Page 51 of The Scot Who Loved Her

“Of course, no’! I think I’ll rather enjoy it.” Jaime held up a gold ribbon to the front of her gown, nodded and then passed it to the store clerk.

“This will be a lot of fun,” Caroline said as she unwound a ribbon from her fingers. “All of us together in a house with endless entertainment. I can’t believe how lucky I am to have met you. And to think I could have been stuck in London this entire season.”

The women all crooned their pleasure, but Olivia’s brain was working overtime, making it hard for her to be as excited. There was absolutely no way this would work. Even with Jaime’s influence, her mother was going to say no, and her father would surely roar his displeasure. “Who else is attending?” she asked. “Who is the host?”

“Lord Thirlestane is the host,” Caroline said with a wiggle of her brows. “So your mama is certain to agree.”

Olivia rolled her eyes, though Caroline made a great point. If Thirsty was the host, her mother would not turn down the opportunity to parade Olivia in front of him. “She does have high aspirations for me when it comes to that soggy sop.”

“Ye do no’ like him?” Bronwyn asked, cocking her head to the side with curiosity.

“He’s perfectly pleasant and handsome, too,” Olivia said. “I’m just…not interested in him.”

Caroline sighed and gave Olivia’s arm a gentle squeeze as she looked at the other women with a serious expression. “She is in love with my brother.”

Inlove? Olivia gasped, slamming down the spool of ribbon she’d been looking at with a bit too much oomph. “Why, Lady Caroline, that is perfectly untrue.”

Caroline raised a challenging brow at Olivia, and she tried hard not to wither from it, for it was perfectly true.

“Is it now?” Caroline asked, and the other women smiled broadly, for they too must have surmised the same thing.

The other ladies leaned forward, eager to hear what she would say about that.

“I am not in love with him.” Or was she? The idea had never occurred to her before now. Inside her head, her thoughts were jumbled. She pictured Malcolm, his handsome, intriguing smile, the way he looked at her as though a tease was forthcoming, the way she felt in his arms… The way she was willing to be arrested by him if only to get out of seeing anyone else. Oh, no… She was in love. But she wasn’t going to admit that out loud. “I am interested in the conversations we have.”

“Which ones? In public or in private?” Caroline grinned and wriggled her shoulders, knowing what she was doing now.

Giselle laughed. “We all know what that means.”

Bronwyn feigned innocence, pressing her hand to her chest. “Whatever does that mean, Giselle?”

“It means they’ve kissed.” Giselle looked perfectly excited about that notion. “Oh, this is going to be a house party to remember. Even outdoing the one that Alec and I attended before we wed.”

“I need to hear about that,” Olivia said out of genuine curiosity and because she wanted to change the subject.

“Another time,” Giselle said, squeezing her elbow. “For now, we need to discuss the plan. How will we convince Lord and Lady Helvellyn to let you go, and what will we wear?”

The convincing part was going to be entirely up to Olivia, and it would involve a lie—she would have to confess to her mother that she’d come to her senses and wanted to pursue Thirsty’s interest. Her new friends agreed that was the best and simplest way to go about it. From there, they searched for the modiste to make them all new dresses.

Lady Helvellyn was waiting for her when she arrived home, as though she’d been perched at the window until the duchess’s carriage pulled up out front.

“We are going to Aberdeen,” her mother announced.

“We? Aberdeen?” My God, she wouldn’t even need the Duchess of Sutherland to speak to her mother on her behalf or to lie. The lady was already determined they should go.

“A house party.” Her mother was so giddy that she looked ready to float, her arms flapping, hands clapping like an excited bird. Olivia could almost picture her mother taking flight, bouncing up on her tiptoes.

Olivia bit her lip, trying to decide if she wanted to play this as if she didn’t know or was excited and had come home to beg. Olivia decided the former because Lady Helvellyn was on the clouds right now, and if she thought this was her idea, she was less likely to cancel.

Of course, Olivia wanted to go because the thought of being in a house with Malcolm for two weeks was thrilling—not to mention she wanted to be able to talk to her friends and play games and roam the grounds. But the other part was that she was certain she could convince Malcolm or one of her new friends to squirrel her away to the new asylum Marian had been placed in.

She cocked her head. “A house party would be divine, Mother.” Her mother didn’t seem concerned about Marian being in the vicinity. Was it possible that her mother didn’t know?

When she’d asked about visiting her sister a few nights ago, her mother had changed the subject, not mentioning that Marian had been moved. But how could she not be aware of something so important as that? The answer came far more easily to Olivia than she would have liked. And it was that her mother didn’t know because she didn’t care. She didn’t want to be bothered with Marian’s status.

Once locked away, Marian had become a person of the past, a ghost of the family that was never mentioned.

All the more reason that Olivia needed to see her. It had been over a year, and Marian had to be devastated that none of them had gone to visit her or appeared to care about her at all.

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