A Season of Hope (Danby #2)(2)

Olivia had been nodding off when the speaker revealed that fascinating bit about the male bee. Said information had proved very useful when Lord Ellsworth had paid her court.

“It was hardly amusing to your father.” Her mother’s disapproving tone interrupted her thoughts.

No, it hadn’t been. Olivia lifted her shoulder in a little shrug. “How was I to have known the earl would react as he did?”

Sick, to be exact. The earl’s complexion had gone a grossly shade of green and he’d hurried from the room ill.

That had been the last time he’d made an appearance.

Olivia frowned. Until today.

Now, it would appear as though it were her time to become ill. A knot twisted in her stomach and she had to force back the dread that climbed up her throat.

Mother took her hand. “You know you can’t avoid marriage forever.”

“I know,” Olivia said, her voice flat to her own ears.

Except she didn’t know it. She’d hoped that maybe, just maybe, she’d manage to escape the marriage noose.

“Not all marriages are unhappy ones,” her mother continued. “Your sister…”

“I know. Alexandra is beyond happy.”

Her sister, wed to the 5th Earl of Pembroke, was blissfully content. That hadn’t always been the case. Nathan had first broken dear Alexandra’s heart before doing right and soothing the shattered organ.

“You could…”

“Do you truly believe I can be happy with the earl, Mother?”

Mother’s lips flattened into a single line.

Olivia nodded. “I didn’t think so.”

“But you were happy once.”

Olivia jumped up from her seat, a hand up. “I don’t want to speak about it.”

For nearly five years, she’d done a remarkable job of shoving memories of him to the side. How ironic that she had teased dear Alexandra over being in love, had mocked the emotion, only to then go and commit the very same faux pas.

Olivia tried not thinking about the man she’d given her heart to. She didn’t allow herself to think of him during any waking moments. It was only at night when his memory would filter into her dreams. Those times she was unable to escape his grinning fa?ade. The midnight black hair, unfashionably long by Society’s standards.

He loved me.

And he promised to return.

But he hadn’t.

For nearly five years, Olivia had honored his memory and the hope of his return by scaring off prospective bridegrooms. Only now was she forced to concede—he wasn’t coming back for her, and the time of childlike games would have to end. She could not remain the Marquess of Tewkesbury’s unwed daughter forever. Society left very few options for ladies outside of marriage.

“He loved you,” her mother said.

Olivia’s throat worked up and down. She wanted to clamp her hands over her ears and drown out those words. Damn her mother for raising his memory.

“I was a mere child.”

Her mother was as unrelenting as a pug tearing at one’s skirts. “You were eighteen.”

Olivia’s toes curled in her slippers and she resisted the urge to flee. She took one more deep breath. She’d never allowed herself to believe that he had died. She would have known in that place deep inside her heart where he resided. “It matters not. He left. He didn’t return.” And I’m the spinsterish, oddity wallflower at ton functions.

She frowned. She was about to be the oddity wed to the Earl of Ellsworth. A little shudder wracked her frame.

Mother reached for her hand and Olivia jumped. She’d been so enrapt in thoughts of him that she’d failed to note her mother’s approach.

“Would you like to talk about him?”

Him. The man whose name could not be named.

Mother didn’t refer to Ellsworth but rather, Marcus Wheatley, a gentlemen her mother and sister had whole-heartedly approved of. He’d made Olivia laugh. He’d teased her.

Then he’d gone off to fight bloody Boney.

Silly cit. That’s what happens when you go and fall in love with a viscount’s younger son. Those younger sons didn’t become lords. They became officers in the military or vicars.

Oh, how she’d wished he’d been a vicar.

“You do know you could have made a match of your own choosing? You are beyond lovely.”

Olivia knew what gentlemen saw when they looked at her: trim waist, golden Hair, fair skin, and flared hips. She might as well have been a broodmare to them.

Olivia sighed. “Father will call for me soon?” Her dejected tone, pathetic to her own ears.

Mother hesitated and then gave a nod. “Yes.” She brushed back a loose golden curl that had escaped Olivia’s perfunctory chignon.

“And I don’t suppose any additional details about the European honeybee—"

“No,” her mother interrupted.

No, she supposed that ploy would not work again.

Olivia had run out of ploys, plots, and plans. She’d no longer be able to fend off her father’s plans to wed her off to…to…whichever fool was silly enough to want her.

“Olivia…”

“I’d like to be alone, Mother.”

Olivia reclaimed her seat by the window and stared out dismissively at the swirling flakes. Her mother’s golden visage, bow-shaped lips turned down in a frown, reflected back at Olivia, until she retreated.