She stubbornly lifted her chin and nodded again.
He shook his head. “Incredible. And what is this about your mother? She has such confidence in the power of her recommendation that she has no doubt of finding you happily employed at the school whenever she happens to call?”
Olivia lifted a shrug.
“Why not write another letter to your mother directly? Let her know you have taken a post here instead. I shall approve it.”
She hesitated, then slowly shook her head.
His pale blue eyes flicked over her clasped hands and hopefully benign expression before returning to the letter once more. “I wonder, Miss Olivia Keene—what are you hiding?”
She forced herself to hold his critical gaze without wavering.
He refolded the letter. “Thank you, Charles. But I shall have Hodges post this directly. No need to trouble yourself.” He looked at her once again. “But I would not hold my breath awaiting a reply, were I you. Nor, of course, are you free to leave for another post until I give you leave.”
Mr. Tugwell objected. “Edward, really. I don’t see—”
He held up a halting hand. “Never mind, Charles. Miss Keene does see.” He narrowed his eyes at her. “Does she not?”
She narrowed her own eyes in return, but nodded for the vicar’s benefit.
“Very well. I shall leave the two of you to complete your visit.” Lord Bradley turned on his heel and left the room as abruptly as he had entered it.
After an awkward pause, the parson picked up his hat from the settee. “Well, I had better take my leave and allow you to return to your duties.” He hesitated, circling his hat by its brim. “I hope it will not make you uncomfortable if I tell you I am still praying for you, Miss Keene.” He looked from her to the closed door and back again. “I sense there are things in your life that are not as they should be. I am asking God to ‘work all things together for good,’ as the Scripture says He will, for those who love Him and are called according to His purpose. Do you, Miss Keene?” he asked gently. “Do you love Him? Trust and serve Him?”
She stared, flummoxed. A man she hardly knew, posing such personal questions? She did not know whether to be touched or offended. His softly lined face blurred before her, and she was embarrassed to find tears once more filling her eyes and falling down her cheeks.
No . . . She shook her head. I do not trust and serve God, she thought. Love him? Sometimes. Is my life as it should be? Am I? No, and again, no.
He took her hand in his. “I shall pray for that as well.”
A few days later, Olivia offered to help Becky give the nursery carpets a good beating. As she struggled to carry out one of the heavy carpets, Johnny Ross jogged over from the stables to the laundry yard.
“Might I help you with that, miss?” the groom asked. “It is no trouble.”
She allowed him to help her hang the carpet on a line and in return gave him what she hoped was a grateful smile.
His smile widened. “I was wonderin’ when you get your half day,” he began. “If it is Sunday afternoon, like mine, might we walk into the village together?”
Slowly, she shook her head.
“No half day?”
She shook her head again.
“Good. Well, not good, but at least you ain’t sayin’ no to me in general. You ain’t, are you?”
Olivia shook her head. But not wanting to encourage him, she began swatting the carpet with the paddle Nurse Peale had provided. She felt his brown eyes on her figure as she worked, but he must have given up, for when she glanced over her shoulder he was gone.
A few minutes later, she sensed a presence behind her once more.With a reproving smile, she turned around, expecting to see Johnny again. The smile fell from her lips.
“Expecting your admirer?” Lord Bradley sneered.
Olivia glanced around and realized they were shielded from the house by the hanging carpet. Perhaps he saw his opportunity to reinforce his threat without being seen with her and without the children present. She wished for the smiling Lord Bradley of the nursery and wondered where he had gone.
“I thought you understood you were not to talk with anyone.”
Before she could respond, he continued, “From the smile on Ross’s face, it seems you said a great deal with your eyes. Perhaps a promise for a later rendezvous?”
She shook her head.
“I hope not. If he is seen with you again, he might very well lose his position here.”
She gasped. “That is not right!”
Her outburst surprised them both. Lord Bradley was momentarily stilled, but then continued evenly. “Your voice has returned, I see. What did you tell Ross?”
“Noth . . . ing,” she rasped.
He stared at her, as though gauging her honesty. “Nor will you, until I give you leave.”
She was indignant. “You cannot mean—” She swallowed, her throat dry and scratchy. “You cannot expect me to remain silent forever.”
“You managed quite well at the Swan, when it was to your advantage.”
“But I could not speak then,” she argued hoarsely.
“Nor will you speak now.”
“But for three months? Impossible!”
“For a woman I suppose it will be doubly difficult.”
Olivia bit back a rebuke and instead reasoned, “It makes no sense. If I wanted to tell someone, I could”—she swallowed again—“all the while pretending to be mute before everyone else.”
“Do you really think that in a household like this, word of your speaking would not reach me within minutes?”
She threw up her hands. “I promise you that I will not tell a soul what I heard.”
“What is a promise from you worth?”
Olivia stared at him, feeling as though she’d been slapped.
He grimaced. “I am . . .” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I ought not to have said that. But—”
“If you think so poorly of my character,” she said stiffly, “then why not send me away and have done?”
“Because I cannot risk having a loose tongue about.” He added, as if to himself, “Especially now.”
She wondered what that meant.
He straightened and continued briskly, “But in a few months, important matters should be settled. Perhaps then I can deal with the . . . the new information you overheard.”
“But to pretend I cannot speak when I can, to deceive others . . . It is not right!”
“Neither is eavesdropping,” he clipped, and stalked away.
Chapter 10
If the weather be favourable, the children are taken out
by the assistant nurse for air and exercise.
The day should be devoted, in bad weather,
to such amusements as induce exercise,
of dancing, the skipping-rope, and dumb-bells. . . .
—SAMUEL & SARAH ADAMS, THE COMPLETE SERVANT
The housekeeper stood before Edward’s desk. “The children would like to walk in the wood to collect autumn leaves or some such,” Mrs. Hinkley began. “Might Livie take them?”
Miss Keene, Edward noticed, stood a respectful few steps behind the housekeeper. Why had she enlisted Mrs. Hinkley’s help instead of writing another note? Did she guess he would refuse her?
He thought back to his harsh words to her the day before, regretting them yet again. But he did not regret his decision to keep her at Brightwell Court and to keep her quiet. After all, it was his future she held in her hands. His inheritance, his marriage prospects, his father’s dreams and plans for him. His very home.
Edward looked directly into Miss Keene’s eyes. Could she read his suspicious thoughts? For indeed, he suspected she might use such an opportunity to flee.
“If she is to walk out of view of the house, she must take another with her. Nurse Peale or one of the maids.”
“Nurse Peale stays indoors these days, my lord. She hasn’t the stamina she had when you were a boy.”
This surprised Edward. Miss Peale would always seem a paragon to him. But he was four and twenty now, and his old nurse must be nearing seventy. “Of course. I forget. A maid, then.”
“It is really necessary, my lord?”
Unaccustomed to having his orders questioned, he narrowed his eyes at the housekeeper. She would never have questioned his father so. “It is.”
At Mrs. Hinkley’s inquisitive look, Edward met Miss Keene’s eyes once more and said glibly, “She is new, you see, and might inadvertently lose her way.”
Wearing capes and gloves, Olivia and Doris followed behind as Andrew and Audrey tore down the path through the wood.
The autumn air was crisp, the wood a colorful fresco of flaming brown and orange beechwood trees, orange-red rowan trees, and the puckered berries of hawthorn. Leaves fell and twirled to the ground, revealing more of the pewter grey branches drop by drop. A pheasant skittered across their path, and from the direction of the river came a dipper’s squeaking call.
As they walked, Dory kept up a cheerful prattle, unhindered by Olivia’s lack of response.
Olivia was still thinking about Lord Bradley’s reluctance to allow her to walk out of view of the manor alone. He had no way of knowing she had decided his estate afforded her a comfortable hideaway—until her mother came for her. She wondered if the schoolmistress at St. Aldwyns had yet received her letter.
A narrow track led from the main path to a clearing, where Olivia was surprised to see a snug stone cottage with a slate roof. A stack of chopped firewood, scratching chickens, penned pigs, and a wispy trail of chimney smoke declared the place lived in, while peeling paint, smeared windows, and one forgotten stocking swaying stiffly on a line bespoke recent neglect. Had they wandered outside the Brightwell estate?