“Ah.”
She turned toward him, her brows arched, her expression utterly frank. “You see my dilemma?”
“Indeed.”
“If I am seen to reject him, I’ll be…” She chewed on her lip, searching for the correct word. “…not a laughingstock…I don’t know what I’ll be. But it won’t be nice.”
He didn’t seem to move a muscle, and yet his face was achingly kind as he said, “Surely you don’t need to marry him just to prove your niceness to society.”
“No, of course not. But I must be seen to at least give him all due courtesies. If I reject him out of hand…” Olivia sighed. She hated this. She hated all of this, and she’d never really spoken to anyone about it, because they would only say something awful and snide like-Don’t we all wish we had your problems.
And she knew she was lucky, and she knew she was blessed, and she knew she had no right to complain about anything in her life, and she wasn’t complaining, not really.
Except sometimes she did.
And sometimes she just wanted the gentlemen to stop paying attention, to stop calling her beautiful and lovely and graceful (which she was not). She wanted them to stop paying calls, and stop asking her father for permission to court her, because none of them was ever right, and blast it all, she didn’t want to settle for the best of the acceptables.
“Have you always been pretty?” he asked, very quietly.
It was a strange question. Strange, and powerful, and not the sort of thing she’d ever consider answering, except, somehow…
“Yes.”
Somehow, with him, it seemed all right.
He nodded. “I thought so. Yours is that kind of face.”
She turned to him with an oddly renewed sense of energy. “Have I told you about Miranda?”
“I don’t believe so.”
“My friend. Who married my brother.”
“Ah, yes. You were writing a letter to her this afternoon.”
Olivia nodded. “She was a bit of an ugly duckling. She was so thin, and her legs so long. We used to joke that they went all the way to her neck. But I never saw her that way. She was just my friend. My dearest, funniest, loveliest friend. We took our lessons together. We did everything together.”
She looked over at him, trying to gauge his interest. Most men would have run for the trees by now-a young woman blithering on about childhood friendship. Good heavens.
But he just nodded. And she knew that he understood.
“When I was eleven-it was my birthday, actually-I had a party-Winston, too-and all of the local children came. I suppose it was considered a coveted invitation. Anyway, there was a girl there-I can’t even remember her name-but she said some horrid things to Miranda. I don’t think it had ever even occurred to Miranda that she wasn’t considered pretty before that day. I know it hadn’t occurred to me.”
“Children can be unkind,” he murmured.
“Yes, well, so can adults,” she said briskly. “Anyway, it’s all neither here nor there. It’s just one of those memories that has stayed with me.”
They sat in silence for a few moments, and then he said, “You didn’t finish the story.”
She turned, surprised. “What do you mean?”
“You didn’t finish the story,” he said again. “What did you do?”
Her lips parted.
“I can’t imagine you did nothing. Even at eleven, you would not have done nothing.”
A slow smile spread across her face, growing…growing…until she could feel it in her cheeks, and then her lips, and then her heart. “I believe I had words with that girl.”
His eyes caught hers in an odd sort of kinship. “Was she ever invited to your birthday parties again?”
Still, she was smiling. Grinning. “I don’t think she was.”
“I’d bet she hasn’t forgotten your name.”
Olivia felt joy bubbling up from within. “I reckon she hasn’t.”
“And your friend Miranda had the last laugh,” he said. “Marrying the future Earl of Rudland. Was there a bigger catch in the district?”
“No. There wasn’t.”
“Sometimes,” he said thoughtfully, “we do get what we deserve.”
Olivia sat beside him, quietly, happy in her thoughts. Then, out of nowhere, she turned to him and said, “I am a devoted aunt.”
“Your brother and Miranda have children?”
“A daughter. Caroline. She is my absolute most favorite thing in the entire world. Sometimes I think I could just eat her up.” She looked over at him. “What are you smiling about?”
“The tone of your voice.”
“What about it?”
He shook his head. “I have no idea. You sound like…like…I don’t know, almost like you are waiting for dessert.”
She let out a laugh. “I shall have to learn how to divide my attentions. They are expecting another.”
“My congratulations.”
“I didn’t think I liked children,” Olivia mused, “but I adore my niece.”
She was quiet again, thinking how nice it was to be with someone she didn’t have to talk to every moment. But then of course she did speak, because she never stayed silent for long.
“You should visit your sister in Cornwall,” she told him. “Meet your nieces and nephews.”
“I should,” he agreed.
“Family is important.”
He was quiet for a little bit longer than she would have expected before he said, “Yes, it is.”