“I thought I might venture into town today,” Olivia announced at breakfast, forcing down a piece of toast so that her mother would not worry about her not eating.
Laura perked up, almost dropping the spoonful of sugar she had been about to put into her morning tea. “You did? That is wonderful, darling!” She grinned from ear to ear. “Shall I arrange to have the carriage ready by eleven?”
Olivia paused, contemplating her options. She had hoped to call upon Matilda or Leah, who lived the closest, to see if they might join her. But she did not have the heart to disappoint her poor mother, who had done nothing but worry, in a thousand different ways, since their return to Canrave.
“Eleven would be marvelous,” Olivia said, swallowing her last corner of toast with some difficulty. “And, if you are not opposed, I should like to visit Millicent’s Tea Shoppe. I have not ceased thinking about those little cream buns with raspberries on top. My stomach is growling, just imagining one.”
Laura looked like she might faint with relief. The sort of relief someone might feel after a loved one has suffered a terrible illness and has finally pulled through the worst of it. Perhaps, heartsickness was not so different from cholera or influenza or scarlet fever, and though Olivia knew she would never be the same, bearing a few coughs and aches from her fleeting love, maybe she was coming out the other side of the affliction.
“Yes, my darling, let us have cream buns and cream tea and… why, all the cream! Cream on everything!” Laura cried, clapping her hands together.
From the other end of the table, Olivia’s father smiled. “I would ask if I might join you, for cream buns sound rather delicious, but I have a meeting this afternoon.”
Olivia flinched ever so slightly. “A meeting?”
“With Lord Jodrell,” her father replied gently. “It seems he heard of the… unfortunate business that has hounded us lately and is interested in making an investment. Apparently, he has been seeking an opportunity, and believes that mine is a safe wager.”
“He does not have a troubled son he wishes to foist upon us, does he?” Olivia meant it in jest, but it echoed hollow. Her humor, it seemed, was as slow to heal as her heart.
Her father mustered a laugh that sounded equally empty. “Fortunately, he does not. What he does have, however, is an extraordinary amount of wealth and no notion of what to do with it to prolong his family’s legacy.” He cleared his throat awkwardly. “But do enjoy yourselves. Purchase anything and everything your heart’s desire; it shall be my treat.”
“Now, that does sound like quite the thrilling adventure,” Laura sighed, clearly believing the ruse that her daughter had emerged unscathed from the engagement debacle. “Darling, you must hurry and dress. I shall make the arrangements now.”
She got up in an excitable rush, like a child being told their first pony awaited them in the stable yard, leaving Olivia and her father alone to finish their breakfast.
“You were going to invite your friends, were you not?” her father asked in a hushed tone, peering over the top edge of his newspaper.
Olivia smiled, despite herself. “I was, but I will not break Mama’s heart now. She is as deserving of a cream bun as anyone.”
“That was kind of you.” Jeremy set down his paper. “But, if I may be so bold as to ask, how are you feeling? You seem well, but… I worry.”
She shrugged. “I am as well as I can be and know my spirits shall soar when I smell the tea shop. I might also feed the ducks—that has always calmed me, for reasons I cannot explain.”
“I remember,” Jeremy said, with a faraway look in his eyes. “There was one day in the heat of summer—you could not have been more than four, I believe—and you would not cease screaming. You had been stung, I recall, by a wasp. Your mother was close to fainting, so I told her to rest indoors. I did not have any notion of how to soothe you and, in truth, I had begun to panic, but then a duck waddled past, and you stopped crying. It was like a miracle. You pointed your chubby little finger at the creature, and so I took some bread from the kitchens, and we went to the pond. We fed the ducks for an hour and, by the time the bread was gone, you were asleep on the grass. I carried you home, and… I think that was the last time I felt like a good father. I shall never forget it.”
Olivia smiled, trying to picture the scene. “I vaguely remember that. The wasp and the ducks, at least.” She paused. “But I have always thought fondly of how you used to carry me in from the carriage when I fell asleep on our family journeys. I suppose I grew too big, eventually, but the memory remains.”
They had been trying to be kinder to one another, forging new bonds of a father-daughter relationship instead of hoping to repair that which could not be fixed. And though they had stumbled here and there, and there was awkwardness between them, it was not as difficult to start afresh as Olivia had feared.
“I do wish I could go back and try again,” her father admitted.
“As do we all, at some point in our lives,” Olivia replied, dabbing the corners of her mouth with a napkin. “Now, if you will excuse me, I have a tremendously excited mother to contend with.”
He smiled, opening his paper once more. “Do not eat so much that you both need to be rolled home.”
“I can make no promises.” A soft, yet real laugh whispered from Olivia’s lips, surprising her. Of course, she had known she would laugh again one day, but she had not expected it to happen because of her father.
She was about to tell him so, when she spotted something slip out from the back of the newspaper. The thicker, cream paper and the jarring black lettering was all too familiar to her.
“What are they saying about me?” she asked, nodding to the escaped scandal sheets.
Her father frowned. “Pardon?”
“That paper that just fell out.” Olivia gestured to it. “I would know what they are saying about me.”
Jeremy clocked the scandal sheets and his expression darkened as he picked up the wretched pamphlet. With a harsh breath, he flipped through the pages, his eyes darting from left to right as he read quickly. A moment later, he exhaled a hefty breath of relief.
“It is… favorable,” he told her. “The Marquess of Bridfield has suffered something of a character assassination, but you are barely mentioned. Indeed, you are mentioned twice and, as I said, very favorably.”
