Page 21 of Forever & Again
Oliver shrugged. “I may have borrowed a servant and some supplies.” His smile dipped just a bit at her hesitation. “I will not force you to go fishing with me if you truly do not want to.”
Grace’s heart tugged, involuntarily. She reached for one of the poles. “You will not force me, but you will be insufferable if I forfeit your very first challenge.”
Oliver laughed, handing her the smaller of the two sticks. “Am I truly that predictable?” Grace didn’t respond and simply brushed past him towards the pond she could see glittering in the distance.
When Oliver had proposed his challenges the night before, she hadn’t thought he actually meant to follow through on them—or that they would be as simple as fishing. She didn’t know why he cared what her opinion of him was. Though if she was completely honest with herself, the thought of having something to look forward to each day—other than sitting in the drawing room forcing conversation with Sarah—was appealing enough to agree to almost anything.
Her heart twisted with a pain of guilt.
“Oliver…”
Oliver glanced up from where he was currently kneeling in the grass, working to bait his hook with the dough ball he had pulled from his pocket. Grace swallowed, her throat tightening. “Would it be possible to not tell Matthew and Sarah about this?”
Oliver raised a brow, giving her a small smirk as he let the string of his pole drop and reached for hers. “Do you hold a secret love for fishing that only I am privy to?”
Grace shook her head, fighting a smile. “No, I would just prefer to keep whatever activities you have planned for the rest of the summer between us.” She had only thought to spare Sarah’s feelings, were she to learn she was choosing to spend time with Lord Blackburn over her, but she regretted the words the moment they left her lips.
Oliver’s smirk shifted into a full-blown smile, the heat rising in her cheeks as he offered another one of his daring winks. “Lady Rockwell,” he drawled. “If you wish to spend time alone with me, you need only ask.”
Grace shook her head in frustration, pulling the freshly baited pole from his grasp. She should have turned the other way and marched through the trees and back to the gardens. The chances of her losing her reputation—and her sanity—grew the longer she stayed with Oliver. But every moment she spent withhim was a moment she wasn’t thinking about the ache in her chest.He was a distraction, and nothing more.
Grace forced a laugh. “You will always be insufferable, and I do not know why you believe you could convince me otherwise.” She turned to walk towards the pond, but the warmth of a strong hand on her elbow made her freeze.
Oliver gently turned her back to face him. She had meant it as a joke, but as Grace raised her eyes to meet his, she could see that it had landed deeper than that.
Oliver dropped his hold on her arm and ran a hand through his hair. He looked as though he wanted to apologize, but he said nothing. He simply stood silently, his gaze searching hers as if he expected her to leave him there alone, but something in his eyes was begging her not to.
Grace was beginning to believe there were two Oliver Blackburns; the one standing before her now, with eyes that reflected back to her everything she buried deep inside, and the one who tried so hard to convince the world that he didn’t feel anything deep enough to hurt him.
The second Oliver Blackburn, she wanted to shove into the pond and would be perfectly content if he never spoke to her again. But every time she was given a glimpse of what she was beginning to believe was therealOliver, she found herself completely incapable of walking away from him.
“Why did you agree to my challenge?”
Grace jumped at the sound of his voice. She wasn’t sure how long they had been standing there staring at each other, but it had been long enough for her to feel the flush start to rise in her cheeks at the thought of it.
“Excuse me?” She had heard him clearly—it was hard not to when he was standing so close— but Grace needed the few extra seconds to compose her thoughts.
“If you truly think I am incapable of being anything other than a terrible nuisance,” Oliver explained. “Then why would you agree to waste your summer by spending any more time with me than necessary?”
Grace turned away in an attempt to clear her thoughts. She tried focusing instead on the surface of the pond, but unfortunately, it was the same shade of blue as Oliver’s eyes.
How was it possible that she had looked into his eyes often enough to even come to that realization?
“You mean a lot to Sarah and Matthew,” Grace’s words tumbled out so quickly they barely sounded convincing to her own ears. “I promised them that I would do my best to be cordial, and that is all I am trying to do.”
Oliver’s lips pressed together tightly. Grace could hear the scoff rise from the back of his throat. “Do you ever do anything for yourself?”
His question caught her off guard, and Grace took a small step back.“I beg your pardon?”
“You apologize to me and tolerate my company because you were asked to. You bury the fact that you feel hurt and betrayed by Champion’s presence here because of how much Benjamin loved him. And please, do not try to convince me that you accepted an invitation to Somerton because you were so eager to see how well Matthew and Sarah are doing living the life that was supposed to have been yours.”
Oliver paused, though Grace wasn’t sure if it was to compose himself or to make sure she wasn’t going to slap him. She stayed silent as he stepped towards her, filling the space that she had just abandoned a few moments earlier.
“You are allowed to be selfish, Grace. You are allowed to tell people what you need.” His voice lowered to a whisper. “You are allowed to feel grief and anger without feeling guilty. Because if you do not, if you continue to bury your feelings to protect thosearound you, you will find yourself not only becoming a person you do not recognize, but one that you may not even like.”
Grace felt the anger trying to rise, but she swallowed the bitter taste before it could fully surface. It wasn’t anger towards Oliver, but for all she had endured and all she had lost. She could not deny the truth of what he had said, but she also was not ready for what it meant if she allowed herself to feel it.Acceptance.
Grace picked up the fishing pole and turned back to the water.
