Chapter Twenty-Six
Olivia waited until the carriage had gone before she lifted her fingers to her lips.
“Do you need anything, Lady Devereaux?”
Jacob stood before her, hands in pockets.
“Perhaps you might call me sister, given that we’re related.” She smiled. “If I recall, I asked you to do so when you showed me around the gardens.”
“Of course I will…sister.”
She cast her gaze about the building.
“It’s a large house,” Jacob said, “especially when you’re alone.”
And I am alone.
Olivia glanced at the drive in the direction of the carriage.
“I can ask Nicola to accompany you today,” Jacob said. “I’m over at Mill Farm with Mr. Carlton to oversee the repairs to the roof. I’ll send her over to the great house once she’s finished her chores at home.”
Olivia nodded. “She can stay for tea if she wishes. Is the farm in disrepair?”
“It’s only the roof that needs mending. Mr. Faulkes has been taking good care of the house otherwise. Well, I’d best be off if I want to impress Mr. Carlton.”
He nodded and walked off, whistling, disappearing around the side of the building. Olivia glanced at the servants who were dispersing, then approached the cook.
“Mrs. Groves, might I ask a favor?”
“Are you wanting to discuss the menu for supper, Lady Devereaux?”
“No, but I wondered…might I be permitted to join you in the kitchen? I have a fancy for shortbread, and I’d like to bake some today—then, perhaps, for my husband when he returns home.”
“Bless you, your ladyship, you’ve no need to ask permission, certainly not from me. And, begging your pardon, I expect you’ll need a bit of company now his lordship’s away, and we can’t have you rattling around in that big house all on your own.”
“Nicola is visiting later.”
The cook wrinkled her nose. “There’s better company to be had hereabouts, I’m sure.”
“Jacob thinks highly of her,” Olivia said.
“Not for the right reasons. A bit too free with her favors, that one. She’s the sort who’ll do anything to snare a man if she thinks it worth her while. She took little notice of Jacob when he were growing up, until she realized he was heir to this place.”
“Didn’t she know he was my husband’s brother?”
“She knew, all right. Taunted him for being”—Mrs. Groves lowered her voice and glanced over her shoulder—“born on the wrong side of the blanket.” She shook her head.
“Poor lad. The old earl separated him from his mother and refused to let him live upstairs. Treated him worse than a servant, he did. Jacob could have turned out very wild, but Mr. Carlton took him under his wing. He’s a fine enough lad, for all that he’s a natural child, but then… ”
The cook hesitated, blushing. “Forgive me, Lady Devereaux, I didn’t mean—”
“You didn’t mean me?” Olivia said.
Did the whole household know of her birth?
“Of course not, your ladyship. And we all treat Jacob as one of the family.”
“Except he spends his time downstairs rather than in the house.”
“It’s how he prefers it. He can’t be bothered with the life of a gentleman, much to Nicola Faulkes’s displeasure. That little miss was all over him when she found out he’s the heir. Of course, he’ll not be heir for long.”
She flicked her gaze to Olivia’s belly, then gave a gap-toothed smile.
“We’re all right pleased you’re here, your ladyship. I hope I didn’t give no offense when I referred to…” She made a random gesture.
Olivia shook her head. “I’ve heard worse, Mrs. Groves.”
Mrs. Groves took her hand and patted it. “Well, you’ll not hear it from anyone’s lips here, lass. Master Charles would have them strung up by the toes.”
“I doubt that.”
“He said as much—or that man of his said it for him. Young Jim made mention of it, and the master overheard and had him dismissed. Don’t you recall the lad who served supper the night you arrived?”
Olivia shook her head.
“He’s found a position at Alderley Hall in the next village, so there’s no harm done, but he’s lucky Master Charles didn’t take a crop to him.”
“Mrs. Groves,” a deep voice said, “I trust you’re not engaging in gossip with her ladyship?”
The butler stood in the driveway, his eyebrows kitted together in a frown.
“Beg pardon, Mr. Reynolds, I was…was just…”
“Mrs. Groves was discussing the method she uses for making shortbread,” Olivia said. “I offered to make some for tea.”
The butler bowed. “Very good, your ladyship. Now, if you’ll excuse me, we’re a footman short and I’m interviewing prospective candidates. I trust I’ll not be obliged to advertise for a new cook as well.”
Mrs. Groves bowed her head. “No, Mr. Reynolds.”
The butler nodded then returned to the house, muttering to himself. “Pity. We might be presented with a pie that doesn’t break our teeth.”
The cook gave no sign that she’d heard. Not that Reynolds had spoken a falsehood. Maybe Mrs. Groves might permit Olivia to bake a pie also.
The butler turned and winked at Olivia, and she suppressed a giggle. Perhaps, in time, she’d come to feel at home here, even if she could never hope to be as happy in marriage as her sister-in-law.
*
“I must say, that’s the tastiest shortbread I’ve had here. Did you make it, Olivia? For I doubt Mrs. Groves did.”
Olivia smiled at her companion. Nicola—or Miss Faulkes, as Mrs. Broughman insisted Olivia call her—had completely shed the initial hostility Olivia had seen on her first arrival at Penham Park.
She’d been a little quiet during the tour of the gardens, deferring to Jacob, but today, now Olivia was alone in her company, she seemed to blossom.
“Nicola!” Susie said as she poured the tea. “You oughtn’t refer to her ladyship by her given name. She’s a countess.”
“But we’re friends,” Nicola said, fixing her pale-blue gaze on Olivia. “We might even be sisters one day.”
“Has Jacob made you an offer?” Olivia asked. Susie’s hand shook as she handed her a cup. “Thank you, Susie.”
“There! What did I tell you?” Nicola said. “Olivia’s not like other ladies who wouldn’t bother to thank the staff. She even baked the shortbread.”
“I know that,” Susie said. “Lady Devereaux let me try a piece.”
“That’s kind of her,” Nicola said, reaching for her cup.
“I know. I’m so glad she took me on as her maid.”
“I am in the room, Susie,” Olivia said, laughing. She nodded to the biscuits. “Take another if you like.”
“Can I?”
“Susie, don’t be so forward,” Nicola said, “and you must take yours in the kitchen.”
“You’re just the same as me, Nicky.”
“I’m Lady Devereaux’s friend,” Nicola said. “There’s a difference, as I’m sure Mrs. Brougham would point out, even if Olivia’s too kind to say anything. And if Jacob and I…” She sipped her tea and shrugged. “Jacob is the earl’s brother.”
“Jacob eats in the kitchen with the rest of us,” Susie said.
“Well, he shouldn’t.”
“He’s welcome to dine in the main house if he wishes,” Olivia said. “He’s to inherit, after all.”
Nicola narrowed her eyes, then reached for a slice of shortbread. Susie bobbed a curtsey then exited the parlor.
“Do forgive my sister. She’s young and has yet to learn decorum. I hope she’s giving satisfaction otherwise?”
“She’s delightful, Miss Faulkes.”
“Nicola, please, Olivia.”
Olivia nodded, swallowing her discomfort.
Friendships forged in the country developed at a quicker pace compared to London Society, where formal introductions were required before one could even speak to another, and given names were only used after months of intimacy.
Nicola would, in all likelihood, be the closest Olivia might come to having a friend hereabouts.
Her upbringing couldn’t have been so different to Olivia’s—raised on a tenanted property on a grand estate.
And if she married Jacob, she might come to live in the main house.
If Jacob asked her.
“Will Jacob join us for tea?” Olivia asked.
“I told him to,” Nicola said, biting the corner off a piece of shortbread. “But he’s busy with that Mr. Carlton.”
“Isn’t that a good thing?” Olivia said. “They’re seeing to the repairs to your father’s farmhouse.”
“I don’t see why Jacob has to do it. He is the heir—at least, until you…”
She gestured to Olivia’s stomach, and Olivia averted her gaze.
“Forgive me if I offended you,” Nicola said.
Olivia shook her head. “It matters not.”
Nicola rose to take the seat next to Olivia on the sofa. Olivia bit her lip as a warm hand took hers, the skin smooth compared to her calloused hands.
She glanced about the parlor. By right of birth, neither she nor Nicola belonged here.
“You’re distressed. I can tell,” Nicola said. “Jacob said you seemed upset this morning when the earl left. Are you”—she lowered her voice—“with child?”
Recalling her husband’s words, Olivia sighed. “I hope not.”
A flicker of emotion gleamed in Nicola’s eyes that Olivia couldn’t fathom. Surprise, perhaps?
“Don’t you want a child?”
“My husband…” Olivia hesitated, then shook her head. Friend or not, such matters were not for the ears of others. “It’s nothing.”
Nicola leaned forward and embraced her. “My dear friend, I won’t tell anyone. Not even Jacob, even though there should be no secrets between sweethearts or a man and his wife.”
She tilted her head to one side, and Olivia shivered at the intensity in her eyes.
“You’re sensible in not wanting a child,” Nicola said. “Women die in confinement. And your husband is so…”
“So what?”
Olivia stared at her friend, who leaned closer.
“So big,” Nicola said. “Imagine the size of his child! The old earl was just as big. They say the late Lady Devereaux almost died giving birth. She bled for weeks.”
Olivia shifted her thighs at the memory of the pain when her husband had taken her last night—the soreness that still pulsed between her thighs, and the tight cramps that had beset her body shortly after.
“Nicola, I’d rather not speak of—”
“And there’s Lucy.”
“Lucy?”
“Pa’s second wife.”
Olivia nodded. “Susie mentioned her.”
“Did she tell you how Lucy died?”
“No.”
“She died in childbirth. I was there.”
“Sweet Lord!” Olivia cried. “How horrible. Does Jacob—”