A Lord for Olivia (7 page)

Jason squinted at Edmund. “Indeed! But we can rectify the situation. Shall we?”

As of one mind, they scooped up armsful of the hay and
threw them at him. The golden shower briefly obscured his view. When he could see again, he returned the favor.

Abruptly Olivia stopped, merriment fading from her face. Edmund followed her gaze and saw an elegantly turned-out rider approaching down the country lane on a handsome roan gelding.

“Oh, no,” he heard Lavinia mutter. She rushed up to her niece and began brushing hay from her clothing.

“Jason, Olivia, what can be the meaning of this?”

“Lord Corbright.” Olivia drew herself up, combing at her hopelessly hay-bedecked hair with shaking fingers.

“Frank, you've arrived just too late to see the result of a famous wager,” Jason crowed. “Come, join us for lunch and we'll tell you all about it.”

Edmund was surprised at the cordiality in Jason's voice toward the man who had jilted his sister. He was even more surprised to realize who the man was.

Corbright surveyed the trio with an ambiguous smile playing across his lips. “Throwing yourself into the role of farmer again, Olivia? You look most charming in the part.”

Olivia pasted a smile on her face. “Thank you, my lord. Gallant as usual. May I make known to you Lord Edmund Debham?”

Lord Corbright had barely glanced at him before, doubtless taking him for one of the estate workers. Now he stared at Edmund insolently and for an unconscionably long time before acknowledging the introduction. Edmund returned his perusal calmly. He knew this overdressed gentleman, though he had not been Lord Corbright at the time of their acquaintance.
So this is Olivia's former fiancé,
he thought.
A nasty piece of work!
A crony of his brother, Franklin Melwin had long since shown his true colors to Edmund.
Little does she know how fortunate she has been to escape marriage to him.

“Well, Eddy,” Corbright drawled at last. “I see you have finally achieved your life's ambition—to labor in the fields.” He shook his head. “I suppose you have found your level—what must cannon fodder do, once the cannon fall silent?”

“Now see here,” Jason spluttered. “Lord Edmund is our guest, and I won't have you—”

“Jason and Lord Edmund have just been having a bit of fun, Lord Corbright.” Olivia's voice shook as she spoke, and Edmund suspected she feared an altercation.

“Did you ever notice, Jason, how easy it is for those who have never faced cannon to look down on those who have?” Edmund sneered at Corbright. If there was to be a quarrel, he would draw Corbright's fire. He did not fear the man.

“That's right,” Jason snapped. “And Lord Edmund's bravery in battle deserves your respect.”

Corbright flicked at an invisible speck on his coat sleeve. “Oh, do not fly up in the boughs, either of you. I referred to something Lord Edmund's brother said of him. That, of course, was before he distinguished himself as a spiker of cannon rather than as fodder for same. No offense was meant, Lord Edmund.”

“Then none is taken,” Edmund said, shrugging. He turned to Olivia. “Did I hear a rumor of luncheon? Haying makes one quite peckish.”

“Indeed, yes.” Lavinia Ormhill, standing between her niece and nephew, linked her arms with theirs and tugged at them. “All is in readiness. The trestles are set up in the shade of the barn, and I daresay our avid audience is peckish, too.”

At this, they all became aware of the interested observers standing all around them: the house servants who had set up the luncheon, the farmworkers, their children, their wives, and even a pair of mongrels, though the latter were doubtless more interested in the food than the fodder for the gossip mill that they saw unfolding before them.

“I do not expect that Lord Corbright will wish to partake of so unsophisticated a meal,” Olivia said, and her expression made it clear she hoped he would concur.

“On the contrary, with such a fetchingly attired maiden as my hostess, how could I pass up a bucolic feast?” Corbright swung himself down from his horse.

Lavinia directed the seating at the picnic table with Olivia Ormhill at one end as hostess, and Lord Corbright at the other as the most distinguished guest. Jason sat at
Corbright's right hand; Lavinia took Olivia's right, and directed Edmund to her left.

The house servants she arrayed on one side of the table, the field-workers on the other. This odd caricature of a formal dining table might have amused Edmund at another time, but he could see that Olivia took no pleasure in looking down its length at her former fiancé. Her laughing, light-hearted manner, so briefly but delightfully displayed while exchanging barrages of hay, had been replaced by a stiffness that thrummed with some deep emotion. Edmund could not tell if it was fear or anger, sorrow or desire, that underlay her frozen manner.
Perhaps all four
, he mused. Though far from an expert, he had sufficient experience of females to know that they could be quite complicated creatures.

If he had not known Corbright for the cad he was, he might have wondered at the man for lingering where he so obviously was not wanted. Certainly he wondered at Olivia's brother, for he positively fawned on the man. It confused him to find the boy so lacking in spirit as to make a bosom beau of the man who had supposedly broken his sister's heart. That Corbright would flirt with her though he was now married, Edmund didn't wonder at. That Lavinia and Jason seemed to be delighted by such behavior confused him thoroughly.

 

O
livia looked around the table at the pastoral scene. It would be a fit subject for Constable's brush, she thought: the rosy-cheeked country folk with their tankards of ale, laughing and joking among themselves; the handsome, well-dressed lord of the manor at one end of the table, chuckling with one of his workers, his wife at the other, presiding over a harvest feast.

Only the man at the end of the table was not the lord of this manor, nor the woman his wife.
Nor ever shall be,
she reaffirmed to herself. She tried to catch Jason's eyes, but he seemed determined not to look her way.
I pray he does not explain all about that wager.
It would make her look pitiable in Franklin's eyes.

She glanced at Lord Edmund.
He looks as confused as I feel,
she thought. For her former fiancé to visit her, tease her, and join in their midday meal must seem very strange. Corbright's recent behavior seemed strange to her, too, though no stranger than his sudden ending of their engagement and immediate marriage to a wealthy tradesman's daughter. He had paraded Jane about, exclaiming upon her womanly submissiveness and her very proper willingness to let her husband manage her substantial fortune. After her death in childbirth, Corbright had attempted to renew his relationship with Olivia, but his recent actions had put paid to any hopes he had voiced for a rekindling of their romance.

During Jane's life he had pursued a policy of harassment of Olivia that she had been at great lengths to hide from her
volatile, heedless brother, who had long since accepted Franklin's explanation of why he had broken off the engagement, and thought him the best of fellows. He had smiled approvingly at Corbright's recent attempts to renew his attentions to Olivia, as had her Aunt Lavinia.

He would have a hard time believing Corbright's recent behavior,
she thought,
but once convinced, he would leap to my defense in a way that might be fatal to him.

She shuddered at the thought. Jason's accuracy when aiming a shotgun at pheasant or ducks was much admired in the neighborhood, but he had no great expertise with pistols. As for his swordsmanship, he had little training and, she suspected, a style distinguished more by vigor and aggression than skill. Corbright, on the other hand, was widely acknowledged as an accomplished marksman and swordsman. Moreover, she feared he would delight in doing something that would grieve her.

A loud ripple of laughter brought her attention back to the present. The company was becoming entirely too jolly, and she realized they had lingered too long at the meal, drinking the ale that workmen insisted was necessary to their doing a good day's work, but which she suspected only slowed them down. She had long since learned not to attempt to wean the English farm laborer from his ale, so she provided it, but she knew better than to offer unlimited helpings. She stood, signifying that the meal was over.

Lord Corbright stood, too, rapping his tankard on the table for attention. “Before we go, I'd like to propose a toast. To the fairest, best-loved lady farmer in all of England.” He saluted Livvy with the mug, then raised it to his lips. The sentiment was applauded, and the toast drunk. The servants and workers exchanged significant glances and sly nudges. Livvy felt her cheeks heat, and looked away, only to meet Lord Edmund's wondering eyes. What must he think? The very idea of such a toast in public, and to his former fiancée at that!

As the workmen and women walked away, talking and laughing, and the house servants began clearing the table,
Lavinia bustled up to Livvy. “Well, did you hear that? Very promising, I'd call it.”

“Would you?” Livvy snapped. “Promising of what? My descent into infamy?”

“Of course not, dearest. It is clear that he has accepted you for what you are at last, and is going to court you again.”

Livvy shook her head emphatically. “That's not it, nor would I find it cause for celebration if it were. He is making mischief again, drat the man.”

Edmund had watched and listened throughout the meal, trying to sort out and understand the relationships among these people. Thoroughly confused and frustrated, he blurted out, “I think it very odd that a married man would court your niece, Miss Ormhill, and even odder that you would applaud it.”

“Mercy upon us, Lord Edmund. Lord Corbright is not married. He is a widower. His poor little wife perished in childbirth over a year ago.”

“Ah.” He looked at Livvy, whose eyes met his unflinchingly. “That explains his behavior.” What, he wondered, explained Olivia Ormhill's red cheeks and sparkling eyes? Any number of emotions could account for them, from anger to embarrassment to pleasurable excitement.

Her answer shed little light on her feelings, but made it clear she did not wish to discuss the matter further. “I do not take it to be anything but a hum. Now if you will excuse me, Lord Edmund, I must organize the workers. The hay must be put into the barn and as many more loads as possible brought in yet this day. And someone must begin cutting another meadow or we shall be at a standstill in a day or two.”

“Shall I help with the unloading, load another wagon, or take up a scythe?”

Jason joined them just then, along with Corbright. “None of that,” he said, laughing gaily. “Frank has invited us to look over the two stallions he recently purchased.”

“Alas, we cannot avail ourselves of Lord Corbright's gracious offer, Jason.” Edmond threw his arm around the boy
in a companionable gesture. “We are pledged to your sister. Have you forgotten our wager?”

“You surely do not intend to hold your brother to this foolish bet, Livvy.” Corbright moved in front of her, standing too close, his position such as to suggest an intimacy that she found all the more uncomfortable because it had once been so very much what she wished for. “You cannot mean to make a farmhand of the boy.”

She wondered exactly what Jason had told him. If he had given away the part about trying to marry her to Lord Edmund, she would wring his neck. “I've no intention of doing so,
Lord
Corbright.” She stressed his title and moved backward, firmly rejecting what his posture and use of her pet name implied.

Corbright pivoted toward her brother. “No? That is not what it seems.” He plucked a bit of hay from Jason's hair. “Next I expect to see him wielding a scythe.”

“I say! The very thing! Much more fun than stacking hay.” Jason brushed at his clothing and grimaced humorously.

“No, brother. We'll leave the mowing to men accustomed to the scythe. You and Lord Edmund agreed to apprentice yourselves to me as estate managers, not fieldhands. You
should
have a look at Lord Corbright's horses. After all, the stud is an important part of your estate.”

Jason took this notion up instantly. “Just so. Come along, Lord Edmund.”

Edmund shook his head. “You seem to forget we have neither horse nor carriage at our disposal, and your sister has something of a mess on her hands.”

“The workers will pick that up,” Jason declared, waving this objection away. “And we can return to the manor with Aunt Lavinia, for I certainly shan't wear these clothes anywhere!”

“You go on, then,” Edmund declared. “I intend to remain here. Miss Ormhill needs help getting her hay in, and I intend to do just that.” He deliberately made his tone disdainful.

Jason's chin came up. “I'll stay too, then. You can explain to me how to keep it on the wagon this time.”

Corbright's glance shifted from Olivia to Edmund and back again. His lips tightened, though his words were cordial. “As you wish. But you doubtless are a prime judge of horseflesh, Edmund. I would like you to take a look at a filly I think to purchase. Godolphin's line, and looks to be fast.”

Edmund was tempted; there was no gainsaying that. He had a weakness for fine horses, and knew himself to be an excellent judge. But he also knew Corbright. He had been the victim of some cruel pranks into which he had been drawn, a naive boy seeking the company of his much admired older brother, by the cozening ways of Franklin Melwin. He had no wish to spend time with the man.

“I am no child to be tricked into a leaky boat now, Frank,” he growled. “Nor is young Jason such a fribble as to leave his sister in the lurch when she is short of workers and has an abundant harvest of hay to bring in.”

Corbright's smile twisted a little, resembling a sneer as he looked at Olivia. “You do appear to be a little short-handed, my dear. Tch. You should realize that the haying won't wait on your whims. Your fields should be full of workers now, as mine are.”

Olivia could bear it no longer. “Your fields are full of
my
workers, Lord Corbright. Hired from me at double wages, poor ignorant creatures.”

“Ignorant? I think not.” Corbright laughed patronizingly. “What man in his right mind wouldn't take double wages? I need their labor; they need the money. Business, my love. If you understood these things so ill, you should never have set yourself up as an estate manager.”

“How dare you!” Olivia felt her cheeks flushing. Aunt Lavinia's hand was on her sleeve, urging temperance. She lowered her voice. “Do not dare to call me your love, or I shall slap your faithless face.”

“Mmmmm. The lady doth protest too much.” Corbright flicked her cheek briefly with his right hand. Several of the workers tittered, reminding them all once again that they had an audience.

Olivia turned toward the sound. “Get to work, all of you. Lunch is over, and we have much to do.”

Corbright turned to the knot of men nearby. “Come and work for me, if you do not like being ordered about by a woman. As Miss Ormhill said, I am paying double wages this year, and—”

“See here,” Jason protested.

“And who is to carry your families through the winter if you work for him?” Olivia snapped. “I have always made bread available to my workers' families throughout the winter. But I shan't be able to do so this year if my crops ruin in the field.”

“The county will give us bread, Miss Ormhill,” one bold young man called out.

“You men can get bread from the outdoor relief, true enough. But do not forget, as my other workers have, that your ration will feed only you, not your family.”

Several of the women began to murmur and move among the men. Clearly they found this argument persuasive, even if all of the men did not. The group of workers drifted toward the pile of hay and the wagons.

Corbright snorted. “Sentimental twaddle. Such patriarchal solicitude has no place in the modern world. Jason, instead of being schooled by your sister, why do you not school her to return to her needlework? You'll be a poor man at this rate.”

But Jason, feckless, heedless Jason, stood silent, fists clenched. Edmund could see that the scales had fallen from his eyes. “You tried to hire our workers right from under us. And here I thought you were hoping to regain Olivia's affection.”

“That were a forlorn hope indeed,” Olivia said. “Come, dear. Lord Corbright has much work to do, and so do we.” She attempted to turn Jason from the confrontation.

“Your sister has no affections to engage,” Corbright retorted, his face almost purple with anger. “She's turning into a harpy, an ape leader, but that doesn't mean you have to let her bankrupt you. Come, Jason, be a man. Stand up to her.”

Edmund wanted to put his fist through Corbright's
scheming face, but saw no way to intervene without extinguishing Jason's suddenly kindled manhood. He stepped a bit closer, though, and knew by the tightening of Corbright's jaw muscle that his support of Jason had been noted.

“My sister is not a harpy,” Jason responded. “You think to turn me against her. If you are paying double wages, you have been conspiring to destroy her, and me as well. How could I have been so blind? You have outworn your welcome, sir. I am sure my sister will join me in desiring you, in the future, to approach your estate by the public road instead of across our property.”

“You are a fool, boy! She'll squander your inheritance, and then where will you be?” Corbright clapped his expensive beaver derby on his head. “Under the cat's-paw and not even married.”

Jason started for him; Edmund caught at his elbow, stopping him before he had well begun the charge.

“And you are
de trop,
Franklin. I know a gentleman of your impeccable lineage would not wish to linger where he is not wanted.”

Twin gasps from the Ormhill women followed Edmund's words, for they knew just how provocative they must be to the grandson of a gunsmith and son of a munitions manufacturer, whose late father had been so recently made a baron the ink had scarcely dried upon the parchment. Corbright started toward him, then checked his stride. Edmund held those pale blue eyes with his own until Corbright looked away.

“I don't need you to fight my battles,” Jason sputtered, striking at Edmund's hand where it gripped his elbow.

But Corbright turned on his heel. Without another word he mounted his horse and rode away. And Edmund noted his direction with great satisfaction. “He's taking the road, Jason. You did well.”

“I'd have done a great deal better to give him a facer. I'll thank you not to play nursemaid.” Jason's fists were clenched. Clearly he would like to take on Edmund now that Corbright was out of reach. “Put your hand on me again, if you dare!”