Chapter 3
Chapter
Three
The silence lingered long after Lydia ceased speaking.
Oliver had intended the interview to remain precisely that.
An interview. Formal, courteous, entirely devoid of any reference to the twelve years that lay between them.
It had seemed the safest course for them both.
If he conducted himself as he would with any prospective employee, then neither of them would be forced into saying more than either was prepared to hear.
He ought to have known Lydia would never permit such an arrangement to stand.
She had scarcely altered in that regard.
There were changes, certainly. He saw them the longer he looked.
The fashionable softness of youth had given way to something quieter.
Harder. There was a confidence about her now that had not existed when she was two-and-twenty, though he suspected it had been purchased at considerable cost. She held herself differently.
Twelve years earlier she had entered every room believing she belonged there.
Now there was caution in every movement, every measured word, as though she had grown accustomed to judging precisely how much space she was entitled to occupy.
Yet for all that, there remained countless familiarities.
She still folded her hands together whenever she wished to conceal agitation.
Still lifted her chin by the smallest degree when preparing to contradict someone.
Still looked directly into another person's eyes when speaking, a habit his mother had once declared exceedingly unfeminine and which Lady Charlotte herself had secretly admired.
It was unnerving how readily memory supplied such observations. He had imagined forgetting. He discovered instead that he had merely stopped looking.
"I cannot remain here.” The words were quiet, but there was no uncertainty in them.
Oliver regarded her steadily. "May I ask why?"
She laughed then, though there was no amusement in the sound. “Must I truly answer that?"
He kept his tone well modulated and vaguely disinterested as he stated, “I would appreciate it if you did.”
For several moments she merely stared at him, as though uncertain whether he could possibly mean what he had said. "You cannot imagine this was ever going to succeed."
"I confess," he replied evenly, "that I had hoped it might."
"Hope?" she repeated. "You expected me to arrive here, discover where I had been sent, and simply... remain?"
He shrugged. In truth he didn’t have an answer.
He’d imagined the scene playing out between them a dozen different ways.
Anything could have happened and it would have fallen within the realm of possibilities already considered.
”I expected nothing. Expectations have a disagreeable habit of proving unfounded. "
A shadow crossed her expression before disappearing almost immediately. "I cannot be your employee, Oli—Lord Hartwell. Surely you must see that?”
If there was one outcome that he could not and would not permit, it was her immediate departure. He needed answers and Gemma did indeed need a woman’s guidance that was not his overly indulgent mother. ”Are you not a governess?"
She blinked. "What?"
“I asked Mrs. Baxter to procure a governess for mmy daughter—for Gemma. That is the position for which Mrs. Baxter recommended you.”
"Of course I am a governess." Irritation sharpened her voice for the first time since entering the room. "What else was I qualified to become? Maneuvering in society was the only skill I possessed. It seemed only natural to parlay that into gainful employment."
Oliver studied her for a long moment. Quietly, he uttered the closest thing to an accusation that he intended to levy.”You needn't have."
A faint line appeared between her brows. “What exactly do you mean by that, Lord Hartwell?”
Outwardly, he ignored the hint of temper despite feeling surprisingly satisfied by the display.”You needn't have become a governess. There were other options available to you, but you chose not to take them.”
A flash of something—hurt perhaps, or pride—crossed her face before she mastered it.
"I did what I believed to be best for everyone under the circumstances. I understand you were taken quite by surprise by the whole matter… I was as well. But there is little point in dissecting a past event that cannot be altered.”
“Perhaps." He neither agreed nor argued the point.
"But that is neither here nor there. I did not engage your services because of what passed between us twelve years ago, Lydia.
Mmy daughter requires a governess, and Mrs. Baxter assures me that you are among the finest she has ever placed.
Had I ignored such a recommendation merely because we were once acquainted, I should have been placing my own comfort above mmy daughter's welfare. "
Her gaze searched his face. "You truly mean to employ me."
Oliver grew tired of standing, of looming over her like some sort of boorish brute.
Regardless of the dictates of etiquette, he seated himself on the edge of his desk where they were at least closer to eye level.
"If you consent to remain, yes. Lydia, I mean to employ you as a governess for mmy daughter.”
She shook her head almost before he had finished speaking. "There must have been others."
Of course she would seize on that and he had already determined that there was little he could do but tell the truth on that score. ”There were."
"Then why not engage one of them?"
Another shrug, this one slightly less at ease than the prior one. ”They declined."
"All of them?"
His lips firmed into a grim line as he answered her very pertinent question. ”Every lady to whom the position was offered."
She frowned. "I find that difficult to believe."
He let out a dry laugh then, the sound almost rusty from disuse. Despite the success of his business ventures, he’d had very little to laugh about for the past three years. ”I daresay they found the prospect of a position at Hartwell Hall rather difficult to justify… all things considered.”
She regarded him in silence. After registering his disinclination for further explanation, she demanded one not so simple answer. ”Why?”
Oliver crossed slowly toward the decanter that stood upon the sideboard. He poured a measure of whisky into a crystal glass more from habit than desire and turned it once between his fingers without drinking. "My wife's death."
Lydia's expression altered almost imperceptibly. "I was told Lady Charlotte died several years ago."
"She did."
Her brows lifted in such a familiar expression of dubious skepticism that it was like a glimpse into the past. ”And that is sufficient to deter governesses?"
“I suppose it rather depends upon the manner of one's passing."
The color left Lydia's face. "What happened?"
He remained silent for several moments. "When Amelia died, it was labeled as nothing more than a tragic accident.” He lifted his eyes to hers. "Society proved considerably less interested in the verdict than in inventing alternatives."
Understanding dawned slowly. "The lake?”
He inclined his head. “Indeed. The lake. She was found there."
Lydia drew a slow breath.
"I had heard..." She hesitated. "Only that she had fallen."
"So the kinder version of events continues to circulate,” he replied with unmistakable bitterness.
"You speak as though you do not believe it."
He didn’t look at her then. Instead, he turned his head to stare out the window. There were some things he was not ready to share and the guilt he felt, not because he harmed Amelia but because he had failed her, was something he would keep to himself. ”I know she did not fall."
The room became very still in the wake of that admission. Oliver watched the realization spread across Lydia's face, watched her attempt to reconcile what he had said with the man she believed herself to know.
"My wife had suffered for years," he continued quietly.
"There are physicians who would have called it melancholy. Others might have given it another name altogether had they possessed one. Whatever the term, there were mornings when she scarcely left her room and evenings when conversation exhausted her beyond measure. She endured more than most people ever understood… And she longed to be happy, but I think, ultimately, she simply did not know how.”
Her expression was positively stricken. ”I'm so terribly sorry."
The sympathy in her voice was entirely genuine. "So was I.” He looked briefly toward the window before continuing. "Some prefer to call what happened an accident."
"And you?"
“I think Amelia finally found herself too weary to continue. She never walked the grounds. Not even once. For her to have left the house, she would have done so with a reason… a purpose.”
Lydia lowered her eyes. "That is very sad."
"It is… and my greatest fear, Lydia, is that my daughter may succumb to the same sort of pervasive unhappiness that claimed her mother. If there is one thing I can trust you to impart to her, it is resourcefulness and resilience.” He took the smallest sip from the glass before setting it aside.
"Unfortunately, tragedy seldom satisfies public curiosity. "
Her head lifted. "What do you mean?"
"I mean there were those who found the truth insufficiently entertaining."
She stared at him. "They believe..."
"They believe whatever best occupies an idle afternoon."
She understood then. ”No!” A quiet certainty had entered her voice.
"No?"
"You mean they blamed you… for not helping her or recognizing her intent, surely. But not… no one would suspect— I cannot imagine such a thing!”
He smiled, though there was nothing approaching amusement in it. “There are many theories, Lydia, but not a one of them is flattering to me.”
"That is absurd,” she protested, her indignation rising.
"So I thought, as well.”
She did sit then, finally. Sinking into the chair opposite his desk, as if the weight of the revelations was too much to bear standing up. ”They cannot truly imagine—"