Chapter 10
Chapter
Ten
“Iforbid it.”
Oliver glanced up to see his mother standing in the doorway to the drawing room.
Neither Lydia nor Gemma had come down yet and there was little question in his mind that her immediate denial had something to do with one, the other, or possibly both of them.
“Mother, lest it escaped your notice, I am a fully grown man and perfectly capable of making my own decisions.”
“Not in this instance,”she said. “Your judgment is clouded by sentiment and the lure of recapturing something from one’s youth.
Do you think you are the only person to have ever considered reconnecting with a lost love?
You are not. But may be the only one foolish enough to consider a second entanglement with a woman who left you but weeks before your wedding!
I do not even know you now, Oliver. It’s like she has you in some sort of thrall…
a daze, even. You walk about like a lovesick fool. ”
“I do not,” he denied, but it lacked heat and connection even to his own ears.
There were worse things in life than being a lovesick fool.
There was being a hopeless morose fool. He’d done both and much preferred the former to the latter.
“And even if such a thing were true, it is well within my right to do so. I am, much as this may surprise you at times, a fully grown man. Funnily enough, you only seem to recall that when it suits your needs.”
“I did not know, Oliver. I could not have known that your marriage would be so terribly unhappy. I had hoped that you and Amelia would find your footing together.”
“This isn’t about Amelia, mother. It’s about the fact that you question every choice I make for my daughter.
If I wish to obtain a governess for her, you tell me I should not, that you will teach her.
If I discipline her, something I loathe but does occasionally need to happen, you bemoan the fact that I am too firm with her.
If she does misbehave, then I am not firm enough…
You lambast me for taking the lavender you’d planted for pleasure and turning it into an enterprise to salvage the very roof over our heads and then you cut your eyes and offer a sour expression at the merest hint that we are in trade.
And we are in trade, mother. And I daresay that by the end of this century, if our gentrified compatriots do not join us in such an endeavor, they will all be paupered.
” It was a veritable litany of complaints, all of them relatively benign individually, but taken as a whole, representative of something far more damaging.
She had no faith in him. Not in business.
Not as a father. Not as a man capable of making his own choices in life.
“I have accustomed myself to our lowered standing—.”
“Our lowered standing kept this roof over our heads!” He snapped.
“How low would our standards be with our lands confiscated for lack of payment of taxes? Not everything, mother, is about appearances. I married Amelia for the sake of it, because I thought such things were important, I believed in it. And it did not save her. It might have even made her more miserable and unhappy. Perhaps, being trapped in a loveless marriage was the very thing that drove her over the edge?” It was a thing he’d never voiced aloud, a fear that had lurked so deep he’d never dared to acknowledge it.
“That isn’t true… It wasn’t appearances.
Not only appearances. I truly hoped that you might find happiness with her and she with you.
You were so lonely then, Oliver, so heartbroken.
And poor Amelia had always been so very sad.
I had hoped for her sake that marriage and children would alter that for her.
After her disappointment—for lack of a better word—-it doesn’t really matter what I thought or hoped.
Because I was wrong… about her ability to be happy.
But tell me truthfully, if it meant not having Gemma in your life, would you alter it? ”
“Of course not,” he said. “Gemma is my life. And has been from the moment she was born.”
“And Miss Mercer? What of her? What will her presence do to the well ordered life you have created here for yourself and Gemma? She is a threat to that. To you and to Gemma because she will break your heart again… and she will break Gemma’s heart.
And she will leave. That is the only thing about her one may count upon! ”
Oliver shook his head. “You are wrong about her, mother. Whatever it was that compelled her to leave before, it wasn’t that she did not love me or that she did not wish to be married to me. There was something else, something as yet unknown, that was the cause of it all.”
Lady Charlotte threw her hands up in exasperation. “Then demand your answers of her and send her packing.”
There was no time to answer her as he would have liked.
The sound of Gemma’s excited chatter reached his ears before he could utter a word in response.
Rather than upset his daughter or give Lydia any further reasons to feel unwelcome in his home, he settled for, “If you do not like my choices, mother, the dower house will be ready shortly. In the interim, perhaps a stay at one of the spas nearby would improve your humor.”
Lydia entered the drawing room and the tension within was palpable. While the room, with its slightly faded wallpaper and worn carpet was still quite luxurious, it offered no comfort. At least Gemma seemed oblivious to it, which was something of a relief.
“Good evening, Miss Lydia. Gemma,” Oliver said in greeting.
“Lord Hartwell, Lady Charlotte,” Lydia said.
“Grandmama, we played Spillikins this morning and this afternoon Miss Lydia taught me how to play Graces. It was ever so much fun!” Gemma exclaimed excitedly, running over to her grandmother and taking her hand as she all but jumped up and down.
“And tomorrow, if it’s warm, I’ll have more swimming lessons! ”
“Well, Miss Mercer is certainly keeping you very busy, isn’t she?” Lady Charlotte said. It hardly sounded like a compliment. Not that Lady Charlotte would ever offer such to her.
“I’m her governess, Lady Charlotte. Keeping her busy, especially on rainy afternoons, is my duty after all,” Lydia replied. She offered the response matter of factly, with no heat or defensiveness.
“Indeed. You are here in service… a fact we should all endeavor to remember,” she answered with a pointed glance at Lydia and another cast in Oliver’s direction.
Stedmore announced dinner from the doorway and Lady Hartley, despite protocol, simply swept from the room, leaving them all in her wake. Gemma, while not understanding the situation, clearly felt the tension. She slipped her hand into Lydia’s and looked up at her. “Miss Lydia?”
“Yes, Gemma?”
The expression on her small still slightly cherubic face was earnest and worried. “Please don’t go. I want you to be my governess forever… You will stay here, won’t you?”
“I have no plans to go anywhere else, Gemma. I’m perfectly content to remain here at Hartwell with you for as long as I am permitted to do so,” Lydia answered. “I will not leave you of my own accord. That is a promise.”
Gemma nodded, seeming satisfied with the answer. But she continued to hold onto Lydia’s hand, gripping it a bit more tightly than truly necessary—an indication of her anxiousness about the situation.
Dinner was, despite her best efforts, an interminable affair.
Why Lady Charlotte had suddenly decided to rein in her temper enough to join them for the evening meal, she couldn’t say.
But while her behavior and her words never veered into anything impolite, the overall feeling was one of hostility.
It was oppressive. When the meal ended it was a relief.
Lydia was also quite grateful that she had the convenient escape of readying Gemma for bed.
It provided her a way out while poor Oliver was still stuck with the woman.
Oh, she hated thinking unkindly about a woman she had once admired, but it was so difficult when faced with her disdain to fight the inclination to lash back at her in defense.
Through most of it, Gemma remained quiet. Perhaps, Lydia thought, the child had found dinner as exhausting as she herself had. Then, just as she was tucking the little girl into bed, the silence was shattered with the kind of honest curiosity only a child was capable of.
“Miss Lydia, I don’t think we should dine with Grandmama tomorrow night,” Gemma said. “She doesn’t seem to like you very much.”
Succinctly put. Lydia smiled. “You're a very observant young lady, Gemma. No, your grandmother does not especially care for me. I knew her before, a very long time ago… I wasn’t always a governess. I grew up in a house not very different from this one. I had servants and pretty gowns and I went to balls and danced. Not as much as some other girls, but enough to make it fun. And then I met someone and we were supposed to marry. But in the end, I couldn’t go through with it.
My father had lost everything. All his fortune was gone and mine with it, including the dowry my grandfather left for me…
And the gentleman I was to marry, he needed that dowry to save his much loved home—or so I thought at the time. ”
“So why are you still Miss Lydia and not Mrs. Something else?” Gemma asked.
“Because shortly before we were supposed to wed, I ran away… He was too honorable a gentleman to end the engagement despite having essentially been taken in by inadvertent fraud. So I ended it the only way I knew how and freed him to marry someone who would be able to help him save his home.” It was so simple when explaining it to a child, but how would that child’s father react if she were to attempt such an explanation to him.
She understood, of course, that Oliver wanted answers, that he likely needed those answers.
A dozen years was too long to be left with the gnawing agony of not knowing why one’s future had shifted so irrevocably.
“That is very sad… People should be able to marry for love. I will never marry for any other reason,” Gemma stated.
“Nor should you… and I agree. If I had it to do all over again, I might have chosen a different path. Alas, I did not and it hasn’t been all bad. I’m here now with you, after all, and I’m very, very glad of that.”
Gemma threw her arms around Lydia’s neck, hugging her tightly. “I’m very glad of that too.”
“Goodnight, sweet girl. Your father will be in shortly, I’m certain.” Getting to her feet, Lydia leaned down once more and pressed a kiss to Gemma’s forehead as she tucked the bedsheets in around her. As she left the room, she saw Oliver standing there, just beyond the door.
“How much did you hear?” She asked softly.
“Everything. Is that truly why you left? Out of some misguided self sacrifice?” He demanded.
Lydia sighed. “This is not the place to discuss it. I will meet you later… in the study. Gemma will be waiting for her goodnight kiss.”