The Society Groom. Mary Lyons

      CHAPTER THREE

      DESPITE being tired, and weary from having been on her feet all day, Olivia found herself tossing and turning as she stared wide-eyed up at the ceiling of the guest room in Dominic’s house.

      There seemed no immediate, obvious reason why she was finding it so difficult to go to sleep. Not only was it a very comfortable bed, but she’d also enjoyed the luxurious comfort of a hot bath: two of the items normally recommended for those seeking oblivion in sleep.

      Sighing heavily, Olivia realised that there was no point in trying to fool herself any longer. Because that goodnight kiss from Dominic had left her feeling not only dazed but utterly shattered by her own response to the mere touch of his warm lips on hers. Even now, some hours later, her body still seemed to be trembling and throbbing with excitement, her senses aching with a mixture of desperate longing and thwarted desire.

      Deeply ashamed of the fact that she’d made no protest—not even the mildest attempt to wriggle free from the heavy, muscular body which had been pressing her so closely to the wall—Olivia could feel her cheeks burning fiercely in the darkness. She seemed unable to prevent herself from recalling the heat of his flesh through his thin silk robe, and the clear evidence of his arousal matching her own, breathless excitement.

      So it was no wonder she was finding it difficult to sleep all these hours later. Because it was Dominic, and the disastrous effect he was having on her long-dormant emotions, who clearly lay at the root of her problem.

      Eventually giving up the unequal struggle, she threw back the sheet and blankets and slipped out of bed. Putting on the warm dressing gown, she padded across the carpet towards a large window on the far side of the room.

      Drawing aside the heavy curtains and letting the bright moonlight flood into the room, she found herself gazing down on a formal town garden—a far cry from the rolling hills and valleys of the Kent countryside where both she and the owner of this large house had spent their childhood.

      Because while it might have been ten years since she’d last seen Dominic FitzCharles, she had, in fact, known him all her life. With only a small stream dividing her family’s land from that of the huge Charlbury estate and its medieval Norman castle belonging to Dominic’s family, it wasn’t surprising that her own father, Lord Bibury, and the elderly Earl of Tenterden, had been both close neighbours and lifelong friends.

      That was in the good old days, of course. When her mother had still been alive and her father had yet to lose virtually everything he possessed.

      However, in what now seemed on looking back to have been a happy, golden childhood, both Olivia and her older brother, Hugo, had been on casual, friendly terms with the three FitzCharles children: the two older sisters, Blanche and Constance, and their much younger brother, Dominic.

      Whether spending the summer riding freely over the lands of the Charlbury estate, or, at Christmas time, joining the children of other local families for the traditional Boxing Day party in the old castle, Olivia couldn’t remember a time when she hadn’t been wildly and foolishly in love with Dominic FitzCharles.

      Not that he’d ever taken any notice of her, of course. And why should he have, when she was five years younger than he was? An almost insuperable gulf when she’d been an awkward thirteen-year-old and he a glamorous, if wild young man of eighteen, roaring around the countryside in a fast sports car and already capable of breaking the hearts of so many pretty young girls.

      And then, following her mother’s death when Olivia was aged fourteen, her whole life had dramatically changed.

      The advent of a new stepmother, Pamela, whom her father had married only a year after his first wife’s death, had devastated both her brother Hugo and herself. Particularly when her stepmother had lost no time in packing Olivia off to a strict boarding school, which had left the young girl feeling utterly rejected and bitterly unhappy.

      Arriving when most of the other girls had already made friends with one another, Olivia had been thoroughly miserable, rapidly becoming a difficult, turbulent teenager, seemingly determined to cause as much trouble as possible. Although if her life at school had been bad enough, her home—when she returned for the holidays—had hardly been much better.

      Her father, a charming but weak man, had allowed himself to become totally dominated by the woman whom Olivia had referred to openly as her ‘wicked stepmother’.

      It was possible, of course, that she’d been unfair about Pamela—although the older woman’s subsequent history had merely underlined her stepdaughter’s sharp dislike and distrust. However, as a teenager, every issue had seemed quite clearly either black or white—with Olivia refusing to accept that there might be a point of view other than her own, and being as difficult and obstructive as possible. And so, fighting her stepmother every inch of the way, it had seemed as if her previously happy, secure home had become a cold, grim battlefield.

      Nevertheless, Olivia now knew that she’d been much luckier than many children raised in a town environment. At least she’d been able to escape from her unhappy home life by hiding in the barns of the home farm during the winter. While, during the summer, she’d only had to grab a can of some fizzy drink and make up some sandwiches before saddling up her pony, Rufus, and going off to spend a day roaming around the countryside.

      And it had been in the summer just before she’d turned eighteen that she’d often seen the distant figure of Dominic FitzCharles riding about the large estate which he’d recently inherited, following his elderly father’s death the previous year.

      Local gossip had been full of stories of how Dominic was busy sowing his wild oats, both in Charlbury itself and at Cirencester Agricultural College, where he’d been learning up-to-date techniques of land management. In fact, it had probably been his reputation for youthful wild behaviour—coupled with the exciting reports of the thrillingly dangerous, lethal damage he’d been causing to young female hearts—which had added to his attraction.