Hattie’s brows drew together. “That is horrid. Why on earth would you do something like that? Did she insult you?”
“Actually, I have never met her. I did not come up with the phrase, but I was partly responsible for its spread through society.” His friend Charles Darlington had come up with most of the clever little verbal daggers they had used in an effort to sound sophisticated.
But Oliver knew he was as culpable as Darlington. He hadn’t just stood by silently; he’d dined out on the strength of their joint cleverness.
“She wasn’t the only one,” he said, making a clean breast of it. “We called another young lady the ‘Scottish Sausage’ and that label also became widely known.”
“You should not have done that,” Hattie stated.
“You are absolutely correct. It was idiotic and cruel. Unfortunately, that sort of casual brutality was fashionable back then. We didn’t come up with the term ‘Silly Billy’ for James Bellingworth, but we might as well have. He’s known by it to this day, poor chap.”
“Has the ‘Scottish Sausage’ left that nickname behind?” Hattie asked hopefully.
“Yes. Our foolish name-calling didn’t affect her marital prospects; she married the Earl of Mayne in her first season. But Lady Windingham’s father had to take her to the country to escape being called a ‘Wooly Breeder.’ I heard a rumor that a suitor had backed away from his proposal.”
“I know what Mother would say.” Hattie eyed him.
“I am not a church-going man,” Oliver stated, nipping that idea in the bud.
His niece shook her finger at him, for all the world like a disapproving nanny. “No, no, Mama would say that you need to atone for your sins.”
“I can hardly marry the lady to make up for the insult,” he pointed out. “The next year she married Lord Windingham, who is of far higher rank than I. I’m not sure how you atone for being a pestilent fool, other than sparing the lady the sight of your face.”
Over the years, Oliver had gone to absurd lengths to ensure that he didn’t come face-to-face with the two women he’d insulted. They had the right to spit in his face, if they met him.
It might make him feel better if they did.
“You are no longer a pestilent fool, Uncle.” Mattie leaned forward, patted his knee, and said kindly, “You’re rather old, which means you ought to get married, so you have someone to be with you after I leave home, but you’re not pestilent.”
Rather old? Well, he was in his thirties. Thirty-three. That was old to a fifteen-year-old. “I’ll take your advice under consideration,” he said, dismissing the idea immediately.
“What changed you, Uncle Oliver?” she asked, cocking her head. “You’re no longer cantankerous, as far as I know. My mama imposed on you terribly by leaving me here. But you’ve never said a cross word about her.”
“I like you,” Oliver said. “When you’re not sniping at me, you’re good company.”
“When did you stop being clever and become the very nice fellow you are now?”
“Very nice fellow” was slightly better than “rather old,” but Oliver didn’t care for either description.
“Before I inherited Aunt Augusta’s estate and her coal mine, I was merely a younger son, with just enough money to do nothing. That’s a dangerous state of affairs, given as I was manifestly unsuited to the church, and I couldn’t see myself in the army either.”
“If you’d gone into the army, you’d be married by now,” Hattie pronounced. “Girls cannot resist a red uniform, in particular. But to return to my point, you ought to make amends for your ill behavior, no matter how young you were at the time. Mother would say that your soul is in danger.”
He must have looked unconvinced, because she added, “I expect the fact that you’ve never atoned for your sins explains your bachelor state!”
“How so?” Oliver asked.
“Guilt,” she explained. “Unless you apologize to Lady Windingham, you will die alone. All alone. I am remarkably fond of you, Uncle, but I fully intend to marry and move away. Just in case you thought that I will always live with you.”
“I did not think that,” Oliver said, managing to choke back the fact that he found living with a fifteen-year-old girl to be sufficient penance for any number of sins he may have committed.
“You will grow more and more lonely every year,” Hattie said, clasping her hands together. “Your soul will shrivel and your heart grow harder, hard, so hard. Black as black can be.”
“You don’t think you’re overdoing it a bit?” Oliver inquired.
“Absolutely not! Mother has some phrase she uses, something about a canker in the rose, or a . . .” She trailed off. “You know how Mother is; she has a Bible verse for every thought. The only one I can ever remember is ‘Jesus wept.’ ”
“Not very useful,” Oliver agreed.
“My point is that you can apologize at Lady Windingham’s house party. Obviously, she has forgiven you, because the invitation is addressed to both of us. But in order for you to do the same for yourself, you must ask for forgiveness. In person.”
Oliver had the idea that Hattie’s best friend had twisted her stepmother’s arm until poor Lady Windingham had no choice but to invite him.
Still, it wasn’t a terrible idea.
He didn’t think about the whole thing often, but when he did, he would wince and swear at himself. Maybe a few times a year. Perhaps once a month.
“All right,” he said, giving in. “I suppose we can go.”
“Excellent,” Hattie said, beaming at him. “I shall take care of everything, Uncle. You mustn’t worry.” She patted him on the knee again. Apparently, he was too doddering to handle travel arrangements himself.
“When is this house party?” Oliver asked, moving his legs so as to discourage further patting.
“In a fortnight,” she said brightly. “Telford Manor is in Sussex. I already asked your coachman, and he estimates it will be a seven-day journey. I’m very good company in a coach. My parents always said so.”
She patted his knee again.
Chapter Three
BY THE TIME they reached Telford Manor, in the late afternoon two weeks later, Oliver was thoroughly sympathetic with his sister’s decision to travel to Egypt.
Hell, she was probably lying in a hammock by the River Nile with a refreshing drink in her hand, happily musing over her escape from the most irritating girl who ever existed.
By the time Hattie’s mother returned to England, Hattie would be a mature and agreeable twenty-five. In fact, his sister’s missionary fervor was probably just a sibling revenge plot.
“How much time has passed?” Hattie asked, throwing herself across the carriage seat to look out the other window. Again.
“Eight minutes since you last inquired,” he answered, not looking up from the book he was attempting to read.
Hattie believed that books were old-fashioned, and she would rather talk. Unfortunately, her subjects of conversation were limited to her thoughts and feelings on any given subject. After weeks of extremely close proximity, Oliver could anticipate her feelings on any subject, so there was little to discover by further dialogue.
She liked pretty dresses, and pretty trees, and pretty sheep. She disliked anything that reminded her of mud, or rain, or less pretty animals. She positively hated anything dirty. Horses joined that list after she ruined a pair of favorite slippers stepping into dung.
Pimples were apparently the work of the devil (she cited her mother’s authority on this point), and not the result of eating two chocolate puddings at one sitting, as Oliver had suggested.
Olivier thought that carriages were the work of the devil. That, and whoever had invented the stupid idea of holding house parties in godforsaken parts of England.
“There are so many sheep in the world,”
Hattie observed. “That field looks as if it’s full of white buttercups, if there is such a thing as a white buttercup. Ooh, look, there’s a lamb! It’s so pretty . . . no, it’s too late. Really, Uncle Oliver, you should put that book down and look out the window so you don’t miss everything.”
When the vehicle finally drew into a cobblestone courtyard, Hattie erupted from the carriage and flew straight through the open front door of the manor house. Oliver climbed down and stretched.
Telford Manor, home of Lord Windingham and his wife, was an old, comfortable house made of red herringbone bricks, with sloping roofs going in all directions. Unlike his niece, Oliver felt markedly reluctant to enter the house, never mind the fact that a butler stood in the doorway waiting for him.
His coachman was consulting with the stablemaster about returning the horses to the posting inn in Ashington. “Everything all right here?” Oliver said, joining them.
“Snug and tight, sir,” his coachman said, turning back to his conversation. “Now, then, Mr. Puttle, let’s get these horses into the stables, shall we? We’ll rest them overnight and I’ll take them back in the morning.”
With no further manly exchange to be had, there was only one option, so Oliver marched into the house and surrendered to the butler, whose name turned out to be Bartleby.
“May I relieve you of your overcoat, sir?” Bartleby asked.
Oliver was thinking that perhaps he should return those horses himself. He could turn about and head for the posting house and return on horseback in a few days. He could give the household time to prepare.
To get used to the idea.
He could get used to the idea.
“What happened to my niece?” he asked Bartleby, who was silently waiting for him to make up his mind. Good butlers were like that. They seemed to know what was going through your head before you did.
Bloody annoying, if you thought about it.
“Miss Windingham escorted Miss Sloane to a chamber, so that she might refresh herself after the drive. Lady Windingham would be pleased if you joined her in the drawing room, or, if you wish, I can bring you to your chamber.”
“I shall greet her ladyship first,” Oliver said. He might as well get the initial meeting over with. Not that he meant to blurt out an apology immediately. He had to choose the right moment.
“If you would follow me, sir, I shall announce you.”
“Right,” he said, squaring his shoulders.
The drawing room had to be a quarter mile long, and the only thing that stopped it from resembling Versailles was that half the gilt paint had been rubbed off the mirrors. Well, that, and a mirror or two had gone missing, leaving only ten or eleven on each wall.
He crossed an acre of well-worn carpet before he reached two women sitting by the fire, both of whom rose to their feet as he approached.
Too late, Oliver remembered that he hadn’t the faintest idea what his hostess looked like. He should have asked the butler, but the man had peeled away after bellowing his name.
The woman closest to him was far too young, in her mid-twenties, if that.
She had sunshine-colored hair piled up on her head, high cheekbones, and a straight nose. But it was her mouth that made him stutter-step.
It was generous and wide, with a deep, rosy bottom lip. It made a man long to see her smile.
All the same, there was something a little haunted about her face. Sad, perhaps. She looked tired and withdrawn. And she was dressed in mourning.
Obviously, Lady Windingham had to be the other woman. She had even more hair and was almost as tall as he was. In fact, it could be that all her piled-up hair gave her the advantage.
She stepped forward with a twinkling smile and said, “Mr. Berwick, I am happy to meet you. May I introduce my younger sister, Lady Troutt? The remainder of our party will arrive in two days.”
He bowed before each lady and kissed their hands, as her words sunk in. “Two days?”
“I must apologize for my daughter; I gather that the girls wished some time to themselves before other guests arrived, so they perpetrated something of a conspiracy. Sarah was asked to write out the invitations, and she altered the date on yours.”
No wonder Hattie had trotted straight into the house; she didn’t want to be there when he discovered why she had offered to handle the travel arrangements.
“Please, do join us,” Lady Windingham said, with another charming smile. She seated herself, poured a cup of tea, and handed it over.
She didn’t seem to be holding a grudge, so Oliver decided he’d been an ass to worry about the past. They were all grown-ups, after all.
He accepted a crumpet, and then watched as Lady Windingham tried to talk her sister into eating one.
Thank God, Oliver thought irreverently, Troutt didn’t woo his future wife during the year of Darlington’s rule over polite—or impolite—society. With that incredible mouth . . .
After another glance at her lips, he hastily stuffed his mouth with crumpet. Lady Troutt was exquisite, and even the fact that her eyes were etched with weariness did not tame his body’s reaction to her.
Damn it, the woman was probably newly widowed. He wouldn’t know; he hadn’t been to London in two years, and he never bothered to read the society pages.
She finally added a crumpet to her plate, throwing her sister a small but enchanting smile.
Oliver cleared his throat. “I regret to see that you are in mourning, Lady Troutt.” He paused.
She looked at him with clear, expressionless eyes. “Yes. I am a widow.”
Her sister made a noise that sounded like a snort. Perhaps some tea went down the wrong way.
“I am sorry for your loss,” Oliver said.
“Yes, well,” Lady Troutt said. “As everyone knows, I am better off this way.”
What an extraordinary statement. Oliver looked at her with some perplexity. If he had been her husband, he’d have made damn sure that she would mourn him after he was gone.
“Lizzie,” Lady Windingham said reprovingly, “poor Mr. Berwick hasn’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about.”
Lizzie was a rather jolly name for someone so reserved and wan.
She scowled at her older sister in a not-jolly way. “You said that everyone knew.”
“Knew?” Oliver inquired, feeling as if he’d walked into a theater at intermission. “Knew what?”
“The circumstances of my husband’s death,” the lady said.
She had scarcely nibbled the crumpet, he noticed, even though she was too thin.
“Was your husband killed in that boat that went down in the Bay of Biscay?” he asked, thinking of the most notorious accident in recent history.
“No. The details of Lord Troutt’s passing are disagreeable, and better forgotten.”
She had a crooked smile that made something in him snarl. Lizzie was meant to be laughing in the sun, not pale and thin.
Wait.
What was her name? Troutt?
He blinked and his eyes widened before he caught himself.
The lady’s shoulders slumped, almost imperceptibly, before she pulled her slim figure erect once again. “I see that the circumstances of Lord Troutt’s demise have come to mind,” she said composedly.
“I told you so,” her sister put in. She was buttering another crumpet. “Unfortunately, your husband was the toast of the majority of gentlemen in Britain.”
Oliver did remember reading about Troutt’s demise in the arms of one of the best-known courtesans in all England. There had been ballads written to his prowess, and many a joke dedicated to his supposedly happy ending.
“He was a fool,” Oliver growled. He had seen Shady Sadie singing in a revue once. She was a fleshy, glittering type of woman. A simple woman.
Lady Troutt was complicated in th
e way that a violin concert is complicated. She looked cautious and sensual, at the same time.
“I think we can all agree with that assessment,” Lady Windingham said, taking a last bite of her second crumpet.
He’d guess that Lizzie was designed by nature to have a figure as rounded as her sister’s, but she was slim.
Not slim: thin. Too thin.
It was none of his business, but for some reason, it made him restless. He’d like to coax her into eating, like a baby bird fallen from its nest.
Yet she was no baby. Her dress was made of tired fabric that pulled tight against her bosom.
She reached out for the cup of tea and lust darted through his body again.
Bloody hell. How long had it been since Troutt died?
Not that it mattered.
He’d made up his mind long ago not to marry, and Hattie’s warning about the peril of dying alone hadn’t changed his mind.
Lizzie Troutt was definitely the kind of woman whom a man marries.
Therefore, he should stay far away from her.
“May I offer you a slice of this cake?” he said instead, leaning toward her. It was her eyes: hazel with little flecks of green. He wanted to see them smiling.
She didn’t smile.
Or eat the cake.
Chapter Four
“HOW CAN YOU possibly refuse dinner?” Cat was gaping as if Lizzie had announced she was moving to India.
“I have a headache,” Lizzie said. Falsely. She was comfortably seated by the fireplace in her chamber, and her head felt fine.
She just didn’t want to look at Oliver Berwick for more than two minutes, and definitely not with a glass of wine in her hand.
He was so handsome that he made her teeth ache.
Cat leaped out of the chair opposite, her body vibrating with frustration. “Last month, when I was in London, you refused to join us at the theater, although you used to love watching a play. You wouldn’t come to a musicale, or a ball, or anything. And now you won’t even come to dinner?”
“I do not choose to go into company,” Lizzie observed. “I prefer a quiet life.” At the moment, she longed to snatch up her sister’s collection of novels, cart them out to her elderly carriage, and trundle away home.