“Does this seem like a nice spot?” Caroline asked, gesturing to an old fountain with a low wall that doubled as a bench.
“Perfection,” Olivia enthused, eager to encourage Caroline wherever possible.
The young girl was a delight, with fire and spirit and wit, and though Caroline might have struggled to find friends of her own, Olivia refused to let the girl dim her brightness because she did not fit into the usual mold of society’s daughters. Indeed, Matilda had been the very same, but with time, patience, and encouragement, she had become as beloved by Olivia and the others as a true sister.
As the two ladies began to pick at the selection of delicacies and sipped tea as they enjoyed the balmy, bronzed evening, Olivia’s thoughts turned back toward the conversation in the drawing room.
“Does your mother not like her brother?” she blurted out, trying to decipher the sudden change in Amelia’s demeanor at the mention of Evan’s parents. Amelia could not have spoken more highly of Evan’s mother, but she had barely mentioned his father.
Caroline swallowed a mouthful of tea. “What makes you say that?”
“She did not seem fond of him when she spoke of him,” Olivia replied. “Perhaps, I have misunderstood.”
Slowly, Caroline set her cup down and glanced at the manor as if to check she was not being watched. “My mother does not like to speak of him much,” she said, “but I suppose I can talk to you of him, considering you will meet him anyway.”
“I will?” Olivia squinted.
“Well, yes.” Caroline laughed awkwardly. “He will be your father-in-law, so you are bound to meet him at some juncture or another.”
Olivia exhaled. “Oh, I see. I thought you meant I would meet him soon!”
“No, no, Mama would not allow it. She would be too afraid that meeting him might make you flee.” Caroline picked up a madeleine and chewed upon the scalloped edge, sparking fresh nerves in Olivia’s veins.
“Is he so terrible?”
Caroline paused in thought. “He is… not a pleasant man.” She scrunched her face as if trying to solve a challenging puzzle. “No, that is untrue—he is… a fearsome man. Yes, I think that is the best way to describe him. I used to be terrified of him whenever we would visit him, though it was, thankfully, a rarity.”
“Why were you so scared of him?” Olivia suddenly needed to know everything there was to know about this mysterious, fearsome Duke.
Caroline resumed her anxious chewing. “He has always been very… strict. He would scold me for the slightest thing when we visited, and once sought to use a cane upon me, but Mama was walking past and stopped him. I have never heard her scream at someone as she did that day, and we never returned after that.” She hesitated. “But what I suffered in those brief instances is nothing compared to Evan. It is but a sliver of what he must have endured.”
“He is a violent man?” Olivia gulped.
Caroline gave a slight nod. “I do not think he perceives it as violence, but deems it discipline instead,” she explained haltingly. “Mama does not know this, but I read her diary once, and discovered within its pages the truth of why Evan came to live us. His father beat him often, and it only worsened after he had left childhood behind him, becoming an almost daily occurrence.” She stared down into her lap. “He must have been my age when he came to live here, as I was not yet born. My poor cousin endured half his life, more or less, in fear and pain and torment, with no one to fight back on his behalf. According to my mother, Beatrix would not have allowed such brutality to happen, but… she was not there.”
Olivia’s heart dropped into her stomach, a cold sensation slithering through her veins as she tried to imagine the horrors of such a father. In her mind’s eye, the smirking, smiling, toying vision of Evan faded, replaced by a young boy cowering in a corner, bruised and battered, struggling to understand what he had done to deserve such punishment.
It broke her heart.
“Apparently, my uncle used to hit Evan because he thought that Evan should learn how to be strong, and that was the only way he could think of to ‘educate’ my cousin properly,” Caroline continued, with a note of bitterness. “Mama was never very fond of her brother, so you were right in that, but once she discovered that he was punishing his son so viciously, she intervened.”
Olivia realized she had not breathed in a minute, exhaling the stale air from her lungs. “She brought him here?”
“Not at first,” Caroline replied, shaking her head. “At first, she went to stay with her brother for… several months, I think it was. I suppose she thought that if she was there, her brother would stop treating Evan that way. But she had to come home and, as such, she had to leave Evan. The beatings must have worsened again because, on the eve of his birthday, when he was to turn six-and-ten, he arrived on our doorstep. Mama and Papa took him in, and he has been here ever since. I do not think he has seen his father once in that time.”
“But, you said you visited his father?” Olivia pressed, so appalled that it was the only question she could think of.
Caroline nodded. “Mama, Papa, Daniel, and I. Evan never joined us.”
“Did his father not try to insist on his return?”
Caroline mustered a vague shrug. “I suppose he must have done, but my father was alive then, and though he was a gentle soul, he could be quite a beast whenever there was an injustice to be remedied.” She smiled sadly. “Of course, my uncle has punished Evan in other ways since he came here, but he has never allowed it to bother him.”
“Like selling the manor tied to Evan’s marquisate?” The pieces fell into place for Olivia as she sat there, shaking her head at the entire revelation.
“You know of that?” Caroline chewed her lower lip. “That will not change your mind about marrying him, will it? Hewillstill inherit the dukedom when his father dies, and Lisbret House is a lovely residence. He will inherit that, too, and he has a considerable income from the marquisate still, if you are worried about the state of his fortunes. Truly, he only lost the manor, but I suspect his father did that to try and make Evan return.”
Olivia stared into her cup of tea as if she might find answers at the bottom of the golden-brown liquid. “I have never cared about fortunes and station in a husband,” she told Caroline, only partially lying. She left out the part where she did not care because she did not intend to marry anyone.
