The Wedding Affair (4 page)

Olivia looked down at the hill of runner beans, chopped off at ground level and already wilting under the warm sun. “I let my mind wander, and my hoe must have slipped.”

A childish soprano chimed in, “I will dig, Miss Kate!”

Olivia looked across to where Charlotte was standing on a bench in the grape arbor that nestled against the garden wall, plucking the lowest-hanging fruit from the vines. The little girl looked a bit like a grape herself with her hands and her round cheeks smeared with sticky bluish-purple juice. After eating her fill, she had gathered up the hem of her pinafore in one small hand, forming a makeshift basket to hold the extra fruit. Juice from the grapes she’d smashed dripped through the fabric, down her skirt, and onto her tiny shoes.

Olivia winced at the idea of trying to get juice stains out of Charlotte’s yellow muslin dress and decided it might be easier to fix a pail of juice and dye the entire thing purple. Or whatever color grape juice would end up becoming if mixed with yellow muslin. Kate would know.

Or perhaps Olivia wouldn’t bother, for the dress—though still wide enough to fit Charlotte’s slender body—was already too short. Her baby was rapidly growing up; Charlotte would be three within a few weeks.

Olivia sighed. She could find enough fabric to make dresses for her daughter. A few of her old gowns remained in the cottage’s attic—once fashionable things she had no use for in Steadham—and she could salvage the material and trimmings for the child. But where she would find money for new shoes…

Sir Jasper had been right on a number of fronts. Olivia could not take in lodgers, for there was no space. Because she had a child, she could not seek out any sort of job that required living in the employer’s house, which largely wiped out the possibility of earning a wage.

She looked down at the wilting runner beans. She couldn’t even grow vegetables to sell or barter, for if she couldn’t manage to keep from killing the ones she had hoped to use to feed her small family, there would never be any left over.

And she couldn’t continue to live on the narrow edge like this. One unexpected expense, one illness, one unforeseen need, and the precarious life she had built in Steadham would come crashing down—as it almost had three weeks earlier when Sir Jasper had made his not-quite-veiled demand.

I can think of one thing the widow of an earl could do nicely
, Sir Jasper had said
. I might waive the rent altogether if you were satisfactory in bed.

Such an arrangement was out of the question, of course; she felt ill even thinking about it. And yet… every day, women chose men to marry based not on respect or fondness, but solely because they could provide food and shelter.

This is different
, she told herself firmly, for there would be no end to Sir Jasper’s demands. A wife might not have many rights, but an unwilling mistress had fewer yet.

A barouche rattled by—glossy black and gleaming, with a pair of footmen riding up behind, clad in the blue and silver Somervale livery. Olivia barely had a glimpse of the hats of the two ladies inside, for the coach was moving quickly.
Too quickly for safety
, she thought.
What if the pig—or worse yet, the children who were chasing the pig—ducked out from between two cottages and into the path of the carriage?

“That was the duchess,” Kate said. “I couldn’t see who the other woman was, but surely Lady Daphne wouldn’t wear that very strange hat.”

“With the wedding less than a week off, I’m surprised Her Grace is only now arriving.”

Kate shrugged. “Perhaps she just hasn’t come into the village before. The cottage isn’t the center of gossip, and the duchess has never kept me informed of her movements.”

Her voice was firmly controlled, but Olivia knew Kate well enough to hear the note of strain underneath. At least, Olivia thought, the duchess should have been polite enough to answer Kate’s letter—even if she couldn’t actually help.

“Perhaps they’re going to inspect the church,” Olivia said. “Or to discuss the ceremony with the new vicar. Has he arrived yet?”

“I don’t think so. Mrs. Meecham would have sent me word. The duchess should remember what the church looks like. She was married there, and the family used to spend most of the year at Halstead until the duchess took Daphne off to London to be presented.”

“That’s the first time I’ve heard you refer to Lady Daphne without her title.”

Kate blinked. “Did I? It’s how I always thought of her, though heads would have rolled if I’d said as much to her face.”

“So the duchess
is
a stickler, I see.”

“Not the duchess. When Daphne was Charlotte’s age, she would stamp her foot and scream whenever one of the children forgot to use her title.”

“At
Charlotte’s
age? Odd that you remember it so precisely, for she must be only a few years younger than you are.”

“Four, I think. She must be twenty now.” Kate finished the row of carrots and stood up to stretch. “Simon, on the other hand… the duke, I mean… is delightful. He’s funny and charming and handsome, and he doesn’t stand on ceremony.”

Olivia moved on to the next hill of runner beans, determined that this time the plants would survive her tending. “
Simon
, is it? How well do you know him, Kate?”

A tinge of pink flared in Kate’s cheeks. “He used to come to the vicarage for extra tutoring sometimes when he was down from Oxford.”

“And to see you?”

“Of course not. He used to talk to me about all the women he fell in love with—though that’s taking the term lightly, for even Simon knew he was never serious about any of them. And before you go on about me using his name, he wasn’t the duke then.”

“Only the marquess of something-or-other,” Olivia teased. “A different thing entirely, I’m sure. But why, if you knew the duke so well, didn’t you write to him for assistance?”

“Are you mad? If he recommended me for employment, everyone would think he was passing along a cast-off mistress.”

“I suppose you’re right,” Olivia admitted. “But if he’s less high in the instep than his mother and sister are…”

“In any case, after the duchess didn’t answer me at all, I could hardly turn to the duke. But there has to be someone at this wedding who’s a possibility.”

Olivia dug her hoe deep into the soil. “Now you almost sound as if you’re planning to set your cap for one of the guests, Kate.”

Kate’s laugh sounded brittle. “Hardly. Even if I wasn’t old enough to be on the shelf, I’m a vicar’s daughter with no dowry. I can’t think of any woman who’s less likely to inspire a marriage proposal, especially from the sort of gentlemen who will gather at Halstead next week.”

“You can’t? What about a widow who has a three-year-old daughter and not a penny to her name?”

“That’s true. We are neither of us prizes on the marriage market, are we, Olivia? I had hoped that the duchess would recommend me to someone who needs a companion or a secretary or a governess. But surely someone in that crowd will hire me. I simply must find that person.”

Kate’s voice held a note of determined optimism, but Olivia suspected she had to work at it. No matter what Kate said, it would be no simple task to ferret out guests who might be in search of an employee from among a crowd of merrymakers.

“You’ve been very quiet since that day as well, you know,” Kate said. “Tell me, what has kept
you
thinking so hard since you were invited to Lady Daphne’s wedding?”

Not the wedding
,
Olivia thought.

From out in the street, a man’s shout cut through the village noises, so loud and close at hand that Olivia jumped. The sharp blade of the hoe grazed her toes and sliced off another entire hill of runner beans. She whirled around, ready to lambaste the thoughtless fool who was making such a noise, and her heart leaped into her throat.

The scene burned itself into her vision as if everyone and everything had frozen in place. She saw her daughter perched on tiptoe on the narrow back of the bench. How had Charlotte managed to climb up there? And how was she keeping her balance?

Except—she wasn’t.

One of Charlotte’s small hands still clutched her pinafore-basket full of grapes, while the other was stretched out to a particularly juicy and tempting bunch that dangled just beyond her fingertips. But she wasn’t looking at the grapes; she had turned her head toward the street as if the shout had startled her.

And as Olivia watched in horror, unable to reach her baby, Charlotte toppled off the back of the bench, over the wall, and out into the street, landing almost under the feet of a glossy black gelding.

The horse reared. Olivia tried to choke back her scream. From the corner of her eye, she saw Kate starting across the garden toward the gate. But that was too circuitous a route for Olivia, who flung herself straight toward the arbor instead. She stepped up onto the bench, sat on the back rail where Charlotte had perched, and swung her feet around and over the wall. Below her, Charlotte lay fearfully still in the dust, flat on her back.

The horseman had drawn the gelding away and dismounted, flinging the reins to a boy who came running from the cottage next door. Just as Olivia jumped from the wall into the street, the horseman knelt in the dust beside the child and reached out as if to gather her up.

“Don’t,” Olivia cried. She thrust out a hand to hold him away as she dropped to her knees beside the child. “Haven’t you done enough damage by frightening her into falling and then trampling her?”

He looked up then, and midnight-blue eyes blazed at her. “I? My good woman, how dare you accuse
me
?”

“Because you caused this accident! Calling out—”

“Why do you think I shouted? I saw her start to fall, but I was too far away to reach her and hoped to alert someone else to her peril.”

Olivia was barely listening. Charlotte’s eyes were open wide, and she was staring as if in disbelief. Olivia brushed at the front of Charlotte’s dress, trying to determine if she was breathing.

“It’s not blood she’s drenched in,” the horseman said. “Only grape juice.”

“I know that much, thank you,” Olivia snapped.

Charlotte gasped, wheezed, and gave a thin, reedy wail.

“Oh, thank God,” Olivia said. “She only got the breath knocked out of her.”

The horseman’s eyes narrowed. “Thank God indeed, for the person who was supposed to be supervising her was of no use whatsoever! I assume you are that person?”

His gaze slid across her with arrogant ease, and suddenly Olivia saw herself as he must see her—wearing her oldest and most faded dress with a floppy-brimmed hat to hold off the sun, and every inch of her coated with dust. She must look like a nursery servant who had been pressed into service in the garden.

“What in the devil do you mean by allowing a child to climb into such a precarious position?”

Charlotte’s wail grew steadily louder. Olivia helped her sit up, and the child huddled against her mother. “There, darling. Don’t let him frighten you any more. Perhaps he’ll stop yelling now and go away.”

“Gladly,” the horseman said coldly, and stood up.

Olivia hadn’t expected him to comply, and remorse swept over her as her normally good manners finally began to reassert themselves. Now that she was no longer terrified for her daughter’s life, she was stunned by the recollection of what she had said. Perhaps he
had
only been trying to help. And she
was
at fault for not watching Charlotte more closely.

“Sir,” she began. “I—” Still kneeling in the dirt, she had to look a long way up to his face, but her gaze caught at the level of his knees instead. The soft pale leather of his buckskins was stained with dirt and… “You have grape juice all over you.”

He didn’t even bother to look. “It’s of no importance.”

“The stain will never come out of the leather.”

In good conscience, she had to offer to compensate him for the damage. The accident was her fault; he would not have knelt in Charlotte’s puddle of juice if Olivia had been doing her duty. She had no idea where she would find the money to replace such a costly item—but this was, in a sense, a debt of honor, and so she must pay it.

She patted her daughter’s back and tried to make herself utter the words.

Kate pulled up beside them, out of breath. “Your Grace,” she gasped.

Olivia’s hand froze in midpat.

“Miss Blakely.” The gentleman shot a glare at Olivia. “Ma’am.”

Olivia’s mind felt like congealed mud. Bad enough that in the momentary madness of terror for her daughter she had insulted
any
gentleman. But to have insulted the Duke of Somervale, the premier gentleman of the entire district…

Without taking his gaze off Olivia, the duke snapped his fingers. The boy who had been holding the reins of the black gelding led the animal across the street. The duke tossed him a coin, and the boy grinned and backed away.