The Blackmailed Bride. Mandy Goff

the growth, making it easy for her to simply meander. The day was beautiful. The green hills stretched as far as she could see, and the trees swayed with the gentle, rifling breeze.

      She felt herself calming. She’d not cried this morning at all. She could do this. She would agree to Finley’s proposal. Olivia had no other choice.

      But she wouldn’t let it destroy her. Finley was only a person after all.

      And hadn’t she faced worse?

      And done so alone?

      “Lady Olivia, is that you?”

      Olivia started at the voice, wondering who had intercepted her on the path. She turned toward the sound, finding the parish vicar strolling behind her.

      “Reverend Thomas,” she greeted. The minister had been in his position since before she was born. He was a grandfatherly man. And while she no longer ascribed to his particular view of God, she was glad to see him.

      “It is an unexpected pleasure to see you,” he said, coming abreast of her. “Is your brother in residence as well?”

      “Yes. We returned this morning.”

      “Have you given up on London already?” he asked with a conspiratorial wink. He knew how Olivia had fought to stay home after Marcus’s decree.

      “I’m afraid we’ll be returning in a few days.”

      “Will you be coming to the service tomorrow?” he asked hopefully.

      The thought made her uncomfortable. “I am not certain what my brother intends.”

      “Well, we’ve certainly missed you here,” the minister said.

      She smiled at him, hoping it reached all the way to her eyes. “I can’t tell you how difficult it’s been being in London and knowing I must stay there until the end of the Season.”

      “Surely it’s been enjoyable as well?” he asked her.

      “I prefer the assemblies here over the balls there. And nothing compares to an evening staring at the sky and the stars from my bedroom window at Westin Park.”

      Reverend Thomas smiled knowingly. “Well, I, for one, am surprised some gentleman hasn’t swept you off your feet yet.”

      “Actually, Reverend, I swept one off his feet,” she said, thinking of the Viscount Danfield. That evoked perhaps the first genuine smile of the day. She wondered if the young man had recovered from his mishap.

      But thinking about proposals made her mind naturally wander to Finley’s, which erased the smile.

      “I’m not surprised to hear that,” he answered. But then Reverend Thomas scrutinized her, sensing the change in her mood. Olivia could feel his old, almost rheumy eyes on her. The man was much too perceptive.

      “How have you been faring, dear?” The concern in his gaze was genuine, and, at his caring expression, she felt the tears well and threaten to spill over.

      “I’m not entirely sure,” she confessed.

      He nodded sagely. “Understandable.”

      “Do you have a cure?” she asked with the glimmer of a smile.

      He stopped, and the suddenness had Olivia backtracking to stand beside him. “Would you want the one I have to offer?” he asked.

      She didn’t have to think about her answer. “No.”

      It seemed her destiny was to disappoint everyone whose path she crossed today. The vicar looked absolutely crestfallen.

      “I wish you would talk to me about it, Lady Olivia. We have known each other many years, have we not?” She nodded.

      “I can bear the weight of whatever pain you carry. Or better, we’ll give it to God. He can shoulder it better than both of us.” His tone was hopeful, as though she might decide to trust him after five years of faith in nothing.

      “Christ had His cross, Reverend,” she said, thinking back on the days when the words of the Bible meant something to her. “This one’s mine to carry.”

      “Because you refuse to lay it down,” he said quietly. She heard him anyway.

      Olivia was comfortable enough with Reverend Thomas to be abrupt and honest with him. “I don’t wish to talk about this anymore.”

      The old man nodded but added, “God loves you.” He spoke slowly, as though she were a child.

      “Not enough.” While anyone else might have needed further explanation, Olivia knew Reverend Thomas didn’t. He didn’t agree, but he understood.

      “Don’t blame God for the actions of men, Lady Olivia.”

      How little did Reverend Thomas know that she blamed God and her mother.

      “I’ll grant you God didn’t pull the trigger that ended my mother’s life, but did He not hear all my prayers for her before?” Olivia couldn’t have foreseen the suicide, but she had feared her mother would drink herself into an early grave. And where had been the deliverance God supposedly granted to those who needed it?

      “I can assure you, child, He heard your prayers.”

      “Oh, did He not care enough to answer them, then? Is that it?” Her frustration, anger and latent grief made the words harsh. “How long can you talk to someone who never answers back?”

      “Perhaps He didn’t answer,” the vicar allowed with a subtle nod. “Or perhaps, for reasons we may never understand, His answer was no.”

      “It’s not fair,” she said quietly.

      “Nor is it easy,” he said in agreement.

      “So, I ask you, what can I expect from the hands of such a loving God?” she sneered.

      “Grace, mercy and forgiveness,” he answered without hesitation.

      But she doubted the truth of all three.

      Nick ambled down the country paths, enjoying for himself the lush beauty of Westin Park. His friend’s estate created in him a stab of longing for his own country lodging—the estate he hadn’t seen in more than five years.

      His country home should have been the first place he went upon returning to England. Instead, he’d opened up the Huntsford mansion in London. And he’d kept promising himself he’d return as soon as his affairs were in order.

      But he knew that for the stalling tactic it was.

      No longer was he the frightened five-year-old boy, jumping at shadows and cringing at the jeers and leers from his father’s friends. Nor was he the twelve-year-old, convinced he was a man already, who had to confront the truth that his mother’s appetites for deviance were no more refined than her husband’s. Nick wasn’t even the angry twenty-three-year-old who’d stormed from the house in a cloud of disgust and righteous indignation.

      So why hadn’t he been back?

      He wasn’t sure.

      Perhaps he worried that his parents had desecrated the place of his childhood beyond redemption. Would he be able to walk down the halls and through the rooms without feeling that the lewd images of “parties” and drunken festivities had been imprinted on the very fabric of the house?

      Maybe before he went back, he should hire a decorator to strip everything inside and refurnish the house.

      And it was in the midst of his internal debate over what to do with his inherited estate that he heard two voices coming from the other side of the trees. The man’s voice was unfamiliar, but the woman’s voice was immediately recognizable. Lady Olivia.

      Perhaps it was badly done of him, but there remained too much of the spy in Nick for him not to still immediately and remain absolutely quiet to hear what was being said.

      What