Have Hope

Chapter 19

"All I know is that I carried you for nine months. I fed you, I clothed you, I paid for your college education. Friending me on Facebook seems like a small thing to ask in return." Jodi Picoult, Sing You Home

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Chapter Nineteen

Olivia immediately felt like a frightened little girl when her mother entered the den. She had not seen her mother in four years, and yet nothing had changed. Every insecurity, every faux pas she was suddenly so aware of. The hurt of knowing she would never have the love and approval of her mother was suddenly so prominent in her heart, as it had been the day she had been rejected at fifteen.

Ruth was as beautiful and as regal as ever. She was dressed immaculately, as a Countess should, in the finest travelling clothes money could buy. Her red hair was still perfect in colour, and her ivory skin did not betray her age. Her eyes, though, were filled with ire and judgement, and they were settled on her nineteen year old daughter.

"Away with you," Ruth said dismissively to the butler, Stoughton, who had obviously been trying to keep their guest to a drawing room so he could warn the family.

Bernard, whose chair was not facing the door, was still unaware that his eldest daughter had joined them. He was still happily inspecting the pipe he had received from Colin.

Lorna immediately put a comforting arm around Olivia but it did little to steady her nerves. Ruth noticed the action and looked upon them disapprovingly.

"Happy Christmas, sister," Lorna greeted tensely.

Ruth ignored her younger sister's well-wish. "I thought you might have returned here for Christmas and I was right." She immediately entered the room properly so that she was standing beside her father's chair, standing directly opposite Olivia and Lorna.

Now that Ruth was standing beside him, Bernard noticed her presence. He appeared quite shocked, and stared up at his eldest child. Ruth did not acknowledge him, just as she ignored Lorna.

"Wasn't it enough that your father and I had to explain to our friends that our daughter was off getting herself arrested instead of behaving like the proper lady she was brought up to be? Wasn't it enough that you were humiliating us in front of our friends? No? You felt it necessary to humiliate us in front of the entire country!" Ruth shouted furiously.

Olivia recoiled just as far back as the sofa would allow. It had been four years since her mother had last berated her and it felt just as terribly now as it did then.

Ruth took a deep breath and pinched the bridge of her nose. "I could have found you a suitable husband, someone with a position and respect. But no, marriage is too traditional for the likes of radical Olivia Pendleton. She feels it is more appropriate to be a politician's whore than a gentleman's wife!" Ruth sucked in an icy breath. "Tell me why, Olivia. Why do you hate me so? I raised you exactly the same way that Lady Gregson raised her daughter, who I was told at tea the other day is with child! Married to a Captain in the Navy and expecting! I all but had to show Lady Gregson the front page of the newspaper to tell her what my daughter was up to." Ruth clenched her fists and shook her head, her eyes narrowing on Olivia. "And with a Kensington of all people."

Olivia closed her eyes for a moment as her mother took a breath from her lecture. This was not the first time it was assumed that she was Kit's whore and not his advisor. What a nasty mistake it was to make, and it hurt even more coming from her mother. Her mother's words felt like bullets, insult after insult, bullet after bullet, hitting her right in the chest.