Page 43 of Ambition (The Chaplain’s Legacy #6)

O livia hardly knew what was happening. She was betrothed!

Lord Embleton had finally proposed, although it was not the world’s most romantic proposal.

‘Forgive me. Marry me.’ That was all. No words of love, no kiss, no smiles of happiness, simply that rather awkward hug and then a nod of acknowledgement when she had accepted him.

Almost as if he were resigned to his fate.

Which was not at all how a lover should be, was it?

Robert would have been more affectionate, she was sure.

Now why was she thinking of Robert at such a time?

She must make allowances for Lord Embleton’s difficulty with words.

He would never murmur passionately to her, after all.

But at least he could hold her and kiss her, she thought with just a little resentment. At least he could show some enthusiasm.

But then he had gone haring off to Lochmaben after Effie, and not an hour later had returned with the duchess and her daughter-in-law.

“You will not want to stay here, Olivia, not now that you are betrothed to Embleton,” the duchess said briskly.

“Why not?” Olivia had said, bewildered.

The duchess had exchanged a glance with Lady Kiltarlity. “It is better so. Come and stay with us for a while, dear. Embleton will be there, too, so you can… well, make plans and so forth. Goodness, betrothed before your first season! What an astonishing girl you are.”

Since Papa was agreeable to the move, to Lochmaben they went.

Olivia had felt remarkably settled at Strathinver, with just Papa, Lord Embleton and Effie, as well as Robert and his family.

Despite the number of builders and painters and carpenters underfoot, it had felt very restful, almost like home.

Lochmaben was not restful at all. It was a very different place from Strathinver, being both larger and also filled to the rafters with the most amazing assortment of guests.

The duke and duchess loved nothing better than to fill the house with guests, and on her previous visits, Olivia, being of a sociable nature, had enjoyed the constant bustle.

There had been long outings into the Scottish hills, or picnics beside gently flowing rivers, with visits to small towns of pretty stone-built houses.

There were balls and musical evenings and afternoon parties on the castle’s sweeping lawns.

The middle of December was less conducive to entertaining.

Sleety showers kept all but the most intrepid indoors, where the only recourse was to arrange one’s own entertainment.

One group was working on a performance of Julius Caesar, while another was engaged in reciting poetry, preferably learnt by heart.

Several ladies had commandeered the gallery to practice archery, and some of the matrons were busy renovating a large and very dilapidated tapestry.

Olivia would normally have been eager to join in one or other of these projects, but more often than not she found herself listlessly sitting in a window, watching the wind tossing the trees about, and listening to icy rain spattering against the window panes.

Sometimes Lord Embleton sat with her, and then she made an effort to be her usual lively self, for what man would want a silent wife?

But he himself seemed glum, and she could not honestly say that their betrothal brought happiness to either of them.

When she was alone, and especially in her bed at night, her thoughts were drawn to Robert, and that strange conversation they had had.

‘ You are yourself, and it is you I love, not Izzy. You are better than her in a thousand ways.’ So he had said, but she had not believed a word of it.

She had refused even to listen to him. But what if she had?

What if she had asked him what he meant by that…

would he have convinced her? He had said he loved her, and she had hurled his words back in his face as if they were nothing.

And the worst thought, the one that had crept into her mind and buried itself there, so that she could not quite dislodge it was — did it matter if he only loved her because she was like Izzy?

Love is love, however it arises, and he was too kind to turn away from her later because he discovered that in fact she was nothing like Izzy.

And even if he loved the ghost of Izzy now, over time he might grow to love Olivia for herself in very truth.

If only she had paused for a moment, and talked to him, like a rational being, instead of shouting at him.

But she had been so shaken by Lord Embleton’s accusations that she had hardly known what either of them said.

And then she had been so upset by quarrelling with Robert that she had accepted Lord Embleton’s proposal without a thought. And now…

She hardly knew what she felt now. She ought to be happy, but she was too confused to know whether she was or not.

All she was sure of was that a little corner of her hoped that Robert would come to Lochmaben.

Not to fight for her, perhaps, but to show her that he was not still angry with her.

It would be some comfort, in all the strangeness of her betrothal, to know that they could be friends again.

But he did not come. Lady Kiltarlity and her daughters came, and stayed for the prescribed time and then left again, but when she asked how Robert was, they said only that he was a little out of spirits, which told her nothing.

No doubt he had a difficult problem with a tenant or a coal mine or some such thing. That always put him out of frame.

It was the oddest thing, but she had never felt so alone as now, when she was surrounded by company and all of it lively and willing to amuse and be amused.

At any other time she would have thrived in such a situation, delighting in the multitude of friendly faces.

Yet she felt disconnected from everyone there.

Her cousins cheerfully assumed she was happy and talked excitedly about her wedding and future life as a marchioness, and even Papa, who sighed and shook his head at the prospect of losing her, had no doubts about her betrothal.

“What a wonderful thing for you,” he said more than once.

“You will be a great lady and rule over society. I congratulate you, daughter.”

As for Effie, the friendship with Olivia had fallen into abeyance as quickly as it had arisen.

Effie found fertile ground for her talents at Lochmaben, naturally, for there were innumerable young men, and a few beyond the years of youth, who were willing to indulge her desire for flirtation, and she skipped from one to another with a roguish twinkle in her eye and a definite spring in her step.

Her brother made no effort to restrain her, and barely even seemed to notice her, so Olivia, who disapproved violently of such behaviour, felt that she could safely ignore her former friend.

If Effie were to go her length while under the duke’s roof, as seemed to be somewhat likely, the responsibility would be her brother’s.

But the loss of her friend left her with no confidante, no one to whom she could turn and say, “Why do I feel so unsettled? Am I doing the right thing?”

Even with Lord Embleton, who should be her greatest friend and comfort, she could not be at ease.

Olivia found she spent surprisingly little time with him.

He was one of the crowd at breakfast, of course, and in the evenings he punctiliously sought her out and escorted her into dinner.

Yet there was no eagerness on either side, and an awkwardness that she had not anticipated.

Having devoted all her efforts to attracting his attention, now that she had it, she was not quite sure what to do with it.

There was a complication, too, in that he had made a new friend amongst the other guests at Lochmaben, and one not from his own level of society.

Olivia had noticed her on their first evening at the castle, overhearing one voice at dinner that was most definitely from the merchant class, yet the girl seemed to be quite a favourite with the ladies of the castle, and Lady Galloway in particular.

“Who is she?” she asked one of the cousins at dinner that evening.

He smiled knowingly. “Ah yes. A gift from Izzy. That, my dear cousin, is Miss Ruth Plowman, the daughter of… well, I am not quite sure. A mill owner or wool merchant or some such. One of these northern men of enterprise. She was supposed to marry Sydney Davenport — you remember the Davenports, I am sure. Anyway, Izzy blew in like a summer storm, scotched the betrothal, scooped up the Miss Plowmans and brought them here, where they rapidly made themselves indispensable.”

“The Miss Plowmans? How many of them are there?”

“Only the two, Miss Plowman and Miss Marian Plowman. That is the younger girl over there — the one in the pale blue dress. Very quiet, though — barely says a word.”

“Her older sister makes up for it, however. Well, how like Izzy to stir things up!”

He laughed. “Indeed. Never a dull moment with her. Nor with you — betrothed to Embleton, indeed! Not the marrying kind, one might have supposed, but there we are. You Atherton girls draw us poor men like moths to the flame.”

“I hope we do not burn anyone,” Olivia said, rather offended. “Like bees to the blossom, perhaps, would be a more flattering description.”

But he only laughed before turning to his companion on the other side.

Later that evening, however, Olivia’s attention was drawn to Miss Plowman in the most unexpected way.

The gentlemen had just begun to rejoin the ladies after dinner, amongst them Lord Embleton, who was deep in conversation with the duke, in his usual stuttering way.

Miss Plowman broke off her own conversation with an ‘Oh!’ of surprise, then, to Olivia’s astonishment, she rose and with quick steps crossed the room to place herself before the marquess.