What she saw there made her want to gasp. She stared at him unabashedly. Why had she not noticed what must have been so obvious before? He was, she decided without any hesitation, a handsome man. His gray eyes, so dark and unusual in color, stared straight ahead, looking at neither the minister nor at her. His nose, a perfect aquiline in profile, sat between prominently chiseled cheekbones. Olivia thought he had a noble brow. His forehead was tall and square without being too large, and it carried his raven black hair without pretension.
But the expression she had noted earlier on him was still there. He had a solemn, unhappy look to him, she thought. Oh, he wasn’t crying or anything like that— grown men didn’t cry, after all—it was just that he looked so…so determined. And intense. And more than a little scary.
Olivia gave a start. The whole time she had been staring at the man she called her pirate, the one who looked like a minister had been speaking. She had been so engrossed in studying the man next to her, she had completely failed to take in the rest of her surroundings. Guiltily she tried to concentrate on his words now. She blinked a time or two before she gave up trying to follow the lofty language. She had never been fond of religious talk, anyway.
As the odd ceremony continued, a frown began to form on Olivia’s delicate brow. What did this evening mean, and why was everyone acting so strangely? She tried to puzzle the clues out, glancing back at her father as she did. But from his glassy eyes, she guessed she would get no help from that quarter.
With another guilty twinge, Olivia brought her attention back to the front of the room. The minister had stopped speaking and was staring at her with an intensity that was somehow frightening. Had she missed a response? Gads, that would be awful. He would think she didn’t know the first thing about religion. Usually when there was a silence like this, it meant a response of some kind was in order. Muttering the only religious phrase she knew, Olivia quietly avowed, “Amen.”
As the silence stretched on, Traverston began to collect that the chit standing next to him had no idea what was going on. Her ridiculous response to the question only confirmed his suspicions. Wentworth must not have told his daughter a thing. His already low opinion of his neighbor dropped another inch. The cad probably hadn’t even mentioned that she had a speaking role in tonight’s little drama, he thought disgustedly.
For the first time in that strange, unearthly night, the tall stranger looked down at Olivia. His eyes, smoky with a depth that seemed to penetrate her to her very soul, smiled gently into hers. Carefully taking one of her small hands into his own, he spoke.
“You have only to say ‘I do,’ and your father will take you home and tuck you into your nice warm bed. You’d like that, wouldn’t you, Olivia?”
His deep voice, soothing and gentle to her ears, lulled Olivia into a kind of trance. Acting without conscious thought, she nodded as she opened her mouth and softly repeated, “I do.”
Traverston rewarded the child with a smile and turned to face the minister, her hand still firmly held in his own. Olivia glanced back at her father, but he looked as though he had been turned to stone. His eyes never left the marquis’s back.
The ceremony ended quickly. Before leaving the room, the minister signed a piece of paper and handed both pen and paper to the marquis. With quick efficiency, he scrawled his name and title across the page. Next he handed both over to Olivia whom he instructed to do likewise. Finally, Wentworth also signed the page, his handwriting barely legible.
Without saying a word to his host, Wentworth grabbed his daughter by the hand and began pulling her down the aisle at a rapid pace. Olivia looked back over her shoulder to see if the pirate was following her, but he simply stood near the alter and watched them go.
As the pair reached the hallway, Olivia managed to tug herself free from her father. Frustrated and tired, she demanded, “Papa, what was that all about?”
Wentworth did not bother to answer her, but simply regained his grip on his daughter and resumed dragging her toward the great hall. He had one thought and one thought only—to get out of the house as quickly as possible.
Stumbling behind him, Olivia was just about to descend the stairs leading down to their hired carriage when a voice from behind brought them up short. Wentworth took one look at Olivia and ungently pushed her in the direction of the coach. “Get in the carriage,” he commanded. His tone brooked no argument.
The Marquis of Traverston’s tall, lean frame appeared in the giant entrance of his home. “Ah, there you are, Wentworth.” His smile was sardonic, triumphant. Without giving the least hint he was aware of his guest’s discomfort, he paused to take an object out of his coat pocket before continuing. “’Tis a trifle big for her now, but I will expect it to be on her finger when I come for her eight years from now.”
Slowly Wentworth opened the box the marquis had handed him. Inside, a magnificent diamond and sapphire ring rested on a bed of velvet. When Wentworth failed to make a response, Traverston added cuttingly, “The ring was entailed with the estate. It was one of the few things I wasn’t allowed to hock in this crumbling heap. Otherwise, you can be sure, she would have received nothing from me.”
Without a word, Wentworth snapped the box shut and stuffed it into his coat pocket. Traverston noted the speed with which his guest raced down the stairs was most unbecoming to a gentleman. Pleased with Wentworth’s reaction, the marquis smiled. His new father-in-law had acted as though he were being chased by all the devils in hell. Good, he nodded to himself complacently. It would be nice to have some company when he got there.
Olivia sat before the solicitor, her hands folded neatly in her lap. Her black bombazine dress trimmed with the faintest smattering of lace, more appropriate on a widow of advanced years than on a young miss still very much in the schoolroom, loudly proclaimed to all and sundry her state of mourning.
It wasn’t that she was pretentious, thought the middle-aged gentleman sitting across his desk from her. Olivia just genuinely seemed to have preferred that particular style of gown above all others. He should know: his wife had helped her choose it. Still she looked neat and tidy. He studied her openly from his vantage point.
Olivia was a beautiful child, of that there could be no doubt. But her beauty lacked something. Mr. Potts’s frown deepened as he tried to ponder what that missing element might be. Then he had it. She lacked fire. Olivia was simply not a spirited child. Oh, no. And she was not your typical twelve-year-old, either.
Mr. Potts continued his analysis of the girl, careful to keep his scrutiny away from his visitor’s eyes. Olivia’s icy blue eyes unnerved her solicitor. Whatever thoughts she might have had on the matter at hand were carefully locked away behind those cool eyes. They absorbed everything around them and gave absolutely nothing back.
The rest of her face, while equally noncommittal, was much less disturbing to him. He studied her finely chiseled features and then frowned. She might as well have been a wall for all the information her attitude gave away to him.
Nervously Mr. Potts cleared his throat. He had thought this interview would be rather simple, really. Just give the chit the get-go and be done with it. Faced with her impenetrable silence, however, he wasn’t sure the task would be as easy as he had first imagined. He cleared his throat again, loosening his cravat with one finger. No, this wasn’t going to be easy. If only she wouldn’t stare at him so!
Thankfully, Olivia was getting rather impatient with her lawyer. She decided to have pity on him, if only to get the conversation moving. “You found a place for me to go.” Her voice, although still childish in pitch, sounded strangely grown-up. She didn’t phrase the sentence as a question. She simply stated what she knew to be true.
Mr. Potts jumped for the olive branch with startling quickness. “Yes!”