock, Olivia had smiled and assured him that accidents happened. Now his mind’s eye focused upon the server hurrying over with towels. She was a nervous young woman, obviously new at her position, but she worked diligently at mopping Olivia’s lap, blaming herself for overfilling the beaker. Olivia had ignored the girl, even seemed irritated at her for taking so long. It was Noah who had thanked her afterward and insisted that the mishap was not her fault.

And it was
he
who had thanked Mr. Jakes, one of the tenant farmers, for taking time away from his chores to repair Olivia’s broken bootheel when she took a misstep between two stones during a stroll on the estate. Olivia had fussed over her own ripped stocking and gave scant notice to the man’s good deed.

It wasn’t that Olivia lacked gratitude, Noah reminded himself. One reason he delighted in giving her gifts was to witness her reaction to them, how her face lit up and her arms went about his neck. And she had sent Jude a note of thanks for agreeing to escort her sister Constance to a soirée, as well as thanked Mother effusively for passing down Grandmother Carey’s jade bracelet to her, even though they weren’t yet married.

Jude’s family is wealthy,
raced across Noah’s mind. He banished the thought, but it was followed by another.
So are we.

This was beneath him, he told himself. Olivia was a decent
Christian woman, the epitome of virtue. And
he
certainly wasn’t perfect.

And what about her thoughtfulness?
As he seized upon that sterling quality, he also remembered that her thoughtful deeds seldom seemed to cost her any of her own effort, such as the lunch she had Mrs. Bromley pack for Jude.

His mother was still watching him. Noah sighed and got to his feet. “Sorry I’m such poor company, Mother. I think I’ll walk down to the pond.”

She nodded. “But may I ask you one more question?”

“Of course.”

“Are you sure these misgivings you’re having over Olivia have nothing to do with Jude’s being in London?”

“Why, no. Not at all.” He lowered himself into the chair again. “Why would you ask that?”

“Sometimes our own motives hide from us, Noah. Could you possibly be looking for an excuse to call off your engagement and join him?”

“The thought hasn’t even crossed my mind.”

He was certain that he would be as keenly disappointed over the way Olivia had acted toward her parlourmaid Friday evening if Jude were still in Yorkshire, or in Timbuktu. All this required was for Olivia and him to sit down and discuss the matter, once he got over these doldrums.

Or perhaps it would be best to wait until after they were married. He would take her hands and delicately, carefully, confess his concern. And just as Father had learned to say “I love you,” she would learn to be more considerate of those not in her social class.

That made him more optimistic. “I still love her, Mother.”

She studied his face. “Enough to give up your dream of London, son?”

“There’s no comparison.” He was sure of it. “And besides, I wouldn’t go to London even if we weren’t marrying.”

“Because of me,” his mother said, a little sadly.

“No, Mother.” He got to his feet again, went behind her,
and leaned to kiss the top of her graying head. “Because this is where I belong.”

Seventeen

Noah’s stroll was brief because once he reached the pond he was struck with the longing to see Olivia again. He went to the parlour and picked up the telephone. Joan, the Ryces’ parlourmaid, answered, and presently Olivia’s voice came through the line.

“Noah, darling . . . how wonderful to hear your voice.”

“And I, yours,” he said, flooded with shame for ever doubting her goodness. “I just got a letter from Jude. He’s found a part.”

“Marvelous!”

“It’s a small part. But it’s a foot in the door. And he can come for the wedding.”

“I’m so glad,” she said. “When you write back, mention I’m praying he’ll be a huge success.”

More shame. Noah asked, “When may I see you again?”

“Well . . . I do have this enormous craving for lobster.”

“I can be there at six.”

“Oh dear. I’ve a fitting for my gown and will be tied up until seven.”

With great reluctance he passed up the opportunity to make a joke.

“But you may come on to the house early,” she continued. “Mother and my sisters will entertain you.”

“I really should use that time to book my hotel room,” he said quickly. However fond he was of her mother and sisters, an hour was a little too long to spend at the center of that much high-energy attention without Olivia.

“Shall I send Alan to the station for you?”

“No, thank you. I’ll grab a cab.”

Upstairs, he asked Rhodes to draw a bath and lay out some evening clothes. “But not the green cravat.”

“Very good, sir,” Rhodes replied. He was sixty or so, having
served as Noah’s father’s valet since Noah was a boy, but seemed ageless, save the fringe of hair that crept lower and lower every year. “Top hat or bowler?”

“Bowler. We’re just going for dinner.”

Noah realized that he should inform his mother. While he could send a servant out to the garden, he wanted to reassure her that all was well between Olivia and him. He could hear the telephone ringing as he descended the staircase. When he reached the landing, one of the parlourmaids met him. “Telephone for you, m’Lord.”