Page 126 of Oddity of the Ton
She nodded. “Even if you hadn’t, your expression told me all I needed to know.” She gestured about the room. “Christmas is a time for loved ones. Why don’t you invite her back?”
“What’s done is done,” he said. “Besides—she wouldn’t come.”
“That’s a coward’s response—an excuse to avoid doing that which is difficult or awkward. You love her, don’t you?”
“Should you be asking such a direct question, Olivia?”
“Where’s the sense in frittering away words on niceties when directness is the only way to achieve one’s objective?”
“Heavens, Olivia, you sound just like…” He caught himself.
“Like Eleanor? You can speak her name, you know. You miss her, after all.” She held up her hand in anticipation of his protest. “You said it yourself to Joe, and not evenyouwould be callous enough to lie to a child.” Then her expression softened. “Did she reject you?”
“It was a mutual parting,” he said, “though I’d long lost sight of why I intended to break off our engagement.”
“Youintendedto break it off? I don’t understand.”
“Neither do I. Nevertheless, it’s what we’d embarked on. And though it was only a few months ago—it feels like a lifetime.”
“Eleanoragreed to it?” Olivia shook her head. “I can imagineyouentering into such an arrangement—but I’d thought better of Eleanor. Did she not think of what else might be affected by such an act—her family, the sanctity of marriage itself? I find myself disappointed.”
“You’ve every right to be disappointed,” he said, “but in me—not the finest woman I have ever known. She entered into our engagement believing it to be genuine.”
Olivia paled. “You mean…” Her voice trailed off as if she couldn’t bear to contemplate his meaning.
“After I explained my motives, Eleanor agreed to maintain the façade. In return, I offered to teach her a few social graces.”
“How very gracious of you,” she said.
He flinched at the sharp sting in her voice.
“I was content with the arrangement at first,” he said. “As was she, until…”
“Until you realized you’d fallen in love.” She shook her head. “You fool! Do you mean to say that you ended your engagement simply because that’s what you set out to do? Why would any man in possession of his wits undertake such a scheme?”
“I did it to stop my mother from plaguing me.”
“Youwhat?”
“She kept insisting I find a bride, foisting a host of dull heiresses onto me—perfect ornaments for my arm, but who’d plague me into my grave if I married them. So I chose the very antithesis of what Mother wanted.”
“You mean the woman you deemed the least elegant, least beautiful, and least suitable?”
He caught a blur of movement out of the corner of his eye, before she delivered a stinging slap to his cheek.
“You swine!” she cried. “I suppose that’s why you chose to recognize me publicly as your sister—not out of any sense of obligation, or fondness, but to torture your mother by tainting the shades of Rosecombe with your father’s bastard!”
“No!” he said through gritted teeth, painfully aware of a bright pair of brown eyes watching him. “I asked you here because I care for you. You’re my family, and I want you here!”
“And Eleanor?”
“Yes!” he bellowed, unable to stem his emotion. “Yes—of course I want her! Iloveher—how could I not? Does it give you satisfaction to know that?”
“Then go and win her back.”
“It’s not that simple. She’ll never accept me. I ended our engagement very publicly. I made sure I was seen with a doxy—twodoxies.”
Olivia’s eyes widened, and she curled her hand into a fist.
