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.”
“Hepoisoned 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 beallhe 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—”
“Oh!” came a startled male voice right behind her.
She spun around. Thank heavens they hadn’t been speaking aloud.
Elijah made a chagrined face. “I smelled biscuits, and I...” He shook his head. “I didn’t mean to interrupt your time with your father. I can go and entertain myself. I’ve neglected my research long enough.”
She blinked, then interpreted this for her father. “Research?”
“Oh.” A flush crept up his cheeks. “That’s nothing. It’s just...”
She waited.
“...botany,” he finished.
“Botany?” she repeated, unsure she’d heard him correctly.
Flowers didn’t sound like the domain of Gothic villains.
“How you feel about horses is how I feel aboutcinchona officinalis,” he said in a rush. “I’m a small part of the procedure, but I’m working with a chemist interested in furthering the experiments I’ve been conducting with dozens of important gardens, and I...” He took a breath. “...have been talking too much about botany. I’ll go.”
As she interpreted for her father, Elijah turned toward the door.
“Wait.”
He stopped.
With a wink, Papa handed Olive a plate of biscuits and returned to the kitchen.
