I’d have to hide myself here just...existing. Suspended in some awful void between the life I’ve always known and the reality of my life now. I... I don’t think I could bear it. Since the break must happen, I’d rather it be swift and clean.’
Her eyes filling with tears, Sara nodded. ‘I suppose I can understand. I just...hate to lose you.’
Unable to respond without giving in to tears of her own, Olivia pulled her friend close for a hug. For a long moment, they clung together.
Pushing away the friend who, for the first time in their lives, was unable to help her solve a dilemma seemed to symbolically echo today’s events in her life.
‘Well, I’d best go and pack up my things. Lady Patterson, if you would be so kind as to give me the name of that agency?’
Even Sara’s gruff aunt had tears in her eyes. ‘I’m afraid I’ve forgotten. Let me go to my sitting room and ask my maid, and I’ll send you a note. I am sorry, my dear.’ After rising to give Olivia a quick, most unusual hug, the older woman walked out.
‘Promise me one thing,’ Sara insisted as she escorted Olivia to the door. ‘Don’t accept a contract for more than six months. You know the three of us—you, me and Emma—have always been able to solve whatever problem has arisen in our lives. I don’t expect that will change just because Emma married Lord Theo. Promise me, when they return from their Grand Tour, you will come back to London and let us all re-examine your situation, together.’
Olivia knew that, unless some unknown benefactor had left her funds of which not even the family solicitor was aware, nothing about her circumstances would change in six months. Nor would she be any more able to accept charity from Emma than she could from Sara. But her friend looked so distraught, silent tears slipping down her cheeks, that Olivia didn’t have the heart to refuse her.
‘Very well. I’ll not sign a contract for employment that lasts longer than six months and I promise to return to London and speak with all of you when Emma and Lord Theo come back from Italy.’
In the hallway, the two clung to each other, Olivia fighting back tears once more after being informed by the butler that Lady Patterson had ordered the family carriage to bear her home.
Perhaps her last journey as a well-born member of society.
‘Don’t you dare leave London without saying goodbye!’ Sara said, giving her one last hug.
‘I will let you know my situation as soon as everything is arranged,’ Olivia promised. Then, as the butler held open the door for her, she walked out of her past and grimly set her face towards the future.
Meanwhile, as the afternoon light faded in Somerset, Colonel Hugh Glendenning, late of his Majesty’s Second Imperial Foot, sat down at his desk in the shabby library of Somers Abbey, his family’s ancient home. His back ached from a long day of riding the tenant farms, occasionally dismounting to help some elderly householder with the pollarding of the willow trees that would enable him to cure the branches and weave them into the baskets that produced most of the estate’s revenue.
The Abbey was still far from recovered from the shambles it had been when he inherited it from his wastrel elder brother, he thought, with a pained glance at the faded curtains and the threadbare carpet on the floor. But a year and a half of determined toil had at least built back up the estate’s traditional trade in baskets and, if the apple crop were good this year, the additional income from selling cider might finally tip his finances, long tottering between solvency and disaster, firmly on to the positive side.
He was stretching out his back and thinking that a quick whisky before dinner might be just the trick when a knock came at the door, followed by the entrance of the elderly butler.
‘Sorry to disturb you, Colonel, but a Mr and Mrs Allen are here, demanding to see you.’
‘Mr and Mrs Allen?’ Hugh repeated. After a rapid review of his memory, he shook his head. ‘I don’t believe I’m acquainted with a Mr Allen.’ Hoping the man wasn’t another of the numerous unpaid creditors his brother had left behind, he said, ‘Did they indicate what they wanted to see me about, Mansfield?’
The butler shook his head. ‘Only that they’d just arrived from St Kitts in the Caribbean and must see you at once on a delicate matter of grave importance.’
Hugh sighed. ‘If they are from St Kitts, it must have something to do with my late cousin’s estate. I thought his solicitor had already informed me of everything I needed to know, but I suppose I shall have to see them.’
‘Very well, Colonel.’
Resisting the urge to jump up and help Mansfield when the old man struggled to close the slightly warped oak door, Hugh remained seated. He’d thought the butler already old when he was a boy growing up here, thirty years ago, he thought wryly. Mansfield should have long ago been put out to pasture, but Hugh’s brother had been too indolent to find a replacement and, for now, Hugh couldn’t spare the cash for the retirement the man’s lifetime of service deserved.
Maybe next year.
Maybe next year, he’d get that door planed down and rehung—yet another project on the never-ending list of repairs and renovations needed at Somers Abbey.
A few minutes later, the butler ushered in a lady and a tall, thin, sunburned man—trailed by two solemn-faced little girls. ‘Mr and Mrs Allen, Colonel—and children.’
Hugh hastily looked away from the girls as agony lanced through him. He fought to suppress the vivid, devastating memory of a round, gamine face, the sound of childish laughter...and the sight of dusty earth raining down as a small coffin was lowered into the hard-baked Indian soil.
A surge of anger followed the pain. Why hadn’t Mansfield warned him the couple had children with them? He’d have instructed him to send the youngsters off to the kitchen before he escorted the parents up.
Struggling to remain cordial, he rose and made them a bow. ‘Colonel Glendenning, Mr and Mrs Allen. You come from St Kitts, my butler tells me? I hope you had a pleasant journey.’
‘Tolerably pleasant, given its long duration,’ Allen said. ‘We’re anxious to complete it, though, and be back home again in Yorkshire.’
‘You are not residents in St Kitts, then? And, please, do have a seat,’ he said, waving them towards the sofa in front of the hearth. ‘Mansfield, bring us tea and ask Mrs Wallace to come up.’ Turning back to his guests, he said, ‘My housekeeper can take the children to the kitchen for some refreshment.’
‘That would be most kind,’ Mr Allen said, ushering his wife to the sofa, the children coming to stand stiffly behind them. ‘To answer your question, I’ve been the export agent for a trading venture on St Kitts these last several years, but my wife has been pining for home, so I resigned my position. We will join our family as soon as we discharge our obligation to the children.’
‘I see. So, how may I be of service?’ Hugh asked, still puzzled about why the Allens had come to see him. ‘I assume you were acquainted with my late cousin, Robert Glendenning. Did he ask you to bring something to me?’
Mr Allen laughed. ‘In a manner of speaking. Although it was, as you know, his wife who did the sending. I was given to understand that you were expecting the children.’
For a moment, stark horror froze his tongue as the import of Allen’s words sank in. ‘The ch-children?’ he stuttered. Although he was terribly afraid he already knew the answer, he asked, ‘What children?’
‘Just the older ones, Mr Glendenning’s two daughters by his first wife. The second Mrs Glendenning wished, of course, to keep their son and heir with her. In any event, I believe you were only named guardian for the girls, Mrs Glendenning having convinced her husband to appoint her brother in that