Chapter Twenty-Four
2:13 p.m.
“The library at Pennhyll houses one of the greatest collections of books and manuscripts assembled in all of Britain.” Price’s voice resonated as he opened double doors that ran the considerable height of floor to ceiling. Olivia sighed with the envy that the sight of all those volumes always inspired. Miss Cage and her father, Mr. and Mrs. Leveret, and Mr. Verney and his wife added to the number of guests arriving for the St. Agnes’ Eve festivities. Alice, now Mrs. Verney, strolled arm-in-arm with Olivia. Mr. Verney walked with Fitzalan, Hew and the Leverets while Tiern-Cope escorted Diana, one hand fisted in the curve of his lower spine. His friend, Captain Egremont, walked just behind with Dr. Fansher. The arrival of Captain Egremont had Pennhyll in an uproar. Lord Tiern-Cope was going back to sea, and he could no longer afford patience in offering for his bride. Everyone expected Fitzalan would make an announcement about his sister and Tiern-Cope tonight.
“Oh, now, this is lovely,” Verney said, looking over his shoulder. “What do you think, Mrs. Verney? Shall we redo our library?”
“How you do go on, Mr. Verney.” Alice glanced at Diana walking on the arm of Lord Tiern-Cope and bent her head to Olivia. “He ought to order himself new boots, don’t you agree? Tasseled Hessians would suit him. Like Lord Fitzalan’s. Or your cousin’s.”
Olivia couldn’t help a smile in return. “Perhaps a striped waistcoat, too, in gold and blue, I should think.”
“Surely two more handsome men than Lords Tiern-Cope and Fitzalan there have never been. Both so tall and broad-shouldered. Ah, here is Mrs. Leveret. Dear Madam, how do you do? By the by,” Alice said, leaning toward Olivia. “I’m sure Mrs. Leveret does not mind if I share her wonderful news.” Alice tucked her arm under the older woman’s.
“Indeed, not,” said Mrs. Leveret.
“The school committee has taken a three year’s lease on the Lodge.”
“That’s excellent news,” Olivia said. “Far Caister will have a grand school.” Relief flooded her. The school could not be opened a moment too soon.
“Renovations begin Tuesday next.”
“There’s better news yet,” said Alice.
Olivia felt the weight of the world lift from her shoulders. At last. At long last. Surely, the school committee would agree to advance her enough of her salary to find new lodgings. “I should like to hear it.”
Mrs. Leveret lifted her chin. “We have engaged our professor.”
Her heart stuttered, but she smiled. “Have you?”
“Shall I tell her, Mrs. Leveret, or will you?” Alice patted Olivia’s arm. “Such a thrill for us. I’m sure you’ll be as excited as I was when I heard.”
For a moment, hope soared. But Mrs. Leveret aimed her smile at Alice, not her.
Alice clasped her hands. “Mrs. Leveret’s nephew just down from Cambridge. Mr. George Marshall. We are most ecstatic to have his services, I can tell you. An exceptional man. Quite exceptional.”
“I’m sure you’re right.” Olivia nodded. “I look forward to meeting him and helping in any capacity that I may.”
“I think, Miss Willow,” said Mrs. Leveret, “that though we must thank you for your past efforts, my nephew, Mr. Marshall, has the school well in hand and no doubt has his own notions about its proper conduct.”
“I am more than willing to assist, Mrs. Leveret.”
“How kind. But with your mama so ill, I would not dream of imposing further. Mrs. Verney, will you come with me? I’d like a word with you.”
“Of course.” Alice turned to Olivia. “I’m sure you’re as thrilled as I am about the school. Official at last. And a headmaster from Cambridge. What a condescension for us. How very fortunate we are, said I to Mr. Verney.”
While Price pointed out the gothic arches above their heads and demonstrated the working of the ladder that reached to a height of twelve feet, Olivia walked to a set of mullioned windows overlooking the gardens. The extent of her latest reversal sank in. The earnings on which she had counted to meet her expenses had just vanished. She had no employment, and now, no prospect of employment at anything like the salary she needed. No way to pay Mrs. Goody, no money for lodgings and everything she owned burned in the fire, every pot or pan, every stick of furniture.
She stared out the window. Panic welled up, a tightness in her chest, a prickle of anxiety that grew and swelled until she thought she could not bear it. Snow drifted past the diamond-paned glass. White-covered lawns extended for yards and yards in every direction. Farther away, mist shrouded the tree tops. Clouds gathered at the horizon, promising a storm. How marvelous to live such a life, where one might look out a window and know that as far as the eye could see and farther one still did not reach the limits of one’s possessions.
Olivia left the window for a glass case containing a manuscript open to an illumination of the letter T. Next to that was a sheet of vellum on which gleamed the Tiern-Cope crest. The colors, cobalt and gold with reliefs of red and silver seemed as bright as the day they’d been inked. Above the shield arched the words Chomh Crua Leis An Iarann. Everyone in Far Caister know the translation of the Gaelic phrase. As Hard As Iron.
She looked over her shoulder and saw Tiern-Cope had separated from Diana, and that Fitzalan, Diana and Miss Cage, with Hew as her support, were at the moment unaware that he’d left them. Like any good parent in the presence of three such eligible men, Mr. Cage was absorbed in a book. Light from the windows between shelves of books shadowed Tiern-Cope’s face in grave profile. The look of cold reflection much suited his temperament, she thought.
He half-sat, half-leaned on a corner of a table, imagining, she supposed, Diana in the role of his bride. He shifted, taking no notice of her, or of Diana, for that matter. Today, though, he would announce his engagement to Miss Royce. He must, for unless everyone was much mistaken, Captain Egremont had brought his orders. Light flared around him so that all she saw for the instant he moved through the light was his outline against a snow-filtered glow.
In the next glass case a banner, tattered at the edges, rested on a background of black silk. Woven of gold cloth it, too, depicted the Tiern-Cope crest. Below it lay a shaft of dark wood three or four feet in length, broken at one end, as if it had snapped under some terrible strain. Despite the centuries since the banner was sewn, the needlework retained an otherworldly brightness. The lion prepared to leap off the fabric, the unicorn just now reared up.
A breath of cold air swept through the room and, with the shifting of light from the windows, stirred the hair on the back of her neck. She shivered. Her head ached worse than ever, the familiar pain along with a sense of fullness, a pressure behind her ears.
“Still lovely, isn’t it?” a low voice asked. She turned and saw Tiern-Cope.
“Yes.”
“Did I startle you?”
“No. All right. Yes, you did.”
He smiled his slow, cold smile. With a nod of his head toward where Price demonstrated a secret passage that led to the upper floor of the library, he said, “I’ve had the tour before.” Fitzalan, Captain Egremont, Hew, Miss Cage and Diana were being allowed, one by one, to walk up the hidden staircase. “I’m told the Black Earl himself saved the banner you are admiring.”
“Perhaps a Willow fought in whatever battle broke that pike,” she said.
“Do you suppose he had red hair?”
She smiled. “A Willow might have held the banner. But he would not have allowed it to break.”
“Surely not,” he said. He stepped closer. “According to legend, had not the fourth earl been murdered, we might have been Kings.”
“I believe that.” She traced on the glass the outline of the ragged banner. “Imagine the stories it could tell.”
The earl smiled again, and his resemblance to his brother struck her. The man at rest might be his brother’s twin. Except she found him far more compelling than Andrew. He bent closer. The air crackled with invisible energy. He, too, touched the glass, and his fingers brushed hers. A glancing touch, inadvertent. The contact made her heart thud. He wasn’t wearing gloves, and his fingers resting on the case were proportionally long for his hand. He’d held a cutlass in that hand. Those fingers had pulled the trigger of a pistol with mortal intent. “Do not romanticize war, Miss Willow. If that banner could speak, be assured it would tell horrible tales.”
She moved her hand off the case because his hand was too close, but clipped the side of her finger on the wooden edge. A sliver jabbed into her finger, right through her glove. She yelped and pulled on the wood. It broke off. “Ouch.”
“Allow me.”
“It’s nothing. A splinter. I’ll soon have it out.”
With a tilt of his head, he took her hand. “I said, allow me.”
“I do not like managing men.”
“If I were to manage you as I ought to, you’d understand what it means to be managed. And appreciate my present restraint. Now, hold still.” He drew off her glove and turned over her palm, angling toward the light to see the sliver lodged under the skin of her smallest finger. “Fitzalan will not stop staring at you when he thinks no one is watching.” He pinched the bit of wood between thumb and forefinger and pulled it out. “There. Hardly worth the name splinter.”
“Thank you.”
Still holding her bare wrist, his other hand touched her cheek so softly it was more a whisper of air than a caress. Olivia discovered she was standing right up against him. The entire time they’d been talking, he’d drawn her nearer or else she’d moved closer. She wasn’t sure which. The snow brought with it cold that swept through the windows. Dark clouds swirled in the sky so that the shadows constantly changed. The tip of his finger touched just below her palm. His fingers cradled the back of her wrist and a portion of her hand. “A grand passion, Olivia. Settle for nothing less.”
“As if that matters.”
“He’s not a bad sort.”
“Hew?”
“James. If matters do not fall out as I hope, you might do worse than James.”
She frowned. “Then why did you warn me about him?”
“Why do you think?” He traced a feather-light line along the pulse point of her wrist. Feeling as warm as his voice, she shook her head, then watched in disbelief as he brought her arm toward him.
“Don’t do something you don’t mean. Please don’t.”
He drew her closer. She lifted her free hand to push him back. “No mistake. My love. I mean a great deal with you.”
“You mean to break my heart, don’t you?”
“Could I?”
Her hand drifted to his shoulder. It wasn’t a lack of response on her part that had her standing as if benumbed, but too much. “I couldn’t bear it if you didn’t mean it,” she said.
“Come to me, Olivia.” The softness of his lips on her throat just above her collarbone, the scent of him, the size and power of him, but most of all, the sensation that inside she was melting, dissolving, kept her motionless. His lips parted and moved to the point where throat became shoulder. She discovered he still held her wrist because he brought her arm sideways away from their bodies, interlacing his fingers with hers.
Like that, nothing separated them. But he wasn’t the one pressing her against him. He didn’t need to. She leaned forward, her chest to his but bending her head back. One hand clutched his shoulder, hanging on for dear life. The other tightened around his hand. She felt his fingers skim through her hair, molding the back of her skull, moving her head just enough to expose more of her throat or neck. Then, he stopped.
“No,” she moaned. “Please.”
He smiled with an easy, fluid grin, a glint of triumph in his blue eyes. He touched her cheek. The caress left a chill in its wake. Her eyes fluttered open. His arms were around her. “I mean every moment. Every heartbeat.”
“I love you,” she said.
As suddenly as that, she found herself looking at Tiern-Cope. He clasped her hand, their fingers interlaced. He held up the splinter with his free hand. “That must have hurt like the devil.”
“Yes.”
“Are you all right? Is it the headache again?”
He had not, she realized, ever been nearer to her than he was right now. He had never touched her or caressed her bare hand, or kissed her. Her stomach lurched and her knees threatened to crumple. He caught her elbow and steadied her. “I think I must be going mad,” she said.
“Why?”
“You—I’m seeing things. Imagining things that aren’t there and never happened. I’m not even sure anymore what’s real and what’s not.”
Tiern-Cope lifted her hand and pressed his lips to her fingers. “My own,” he whispered. “Nor I.”