A Season of Hope (Danby #2)(7)

Olivia looked over her shoulder.

Apparently grandfather’s steward had made a move to exit the room. He stood, his back to her and the duke, saying nothing.

It was foreign, this. Those in the duke’s employ, even family, deferred to his desires because simply put, the old lord would have it no other way. How very interesting that he’d tolerate such insolence from his steward.

Olivia shuffled back and forth on her feet. Her discomfort had little to do with the ache in her lower back from days’ worth of traveling, and everything to do with the miserable, scowling man in Danby’s employ.

Not that she could see his lips. But she was beyond certain he was scowling.

Danby’s steward emanated a hardness. He apparently didn’t give a fig for the Christmastide season—goodwill, harmony, and all that.

“I’ve invited you both here for a reason. I want you to decorate the castle for Christmastide.”

She blinked, certain she’d heard him wrong. “Your Grace?”

A mottled flush stained the duke’s aging cheeks. “You heard me, girl. This place is rather gloomy for the Christmas season.”

Olivia glanced around the duke’s massive office. Yes, it certainly was, but then, Danby Castle was gloomy on a bright summer’s day. It didn’t have to do with the lack of ornamentation. It had to do with the cheerlessness of the duke’s home.

“You want me to decorate,” she said, a touch of hesitancy underlying her words.

There had to be more here than she could see. What was it about? What was it about?

“No, girl!” he barked. “I want you both to decorate.”

“No!”

She spun back around to face the forgotten steward.

A growl punctured the quiet of the room. Danby’s man of business was an angry, snapping beast. “I handle your business, Your Grace. I don’t decorate.”

A laugh bubbled up from her throat, and spilled past her lips. She raised a gloved finger to her lips and stifled the sound. Grandfather’s steward sounded as angry as if he’d been instructed to pluck all the hairs off his head.

The beast advanced toward her. “Is this funny to you, my lady?”

Olivia tossed her chin back, refusing to be intimidated by the faceless stranger. “Your reaction is. I’ve never known anyone to hate the Christmastide season.”

He stepped into the light and she gasped.

She took a step back and stumbled over her skirts as she gazed at the steward. A series of intersecting scars bisected a face that she could tell had once been beautiful: the hard-square of his jaw, the chiseled plains of his cheeks showed him to be a man of power and strength. Her gaze wandered to the black velvet patch that covered his eye. With his thick, dark locks pulled back in a neat queue, he put her in mind of a pirate.

She looked away.

“Have you had a good look, my lady?” He snarled. “Your granddaughter is rude, Your Grace.”

Olivia’s head snapped up at the derisive statement. Oh, how dare he! The unmitigated gall of him. She strode over to him until a mere handbreadth separated them. She planted her hands on her hips and glared back up at him. “Oh, I’m rude? I’m hardly the one snapping and growling like a…like a…wounded bear, Mr.…Mr.…”

The steward leaned down and his hard lips flattened into an unforgiving smile. “Wheatley. My name is Marcus Wheatley.”

Olivia’s body jerked, as if she’d been plunged into Danby’s icy lake. She pressed her hand to her rapid beating heart, but the whoosh and flow of blood in her ears made it difficult to hear anything but his pronouncement over and over.

Marcus Wheatley.

Marcus Wheatley.

“No,” she breathed. “It can’t be. You died.” And for the first time in her life, Olivia swooned.





Chapter 4


Marcus cursed and caught Olivia to him before her lean, lithe frame hit the duke’s floor. He swept her against his chest, besieged by the hauntingly familiar scent of lilacs. The scent wafted over him, transported him back to a different place, a different time, before he’d gone off to fight Boney’s forces, before he’d been transformed into a bloody monster.

“Well done,” the duke drawled. “A bit dramatic for you, no?”

“I don’t know what you mean?” Marcus continued to cradle Olivia in his arms, even as he desperately searched for a place to deposit her. The longer he held her, the stronger the yearning grew for this woman he’d not returned to.

He recalled the flash of horror in her cerulean blue eyes. He’d thought himself immune to pain, but still an ache ripped at his heart, an organ he’d thought long dead. The very expression he’d seen in her face had been what had driven him into hiding. He’d rather be dead to her, nothing more than a happy memory, than a man she looked on with such fear and loathing.

“Come, boy,” the duke barked. His words brought Marcus back to the moment. “All that frowning and bellowing.”

“I wasn’t bellowing.”

The duke waved his hand. “She coming to yet?”

Marcus raised a hand to stroke her cheek and thought better of what he was doing. He tapped a finger against her jawline.

Olivia’s golden lashes fluttered. He steeled himself for the rush of reality to hit her precious face.