Page 18 of Not a Chance in Hell (The Chances #6)

T here was a very slight damp spot just in the top left corner of the ceiling. Strange. Arthur had never noticed it before.

But then, he had never spent two hours slumped in an armchair in the library staring up at the ceiling before.

The shadows moved slowly. He had half-expected them to disappear, for clouds to come and cover the sun and make it impossible to see. Why should the sun shine when he felt like the world was ending?

Slowly, the shadows crept over the ceiling, moving from east to west. Eventually, the light faded, a footman stepping quietly into the room to light the lamps. He stepped right past Arthur, who remained slumped there.

Arthur said nothing.

The footman completed his duties and left, shutting the door behind him. Arthur remained looking up at the ceiling, his fingers cold from the lack of movement.

“There was not a chance in hell you could truly change.”

“But I love you!”

“Really? I would hate to see how you treat those you say you despise, my lord.”

He closed his eyes, squeezing them tightly. Perhaps if he just fell asleep here, he would wake up and that dreadful conversation would never have happened. Perhaps he could will it away, hope he could have another attempt at explaining.

“Celeste wanted to resume our old—our old connection, and I said no .”

He relaxed his eyes though kept them shut. He did not want to move. What was the point in moving? Where would he go? What would he do?

There was a possibility that Lilianna would speak to him. He could go to her home, bang on the door and demand entrance, and all she would have to do is stay on the other side, not letting him in.

Her lady’s maid would be there by now. For all he knew, a footman or three had arrived. It would not be difficult for them to remove him, and then what would he do?

Bring disrepute and shame onto Lilianna.

Arthur gave a heavy sigh. Oh, it was such a mess—and it was all of his making, though of course not directly.

He’d been slapdash when he’d written back to Celeste.

He’d never properly explained that he was seeking a wife, not a lover.

Christ, there was so many opportunities now he looked back that he could have altered this outcome. He hadn’t known at the time, worse luck, but then no man ever did.

It was only after the wave had come crashing down on your head that you realized the tides had changed.

What a damn fool he was.

As he stretched out his toes, a crick from his back echoed around the room. He was going to sit here forever. What was the point in moving? Where would he go? What would he do?

A throat cleared itself. “And when, precisely, do you intend to join the land of the living?”

Arthur’s eyes snapped open. There was a face above him. The face looked, as it often did, indignant. Its curls framed its face beautifully, yet the expression was like thunder.

“Oh, hello,” he said weakly.

The face sniffed. “I don’t suppose you want to explain why you’ve been sitting in this armchair for several hours, worrying your servants half to death?”

His cousin could be so comforting sometimes.

“I haven’t been worrying my servants half to death,” Arthur pointed out, from the admittedly weak position of both staring up at Olive and not knowing where his servants had been for the last few hours. Except the footman. Hadn’t there been a footman?

She frowned. “And so I return to my original question. When will you be joining the land of the living?”

Something harsh caught in Arthur’s throat. “I don’t deserve to.”

A dark eyebrow raised. “Ah. That bad, is it?”

Arthur closed his eyes, just for a moment, and tried not to think about the last conversation he had shared with Lilianna. It was cruel, for Celeste to come into his perfect life and ruin it just as he had found the woman he wanted to spend the rest of his life with—and, most importantly, after he had finally convinced her to do just that.

She’d never forgive him.

“You have no idea,” Arthur croaked.

How long had it been since he’d had something to drink? Hours. But what did that matter? He had nothing important to say anymore. Anything meaningful had been stated to Lilianna and she had not listened.

She had walked away from him, and out of his life.

Dear God, when had he become so pathetic?

“I see,” said Olive sardonically. “So you have fallen in love, then?”

Fallen in love. Why did anyone do it? Only pain and disappointment and heartache. It left you alone, and miserable, and sitting on your library floor for hours at a time.

Arthur groaned. “In love? Yes. For the first time, and it’s the worst I have felt in my entire life.”

His cousin’s face disappeared, but she did not depart from the library. Instead, there was the sound of a chair scraping along a rug. The noise grew louder until it ceased, and instead, the rustle of fabrics shifting as a person sat echoed about the place.

“Your entire life has been excessively spoilt and gilded, if you ask me,” said Olive calmly. “With that in mind, I am not astonished to hear that falling in love has been more adventurous.”

“More adventurous”? Why, if she knew what I got up to with a marquess’s daughter.

Arthur managed to swallow back the words before they escaped his tongue. No, that was probably not the best idea. Olive was a most understanding cousin and he was fortunate to have her… but even their relationship would be stretched if some of those revelations were to come to light.

“In love,” mused Olive. “I never thought I’d see the day.”

“Can we concentrate less on the ‘in love’ and more on the ‘worst I have ever felt,’ please?” Arthur knew he sounded petulant, his overall tone not helped by the fact that he was still slumped in the armchair.

The trouble was, he felt so lethargic, so utterly devoid of energy. What was the point of getting up, anyway? Where would he go? What would he do?

Nothing. He would always be wishing to be with Lilianna, and as she wouldn’t see him…

“I do apologize, how remiss of me,” came the cutting sarcasm of his only living relative. “The worst you have ever felt. Pray, tell me more.”

Arthur decided to ignore the blatant rudeness and instead concentrate on the fact that someone was listening to him. “Well… I was so lonely after Archibald died. You can’t imagine—”

“And I am going to stop you right there, you selfish, self-centered idiot,” rang out his cousin’s calm words. “Did it ever occur to you in that breath that I very well could imagine? That in fact I too lost a cousin, and worse, I then lost my remaining cousin to the earldom and you completely vanished overnight? I have been your only family this entire time, you fool. You could have come to me. You should have come to me.”

Silence settled onto her words like softly falling snow.

Arthur sat up so hurriedly, stars popped into the corners of his eyes. He blinked them away. “I… I should have done. You’re right.”

His cousin was snorting and muttering something about how she was always right, but Arthur could not heed her words because so many thoughts were whirling about his mind.

Olive would have understood. She had lost Archibald, just as he had. He could have gone to her—more than for amusing interludes of hiding behind screens and in general making a complete ass out of himself.

Why on earth hadn’t he done so?

Because , a nasty little voice at the back of his mind pointed out, because you discounted women. You still do! You don’t expect much and so you don’t get much.

“I… I have been a terrible cousin, haven’t I?” Arthur said in a small voice.

He’d expected Olive to smile, preen for a moment, then console him.

He hadn’t expected her to say, “Yes,” in such a definite tone.

“ Olive !”

“Well, you have,” she said sternly. “Fairly awful, all told. You haven’t asked me how I’m feeling for about six months, by the way, and if you had bothered to do so, you would have discovered something rather to your benefit.”

Arthur blinked. “I would?”

He couldn’t think what on earth Olive could say to make him feel better, but evidently that was the wrong answer, because his cousin sighed and leaned back against the chair.

“If your mother had lived longer, she would have had a great influence on you. As it was, Uncle and Grandfather took more of a hand in your education and… Well. It shows.”

Heat scalded Arthur’s cheeks. “You know, I am not completely useless.”

“Really?” Olive was laughing now, and he couldn’t for the life of him understand why. “Lord, you are dense sometimes. Ask me how I am, Arthur.”

Arthur frowned. “How—How are you, Olive?”

“Very much with child, thank you for asking,” his cousin said with glowing cheeks.

“‘Very…’?” His eyes widened. “You’re not.”

“I am, in fact, extremely with child,” Olive said with a laugh. “You really haven’t noticed? It’s been all over town the last week. I presumed the rumor had reached you by now and you had not sent your congratulations because you were all wrapped up with your lady love.”

Olive… with child?

Well, it was a fairly common consequence of marriage, Arthur had to give her that, but—

“You’re going to have a baby!” he said in a croaking voice.

Olive’s eyes were full of pity. “That makes you an uncle, I hope you realize, for I find myself without siblings entirely and as Barlow has no siblings, that leaves you the only one. Potentially an heir to your sorry earldom, if he’s a boy and I have other sons. I hope you are determined to make a good go of being an uncle, by the way, or I may have to skin you. Alive.”

A baby—a new child, a new life, who to him would be a niece or a nephew.

Arthur could hardly take it in. A baby. Another part of the family, not a replacement of who came before, but an extension of who could be in his life today.

Though now he came to look at her, Olive was looking a tad rounded in the stomach area. Nothing to shout about, nothing that a casual observer— damn, like himself —would have noticed. She may as well have eaten too many cakes.

Olive was smiling. There was that glow, the glow he should have noticed if he hadn’t been so self-centered for the past…

Arthur hesitated. Month? Year?

When was the last time he had worried, truly worried about his cousin?

“You are well, aren’t you?” he said urgently, fear rushing through his bones. “You and the baby, you’re both in good health?”

“Dr. Walsingham seems to think so, and he’s been in practice long enough to know what he’s doing,” said Olive airily. “Barlow has been a complete nuisance—”

“Yes, well,” Arthur interrupted.

His cousin shot him a glare. “You should be nicer to him, you know.”

“I suppose I should,” said Arthur, another layer of guilt coming on thick and fast. Truth be told, he had never made much of an effort. Olive had married the man a week before Archibald had died, and the burden of the estate had rather distracted him. “But you’re healthy? The baby, it’ll come soon?”

“Oh, yes, soon.”

“What, like now?” Arthur rose swiftly, as though a baby could shoot out of her at any moment.

Olive laughed. “Oh, Arthur, before you get married, I am going to have a little talk with you.”

His stomach lurched. “Hell, I don’t need the birds and the bees talk with you .”

“You need a good talking to, that’s all I’ll say,” she said darkly. “You’ve hardly noticed me these last few months, and I tell you now, Arthur, you have missed out. You’ll never get that time back again and I want you to know that you’ve been quite irritating.”

His reflexes told him to shout back, to deny it, to refute every word she said.

His instincts knew better.

“Oh damn,” he said quietly. “I have been a terrible cousin.”

His cousin’s giggle was not exactly comforting, but it did suggest a more lighthearted approach to the whole disaster than he would have attempted.

“Come here, you clot,” Olive said, patting the seat beside her.

It was a chaise and not a chair that she had dragged across the room. Now Arthur that knew of her condition, guilt resurfaced. She shouldn’t have been lugging furniture around—that was his job!

Well. Not necessarily his, exactly. One of his servants’.

“Look,” said Olive firmly as Arthur dropped onto the seat beside her with a grump. “You weren’t raised to have emotions. Neither you nor Archibald were. You were raised to be—”

“Idiots,” Arthur said dully.

“Men,” said his cousin sharply. “Though the way you’re behaving, I can see why you were confused.”

She didn’t need to push the knife in any deeper, and the thought must have shown on his face because she sighed.

“You weren’t brought up to have emotions, and most definitely not to express them,” Olive said quietly. “It’s not your fault. Not entirely.”

Arthur snorted. “First time for everything.”

“Are you just going to wallow, or are we going to have a proper conversation?”

There was the Olive he knew of old. Arthur grinned. “You’re going to be a wonderful mother, you know that?”

“Of course I will,” his cousin said primly. “So. You have managed to get yourself into a pickle.”

Heat seared his cheeks. Lord, this was not the sort of conversation one wanted to have with one’s cousin. Especially not when she was examining him with her head tilted, her mouth soft—a knowing, almost pitying expression.

“Whatever you have heard,” Arthur began, not quite sure how to approach this conversation, “about a—a mistress, or—”

“It’s probably true, I am sure,” said Olive with a grin.

The heat in his cheeks was almost certainly visible, but there wasn’t anything Arthur could do about it. He flopped back on the chaise and groaned instead. “How could this have happened?”

“I see,” his cousin said quietly. “True enough for you to have given up on her, then.”

Arthur cringed. “It’s she who has given up on me .”

“Oh, I see. You were tempting her back by… lounging around your library and moping.”

He shot her a look. “You know, you’re not being very comforting here. I had expected sympathy.”

“Well, this is what you’re getting,” Olive said sharply. “No one said anything about having to mother your cousin after he was of age, and to be quite frank, Arthur, I have bigger problems than you and Lady Lilianna Chance not being able to communicate for more than five minutes together.”

His back stiffened. “Don’t you speak about her like that! I won’t have it, you hear? If Lilianna—if Lady Lilianna Chance is to be spoken of at all, it’s to be done with respect.”

Arthur did not recognize the expression in his cousin’s eyes for a few seconds, and when he did, he groaned. Again.

“You look pleased.”

“Well, it’s pleasant to see you defending her. You’ve never spoken about any woman like that,” Olive pointed out calmly. “You truly care about her, you dolt, which begs the question: what are you doing here, and not going after this woman you claim to love?”

Arthur swallowed.

How could he make her understand? There were such complexities, such layers to his interactions with Lilianna. It had all started out as something completely different to what it had become, and he had hoped, longed for it to become even more.

But he wouldn’t force her. He was not the sort of man to batter down doors and put a woman in an awkward position.

Lilianna would not thank him for that.

“She…” Arthur hesitated, but barreled forward. “She deserves better than me.”

“Probably,” came his cousin’s unsympathetic reply.

He couldn’t help but laugh, even if it was a laugh of impatience. “You are most unhelpful, you know!”

“I don’t see anyone else lining up to help you,” came the cool response.

Arthur’s swift reply caught in his throat and died away.

There was no bitterness in her eyes, no cruelty, yet the words cut deep. Mostly because they were true.

He had never been one for friends. Friends were just people who would want something from you, and besides, he had Archibald. Why have friends when you could have a brother?

When he had died…

At first, he hadn’t noticed. Why would Arthur notice when he had being an earl and sorting out land estates and title deeds and trying to memorize all the servants’ names to keep himself busy?

Only now, with Olive beside him and no one else bothering to check on him, did Arthur realize just how alone he had become.

That will change , Arthur vowed to himself. It would have to, now he had lost Lilianna.

“You say that you don’t deserve her,” came his cousin’s quiet voice. “And perhaps you don’t. But you want her, and more importantly, you want to deserve her. Sometimes that can be enough.”

Arthur laughed bitterly as he recalled the look on Lilianna’s face—the last look of hers he would ever see. “There is not a chance in hell that she would ever accept me.”

“Arthur—”

“I don’t think she would even consider speaking to me,” he added, pain radiating through him at the thought. “She’s… She’s gone, Olive. And I didn’t explain, not fully—not properly. It all happened so fast.”

They fell into silence as Arthur’s mind whirled. There was more he could have said, should have said—but the shock of Celeste, then Lilianna, it had been too much for his brain to contend with.

“I suppose you know that she would not accept you,” Olive said delicately. “Having gone over to the Aylesbury townhouse, and apologized, and explained, and apologized again, and then received the ‘no’ you’re so sure about.”

She met his eye with a quizzical expression.

How did they do it? Was this something all women were taught upon reaching the age of majority? The way she could look at him, stern and yet polite, all sweetness and light and rock-solid steel underneath?

Arthur bit his lip and shifted his hands awkwardly in his lap. “Well… Well, no. Not exactl—ouch!”

A heavy cushion with a velvet covering smashed into his face.

When it departed and he had blinked sufficiently for his sight to return, it was to see an irate Olive, her lips trembling and a vein surfacing at her temple. “You complete dolt!”

“Olive—ouch!”

The second whack with the cushion should have hurt less, not more , Arthur thought, his head spinning.

“What do you mean, you haven’t gone over there?”

“Well, I— really !”

The third whack with the cushion came so fast that although Arthur intended to catch hold and prevent his very—no, extremely with child cousin from whacking him again—it slipped through his fingers.

Olive was panting heavily and glaring. “I can’t believe you. I thought this, all this moping, was because you had gone after her and failed! You mean to tell me that you haven’t even tried?”

“She doesn’t want to hear my excuses—I mean, my very valid explanation,” Arthur added hastily, his head slightly spinning from the repeated whacks.

“Oh, well, if you want to walk away from happiness, be my guest,” said Olive with a sigh as she placed the cushion down—out of Arthur’s reach, worse luck. “I suppose you know best.”

Arthur’s jaw tightened.

He had thought he had. He had been so sure Lilianna would never open the door for him, never wish to hear his explanation—and his appearance would surely cause comment, cause a storm of scandal to descend upon her.

He wouldn’t wish that on any young lady of the ton .

No one knew the beautiful Lilianna had given him her virtue—there hadn’t even been a servant there to wonder. And his own servants, well… Haslehaw knew not to spread such rumors. She’d avoid scandal that way, even if she never allowed him to do the honorable thing and marry her.

For he could not force the issue. It was her honor to protect. And so it was her decision.

But was there a slight opportunity—and Olive appeared to think that there was, and after all, she was a woman—that Lilianna wanted to hear from him?

Wanted to relive that awful moment, if only to see if they could reconcile? Be together?

Be happy?

“And where do you think you’re going?”

Arthur cursed as he ran toward the door. “Damn you, Olive, for always being right!”

His cousin’s laughter followed him as he threw himself through the door. “I suppose we know now why you never ask for my advice—good luck!”

Good luck. Well, he was going to need it. Arthur had given no hint of exaggeration to his cousin when he had given his honest appraisal of the situation: there was not chance in hell this was going to work.

But he could never live with himself if he didn’t try.