Page 3 of The Scot Who Loved Her

As she climbed between the sheets, she felt a sudden pull of exhaustion. “They wouldn’t understand.”

“Perhaps if you explained, they would?”

“Perhaps. Or they’ll think me...” She couldn’t bring herself to say the word:insane.’Twas a word bandied about her family like rats to cheese.

“No one would ever think such,” her maid murmured, pulling the covers over her before she left. She seemed to know without Olivia saying what she meant. But despite Elaine’s reassurances, it was a legitimate fear in her household, and with good reason. After all, madness had struck her family more than once.

Wasn’t that what the gentlemen of the ton and the snobbish ladies tittered behind their hands? Olivia rolled onto her side and squeezed her eyes shut. She blocked out the memories, preferring to immerse herself in her dreams rather than the horrifying realization that someday, she, too, might be stricken with a...sensitive condition that would give rise to gossip.

The following morning, Olivia woke with the sunrise, dressed quickly in a light yellow day dress and hurried downstairs to the dining room where breakfast would be set on the sideboard. Eggs, toast, bacon, fruit. The delicious scents wafted up the stairs, and her stomach grumbled thanks to barely having eaten dinner the night before.

Being awake so early, she was certain to miss her mother and hopefully her father, as they generally slept in for another hour or two. But those hopes were dashed as soon as she rounded the corner to see both of her parents sitting at the table, drinking tea, their plates half-eaten. A trap. They’d planned this. Having been in this situation more than once, they knew exactly what Olivia would do to try to avoid them. She supposed she ought to give them credit for figuring her out.

Pasting on a cheerful smile she didn’t feel, Olivia said in her best singsong tone, despite the tightness in her throat, “Good morning.”

Her mother raised a challenging brow as if she’d expected what Olivia would attempt. “Do have some breakfast, dear.”

Olivia nodded, her stomach suddenly rebelling against the idea, though moments before, her mouth had watered over the scent of bacon. Absently, she put a slice of toast on her plate and sat down.

A footman stepped forward and filled her cup with tea. While staring at her parents through her lashes, she dumped in two lumps of sugar and a dash of milk. While she stirred, she waited for them to speak, but they were silent. Her father read the paper, passing her mother a sheet that was no doubt the social gossip column. They sipped their tea, took bites of their eggs and read as though nothing was happening.

Rather than eat, Olivia stared at the nooks and crannies in her toast, trying to decide if she should make a run for it or feign a faint.

“Olivia, I will give you a moment to explain what happened last night.” Her father folded his morning paper and steadied his gaze on her.

And so it began.

With her hands folded in her lap, fingers entwined tightly, Olivia studied her parents, her lower lip wobbling. She bit the inside of her cheek to steady herself. Should she tell them about her tormentors? She’d kept the information to herself the remainder of last season, and this one too. Perhaps now was the time to divulge the truth. If she did, they might understand.

And they might not.

Worse, to inform them would hurt them immeasurably. Bring up memories that she would just as soon not speak of and which they’d worked hard to forget. But they were watching her expectantly. “Lord Hibbert did not ask me to dance.”

Lady Helvellyn narrowed her eyes and opened her mouth, but her husband stopped her again, placing his hand over his wife’s and giving a gentle squeeze. He nodded for Olivia to continue.

Her mouth was suddenly dry. She sipped her tea, but that didn’t help. Olivia looked toward the door, considering her escape.

The center of her chest grew tight, and small needles of anxiety shot up and down her middle. And as if reading her mind, her father cleared his throat, and a nod from her mother had a footman shutting the doors.

Olivia took a deep breath and rushed out with, “Actually, if you must know, Lord Hibbert said something offensive. And so, I dumped my punch on his head.”

Lord and Lady Helvellyn assessed her a moment, and then her father asked, “And I suppose you mean for us to believe it was the same with Lord Dallwington and Lord Benson?”

“Yes.” Olivia swallowed hard, thinking of those she had refrained from pouring punch on. “It was exactly the same.”

Her father sputtered. “Did they attempt to besmirch your virtue? Force you into a liaison?” He muttered something about Lord Hibbert’s Scottish grandfather.

Oh, how her father hated the Scots despite being half-Scottish himself on his mother’s side. Though he still held a seat up north, he’d married an English aristocrat and fully embraced his very English side, though why he felt that he had never explained.

Before her father could threaten a duel in her honor, Olivia hurried to add, “No, Father, it was nothing so sinister as that.”

“What could they have said?” Her mother’s sharp gaze was on her now, pinning Olivia’s tongue to the roof of her mouth.

Pinching her arm, Olivia debated for thirty more seconds and then finally told them, “They spoke harshly of Marian.”

Marian, her beautiful older sister, who used to dance around her chamber with piles of ribbons spilling from her hands and the tinkling sound of her laughter lightening everyone’s mood. After a glorious first season last year, she’d gone mad. Mad as their Scottish grandmother and great-great-aunt before. Her once sparkling eyes turned shadowed and haunted. Her laughter turned to shrieks and howls. And the sister Olivia had known and loved seemed to vanish overnight.

At first, the family had tried to keep her within the house, thinking it was nerves at the weight of marriage looming. They’d hired servants to care for her day and night, but Marian had continued to escape. Even in their English country estate. When she broke into and ransacked a neighboring manor house, her parents had been forced to send her to the Edinburgh Lunatic Asylum, where she still resided—Olivia hoped, at peace.

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