‘For how long?’
‘For at least two years.’ He looked pale, she noticed absently, even as she felt the blood draining from her own face.
‘Two years?’ She echoed him mechanically, barely able to take it in.
‘At least. In reality I am likely to be gone for longer. I am transferring to the Forty-Eighth and am promoted to Lieutenant.’
‘Lieutenant?’ She swallowed. ‘But that is wonderful news! And well deserved. But—must it be Australia?’
He nodded grimly. ‘You know my situation. Although there is no shame in my lineage, my father died penniless. Thankfully he had paid for my army commission before his gambling debts overwhelmed him, and my sister Lizzie has a small income from our mother’s family. But—’ his eyes blazed into hers ‘—I have no choice. This is a chance to make something of myself. Today, I am nothing. I am no one. A young ensign, half-crippled, with no fortune, no position in society, nothing. I am truly grateful to your family for offering me a home here these past months, but it has only served to underline my determination to improve my station.’
‘But, no!’ she protested. ‘That does not matter! Money and station are not what is truly important!’ Her eyes were filling with tears as shock turned to a dawning realisation. He was leaving her. ‘You cannot leave—us!’ Almost, she had said ‘me’. They both knew it.
He stood. ‘I am truly sorry. I have allowed a...friendship to develop between us, even though I knew this parting must come. I had no intention of causing you hurt, Lady Olivia.’
She could not speak. Her heart was breaking. She looked up at him in mute appeal. His jaw hardened. He bowed, wished her farewell and was gone.
Surrey —May 1819
‘Why must Adam be always telling me what to do? Life is so dreary here at Chadcombe!’ Olivia sat down heavily on an ornate French chair, uncaring that the mud along the hem of her petticoat was transferring itself to a gilded wooden leg. ‘Everyone thinks I am still ten years old!’
Great-Aunt Clara set down her knitting. ‘Oh, dear, Olivia—I did not know you were so unhappy here with us!’ Her lined face was filled with distress. ‘But, yes, how tedious you must find us all!’
With a startled expression, Olivia jumped up and moved to sit beside the elderly lady. ‘Oh, no! Darling Great-Aunt Clara, I did not mean you are dreary!’ She took her great-aunt’s hand. ‘You know I love you dearly, and I love Adam and Charlotte, but I have spent most of my life here at Chadcombe and sometimes I just feel—oh, I don’t know! You will think me foolish!’
‘Who is being foolish?’ Charlotte, Olivia’s sister-in-law, entered the morning room. ‘Olivia? But you could never be foolish!’ Charlotte leaned over and kissed Olivia’s cheek. ‘Good morning!’ she added cheerily.
Charlotte’s elegant morning gown, Olivia noted, had no trace of mud anywhere on its green-silk folds. Its gently draped skirts revealed that Charlotte was expecting a child. She had suffered in the early months with tiredness and the indignity of being frequently sick. Yesterday she had declared she was much better. Olivia was not convinced.
‘Charlotte! You are up already—how did you sleep?’
‘Perfectly well, thank you!’ Charlotte brushed off Olivia’s concerns with a wave of her hand. ‘Now, what is this about you being foolish?’
Olivia struggled to answer. Suddenly her frustrations seemed churlish. She knew she had what others would view as a perfect life, in a beautiful house, with a loving family. It was just—she felt as though she needed to escape. She needed adventure!
‘Our poor Olivia finds it dull to be always at Chadcombe,’ offered Great-Aunt Clara tentatively.
Charlotte eyed her keenly. ‘Are you moped, love? Remember, Miss Ford and her brother will arrive tomorrow for their visit. You have been looking forward to that, have you not?’
Olivia sighed in frustration. ‘I am always happy to see Lizzie, and it will be good to meet—’ she choked a little on his name ‘—Jem again. I cannot say why I am feeling so unsettled. It’s just—I feel as though everyone still believes me to be a child!’
‘Poor, dear Olivia!’ Great-Aunt Clara’s knitting slipped to the floor. Olivia retrieved it for her and the old lady patted her hand kindly. ‘I can quite understand how it must be frustrating. After all, you must be nearly twenty now.’
‘I had my twenty-second birthday last December, Great Aunt-Clara. Don’t you remember?’
‘Twenty-two? Really?’ Great-Aunt Clara looked astonished. ‘Well, bless me! I do think of you as properly belonging in the schoolroom! I am so sorry! But, yes, I remember you had your Season in London last year, or was it the year before?’
Olivia exchanged a brief glance with Charlotte. ‘I made my debut four years ago, if you remember.’ She spoke gently, hoping her elderly relative would recollect. ‘After Charlotte and Adam were married? It was the time Juliana came to stay with us—and she and Harry got married soon afterwards.’
‘Of course! Was that really four years ago? Yes, I suppose it must be—because we got the new oven and Charlotte was such a help... And then that dreadful Napoleon and the battle... I was never so relieved as to see Harry home safe after Waterloo, and married, and now he and dear Juliana live so close by with their dear little son—it all worked out so well...’ Great-Aunt Clara almost lost herself in a tangle of recollections. ‘So, yes,’ she concluded firmly, ‘it was three years ago. Or possibly four. So how old are you again, Olivia?’
‘I am two-and-twenty,’ said Olivia patiently.
‘Twenty-two? Twenty-two already!’ Great-Aunt Clara became animated. ‘Lord, I remember you when you were so little and your dear mama would sit here, in this very room, cuddling you...’
If Clara had wanted to divert Olivia, she was successful, at least temporarily. Olivia could never resist hearing tales of Mama, who had died giving birth to Olivia’s baby sister when Olivia was a child. No one would tell her what had happened that day and bewildered eight-year-old Olivia had just wished to know when Mama would be returning. Now that she was old enough to ask for the truth, she had never found the courage. To this day, Olivia felt the aching hole in her life caused by her mother’s death and had never fully come to terms with the sense of abandonment she had experienced.
And then, when she was eighteen, she had been abandoned again by someone else she had loved.
Quickly, she diverted her thoughts from that old wound. The past was done, finished, gone. She was a different person now—older, wiser, less naive.
After Mama’s death, she had been raised by her grieving father alongside Olivia’s two big brothers and Great-Aunt Clara, but it was never the same. So now, she plied Clara with prompts and questions, and her great-aunt dutifully obliged, retelling stories Olivia had heard a hundred times before. Olivia had many clear memories of Papa, who had died only a few years ago, but she tried hard to keep alive her hazy memories of her mother.
Today, though, after a time, the old stories did not satisfy Olivia. She could not settle to any task, and eventually Charlotte sent her away. ‘Olivia, do please go for a walk, or take Dahlia out and ride! I declare your fidgeting is making me nervous. I have restarted this list for Cook three times!’ Charlotte was smiling, but she looked a little concerned.
‘I have already walked this morning.’ Olivia indicated her mud-stained hemline. ‘I shall go for a ride. At least yesterday’s rain has stopped—it is a relief to have some sunshine.’ She rang the bell and within minutes a housemaid arrived. ‘Please, can you send a message to the stables to have Dahlia