The Louise Allen Collection. Louise Allen
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‘Are you grinding your teeth?’
‘Yes, I am. I’m in a very bad mood, if you must know. Thoroughly blue devilled, although I doubtless should not use the expression. And you, my lord, are not helping in the slightest.’
‘An attack of the mulligrubs?’ He managed to look so innocently serious that Decima laughed aloud, suddenly back in the kitchen in Rutland being teased out of her sudden fit of depression.
‘I am afraid not, otherwise I could take myself off to the confectioners and indulge in a healing purchase of sweetmeats, just as your old nurse recommended.’ She linked her arm through his and allowed herself to be walked down the long room. ‘Unlike the mulligrubs, my bad mood has a number of very real causes.’
‘Tell me.’ She felt his arm close against his side, pressing her hand against warm cloth. Under her knuckles she fancied she could feel his heart beat, and her own tripped in response. Decima knew that to feel angry with Henry for failing to resist the chance to be with Olivia was being thoroughly hypocritical—she was being just as bad herself.
‘I am worried about Pru and Bates. Hen—A friend of mine is unhappy and there is nothing I can do to help, and, to crown it all, Charlton is coming to town.’
‘Wonderful! No, I don’t mean the troubles of Pru and your friend, but I will be intrigued to meet the legendary Charlton. I’m sure you have been slandering the man and he will prove to be a fire-eater whose wrath I must dread in case he ever finds out about our previous acquaintance.’
‘It would serve you right if I cast myself upon his bosom and told him all about it,’ Decima said warmly.
‘All about it?’
‘I thought we were going to forget about that,’ Decima said, struggling to keep her voice under control. It was desperately unfair that this was a man with whom she felt she could talk about anything, and yet she was barred by honour and decency from exchanging all but the most superficial banter with him.
‘We may have agreed not to refer to it, and I apologise for doing so, but I most certainly did not promise to forget it, Decima.’ His voice was warm honey, seductively sweet in her ears.
‘I suggest that you do so,’ she riposted sharply in an undertone as they came up to the others. ‘Olivia, see who has managed to get here after all. Henry, come and show me your favourites.’
She drew him away down the gallery, keeping up a flow of small talk until she judged they were safely out of earshot.
‘Why are you trembling?’ Henry demanded when they finally stopped in front of a large canvas of the Grand Canal in Venice. ‘Has Weston said something to upset you?’
‘Yes…no…I don’t know! Him just being here upsets me. I am worried that he might guess there is something between you and Olivia, and I am afraid he will guess how I feel about him. I want to be with him so much, but when I am all I can do is bicker and sound fractious.’
Adam watched Decima while listening to Olivia’s animated explanation of how much she was enjoying the exhibition. ‘Sir Henry has been telling me all about Vienna, and Paris and the sites of Rome. He is so well-travelled, and describes things so vividly, I can almost imagine myself there.’ Adam could not recall her speaking to him with such freedom since their betrothal. ‘The heat and the smells and the romance of it all.’ She sighed, making the blonde ringlets on either side of her pansy-face bob charmingly. ‘I would so love to see it all for myself.’
It pained him to snub her, but it was no part of his plan to have her think him sympathetic; he had too much ground to make up from the time he had spent listening to her recount her woes at the Longminster house party.
‘Indeed? I am sorry to disappoint you, Olivia, but I have a fixed disgust of foreign travel.’
‘Oh.’ Her lower lip quivered pathetically. Any man of the slightest sensibility would want to comfort her, but Adam had been down that road already. ‘But I imagine you enjoy travel in the British Isles?’ she ventured. ‘Scotland, perhaps? I dote upon Sir Walter’s romances.’
‘Scott? Certainly not. I do hope you are not given to novel reading, Olivia. And as for Scotland, I would as soon sit under a pump for a week—one can then become wet, cold and miserable without the inconveniences of travel.’
‘Oh,’ she said again, thoroughly crushed. Adam just hoped he was providing a suitable contrast to Freshford, although it felt like kicking a kitten to be doing it.
It had seemed such an ideal solution, to throw Olivia and Freshford together. He was obviously besotted with her despite his efforts to hide it and Adam could not imagine that she could find a more compatible husband. But the combination of Olivia’s perfect obedience, her terror of her parents and Freshford’s apparently rigorous sense of honour was going to make this trickier than he thought. It didn’t help that Decima seemed so fixed on ensuring he treated Olivia as he should.
What if he did manage to disentangle himself from this coil with honour and she would not have him? Adam closed his eyes briefly, seeing Decima’s face against the blackness of his lids. At least he could explain what had happened, how he felt. If he couldn’t have her, that would be poor comfort indeed.
He came back to himself to find Olivia was regarding him anxiously ‘Do you have a headache, my lord?’ He could not persuade her to use his given name. All his attempts met only with a blush and a stammered, ‘Mama says it is not proper or respectful.’ Not for the first time Adam quailed inwardly at the thought of a wedding night with a bride who could not even bring herself to relax to that extent.
‘No, not a headache. Have you seen enough, or would you like to stay a little longer?’
‘No, thank you, I am quite ready to go, but I must wait for Decima and Sir Henry.’
‘No need. My business meeting this afternoon has had to be cancelled as my agent is unwell; I can escort you home.’
‘Oh, Sir Henry promised to lend me some of his foreign sketchbooks—but perhaps you would not care for me to borrow them?’ She looked up at him anxiously.
‘By all means, if that would give you pleasure.’ Well done, Freshford. Adam grinned at the approaching baronet, Decima still on his arm. The man’s tactics for maintaining perfectly respectable contact with Olivia were excellent, and very encouraging. But he still could not see how, unless Freshford could be persuaded to abduct Olivia and carry her off to the border, he was going to manage the thing. And Freshford did not strike him as the sort of gentleman who would even contemplate such irregularity.
‘It seems you have been kind enough to promise Olivia a sight of your sketch-books, Freshford. Would it be convenient if we return with you now?’ Sir Henry agreed immediately, but Decima narrowed her eyes and her brows drew together in a fleeting frown. If he was not careful, she would overset his entire scheme. This called for more dramatic action than he had at first contemplated.
Decima fretted all the way back to the Freshfords’ house, but Olivia’s presence in the barouche prevented her giving tongue to anything but careful comment on the exhibition. Olivia had quite naturally climbed into their carriage, only realising as she sat down that perhaps she should have gone with Lord Weston. But he seemed indifferent about the matter, causing Decima even greater anxiety.
Was he so blind? Should she say something? But to do so would be to suggest that Henry might act in a dishonourable manner—and that, of course, was unthinkable. With a sinking heart Decima decided that she would have to have an intimate talk with Olivia.
She was still brooding on exactly what form this embarrassing conversation should take when they arrived back to find Lady Freshford and Caroline entertaining in the green salon.
‘Decima, my dear, see who is here!’ Lady Freshford welcomed her with a smile that only Decima and her