Peeling paint marked the stout door she hesitated to move from, the chipped antique white antiqued more by time than design. After it had collapsed off its hinges their first week in residence, Jacks and their remaining stable boy (who needed more than one when they no longer had any horseflesh that required stabling?) had rehung it to its current non-listing exactness.
The exchange of indistinct murmurs reached her from the depths of the sitting room, one deep and just a shade from belligerent. The other carefree. Joyous almost.
Recalling his sincere look, and the quickly masked vulnerability if she wasn’t mistaken, in Mr. Tanner’s gaze just before she acquiesced and quit the room convinced Olivia that Juliet was in no danger. Unlike that lout they’d interviewed just prior, the one who’d exhibited no ability to laugh at anything, much less at himself, she sensed Mr. Tanner possessed enough self-assurance and inherent composure that nothing unduly untoward would occur.
Pah. Applicant twenty-three. To resort to violence and all because the ruffian took exception to being “duped by two bitches” or so he’d claimed when Juliet had the misfortune to sneeze, giving them both away. Crude churl! Thinking he could buy his way into respectability, as though money answered everything. Give her a man with a ready smile and a good appreciation of the absurd, a hard worker not afraid to get his hands dirty and able to laugh in the process. She’d take that over one with sovereigns to spare any day.
Actually most days of late, Olivia would be grateful if only a man would look at her and really see her. It’d been a long, long time since a fellow had aimed attention her direction with something akin to interest lighting his eyes. Companions were paid (or not paid, in her particular case) to blend into the background. To become invisible. Something she’d perhaps accomplished with too much zeal?
She thought of the way Mr. Tanner had gazed at the screen. With hope. And determination.
And that was before he’d ever clapped his peepers on the fair Lady Juliet. Aye, her mistress was in good hands at the moment. Safe, strong hands, if she didn’t miss her guess, and Olivia had always considered herself a fair judge of character.
With a decisive nod, she steeled her resolve and abandoned her station. Duty called.
Tell the final applicant he wasn’t needed? It was a task she dreaded. To be cast last and now discarded without an audience? What man would take kindly to such news?
“Oh, bother it, Wivy!” Unconsciously, she used Juliet’s pet name. Perhaps in an attempt to shore up her own shaky confidence? Lord knew sweet Juliet didn’t lack in the courage department.
Determined to see the onerous task over and quickly, Olivia swept down the long hallway, cringing when a bit of wall plaster dusted her dress when Jacks approached, his arms laden with refreshments, and she stepped aside.
“This bodes well, do ye think?” Jacks halted to ask.
“What? That she wanted to be alone with Mr. Tanner? Aye, I do. Tell me, Jacks, is our remaining guest still situated in the study?”
Jacks gave a brief shake of his head. “Asked if ’e could stretch ’is legs a bit when I came for the Tanner gent. Believe ’e’s out back, walkin’ the garden fer a spell.”
“Very well. Carry on.”
“You’ll see to ’im then?”
See him off, he meant? “That I will.”
Olivia proceeded toward the stairs, thinking, and not for the first time, how this old, neglected home could shine if only someone would devote some tender love and thoughtful care to it. Much like yourself?
And where had that come from? Juliet was the one who’d instigated the Marriage Scheme. Olivia just wanted the whole ordeal over and her friend happily settled.
At least, that’s what she continually told herself. On-the-shelf companions weren’t considered marriage material. Far from it. And the sooner she quit contemplating otherwise, the more content she’d likely be.
Upon reaching the landing, she mentally chanted three, eleven and seventeen. Three, eleven, seventeen. Those were the ricketiest treads, the ones they all took pains to avoid. Beneath the board nailed over it, tread four had a boot-sized hole gouged in the baluster side, compliments of Jacks the day upon their arrival.
But the flocked amaranthus paper lining the opposite wall had an aged grace Olivia found charming. Truth be told, despite its sadly neglected air and propensity toward rot (thanks, she was sure, to the splintered roof tiles and resulting leaks) Olivia found the old house charming.
Especially the gardens.
Not nearly as overgrown as one might expect given the state of the structure they surrounded, the grounds still retained a glimmer of their former sparkle. Safely bypassing the last questionable stair, Olivia sidestepped a chipped tile in the entry and headed for the massive front door, wrenching it open after only two attempts. Better at weather predictions than any soothsayer or trick knee, the wood always swelled when rain approached.
The verdant, lush green of a spring in full bloom greeted her, lent a lift to her spirits, and Olivia fairly skipped over the flagstone path that circled the old manor. She was intent on intercepting their errant applicant before he came back inside. Bad news was best broken under a sunny sky, or so her mama had always claimed. Olivia spared a quick glance upward and decided a cloudy sky would have to do.
Rounding the second corner, her feet came to an abrupt halt. Her breath hissed inward. Her eyes nearly bugged to Bedfordshire and back.
And her heart? That hurly-burly organ took off like a galloping horse—stealing away with her common sense perhaps?
Because, instead of swooning or shying away, instead of yelling loudly for Jacks, Olivia stood, happily, hungrily in place. She stood stock-still and she stared at the sumptuous sight, watching the play of muscle across a strong, bare back as applicant twenty-five (for who else could it be?), completely unaware of her presence, wielded a Dutch hoe in
