She felt an arm round her shoulders. “Come, sister, let us escape from this mêlée. Where is your room?”
“Izzy? What are you doing here?” Olivia said between sobs.
“I was just about to ask you the same question,” Izzy whispered. “We thought you were at Strathinver. Farramont, where are you? Ah, there you are. Will you see about rooms and luggage and such like, while Olivia and I have a cosy chat? No doubt you will have letters to write, as well.”
“No doubt I will,” he said, smiling affectionately at her, before disappearing towards the footmen dealing with mounds of luggage.
The two sisters retreated to Olivia’s room, where a fire burned low in the hearth.
“Let us get a bit of a blaze going,” Izzy said, taking up the coal tongs and rapidly tossing lumps of coal onto the fire. “Goodness, but I am chilled! One forgets how dismal the roads are in December. I cannot remember the last time I was warm. Will you ring the bell for some wine for me? The fire will warm myhands and feet, but I must have something to warm me inside, as well.”
“Why on earth are you travelling at all?” Olivia said. “In your condition, you should be safely tucked up at Stonywell, warm and snug.”
Izzy only chuckled. “I am past the sickly stage and not yet at the elephant stage,” she said with a little shrug. “Besides, when one travels with Ian, nothing can possibly go wrong. He will not allow it. As to why, we came because of you, sister dear. We were concerned for you.”
“For me? But I have Papa with me. There is nothing to be concerned about.”
“Is there not? Your last letter — six pages, Olivia, and on the one hand telling all your hopes for Lord Embleton, and on the other rattling on for pages about the oh-so-amusing Lord Kiltarlity — or Osborn, as you are pleased to call him. You sounded in a sad muddle, and Mama insisted we come haring up here to sort you out. But what has brought you to Lochmaben, sister? We quite thought you were settled at Strathinver with the two men you are dithering over. What happened? Did you fall out with Lady Kiltarlity? She can be a bit of a she-dragon sometimes.”
“No falling out.”
“Then…?”
“I am betrothed to Lord Embleton.”
Izzy gave a squeak of surprise. “That was sudden! My goodness, so you have achieved your ambition, young lady, and Josie and I are quite put in the shade. A marchioness… and a duchess, eventually. My dear Olivia, my sincere felicitations. If you knew how many caps have been tossed Embleton’s way over the years, and he has ignored them all, yet you, not even properly out of the schoolroom, have succeeded where everyone else has failed. How did you do it?”
Olivia gave a rueful smile. “I have no idea. I was crying… about something… and he just proposed.”
“You werecrying?Well, you often find something or other to cry about. A broken lace, the stable cat bringing home a dead bird…”
“It was nothing like that!” Olivia said sharply. “I may cry easily, Izzy, but I am not achildany more, or perhaps you have not noticed?”
“I beg your pardon,” Izzy said. “It is abominable of me to tease you at such a time. But will you not tell me the whole story? Of both your young men, that is, for there is more to this than meets the eye, I fancy.”
So Olivia told the tale, what little there was to tell, as Izzy walked about the room, a glass of wine in her hand, asking the occasional question but mostly simply listening. Tea and cakes had arrived with the wine, so Olivia fortified herself suitably as she talked, and gradually she began to feel better. As she laid out the whole of her dealings with the marquess, she began to feel it was all perfectly reasonable. There was nothing there to unsettle her, was there? She had set her heart on the marquess, but she had not flirted or tried to compromise him or even thrown herself in his way. And when he proposed, she had accepted, so what was wrong with that? She was happy, was she not?
At the end of the recitation, as she reached for another cake, for there was nothing like cake for reassuring one, Izzy laughed.
“Oh sister, what a mess you have made of it!”
“Have I?” Olivia said, dropping the cake in surprise.
“Of course. Can you not see it? You quarrelled with Lord Embleton, and you were angry. Robert proposed but you were too angry to listen. Then you cried, Lord Embleton found you crying, thought it was all about him, so he proposed.”
“And I accepted,” Olivia said. “It is what I want.”
“Has he told you he loves you?”
“No, but—”
“Has he kissed you?”
“No, but—”
“Do you want him to?”
Silence.
