“You mean balls and routs and supper parties?”
Vanessa nodded as she folded tissue paper around the lemon-colored bonnet Olivia had chosen. During the height of the Season, it was not unusual to receive a half-dozen invitations for a single evening. When she was Olivia’s age, the prospect of a ball had held excitement. But as she grew older, she’d become less enthralled with the gilded cage of London society-the emptiness, the relentless pretense, the stinging, vengeful gossip. And once her husband had begun his downward spiral into decadence and scandal, the evenings had become almost unbearable. Vanessa recalled standing stiff-faced for hours, a smile pasted on her lips, enduring the stares and darkling glances of those people who once professed to be her friends. Yet she didn’t want to encourage Olivia’s solitary leanings.
“A ball can be highly pleasurable,” she said lightly, “but after years of such affairs, they all seem to run together. Still, every young lady of means should experience a Season at least once. You should go and make up your own mind.”
Olivia looked away. “I don’t know that I ever will now.” There was a long silence while her lower lip trembled. “My former companion, Mrs. Jenkins, said I deserved what happened to me. That I was fortunate to survive as a cripple.”
“You deserved nothing of the kind!” Vanessa responded, speaking sharply to Olivia for the first time.
“I am not so certain. The fault was mine for being so foolish and wicked.”
“It isn’t foolish to fall in love. Your only mistake was in choosing the wrong man.”
“A dreadful mistake,” Olivia agreed in a whisper.
Putting down the bonnet, Vanessa moved to sit on the edge of the bed and take the girl’s hand.
Olivia looked up, tears in her blue eyes. “What did Damien tell you about my folly?”
“He said that you were a victim of a cruel wager, that you were persuaded by a scoundrel to elope.” She saw Olivia’s chin quiver but felt it was better for her to talk about her traumatic experience, to try to deal with the painful feelings of loss and betrayal, rather than to bottle them inside.
“Olivia, you are not the first young woman to be deceived by a handsome stranger,” Vanessa said gently.
“I was indeed deceived. I thought he wished to marry me. I wanted so badly to believe him when he said I was beautiful, when he said he loved me.” Her shimmering gaze grew distant. “He was so charming, so gentle, with such laughing eyes. He made me feel… special. And he loved poetry. It was so romantic… or so I thought. Until that horrible night.”
“What happened?” Vanessa prodded quietly. She had heard Aubrey’s version of events, and Damien had told her the story he’d pieced together after the accident from bystanders and servants and Olivia’s own reluctant confessions. But many of the details were still unclear.
“We had planned to travel to Gretna Green,” the girl murmured, identifying the small village across the Scottish border where eloping couples could take advantage of the permissive marriage laws, which required only a witness to make the vows legal. “I was frightfully nervous but excited all the same. I walked the entire way to the coaching inn at Alcester, not wanting to raise any alarm by taking a mount from our stables.”
“I knew something was wrong as soon as I arrived. Au… he didn’t look happy to see me. He had booked a private room, and two of his friends were there-two gentlemen I had met at a local assembly some months before. They were dreadfully foxed. I wanted to leave, but Aubrey wouldn’t come with me. He said he had changed his mind about the elopement. I remember his friends shouting with laughter, declaring that he’d fairly won the wager.”
Her cheeks colored with shame. “It was a large sum, a thousand pounds, yet I didn’t understand at first. I must have looked so stupid standing there with my bandboxes. Then his friends divulged that Aubrey had never intended to go through with the marriage, that it was all a lark. When one of them offered to take me under his protection, Aubrey got angry and demanded an apology, but I couldn’t bear to hear any more. I turned and ran out the door.
“I think when I reached the stairway I must have slipped on a riser or tripped over my bandboxes. I remember trying to catch myself… The next thing I knew, I was waking in my own room, unable to move. They said I had fallen down the stairs.”
The tears spilled over. “I never heard from him again.”
Vanessa felt tears fill her own eyes. She could have told the girl why Aubrey had apparently abandoned her after the tragic incident. Damien had seen to it that her seducer never set foot near his sister again. Yet Vanessa felt strongly that it was the wrong time to divulge her own connection to Aubrey. She was making progress with Olivia, coaxing her to give her life a chance, and another betrayal might very well put an end to their fledgling friendship.
Hearing the tale, though, Vanessa felt a fresh surge of anger. She was still horrified, still furious at her reckless, immature brother who had left this young girl a cripple, with her character in ruins. Olivia was like a delicate, untouched flower, sullied and trampled in the muck.
“So you see why,” Olivia whispered, “I can never show my face again in polite society.”
Vanessa squeezed the slender hand in sympathy. “I can see why you might think your world has ended, Olivia. But it hasn’t. You will get through it, just as I did my marriage. I was not much older than you are now when I wed and was forced to deal with scandal.”
Her own voice dropped to a murmur. “My husband… ran through his substantial fortune in less than a year and became mired in debt, yet that never stopped him from plunging into one reckless affair after another. I remember times I thought I would die of mortification. Even Roger’s end proved ignominious. He was killed in a duel over another woman. An actress.”
“How terrible for you.”
Vanessa tried to smile, but she couldn’t completely repress her bitterness. “I thought so at the time. But there was nothing for me to do but hold my head high. I learned to go on with my life, to ignore the tempests. Trust me, my dear, this scandal will pass. And the best way to deal with it is to meet it head-on. Cowering will avail you nothing.”
Olivia searched her face. “Like I have been doing here in my room?”
She nodded gently. “It is understandable that you would be reluctant to face the world, to expose yourself to savage gossip and slights, but if you shut yourself off from everyone who cares for you, you are the one who suffers.”
“Damien… says he cares for me.”
“I’m certain he does.”