Chapter Four

When Oliver awoke that afternoon, he lay in bed and thought a long time about Ellen, Philip, the incident with Philip, Bertrand, and even the surgeon who seemed to be a special person in Ellen’s life.

But mostly, he thought about Ellen. He’d wondered about her through the years, as anyone would. They’d had something special a long time ago. Something that Oliver had thought came along only once in a lifetime. He’d been madly, breathlessly, deeply in love with her. He’d planned to marry her. But life or fate or whatever you wanted to call it, had other plans. It’d taken Oliver a long time to come to terms with the fact that he had lost. He’d lost the future he’d planned for himself and for Ellen, and he’d lost her affection. The how and why still haunted him to this day.

What had he done wrong? Why had she turned away from him?

Eventually he’d had to push those questions to the back of his mind, realizing he would never get an answer. Now he found them surging back, the old hurt returning. So silly. It’d been nearly twenty years since that fateful night when his world had come crashing down.

But through the years he’d wondered about her. If she was happy. What her life was like.

Tonight he’d gotten a glimpse of her life and it seemed…off.

Her reaction to her son’s drunkenness had seemed more like acceptance. There seemed to be more to the story and for some reason, and against his will, Oliver’s heart went out to her. She was alone in her parenting, trying to raise a seemingly capricious boy who didn’t take well to being told what to do.

Oliver had no children of his own, had never married. Someday he planned to have a family—he was, after all, an earl who needed an heir, as his mother was fond of telling him—but he didn’t know how to raise a child. So maybe what he’d seen was a normal part of parenting. Maybe he’d kept his mother up at all hours waiting for him to return home.

Once he was dressed, he sat at his desk, reviewing the ledgers that his steward had brought him. Off to the side were Ashland’s ledgers. As Ashland was a newly minted earl, with no training whatsoever, Oliver had offered to help his friend learn his position and teach him the financial side of running an earldom. Not an easy task in this day.

But his mind was not on the numbers.

He withdrew a blank piece of paper etched on the top with his name and his coat of arms. For a long moment the pen hovered over the creamy white page as he wondered what to write.

He had a need to reach out to Ellen, to let her know that she was not alone, and if she needed anything he was there for her. But he feared that the olive branch he was extending would be refused. Just like his proposal had been refused. And then he wondered why he wanted to help. For so long he’d allowed a low hum of anger to churn toward Ellen. He’d needed the anger to survive, to justify what she had done to him. And now he found himself reaching out, offering help.

Was he a fool or had he finally grown past the old hurt?

Until the night of the salon they had not spoken in seventeen years. She may not—probably did not—want him in her life again.

And yet he could not walk away from her until he’d reached out to her.

But what to say and how to say it?

How to even start the letter? Did he call her Ellen? Too informal? Too presumptuous?

Lady Fieldhurst? Definitely too formal. They had a past, no matter how hard each of them tried to forget it.

My lady, he finally wrote.

I hope all is well with young Fieldhurst and that he has recovered from his revelries. If there is anything you need of me, please don’t hesitate to ask.

Sincerely,

Here he hesitated again. Lord Armbruster? Again, too formal and Oliver was too presumptuous. So he signed it:

A

Before he could think twice he folded the paper, put it in an envelope, sealed it, and called for a footman.

“Please purchase a small bouquet of flowers,” he said. “Nothing too extravagant, but something small and…pretty.” Good Lord, he sounded like a ninny. The footman looked confused. “A small bouquet of poppies. Deliver them to Lady Fieldhurst.”

The footman’s confusion cleared, and he trotted off, but Oliver remained unsettled, wondering if he had done the right thing. Maybe he should have left well enough alone, acted like last night had not even happened. Maybe Ellen would read too much into his words.

He pulled Ashland’s ledgers toward him and began to sort through them, forcing Ellen, and poppies, and drunken lads out of his mind.

…

“I cannot persuade the headmaster to take you back,” Ellen said at luncheon the next day.

It was the first she had seen of Philip since Oliver had carried him home. Her son had spent the entire day in his closed bedchambers, refusing her entrance.

He was shoveling food into his mouth and did not answer her.

“What am I to do with you, Philip? You must go to school.”

“Why? I’m almost finished and they haven’t taught me shite.”

“Philip!” Ellen wanted to cover her ears. She had not taught her son to talk like that.

“Well, they haven’t. I have an earldom to oversee, Mother. School interferes.”

“Your father’s steward is overseeing everything until you are deemed ready to take over. Your behavior last night and your behavior at school has not convinced me you are ready.”

He balled up his napkin and threw it on the table. Ellen nodded to the lone footman in the room to leave, and he quietly slipped out. If Philip wasn’t careful he would be the talk of the servants—if he wasn’t already.

“And who is overseeing the steward? How do we even know he’s doing an adequate job of it? For all we know he is fleecing us. Stealing from us.”

“Philip, that is enough!” She was appalled by what was coming out of his mouth. “The man has been employed by this family for years and has always done an exemplary job. I cannot believe you would question such a thing.”

Philip put his head in his hands. “I’m sorry, Mother, but you have no idea how frustrating it is to be stuck with those…children…at Eton, knowing that I should be home taking the reins of the Fieldhurst earldom. It is my right and my duty. Staying in school is teaching me nothing.”

“It seems to me that it has taught you much.” She was referring to the latest incident that had gotten him kicked out and he knew it, because he looked away, his cheeks turning red.

“You will not take the reins of anything, except your good behavior, until I say you will,” she said.

“Begging your pardon, but that is not up to you.” He scooted his chair back, stood, and left the room.

Ellen pushed her plate away, no longer hungry. Indeed, she was feeling quite sick and quite angry at her deceased husband for leaving her in this mess.

At her desk she pulled Oliver’s note toward her and read it for the hundredth time. The small bouquet of poppies was also sitting on her desk in a small crystal vase. He was the last person she would have expected to reach out a helping hand and offer kind words.

Not that Oliver was unkind. He wasn’t. But he was also the last person from whom she wanted help.

She put her head in her hands and fought the tears pressing against her eyes as so many emotions overtook her.

Ellen watched Lord Fairview—Oliver—walk away. Her heart was beating wildly, and she cursed half of the men on her dance card for taking up time that would be wasted with them. She’d so wanted to find some space for him, but that would have been rude to the men who had written their names down.

She fingered the card hanging from her wrist, wishing she could erase just one name and put Oliver’s in.

His eyes had not flickered, no regret had crossed his face, when she’d denied him a dance. And that, most of all, was what sealed it for her. He was so self-assured. Not pompous, just…assured.

His friend, a boy whose name she could not remember, turned to follow Oliver. Ellen quickly grabbed his sleeve to stop him. He jumped, as if pinched.

“Tell Lord Fairview that I will be in Hyde Park tomorrow afternoon. Around two,” she whispered.

At first his brows came together as if he didn’t know what to make of her pronouncement. And then his expression cleared. He nodded and hurried after Oliver.

Immediately she was nervous. What had she done? She should go after the friend, tell him to forget what she said. But she wanted to talk to Oliver, to meet with him, to get to know him. He was intriguing, so different from the boys she knew.

Maybe she should have asked him to call on her. That would have been more proper, but she didn’t know how her parents would feel about that. They were very strict with the people she called friends. All her life she’d been told that their social success rested on her shoulders.

Oliver was a viscount; surely that would be socially acceptable to her parents.

But she didn’t want him to come to her house. She wanted to meet him somewhere where they could talk without the watchful eyes of her mother.

No, she would not rescind her invitation. She would be in Hyde Park the next day even if she had to lie to her mother to get there, and she would see where this would lead her.

She was also to blame for the indiscretion. She was the one who had wanted an adventure, who had wanted Oliver all to herself without her parents hovering.

She had not wanted to marry Arthur. She had been so young, and he had been so…old. Ancient in her seventeen-year-old eyes. But her objections had been no match for her parents, and she had not realized until then how determined they were to control her entire life and how powerless she had actually been.

She felt just as powerless now.

She did not want to accept Oliver’s offer to help. But, like so many years ago, she felt that maybe she did not have a choice.

…

“My sources tell me that Lady Fieldhurst is hosting another salon. Tonight. Will you be able to attend?”

It had been a whole week since Oliver had sent the note with the flowers, and he had not heard from Ellen.

Maybe he had assumed too much. Maybe he had seen things that weren’t really there. Maybe her problems with her son were nothing more than the usual problems with boys coming out of childhood and feeling their way to adulthood. Maybe he’d been a fool to reach out in the first place. There had been no need to open old wounds, but he’d done it anyway, and now he was suffering for it.

O’Leary wanted him to go back, and he wasn’t sure he could.

“Isn’t there someone else you can send?” he asked. “Someone who can get closer to Bertrand other than at these events?”

“We’ve tried. He has a very tight circle of friends that don’t take kindly to strangers.”

Oliver sighed and put his empty mug of ale down on the desk. “Very well.” He’d go tonight, do what he needed to do, report back to O’Leary, and wash his hands of the whole mess.

He was glad that Ashland wasn’t here. He would see that Oliver was out of sorts and would want to know why, and Oliver had never told Ashland about Ellen. Out of respect for her he’d never told anyone, and he wasn’t going to start now.