Lady Farquhar's Butterfly (22 page)

Olivia fanned
herself and whispered something in the ear of her handsome
companion.

He had been on
the verge of approaching her, bursting with expectation earlier
this evening when his sister had thrust Miss Hepworth upon him.

Somehow a
dance had been promised which had been followed by more
conversation; it had seemed an eternity before he caught sight once
more amidst the several hundred guests of the one woman who could
stir his senses.

She was
certainly stirring them right now. Breathless hope and anticipation
had been replaced by white-hot anger as he observed the flirtation
in her manner; the sly, colluding glance she slanted up at her
companion beneath thick dark lashes.

What was she
playing at?

Olivia’s
betrothed was tucked up in bed at the Duck on Puddle two miles
away. Her behaviour made no sense. This was the false persona
Olivia had decried; the coquette Lucien had forced her to be for
his entertainment. Her humiliations had torn Max’s heart in two yet
here she was, behaving just as one would expect the notorious,
brazen Lady Farquhar to behave – if one didn’t believe her version
of the truth.

‘But I had to
stop giving Misty apples because they gave him colic. And as a
carrot isn’t nearly such a tasty treat, Mr Atherton, what do you
think I should give him, instead?’

He jerked his
attention back to Miss Hepworth’s earnest, pretty face. ‘I beg your
pardon.’

‘What do you
think would be a nice tasty treat?’

He nearly
answered that all he could think about were devouring Lady
Farquhar’s luscious lips after he’d ripped her from the arms of her
patently unworthy companion; that certainly fell under the heading
of ‘tasty treat’; when Miss Hepworth was joined by a companion.

‘Look at
them!’ He recognized the young girl having seen her earlier with
Olivia’s aunts. In her distress she did not acknowledge him,
clutching Miss Hepworth by the wrist and pointing to Olivia and her
companion.

‘Cecily! You
must come! I trusted her, but she has betrayed me!’ Miss Hepworth
turned to hush the girl, blushing as she slanted a look in Max’s
direction before introducing her distraught, chestnut haired
friend.

‘Miss Lucy
Snelling and I attended Miss Pinkerton’s Seminary for Young Ladies
in Highgate,’ explained Miss Hepworth.

Max regulated
his breathing as he listened to her soothe her friend’s injured
sensibilities before sending her off in the direction of her
mama.

Turning back
to Max she coloured prettily as she murmured, ‘Mr Petersham has
paid particular attention to Lucy during the past fortnight,
however the arrival of her cousin, Lady Farquhar, appears to have
set the cat among the pigeons.’

He should be
admiring Miss Hepworth for her uncommon good sense. She would make
an excellent wife. Every encounter with her merely reinforced
this.

Unable to hide
the thunder in his eye, he glowered at Olivia and her companion.
‘Hardly surprising,’ he muttered. He could taste the bile on his
tongue. ‘I am quite well acquainted with Lady Farquhar.’

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

‘PERHAPS, LADY
FARQUHAR,’ murmured Mr Petersham, ‘you’d care to admire the Roman
busts Lord Glenton has displayed in the long gallery?’

Olivia was
conscious of her fading bravado, felt it wilt her smile, felt the
insidious progression of cowardice wrap itself around her vital
organs.

She nearly
said she would like nothing less, but how could she when Cousin
Mariah was depending upon her?

As was
Lucy.

She’d seen
Lucy’s eyes upon them several times this evening: luminous and
uncertain, her smile so eager to please when Mr Petersham addressed
her. He’d danced with Lucy to keep up appearances, but he’d done
nothing but mock the girl to Olivia.

‘She’ll look
just like her mother when she’s forty.’

‘Mariah is
very well looking, if a trifle stout. And she’s ten years older
than forty.’

‘My point
exactly,’ he’d said, stroking her cheek as the dance dissolved.
‘Whereas look at you. Your dewy looks belie your experience.’

Had he thought
she’d take it as a compliment and smile?

Certainly she
smiled. It was expected, and she’d always done what the occasion
demanded. What Lucien demanded.

But fear and
trepidation gripped her. Oh! For this evening to be over! She
wanted to be in her carriage on her way to Elmwood. She wanted to
be telling Max that she had found his family’s fortune and beg him
to forgive her the deception that had brought about this
impasse.

Girding her
courage she said, ‘You have a honeyed tongue, Mr Petersham,’ taking
his arm so he could lead her back to her aunts.

His eyes
twinkled. She recognized his lust. It left her cold. Caressing her
hand, he murmured as they turned their footsteps towards Lucy who
stood, lost and lonely in the centre of the room, ‘I hope I may
have an opportunity to prove to you just how accurate your words
are. Perhaps in the gallery in ten minutes?’

The gallery in
ten minutes. The thought made her ill with fear. She met his eye.
Slowly, she inclined her head.

After greeting
Lucy with fulsome compliments Mr Petersham departed to procure
refreshments. Lucy, quiet and uncommunicative beside her, fidgeted,
while Olivia, conscious of her cousin’s confusion, tried not to
feel so traitorous.

‘Perhaps
tomorrow we can take a country ramble, Lucy?’ she suggested. ‘The
weather looks set to be fair.’

Lucy jumped.
‘Tomorrow?’ Biting her lip she added, ‘Yes, certainly.’ Olivia slid
her eyes across to her discomposed cousin. So Mr Petersham’s
honeyed inducements had carried more weight than Olivia’s cautions,
she thought. And tomorrow was to be the day.

It was enough
to banish the reluctance she felt at her part in Mariah’s plan.
Wouldn’t any mother do all she could to ensure her daughter’s
happiness was not blighted by a misalliance with a fortunehunter?
Olivia’s credentials equipped her perfectly for the part; she knew
it, but how she railed against what her experience had cost
her.

‘You seem much
taken with Mr Petersham, but I hope you have taken my cautions to
heart.’

Lucy’s pale
skin took on a fiery hue as she struggled for a guileless smile.
She looked too young for this sophisticated throng. ‘He has been
very civil to me.’

‘Civil?’
Olivia smiled, as she took Lucy’s arm and began a leisurely stroll
amongst the knots of exquisitely attired revellers. ‘He is handsome
but he is penniless, though I’m sure he thinks the title he one day
inherits is compensation enough. Certainly he is charming, but I
know his type.’

‘Then why do
you enjoy his company so greatly?’ Lucy looked immediately
embarrassed that she’d snapped out the words, and dropped her eyes
from Olivia’s face to gaze once more about her. Olivia saw her lip
tremble.

‘I enjoy
testing my theories.’ Olivia patted her forearm and lowered her
voice. She hoped Lucy would take heed of her sober tone. ‘I eloped
when I was seventeen, Lucy. About your age. It was an act of naïve
impulsiveness which I regretted every day of my marriage. I still
regret it. I would hate you to make the same mistake for Mr
Petersham reminds me very much of my late husband.’

‘You know
nothing about him!’ Lucy ground out, her eyes glistening as she
glared at Olivia. ‘Why, Mr Petersham, thank you,’ she added, with
an unsteady smile as she accepted the glass of orgeat he handed
her. Wiping her eyes she said in answer to his concern, ‘Cousin
Olivia’s feather has just poked me. Otherwise, I’m perfectly well,
thank you.’

‘How careless
of me,’ Olivia apologized, skimming the length of the plume with
her fingers as she slanted a knowing look up at him. She turned to
Lucy, stifling her frustration at the girl’s refusal to see sense;
her fear at what she had agreed to do to ensure she learned her
lesson.

‘When you’re
my age, you can add to your consequence with such fripperies and be
just as thoughtless of those around you.’

The words
belonged to a woman with no feeling, no conscience.

Had she ever
been a woman like that?

She tried to
remember
what
she’d been like as a seventeen year old.
Thoughtless? Self-absorbed? Heartless?

Disgusted, she
forced a smile for Cousin Mariah and her aunts who had just joined
them.

Like an
excited child Aunt Catherine was enquiring of Lucy whether she was
enjoying herself.

Olivia put her
lips to Cousin Mariah’s ear. ‘The gallery in ten minutes,’ she
whispered.

*

When all
things were considered, Miss Hepworth had the most charming little
nose and a rosebud pair of lips, Max decided, grimly, as he led her
in the stately steps of their dance. When he clasped her hands to
dance down the centre of the room she gave a little gasp of
excitement and her hazel eyes lit up. They were shining at him now
as if he were the handsomest, most desirable man in the room.

Foolishly, he
had imagined it was how Olivia thought of him. That his feelings
were reciprocated with the same intense sincerity.

Now that his
shoes had been filled, if only for this evening, it was some
consolation to feel Miss Hepworth, with her great fortune,
considered him a desirable catch.

His bubbling
anger at Olivia made him say, perhaps unwisely, ‘I am sorry, Miss
Hepworth, if your last visit to Elmwood proved a disappointment to
you.’

His sense of
betrayal was acute. Olivia was not languishing, heartbroken, at the
dower house, waiting for him to gallop back into her life and
forgive her.

Clearly, she
was trawling for an alternative future to marriage to Kirkman –
even if he was the father of her child
. Grimly, he wondered
if she knew the clergyman was only two miles away. Or perhaps they
had arranged to meet tomorrow and Olivia was making the most of her
freedom tonight.

As he listened
with half an ear to Miss Hepworth he struggled to comprehend
Olivia’s behaviour. Was she reverting to her true nature? Was her
thirst for gaiety, her need for compliments, behind her
incorrigible flirting?

And what of
Max? Would she assume the mantle of damsel in distress the moment
she set eyes upon him?

Miss Hepworth
dropped her eyes, blushing. ‘Mama explained matters,’ she said, as
they returned to the sidelines.

‘You have
every right to be angry with me.’

Fixing her
gaze on the other couples performing their figures she said, ‘I
would not wish to throw myself at you, Mr Atherton. I …’

She stammered
and blushed some more. ‘I am only just out of the schoolroom. There
is so much I do not understand.’ She raised her chin, proudly. It
was such a guileless look; the innocent – uncorrupted – smile of a
simple, inexperienced girl who makes no apology for what those more
worldly may consider shortcomings, that he was captivated.

For a
moment.

‘Do you think
I offended your mama?’

‘I don’t think
so.’ Her smiled broadened as she added with refreshing candour.
‘But more to the point, you have not offended me.’

There was no
time to dwell on the hopefulness and encouragement in her
expression as he led her off the dance floor, for they were again
interrupted by Miss Snelling.

‘Cecily!’ Miss
Snelling came to a halt in their midst, her heaving bosom and
flushed cheeks betraying her distress. ‘Cecily, I beg of you,’ she
gasped, ‘please accompany me to the long gallery.’ Her voice held
the edge of hysteria.

‘But Lucy,
I—’

‘I cannot go
alone and I must … confront my cousin who has gone there with …’ –
she gulped – ‘Mr Petersham!’

Mr Petersham
and Olivia?

Alone in the
gallery? Max’s anger blackened. He didn’t care if Miss Hepworth
obliged or not. He certainly needed to see what Olivia was up to in
the gallery with this Mr Petersham.

Clearing his
throat, he tried to sound fatherly though he heard the angry
censure in his own voice. ‘Shall we all take a turn about the long
gallery, Miss Snelling? I’ve heard there are some very fine
specimens.’

It was
difficult to believe that Olivia was in Bath cuckolding, it would
seem, the man she had promised to marry
and
the one she had
professed to love.

‘Please show
us the way, Miss Snelling,’ he said, offering Miss Hepworth his
arm.

Lucy tucked an
escaped chestnut tendril behind her ear and wiped her nose with the
back of her hand before Max could procure her a handkerchief.

With a shaky
breath she turned and led them towards the door in the
panelling.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

OLIVIA’S
INITIAL RELIEF that another couple was promenading in the long
gallery was short lived.

‘The library
is through here.’

Mr Petersham’s
voice in her ear, low and intimate, made her stomach curdle. She
resisted the squeeze of his hand as he tried to draw her towards a
rear door, straining towards a Roman senator with the words,
‘Aren’t we in good company tonight?’

Did he sense
her reluctance? Hear the fear in her slightly shrill tones?

If he did it
made no difference for his grasp was firm as he ushered her before
him into the library.

The door shut
behind them and they were alone in a large book-lined room, unlit
save for a fire burning in the grate.

‘Aha!’

He must have
seen the
chaise-longue
by the window at the same time as
she. There was satisfaction in his tone. Olivia felt her knees
begin to shake.

She should
run. Pull out of his grasp and escape but her fear had translated
into mute acquiescence which he interpreted as willingness.