Chapter 5
Lady Brackley.” Owen inclined his head to the dowager.
Millie was dressed at the height of fashion, but her coloring was off, and her entire body trembled.
He made a mental note to ask the family physician to stop by the next day.
Owen had known men who could not live without liquor, who had died when it was taken from them.
He worried that Millie might suffer a similar fate if she went about removing laudanum from her life in the wrong way. “I asked Miss Bennett to join us.”
The piano stopped, and that was when Owen realized they had an audience.
His sisters were squirming as if they had ants in their drawers, and the Pithinses were watching him with undisguised censure.
Remembering his manners, he strode to Lord and Lady Pithins and welcomed them to his home.
After pleasantries had been exchanged, Lady Pithins said sharply, “In my day, children ate in the nursery. They were taught to be seen and not heard.”
It was a popular sentiment, but not one Owen felt the need to adhere to. His boyhood had been nothing but silence after his mother’s death, and he did not wish the same suffering on his sisters.
Besides, now that Miss Bennett had arrived, she was calmly putting the girls in order so that they were seated and quiet, her gentle, almost inaudible corrections immediately met with their desire to please.
Before Owen could figure out a polite way to reply to the lady, the butler appeared at the door to the dining room. “Supper is ready to be served, my lord.”
Lord Pithins escorted Millie, while Owen took Lady Pithins’s arm and guided her into the dining room.
Millie muttered bitterly about upended seating plans and children, and then, to his surprise, insisted that she and the Pithinses sit near him.
The girls primly marched into the room and trembled with childish glee when a league of footmen pulled out their chairs for them.
Miss Bennett entered last and, with some confusion at the seating arrangement, sat at the opposite end of the table where typically the lady of the house ate.
During the first course, Millie and Lord and Lady Pithins kept up a steady stream of conversation that required his constant participation, while Ivy laughed and chatted with the girls at the other end of the table.
By the second course, Owen was beginning to feel frustrated.
He had invited his sisters so that he might get to know them better, and yet here he was making small talk with Millie and the confounded neighbors she had seen fit to invite, and growing grouchier by the minute.
“Lord and Lady Pithins, where is your lovely daughter tonight?” Millie asked slyly. Before the proud parents could reply, she turned to Owen and said, “Miss Pithins is a dear friend of mine. There is not a lovelier woman in Richmond.”
Lady Pithins flushed with pleasure, while Owen considered the source of the praise. With parents like the Pithinses and friends like Millie, he suspected he knew exactly the type of woman Miss Pithins was.
“She has a prior engagement. Her company is in extremely high demand. When she came out last Season, she turned down four proposals. She is waiting for the perfect suitor.” Lady Pithins dabbed at her mouth with a napkin even though she had barely touched her food.
“She is a fine horsewoman, is she not?” Millie nudged.
“Indeed!” Lord Pithins puffed up his chest and adjusted the monocle in his eye. “Just like her father, I shall add.”
Owen had a sudden, sinking feeling he knew where this was going.
Millie had to know he would never marry her—the very thought of touching a woman his father once had nearly made him lose his first course—but it appeared she was determined to have a hand in arranging a marriage for him that would be advantageous to her.
When the third course was served, he had heard enough about the perfect Miss Pithins, who was not only an expert horsewoman, but had also made a jam the queen had complimented as “extraordinary,” and was as beautiful as the “sunrise on the ocean.” He deliberately ignored Millie, who had not stopped asking about Miss Pithins the entire time, and said loudly, “Which one of you is Olivia?”
A girl who could not have been more than eight shifted nervously and said, “I am, your lordship.”
“Owen,” he corrected.
“Owen,” she repeated, the ghost of a smile touching her lips.
“Did you know, Olivia, that I once had a horse with your name? Olivia Peppersnort the Third.”
The girls smiled, and Millie made a derisive noise.
“We always give our horses proper names,” Lady Pithins sniffed.
Owen ignored her. “Olivia Peppersnort the Third was a very special horse. She had undocumented lineage that many found inferior, but I knew there was something unique about her, and I was proven right the day she saved my life.”
The table was silent now, all eyes glued to him with rapt attention. Even Millie, who was pushing food around on her plate, was paying attention.
Owen settled back, his goblet in hand, and met Ivy’s eyes. She was smiling at him, as if anticipating a good story. For a moment he had a flashback to Barnes, who had always been able to spin a tale that could keep a man teetering on the edge of his seat. He wondered if Ivy had a similar talent.
Feeling much more in his element now that he was talking about horses, Owen refocused on Olivia, whose cheeks were pink with the excitement of being singled out.
“What happened?” one of the children cried. Perhaps Oriana, or maybe Olena. Owen could not keep them straight for the life of him, although he vowed that by the end of the month he would. If Ivy could keep track of them, so could he.
“I was riding Olivia Peppersnort the Third through the woods hoping to get a sense of her abilities and temperament when it began to cloud in. We turned to head back, but before I knew it, we were caught in a flash storm. When the thunder growled overhead, I thought a hellhound had been let loose by the gods.”
One of the girls squealed in excitement.
“Thunder and lightning scare many a horse, but did it bother Olivia Peppersnort the Third?”
“No!” the littlest one cried.
Owen nodded at her in approval. “No, it did not. Olivia powered on through, not once faltering or shying. I knew she was a keeper then, but that was not what made her a hero. We were traversing a heavily wooded area when suddenly there was a crack, and a tree limb knocked me right off Olivia’s back.
I struck my head, and when I came to, I was pinned beneath the limb with a broken arm, Olivia nowhere in sight. ”
The table went silent.
“She abandoned you?” Oliva whispered, crestfallen by the actions of this horse that shared her name.
“I thought so at first,” Owen admitted. “I thought I was going to die out there, with the sky weeping over my body. Night was beginning to fall, and I knew that would leave me vulnerable to attacks by wild animals. But then do you know what happened?”
Olivia’s fingers were gripping her fork so tightly the tips were white.
Owen met her eyes and said, “I heard a whinny, and a man shouting my name. I mustered the energy to call back, and then appearing through the curtain of rain was Olivia Peppersnort the Third, followed by my friend on his horse. She had galloped back to the barn, and when he saw she was without rider, my friend followed her back to me. He told me he had never seen anything like it, and neither had I.”
“Olivia is a hero!” Octavia, the three-year-old, cried out.
Olivia blushed with delight.
Owen nodded. “Olivia Peppersnort the Third went on to be the best horse I ever owned. In fact, she is so special to me that I am having her brought here from Prussia.”
The girls could not contain their cries of delight, eliciting a smile from Owen. When he met Ivy’s warm honey eyes again, they were filled with approval, and for some reason, that meant more to him than it should have.