Have Hope

Chapter 2

And now, when he returned home, he would keep his meeting with Olivia Pendleton a secret to keep his mother calm.

Kit did not think he had been selfish a day in his life. Certainly not since he had been a Kensington. He had always done whatever he could to make his family happy, and proud of him. Olivia, on the other hand ...

"Why are you here, Olivia?" Kit asked her, suddenly serious.

Olivia stood firmly, and did not recoil. "Good question," she replied. "I did nothing wrong."

"You broke the law," Kit said dryly.

Olivia's eyes narrowed. "Laws that exist to disadvantage people purely because they do not have a set of bollocks between their legs should not exist," she said icily.

Kit had never before heard such language from a woman's mouth. He grinned, enjoying it. "You are not exempt from the law because you do not agree with it, Olivia," he reminded her.

"I know," she sighed. "Sir John Strachan voted against bills on the improvement of housing, sewerage, the price of grain, the list goes on! All the while lining his own pockets. He governs me just as much as any man. Why do I not have the right to hold him accountable?" Olivia asked Kit seriously.

Olivia was talking of sewerage with an amount of conviction in her voice that Kit had never had. It unsettled him. Where had Olivia's passions come from? And why did Kit not have any of his own?

"I am sorry, I am lecturing you," Olivia apologised. She sunk to her knees and then sat down on the wooden floor. "I have a horrid habit of preaching to others about the things I believe in. I can be quite tiresome."

Kit followed her to the ground. "Never apologise for being passionate, Olivia," Kit said sincerely. "What must it be like to believe in something so whole-heartedly that you would be willing to risk your freedom for it?"

Olivia leaned her head against the bars, a tendril of her long, red hair passing between them temptingly. "Confining," she replied jokingly.

Kit laughed.

"Lonely," Olivia then said softly, her eyes darting nervously to his.

"Your parents?"

Olivia shook her head. "My mother and I always had a tumultuous relationship. She never understood me. Nobody ever has, really. I was not the sort of daughter she wanted. I was apprehended when I was sixteen years old for attending a university lecture. I was wearing something similar to this." Olivia gestured to her clothes. "It must not be very convincing," she commented. "My parents settled with the magistrate and I was sent to my Grandpapa Bernard and my Aunt Lorna."

Olivia did not speak with much emotion, but Kit could tell that her mother's rejection had hurt her. Olivia's eyes were quite easy to read.

"Are they good to you?"

Olivia smiled. "Oh, yes." She nodded. "My Grandpapa is a dear. He is eighty years old and quite deaf. He does not know of what I get up to. My Aunt Lorna is my mother's younger sister. She looks after Grandpapa, and she tries to care for me. I am not an easy ward, as you would have gathered. She will be receiving a note any minute informing her of her niece's imprisonment."

"You are not at all changed in these years past," replied Kit. "I am sure your aunt will not be surprised."

Olivia feigned offense. "I am not at all changed? I will have you know I am at least three inches taller," she teased. "You have changed, though," she observed. "You look ..."

What? Handsome? Debonair? Charming? Amiable?

"... actually, you look exactly the same," Olivia decided. "You are taller, if that is even possible, and you have grown into your limbs and features, but you look just as cautious as you once did."