Nicola Cornick - One Night Of Scandal

‘I think that you should allow your sister to dispense the refreshments,’ Ross said, with an unfathomable look at Olivia, ‘since she is complaining that that is all the propagation that she is permitted to do.’

An awkward silence fell. There were two spots of colour high on Olivia’s cheekbones as she poured the tea. The spout of the pot rattled against the china as her hand shook slightly, and Deb felt a rush of sympathy. It was too bad of Ross to make his wife feel so uncomfortable. He should have pretended that he had not heard.

‘We were speaking of our trip to Somerset,’ she said, trying once again to break the silence. ‘It is only two months until Guy’s wedding.’

‘Plenty of time for him to reconsider, then, before he makes a decision he may live to regret,’ Ross said. He took his cup with a curt word of thanks and strolled away down the grassy slope on to the lawn.

Deb was halfway out of her chair when Olivia put her hand on her sister’s arm.

‘Deb, do not!’ she implored in a whisper. ‘I know that you only mean to help, but it does not do any good…’

Deb subsided back in her chair. She picked up her own cup and drank the cooling liquid. Sometimes in the past she had interfered in Ross and Olivia’s disagreements when her sister’s refusal to stand up to her husband had so infuriated her that she could not let a subject pass. Olivia had never reproached her, but sometimes Deb had had the impression that her intervention had made things worse rather than better. She felt exasperated. Olivia was a pattern card of goodness and Ross Marney was a nice man, handsome, generous and kind. So why, oh, why was it not possible for the two of them to co-exist in harmony? She wanted to bang their heads together.

‘I suppose that I should go,’ she said slowly.

‘Do not hurry away on Ross’s account,’ Olivia said, and Deb heard the note of bitterness in her voice ring clear as a bell. ‘He won’t speak to me of this. We never do talk.’

Deb wrinkled up her face. Her knowledge of married life was small, consisting of five weeks before Neil Stratton had departed to the wars. That month had hardly been the bliss that she had been expecting. Even so, she knew that if a husband and wife never spoke to each other then they could hardly expect other aspects of their relationship to improve. She opened her mouth to offer some advice, saw the expression on Olivia’s face and closed it again.

‘You do not understand,’ Olivia said rapidly. ‘Please let it go, Deborah.’

Deb got up and hugged her sister hard, spilling Olivia’s tea in the process. Her sister bore the embrace stoically, even going so far as to give Deb a brief, convulsive hug in return. She dabbed at the tea stains on her dress, head bent. All the animation that Deb had seen in her earlier in the afternoon had vanished.

‘Would you care to take the carriage back to Mallow?’ Olivia enquired. ‘It is hot to be walking.’

‘No, thank you,’ Deb said. ‘I shall go through the woods. It will give me time to think.’

A faint spark of amusement lit Olivia’s face again. ‘About Richard Kestrel? You do not fear to find him lurking behind a tree waiting to pounce again?’

Deb laughed. ‘If he does, he will get all the odium that should rightly be reserved for Ross. It would be poetic justice.’

Olivia put out her hand quickly. ‘You will be here for my musicale tonight?’ she asked, and Deb could hear and understand the pleading tone in her voice. It was the first time she had seen a crack in Olivia’s perfect façade and it made her fearful. The marriage must be in dire straits indeed.

‘I was not planning to be here,’ she said doubtfully. ‘Is it that Estelle creature from the theatre in Woodbridge who is coming to perform?’

‘Miss Estella La Salle,’ Olivia said reprovingly. ‘It is quite a coup for me that she has agreed to sing for us, Deb. She is much sought after and very fashionable in the Prince of Wales’s circle.’

‘Only because the Hertfords have made such a fuss over her,’ Deb said. ‘They must be tone deaf! I love you dearly, Liv, but I am not sure that even for you I can sit through Miss La Salle’s caterwauling.’

‘You are the one who is tone deaf,’ Olivia responded. Her tone changed. ‘Oh please, Deb…’

Deb caught sight of Ross disappearing into the shrubbery. He was swiping at the tops of some of the rose bushes and looked to be in a very bad mood indeed.

‘Oh, very well,’ she said hastily. ‘I shall be here for as long as I can stand it!’

Olivia gave her another brief hug and Deb went down the shallow bank and on to the lawn in the same direction that Ross had gone. She was not intending to speak to him for she was not certain that she could be civil, but as she made her way down from the veranda, Ross came across the lawn and fell into step beside her. After giving him one angry, speaking look, Deb tolerated his company in silence. In this manner they walked across the lawn and reached the wooden gate that led out of the garden, across the ha-ha and into the surrounding park.

‘You may leave me here, Ross,’ Deb said tightly. ‘Thank you for your escort.’

Ross put his hand on the gate to prevent her exit. ‘Deb, I am sorry.’

‘I am not the one to whom you should be apologising,’ Deb said, raising a hand to shade her eyes from the sun so that she could glare at him all the better. ‘I do not know how Liv has endured your behaviour for so long, Ross. If I were in her shoes, I would have taken my gardening shears to you before now.’

‘I know,’ Ross said. There was a look of deep unhappiness in his blue eyes.

‘And you would deserve it!’ Deb added.

‘I know that too.’ A rueful grin touched Ross’s mouth, lightening the tired lines of his face for a moment. ‘Dear Deborah, it is so refreshing to have these sisterly chats with you! You go straight to the heart of the matter instead of pretending that there is no difficulty.’

‘Well, do not expect me to give you absolution,’ Deb said sharply. She drew him into the shade of a spreading oak that bordered the garden. ‘That is better. I cannot judge how repentant you are if I am squinting into the sun.’ She scanned his face. ‘Hmm. You do look a little bit cast down, I suppose. Well, you have only yourself to blame, Ross. I could shake both you and Olivia, you know. I am so fond of you both and I cannot comprehend why you cannot like each other.’

‘Oh, I like Olivia,’ Ross said wryly. ‘I like her a lot. That is half the trouble!’

‘I do not mean in that way,’ Deb said, frowning at him. ‘Men are all the same! You bring everything down to whether a woman is attractive to you or not and matters are never that simple.’

‘That is because men are simple creatures at heart,’ Ross said, looking out across Midwinter Marney land towards the sea. ‘All I desire is a home, a wife who cares for me and an heir…’

‘Try not to sound too maudlin,’ Deb said tartly. ‘You do not deserve those things unless you settle your differences with Olivia.’ Her face softened and she took his hand. She could never be angry with Ross for long, for she owed him a huge debt of gratitude and she knew what a very kind person he was at heart.

‘Dearest Ross,’ she said, ‘it grieves me to see you both so unhappy. You and Olivia have been so generous to me in the past. I do not know what I would have done without you after Neil died-’

‘Don’t,’ Ross said gruffly. His face set in hard lines. ‘You know that we would have done anything to help you, Deb.’ Anger darkened his eyes. ‘The only thing that I regret is that the fever got to Neil Stratton before I could call him to account.’

Deb sighed and freed herself. ‘Don’t, Ross. It is all over and done with now. But I do know that you are a kind and honourable man, and that very fact makes your estrangement from Olivia all the worse! If you were a boorish oaf then I could understand it, but you are not! At least, not most of the time.’