Laura Matthews (2 page)

Olivia considered Lady Lawrence somewhat of a harridan, who had no affection for Olivia and her brothers; the Earl, along with Charles and Samuel, had made Lady Lawrence the victim of one of their pranks some years previously. Although it did not seem fair for Lady Lawrence to tar her with the same brush, it was a matter of indifference to Olivia, for she did not often see the older woman.

Sir Noah’s home, Welling Towers, was situated some thirty miles away, and though there was a distant connection between the two families, Olivia was not familiar with its intricacies. Nor did she have any desire to explore it, as she considered Sir Noah responsible for leading her three brothers astray, through their mutual interest in the turf. Not that her brothers had been paragons even as youths, but Olivia felt they might never have become so involved in their expensive pursuits had they not associated with Sir Noah, who was half a dozen years older than Peter and a confirmed rake, in Olivia’s eyes. She had herself heard Peter say...

“I do not mean to interrupt your thoughts, Lady Olivia,” Sir Noah said lazily, “but I wonder if you could inform me if Lady Elizabeth Blake and Mrs. Dyer have arrived.”

Olivia reddened slightly to have appeared so inattentive to her guest. “Yes, sir, but half an hour ago, I should say. Peter has not returned from the field as yet, but I expect him shortly.”

“Ah, no doubt Lady Elizabeth was distressed that he should not be here to welcome her,” Sir Noah suggested laughingly.

Olivia could not stifle the grin that lightened her features immeasurably. “Yes, the subject was mentioned.”

When a footman arrived to show him to a room, Sir Noah murmured, “Perhaps one day Lady Elizabeth will lift the burden of managing Stolenhurst from your youthful shoulders.” He acknowledged Olivia’s flashing eyes with a solemn nod and strode from the room as imperiously as he had entered it, his athletic form graceful for all the controlled energy it bespoke. He was well aware that he left Olivia fuming about his derogatory reference to her age; there was no comment more surely calculated to raise her spleen, and he enjoyed watching the color rise to her cheeks and the gray eyes glitter with annoyance.

In the hall he allowed himself a chuckle which she would not hear, but upon entering the bedchamber to which she had authorized the footman to conduct him, his amusement faded. The little hussy! It was very nearly the closet he had so rashly offered to accept, and nothing like the room he was usually given when he came to visit Peter.

“Tell Lady Olivia that this room will not do,” he rasped to the footman, who obediently departed, leaving Sir Noah threateningly blocking the doorway of the tiny room.

Olivia calmly accepted the footman’s apologetically delivered message. “I will see to the matter, Thomas,” she replied staidly, her eyes sparkling with mischief. There was no haste about her journey up the branching oak staircase and through a maze of corridors to the furthest end of the West Wing. She found Sir Noah where the footman had left him.

“I understand there is some problem, sir. Is the room not to your liking?” Olivia stood on tiptoe to gaze over his broad shoulders into the freshly-cleaned room, a bewildered expression on her face.

“It might do for my valet,” he remarked dryly, continuing to block the passage into the room. “I think Peter would not be pleased were he to learn that you had put me in such a ... closet.”

“I dare say Peter will return shortly and you should not hesitate to speak with him if you wish.”

Noah glared uncompromisingly at her and lifted a hand to point to the short French bed at the south end of the room. “You can hardly expect me to fit into that thing.”

Olivia’s eyes opened wide with surprise. “Well, of course I would not expect you to fit into it, sir. Had you some intention of sleeping in your own room on this occasion?”

“I
will
speak with Peter,” Noah threatened, his brown eyes snapping with anger, while his hands clenched at his sides.

“Certainly, if you think it necessary. However,” she offered generously, “if you wish to have a room where you can sleep, I shall show you to another one which is prepared. Follow me.” Olivia glided regally down the corridor without a glance behind her to see if he followed. His boots were nearly soundless on the carpeted hall floors but she could hear the impatient drumming of his fingers on his gold-headed cane. She stopped before a door midway toward the front of the wing and dramatically swept open the door of a large bedchamber with an enormous half-tester bed, remarking pleasantly,
“More
than enough room for you, I think.”

Noah stomped past her into the room and nodded a curt dismissal, which Olivia acknowledged with a mock curtsey before retreating happily to the Gold Drawing Room, where further guests awaited her. The encounter had improved her outlook on the house party, and she hummed cheerfully when she was once again alone, only to be interrupted immediately by her brother.

Chapter Two

Lord Bolenham had succeeded his father to the earldom at the tender age of eight and had not allowed anyone to forget his status from that day forward. He was willful and extravagant, charming and handsome. Although his mind was quick and it had taken him no time at all to learn how to raise the wind from the age of seventeen, he had no interest in the fact that his expenses far outstripped his income, even now that he was to be in charge of his own estate. His dealings with moneylenders made Olivia shudder with apprehension; his affairs must eventually lead to his arrest for debt if he did not curb his spending, but there appeared no likelihood of such a drastic change in his character.

“We had a good day’s hunting,” he told her now as he seated himself comfortably on a carved walnut armchair covered with a Soho tapestry which illustrated Aesop’s fables. He had acquired the set of armchairs just a month previously, informing his sister, when she had exclaimed at their appearance in the room, that there had seemed no reason
not
to purchase them. “Has everyone arrived?”

“I should hope so,” she replied dryly, “for I have only a further two rooms prepared.”

“No matter.” He waved a careless hand. “Did I tell you that Noah was able to come after all?”

“No, but he informed me so when he arrived. Lady Elizabeth was not pleased that you were not here to greet her.”

Peter screwed his face into the semblance of an old man and croaked, “She will be the death of me yet. Such a persistent woman could hound a man to his grave.”

“She wants only to hound you to the altar, Peter,” his sister retorted.

He sighed hugely and gave a theatrical gesture with one long white hand. “I have not as yet determined if I shall have her. There is a goodly dowry, of course, but she is not everything I could wish for upstairs,” he remarked with an illustrative tap on the forehead. “Still, she is a ravishing creature and not to be discarded without considerable thought. I should like to bed her but she has just barely enough sense to insist on a ring first.”

He ignored the painful blush which stained his sister’s cheeks and continued, “Now her cousin is another matter altogether. No demure miss there! But Noah has the inside track, and I should not like to find myself facing him at dawn with a loaded pistol.
On the other hand, I doubt Lila is above a little double-dealing. Perhaps I should see what I can get in that direction.”

“Please, Peter, I don’t wish to listen to your lascivious plans,” Olivia said coldly, the blush still on her cheeks. “You should change for tea.”

“You really are a prude, Olivia,” he snapped, well aware that he had no business speaking as he had in her presence. He rose leisurely from his seat and said cuttingly, “You will find scant sympathy for your fastidious views at
this
house party.”

“I never do with you and your friends, Peter.” She reached over to pick up her embroidery, her eyes not lifting to his contemptuous gaze. “Some brothers would feel otherwise.”

“More fools they,” he laughed and left her.

Olivia attempted to concentrate on her needlework but her mind kept returning to the scene that had taken place some months previously in her bedchamber. There had been a large house party at Stolenhurst and she had retired after the play, taking the usual precaution of locking her door. After dozing over her book for a while she had fallen soundly asleep, only to be awakened by the sound of a key turning in her lock. Her amazement had almost eclipsed her fright. When she had managed to light a candle, she called in a quavering voice, “Who is it?”

Peter had appeared in the doorway then, with a shadowy figure behind him. His voice was slurred with drink when he spoke. “Told him you’d still be up.”

“I was not up, Peter. What is the meaning of this?” Olivia’s icy tones did not sound as firm as she had hoped they might.

“Bet him your door would be locked, but that I could get in.” Peter had to lean against the door frame for support.

“Well, you have won your bet. Now get out.”

“Noah wished to congratulate you on your performance as Mrs. Sullen this evening, didn’t you?” Peter, with a giggle, had asked of the figure behind him.

“Indeed. Most remarkable. Miss Richards could not have done better had she been able to perform,” a rumbling voice had issued from the blackness of the hall.

“I am not interested in your congratulations, Sir Noah, and especially not at this time of night. I had no wish to take part in the play and did so only at Peter’s urgent request when Miss Richards could not do so. There is no excuse for the two of you to be in my room, and I want you out of it this instant.” Her eyes flashed in the candlelight and the hands holding the bedclothing to her chin tightened.

“No need to get in a huff,” Peter asserted boldly as he reached behind him to draw Sir Noah into the room. “You should be flattered that Noah was impressed with your performance. He had said no child like you could carry off such a role. Had to have him up before the court to make him admit his error. Counsel for the Prisoner couldn’t get him off and he was sentenced to apologize to you without delay.”

Peter swayed as he giggled again. “Rawlins thought the whole court should come, and he was Crier of the Court tonight, but your cherished brother Charles would not have it. Spoil sport. Told him he shall not be Lord Chief Justice next time,” Peter declared sullenly.

Sir Noah never took his eyes from Olivia during this rambling discourse and at its conclusion said, “I apologize for my doubt in your acting ability, Lady Olivia. You did a remarkably fine job.”

Olivia eyed him with disdain. “I would prefer, Sir Noah, that you apologize for entering my bedchamber unbidden.”

Peter slapped a hand against his knee and yelped, “Unbidden! As if the Ice Maiden would ever bid anyone to her room. That’s a good one!”

Thrusting Peter out the door, Sir Noah had bowed to Olivia with mock penitence and murmured, “You have my apology, child. I had no wish to distress you.”

As he closed the door Olivia heard Peter mumble, “You know where you
are
bidden, Noah. I give you good-night.”

The incident had embarrassed Olivia considerably, especially when she realized that all those attending her brother’s mock court of justice would know that her bedchamber had been invaded in the middle of the night. Fortunately the house party had dispersed the following day and she had not had to endure the knowing glances of his guests, for she had not put in an appearance until late in the afternoon.

Today most of the same people were present; but their memories were short in their constant pursuit of novelty, and she was newly emerged as hostess, rather than maintaining the background role she had played until her eighteenth birthday. Not that any of her brother’s friends would have cared if she had put herself forward; but they would have assumed the worst in that case, and she had no desire to make her life less comfortable than it already was.

As the guests began to drift into the Gold Drawing Room for tea, she pushed her thoughts away from her and assumed a manner of sophistication which would be acceptable to them. Her brothers Charles and Samuel were among the first to enter, with off-handed greetings to her. They were enough alike to be taken for twins, and their enthusiasm for their day’s hunt was loud and long, encompassing as it did their delight in a friend’s fall and another’s avoidance of a comparatively simple fence. Olivia no longer blushed for their ill-bred manners; if their guests accepted them, who was she to feel the discomfort of the situation?

Lady Elizabeth entered with a swish of her rose-colored velvet gown and approached Olivia with an offer to assist with the tea tray. There was no denying her as Olivia realized that Lady Elizabeth had a desire to have Peter enter the room to find her mistress of the engraved silver teapot.

Lila Dyer arrived on Sir Noah’s arm, laughing up at him as she playfully tapped his arm with her fan. A procession of bewigged and liveried footmen followed them into the room, bearing trays laden with cakes and tarts. Olivia called one of them aside and sent him to the small book room for Mr. Evans, annoyed that she had not remembered to speak with Peter about him.

It was some time before James Evans stood in the doorway, interestedly surveying the chatting groups scattered about the enormous room. He caught Olivia’s eye enquiringly and she beckoned to him
,
“I did not wish you to miss your tea, Mr. Evans, simply because the house is full of guests. I trust you found the book room.”

The young man grinned engagingly. “There was not the least difficulty, Lady Olivia, though I think Lord Bolenham was surprised to find me there.”

“Do not say Peter actually went into the book room,” Olivia protested, laughing. “I cannot imagine what possessed him,”

Evans’ eyes danced with amusement. “I believe he intended to exhibit its merits to the young lady who is now pouring tea, but he thought better of it when he found me there. Perhaps another time he will be more successful.”

Olivia shook her head exasperatedly, but made no comment. “Will your work keep you here much longer, Mr. Evans?”