Lady Eve's Indiscretion

Three

Damn and blast Lucas Denning for needling her, for that’s exactly what he’d done. Eve drew up sharply in the mews and dropped her escort’s arm.

“Deene, where are your footmen, where is your driver?”

“Probably enjoying a merry pint or two despite the hour of the day.”

He started toward the landau while Eve resisted the urge to clobber him with her parasol. When he turned back to her a few paces away, he wore a smile that could only be described as taunting.

“Eve Windham, I am competent to drive you the less than two hours it will take to get to The Downs. For that matter, you are competent to drive me as well. You know this team, they’re perfect gentlemen, and it’s a calm day. Get into the carriage.”

The gleam in his blue eyes suggested he knew exactly what manner of challenge he’d just posed, both in referring to her driving skill and in ordering her into the carriage.

She walked up to Duke. “Good morning, Your Grace. You’re looking very handsome today.” She took a bag of sliced apples from her reticule and fed the beast a treat. This was bad manners on her part—one never fed another’s cattle treats without permission. The horse’s bit would be particularly sticky and slimy now too.

She moved around to Marquis and offered him the same attention, taking an extra moment to scratch the gelding’s neck.

“Loosen the check reins, Lucas. These horses are going to stretch their legs when we leave Town, and your grooms have fitted the harness with a greater eye toward appearances than the animals’ comfort.”

He blinked, which was a supremely satisfying response to the use of the imperative on a man too handsome and self-assured for his own good.

While Deene tended to the harness, Eve climbed onto the driver’s bench at the front of the vehicle. She was not going to sit back in the passengers’ seats all by herself, shouting at Deene to make conversation for the next two hours.

Though apparently, that would not have been his intent. Eve had been telling herself for some miles that it was exhilarating to be behind such a spanking—and not the least bit frightening—team when Deene finally spoke.

“Did you or did you not wear a very fetching brown ensemble just so you might also wear brown gloves, the better to be petting horses?”

She had. That he would divine such a thing was disconcerting.

“The ensemble, as you note, my lord, is attractive, and the skirt cut for a walking length so I might move about your stables without concern for my hems. Then too, I’ve been told brown flatters my blond hair.”

He glanced over at her with such a fulminating look that Eve realized she’d brought them to the point of departure for another argument, which had not been her intent. She was driving out for the second time in a week with somebody besides family, and it was a pretty day.

“Tell me about The Downs, Lucas. St. Just said you inherited the property when you were a boy.”

“I did. What would you like to know about it?”

He was going to make her work for it, but she was a duke’s daughter. If she couldn’t make polite conversation with a familiar acquaintance, she didn’t deserve her title.

“What draws you to it? You’ve many properties, and yet this is the one you take the greatest interest in.”

He looked for a moment like he’d quibble with even that, but then his shoulders relaxed. “My cousin Anthony is the Deene estate steward for all intents and purposes, and he does a marvelous job at a large and thankless task. Each property has a steward, some have both house and land stewards, and they all answer to him. The Downs is my own…”

He fell silent while the horses clip-clopped along.

“I have a little property,” Eve said, not wanting the silence to stretch any further. “It’s a dear little place not three miles from Morelands, part of Mama’s settlements.”

“Is this Lavender Corner?”

“It is. I’ve fitted out the household to my taste, and some days I just go there to enjoy the place.”

“To be alone?”

He was aiming another look at her while she tried to formulate an answer that was honest but not combative, when something—a hare, a shadow, a deer moving in the woods to the side of the road—gave the horses a fright.

Between one moment and the next, Eve went from a relatively innocuous chat with her escort to blind panic. As the vehicle surged forward, she clutched the rail and resisted the urge to jump to safety.

Except it wasn’t safety, not when the horses could bolt off at a dead gallop over uneven terrain. As the trees flew by in a blur, she was reminded yet again that nowhere in the vicinity of a horse could she ever be truly safe.

“Ho, you silly buggers.” Deene’s voice was calm over the clatter of the carriage. “That’s enough of this. It was a damned rabbit, you idiots, and you’re not getting any more treats if this is how you comport yourselves before a lady.”

His scold was lazy, almost affectionate, and to Eve’s vast, enormous, profound relief, the horses slowed to a canter, then a trot.

“Lucas, I’m going to be sick.” When had she gotten her hand wrapped around his arm?

“You are not going to be sick. If I pull them over now, they’ll understand that a queer start earns them a rest and possibly a snack. We’ll let them blow in another mile or two when their little horsey brains have forgotten all about this frolic and detour.”

Eve closed her eyes, and in sheer misery, rested her forehead on Deene’s muscular shoulder. A mile was forever, and yet what he said made perfect sense—to a competent horseman.

“I want to walk back to Town, Lucas. Right now, I want to walk back to Town.”

She felt him chuckle, damn and blast him. If he hadn’t been the one holding the reins, she would have walloped him.

“I’ve seen you ride through much worse misbehavior than that little contretemps, Eve Windham, and you did it with a smile. There’s a pretty view coming up. I typically let the team rest there.”

While Eve breathed in the lavender and cedar scent of Deene’s jacket—a cure-all for not just megrims, apparently, but a nervous stomach as well—she considered that she might possibly, in some very small regard, be overreacting.

She raised her head but kept her arm linked with Deene’s.

“You were going to tell me about The Downs.”

“You were going to tell me about Lavender Corner.”

Or they could argue about who was going to tell whom about which property. Despite her lingering upset, despite the looming challenge of the drive back to Town, Eve smiled.

Though she still did not turn loose of Deene’s arm.

From time immemorial, the horses who stayed alive were the ones who galloped off at the first sign of possible danger, and then, two miles later, paused to consider the wisdom of their flight—or to get back to swishing their tails at flies and grazing.

Deene wasn’t upset with his team for having a lively sense of self-preservation, though he was out of charity with them for scaring Eve Windham. He forgave them their lapse of composure when he realized Eve’s unease was keeping her glued to his side, a petite, warm, female bundle of nerves, trying to decide whether to resume arguing with him or treat him to another round of polite discourse.

She opted for discourse—a small disappointment.

“I do go to Lavender Corner to be alone,” she said. “I always make some excuse, that I’m meeting with my housekeeper, that I want to see how the gardens are coming, but mostly…”

Her words trailed off, and Deene stepped into the breach, even as he wondered what she wasn’t saying.

“I grew up with only the one sibling, and as a child, a five-year age difference made Marie seem like an adult. I always thought a lot of brothers and sisters would be wonderful, but I suppose it has drawbacks too.”

Her grip on his arm eased fractionally. “It is wonderful, unless they go off to war and don’t come back, or have to spend years expiring of blasted consumption. Even then, I would not exchange the people I love for anything in the world.”

What could he say to that? The people he loved encompassed his niece, whom he was barely permitted to see, and Anthony, though Deene would never mistake his cousin for a friend.

“One can tell you love each other,” he said, it not being an appropriate moment for a disagreement. “It’s there in your humor with each other, your protectiveness, your honesty. We’ve reached our pull off.”

For which he was grateful. Talk of love was for women among themselves, where it could safely stray off to that most inane subject, being in love. He pulled up the team, set the brake, wrapped the reins, and jumped down.

“Let’s stretch our legs, shall we?”

He didn’t really mean it as a question. Eve’s face was still pale and she would fare better for using her legs.

“You’ll let them graze?” she asked from her perch on the bench.

“They don’t deserve it, but yes, if you prefer.” He held up his arms to assist her to the ground, and she hesitated. In the instant when he would have remonstrated her for her rudeness, he understood that forcing herself to move at all when there was no driver at the reins was… difficult for her. “Evie, come here.”

He plucked her bodily from the carriage—he was tall enough to do that—and let her slide down his body until her feet were planted on terra firma. When he would have stepped back, she dropped her forehead to his chest.

“I’m an idiot.”

“If so, you’re a wonderfully fragrant idiot.” Also lithe, warm, and a surprisingly agreeable armful of woman. He kept his arms around her as he catalogued these appealing attributes and helped himself to a pleasing whiff of mock orange.

“I panicked back there when the horses startled.”

She sounded miserable over this admission. He took a liberty and turned her under his arm, keeping his arm across her shoulders while they walked a few paces away.

“I know you took a bad fall before your come out, Eve. There’s no shame in a lingering distaste for injury. I still get irritable whenever I hear cannon firing, even if it’s just a harbor sounding its signals.”

And for the longest time, thunder had had the same effect, as had the sound of a herd of horses galloping en masse. She moved away from his side, and he let her go while he released the check reins so the horses could graze.

“Being rattled from years at war is not the same thing at all as letting one fall—one, single fall—turn me into a ninnyhammer seven years and two months later.”

She probably knew the exact number of days as well, which made him hurt for her.

“I beg to differ with you, my lady—though I realize it has become an ungentlemanly habit. Tooling around the park, nobody’s team is going to spook at anything, except perhaps Lady Dandridge’s bonnets. If this is the first startled team you’ve been behind in years, then I’d be surprised if you weren’t a little discommoded. Walk with me.” He held out a hand to her. “There’s a patch of lily of the valley that is not to be missed over by those trees.”

She shot a wary glance at the horses, who were placidly grazing on the verge.

The look she gave his bare hand was equally cautious.

In that moment, he experienced a profound insight regarding Eve Windham, the things that spooked her, and why they spooked her. He ambled along in silence with her, hand in hand, resenting the insight mightily.

He found it much easier to consider Eve a well-bred young lady with ample self-confidence borne of a ducal upbringing, a very appealing feminine appearance, and no small amount of poise. He did not want to think of her as… wounded or in any way vulnerable.

“Have a seat,” he said some moments later, shrugging out of his jacket and spreading it on the ground for her.

Another woman would have argued over this rather than the silly things he debated with Eve—argued over the impropriety of being just out of sight of the road, of sharing a coat with a lone gentleman—but Eve sank gracefully to the ground, tugged off her gloves, and drew her knees up before her.

He sat beside her for a few moments in silence, letting the burbling of a nearby stream underscore what he hoped was a soothing silence. The air was redolent with the scent of lily of the valley, but beneath that he could still catch a little note of mock orange.

And Eve.

Now would be a fine time for Lucas Denning to share a few of his lovely kisses, but no, he had to sit beside Eve in the grass, all solemn and gentlemanly.

She wanted to scream and lay about with her parasol.

At the ninnyhammer horses and her ninnyhammer self. Also at the ninnyhammer man beside her, gone all proper, when what she could have really used, what she would have appreciated greatly was the heat and distraction of his mouth on hers, the feel of all that fine muscle and man right next to her, his body so close—

A thought popped into her head all at once. A novel, startling thought she’d never had before: if the man was such a blockhead as not to realize this was a kissing moment, then the woman could certainly be astute enough, bold enough—

She rounded on him and swung a leg across his middle before her mind articulated the rest of this brilliant idea. The element of surprise allowed her to push him flat to his back, and perhaps some element of misplaced gentlemanly restraint meant she could get her mouth on his before he reacted.

Though it was such a wonderful reaction. He growled into her mouth, lashed his arms around her, and rolled with her, so she was beneath him amid the lilies of the valley, his kisses mixing with the lush fragrance of the flowers, the scent of crushed green grass, and the feel of the cool earth at Eve’s back.

Then he went still, and the disappointment Eve felt was so keen she was tempted to punch his shoulder… until his mouth came back to hers, sweetly, slowly, like a sigh feathering across her cheek, easing its way to her lips.

She relaxed, in her body and in her mind. He wasn’t going to deny her, and this was really a much nicer approach. She winnowed her hands through his hair, marveling at the softness of it, like light embodied beneath her fingers.

His tongue was soft too, and hot and tempting against her lips. Lovely appendage, a man’s tongue. She hadn’t always thought so and probably wouldn’t think so, but for—

Her articulate mind ground to a halt as Lucas gave her a little more of his weight, right there, where for seven years, a kind of loneliness and shame had mixed together to create an unnameable heaviness. As he pressed his body to hers, the weight inside her shifted, becoming somehow lighter and lovelier.

“Evie.”

He sighed her name against her throat in a voice she’d not heard from him before, one imbued with longing and passion.

Ah, God, the pleasure of his open mouth on her skin. It was like horses galloping for joy inside her, like…

She arched up into him, knowing full well what that rising column of flesh was. To hold him to her and glory in his desire for her should have been unthinkable, but when his hand settled over her breast, she buried her nose against his throat and rejoiced.

It had been so terribly long, and this was what a spring day was for. This was what youth and life were for.

He closed his fingers gently around her breast, and lightning shot from her nipple to her womb. Lovely, sweet, piercingly pleasurable lightning that made her squirm for more.

And then, when she would have started tearing at his clothing, a sound intruded. A rude, wrong sound that had Lucas going still above her and shifting himself up onto his knees and forearms so he crouched over her.

The wheels of a large conveyance lumbered past on the other side of the swale. Over the clatter of the vehicle, Eve heard a man’s voice.

“…Probably off in the trees taking a piss. Pass me yon flask, Jordie…”

Above her, Deene let out a held breath.

There were men with pretty manners, and then there were men who were not always gallant, and yet they were truly chivalrous. Eve accounted Deene some points in the chivalry department when he didn’t immediately roll away from her but stayed for a moment tucked close to her, his hand brushing her hair back from her temple.

His caress soothed her and helped her settle. It kept inchoate shame from gaining a toehold over the warmth still pooling in her middle.

She might have initiated the kiss, but Deene was showing her that he’d participated in it willingly. When she turned her face into his palm, he sighed and kissed her cheek, then drew back.

“Evie, tell me you’re all right.”

“I am fine.” When he took himself away, she’d be bereft, but to hear honest concern in his voice made even that eventuality bearable.

He rested his forehead against hers then shifted away, leaving Eve lying on her back amid the lilies of the valley, mourning his loss but also consoled by his rueful smile.

“You pack quite a wallop, my lady.”

Wallop. She smiled back at him, for she had walloped him without even using her parasol.

“I was either going to kiss you or give in to some other kind of upset.” She liked lying there amid the flowers, despite what it was probably doing to her fashionable brown ensemble. “And your kisses are lovely, Lucas.”

In the spirit of chivalry, she had to tell him that much.

“As are yours. But, Eve, we’ve had a narrow escape.”

And with that one solemn comment, Eve felt not the lovely, fragrant breeze of a joyous spring day, but that she was lying in the dirt, looking a fright, very likely having destroyed whatever grudging respect Deene had felt for her.

“Don’t poker up on me.” Deene used one finger to trace her hairline, then took her hand in his and drew her to a sitting position. “I’m not displaying the crests on the landau today, and that was hardly a fashionable conveyance that just passed.”

But his warning was clear: but for those two happenstances, she’d be ruined. A party from Town who recognized the Denning family crest would have remarked to one and all that the Marquis of Deene had been off in the bushes all alone with Lady Eve Windham. A little digging might have been necessary to find out with whom he’d driven out, but somebody—many, gleefully helpful somebodies, more likely—would have seen Eve leaving Mayfair up on the bench with Deene.

“Merciful heavens.” Eve dropped her forehead to her knees. “I’m sorry, Lucas. I did not think. I wasn’t—”

“Hush.” He stayed beside her, apparently in no hurry to rise. “A near miss is by definition not a disaster, and I could never regret such a pleasurable interlude, except that it does rather contradict the trust your family has placed in us both.”

She nodded and liked that he didn’t start fumbling around, blaming himself, when she’d been the one to accost him. If he’d taken that away from her, she would have had to use her parasol.

“It was just a kiss,” Eve said. “We’ve kissed before.”

“And it has been a delight on each occasion.” He sounded puzzled and pleased, if a little begrudging, which made Eve smile despite the rest of the thought he was too kind to say:

And this occasion must be the last.

He needed to marry, and she needed to avoid marriage. If they kept up with the kisses, sooner or later their near misses and narrow escapes would yield to the inescapable forces of Polite Society.

And that she could not allow.

To be thirty years of age, an experienced man of the world, and yet utterly flummoxed by the kiss of a proper Mayfair lady was… not lowering, exactly, but astonishing—and little had astonished Lucas Denning since his first pitched battle on the Peninsula.

If he’d had sisters to ask, he might have put it to them: Was it usual for a woman well past her come out to shift from composedly sitting beside him on the driver’s bench, making conversation, to flat panic, to scorching passion in a matter of moments?

Except the insight of genteel womenfolk probably had less to do with Eve’s behaviors than did the sieges he’d witnessed in Spain. When the walls were finally breached, mayhem of the worst kind ensued. Decorated veterans became animals, their most primitive natures ruling all their finer inclinations.

To think Eve Windham was besieged by fear was not comforting at all.

What was comforting—also unnerving—was to see how King William reacted to the woman.

“If I’d taught him to bow, he’d be on both knees before you, Eve Windham. That cannot be good for a horse who’s destined to compete for a living.”

“But he’s such a magnificent fellow. How could I not be smitten?”

The smile she gave the colt was dazzling, so purely beneficent Deene could not look away from the picture she made billing and cooing with the big chestnut horse. Willy was shamelessly flirting right back, batting his big, pretty eyes at her, wuffling into her palm, and wiggling his idiot lips in her hair. It wasn’t to be borne.

“Would you like to hack out with me, Eve?”

The smile disappeared. “I’m not dressed appropriately. Thank you for the invitation, nonetheless.”

He hadn’t expected her to accept, though he had wanted to hear her reply. He shifted closer to her in the stall, close enough that he could stretch out a hand to his horse and not be overheard by the lads.

“I’d put you up on Willy here. He’s gentle as a lamb under saddle.”

“You’d let me ride your prize racing stud?” The longing in her voice was palpable.

“I don’t think he’s going to hear, see, or obey anybody else when you’re in the vicinity. Willy’s in love.”

The blighted beast nickered deep in its chest as if in agreement.

“What a charming fellow.” Eve’s bare hand scratched right behind Willy’s ear, and if he’d been a dog, the stallion’s back leg would have twitched with pleasure.

What was wrong with a man when he wanted to tell his horse: She petted me first, so don’t get any ideas?

“I’d love to see you on him, Lucas. I’ll bet he has marvelous paces.” Now the smile was aimed at Deene, and even the horse seemed to be looking at him beseechingly.

“I cannot disappoint a guest. We’ll have some luncheon up at the house, and the lads can saddle him up.”

As Deene escorted the lady from the loose box, Willy managed to look crestfallen before he went back to desultorily lipping at his hay.

“Some horses just have the certain spark, you know,” Eve said as they wound through the gardens. “They have a sense of themselves. The breeding stock have it more often, but my sister Sophie has a pair of draft horses…”

She nattered on, a woman enthralled with horses, while Deene speculated about just one more kiss, this one in the greening rose arbor. Rose arbors were intended to facilitate kissing—his own reprobate father had explained this to him not long after Deene had gone to university.

Except… Deene recalled the duchess, waving them on their way just a few hours prior, recalled the fear he’d seen on Eve’s face when the horses had startled… and recalled how long it had taken him to get his unruly parts under control after kissing Eve—being kissed by Eve—amid the lilies of the valley.

There was nothing wrong with kisses shared between knowledgeable adults, but that kiss had threatened to escalate far beyond what Deene felt was acceptable when neither party had intentions toward the other. Nonetheless, the scent that was supposed to evoke return of happiness would forever after bring to his mind a walloping passionate interlude with a lovely woman—who was enamored of his horse.

“So if we were to come back out here, say, next week, might you be willing to hack out with me then, Lady Eve?”

She paused midreach toward her tea—she preferred Darjeeling—and pursed her lips. “I want to.”

“Then, Evie, what’s stopping you?”

Now she glowered at the teacup. “Nothing.”

She was lying again, though he had to allow her the fiction. She alone knew the worst of the specifics, but it was common knowledge she hadn’t been on a horse for years.

“Tell me about your accident.”

She glanced up. “You aren’t going to taunt me by snatching away the invitation to hack out, dangling it just out of my reach, pretending it’s a matter of indifference to you?”

It was Deene’s turn to glower, for she’d just listed his best tactics when sparring with her. “Would that help?”

She sat back. “Sometimes it has helped. When you had me drive home from the park… I hadn’t even taken the reins in years, Lucas. To find myself driving a team right in the middle of Town put me quite at sixes and sevens.”

This was not an admission; it was a confidence. A puzzle she was sharing with him and only him, as intimate as a kiss and in its own way even more exquisite.

“I have faith in you, Eve Windham. You were a bruising rider, a thoroughgoing equestrienne in the making. I’d like to see you on a horse again, if that would make you happy.”

She did not beam a dazzling smile at him, which was the intended effect of such a pretty speech. She instead looked like—God help them both—she might tear up and start bawling right here on the sunny, sheltered back terrace of his country retreat.

This would necessitate that he comfort her, which might not be a bad thing if he’d had the first clue how to go about it.

“Beg pardon, my lord.”

Aelfreth Green stood, cap in hand, at the edge of the terrace.

“Aelfreth?” The lads had been as smitten with Eve as the damned stallion. Aelfreth would not have intruded on the lady’s meal for anything less than fire, loose horses, or other acts of God.

“Sorry to interrupt, milady, your lordship, but Bannister says you’d best come.”

Foreboding congealed in Deene’s chest. “Eve, you’ll excuse me?”

“Of course.”

He rose, visions of Willy cast in his stall, with bowed tendons and incipient colic befalling the horse.

“It’s Franny, your lordship,” Aelfreth muttered as they strode away. “She’s not passing the foal.”

Behind him, Deene heard a chair scrape back.

“Come along, Lucas.” Eve seized his arm and started towing him forward. “If it’s a foaling gone sour, there’s no time to waste.”

He extricated his arm from her grip. “Eve, it isn’t in the least proper for you to be in the vicinity when a mare’s giving birth.”

“Hang proper. I’ve assisted at foalings before. We raise plenty of horses at Morelands, you know, and just because I no longer ride or drive or… any of that, doesn’t mean we have time to argue.”

She was right, blast her. An animal that historically gave birth where all manner of predators could interfere developed the ability to get the process over with quickly—and did not develop any ability to deal with protracted labor.

“Miss might be a help,” Aelfreth added. “The mares sometimes want for another female when things go amiss.”

“For God’s sake, this isn’t a lying-in party.”

Nobody graced that expostulation with a reply, and when Deene got to the foaling barn, the situation was grim indeed. Bannister, the grizzled trainer and head lad, was outside the foaling stall, his expression glum.

“The foal willna come, your lordship. She’ll soon stop trying.”

A black mare lay in the deep straw, her enormous belly distended, her neck damp with sweat.

Deene started stripping off his coat. “What’s the problem?”

“The foal…” Bannister glanced at Aelfreth.

“Won’t come, I know. Have you had a look?”

Another glance—at Aelfreth, at Deene, at the mare, everywhere but at Lady Eve Windham.

She laid a hand on the man’s hairy forearm, as if they were great friends. “Speak freely, Mr. Bannister. Is it a red bag? A breech?”

“I dunno, mum. But she shoulda dropped that foal nigh thirty minutes ago.”

Deene did not swear aloud, but in his mind, he bitterly railed against a staff that had let him eat tea and crumpets for half an hour while a mare was in distress.

“Bring me soap and water,” Deene said, passing his coat to Eve and starting on the buttons of his waistcoat. “Strong soap and some towels. Eve, I urge you to get back to the house. Frankincense is a maiden mare, she’s small, and this is not going to end well.”

“Sometimes it just takes them longer their first time, Lucas. We mustn’t panic.”

She was studying the mare while Deene passed her his waistcoat and stripped off his shirt.

“And sometimes, panic is the only thing that will carry the day. Bring me the damned bucket.” He did not raise his voice in deference to the horse groaning and thrashing her way through another contraction.

Eve set his clothing on a saddle rack and started undoing the buttons of her jacket. “She’s a very petite mare, Lucas. You’d best let me do this.”

Deene stopped in the process of shoving his shirt at her. “Let you? Let you put your hand… No.”

“Yes, let me. I’ve done this before, and I’m good at it, Lucas. For once being petite is an advantage. Compare your arm to mine and think of the mare.”

She thrust out a pale, slender arm—an appendage perhaps half the diameter of his.

While Deene stood there, bare to the waist, anxiety for the horse nigh choking him, Eve dropped her arm and pointed at the stall.

“There’s your problem, Deene. You’ve got a leg back, at least.”

While the mare grunted, a single small hoof emerged beneath her tail.

“Milady is right,” Bannister said. “Foals is supposed to dive into the world, their noses atween their knees. That one’s hung up a leg.”

He shot Deene a look and turned to head down the shed row—to where the guns were stored in a cabinet in the saddle room.

“Lucas, don’t try to stop me.” Eve was down to a very pretty camisole and chemise, both of which left her arms bare below midbicep.

“I will allow you to try,” Deene said. “But only because there is no time to make you see reason.”

Aelfreth appeared with the bucket, and Eve started scrubbing her arm. “The contraction is passing, and now’s the time to investigate. Talk to the mare, Lucas, she has to be terrified and exhausted.”

That Eve would enlist his aid was a small consolation, but he hadn’t been about to leave her to her own devices in a stall with an animal half out of its small store of wits with pain. He moved to the horse’s stall, approached the mare’s head, and crouched down.

“Help has arrived, Franny. We’ll get you free of this little blighter in no time. You and Willy can admire him all you want then and boast of him to the other mares…”

He pattered on like that, stroking the horse’s neck in what he hoped was a soothing rhythm. Behind the horse, Eve was on her side, right down in the straw, her expression calm as she petted the horse’s quarters.

“No surprises,” Eve said to the horse. “Just another lady back here, and Deene is correct. We’ll have this nonsense over with soon, and I promise you—on my mother’s solemn assurances—the first one is the worst.”

Deene took up the patter while Eve examined the mare internally. When the mare began to grunt again, his heart about stopped.

“Eve?”

“I’m fine, and it’s a leg back.” Her voice was strained, and Deene knew all too well what the tremendous pressure of a contraction did to a human appendage intruding into the birth canal. Bannister—who was a fine man to run a racing stable—swore it could break a man’s arm.

Which Deene hoped was the exaggeration of the uninitiated.

“Eve, do you think you can bring it around?”

“I can, I just need—” The mare heaved a great sigh and went still. “I need purchase to push the foal back.”

She needed strength to do that, to use the time between contractions to shove the foal back into the womb where it could get its feet untangled enough for a proper presentation.

“Hold on.” He left the mare with a pat to the neck and came around to the back of the horse. “Just give me a moment.”

For a moment was all they’d have.

She’d been a girl of fourteen the last time she’d done this, drafted into service in the same situation—a small mare, disaster for both mare and foal looming at hand, a desperate measure permitted only because St. Just had begged His Grace to allow it.

And the mare and foal had lived.

That recollection gave Eve renewed strength, but scrabbling in the straw, she had nothing to brace herself against until a hard male chest blanketed her from behind, and a strong male hand settled on her shoulder.

“You’ve got the foal, Eve?”

“I do, I just need a little… more…” Just a few inches, just an inch. With Deene applying a steady brace to her shoulder and Eve hilting her arm inside the mare, she managed—just barely—to aid the foal in slipping back into the womb from the birth canal.

“Can you find the knee or the elbow, anything to ease the leg forward with?”

Another contraction was going to hit, and any second, while Eve tried sight unseen to sort one slippery foal-part from another.

“An elbow.” She hoped.

“Pull forward gently until you’ve got the foot coming along.”

The mare was small, but the distance was at the limit of Eve’s reach, and the room to maneuver nonexistent.

“Push harder, Lucas. I can’t get any purchase.”

He applied a painful pressure to Eve’s shoulder, all but shoving her face into the mare’s sweaty rump, but it gave her the fraction of an inch she needed. The leg was slippery and the space confined. She tugged, she pulled, she yanked, and with a sudden give, the foot slid forward.

“Done.” She slumped back against Deene’s chest and slipped her arm from the mare’s body, only to find herself summarily hauled to her feet.

“Then let’s get you out of here, because any moment now Franny is going to start thrashing again.”

Eve let Deene lead her from the stall as the mare began to strain and groan again. “I’ve seen foals born before, Lucas.”

This remonstrance came out weakly, for a sudden light-headedness was afflicting her—no doubt the result of being plucked from the straw after such an exertion.

“You’ve probably been kicked before too, which would not excuse me did I allow it to happen again.” Deene spoke briskly, and he swabbed briskly at her arm, from fingers to shoulder, with a clean, damp towel.

He needed to scold her about something; the realization made Eve curiously happy. “I’m sure you’re right, Lucas.”

When he had scrubbed her arm thoroughly, he set the towel aside, grasped her by her wrist, and tugged her across the barn aisle, stopping only long enough to retrieve his coat.

“I’ve never done what you just did.” He settled his coat over her shoulders, the scent of him bringing as much comfort as the warmth. “I’ve handled cows—a single cow, one time, and sheep, but they hardly need any help—not horses, for God’s sake. You could have been kicked, or the mare might have rolled. If your parents find out I permitted this, I will never be allowed to so much as—”

She put two fingers to his lips, lest he raise his voice and disturb the mare. “My papa has permitted me to provide the same aid at Morelands, but it was only the once, years ago. Now, hush.”

He was bare from the waist up, upset, and in some sort of male tantrum. Eve put her forehead on his sternum and her arms around his waist. She remained like that until she felt Deene’s arms come around her, slowly, carefully, enfolding her in warmth.

She felt his chin resting on her crown. “I keep underestimating you, Eve Windham.”

Eve turned her face so she could listen to his heart—a marvelous benefit to hugging a man without his shirt. “I underestimate me too.”

They remained like that, embracing, giving Eve the sense they were settling each other’s nerves as they did. Deene didn’t let her go until Bannister called softly from across the aisle.

“A right proper stud colt, we’ve got, but he be a big bugger, begging milady’s pardon.”

Deene leaned down to whisper in her ear. “Thank you. It’s Willy’s first colt, and I… just thank you.”

He slipped away and started giving orders, while Eve stood there wearing his coat and wondering which was better: kissing the Marquis of Deene or foaling out his mare.

The damned horse was showing off, adding that extra little fillip of élan to his strides, the smallest spark of additional grace, and as every lad on the property gathered on the rail, Deene had the sure conviction Willy knew Eve was watching him show off his equine wares.

But what a ride… Never had the stallion been more supple and willing, never had he flowed over the ground with quite such ease. When Deene brought the animal to a perfectly square halt before Eve where she perched on a top rail, her eyes were sparkling.

“Lucas, you were not boasting. He’s magnificent. A gentleman-scholar-poet-athlete-artist of a horse, and so very, very handsome.”

“Do you want to cool him out?”

The horse had hardly broken a sweat, but the highest standards of care dictated that he be walked after his exertions at least for a few minutes.

“Yes, I most certainly do.” She climbed down and scrambled between the rails while Deene ran up the irons and loosened the girth. When he stepped back, Eve took the reins and led the beast away on a circuit of the schooling ring.

“That’s the best he’s done, your lordship.” Bannister’s gaze followed Eve and the horse. “All that trotting about, he ain’t never looked that fine before.”

“He’s growing into himself.”

Bannister eyed Deene up and down. “Her ladyship has a way about her, more like. You should bring her by again soon.”

Bannister walked off with the rolling, bowlegged gait of the veteran equestrian, leaving Deene to watch as woman and horse ambled around the arena. Eve was talking to the horse in low, earnest tones, and the horse gave every appearance of listening raptly.

An image of Mildred Staines flashed in Deene’s mind. He’d seen her riding in the park on a pretty bay mare just a few days previous. Mildred sat a horse competently, but there was nothing pretty about the picture. Her habit was fashionable, her horse tidily turned out, her appointments all coordinated for a smart impression, but…

Eve was still wearing Deene’s coat, her skirts were rumpled, her boots dusty, and she sported a few wisps of straw in her hair. She stopped to turn the horse the other direction, pausing to pet the beast on his solid shoulder.

I could marry her.

The thought appeared in Deene’s brain between one instant and the next, complete and compelling. It rapidly began sprouting roots into his common sense.

She was wellborn enough.

She was pretty enough.

She was passionate enough.

She was—he forced himself to list this consideration—well dowered enough.

And she charmed King William effortlessly.

Why not? Little leaves of possibility began twining upward into Deene’s imagination.

He knew her family thoroughly and wouldn’t have to deal with any aunts secreted away in Cumbria.

He was friends with her brothers, who did not leave bastards all over the shire.

The Windham hadn’t been born who lost control when gambling.

And Eve Windham was a delightful kisser.

Why the hell not? The longer he thought about it, the more patently right the idea became.

Eve was grinning openly as she brought King William back over to the rail. “I’ve found my perfect companion, Deene. He doesn’t make idle conversation, doesn’t click his heels annoyingly, doesn’t reek of leeks or cigars, and would never drink to excess. I suppose you’ll make me turn him over to the lads for his grooming?”

“You suppose correctly.” He fell in beside her as she led her charge to the gate. “I hadn’t intended to stay this late in the day, and now it looks to be clouding up.”

“I don’t care.” She gave the horse one last pat. “I made a new friend today. The entire outing has been worth it.”

Smitten, the two of them. It gave a man pause when he had to consider that his horse’s charms might be interfering with the ideal moment for a proposal of marriage. Deene ushered Eve up to the house so she might repair her toilet, and waited on the terrace while she was within.

By the time she emerged from the house, Eve was a slightly rumpled version of the picture she’d presented first thing of the day, but to Deene’s eye, also more relaxed.

“I’ve had the tops put up on the landau, Lady Eve. Aelfreth will drive us.”

Her brows knit as Deene shrugged into the jacket she’d borrowed for the past couple of hours. “That isn’t quite…” She fell silent. “I suppose it will be dark before we reach Town, and I do not relish a soaking.”

“My thinking exactly.” Though if she had insisted, he’d also been prepared to ride up on the damned box if necessary to appease the proprieties. When he climbed in beside her, she made no comment.

When he took the seat next to her, she still made no comment, confirming his sense that Eve Windham was indeed, very solid wife material. He rested against the squabs, inhaled a pleasant whiff of mock orange, and contemplated marriage to the woman beside him.

The day had been wonderful. Eve settled into the coach with a sense of contentment she hadn’t experienced in ages.

Deene lowered himself beside her—right beside her—and that was wonderful too. In the course of the day, he’d become subtly affectionate with her. He plucked wisps of straw from her hair, took her hand in his, stood a little too close…

She doubted he was even aware of such small gestures, but they left her feeling a precious sense of being cared for, however fleetingly.

“Are you nervous, Eve?” He slid an arm across her shoulders, no doubt meaning to bolster her courage.

She was feeling quite brave, in truth, though she made no protest at his familiarity. “You think I’m nervous to be in a closed carriage with dirty weather closing in, and us miles from Town?”

“I was trying to be delicate.”

She relaxed against him. “The horses are not fresh, a little rain isn’t likely to unsettle them, and…” And what? And Deene was right there beside her? There was more to it than that, though his presence was certainly reassuring.

“And?”

“And something about this day has been good for me. I ought to be nervous, though I’ve never been in a coaching accident, per se, but I am no more than a touch uneasy.”

He did not tell her to put her fears aside; he did not talk her out of them; he did not do anything other than take her hand. “So you were impressed with Wee Willy?”

Ah, horse talk.

“I am enthralled with him. When will you next compete him?”

“Quite possibly at the local meet before Epsom in June, though Bannister would have me believe such decisions are a function of reading chicken entrails and tea leaves.”

“You need to work your stallion on the opposing lead in canter, Deene. Sheer speed is impressive, but he needs strength and suppleness to go with it, or he’ll end up blown before he’s eight.”

As the miles rolled by, they conducted a discussion—not a debate—regarding the merits of working the horse on hills, over fences, and on the flat. Eve found herself wishing London were twenty miles farther, and that pleased her too.

Deene still had her hand in his when he shifted the topic slightly. “What will you name the colt?”

The lads decreed she should have the naming of Franny’s foal; Deene had loudly approved the notion, and that had been that: she was godmother to a baby horse.

And that had been what put the day to rights. Being allowed to be useful, to pitch in despite the proprieties, was what had allowed Eve to climb into a carriage behind a pair of horses who had already given her a good fright.

“I haven’t named a horse in ages.” Though she used to name all the fillies at Morelands. “A stud’s firstborn son needs a substantial name, something that resounds with virtue. My sisters and I used to debate what to name our children as we practiced putting up our hair.”

That last had slipped out, a function of approaching nightfall and the pleasurable warmth of Deene beside her.

“So you want children?”

Inane question—every woman wanted children and a home of her own. The inane question put a small puncture in Eve’s sense of wellbeing.

“We don’t always get what we want, Lucas. Some things are beyond human control.” She resisted the impulse to slip her hand from his. An argument was drawing closer, one she did not want to have with him.

Not now, not ever.

“I would like the opportunity to try to provide you with children, Eve Windham. We could raise them up in Kent, not far from your parents. I have enough land that I can move the stables there if you prefer. I think we’d suit wonderfully.”

“You think we’d suit?” Her voice did not shake with the impossibility of his offer—she was the daughter of a duchess, and knew well how to maintain her composure, but, God help her, she had not seen this coming.

He was going to ruin this wonderful day, ruin it thoroughly, and all Eve could think was that she’d misplaced her parasol.

“We would manage well enough. We’re each of appropriate station, we know one another’s families, the lands all but march, and it would spare you from the importuning of the Trit-Trots of the world.”

Drat him for his common sense. Were he speaking from the heart rather than his pragmatic male brain, she might have considered what he was saying for a few moments before rejecting him.

“It would also spare you from the Mildred Staineses of the world.”

“With the Season looming, that is not a small consideration. We have something else weighing in favor of a marital union.”

He was proposing without asking her to marry him. His aplomb was impressive, also… heartbreaking. Deene was, to her surprise, a man she would enjoy being married to in some regards, and he was bringing his addresses to her first, not to His Grace—and still, his proposal must be rejected just like all the others.

“What is this something else, my lord?” His politics no doubt all but marched with His Grace’s; he’d charged the French with Devlin and Bart; he wasn’t afraid of Louisa or muddled by Jenny’s sweet good loo—

Her only warning was Deene’s bare hand on her chin, gently turning her face up to receive his kiss, the most beguilingly gentle kiss so far. His lips pressed softly against hers, and his hand cupped her jaw then slid back into her hair to cradle the back of her head.

Not this again. Not this lovely, spreading warmth rising from her middle and obliterating all reason; not the raging desire to shift herself beneath him and taste his skin and breathe his scents.

Bodily loneliness swamped her as Deene’s mouth moved on hers. Nobody was intimate with her the way Deene could be; nobody touched her except for the fleeting contact permitted by Society’s rules or familial affection. She opened for him, fisted her hands in his hair, and dragged him closer.

And when she was aching for him to give her one last taste of pleasure and passion, he eased away, resting his forehead on hers.

“We have passion, Eve Windham. That is no small consideration either.”

Passionate kisses did not always tell the tale. Eve knew this from bitter experience. A man, even a very young man, could kiss like a dream and make a girl lose every shred of common sense and still, the man’s most intimate attentions could be… distasteful. Painful even.

Deene, by contrast, would be a sumptuous lover, generous, skilled, beautiful…

She cut the thought off and made herself speak in brisk, ruthless tones. “I appreciate the honor you do me, Lucas, but I am no more interested in your proposal than I am in Trit—in Mr. Trottenham’s. We would not suit.”

He pulled away, straightening beside her. To suffer the loss of him with indifference was necessary if Eve was to make her point.

“Eve Windham, if the way we kiss is your idea of not suiting, then God help the man you do suit. He’ll go up in flames the moment you bat your eyes at him.”

“There will be no such man.”

An argument would help a great deal, but no, Deene sat beside her, his arm around her shoulders, his thumb idly stroking the side of her neck. Eventually, she allowed herself to yield to the temptation he offered and rested her head on his shoulder. Soon enough they’d reach Town, she’d climb out of the carriage, and the day that had gone from hell to heaven back to hell would be over.

There was time enough to cry later.

“Where in the hell is Lord Andermere?”

Deene used Anthony’s courtesy title before the staff routinely, though he seldom adopted such an impatient tone of voice, much less profanity.

“His lordship was called down to Kent, my lord.” Gower spoke with the studied calm of a butler who’d spent forty years in service to the Denning family.

“When was he called down to Kent?”

“Yesterday morning, I believe, my lord. He said he received a note from Mr. Bassingstoke.”

Bassingstoke was the land steward at Denning Hall. It made sense that Anthony might be called away on a property matter, but it made no sense whatsoever that he’d leave without a word to Deene, when they were supposed to spend the morning poring over ledgers.

“Send a note around to Hooker. I’ll be paying a call on him before noon.”

Gower bowed. “Very good, my lord. Will that be all, my lord?”

“No, it will not.” If Deene couldn’t start on the ledgers, he’d tackle the matter from another angle. “Send Mrs. Hitchings to me in the library in twenty minutes.”

Gower withdrew quietly—Gower did everything quietly—leaving Deene to pour himself another cup of tea, finish reading the financial article he’d started when he sat down to breakfast, and polish off the rest of his eggs and toast. Mrs. Hitchings was waiting for him when he arrived to the library.

“Ma’am, good morning.” Deene took a seat behind the estate desk, hazarding that the housekeeper would be more nervous if he instead paced the room. “You are welcome to sit, Mrs. Hitchings.”

Relief crossed her tired features as she perched at the very edge of a chair, her back ramrod straight, her gaze fixed on some point beyond Deene’s left shoulder.

“How long have you been housekeeper here?” In her white caps and drab dresses, she’d been a fixture in the townhouse as far back as Deene could recall.

“Nigh twenty years, your lordship.”

An answer, and not one word beyond the question she’d been asked. They hadn’t been easy years.

“And how many housemaids do we have?”

“Twenty at the moment, your lordship, though they tend to turn over.”

“How many footmen?”

She frowned slightly. “The footmen answer to Mr. Gower, your lordship. I would put their number at about the same as the maids.”

“And their wages?”

At that question—and only that question—her gaze flickered across Deene’s face, her eyes betraying a wary consternation. “I wouldn’t know for certain, your lordship. Lord Andermere sees to the paying of the wages.”

“What about the marketing, do you keep an account of that?”

“I hand in the sum to Lord Andermere at the end of each month, your lordship. If he’s not in Town, then I give it to Mr. Gower.”

There was no house steward for the townhouse—except Anthony, apparently.

“I would appreciate it if in future, Mrs. Hitchings, you apprise me of the sum expended as well. That will be all. Please send Gower to me directly.”

Gower’s litany was the same, though he of course remained standing while Deene interrogated him. Neither servant knew much of the household finances other than the single sum they reported to Anthony.

As Deene called for his horse to be saddled, he concluded such an arrangement was likely in the interest of domestic harmony, it being the province of the lower orders to grouse about wages, working conditions, and the tightfistedness of employers generally.

The ride into the City gave Deene an opportunity to consider yesterday’s developments with Lady Eve Windham—to further consider them, just as he’d been awake considering them for half the night.

She was attracted to him; of that there could be no doubt.

Nonetheless, she’d also unhesitatingly rejected a proposal from a very eligible catch, when her own tenure on the marriage market was growing woefully long. Her rejection stung more than it should have, but it also puzzled, which was annoying as hell.

Solicitors were annoying as hell too, but in a way that allowed Deene to vent and posture away some of his irritation.

“This is very short notice, my lord.” Hooker came up from his bow and took hold of a velvet coat lapel in each hand. “Very short notice indeed. May I inquire as to the nature of your lordship’s errand?”

Why was it the legal profession excelled in planting a sense of shame in a paying client?

Deene remained standing, requiring that Hooker do likewise. The skinny, younger associate was hovering near the fire, which Deene noted was burning cheerily on a temperate day.

And how much was that costing the already strained Deene coffers?

“My errand, as you put it, is to accept from you a status report regarding the pleadings I asked to have drawn up well over a week ago.”

Hooker pursed his lips. He turned loose of his lapels and stared for a moment at the floor. When Hooker had studied the floor long enough to make Deene’s jaw clench, the solicitor looked up and turned to his associate. “Bring me his lordship’s file.”

The associate fairly scampered out of the room while Deene let a silence extend.

“Perhaps your lordship would like some tea?”

“No, thank you.”

“Do you take coffee, then? Some sustenance? What we have on hand is modest, your lordship, but certainly available for your comfort and convenience.”

From his own father, Deene had learned that the best rebukes were offered in the most civil tones. “This is not a social call, Hooker.”

“Of course not, your lordship. Might I inquire if we’ll be looking at any marriage settlement documents in the near future?”

An attempt at cross-examination and surprise, both. If the old windbag was half as good at the law as he was at conducting himself like a lawyer, then—with a half-decent barrister added to the payroll—Deene should soon have custody of his niece.

“Have you seen any announcements in the Times, Hooker?”

“Announce—? I have not, your lordship.”

Deene turned to survey the narrow street below, allowing Hooker to conclude for himself that solicitors would no more be privy to Deene’s personal attachments than would the general public.

After a soft tap, the door opened to reveal the scholarly associate. “The file, Mr. Hooker.”

A fat, beribboned folder was passed over to Hooker with a ceremony befitting High Church on a solemn holiday.

So much theatre, when all Deene wanted was to hug his niece. To know she was happy and thriving, to see her occasionally and have all of Polite Society know she was, unfortunate paternal antecedents notwithstanding, a Denning.

“Ah, yes. Here we are.” Hooker bent over the folder, setting papers in various piles on his desk. “We are making quite good progress on the pleadings, your lordship. Bitters here is taking the lead.”

“I’d like to see the draft documents.”

Hooker straightened, his expression all benevolent concern. “My lord, you must understand, such an undertaking requires a command of arcane legal language, law Norman, knowledge of appropriate precedents, and a great deal of preparation.”

“Nigh two weeks have gone by since I indicated these papers were to be drawn up, sir. Show me the draft.”

Hooker’s look of long-suffering should have been studied on Drury Lane. He passed over a single sheet of foolscap, which Deene took in at a glance.

“This is a list of cases.” And no date. The list might have been hastily tucked into the file in the past five minutes.

“One starts with the relevant precedents, my lord, and a good deal of research into how those cases bear on the present circumstances. As I said, this is an arcane and complicated legal undertaking. Allow me to say to you we are honored to ensure it will be handled in the most thorough and competent fashion possible.”

Deene unclenched his jaw and set the single piece of paper on the desk.

“Allow me to say, Hooker, that you will not be paid for all this painstaking research—which I do appreciate, of course—until such time as I have pleadings in my hand, suitable for submission to a court of appropriate jurisdiction. I bid you good day.”

He had the satisfaction of seeing Hooker’s brows crash down.

“And, Hooker? One more thing. I dipped my toe in the law at university, at least to the extent a man likely some day to serve as magistrate ought to. Those cases listed on your precious paper relate to trade agreements and civil contracts. While not a lawyer, I’m hard put to understand how custody of a girl child involves those aspects of the law.”

For Deene to close the door softly on the way out was a small triumph and short lived. The truth of it was Hooker and his imps had been sitting on their backsides, swilling tea—or coffee—eating cakes, and doing exactly nothing to pry Georgie loose from the clutches of the climbing cit who called himself her father.

As Deene made his way to his horse, he found his mind turning to the nonlegal means of extricating Georgie from Dolan’s custody. A concocted duel, a rigged card game, a flat-out kidnapping… each dishonorable, dangerous alternative was becoming increasingly tempting.