Chapter Nineteen

Oliver read the announcement twice before his mind could absorb the implications. Unfortunately, he’d just taken a bite of toast and it dried up in his mouth until it felt like sand.

Surely the paper got it wrong. Ellen was not going to marry that twit, Needham. She couldn’t.

Could she?

He threw down his napkin and stood, determined to get to the heart of this…this…lie.

He was knocking on Ellen’s door before proper calling hours, but he didn’t care. On the way to her house all he could think about was that there had to be some mistake. She would laugh and say it was a misprint.

The butler let him in with a disapproving frown and showed him to the parlor.

She made him wait a long while, and the longer he waited the more anxious he became. He’d been so certain of his future. He’d been convinced that Ellen was meant to be his wife and they’d merely had to wait years to make it so. Had he been wrong? Had they only had that one opportunity and they’d lost it?

This all felt like a terrible déjà vu.

Ellen entered, looking pale and hesitant, wearing a gray gown that did not help the sallowness of her skin, and still she looked beautiful to him.

He tried to smile but it faltered as she drew closer.

“Why are you here, Oliver?”

“You know why.”

She looked away, and his heart plummeted. It was true. It wasn’t a misprint. She was marrying Needham.

“Why, Ellen?”

She sighed and drifted away from him to place her hand on the back of the couch.

“We suit,” she said.

“Bollocks. What about the ball? Outside? What we did together?”

Her face colored. “Oliver, please. This is unacceptable, and we cannot discuss it.”

“We damn well can discuss it. It was only days ago that you gave yourself to me, and now this?”

“I fear you think it meant more than it really did.”

“I know it meant more. I know it, Ellen.”

“You’re wrong, Oliver. There is nothing between us except friendship. There will always only be friendship.”

His heart was being ripped from his chest. He was angry and hurt.

“He’s beneath you.”

“He’s knighted. He’s a valued physician and professor. He’s a consult to the royal family. That’s hardly beneath me.”

“You are grasping at straws. People will talk. They will say you’re marrying beneath your station. You’re a countess, for God’s sake.”

She lifted her chin, and her eyes flashed. “They talk now, anyway.”

“But you’re still accepted in Society.”

“And I will be with William, too.”

“Ellen.” He took a step closer to her, and she backed up. “Don’t do this.”

“I have to.”

“Why? Why do you have to?”

“I…I want this, Oliver.”

“Do you? Do you truly?”

She hesitated, and he felt a moment of thrill that she was wavering. Maybe he had a slim chance, and a slim chance was better than no chance.

“I truly do.”

“I don’t understand.”

Her expression softened, and for a moment he thought she was going to reach out to him, but she didn’t.

“It’s not up to you to understand. You don’t need to understand, because none of this concerns you. We had something wonderful once, a long time ago.”

“And just a few days ago.”

She shook her head. “No, Oliver.”

He refused to believe that their lovemaking had meant so little to her. Ellen may have bohemian friends, but she did not live a bohemian lifestyle.

“You cried in my arms. I told you my plans for us, that we were finally going to make it, to be together, and you cried. You didn’t tell me we don’t suit. You didn’t say that we will only ever be friends.”

“You can’t come around here anymore,” she said.

He felt as if she’d punched him in the gut, and he wanted to fold in half with the pain of it.

“You don’t mean that,” he said.

She lifted her chin. “I do.”

“What about Philip? There are still things I need to teach him.” What about me?

“Philip will be fine. He’ll learn in other ways.”

“What? Needham is going to teach him?” He scoffed, but inside he was devastated. She was taking Philip from him. She was taking everything from him, his hopes and dreams for his future.

“Of course not. I will figure something out.”

“I promised the headmaster I would ensure that his behavior had improved.”

“I will talk to the headmaster myself. The Fieldhurst name is prominent. I’m certain that with a little persuasion the headmaster will allow Philip to return next semester.”

“And what about Philip himself? What does he say to all of this?”

She hesitated. “In time he will understand.”

He felt as if there was more she was saying but through his pain he couldn’t grasp what.

“So this is it? Our entire past is gone? There is no future?”

She lifted her chin. “There never was a future for us, Oliver.”

It felt as if a door had closed and he was in a windowless, airless room. Suffocating.

…

Oliver rolled out of his unkempt bed and winced at his throbbing head. Everything on him hurt. The alcohol had numbed his emotions, but not enough, and even that was wearing off.

He reached for the decanter of port only to become enraged when he found it empty. He hollered for Richard, furious that the man had left the decanter empty when Oliver needed it the most.

But Richard didn’t come trotting in full of apologies with another full decanter. Oliver hollered again, louder this time, and was relieved when his summons resulted in the door opening. But it wasn’t Richard who came striding in.

“Where’s Richard?” Oliver asked. His voice was rough from consuming too much alcohol and not enough sleep.

“I sent him home,” Ashland said.

“Home?” Did Richard have a home? Oliver assumed the man lived in the servant’s quarters below.

“Good God, man, you look like hell.”

“Piss off.”

Ashland made a humming noise as he picked his way toward the windows and pulled back the heavy draperies. Oliver covered his eyes as the sun came streaming through, blinding him.

“What in the hell are you doing?”

Ashland eyed him critically. “How long have you slept in those clothes?”

Oliver looked down at his trousers and a shirt that was so wrinkled it would have been embarrassing if he cared.

“You need a bath. You reek of alcohol.”

“What didn’t you understand about piss off?”

“Oh, I understood.”

The door opened again, and a footman entered, his gaze flickering to Oliver then away as he slunk in and placed a full breakfast tray on a table, then scurried out.

“What’s this?” Oliver asked.

“Food. Sustenance.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Eat anyway.”

Oliver glared at Ashland, but his friend just stared placidly back. There had been a time—two times, actually—when Oliver had done the same for Ashland. When Ashland’s first wife, Cora, had died in childbirth, and Oliver had very much feared that Ashland’s grief would send him to the grave, and when Ashland had been attacked by Charlotte’s murderous cousin and no one had known if he would survive.

Oliver knew that Ashland was giving back to him, but he didn’t want it. He didn’t want Ashland’s pity or his insights into Ellen’s engagement. He didn’t want to be saved.

His stomach grumbled loudly, and Ashland smirked.

Oliver marched over to the food and sat down to eat.

“Do you want to tell me about it?” Ashland asked.

“There’s nothing to tell. She’s marrying that twit, Needham.”

“And yet just days before you were at my house telling me you were going to marry her.”

“She says they suit.” His lips twisted, because he didn’t believe that Ellen and Needham suited, but he didn’t know if that was his head talking or his heart.

“Maybe they do.”

“I don’t see it.”

“Because you’re blind to everything but what you want.”

Oliver paused in his chewing. “Do you think so?”

“Sometimes you can be single-minded.”

Oliver shoveled more food in his mouth.

“What about the boy? Philip.”

“She says I’m not to see him anymore. That she will get him back in Eton.” Strangely, he was almost as upset about Philip as he was Ellen’s rejection. He’d come to like the boy.

Ashland’s brows rose. “But you gave the headmaster your word that you would guarantee the boy’s behavior and turn him around.”

“I know.”

“How was that working out?”

“Well. At least, I thought it was going well, but I also thought Ellen and I were destined for matrimony.”

They sat in silence for a bit while Oliver wallowed in his new wave of pity. “Maybe I should travel,” he said. “I’ve barely been out of the country in the last several years.”

“Thinking of finding a nice Parisian girl, eh?”

They both chuckled, but then Ashland became serious. “You had said that you and Ellen were close years ago.”

“We were young, and our lives went on different paths.” Oliver looked away. He was not embarrassed by what had happened before Ellen’s marriage, but he was not proud, either, that he had bedded a woman destined to become another man’s wife. “We were intimate.”

Ashland’s brows went up again. “Please tell me that the lady was unmarried. Although I fail to see how that is any better than being married.”

“She was unmarried.” He paused. “It was right before her wedding to Fieldhurst.”

Both of Ashland’s brows went up. “Well then. I don’t really know what to say to that.”

“I’m not proud of it, but I wouldn’t wish that moment away. I believe that ever since then I have measured every woman against Ellen, and they have all fallen short.”

“Sometimes it’s best to move on. Charlotte tells me that there are many eligible young ladies on the market right now who would suit you.”

But Oliver didn’t want any eligible young lady. He wanted Ellen.

“I don’t recall, as I wasn’t in Society back then, but the Fieldhursts wed, what? Eighteen years ago? That would have made you sixteen at the time?”

“Seventeen years ago, and both Ellen and I were seventeen at the time.”

“She married young.”

“It was an advantageous match. Her parents were keen for it.”

“And they weren’t keen for you?”

Oliver shrugged, not wanting to relive any of that.

They fell silent again, and Oliver was thinking that he would really like that decanter of port. Damn Ashland for giving Richard the day off.

“Oliver?”

“Hmmm.”

“How old is Philip?”

“I don’t know. Sixteen, I believe.”

Wonder where the butler kept the port in the house? He could find it himself. He didn’t need Richard to fetch it for him.

“So Lady Fieldhurst wed Lord Fieldhurst, and they had Philip right away.”

He really wanted that port, badly. He could, of course, find port at his club, but that would require dressing. And bathing.

“Yes, Philip came along quickly.”

“And no other after that?”

“Apparently not. Why all these strange questions?”

Ashland seemed to hesitate for a moment. “You’ve never considered that Philip might be a product of your…er…indiscretion with Ellen that night?”