‘And here is tea.’ On
cue the door opened to admit the parlour maid bearing a tray. ‘Surely you don’t
object to a dish of strong hot tea while we wait for Amelia and the boys? They
are staying with me while reno- vations are carried out on their home which is
not far from here.’
‘The boys?’ Olivia knew
she’d jumped at the phrase with too much feeling. Her mind had not been in the
present. ‘There is more than one, Mr Atherton?’
‘There are three,’ he
replied, rolling his eyes with a smile as she settled herself back into her
green wing back chair. ‘But only one is mine.’
Oh, no, he’s not.
Somehow, Olivia managed to keep her
smile from faltering. ‘How old is your little boy?’
‘Julian is
two-and-a-half. He’s been with me the past year since his father, my late
cousin Lucien, Lord Farquhar, passed away.’
‘The poor child is an
orphan?’ Anger and mortification threatened to swamp her.
It was small consolation
that Max Atherton hedged his reply and obviously took care with his words, as
if he were uncomfortable at having to explain the situation further.
‘The lad was put into my
keeping to avoid contagion when his father succumbed to fever. When Lucien died
the following month and the will was read I discovered to my surprise –
amazement, really – he’d made me the boy’s legal guardian.’
‘So his mother also died
of fever.’ Olivia made it sound a statement. She gave a pitying sigh, masking her
anger with an expression of regret, as if it were the only explanation since
not even the cruellest husband would exercise his legal rights to deny a mother
her child.
‘The mother was unfit to
rear the next heir to Lord Farquhar’s estates.’
Yet not unfit to be
Lord Farquhar’s wife?
A terrible rage blackened her vision. She dropped her gaze, unable to
give voice to her real feelings, instead murmuring, ‘How terrible. I think
perhaps I recall having heard something about Lady Farquhar.’
Max sighed and looked
even more uncomfortable as he fiddled with his cufflink. ‘Alas for the boy, she
was a fortune hunter; a vain, showy creature who trapped Lucien into marriage,
ran into debt and led an altogether dishonourable life.’
‘Yet she was a mother. I
cannot believe she behaved so heartlessly towards her son. Did it surprise you,
Mr Atherton?’
‘I never met her—’
Olivia
relaxed with grim satisfaction only to jerk forward in alarm at his next words.
‘—though
I saw her at a ball, once, two years after the pair eloped.’ She waited,
breathless.
Mr Atherton indicated to her to pour. With shaking hand she
lifted the teapot while he elaborated. ‘She was with her husband, my cousin
Lucien, but Amelia refused to meet her and as I was accompanying her I didn’t
make it an issue.’
‘What did she look
like?’ Best to get it over and done with, if an unmasking were inevitable.
Max smiled as he
accepted his tea and leaned back in the armchair opposite her. ‘Beautiful. Like
you, Mrs Templestowe.’
She swallowed; opened
her mouth to speak but the words would not come.
He seemed not to notice.
‘But obviously not a lady, like you, for her gown was ostentatious and’ –
he shrugged – ‘the way she carried herself I could see the truth in the
rumours.’
Lucien had decided what
she wore. She had given up selecting her gowns herself, merely waiting and
wondering in her dressing room whether he wanted her to flaunt herself like a
trollop, or deport herself like a nun. With her husband’s moods increasingly
erratic towards the end, she had learned to accept his last dictate with the
meekness of a child.
Still, it took all her
willpower not to slump, defeated, into her chair. The fact that the sight of
her, albeit from a distance, only strengthened his belief in the rumours was
somehow doubly devastating.
Licking her dry lips she
whispered, ‘So you never sought her out after ... after Lord Farquhar gave you
her child?’
Max raised one eyebrow.
The façade of genial, almost overeager host, slipped. Wearing a look of censure
he suddenly resembled Lucien once more, and she clasped her hands together to
stop them trembling as he added, ‘One would expect she would make contact with
me.’
His voice was clipped, and his nostrils flared, as if he were speaking of
someone utterly reprehensible. ‘I suppose she did,’ he eventually conceded,
stirring his tea with a frown. ‘But not until a good eight months had elapsed.
I heard talk she had been gallivanting across the Continent in bad company
until then.’ He looked up, apology in his eye. ‘I should not have spoken like that,
Mrs Templestowe, yet I feel such a great anger on behalf of my ward as well as
sorrow that he cannot know his mother.’ He shrugged. Then his mood lightened
and he smiled as if encouraging her to move on to another topic.
Olivia was not ready to
let this one die.
‘How would you receive
Lady Farquhar if she did contact you and ask for the return of her child?’ She
tried to keep her tone offhand though her breath came in staccato bursts of
anticipation as she waited for his answer.
Her host levelled at her
a faintly quizzical look. Deliberating over his choice of words he said, ‘I am
bound to do whatever is in the best interests of the boy and as Lady Farquhar
had taken a lover—’
‘Surely not!’
Olivia’s gasp of outrage
was thankfully misinterpreted by Mr Atherton. ‘I fear it is not as uncommon as
you might believe, Mrs Templestowe, however discretion is required. It seems
Lady Farquhar had neither discretion nor wit. My cousin was not a man to take
such a matter lightly.’
On that they were agreed
at least, Olivia thought silently as she racked her brains to think who her
imaginary lover might have been. But then, Lucien had always imagined
conspiracies when there were none.
Fear crept into the
deepest recesses of her brain. No! She would not think of it. Lucien could not
truly have suspected Julian was not his. Taking a deep breath she quickly
dispelled any reflections of what some would consider wrongdoing. If she had
ever done wrong, then Lucien’s hand was behind it.
She listened to the
chink of silver against china as he stirred his tea. His expression was
distant. ‘When I heard the boy had been made my ward I sold my commission and
took up residence on this estate which I hold in trust for Julian until he
comes of age.’
Olivia studied his face,
searching for more similarities with Lucien. The physical family resemblance
was there, particularly in the eyes, the straight nose and firm chin. Now that
he was speaking of serious matters the almost self-conscious banter had gone.
He was precise and direct and clearly decided on what he considered right and
wrong. Very different from Lucien’s arrogance.
Amidst the turmoil of
her emotions, she felt a flicker of surprise. ‘You gave up your career to look
after a little boy?’
‘I’d seen enough horror
on the Peninsular to last a lifetime; was more than ready to leave the
soldiering life and resume my agricultural obligations and’ – he smiled
– ‘find a wife who would love this home and, hopefully, find me not too
objectionable.’ He cleared his throat. ‘The boy needs a mother’s love.’
Pointing at the plate of
seed cake he exhorted her to try some, adding with sigh, ‘Whatever Lady
Farquhar’s sins, her son’s a lovely- natured little chap.’
She could not trust herself
to speak. Raising her cup to take a sip her hand was trembling so much that tea
spilled on to the Wilton carpet.
‘My dear Mrs
Templestowe, I think you are still in shock from your fall.’ Unexpectedly Mr
Atherton moved from the mantelpiece to take a seat on the arm of her chair,
relieving her of her tea cup and setting it down upon the table.
Surprised and unsure
what she should say as his hands gripped her shoulders, her heart quailed at
his expression. There was blatant admi- ration in those slate-grey eyes and,
like a traitor, her heart responded, just as it had with such dreadful results
when she had cast in her lot with Lucien all those years ago.
But no, she could only
be sceptical of such admiration. She was certainly no longer susceptible.
Yet his concern seemed
genuine; and in addition to the admiration was something that looked
dangerously like tenderness.
Tenderness? To succumb
to tenderness would be too rash and much too dangerous. It was a trap!
And yet ...
‘I’ve no idea how long
you lay in the mud, soaked to the skin.’ His voice was like a caress, full of
comfort and reassurance. He leaned across her to pull on the embroidered bell
pull, seemingly unembar- rassed by their proximity. ‘I shall have a warm rug
fetched for you. Let me feel your hands. Why, they’re as cold as ice. I’ll rub
them for you.’
Olivia closed her eyes
and surrendered to those dangerous, unfa- miliar feelings: comfort, safety.
Exquisite peacefulness.
Mr Atherton held the key
to her future happiness: her son. If he admired her and she could
prove
to
him she deserved it, surely happi- ness might follow?
Then insidious reality
intruded and she had to steel herself against her despair, her defeat.
She thought of Reverend Kirkman,
imagining his outrage if he learned of the venture on which she had so rashly
embarked.
It was he who had
cautioned patience. Patience, he had exhorted her, was what she needed when
once again her impetuous nature threatened her happiness. Patience would be her
salvation, he’d soothed her, when she’d leapt up from her chair at the reading
of Lucien’s will and later, when he’d physically torn her from her carriage,
overruling her deter- mination to drive the horses herself in order to reclaim
Julian.
Olivia was pliant, her
eyes still closed as she heard the maid enter, felt Mr Atherton tuck the
blanket around her, making sure her feet were well insulated, bringing the warm
wool up around her neck with tender, competent fingers.
‘You must be very tired,’
she heard him whisper, as he stroked a strand of hair back from her face. ‘And
still in shock from your accident.’
‘Yes,’ she murmured, her
head falling to one side. Vaguely, she real- ized it was resting against his
thigh as he sat on the arm of her chair. She didn’t move it. Didn’t want to.
Mr Atherton could get
her what she wanted.
Her son ... happiness.
If Reverend Kirkman
would sanction it. She could be happy. She
could.
She was in the midst of
a dreamless sleep when it happened: the meeting upon which her whole life had
been focused for more than a year, the reason she was here.
Jolting awake at the
sound of a carriage drawing up before the front door, her ears seemed suddenly
acutely sensitive to the crunch of the gravel under what sounded like a dozen
little feet, and the joyful chorus of young voices.
Then the drawing-room
door was thrown open unceremoniously and three small boys burst into the room.
‘Uncle Max! Uncle Max!’
they cried, as they leapt upon him.
Olivia opened her eyes.
Gripping the side of her chair for support she stared at the three youngsters,
all jostling for prime position on their Uncle Max’s lap.
Fourteen months. It had
been fourteen months since she had last seen Julian. The baby who had been
removed from her care when Lucien had fallen ill was now a boisterous and
sturdy toddler with a mop of dark curls and a sunny smile. His cousins were
both fair- haired, a little older than he, but just as comfortable with their
Uncle Max whom they were now pummelling with cushions.
‘Boys! Boys!’
The nursery maid clapped
her hands for calm. Olivia could only stare. Charlotte, who had accompanied
Julian to his new home four- teen months earlier, smiled. She’d been told to
expect Olivia but to say nothing. Her pride in her young charge was clear,
however the small, thin woman who followed in her wake was less forgiving of
the young- sters’ unruly behaviour.
‘Boys, your manners!’
she cried, when she saw Olivia. ‘Your uncle
‘Max has a visitor. And
Max, you’re no better, the way you encourage them.’
Mr Atherton exhaled on a
long-suffering sigh as he stood up to greet his sister. ‘Afternoon, Amelia.
They make me feel young again and I missed them,’ he said, his grin half
apologetic. ‘And Mrs Templestowe doesn’t mind. She likes small boys. At least,
you gave me to think you do.’
His laconic smile, as he
turned back to her, suddenly became one of concern. ‘My dear Mrs Templestowe,
are you all right?’ He took a couple of quick strides across the room and bent
to clasp Olivia’s hands.
‘Amelia!’ He swung
round. ‘Your vinaigrette, or burnt feathers, or whatever it is you ladies use.
Mrs Templestowe had a nasty fall earlier and is still recovering.’
‘I’m all right,’ Olivia
managed, faintly, as Max with great solicitude, patted her arm and eased her
back into her chair.
‘I’ll send the boys
away,’ he said. ‘Boys! We can play as soon as I’ve ensured our visitor
is—’