ROMANCE: CLEAN ROMANCE: Summer Splash! (Sweet Inspirational Contemporary Romance) (New Adult Clean Fantasy Short Stories) (42 page)

              "The real Cynthia?" she asked. Mildred blushed and Oliva realized that the young woman had spoken out of turn and was not nearly as prone to gossip as her faux friend had been. She warmed to her immediately, and the two spent the rest of the evening talking to each other about their childhoods and favorite books. The next day, Olivia moved her trunks into a spare room at the Kingsley's, where she remained for the rest of the social season. Her conviction that this was the correct choice was only strengthened when Lady Cynthia did not even ask why she was doing so.

              It came as a great surprise, however, when Ben Soothley decided to pay her a visit at the Kingsley home on Friday afternoon. Heart pounding, Olivia slapped together an outfit in a matter of moments, hardly caring what she looked like, so excited was she that Cynthia's charms did not seem to have had the desired effect. Despite her smoothness and petite beauty, Ben had preferred Olivia's company. As Ben drove the hired carriage all around the park, Olivia was thrilled to be seen in the company of such a handsome and charming man. Even more gratified was she that not a single person they passed raised an eyebrow to see them together. All she received were gentle smiles and friendly waves.

              The weeks that passed were a whirlwind. Every time she saw Ben, she wanted to see him more. She found herself in wonderful gales of laughter every time he told her a story, and the friendly warmth she felt coming from him kept her up whispering with Mildred into the wee hours of the morning, costing them both a hefty amount of beauty sleep; but Olivia did not care. Her life was coming together, and the people who mattered—her aunt and her closest friend—could not be happier for her.

              So it was with a light heart that Olivia bounded down for breakfast that fateful morning. She did not catch sight of the stunned expression on Mildred's face until she had cheerfully spread gooseberry jam all over her toast.

              “Mildred, darling, you look as though you've seen a phantasm!” she cried, rushing to her friend's side.

              “Oh Olivia,” gasped Mildred, and only then did Olivia notice that Mildred, too, perused the
Sunderley Times
, and the gossip section to boot.

              “Oh my dear, did you read something that upset you?” asked Olivia, brushing away the flimsy pages. “That paper is such trash!”

              “Olivia, sit down.” Mildred's voice was very grave and Olivia sat down, fully preparing for a lecture on the value of gossip.

              “I do not know how to break this to you, but...” Mildred drew in a deep breath and Olivia felt her heart skip a beat. Whatever this was, it was far more serious than some silly gossip. “It appears as though Ben and Cynthia are engaged.”

              Olivia's stomach plummeted to the floor. She had to touch her abdomen to ensure that it was still there. “Whatever are you talking about, Mil?” she asked nervously.

              Mildred thrust forward the pages and Olivia skimmed through the column of slander and libel to the following:

             
HOW CAN A CERTAIN MR. S CARRY ON WITH O, ALONE IN THE WORLD, WHEN IT IS HIGH NEWS EVERYWHERE THAT A CERTAIN C.F. WEARS HIS RING ON HER FINGER?

              There could be no doubt as to who all the characters in the riddle were. After all, had it been a different S, the paper would have at least prefaced it with a Lord or a Duke; in fact, the only reason Ben Soothley had even made it in the paper was because of his association with two gently born ladies. Olivia could hear her heart beating loudly in her ears. What was going on?

              “No, it cannot be. This is rubbish. How could he be with her when he has been calling on me?”

              Mildred was simply ashen. She rose from her seat and reluctantly fetched a cream-embossed card from the tray of letters on the end table.

             
Lady Olivia
(read the card inlaid in the Soothley-Freeworth wedding invitation, written by hand by none other than Cynthia Freeworth herself and address directly to a now shaking Olivia)
,

              However can I thank you for arranging this meeting between the love of my life and I? You simply must come to the wedding! Had it not been for you, I would not have enjoyed such a fine courtship from such a fine gentleman for these past few weeks, and we would not be getting married. I owe everything to you, my dear.

-Lady Cynthia Soothley

              “He was courting us both at the same time?” whispered Olivia.

              Mildred hung her head, unable to meet her friend's eyes.

              The gossip hit the social scene faster than a hurricane hits a colony. It was not long before Olivia learned of the full measure of Ben Soothley's betrayal, of how he had been courting Cynthia since that first night she had led him, panther to her prey, away from her. Why had Ben even come back? From a distant source, perchance by a person whose idleness led their imagination astray, Olivia received the devastating news that Cynthia, for fear of her parent's disapproval of a man who did not come with a title, had asked him to court Olivia, as well. She had thought that Olivia would serve as a nice cover for their romance, and that in the end, she would be the one to reap the rewards.

              Whether this was true or if more blame lay in Ben Soothley's corner than she knew about, Olivia spiraled into a deep, dark hole. While in public she held her head up high, there was no more pounding of her feet on the stairs of the Kingsley home, no more bright and merry laughter. When she emerged from her quarters with her bags packed two weeks later, her gentle waves of brown hair were scraped tightly into a bun and she had traded her low-cut gown in for one that buttoned to the neck. She had written and informed her aunt of her decision; she held her welcome letter to Worchester Abbey in her gloved right hand.

*              *              *

                            It came as no surprise to the eccentric aunt of Lady Olivia that her niece had applied for a position as a governess at Worchester Abbey. In fact, in light of the scandal that had descended upon her life, the maiden aunt liked that Olivia was taking charge and holding her head up high.

              “But darling, why Worchester Abbey?”

              Perhaps it was the fact that the dilapidated old mansion was located in the neighboring town, or perhaps it was because Lady Margolis, the proprietor of Sootherly's who had warmed to the devastated young lady, told her that three motherless children lived there, but Olivia had decided to take the proffered position with as much alacrity as possible. She had written the Duke of Worchester of her unusual education, and he had replied, in a very terse fashion, that it would be sufficient for his daughters to learn the basics of geography and the finishing arts, which he assumed, her being a lady of gentle breeding, she possessed herself. Of his son he said only that he would be receiving supplemental lessons in the maths from a tutor. And although her private opinion was that the duke's daughters should be receiving similar supplemental lessons, she knew that she would be able to provide those, as well, with none the wiser. Ladies of her day should not be reliant on a man to manage the affairs of a household, and that included the ledgers of money.

              There were so many moments on the lengthy coach ride to Worchester Abbey that Olivia pondered her own lunacy in embarking on so bold a venture. Yes, her education was superb and unusual, but what on Earth did she know about children? Nothing, that was what, and the duke had a full three. Three! Merciful heavens, what was she thinking? When the coachman finally announced her stop, she gathered up her bags and approached the imposing home of the Worchesters. Dark and shabby, it loomed over her delicate frame like a hulking Nordic god, causing her to swallow hard. She raised the heavy knocker at the door and brought it down in two loud bangs on the door.

              It was a few moments before an older woman with graying black hair and an air so imposing it was almost comical. “I am Mrs. Huxting, the housekeeper,” she said, leading Lady Olivia and her slew of bags into the grand foyer. “The duke and his children will be down shortly.” With that, the formidable lady looked the younger one up and down and her expression softened. “Is this your first post as governess, Lady Knightbridge?”

              “It is, Mrs. Huxting.”

              Mrs. Huxting took a moment and then nodded decisively. “You will need to draw upon all your resources for these children” was all she said before she went up the marble-railed winding staircase, the marble aged and cracked in multiple places, to fetch the aforementioned group for whom all those resources would be so necessary. Not a good sign.

              Olivia took in the inside of Worchester Abbey like she was reading a book, noting each and every detail. The vast multitude of rooms had a dank air about them, as if they had just been aired out in preparation for her arrival, but had otherwise been unoccupied for years. By far her favorite room, the one where she saw more potential than darkness, was one that was clearly a study and clearly far more often inhabited than the others. The ashes in the grate left her white fingertips sooty and books lined the extensive library waist to ceiling. Pulling back the dark burgundy-colored drapes revealed a set of enormous French windows through which Olivia could see the brambles of an overgrown garden, like something out of Paradise; in fact, the entire house reminded her of a Paradise lost, a place where joy once ruled supreme and now Darkness was Master.

              “And have you found exactly what you were looking for, Lady Knightbridge?” a deep male voice interrupted her musings, nearly startling her out of her skin. She turned, expecting and finding none other than the illustrious duke of Worchester. Her ready smile was wiped clean off her face at the unexpected sight she encountered there.

              They say that some people have an objective beauty appreciated by all almost instantaneously. Ben Soothley—she was loathe to even remember the name in that moment—was one such person, but the man who stood before her now had an entirely different, far more interesting quality to his person. His dark hair rose up in curls that would have been very dyspraxic had the duke not tamed it down with extensive visits to his barber. His cheeks were drawn and pale, his eyes deep and dark, very arresting. And his lips—Olivia stopped herself there, aware that her study of her new employer was tapping into a dangerous part of herself. He stood almost an entire half meter taller than she did, and his shoulders were quite broad; he was tastefully dressed in a dark suit with a cream cravat, impeccably tied. Under other circumstances, he might have been every inch the dandy, but the whole raison d'etre about his appearance was that he was at least ten years older than Lady Olivia, and the years lent him a maturity and self-possession the likes of which his new governess had not encountered before. How unusual, how peculiar, to meet a man so much older who sparked such an immediate interest in his person.

              “My apologies, Duke,” she replied smoothly, gathering up all her breeding in that moment. “It was a long journey and I simply wanted to start getting accustomed to my new surroundings as quickly as possible.”

              “Your disclaimers are not necessary here, Lady Knightbridge,” replied the duke, holding open the door so she could exit the study. As she passed, she caught a whiff of his scent, musky and masculine, and felt blood rush to a host of unexpected places. She shook it off as the duke began rattling off a litany of rules and regulations for the education of his children. There were periods of time, a schedule for their walks outside—“No child of mine is going to be a layabout lazybones,” he declared authoritatively—their meals, their studies, the books she would use; it seemed that everything had been planned within an inch of its life. Her head was reeling from all the rules, and she had not even met the children yet.

              “Duke, forgive me, but when is it that I make the acquaintance of the children?”

              The duke looked at her oddly. “They have been here all along, Lady Knightbridge.”

              Olivia shook her head. “Please, Lady Olivia is fine—what do you mean they have been here all along?”

              It was then that she noticed the three curious faces peeking out from behind the staircase in the grand foyer. The children, it seemed, had been silently watching her exploration of their home from the minute she stepped in.

              “File out, children,” said the duke and snapped his fingers in an altogether military fashion. The metaphor held true as the children arranged themselves from tallest to smallest by the staircase and held their heads straight up as the duke made the rounds, so to speak.

              “This is Katherine Worchester, my eldest. The spitting image of her late mother, if you can believe it,” said the duke, pointing to his tallest and slimmest child, who seemed to shrink into the bones of her own body as surely as if she were a turtle determined to hide from the world.

              “Not that father ever lets us talk about her,” interrupted the boy snidely. There was a note of pain in his voice, cleverly masked by a raging bitterness; Olivia recognized it so precisely because it was often how she had felt when the members of the ton who did not yet know who she was asked her about whom her parents were. Immediately following was a widening of the eyes and a well-recognized look of pity would enter their expressions, pity that Olivia did not want or need.