Years had passed since then. She was different. Why wouldn’t he be, too?
Perhaps she ought to judge him by the man she saw before her now, not the boy that she remembered.
Her throat tightened.
She would never forget, and she was not ready to forgive, but she could no longer hold her grudge against him. It was time to stop allowing the past to define her life.
“I am sorry,” he said quietly. “Not that my feelings change anything.”
Didn’t they?
What were feelings for, if not to change things?
“Let me think about the right path.” She took his hand from her cheek and placed it on his chest. “I’ll let you know what I decide.”
He gave her a crooked smile. “You have seven days.”
Chapter 7
The Fourth Day
Olive’s father was arranging cinnamon biscuits on a tray when she carried her dirty breakfast dishes into the kitchen.
He lifted an eyebrow. “You two seem cozy this morning.”
The back of her neck heated. She was glad the dishes in her hands gave an excuse not to immediately respond. Unfortunately, she couldn’t hold onto them forever.
“Weston... isn’t as villainous as I remember.”
“Weston?” Papa’s eyes gleamed. “Don’t you mean ‘Elijah?’”
Her mouth fell open. “You were spying on our breakfast?”
“I wanted to offer biscuits,” Papa said innocently. “I couldn’t see his response, but I could guess.”
Heat traveled up from her neck to her cheeks.
Papa had been deaf since birth, but he could read Olive’s lips very well. She had no doubt he had “accidentally” understood a fair portion of the morning’s conversation.
“Teach him hand signs,” Papa suggested. “Then I won’t have to struggle to read lips.”
“You weren’t supposed to be part of the conversation,” she reminded him. “Besides, a week isn’t long enough to learn the signs.” Olive had learned her first signs before she could crawl. For her, it was just as easy as talking. For the servants, rudimentary signs had taken months to master. For Elijah, fluency in one week would be impossible. “This is Day Four. Soon, he’ll be gone, and he won’t be back.”
“Why wouldn’t he?”
“Because I’m not marrying him,” she said in exasperation.
“And you only speak to people you’re married to?”
She glared at him. “That’s not what I...”
Very well, it was a fair point.
If she could be friendly with Elijah for the remaining six days, what was to prevent them from becoming actual friends?
“Because I’m still angry at us both,” she admitted. “He didn’t defend me to his father or the other children, but I also didn’t stand up for myself. I ran away from him, just like I ran away from London during my failed Season.”
“So now you’re trying to chase him away?”
“Yes,” she said defiantly. “It’s instinct. I would run from a viper and I would chase away a rat. Even if it appeared on my doorstep brandishing a marriage license. I was foolish once. I won’t be that stupid again.”
“You were never stupid.” Papa’s eyes filled with love. “You were young. You were in pain. None of it was your fault. Leaving a situation that causes you pain isn’t cowardice. Refusing to forgive yourself as an excuse not to fully live... is.”
She scrubbed her dishes to avoid having to respond.
Her father’s words stung. She’d been angry with herself over her shocked inaction for so long, it hadn’t occurred to her that her cowardice was her behavior now, rather than back then.
She’d replayed the moments so many times in her mind. The perfect set-down for Weston and his father. So sharp and cutting, the children would not have dared to make a titter.
Without that moment, that infamy, she might have had a Season. She might have been granted a voucher for Almack’s, might have danced at a ball, might have taken a promenade in Hyde Park on the arm of a handsome gentleman.
She had cursed her own weakness just as much as she’d cursed Weston and the marquess.
But Papa was right. She wasn’t to blame.
Weston and his father were.
She’d been a child. A frightened girl shouldn’t be expected to parry the spiteful vindictiveness of a marquess and his heir. For as long as she berated herself about events she’d had no control over, she wasn’t fully living.
It was time to forgive herself.
“You’re right,” she said. “It wasn’t my fault. We know who is to blame. You’ve feuded with that family since before my birth, and for good reason. They’re loathsome. You taught me early and often: Forgive nothing.”
“Fathers can be wrong, too.” Papa’s expression was serious. “A lifelong feud helps no one. Hate eats at the soul until no joy remains. If I can try to heal my rift, why shouldn’t you?”
It wasn’t that easy.
She returned her attention to the dishes.
After yesterday, she’d been determined to judge Elijah by what she saw, rather than what she remembered. But deciding was one thing and doing was another.
For the first time, Olive felt like she might be failing her father as a daughter.
She had always done everything Papa had ever asked of her. It had never been much, because all he wanted was for her to be happy, just as she wished happiness for him.
So now what?
If she had the opportunity to heal a decades-old rift between her father and the person he’d once counted as his dearest friend, shouldn’t she do it? Even if it meant giving up her own dreams to make someone else’s come true? Someone she loved?
No. It was asking too much. She could forgive her younger self for having no defense against stronger foes, but she could not sacrifice her current self like a pawn on a chessboard. She was older now. Stronger. Able to stand up for herself. Not a pawn, but the castle, steadfast and strong.
When on Twelfth Night she still believed she and Elijah did not suit, then these ten days of togetherness would have to be enough.
“Good faith,” Papa reminded her, as though he could read minds as well as lips. “You can’t poison yourself against him on purpose.”
“He poisoned me,” she said automatically.
But it was only partly true.
Elijah would always be the boy who destroyed her dreams. Twice. But that didn’t have to be all he was.
He was also the man who had brought her a medallion she’d believed lost forever. The man who wouldn’t steal a kiss without her express permission, because he wanted her to be in charge of her own life.
Elijah hadn’t asked for this courtship either. He’d been sent by his father, thanks to the manipulative tactics of her own. If there were battle lines in this strange new predicament, she and Elijah were on the same side.
The thought was unsettling.
“Very well,” she said. “I forgive him for being a horrid pestilent canker when we were younger. He has six days to show me who he is now. But when I discover he’s still a knave hoping to play games with—”