He’d make an apology, as Stanton advised. And then he’d do his best to avoid her for the duration of his stay.
It wouldn’t do to be called out by one of his best friends.
* * *
Olivia clutchedher handkerchief tightly as she and her mother waited for Papa to escort Louella down the aisle to meet her groom. Once Louella married, nothing would be the same again. Lord Stanton, her husband, would always come first. And then children. The thought lightened her heart for a moment. Olivia would be an aunt. She could spoil and play with her nieces and nephews to her heart’s content.
Perhaps. So long as the duke’s family did not take issue with her appearance, or even worse, see fit to agree with her father’s beliefs.
A prickling feeling drew her attention upward. What she saw had her heart skipping a beat.
Lord Kingsley.
She had nowhere to hide this time.
The man who had stumbled upon her the evening before stared down from his position beside the marquess with eyes so dark as to nearly be black. He would see her fully now. He would remember.
Upon meeting her gaze, his eyes narrowed.
Just as the darkness had hidden her from his view, she’d not gotten a good look at him last night either.
His chin, his jaw, and his physique had all hardened over the past decade. His glossy black hair seemed thicker now, more rebellious. Although pulled into a queue, a few strands had escaped and curled ever so slightly along his face. He did not have the clean-cut appearance that the marquess had. Kingsley’s beard shadowed his pale face, as though he’d not shaved for the occasion, and he wore boots instead of buckled shoes.
Was this the same man she’d danced with and teased in the dark last night? She knew that it was, and yet—a shiver rolled through her—none of it had been real.
He was anearl. Louella was marrying a marquess, the heir to a duke. Although Olivia was the bride’s sister, she would never be a part of their world. Her parents had made this very plain to her. After the physician declared her eye would never appear normal, they’d done nothing to hide their disappointment.
“No gentleman of any worth will make a respectable offer to a cockeyed gel. Cursed, by God. An abomination,” her father had told her mother at the supper table one night. “Best to put what resources remain behind Louella.”
Louella had met Olivia’s gaze from across the table, full of sympathy and pain. “Don’t worry,” Olivia had mouthed silently to Louella, wanting to reassure her. “I’m fine.” Olivia didn’t want Louella to pity her.
The very next week, her parents had officially transferred the funds set aside for Olivia into Louella’s dowry account. And a few months after that, they opened the dower house on the edge of the property and moved Olivia and her maid, Mary, into it.
Her mother had made some attempts to paint the move in a positive light, but Olivia had known it for what it was: a means to keep her and her wandering eye out of sight. One step from completely disowning her.
They’d not wanted any of Louella’s perspective suitors to have cause for concern that the affliction might run in the family.
As a child, Olivia had never considered her eye something to be ashamed of. She’d stared people fully in the face. Her uncertainty came later on, after her mother ordered her to drop her gaze to the ground whenever in public. It had been her mother’s way of protecting her from insult. “You can speak to them, just don’t let them see your eye. Poor dear, you could have been so pretty.”
In the years since, Olivia’s confidence diminished with all but Louella and a few locals in the village, people she saw regularly; merchants, local laborers, and some of her father’s tenants.
As long as she stayed in her own world, she was fine.
But not in this one.
The earl shifted his gaze away, dismissing her.
This was not her world.
No gentleman of any worth will make a respectable offer to a cockeyed gel.The words had probably run through her mind over a million times since she’d heard them spoken.A curse. An abomination.
Olivia dropped her gaze to the prayer book in her hand. She would skip the breakfast.
No one would mind in the least.
Chapter 3
Being Neighborly
