It was early still, but the hour and the bite in the air hadn’t prevented Rutherford and a half-dozen of his grandchildren from bustling into the drive to see them off. Dinah hurried to scramble into the carriage, but Mathilda ran after her, caught Dinah’s skirts in her chubby fist and refused to let go until Dinah accepted a kiss.
As soon as the coach door closed behind them Oliver opened his mouth to defend the journey south, but Dinah never asked. She didn’t say a single word. He might have been riding in the coach alone for all the attention she paid him.
Well, this wouldn’t do. He’d rather deal with her anger than this distant silence. “You’re preoccupied this morning, Miss Bishop. What’s made you so pensive?” he asked, hoping to pry open the floodgates of her wrath.
It didn’t work. “Am I pensive?” she asked in surprise.
Oliver frowned. She wasn’t acting like herself. “Yes. Is it Grim? Are you still cross with him?”
She gave him a blank look. “No. Why should I be cross with Grim?”
“Well, he did pretend to be your brother, and he was a trifle high-handed, as brothers go.”
“Oh, that. No, no. That was your doing, not his. If I should be cross with anyone, it’s you.”
“Are you cross with me?” If so, he’d just as soon she admitted it and took him to task so they could get past it.
“Not really, no.” She looked taken aback, then shrugged. “Curious, isn’t it?”
“What is it, then? You don’t need to worry about the horses taking a fit again.” After hearing about the debacle with the cows the day before, Rutherford had ordered his own coachman, Ferris, to drive them to Sittingbourne, and then back to Plumstead.
“It was kind of Mr. Rutherford to offer his coachman, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, yes, very kind.” Oliver shifted impatiently against the seat. He didn’t care for this calm, reasonable version of Dinah. “You can’t have any complaint about our host. Rutherford’s a lively, merry soul, just the sort of fellow one likes to visit during the holidays. I’ve never seen a more cheerful, obliging family.”
“Not a single complaint. They’re lovely, and their home is…” Dinah hesitated, then blurted, “It’s like a Christmas painting come to life.”
A Christmas painting come to life? That was a whimsical description, especially for Dinah, who wasn’t one to indulge in whimsy. There’d been a yearning note in her voice, as well. She’d sounded almost…wistful. Oliver studied her with a frown. There was something off about her, some expression on her face he couldn’t decipher—
He froze as it dawned on him what it was.
Sadness. She looked sad.
The day before, when they’d taken tea, she’d seemed bewildered, as if she didn’t know what to make of the joyful tumult around her. Then afterwards, when Mathilda had taken her hand, she’d looked almost frightened, as if those little fingers would somehow drag her down into an abyss.
Oliver couldn’t think of a better place on earth for her to experience the wonder and childlike happiness of Christmas than Rutherford Hall, but mightn’t Dinah have seen it differently? Perhaps it didn’t seem like a blessing to her so much as a false promise, a fragile glass bubble destined to shatter.
She never talked about her family, but Oliver knew her Christmases hadn’t been filled with warmth and laughter, with sugar plums and kissing balls. He wanted those things for her—not just for a single, fleeting moment, but for a lifetime. If Dinah would let him, he’d share his joy with her. If only she could find the courage to reach out her hands and grasp it, it would be hers.
But how did one grasp a thing they didn’t know they wanted? A thing they’d never had, and no longer even hoped to have? Oliver had always regarded hope as a glorious thing, but his hopes hadn’t been crushed again and again. How many times could one be disappointed before hope became a sharp, jagged thing? How long before it became so painful to hope one simply gave it up forever?
He glanced across to the seat where Dinah was sitting, her cheek pressed to the window and her eyes closed. “What’s troubling you, Miss Bishop? You’ll feel better if we get to the heart of it.”
Dinah must have heard something in his voice—some compassion or tenderness, because her entire body stiffened. Her eyes flew open and she offered him a blank stare. “I don’t know what you mean. Nothing’s troubling me.”
“Miss Bishop—”
“I’m fatigued, that’s all.”
Ah, so that was how it was going to be, was it? If the only way forward was to open a crack in her façade and let whatever was inside ooze out, so be it. He’d rather it oozed all over the damn coach and spoiled the lovely velvet upholstery than fester inside Dinah like poison.
As luck would have it, he was quite good at teasing a person into a temper. He had two brothers, after all. “I’ll help you, shall I? Is it the fine wine we drank at dinner last night? The evening spent round the pianoforte, singing Christmas carols? Or was it the dozens of laughing children that upset you?”
Dinah’s only answer was resounding silence.
He tutted when she didn’t reply. “Perhaps it was all that irritatingly fresh greenery scattered everywhere. I loathe the scent of fresh pine, don’t you?”
Dinah pressed her lips together as if to bite back a sharp retort.
Ah, yes. This was working nicely.
“Was it the black kittens that offended you so grievously? Nasty things, what with the soft fur and the warmth and the purring—”
“Stop it, my lord. You’re being ridiculous,” Dinah gritted out through clenched teeth.
“I know!” Oliver snapped his fingers, as if he’d figured it out. “It was Mathilda Rutherford, wasn’t it?”
Dinah glared at him. “Hush, will you? It’s nothing to do with her.”
“Children are tedious, and particularly one so unpleasant as that!” Oliver went on, as if she hadn’t spoken. “A kiss, of all ridiculous things. For God’s sake, the child hardly knows you! What does the girl mean, going about kissing strangers? Why do her parents allow it? No good can come from such rash friendliness.”
Dinah’s throat worked, and an irritated flush spread over her cheeks.
Nearly there…
“Those wide brown eyes, and that gap-toothed smile!” Oliver added with an exaggerated shudder. “I wonder you didn’t refuse to present your cheek.”
“I don’t care for children, that’s all,” she snapped.
Oliver was quiet for a moment, then he murmured, “I saw your face, Miss Bishop. When Mathilda Rutherford asked you for a kiss, I saw your face.”
“What of it? I told you, I don’t care for—”
“I saw your face,” Oliver repeated softly. “It didn’t look to me as if you didn’t care for her. Just the opposite. Lie to me if you must, but don’t lie to yourself.”
“You didn’t see anything.” Dinah’s voice rose. “You got a vivid imagination, that’s all.”
“No.” He shook his head. “No one’s imagination is that vivid. Why do you say things you don’t mean?”