Lady Eve's Indiscretion

Eleven

“The Marquis of Deene, sir. He calls upon you alone.”

Deene pushed past the butler—a stuffy old fellow who smelled of camphor—and found Dolan in his shirtsleeves at a massive desk much like the one in Deene’s own library.

“We’re family, Brampton. I hardly think I need be announced.”

Dolan did not rise, which showed exactly the kind of animal cunning Deene expected from his brother-in-law.

“That will be all, Brampton, though have the kitchen send up a tray. Marriage has apparently put his lordship off his feed.” Dolan waited until the butler had withdrawn before turning an expression with a lot of teeth—and no welcome whatsoever—on his guest. “How is it you know my butler’s name?”

“They all know one another’s names, Dolan. It’s what we overpay them for.”

Dolan did not roll down his shirtsleeves, though Deene had the sense it wasn’t an intentional rudeness; it was instead a function of having been caught off guard by an opponent.

“How’s Georgie?”

Dolan’s brows rose. “Still protesting her French lessons, though she has an aptitude for them. You may use that against me in court: I force her to learn French by withholding my granny’s Irish lullabies from her.”

“You had a granny? I am astonished to find you were not whelped by some creature sporting scales and breathing fire.”

Dolan fiddled with a gleaming silver penknife. “Insult my sainted mother, Deene, and a lawsuit will be the least of your problems.”

“My apologies. I meant only to insult you.”

Except he hadn’t, exactly. Antagonize, of course, but not quite insult. If Evie would not countenance a lawsuit, she’d certainly not countenance a duel.

Dolan brushed his thumb over the blade of the penknife. “I was under the impression a gentleman—using the term as loosely as present company necessitates—plotting to do murder on the field of honor generally slapped a sweaty riding glove across his opponent’s chin before witnesses of similar rank.”

“I cannot challenge you to a duel, Dolan, though every day you draw breath offends me.”

“Oh, of course. Because I married your dear sister, whose hems I was not fit to kiss, though I certainly paid enough to have them trimmed in lace. You’ll not be seeing your niece very frequently if this is the tack you take, Deene. A bit more charm is wanted or some lordly attempts at groveling—one’s in-laws ought to be a source of amusement at least.”

“I don’t see Georgie at all as it is, Dolan. I have nothing to lose.”

This point must have struck Dolan as valid. He rose from his desk, his expression thoughtful. It remained that way until a lavish silver tray fit for the highest tea before the highest sticklers was brought in and set on the desk.

“You will please pour,” Dolan said. “I haven’t the knack.”

This was not said with any particular sneer or smirk, and it set the tone for an oddly civilized session of tea, crumpets, sandwiches, cakes, fruit, and cheese.

“There is an issue between us,” Deene said when the tray had been decimated. “You made my sister miserable, and you are not the best resource to have the raising of her daughter.”

“You are so confident of your facts, Deene. One would envy you this, except the quality is an inherited reflex of inbred aristocracy and not a function of any particular wit or study on your part.”

Dolan had a way with irony—the Irish did; the Scots did as well.

“You are telling me Marie went into your loving arms at the altar and never once looked back? You are telling me she consented to marry you of her own free will? You are telling me she was happy and well cared for married to you?”

“She was a minor at the time of the wedding. Her consent was neither needed nor binding, and I have been patient with your rudeness long enough. You may either leave or state your reasons for imposing on my fast-dwindling and unlikely-to-be-repeated hospitality.”

The moment became delicate, all the more so for having to seem otherwise.

“I am prepared to leave here and go directly to White’s, where I will place the following wager in the book in legible script: I propose a match race, my colt against yours, the stakes to be as follows.”

Dolan listened, then sat back and rubbed his chin.

“You would make these terms public, Deene?”

This was the crucial moment, when Dolan’s shrewdness and social ambition had to blend and balance so the choice Deene wanted Dolan to make became the choice Dolan grasped as his own device.

“You would not trust my word any farther than you could throw me, Dolan.” Deene shot his cuffs and fiddled with a sapphire-encrusted sleeve button.

“Would you trust mine?”

Deene wrinkled his nose. “Marie accused you of many things, but dishonesty was not among them. Your reputation, plebeian though it is, is one for veracity.”

“Such flattery, Deene… I can only return the compliment. You are a pompous, arrogant, overstuffed exponent of your most useless and only occasionally decorative class, but if you give me your word you’ll abide by the terms laid out here today, then I will give you my word as well. Neither of us would be served by visiting notoriety on Georgina’s situation.”

Deene thrust out a hand. “Done. On the terms stated.”

Dolan had a firm handshake, and somewhere along the way, somebody had explained to him that the gentleman’s handshake was not an exercise in breaking finger bones.

“When shall we do this, Deene, and where?”

“There’s a practice course not two miles from Epsom, and I’m thinking the week before the June meet. Much later, and the heat can be oppressive.”

He should have been more casual, should have kept his cards closer to his chest, but to let the matter linger was going to wear on Eve and see the horse overconditioned.

“Last week in May, then, with the social crowd still preoccupied in Town. The alternative would be July, when the house parties start up, or after the grouse moors open in August.”

Dolan was watching him, no doubt gauging from Deene’s reaction just what the state of King William’s conditioning was.

“Suit yourself, Dolan. I was going to enter William at Epsom—anybody with ears has heard that much in the clubs.”

“May, then. I’ll be having a look at this course before I agree to turn my pony loose on it, Deene. Dirty footing or rotten timber serves no one.”

“Now you do attempt to insult me, Dolan. I thought Greymoor might head the ground jury.”

“A ground jury? This isn’t exactly a Jockey Club match, Deene.”

“Nor is it merely a lark between two gentlemen.”

Dolan appeared to consider the point. “Greymoor and two fellows of his choosing, one from your set, one from mine.”

“Fair enough.”

“And, Deene? This match will be conducted as if it were a lark between two gentlemen. I want a damned crowd to see you go down to defeat, a big, not entirely inebriated crowd, the titled half of which is going to line my pockets every bit as much as you are.”

“But of course.” Deene had the sense this boasting was where the real posturing had begun. “We’ll make it the usual holiday, and see who goes down to defeat before whom.”

Dolan smiled again, but this time, the expression reached the man’s eyes. It struck Deene that had he wished to, Jonathan Dolan might have been a charming man, even handsome in his way.

“I’ll see myself out, Dolan, and wish you best of luck.”

“Oh, and the same to you, Deene. You’ll need it.”

A beat of silence went by, during which Deene suspected he was to ask again after his niece, perhaps even ask to see her. He did not ask; Dolan did not offer.

Deene took his leave, trying to formulate how he’d convey this development—some acceptable version of this development—to his wife.

“What is this?” Eve looked at the shreds of paper in her lap, and the red string among them.

“That is my promise to you, Eve.”

Deene stood over her where she sat at breakfast. Since they’d last made love a week ago, it was as close as he’d come to her, even in bed.

“Your promise?” Eve glanced up and noticed that the footman typically assigned to tend the sideboard was nowhere to be seen. “What promise is this?”

“We’re at a stalemate, Wife.” Deene moved off and closed the door to the breakfast parlor. “You cannot countenance a lawsuit. I cannot abandon a promise made to my sister. I am promising you I will not now, I will not ever, resort to litigation to keep my promise to Marie.”

He looked very fierce but also guarded. The guardedness kept Eve from throwing her arms around his neck in relief.

“I am very pleased to hear this, Deene. Can we discuss this?”

“What is there to discuss?”

He took the seat at the head of the table, which was at Eve’s right elbow. The way he snapped his serviette across his lap only confirmed Eve’s sense that their problem was intensifying, not resolving.

“How will you keep your promise to Marie when Mr. Dolan does not allow you to be a proper uncle to our niece?”

Our niece. Deene speared Eve with a look at her word choice, a look laden with incredulity and maybe even—God help them—resentment.

“Are you sure you want me to answer your question, Eve? If I do answer, you might like it even less than you liked the idea of a perfectly legal civil suit brought by legal intermediaries and resolved by a judge according to rules of evidence, statute, and case law.”

The tea Eve had begun her day with started rebelling in her belly. “I do want you to answer the question, Deene.”

But Eve wondered what he could say that she’d want to hear? That he’d decided his niece meant nothing to him? That his niece meant less than his wife? Was this what Westhaven had been intimating all those days ago? Was Eve angling for some assurance of her place as foremost in her husband’s affections?

Was she still that insecure? Still that much afraid her past controlled her future?

“There is to be a friendly little match race between Dolan’s colt and King William. A sum of money has been wagered, all quite symbolic and good-natured.”

She studied him as he poured a cup of tea for her, then one for himself. The pleasant scent of Darjeeling wafted to her nose, and steam curled up from their cups as Deene set the cream and sugar by Eve’s plate.

“You have wagered my dowry, haven’t you?”

He spooned sugar into her cup. “I have made a gentleman’s wager with Dolan. It will not be reflected on any betting books. The amount remains between Dolan and myself, and even he understands that to bruit it about would only redound to our mutual discredit.”

Deene poured cream into Eve’s cup and gave her tea a stir. So attentive, her husband, so considerate.

What had she done?

“I was given to understand our finances are tentative, Deene.”

“By whom?”

“Anthony, for one. He was apologizing for the household allowance at Denning Hall before he last took his leave of us, but I honestly cannot agree with his assessment of matters.”

Deene stirred his own tea. “In what regard?”

“The allowance is ample, at least based on what I know so far. Her Grace and Westhaven have been on something of a campaign in recent months to make sure Jenny and I understand and can manage our own funds. It isn’t complicated.”

Deene blew out a breath. “It should not be, but add properties all over the realm, throw in a sorry lot of bankers, allow a few solicitors onto your dole, and fairly soon, it’s all Anthony can do to keep the picture up to date, much less make improvements upon it.”

His words, tired, quiet, and laced with despair tore at Eve even as they enraged her. “So why in God’s name would you wager money we cannot afford on a stupid race that’s run for pride’s sake?”

It was the worst thing she could have said. She knew it as the words left her mouth, and yet… Deene’s attempt at a compromise was scaring her more than any lawsuit might have.

“My pride is indeed a stupid thing, Wife, and yet I cannot seem to misplace it long enough to please you.”

He lifted his tea halfway to his mouth, then put it down untasted. If Eve could not find something to say—the right something to say—this was the moment one of them would stalk out of the room, and tonight, for the first time, they would sleep in separate beds.

“Deene, I don’t want to quarrel with you. I should not have said what I did just now, but I don’t understand… I cannot understand how I am to accept this.”

“And I cannot understand how you expect me to do nothing, Eve, while I watch my niece grow up from a distance, as if I’m some sort of monster, a leper because of my title and standing, because of things I cannot change. Marie loathed the notion of marriage to that man, and Georgie is the only good thing to come of the entire tragedy. I cannot abandon her. I cannot.”

Eve nodded. His reasoning, stated thus, made a kind of sense.

But so did hers: if she’d wanted proof that her marriage ranked below this claim the past held on Deene, her husband had just handed it to her. He was wagering at least the sum of her dowry on the outcome of a single race, money they could not afford, money he’d garnered solely by marrying Eve.

She sipped her tea in silence, wondering what else her husband had tossed to the winds of chance along with their financial well-being, and any hope their marriage had of thriving.

The decision to withhold the entirety of Deene’s bet with Dolan sat uneasily, but less uneasily than it had several days ago.

Deene understood clearly that his wife disapproved of the match race, disapproved of the stakes as she knew them, and disapproved of the notion that Deene had concocted the entire scheme without consulting her.

And as to that last, Deene could only reason that had he discussed it with her, she would have somehow prevented him from challenging Dolan. She would have turned her big green eyes on him, let him see her disappointment, and that would have been that.

“He’s getting a sense of purpose about him,” Eve said from her perch on the rail. “He’s growing up, and none too soon.”

Deene followed his wife’s gaze out across the practice field, where Aelfreth and William were tearing around a course of three-foot jumps.

“He’s getting stronger,” Deene allowed. “He still isn’t where I’d want him to be, though he’s trying his heart out.”

Eve sighed and glanced over at him, suggesting to Deene that yet again, he’d said something that could be taken on different levels. Their marriage had become a chess tournament played out on several boards at once, and over it all lay a compulsion to apprise Eve of what exactly hung in the balance with this race.

“The difficulty is that Aelfreth has not settled into his role.” Eve climbed down from the fence, nimble as a monkey in a pair of boy’s breeches and old tall boots. “When they approach the jumps, they’re still in discussions about whose job it is to pick the take-off spot. They should be well past that by now.”

“What do you mean?”

“Between horse and rider, one of the two has the better eye for choosing the best distance for the take-off spot, and often it’s the horse. A sensible rider will trust the horse and intervene only if he thinks the horse’s choice will be lacking.”

Deene watched as in the distance horse and rider cleared the last hedge from a place just a hair too close to the jump to be in perfect rhythm. “Aelfreth is a good jockey.”

“He is good, but he’s on a young horse with a lot of speed, power, and discernment. Unless Aelfreth knows something the horse does not—the ground is not as solid as it looks, the land slopes away immediately following the jump, there’s a hard turn into the next obstacle—then he’s better off letting William build up confidence in his own judgment over the next two weeks.”

“So William learns that if Aelfreth makes a suggestion, there’s good reason for it,” Deene concluded. “Can the horse learn that in two weeks?”

Eve’s expression was doubtful. “He can learn it in a single outing with the right rider, but Aelfreth keeps changing the game. For this jump, he makes a suggestion, for that jump, he sits back until the last stride and then tries to make a correction. For the next two jumps, he battles the horse for the decision, and so on. They cannot go on like this.”

Another phrase laden with double meaning.

“Can you explain this to Aelfreth?”

“She has.” Bannister spoke up from several feet away. “But when the lad’s flying at a four-foot hedge at a dead gallop, it’s a different proposition than in the schooling ring.”

Deene resisted the urge to punch his senior trainer. “I rode dispatch, need I remind you, Bannister, behind enemy lines in all manner of conditions. I comprehend the difficulties.”

Eve’s gaze remained on the horse and rider trotting over the field several hundred yards away. “I have wondered, Deene, if you would not be the better rider for this race.”

“She has a point.” Bannister’s tone was that carefully neutral inflection observed when an employee cannot raise his voice to an employer, or speak the words “I told you so.”

“I weigh twice what Aelfreth weighs, I’ve never done more than hack the colt or school him in the arena, and it’s too late in the game to make such a change in any case.”

And there again, his words were fraught with meaning. Whatever the ramifications of this race for Deene’s marriage, it was far too late to back out of his wagers. Word had gone out in the clubs, the side betting was heating up, the course had been rented, the stewards chosen, and the plans laid. Bannister had managed to get a spy to Dolan’s stables, and if anything, Goblin’s year of rest and conditioning had put the stallion in fine form.

What else had Deene expected? That Dolan would risk everything he held dear on some broken-down nag?

“I find I am peckish.” Eve looped her arm through Deene’s. “Will you accompany me up to the house?”

“Of course.” But he could not help one last glance at Aelfreth, a glance Eve had to note.

“You cannot lecture him now, Deene. You must show confidence in Aelfreth, so he will show confidence in himself and in the horse.”

“How is it you understand this? I’ve probably spent a great deal more time on a horse than you have, and yet I cannot find the words to explain what makes perfect sense when it comes out of your mouth.”

She smiled, a tired, sad version of her usual good cheer, and Deene wanted to howl with frustration.

“I understand because I have crawled, Husband, and been proud of myself for even that accomplishment.”

“We all start out crawling—”

She shifted her grip, so they were holding hands, something they hadn’t done in days. “Come sit with me.”

A vague uneasiness took hold of Deene’s insides. They needed to talk, to come to some understandings, to start over… but the wrong talk, the wrong understandings, and he had every confidence Eve would be off to visit her siblings indefinitely. When Deene was in Town, Eve would be in the country. If he went north shooting in the autumn, she’d depart for Portugal within days of his return. His parents had managed for decades with such arrangements, and Eve had made no secret that she’d originally wanted a white marriage.

He sat beside his wife, despair crowding him more closely than the small woman immediately to his right.

“Do you recall that I once suffered a bad fall, Deene?”

Deene, Deene, Deene. She no longer called him Husband, much less Lucas.

“Quite some years ago, yes. I am pleased to note you don’t seem bothered by it now.”

“Every time I get on a horse, I’m bothered by it, but not the way I thought I would be.”

This was a confidence, a precious, unlooked-for break in the marital clouds. “What do you mean, Evie?”

“I could not walk, you know. I did something, something to my… hip, my back, I’m not sure what, but it hurt like blazes just to breathe. There were times…” She stared hard at a bed of roses coming into bloom, while beside her, Deene did not dare move. “There were times I wanted to die. I could not get to the chamber pot without assistance, Deene. My life became a balancing act, to eat and drink enough to sustain me, but not one bit more, because everything one takes in… you understand?”

He nodded, not wanting to understand, but comprehending the extent of her indignities clearly.

“I could not walk, I could not use crutches, even, but one day I realized I could not bear for my mother and sisters, much less the servants, to see me in such a condition. I could not… I could not walk, so I started crawling. I crawled first on my elbows and one knee. This is not dignified, but it will serve with some practice. Louisa came upon me once thus, crawling back to my bed. She became Cerberus at the gates of my personal hell, ensuring that if I said I did not want to be disturbed, by God, nothing disturbed me.”

“Evie…” He covered her hand with his own. “I did not know.”

“Nobody knew the real extent of my incapacity, not even Louisa, though she likely guessed. I crawled for weeks, then I hopped, then I used canes, and I learned something, something you learned riding dispatch.”

“I learned nothing riding dispatch save to choose the best mount I could find, say my prayers, and ride like hell.” He could not have let go of her hand in that moment to save his own soul.

“You learned that you could not worry over the whole ride. You could not face covering twenty miles by a setting quarter moon behind the lines with no provisions and a tired mount. You could face only the terrain between your present location and the stream across the valley, or between the woods where you caught your breath and the next church steeple. You lurched, dashed, slunk, and crawled if you had to, from one shadow to the other.”

She’d described it exactly, the race against the dawn, the darting from shadow to shadow, the soul-deep weariness that made the senses sharper, not more dull.

“You’re saying we’re riding dispatch?”

“With this race, Deene, your lads, your jockeys, Bannister, even the damned horse look to you for their confidence. I could not allow you to lecture Aelfreth just now when what he needed was a smile, a whack on the back, and some ribald remark unfit for ladies’ ears.”

Such remarks abounded, there being endless parallels between riding horses and a man’s sexual endeavors. “You’re saying I have to get us all to the next steeple in safety.”

“I should not presume.” She was still staring at the roses. “Your people would ride to hell for you, but I feel I have by my actions contributed to the household’s sense of—”

He put his arm around her shoulders and squeezed. “Hush. We’ll manage. We are managing.” Barely.

She turned her face into his shoulder, not bothering to argue.

“Evie, will you stay with me?” He nearly whispered the question, so much did he dread the answer. His heart started a slow pounding in his chest when she did not immediately offer him reassurances. “Evie?”

She drew back a little. “We will get through this race, Deene. Until that finish line is crossed, other obstacles are just going to have to wait, aren’t they?”

He did not experience this as a reprieve, not even when Eve led him up to their rooms and undressed him to his skin, not even when she tugged him toward the bed then let him watch while she removed every stitch of her own clothing.

She was making some statement having to do with confidence—her confidence, perhaps, and it did not reassure Deene in the least. They hadn’t coupled since Deene had last made advances to his wife, but this time—for the first time—Eve made all the advances.

She straddled him, the tail end of her braid tickling Deene’s groin in a peculiar little dance she could not possibly have planned. While she feathered her thumbs over his nipples, Deene tried to memorize the angle of her brows, knit in concentration while she studied the effect of her touch on his flesh.

“We are similar in this regard,” she announced, studying his puckered nipples.

“And similar in the pleasure it gives us.”

She leaned forward and stroked her tongue over one of his nipples, then pinched him lightly with her teeth. “I like it when you do that to me. Do you like it when I do it to you?”

He could not find the words. He cradled the back of her head with his palm and silently asked her for more of the same attentions. Before she was done with him, she’d put her mouth to his cock, tasting and teasing him as if he were something served up on special occasions at Gunter’s, making the muscles in his groin and belly ache with the force of his arousal.

And yet, he did not ask her to have done with him, to slip her hot, wet flesh over his and put them both out of their misery.

Evie, will you stay with me?

Maybe this was her answer; maybe she would make damned sure she conceived an heir for him, and their obligations to each other would be at an end.

It was not fair, that she’d be so obstinate, that she’d make such demands on him, that his best efforts to keep all the promises he owed should come at such a cost.

It was not fair to him; it was not fair to her. The solution Deene had envisioned, a gentleman’s agreement undertaken with ungentlemanly determination, began to waver before his eyes. Eve shifted, and then her mouth was gone, leaving a need to join with her that came from Deene’s very soul.

When she would have mounted him—a novel boldness, coming from her—Deene rolled with her, so she was beneath him—so she could not get away.

Before he was done loving her, her cries of pleasure were swallowed in his kisses, her fingernails scored his back and buttocks, and her tears wet his chest.

And yet, he could not ask her again: Evie, will you stay with me?

A race meet was an oddly democratic event, with there being no ability to keep any particular segment of society off the premises—and no incentive for doing so. The crowds segregated themselves such that the festivities might be enjoyed in a station-appropriate manner, with half-pay officers and their doxies enjoying indifferent ale, cards, and one another’s company in one pavilion, while in another, the shopkeepers on holiday could bring their ladies for an outing, and in a third, the cream of society would lounge about with servants tending to every comfort.

Eve envisioned it all through new if tired eyes as she and her husband scanned the scene the day before King William was to meet Goblin.

“The place will be thronged by this time tomorrow.”

Deene did not sound happy about this, but unless he was in the stables bantering with his lads or in conversation with the horse, he hadn’t sounded happy about much of anything lately. He sat on his gelding, his frown conveying displeasure at all and sundry.

“William has run before crowds in the past, Deene. He seems happy enough to be here.”

Aelfreth had hacked over earlier in the day at a leisurely pace, with Deene escorting on Beast, and Bannister on another gelding.

“He’s happy because he had his audience with you, Evie. He was about to start weaving in his stall until he caught sight of you on your mare.”

“He was pleased to see the mare.”

This earned her a smile from her husband. Not a blinding display of teeth and mischief, but a grin that acknowledged a shift in their private dealings.

Eve could not keep her hands off her husband, and the situation was vexing. Having once initiated marital intimacies with him, she found it impossible not to take advantage of a wife’s privileges in the company of a generous, creative, and lusty husband. If Deene’s attentions had pleased her before, they left her positively witless now, a situation she suspected he exploited to further confuse her priorities in matters outside the bedroom.

Which they discussed not at all. Eve leaned forward and patted her mare.

“Let’s ride the course, Deene. All the rain is likely to have affected the footing.”

His smile faded as his gaze swung out over the rolling green terrain around them. “Goddamn rain.”

“William is not a delicate flower. He and Aelfreth have been galloping in all sorts of weather and managing more than adequately.”

“Dolan’s arriving.”

Eve followed her husband’s line of sight, where two grooms were leading a big, restive gray down past a row of stalls.

“A handsome animal.”

“The horse or his owner?”

“I meant the horse. Mr. Dolan’s looks are a matter of indifference to me.”

Deene’s mouth flattened, making Eve wish she’d kept the last comment to herself. There was never a right thing to say, but there were so many wrong things to say. Marriage like this was wearying and fraught, and though she tried to tell herself otherwise, the quagmire they found themselves in wasn’t simply a function of facing the financial consequences of the bet Deene had made with Dolan.

Eve waited until their horses were ambling along toward the scythed swatch of grass before the first jump, a fairly low stile meant to get the race off to a safe and uneventful start, to inform the horses that it wasn’t to be a test of pure speed on the flat.

“Will you tell me the rest of your wager with Dolan?”

Now Deene petted his horse. “What makes you think there’s more to it than the small fortune already hanging in the balance?”

Not a small fortune, a very great fortune by most people’s standards. “That fortune is more or less a windfall in the form of my settlements. You didn’t have it two months ago, and you’ll likely manage if you don’t have it two months hence. Such a wager should not be costing you your sleep night after night.”

“Why are we discussing this now, Evie?”

She fiddled with her reins. “You are hedging, which confirms my sense you have not been entirely honest with me.” To give her husband time to consider his answer, she urged her mare into a canter—one rarely trotted in a blasted sidesaddle—and headed for the second jump.

It was at some distance, to allow the horses to gather speed early in the race—to tempt them to gather too much speed—and set on the top of a small rise, which would also encourage the jockeys to ask for a tad too much effort, given that the land sloped away sharply on the back side of the jump.

“What else do you think I’ve wagered, Wife?”

A question for a question. Eve was not encouraged.

“Something you are hesitant to tell me because you think I won’t understand.”

“It isn’t that you won’t understand.” Deene frowned at the jump. “At least the footing on this one will be solid.”

It would, because the jump was on a rise, but the footing at the top and bottom of the rise would be mushy, perhaps dangerously so at speed—all the more reason not to rush the fence, and why did everything—every blasted thing—seem like a comment on Eve’s marriage?

“So tell me, Deene. I will not pitch a tantrum here on my horse. You know me at least that well.”

He glanced over at her and sent his horse toward the third jump, a brush fence, the first of three such on the course. This was a straightforward effort, but it lay in the shade of a line of trees, and therein lay the challenge. A horse’s eyes would not adjust for changes in lighting as quickly as the rider’s would, and thus a jump in shadow might or might not be as evident to the mount as it was to the jockey. A smart jockey would give the animal time to sight in on the obstacle. An overeager jockey would consider the jump to be one of the easier on the course and rush the fence.

“I hate this kind of question,” Deene observed, scowling at the jump. “We should have practiced such efforts more consistently with William.”

“We vary the timing of his workouts throughout the day, so the shadows lie in different places and at different angles. Do you think I cannot understand the concept of honor, Deene? I know you and Dolan are at daggers drawn over your niece’s situation.”

“You called her our niece when last this issue arose.” His tone was devoid of heat—carefully so.

They did not argue, which meant they also did not discuss, which meant Eve felt her marriage slipping from her grasp. She cantered on toward the next fence, a big, stout oxer—a jump with both height and spread—in the form of a sort of tabletop stile. The wood was dark, solid looking, and the jump was meant to intimidate, though there was nothing in the approach, takeoff, or landing that would challenge a fit horse—provided the jockey’s confidence didn’t waver.

“The trick fence,” Deene said. “The fourteenth fence is the same. Perfectly straightforward but sitting at the end of a long approach, looking massive and daunting. I hate trick fences.”

“Every fence can be a trick fence. The next obstacle is the water, which might be the worst thing about the course.”

When he met her gaze, Eve found concern in her husband’s eyes. “You’re worried about the footing, aren’t you, Wife? You always worry about the footing.”

“Footing is how I came a cropper all those years ago. It’s how my mare bowed two front tendons. It’s how I ended up crawling to the chamber pot.” She blew out a breath while her husband merely looked at her. “This race is upsetting me, Deene, but not because you may have wagered more than we can afford—or not just that. I question why we’d put a good animal at risk, why we’d put Aelfreth at risk. I know this isn’t a lark for you, but…”

“Eve, I assure you, we can afford the money riding on this race. I know what Anthony has told you, but on many of these outings to Town, I’ve been meeting with my bankers and their clerks and my men of business. Anthony has reasons for presenting the situation conservatively, and I will brace him on those reasons, but trust me when I say we are not in difficulties.”

He would tell her that even if they were in the worst difficulties imaginable—wouldn’t he? His Grace was a poor manager of finances. Her Grace would never admit such a thing, but it had become evident to Eve when she observed the lengths to which Westhaven had gone to secure management of the family’s resources.

A gentleman could be deeply, deeply in debt and still maintain appearances, and the gentleman’s family would have no notion of the problem. If he were a titled gentleman, then he could not be thrown into the hulks for his indebtedness, and the situation could get very bad indeed.

Eve caught up with her husband at the rushing brook bisecting the racecourse. He rode Beast right up to the bank. “The ground is still more or less solid, but if we get more rain tonight…”

“I hate mud, and I hate muddy water.” Eve’s tone was grimmer than she’d intended. “If I were riding William, I’d cue him to jump the entire blessed thing, to overjump it, so he lands well away and runs no risk of having to scramble on either bank.”

“You will tell him this when you tuck him in tonight.”

Deene was perfectly serious. He believed Eve could communicate with the horse on some level known only to horsemen and horsewomen, though Eve herself didn’t give the horse—or herself—that much credit.

“I will tell Aelfreth, and we’ll send somebody out to inspect before the stewards close the course tomorrow morning.”

They rode the remainder of the course, though they already knew each jump, had inspected each jump for loose nails, bad footing, rotting timber, and subtle shifts brought about by weather, the passage of time, the time of day, and even changes in the wind.

At the last fence, where the horses turned for home and had a long, level stretch to use up whatever speed remained to them, Eve paused.

“There will be flags tomorrow on the pavilions and at the finish line.”

“What of it?” Deene was still glowering, and he’d still not told Eve the rest of his wager, which left her with an ominous, queasy feeling.

“If there’s a stout breeze, the horses will come around the last turn and be able to hear the pennants whipping in the breeze. They’ll see the flags snapping and the flag ropes slapping against the poles.”

“A detail, surely. These horses are bred to run, Eve, and they’ll know they’re headed for the finish.”

There was no such thing as a detail in a contest like this, but Eve and her spouse had run out of racecourse. “Husband, won’t you tell me, please? It isn’t that I don’t…”

She fell silent. The word trust was too explosive, a Congreve rocket of issues lay therein, and not all on Deene’s side of the marriage. She thought back to their wedding night, when she’d had every opportunity to trust her husband, and had yet held her silence.

If a horse refused a jump for no apparent reason, a competent rider reconnoitered, then turned around, aimed the beast right back at it, and cleared the thing smartly, brooking no excuses.

“I want to know what hangs in the balance with this race, Lucas, because I do not want you carrying the burden of this wager all on your own shoulders. You’ve allowed me to contribute to William’s training, and that means a great deal to me. Allow me to contribute something as a wife as well.”

He fell silent, his expression grave. The unease inside Eve grew greater as she concluded that whatever he was about to tell her, it might yet not be the full extent of what he was risking with this race.

“I’ve wagered William. If I lose, William becomes Dolan’s possession. If Dolan loses, I get Goblin—and the money. Mustn’t forget the money. Shall we return to the stables?”

He’d wagered a one-in-a-million horse, a horse to whom Eve was quite attached, and a fortune into the bargain. Eve said not one word. She turned her mare for the stables and cantered along at her husband’s side, trying not to cry.

For herself, for the horse, and for the man whose honor—or whose wife—had compelled him to engage in such a wager.

Deene sat among blankets on a pile of straw, his back against the wall, his arms around his drowsy wife.

He should have told her the whole of it earlier in the day, but her expression had gone so bleak when he’d admitted they might lose William. He’d not been able to say another word. And yet… silence was not serving them either.

“I should have told Anthony to send the coach back for you.”

She stirred in his arms. “If you’re staying, I’m staying. The child hasn’t been born to the English countryside who hasn’t snatched at least a nap in some obliging hayloft.”

Below them, Beast shifted in his stall, giving a little wuffle at the sound of Eve’s voice.

“I can understand your willingness to pass a night up here with me, Evie, but how is it you come to know so very much about how to ride a course like the one out there on the downs?”

When he’d reflected back on their most recent ride over the course, he’d realized Eve saw the entire challenge like Wellington saw a potential battleground, anticipating moves, choosing options, and analyzing the exercise on a level Deene himself had been oblivious to.

“I used to talk to Devlin and Bart endlessly about their cavalry exercises, about how a battle could turn on horsemanship. Boggy ground played a role in the French defeat at Waterloo, and Devlin is convinced Wellington knew it would when he put his artillery up along the ridge.”

“A grim thought.” The feel of Eve’s hair tickling his nose was not grim. It was dear and precious and soothing.

“When I was a little girl I’d talk to Papa about the hunt meets and his cavalry days. It was one of few ways to gain his notice when I had so many older siblings competing for it. I would interrogate him at every turn about the good gallops and the bad falls.”

Deene kissed her temple, an image of a very young, diminutive Eve on the fringes of the loud, busy circle of otherwise tall and robust Windham family members coming to mind. “And then you fell and lost more than just the ability to waltz with every swain in the shire.”

He was holding her close to his body, so he felt something go through her. A shudder, a shiver, something. She’d come close on at least two recent occasions to telling him more about her fall, but he hadn’t known how to encourage her confidences when he wasn’t being entirely honest with his own.

“I must go for a walk.” She tried to rise. He prevented it by virtue of kissing her cheek.

“Not without me.”

“Yes, without you. Sometimes a lady needs a little privacy, but I won’t go far, and I’ll look in on William.”

She was going to find a convenient spot in some clump of bushes, racetrack facilities being next to nonexistent.

“Don’t be gone long. We’ll be up well before first light.”

“Which assumes we sleep at all.”

He let her have the last word, let her disappear silently down the ladder, and felt the prayers start up again in his mind:

Please give this marriage the chance it deserves.

Let no harm come to horses or riders tomorrow.

Let there be a harmless explanation for the horrific and false disarray in which Anthony presented the Denning family finances.

Let there be an end to the mess between Deene and Dolan, and let it be an end that didn’t cost him his niece, his wife, and his honor, much less his available coin and his prize stallion.

The litany grew longer before Deene spied Eve’s blond head coming up the steps in the weak slats of moonlight making patterns through the barn siding.

She tucked herself in very close, and from the feel of her—from the heat and the tension in her—Deene knew immediately something was afoot.

“Evie? What’s amiss?”

“Husband…” She was breathing rapidly and trying to whisper. “Husband, we must hurry. Somebody is going to drug poor William, perhaps with a quantity of somnifera, and I fear they’ve already done Aelfreth a bad turn.”

God damn Jonathan Dolan.

“You stay here.”

“No.” She clutched at him with desperate strength. “There were four of them. They went off to fetch the drug, all quite merry with their mischief. I do not think them completely sober, but neither are they so drunk they could not do you an injury.”

“Eve, I cannot allow Dolan’s henchmen to drug William.”

Her head came up, and she peered at him closely in the moonlight then leaned in and whispered into his ear.

He went still. She leaned in again, but he framed her face in his hands, kissed her soundly on the mouth, and pronounced her brilliant. They could solve the problem of Aelfreth’s hangover in the morning, but for now, time was of the essence.

By the time they were back in their hayloft, Eve once again bundled into her husband’s arms, Deene wasn’t feeling quite so sanguine.

“We’ve thwarted this plan, Wife, but it still leaves us with a considerable handicap tomorrow if Aelfreth is in no condition to ride.” We. It felt good to use that word when solving problems. Eve snuggled in more closely, giving Deene the sense she felt the same.

“You could ride him, Lucas. You know that course inside and out, you know your colt, and you’re every bit as skilled as Aelfreth.”

She was loyal. She’d not suggested Bannister or one of the other lads; she hadn’t hesitated to put her faith entirely in her husband. She hadn’t mentioned that Deene was far more weight than any jockey would be, and she hadn’t once considered the most logical choice to get the beast around the course safely.

“We have another option, Evie.”

“Bannister isn’t in fighting shape, Deene, and he’s been focusing more on Aelfreth than on the horse, and furthermore—”

Deene kissed his wife. Kissed her soundly enough to get her attention, almost soundly enough to lose his focus on the matter at hand. “Not Bannister, Eve Denning. The best chance that horse has of making it around the course in record time is the woman I’m holding in my arms right this minute.”

He spent another hour arguing with his wife, his marchioness, his lady, and his love, and in the end, she agreed to trust his judgment. In this, Deene reflected—though perhaps in little else—she was going to trust him, and he was not going to let her down.

“The steward is coming to look over the horse,” Kesmore reported. “For God’s sake, get her hair stuffed under that handkerchief.”

Kesmore was looking thunderous but said nothing more, which was fortunate, because otherwise, Deene looked like he was going to indulge in a bout of fisticuffs with his brother-in-law. Aelfreth, sick as a dog, had handed over his silks without a word of protest, right down to his signature red, black, and white handkerchief. Bannister was muttering profanities as he saw to William, Beast was contentedly napping amid the commotion, and Eve was…

In love with her husband.

How could she have doubted him? How could she have put some silly fear about scandal and ruin ahead of the kind of faith she saw in Deene’s eyes every time he looked at her? She still had the sense he wasn’t being entirely forthcoming about his situation with Dolan—and didn’t Mr. Dolan also have a great deal to answer for on this fine day?—but nothing else seemed to matter beside the magnitude of Deene’s faith in her.

“You don’t seem nervous,” Kesmore observed while Deene led William from his stall.

“I cannot disappoint my husband, Joseph. He has placed all of his trust in me, and this… this is reassuring.”

Kesmore draped a heavy arm around Eve’s shoulders, and she realized—because the man could not be seen exactly hugging Deene’s jockey—this was a show of support from the earl. “How is it, my dear, Deene asks you to risk your fool neck in a goddamned idiot horse race over wet grass and greasy mud, and this earns him your undying devotion?”

She didn’t understand it entirely herself, and had considered that Deene had asked her to ride merely as a show of loyalty, while he fully intended to ride himself; but no, they’d argued about which of the two of them should ride the colt—they’d finally argued, in heated whispers and long silences, and even a few pointed fingers and waved hands, and now Eve was going to do the unthinkable and ride William in a match race.

The steward watched while William was trotted straightaway, turned, and trotted back. The horse went sound—of course he did—and with no evidence of any drugging.

“To the starting line, then,” the steward said. “Greymoor wants a clean race.” This last was directed at Eve where she stood beside Kesmore. “No bad conduct, no allegations of bad conduct, not even muttering into your ale next week about bad conduct—not with the riding crops, not with the horses, not with anything, or Greymoor will declare the match a dead heat, see if he doesn’t.”

Eve tugged the brim of her cap even lower with an acknowledging nod, then breathed a sigh of relief to see the steward hustle off toward the starting line.

“Thank God there’s no handicapping, so we don’t have to weigh you in. The finish will be tricky as it is,” Kesmore said, keeping his voice down while Deene went about saddling William up. “You dismount at the first opportunity, and we’ll put Bannister or one of the lads up to walk the horse out. You off, Bannister on, and then out of these silks, my lady. Louisa will assist you.”

Eve nodded again, accepting that the subterfuge was unavoidable. She hardly wanted her family knowing she’d indulged in such a flight, much less the world at large—why, it would cause a scandal—

She watched Deene snugging up the girth on the horse and wondered why this hadn’t occurred to her earlier. If it was discovered Deene had let his wife ride even in a private match race, there would be such awful talk, about him, about her… Dolan would exploit that talk and use it mercilessly.

Her knees went weak at the magnitude of the risk Deene was taking. She moved a little closer to Kesmore. “You will keep an eye on Deene, please. He’s been under a tremendous strain, and I fear he isn’t thinking clearly.”

“He isn’t, and I will. Do not take off those goggles if you value my sanity, madam, not until you’re out of your silks and in a very private situation.”

He took a flask out of his pocket and held it out to Eve, who declined with a shake of her head. Kesmore blinked, as if realizing he’d just offered strong spirits to a lady, then took a nip and put the flask away. “The whole damned Windham family is mad. I have reason to know this. Even Lady Ophelia, who is the soul of kindness and discretion, has agreed with me on this.”

Kesmore muttering about his prize market sow was not soothing Eve’s nerves. She caught Deene’s eye and realized the moment had come to leave the safety of the stable block.

Deene smiled at her, a private, challenging smile. A smile that said, “You can do this,” and even, “I know you can do this.”

He’d hatched up a daring plan, a crazy plan—and a plan that could work.

“Come, Aelfreth.” Deene’s voice was raised a little, to carry over the bustle in the barn. “Your horse and your adoring public await you.”

Eve checked the chinstrap on her cap and tried to swagger out to the yard like a jockey. Deene tossed her up on the little racing saddle, then climbed aboard a very sleepy Beast. Kesmore, on his black, came up on William’s other side, and they moved off toward the noise of the crowds at the starting line.

William was on a fine edge, bursting with the need to compete but still mindful of the rider on his back.

“Don’t override,” Kesmore muttered as they moved off, “but don’t underride either, lest the horse start taking matters into his own hands, except a horse hasn’t any hands.”

He sighed gustily and took another quick nip from his flask. “I’ve married into a family of lunatics, and now the Denning line must strengthen this deplorable tendency. I’m not having any children, and what children I do have aren’t going to be given any ponies. They shall ride pigs, see if they don’t.”

“Joseph.” Deene’s tone held banked humor. “You are excused. Find Louisa and try not to lose your composure entirely.”

“Louisa awaits us on the rise, the better to plan my commitment to Bedlam as this race unfolds.” He kneed his horse off to the right, leaving Eve riding beside her husband to the line that would mark the start of the race.

Dolan’s gray was dancing around beneath his jockey, looking barely sane, gorgeous, and quite put out with the idiot holding onto his bridle.

“Evie?” Deene halted Beast, who seemed content to come to a bleary-eyed stop amid all the mayhem and tension of the impending race.

“They’re waiting for us, Deene.”

“Let them. Turn William as if you’re letting him study the flags and pennants. Let him see the crowd as he’ll see it when he roars up to the finish.”

Not a detail. Eve had lectured herself at length not to forget this at the last minute, and here she’d gone…

“Listen to me, dearest, most precious wife, but pat the horse while you do, because Dolan is looking this way.”

Eve thumped William soundly on the neck, as a male jockey might.

“You will win this race not because we have money riding on the outcome. I assure you we can afford the loss, and we don’t honestly need the coin if we win. I promise you this. You will win this race not because it means we keep William—he’s already covered every mare I could possibly put him to. I promise you this as well.”

He wasn’t finished. Eve gathered up her reins just as Goblin started to prop in earnest, and the stewards started motioning her closer to the starting line.

“There is more I would say, my dear.” Deene reached over and stroked a hand down her shoulder, and Eve felt all manner of tension dissipating at just his touch. “You will win this race because it is yours to win, because this horse is yours to command. I have every faith in you, every faith. But if you don’t win, that hardly matters. I will love you for the rest of my days and beyond, because when I asked for your trust, you gave it to me.”

Another pat to her shoulder, and then he gathered up his reins and signaled to the steward that the horse and rider wearing the Denning colors were ready for the start.

Eve nudged William over to the starting line—the start was a dangerous, tricky moment—gathered up her reins, and crouched low over William’s glossy neck. Lucas Denning had just told her he loved her, he trusted her, and he would love her for all the rest of his days.

He believed she could win. He believed she would win. Eve tried to believe it too.

“Dolan is headed this way on a showy buckskin.” Kesmore passed his flask to Lady Louisa, who took a delicate sip and offered it to Deene.

“No, thank you.” Not for one instant would Deene take his eyes off the horses sprinting forward from the start. The start was a critical moment in any race—a dangerous moment—but Eve had taken up a position off Goblin’s left shoulder. She could pace Dolan’s stallion from there without being at risk for getting kicked or—inadvertently or otherwise—thwacked by the riding crop Goblin’s jockey held in his right hand.

Kesmore put his flask away and kept his voice down. “One hesitates to point out the obvious, Deene, but by every Jockey Club rule book in the known world, a female jockey’s ride will be disqualified.”

“One comprehends this.”

Lady Louisa’s horse shifted, as if Eve’s sister might not have been aware of this fact.

“Then why in blazes,” Kesmore went on in a rasped whisper, “would you put your wife at risk for injury or worse, much less scandal, if no matter how well she rides, the results cannot inure to your benefit?”

“Yes,” Louisa echoed, her tone truculent. “Why in blazes?”

The horses cleared the first fence almost as a unit, clipping along at a terrific pace.

“On this course, on that horse, my wife is as safe as Lady Louisa is perched on that pretty, docile mare. And as for the rest of it, I know exactly what hangs in the balance. There will be some talk, of course, but weathering a bit of gossip is almost a Windham marital tradition.”

He fell silent, lest he part with a few other things he knew.

For example, because he knew his horse and jockey so well, Deene saw Eve subtly check William as they approached the shadowed jump. The horse did not slow, but rather focused his attention more carefully on the upcoming obstacle. They cleared it a half stride behind Goblin—who’d chipped, taking a short, ungainly stride for his takeoff—and landed in perfect rhythm.

“Whatever else is true,” Kesmore said quietly, “that is one hell of a rider on your colt.”

One hell of a rider, indeed, and one hell of a colt. Aware of Dolan approaching on his showy mount, Deene did not share what else he knew of that rider, which included the fact that in all the weeks of their marriage, she had not been burdened with the female indisposition even once.

Three strides away from the start, Eve had known she wasn’t on some flighty two-year-old. William knew his job, relished his job, and intended to see to the matter of trouncing Goblin without a great deal of interference from Eve.

She had been tempted to use the first fence to disabuse the colt of his arrogant notions, to use a safe, easy fence to insist on a little submission from three-quarter ton of muscle and speed—except William’s pacing was perfect, his takeoff flawless, and his landing so light Eve merely murmured some encouragement to him.

Where an argument might have started, she instead complimented the horse, and so when she had to point out to him that a fence lay in the upcoming shadows, he was attentive to her aids and cleared the thing in the same perfect rhythm.

Goblin’s jockey hadn’t fared quite as well, the big gray being more intent on maintaining the lead than listening to his rider. Because of their bickering, they took off too close to the jump again, while Eve kept William a few feet off Goblin’s shoulder and snugged herself down to the colt’s back. The brush fence was coming up, and brush had been known to reach up and pluck an unwary rider from the saddle merely by getting tangled between boots, stirrup leathers, horse, and rider.

“Lady Kesmore, Kesmore.” Dolan spoke from the back of his golden gelding. “Deene. Your colt is giving a good account of himself.”

Deene nodded, not trusting himself to speak to a man who would stoop to drugging either horse or jockey, much less both.

The crowd roared as the horses, neck and neck, thundered up to the water… the goddamned water, with the goddamned mud that scared Evie so.

“Holy Christ.” Dolan’s oath underscored Deene’s own prayers. Whether William had taken the initiative or Eve had cued the horse, the colt soared high over the water, jumping bank to bank in a mighty, heaving leap, landing clear on the other side but losing ground to the other horse merely by spending so much time in the air.

“Your colt is a formidable jumper,” Dolan said, frowning. “Though perhaps not in the hands of the most prudent rider.”

“Good boy.” Eve didn’t risk patting William again, but the horse flicked his ears as if listening for her voice. Their decision at the water had been justified when Goblin had landed closer to the far bank and had to scramble for footing. The instant’s loss of forward momentum by the gray had William surging forward, claiming the lead. The horse would have widened the gap even farther, except Eve countermanded his wishes. Too much of the race lay ahead to be using up reserves of speed that would be needed for the long straightaway at the end, and much could happen between one jump and the next.

“I hate this fence.”

Deene didn’t realize he’d spoken aloud until Dolan nodded. “It sits up there on that small rise, an oasis amid boggy ground, tempting the unwary to overjump, and all manner of mayhem can ensue when the horses are running this closely.”

As Eve and William galloped headlong toward the fourteenth fence, Deene was aware of resentment that, of all the thousands of people gathered around the racecourse that morning, he and Dolan were sharing a particular bond exclusive to the two of them. Maybe it was what he’d sought—some acknowledgement of their familial connection—but watching Eve put herself on the line, jump after jump, it was hard not to hate Georgie’s father.

“God help them.” Kesmore went on to swear viciously as Eve’s horse cleared the big oxer only to land in bad footing.

Deene was already spurring Beast forward, when Dolan’s hand shot out and grabbed the reins. Deene brought his crop down hard on Dolan’s wrist and was prepared to use it on Kesmore’s restraining hand as well when Lady Louisa spoke.

“You can’t do a thing to help, Deene. Not now.”

The fence Deene had dreaded, the fourteenth, was coming up quickly. For no other reason than that Goblin had dropped back almost even with William’s quarters, Eve gave her horse the suggestion of a check on the reins. Look up, focus, beware.

William cleared the jump in excellent style, knees under his chin, back rounded in perfect form, and all going swimmingly—until the landing.

With the clarity of one in the midst of a pitched battle, Eve realized as the horse’s shoulder slipped from beneath her that the top of the oxer had not been quite level, and rain had drained off to puddle closer to one back corner of the jump—the corner nearest where William landed. In the soft footing, the colt slipped, and when he slipped, Eve’s world nearly came to an end.

This horror had befallen her seven years ago, a horse galloping along one moment, and in the next instant, heading for a disaster that could be fatal to horse and rider both.

As William pitched forward and fought for balance, instinct screamed at Eve to yank up on the reins, to try to haul the horse to his feet on main strength, to defy gravity itself.

She defied instinct; she defied every primitive imperative of self-preservation and relied instead on hard-won wisdom and experience. As William thrashed to keep his feet under him, Eve’s arms shot forward, giving the colt as much slack in the reins as she could without actually dropping the leather from her grip.

He used the leeway she created to throw the great weight of his head and neck up, and in one tremendous surge, got himself organized and moving forward again. The magnitude of his effort was so great, Eve was nearly unseated as leap followed bound followed leap, until stride by stride, they reunited their efforts and took off after the gray, who’d already opened up a gap of several yards.

“Bloody game pair you’ve got there,” Dolan muttered. “Begging the lady’s pardon for my language.”

Deene said nothing. How Eve had managed to avoid disaster eluded him. Sheer grit, luck, skill… or her husband’s unceasing prayers. One more fence, and it would come down to a grueling test of stamina—a test where Dolan’s more experienced jockey and bigger horse might hold all the advantages.

“You can do this,” Eve whispered. “We can do this. Catch him, William. Catch him and show him who owns the bloody course.”

She didn’t need to shout. William’s ears swiveled, proof he was listening for her voice. In Eve’s mind, she heard her father’s voice, though, imparting a piece of advice she’d never understood until that moment.

“In any fair contest, the horse with a sense of rhythm will beat the larger, stronger mount who lacks rhythm. Rhythm is what makes the beast efficient, so he’s not working against himself, his rider, or his job. Let your horse develop his own rhythm, and then time the aids to his cadence. It’s like dancing, my girl. Just like dancing.”

They cleared the second-to-last fence flawlessly, William’s strides to the fence perfect, his move off a graceful bound.

“Well done, Your Highness. One more, and we’ll be bound for home.”

They were closing the distance to Dolan’s stallion too, stride by stride. Eve resisted the urge to check William’s increasing speed. The colt had yet to mistime a fence, yet to misjudge a single distance. She crouched lower over his neck and gave the reins forward a hair.

“Go, William. Get us home.”

He tackled the last fence from an impossibly long distance, his leap flat and efficient enough to gain half a stride and bring him up to Goblin’s quarters. The gray was breathing in great, heaving bellows as the jockeys turned their horses into the straightaway toward the finish.

William galloped on, his stride, if anything, lengthening, while beside them, Goblin threw up his head. His jockey cursed over the thundering of the hooves and screaming of the crowd, and Eve knew a moment’s sympathy.

Had Deene not insisted she show William that final stretch, the waving flags, the shifting crowd, that might be William registering a protest at having to gallop on into what could appear to a horse to be absolute mayhem.

But it wasn’t William. Deene had recalled this detail, and so Eve gave the reins forward another hair.

“It’s your race, William. God bless you, it’s your race.”

“Deene, congratulations are in order.” Dolan stuck out a hand, which Deene merely glared at.

“The stewards have yet to render a decision.” Deene nudged Beast forward, intent only on getting to Evie and William, on holding his wife in his arms and taking her somewhere safe and private where he’d never, ever let her go, nor even sit on a horse again.

“Deene.” Kesmore trotted his black up along beside Beast. “Greymoor will stay with her, you needn’t hurry.”

“Shut up, Joseph. When Greymoor finds out my jockey is a woman, there will be hell and a half to pay, and I don’t want Evie dealing with that alone.”

The stewards would keep any horse crossing the finish line in sight at all times until they’d confirmed the horse was the same one that began the race, and this would very likely result in Eve’s gender becoming common knowledge. Greymoor was a gentleman, but he’d resent like hell that his race had been tainted by a breach of the rules.

Kesmore kept pace even when Deene moved up to the canter. “Given what Dolan attempted, I’m not sure you need worry so very much for your jockey.”

“Two scandals for the price of one. I’m counting on it.”

“You’re counting on both horses being disqualified?”

“Aelfreth will swear he was drugged—the man’s still barely able to stand, and you saw the condition Beast was in this morning.”

Eve was up in her irons, hand-galloping William in a great sweeping arc while Greymoor on his black paced her a few lengths back. As she brought William down to the canter, then the trot, Greymoor closed the distance, reaching William only a moment before Deene did.

“Well ridden,” Greymoor pronounced. “Deene, it appears congratulations are in order, though my official decision will wait until I’ve conferred with my subordinates.” They trotted on another moment, until Goblin’s owner joined them on his golden horse. “Dolan, good morning.”

“Greymoor.”

Bannister came bustling up, tossing a cooler over William’s sweaty quarters while another groom put a hand on the reins.

“Off you go, lad. Well done.” Bannister peered up meaningfully at Eve, who had made no move to take off her cap or goggles, thank God.

“Right. Off I go.”

Beneath the mud and grime flecking her cheeks, she was pale as a ghost. Deene felt his heart turn over in his chest as Eve swayed a bit on William’s back. William, still bristling with energy from his victory, began to dance, and Eve almost toppled from the saddle.

Deene was off his horse and dragging Eve against his chest just as Greymoor reached for her as well.

“Husband.” Eve’s voice was distant, a fading whisper that had Greymoor’s dark eyebrows pitching upward and Kesmore swearing under his breath. Greymoor reached over and gently removed Eve’s goggles.

“Lord Deene,” Greymoor said quietly. “A word with you and Mr. Dolan.”

“You may have your word,” Deene said, “in a moment. Kesmore, where is your lady?”

“I’m here,” Louisa said as her husband assisted her to dismount.

Eve’s eyes fluttered open. “Lucas, did we win?”

Such hope shone from her eyes, such trust. “You won, Eve.” Never had Deene been more grateful for his command of English. “You crossed the finish line first, you put in the best race, you rode like hell, and you won.”

She reached up and laid her hand against his cheek. “We won.”

“Deene.” Louisa was glaring at him, Greymoor’s expression wasn’t exactly friendly, and Dolan was looking amused.

“Off with you now,” Deene said, passing Eve into Kesmore’s arms. “I could not be more proud of you, Wife, or more impressed. Well done.”

Greymoor at least waited until Kesmore had moved out of earshot. “Well done, but you must know any horse and rider combination where the jockey is not of the male gender…”

Dolan spoke up, his brogue thicker than Deene had ever heard it.

“If your great, pontificating lordship would cease nattering for a moment, my brother-in-law and I will be havin’ a wee discussion yonder, like the gentlemen we are.”

“An odd pronouncement, Dolan,” Deene replied, “considering you tried to drug my horse and succeeded in drugging my jockey.”

“Enough,” Greymoor hissed. “I will meet you both at the stable block, once I have conferred with the other stewards, and you will behave yourselves until then.” He stalked off, swung up on his black, and cantered away, leaving Deene resisting the urge to plant a fist in Dolan’s handsome face.

“You might have gotten my wife killed today, drugging King William. I hope the knowledge chokes you to death, Dolan.”

“I did not drug your damned horse, Deene, and if you want to live to see another sunrise, you will stop implying to the contrary.”

Rage at the man’s indifference threatened the edges of Deene’s vision. “Eve heard your minions plotting last night, Dolan. We switched Beast for William, else you might have succeeded in fixing the race. Do you know what your fate would be if word got out you’d tried to fix this race?”

“Listen to me, Deene.” Dolan swaggered in close and planted his fists on his hips. “I did not fix the bloody race. Until I rose from my bed this very morning, I had every intention of losing the damned race—why would I drug your colt if I wanted to lose to him?”

“You wanted to lose?”

“For God’s sake, I wanted my daughter raised in the household of a bloody benighted damned lord of the realm. I wanted every advantage for her. I wanted her auntie, the marchioness, firing her off in a few years. I wanted…” Dolan’s hands dropped from his hips. He scrubbed a palm over his chin then dragged his fingers through his hair. “I wanted what was best for my daughter.”

“Then why…?”

Deene took a step back, measuring the man before him. The man who’d fought Deene’s every effort to be an uncle to Georgie.

“My lord?” A woman’s voice. Deene turned his head and vaguely recognized a willowy blond with serious gray eyes.

“Amy, this is none of your affair.” Dolan’s tone had a gruff note in it, a warning note, and something else—something beseeching.

“Hush, sir. Inasmuch as I love Georgina too, this is my affair.”

Of all people, the Earl of Westhaven shouldered through the circle of curious onlookers forming around Dolan and Deene. “Might I suggest we take this discussion back to the privacy of the stable block?”

Others appeared at Westhaven’s elbow: Lord Valentine Windham, the Baron Sindal, the Earl of Hazelton, and bringing up the rear, no less personage than the Duke of Moreland himself.

Dolan sighed, smiling faintly. “Your wife has an honor guard, Deene. It seems we’re to repair to the stables. Amy, you will walk with us.”

Jonathan Dolan was not much given to prayer, but walking along through the thick spring grass on a pretty day, he prayed the gamble he was about to take might pay off.

For Georgina. For him it might be a flat loss, except it would expiate some of the guilt left by Marie’s death.

“Dolan, we haven’t much time.” Deene spoke softly as his relations-by-marriage hovered near, making it plain they weren’t about to let his lordship deal with Greymoor without a show of support.

“I intended to lose, Deene, it’s as simple as that. Georgina would go into your keeping, I’d be labeled an arrogant Irish fool, and you would allow me ample visitation with my daughter. Amy would keep an eye on the girl, you’d dote upon Georgina and spoil her rotten, and she’d have her pick of the lordlings when the time came.”

Deene scowled at him. “Does this have anything to do with a promise you might have made to my sister?”

Dolan blew out a breath, feeling a reluctant pang of admiration. “Oh, of course. I was to keep an eye on you, to help you deal with your idiot father, and so on.”

“Then why the hell…?” Deene stopped and lowered his voice when one of the Moreland lordlings glanced over. “Why the hell did you give me such a hard time when I wanted to see Georgie?”

“Because you are a lord of the realm,” Dolan said. “Everything comes easily to you, on every hand. You value only what’s denied you, and so I denied you your niece, and you came to value her greatly.”

“You are an idiot, Dolan. A bona fide, blazing, certifiable…” Deene fell silent again.

“I am an idiot, but until I started limiting your access to Georgina, you were intent on haring off in all directions. Cairo one moment, Baltimore the next, which is exactly what your sister did not want to see happen.”

Deene glanced over again, his expression considering. “I was supposed to keep an eye on you as well, but I soon gave up on that. If looking after Georgie was the only way I could keep a promise to my sister, then look after Georgie was what I would do.”

It must be galling to the younger man, to know his sister had set them both up like this. A few more years of marriage, and his perspective would shift, if Dolan’s estimation of the marchioness was on the mark.

“I suppose all’s well, then,” Dolan pointed out. “You won the race. You get the prize.”

“I did not win the race,” Deene said, his voice low but forceful. “My jockey will be disqualified, and if you didn’t try to drug my horse, then I’d like to know who did?”

Dolan took Miss Amy Ingraham’s arm and caught Moreland’s eldest noting the gesture.

“Amy has something to tell you, something she managed to tell me only after we’d saddled up and wrestled Goblin up to the starting line. Tell him, Miss Ingraham, and make it quick, because Greymoor will not spare us a moment’s more privacy than he has to.”

“I know who drugged your horse, my lord. At first I thought it was you, so closely does the man resemble you. Then I realized he’s older than you, a little less broad through the shoulders, and so forth.”

“The man’s name?”

Dolan gave Deene credit for asking civilly. Amy seemed to shrink against Dolan’s side, and her pace slowed as they approached the Denning stable block.

“I am familiar with Debrett’s, Lord Deene. The man I overheard congratulating his minions for drugging your horse is Lord Andermere. I believe he’s a cousin of some sort to you.”

“Amy, would you excuse us for just a moment?” Dolan tried for a conciliatory tone but wasn’t quite successful.

“Jonathan, you promised.”

“I know, my dear, and I shall keep my promises. All of my promises.”

She looked like she wanted to say more, but went up on her toes and kissed Dolan’s cheek right there before the Moreland horde, with Deene looking on, Kesmore glowering at all and sundry from the stables, and the Earl of Greymoor standing around smacking his boots with his riding crop.

That one small kiss on the cheek gave Dolan the resolve he needed to explain to Marie’s brother what should have been made plain to the man long since.

That Dolan had been in awe of his pretty, oh-so-proper wife, and would have paid five times the fortune he had to make her his own.

That he’d fallen in love with Marie despite every intention to the contrary.

That he’d waited a year after their vows for her permission to consummate the union, and that, when it was obvious more children might be the end of her, he’d still been nonetheless helpless to deny his wife anything, including the babies she’d begged for.

A decision he’d regretted every single day of his widowerhood.

“Be patient, my lord, please. They’ve needed to talk for years, and a few more minutes won’t make a difference.”

Eve wasn’t about to beg—Greymoor was in charge of a simple horse race, for pity’s sake. He wasn’t Lord High Admiral of anything; nor was his own family history so free of scandal that Eve feared the man would stir up trouble for the pure mischief of it. He looked like he might be formulating some polite rejoinder when Eve heard a familiar voice.

“Eve Windham… Denning.”

Her Grace approached at a pace a bit less decorous than the duchess usually displayed in public, while Greymoor bowed slightly and called out to one of his subordinates.

“Mama.”

The duchess appeared composed, until Eve caught Louisa’s eye. Louisa looked fretful, which suggested she might be scanning the surrounds for His Grace, which suggested in turn that Mama was not as calm as she appeared.

“You… You…” Her Grace stared at Eve, and while Eve braced herself for a lecture that would trump any scene the menfolk might be brewing, her mother’s eyes filled with tears. “I am so proud of you.”

It was the last thing Eve expected her mother to say, much less in a public location. “Proud of me?”

“Oh, you rode like a Windham. I wish Bartholomew had been alive to see his baby sister out there, soaring over one fence after another. I wish St. Just had been here to brag on you properly. I wish… oh, I wish…”

She reached for Eve and enfolded her daughter in a fierce, tight hug. “You showed them, Eve. You showed us all. Deene will be wroth with you for such a stunt, but he’ll get over it. A man in love forgives a great deal. Just ask your father.”

Her Grace whispered this between hugs, tighter hugs, and teary smiles.

“Mama, Deene is the one who said I ought to ride. I would never have had the…”

The courage. The faith in herself. The determination… All the things she’d called upon time after time in the past seven years, her own strengths, and she’d been blind to them.

“I could not have ridden that race without my husband’s blessing and support, Mama.”

“But you did ride it,” Her Grace said, pulling Eve in for another hug. “I about fainted when you had that bad moment. Your father had to watch the last fences for me, but then the finish… You were a flat streak, you and that horse. I’ve no doubt he’d jump the Channel for you did you ask it. Oh, Eve… You must promise me never to do such a thing again, though. I could not bear it. Your father nearly had another heart seizure.”

“I did no such thing, and I will ask you, Duchess, to keep your voice down if you’re going to slander my excellent health in such a manner.”

His Grace was capable of bellowing, of shouting down the rafters, of letting every servant on three floors know at once of his frequent displeasures, but the duke was not using ducal volume as he approached his wife and youngest daughter.

He was using his husband-voice, his volume respectful, even if his tone was a trifle testy.

“Papa.”

Eve pulled back from her mother’s embrace to meet her father’s blue-eyed gaze. Mama might be willing to make allowances, but His Grace was another matter entirely.

“Evie.” He glanced from daughter to mother. “You’ve upset your mother, my girl. Gave her a nasty moment there at that oxer.”

She was to be scolded? That was perhaps inevitable, given that His Grace—

Her father pulled her into his arms. “But what’s one bad moment, if it means you’re finally back on the horse, though, eh? I particularly liked how you took the water—that showed style and heart. And that last fence… quite a race you rode, Daughter. I could not be more proud of you.”

He extended an arm to the duchess, who joined the embrace with a whispered, “Oh, Percival…”

So it came about that, for the first time in seven years, Eve’s proud parents saw her cry—and it was a good thing for them all, and for Eve’s brothers and sisters too. A very good thing, indeed.

“I think she’s all right,” Greymoor said, his glance anxious as he took in Eve and her parents farther down the barn aisle. “One doesn’t want to ask a duke and a duchess to shove off so one can decide which scandal should be propounded regarding the simple match race one was supposed to supervise, so perhaps you’d best intervene.”

Deene did not care for Greymoor’s irritable tone, but he cared even less for the prospect of Eve’s parents browbeating her for overcoming years of self-doubt in spectacular fashion.

“Evie?” He kept his tone casual and sauntered up to his wife. “Accepting some additional congratulations?”

He draped an arm over her shoulders and shot a challenging look at His Grace.

To Deene’s surprise, the duke was beaming at his youngest daughter. “Indeed she was, Deene. And there will be a proper celebration going on in our private pavilion once you get Greymoor set to rights.”

The duke offered his wife his arm, but Deene noticed they did not withdraw very far.

“Greymoor is about to explode, Wife. Shall we go take our medicine?”

Eve looped her arm through his. “William is faring well?”

“He’s still cooling out, but yes. He’s going sound, he knows he won, and he’s quite pleased with himself.”

“Papa and Mama were proud of me, Husband.”

She nearly whispered this, her tone one of awe. Deene stopped and wrapped her in a tight hug. “Of course they were. I am proud of you. William is proud of you. You need to know that, Eve, regardless of what Greymoor does with the race results.”

“I do know it. Louisa told me I’m to be disqualified.”

He stepped back just far enough to meet her gaze. “That doesn’t matter. You know it doesn’t matter?”

She nodded, her smile a thing of such joy and beauty, Deene’s heart began to hammer hard against his ribs.

“Deene.” Greymoor motioned them over to where Dolan stood beside the earl. “I am prepared to render a result in this race, and then—meaning no disrespect to her ladyship here—I am going to go home, get roaring drunk, and swear off stewarding private matches for at least ten years.”

Eve spoke up. “It’s all right, your lordship. I understand you cannot let my ride stand.”

Greymoor looked relieved, but Dolan didn’t let his lordship reply.

“I don’t see as that’s the necessary result.”

Deene appreciated the gesture, but rules were rules. “Dolan, there isn’t a jockey club on any continent that would allow a female jockey’s ride to stand. I know this. I knew it. I did not intend to keep Eve’s gender a secret.”

Dolan’s gaze was measuring. “I am a man of my word, Greymoor. It’s often the only grudging, honest compliment I garner from those of greater rank, but they must concede that much. At no time in our discussions did we stipulate that Jockey Club rules would apply. We did not run a standard distance, we did not use a standard steeplechase course, and we did not use a standard flat track. We ran a race designed to show off our two colts for the athletes they are, and we accomplished that aim. I say the first horse past the post should stand as the winner.”

“Mr. Dolan—” Greymoor’s brows knitted, and he slapped his crop against his boots once. “I understand this race to have entailed wagers between you and Lord Deene. If I decide the race in favor of Deene, what of the wagers?”

Dolan’s eyes went flat, his face expressionless. “I am prepared to abide by my word.”

“Lucas?” Eve cocked her head. “What does he mean?”

“I mean,” Dolan answered, “that I will surrender into Deene’s legal keeping my daughter Georgina, along with a sum certain in the tens of thousands of pounds, and that stallion known as Goblin, and further described as a gray standing seventeen one hands unshod, bearing no other—”

Deene cut him off. “I am not taking your daughter from you. That was never my aim, and I won’t be held responsible for doing so because your damned pride insists on it.”

“You wagered your daughter?” Eve asked.

“I wagered her future, which is better served if she’s raised by her uncle and by yourself, Lady Deene.”

This discussion was not going the way Deene had intended.

“I can declare Lady Eve the loser,” Greymoor volunteered, which earned him a scathing glance from Eve.

“Hush, my lord. This is a family matter. Mr. Dolan needs a moment to see the wisdom of my husband’s reasoning.”

“Lady Deene,” Dolan began, “I lost. I had considered losing apurpose, truth be known, and have had some time to accommodate myself to this outcome. I’m sure Deene will allow me ample visitation. We agreed on that for the loser as well.”

His gaze, when he raised his eyes to Deene, was… pleading. How long had Deene waited to see Jonathan Dolan brought to this, only to be unable to stand the sight of the man’s importuning.

“Lucas, we cannot. Georgina loves her father, and while I will happily do all in my power to see the girl launched, please don’t do this. You’ll see eventually…” She started to tear up, and so Deene kissed her to stop the flow of words, then speared the earl with a glare.

“Greymoor, I forfeit the race. I forfeit the race, the wager, everything. Declare Dolan the winner before my wife starts crying. I’ll get my visits with my niece, and Eve will sponsor her come out, which is all I ever truly wanted from this whole match.”

“Fine,” Greymoor sputtered. “The race is for—”

“Not a forfeit, for God’s sake,” Dolan expostulated. “Declare him the damned winner, and I’ll keep my daughter, but the money and the colt will be… wedding presents. Goddamned wedding presents, with the horse going into her ladyship’s keeping.”

Deene most assuredly did not want such a large sum of money from another family member, much less another horse for his wife to fall in love with, but before he could take up the argument, Eve had stuck out a small hand.

“You have a deal, Mr. Dolan.” She shook, she kissed the man’s cheek, and she looked like she’d hug the sorry bastard while Greymoor cracked a smile and the sound of applause filled Deene’s ears.

Eve’s family stood around them, Their Graces, her brothers, her sisters, their spouses, all beaming like idiots. The race, it appeared, had been decided.

Westhaven leaned in. “You will not, I hope, choose this moment to indulge in any ninnyhammer behavior, Deene. Shake the man’s hand, and get my sister the hell home before she faints again.”

Again?

Deene shook Dolan’s hand, endured the moment when Greymoor declared victory for King William, then got Eve the hell home. While she did not faint “again,” she did fall asleep in Deene’s arms, such that he had to carry her over the threshold and up to their chambers thereafter.

Eve awoke deep in the night to find her husband blanketing her. In one instant, she went from a sweet, sleepy awareness of his body draped over hers, to a focused yearning for intimacy with him.

“I wasn’t sure you’d awaken.” His voice held a note of humor in the darkness, also concern.

She wrapped her arms and legs around him, got one hand anchored on his muscular buttocks and the other in his hair. “I’m awake.”

The day had been long, with her family celebrating at great and noisy length, until Valentine had started singing, Westhaven had joined in, then Sophie with her lovely voice, and Her Grace had all but wept to see her brood engaged in such a display of good spirits.

They’d fallen into telling stories next, with every other tale seeming to center around “Remember the time Evie went steeplechasing on Meteor,” or “Recall that it was Evie who wanted to see if the beasts really did speak on Christmas Eve…”

And Deene had waited patiently through it all, occasionally toasting his marchioness, but mostly keeping her by his side while the Windham family recovered from having one of its members in seven years of self-imposed exile.

When Deene had bundled Eve into the coach, she’d fallen asleep on his shoulder, then later had fallen asleep at her bath, literally, and needed her husband’s assistance to get from the tub to the bed.

He hadn’t bothered to put her in a nightgown, a decision she had to approve of as he kissed his way across her collarbones.

“These bones could have been broken at that bloody oxer.”

“They weren’t. My husband had faith in me.”

He shifted up, to rest his chin on her crown. “I have never been so goddamned scared in my life, Evie. I have faith in you, and you rode one hell of a race, but please—I beg you—develop no aspirations involving a career as a jockey. There aren’t enough prayers in me or in all of Christendom for that.”

“I won’t.”

He sighed a big, husbandly sigh, proof positive he’d truly been concerned about this. And if she’d started spouting plans to work Goblin into better condition, no doubt he would have learned to pray harder and faster.

“Lucas?”

“Beloved?”

“Can we talk later?”

“We will talk later.”

He settled in then to love her. She already knew this about him after only a few months of marriage, knew when he was teasing and testing, knew when he was serious. He was very serious.

He was usually careful to insinuate himself into her body in easy, almost-pleasant stages, but this time, he seated himself at her opening, took her mouth in a voracious kiss, and drove home in one hot, sweet thrust that inspired her body into fisting around him in abrupt, clutching spasms of pleasure.

Eve gathered, as she lay panting beneath him, that her husband was making some sort of point. He waited a few minutes before resuming his diatribe, this time using slow, measured thrusts with a relentless quality to them that made Eve dig her nails into his backside and moan against his throat.

The third time he started up, she realized he was riding some sort of race of his own, an obstacle course of pleasure and persistence, in which she had no choice—in which she had no wish—except to submit and be amazed. When he finally allowed himself to cross his own finish line, she held him tightly, for long, long moments, until she understood what her next obstacle was going to be.

It was time to talk.

She smoothed her hand down the elegant length of Deene’s spine, down to the lovely contour of his buttocks. He sighed and lifted half an inch away.

“I have imposed on you,” he said, biting her earlobe. “You must scold me, Eve.”

“I am too well pleasured to scold anybody for anything. Shall I fetch a cloth?”

“Somebody ought to.”

He would have heaved himself away, except Eve clutched him a little tighter for a moment—for courage. Deene waited, then climbed out of the bed and crossed the room to the washbasin. Eve watched while he rinsed off by the glowing embers of the fire, then accepted the cool cloth from him and felt his gaze on her while she did likewise.

“Being married to you is very intimate, Lucas.”

He accepted the cloth from her and tossed it in the general direction of the hearth. “Are you complaining?”

A guarded note in his voice betrayed the sincerity of his question.

“I am rejoicing. Also a trifle chilled, so please get under these covers and stay awake for a bit longer.”

She caught one corner of his mouth tipping up slightly before he scooted under the covers and moved to spoon himself around her.

“Not like that.” Eve wrestled him about, so he was over her. “What are we to do about Anthony?”

“Anthony has taken ship for Boston, his consort and children with him. I expect he also has at least a small fortune in coin packed among his bags, which I will choose to regard as compensation for his years of service.”

“He stole from you, Lucas.”

“Not as much as you’d think. He skimmed liberally, but as best I can reason, he liked more the sense of being the one who held the power and the purse strings. He didn’t want me discovering his schemes, but more to the point, he didn’t want me to figure out that he was merely a well-paid cipher, not the linchpin of some convoluted, ailing financial empire.”

“A lying, well-paid cipher.”

Deene nuzzled her ear, which tickled. “We ought to be grateful all Anthony’s talk of rumors was mostly exaggeration of his own efforts to slander me, and that nobody has been paying the least mind to us or to my misspent youth.”

Misspent youth. The term reminded Eve of the topic she had yet to broach. “I have something difficult to say to you, Husband.”

“I do hope that white marriage business isn’t going to come up, Eve Denning.”

He snuggled his body in closer, as if to admit that the white marriage business had been lurking somewhere in his male brain, creating havoc these weeks past, and to further clarify that he’d have no part of it.

“God love you, Husband, a white marriage is the last thing I could contemplate with you. I would be devastated…”

He left off nuzzling her neck. “Go on.”

This wasn’t at all the tack she wanted to take. She wanted to be brisk, informative, and unsentimental. To pass along a few minor facts in the interests of easing her conscience and showing the same faith in him he’d shown in her.

A marriage needed to be based on mutual respect, after all.

“There are things I’ve needed to tell you, Lucas, but haven’t found quite the right moment. Things that want privacy.”

“I’m listening, and this is as much privacy as we’re likely to get anywhere.”

His reply was not at all helpful, but he stroked a hand over her hair then repeated the caress, and that… It reminded Eve of the way he’d patted her shoulder before the race. The way he’d stayed near her all day, the way he’d carried her over the threshold.

“My courses are late, Husband.”

This merited her a sigh and a kiss to her cheek.

Her cheek?

“Being the sort of intimate husband I am—and being married to the lusty sort of wife you are—one noticed this.”

She liked that he thought she was lusty… But he’d noticed?

What else had he noticed?

“Did you notice that I was scared to death on that horse today?”

“Of course. The more frightened you are, the calmer you get. Usually.” Another kiss to her other cheek. “Though you were not particularly calm on our wedding night.”

Oh, he would bring that up. Eve had wanted to ease into the topic, to whisk right over it, to drop hints and let him draw conclusions.

Subtlety was wanted for the disclosure she had in mind.

“I was not chaste.”

God help her, she’d spoken those words aloud. Deene’s chin brushed over her right eyebrow then her left; his arms cradled her a little more closely. “You were chaste.”

“No, I was not. I had given my virtue… Lucas, are you listening to me?”

“I always listen to you. You did not give your virtue to anyone. It was taken from you by a cad and a bounder who’d no more right to it than he did to wear the crown jewels.”

Eve’s husband spoke in low, fierce tones, even as the hand he smoothed over her hair was gentle.

“How did you know?” He’d known? All this time he’d known and said nothing?

“I thought at first you were simply nervous as any bride would be nervous of her first encounter with her husband, but then I realized you were not nervous, you were frightened. Of me, of what I would think of you. As if…”

He rolled with her so she was sprawled on his chest and his arms were wrapped around her. By the limited light in the room, Eve met his gaze.

“Your brother Bartholomew caught up with the fool man first, and the idiot was so stupid as to brag of the gift you’d bestowed on him. He was further lunatic enough to brag about the remittance his silence would cost your family. He bragged on his cleverness, duplicity, bad faith, and utter lack of honor to your own brother.”

“Bart never said… Devlin never breathed a word.”

“I don’t think Devlin knew. By the time Devlin arrived on the scene, Bart had beaten the man near to death and summoned a press gang. I know of this only because I happened to share a bottle—a few bottles—with Lord Bart the night before we broke the siege at Ciudad Rodrigo. He regretted the harm to you. He regretted not avenging your honor unto the death. He regretted a great deal, but not that you’d survived your ordeal and had some chance to eventually be happy.”

“You have always known, and you have never breathed a word.”

“I have always known, and I have done no differently than any other gentleman would do when a lady has been wronged. You are the one who has kept your silence, Evie, even from your own husband.”

He was not accusing her of any sin; he was expressing his sorrow for her. Eve tucked herself tightly against him, mashed her nose against his throat, and felt relief, grief, and an odd sort of joy course through her.

“All these years I thought I was alone with what had befallen me, but I had a friend in you, didn’t I?”

“I haven’t always been a friend to you, Evie. When a man finds himself damnably attracted to a woman who has suffered enough at the hands of…”

She shut him up with a kiss, a soft, helpful kiss such as a wife bestows on a husband inclined to temporize when he ought to be listening.

“I love you, Lucas. I love you for the faith you have in me, for your patience, for your honor, for so many reasons. I love you and I trust you and I love you.”

He heaved the biggest sigh ever. “And you won’t feel compelled to ride in any more races to demonstrate these lovely sentiments you hold toward me?”

“Not on horseback.”

Though she did spend much of the remaining night—as well as most of the ensuing decades—demonstrating those same sentiments in myriad other ways.