Page 13 of The Butterfly
“But, I am the one who is sorry,” she protested. “You are so much like Adam sometimes … so brave and strong and, yes, smart, that sometimes I forget …”
“That I’m only a stable boy?”
She shook her head. “You are more than that, Niall. I think you and I both know that.”
He’d often felt as if he ought to be, that he’d been born in the wrong body, to the wrong family, in the wrong place and time. Something deeply rooted in him craved more, even if he had no notion what ‘more’ entailed.
“Then, ye aren’t angry with me?”
The furrows of her brow deepened, and she came even closer, reaching out to take one of his hands. Her little fingers were surprisingly strong as she began pulling him farther into the schoolroom.
“Of course I am not angry,” she insisted, pointing to a single chair facing the blackboard. “Sit, please.”
He glanced over at the little desk she must sit in for her lessons, realizing that he’d never fit behind it. Thus, this chair, he supposed.
“What?”
“Sit,” she insisted, impatience lacing her voice. “We do not have much time, but while Papa is gone, we will take an hour or two each day to practice. You seem to learn things quickly … I do not think it will take very long.”
“What won’t take long?” he asked, baffled.
He did not understand what she was about, even as she placed a slate into his hands, then offered him a piece of chalk. He accepted both in silence. It wasn’t until she wrote something on the board that he understood. His hands began to shake as she made two symbols, then turned to face him.
“Livvie, we shouldn’t—”
“No one should live without having experiencedGulliver’s Travels,” she declared, with a look that said she’d take no argument from him. “No one should live without being able to read, to go on grand adventures in their minds. I will not enjoy such adventures if you cannot come with me, Niall. I will read to you myself until you’ve learned to do it on your own. Now … we shall begin with the alphabet.”
A wide smile broke out over his face, and despite knowing there would be hell to pay if they were caught, a tremor of excitement rolled down his spine. She was going to teach him his letters … his little Livvie was going to teach him to read!
He was still smiling when she pointed to one of the symbols she had made with the chalk.
“This is the letter ‘A’.”
CHAPTER FOUR
livia had always known that Niall had a voice for the telling of stories. As she lay shivering and struggling to breathe, her teeth chattering so hard she was surprised they did not crack, his voice broke through the gloom clogging her mind. It warmed her from the inside, even when she couldn’t stop shivering. It was a voice that thundered and roared when he read descriptions of sword fights and battles, that softened to cradle lines of prose depicting love and passion. It was the sort of voice that comforted and soothed, even when her mind and memories betrayed her. Even when no one else could reach her.
She was not certain how much time passed between the moment she’d decided to cease depending upon laudanum and the moment her coherency returned. All she knew was that she felt as if she floated on the surface of a black river, a starless sky hanging above her. And as she drifted along this never-ending river, bursts of light and color would explode across the sky—memories dancing over the abyss in a macabre display. She could not close her eyes to blot out the demented grin of the demon, looming over her with sharp teeth and curved horns, licking her virgin’s blood from his clawed fingers. The dragon came next, spewing her insults and flames, a Bible clutched in her talons as she spoke of the place whores occupied among the damned in the lake of fire. She saw her daughter, Serena, the single brightest spot in her otherwise bleak existence. She was crying as faceless men attempted to take her away. Olivia remained powerless, unable to do anything but lie in a river of black tears and weep, watching as men who looked like her demon—men with red hair and cold blue eyes—dragged Serena into the dark sky and disappeared.
She shivered and shook, weeping and retching for days. Her throat burned as she spewed what felt like gallons of poison, her body convulsing in powerful surges to force it all from her body. Sweat slicked her skin, and she felt as if tiny needles impaled her through every pore, sinking deep. Pain flared hot where numbness had once ruled, and she felt everything she had attempted to run from in the past five years—the pain, the grief, the fear. It seemed larger now, more insurmountable, and as she wept and floated in her river, she almost cried out for an end to it all. She wanted to beg anyone who might hear to pour that sickly-sweet liquid down her throat and offer her true oblivion.
Instead, she clenched her teeth, balled her hands into fists, and focused upon Niall’s soothing timbre as he read to her, his voice sounding miles away, yet still strong enough for her grasp onto.
She’d taught him to read herself, the memory of that summer in Edinburgh bursting through all the misery and shining down upon her like the North Star. She latched onto it, letting it wash over her with recollections of secret meetings in the schoolroom and stolen sunsets near the pond with stacks of books.
It had broken her heart to discover he could not read, and she had found it incredibly unfair that no one had ever thought to teach him. Yes, he was only a stable groom, but could his father not see how intelligent he was, how strong, and how wonderful? It had angered her that no one cared enough to see those things in Niall, soshehad become the one to discover all those hidden jewels.
The love stories had been her favorites, but Niall had liked the adventures the best—tales of heroes who overcame evil, or discovered lost treasures, or sailed uncharted seas. Even after her stepfather had returned, she’d found ways to go to him and read while teaching him how to decipher the words. He’d gone from stumbling over even the smallest words, to reading full sentences without stopping … from asking her to remind him which letter was the ‘b’ and which was the ‘d’, to writing with a fluent, neat hand.
That she had taught him to read and write proved fortuitous, for the following year saw her sent to school, where she had been away from her home and family for months at a time. Adam had begged the earl not to send her away, but Rowland had insisted. She was a young lady and must learn more than a mere governess could teach her. As well, he thought her too wild, always running off with her brother and the stable groom to swim in ponds and climb trees. She needed refining if she would make a good match someday, and what better place for her to get it than at an exclusive school for the daughters of titled lords?
Adam had not been happy about it, but he’d written to her constantly, ensuring that Niall’s own letters were included in the envelopes that came to her in the post. Their missives had gotten her through those miserable months stretching on between the few holidays they were allowed, sustaining her through the homesickness that, at times, became so horrid she thought she might die from it.
Her memories of school passed her by in sporadic blurs—monotonous days of scratchy wool uniforms, drafty classrooms, and nights spent whispering in the dark to the three girls who shared her living quarters. In between those blurs, the recollections of her holidays shone through like bursts of white light. It was because each return to Dunvar marked the progression of the growing attraction between herself and Niall.
Olivia could clearly remember the day she’d realized that he no longer saw her as the little doll he used to carry about on his shoulders. Each holiday before this realization had seen her greeted with a boisterous hug and a loud smack on the cheek, and would then be followed by romps and rides and time spent near their swimming hole with stacks of books. Most days, Adam would join them, but sometimes, he would not. Even in the summers, his tutor worked him relentless under the orders of the earl—who wanted his son to be well-versed in the duties he would someday undertake.
However, the summer after she had turned four-and-ten, everything changed. The conveyance that had been sent to school to retrieve her pulled up before the stable and carriage house. Through the window, she’d spied Niall, returning from the paddock astride one of her father’s roan geldings. At the sight of the carriage, he had dismounted, a wide grin overtaking his expression. She had waved, the boredom that had overwhelmed her trip home melting away at the sight of him. Olivia never felt as if she had truly arrived home until she’d laid eyes upon Niall.
