A Season of Hope (Danby #2)(8)

She blinked. Once. Twice. And then her gaze widened. “Marcus?” she whispered.

He set her down on her feet and made to take a step back.

She swayed.

For the love of God. Marcus caught her. “You were never faint-hearted.”

“And you never before returned from the grave.”

Well, she had him there.

He guided her over to the red-velvet sofa and all but shoved her down. “Here, sit.”

Olivia’s wide-eyed gaze rotated between him the Duke of Danby. “What is going on?” she whispered.

The duke stood and folded his arms behind his back. “You two are going to decorate this miserable castle for the season.”

Olivia pressed a hand to her forehead, shaking her head. “Grandfather…”

“Enough,” the duke barked. “You two are going to talk. When you’re done, Wheatley, come find me in my library. I’ve business to discuss with you.”

“You really needn’t…” Olivia pleaded, all but jumping out of her chair and hurrying toward the duke.

The duke ignored her and sailed from the room, closing the door with a firm click.

Just like that, after four years, one hundred sixty-seven days, and a handful of hours, Marcus and Olivia were alone at last.

Olivia turned to face him.

The popping embers of the hearth filled the void of silence.

His scarred lips twisted into a sneer. “Afraid to be alone with me? That wasn’t always the case, was it, Olivia?”

She drew in a steadying breath. “I waited for you, Marcus. Where have you been all these years?”

Marcus frowned. There was a cool frost to her words; a tone that had never been there before. Olivia had always exuded an inner light and radiance free of society’s hard exterior. Where had that woman gone? “How have you been, Olivia?”

She laughed, the sound brittle as ice. “Oh, I’ve been just wonderful, and you Marcus? Oh, I’m sorry. Should I ring for tea?”

He raised a brow quizzically.

“Are you daft,” she said. “You act as though this is a social visit? I waited for you! I waited for you for five years,” her voice rose. Olivia took a steadying breath. “I believed you were dead and yet, where were you all these years? At my grandfather’s.” She shook her head.

Marcus curled his fingers into tight balls at his side to keep from going to her and pulling her into his arms. Too much had passed.

“Do you have nothing to say?” she cried.

He hesitated. “Hello?”

Bright splotches of color stained Olivia’s porcelain-pale cheeks. If she had a weapon upon her person, he didn’t doubt in that moment that she’d gladly use it on him.

And he’d deserve it. The fact that he’d caused her pain tore at his insides. How odd, he’d thought himself dead to emotion. Only to now learn that he still cared, cared very deeply.

For this woman.

Olivia shook her head, and even though she only stood at four inches past five feet, managed to look down the length of her pert little nose at him. The look she gave said she’d found him wonting.

Good. This is how he wanted it. So why did he want to reach out to her and remind her that at one time, when he’d not looked like a hideous monster, she’d loved him.

“I have nothing to say to you, Marcus.” She stormed by him.

Marcus reached out and gently wrapped his fingers around the delicate flesh of her upper arm, effectively halting her retreat.

***

Olivia gasped.

Even hating Marcus Wheatley for his indifference and cold disregard, the feel of his touch still managed to heat her skin.

“Release me,” she said, pleased with the even way in which she managed to deliver those words.

He hesitated and she thought he might refuse, but then he did as instructed.

Her eyes ran a path over this stranger’s face. The puckered skin of his once bronzed cheek, tightened. Her throat moved up and down.

My god, what had happened to him?

In her sweetest dreams, she’d imagined him returning to her. She’d not believed him dead. Her heart would have known. The organ would have cracked and died if he’d been killed at war. As time had passed, she’d been forced to confront the grim reality—he was not returning. Seeing him as he was now, she realized there were many kinds of death a man could die.

“Where were you, Marcus?”

The long pause made her think he might not respond. “Away.” The single word, hoarsely uttered, broke past her fury over his seeming indifference. “Did you miss me, Olivia?”

There was a mocking derision to his question, so foreign to the man Marcus Wheatley used to be. The affable grin, the proclivity to tease, the gentleness in his eyes— all were gone. Dead. All that was left was a shell of the person he had been.

Olivia swallowed. “I waited for you,” she said.

The corner of Marcus’s lips quirked in a humorless expression. “You waited for a dead man.”

Her gaze narrowed on him. Damn him for his indifference. He’d left and taken her heart with him. Through the agony of his loss, she’d remained, and done everything within her power to drive off suitor after suitor. And for what? For a man who’d never had intentions of seeing her again. Olivia grasped his hands and held them up. “This isn’t a dead man, Marcus! This is a man who promised to return for me. A man who asked me to wait for him. And I waited. And for what? You were never coming back.”