Lady Eve's Indiscretion

Four

“If this isn’t a providential blight on an otherwise fair spring day.” Dolan offered his brother-in-law a cheeky smile calculated to irritate his Royal Importance-ship no end. “Deene, good day to you.”

The marquis’s rapid progress down the sidewalk halted. “Dolan, good day. I want to see my niece.”

Some burr had gotten under the saddle of Love’s Young Dream—one of Marie’s terms for her younger brother. His blue eyes were spitting fire, and his lean form was bristling with indignation.

“We don’t always get what we want, your lordship.”

Deene was hanging onto his composure by a gratifyingly obvious thread, and yet a rousing set-to on the street—though mightily entertaining—would serve no one, least of all Georgina.

“Perhaps your lordship might explain to me why you want to see your niece?” Dolan turned and ambled along in the direction of Deene’s travel. “Grown men don’t typically associate voluntarily with small girls.”

Deene at least comprehended the need to avoid a scene—the English were predictable in this regard—for he fell in step beside Dolan.

“I do not have to explain my motives for seeking the occasional company of my sister’s only offspring.”

It was an effective hit, but the wrong answer.

“Perhaps you need not explain your motives to God Almighty, your lordship, but I am the girl’s father.” Oh, the pleasure of being able to say that so gently and implacably. Dolan considered brightening his future perambulations about Town with more frequent collisions with his benighted Lord Brother-In-Law.

Marie’s wit was not the least of the attributes Dolan missed about his late wife.

“Let me put it this way, Dolan. Either I see her with your permission, or I will take any means necessary to see her without.”

“I’m quaking in my muddy bogtrottin’ boots, your lordship.” Dolan let his brogue broaden perceptibly, then noticed no less a person than the Duchess of Moreland making a brisk progress down the street. “Heard your colt finally put that braying ass Islington in his place. One would hate to miss the rare opportunity to offer you a sincere compliment, Deene, particularly when the compliment can be rendered in public.”

“And my thanks for your kind observation is rendered just as publicly. At least tell me how Georgie goes on.”

Marie had always sworn her brother wasn’t cut from the same cloth as the previous marquis and marchioness, but Marie was—had been—blind when it came to the people she loved. Dolan silently apologized to his wife’s sainted memory, but allowed himself to doubt the sincerity of Deene’s query.

“Georgina, as always, thrives in my care, Deene, and you’d better hope your colt never comes up against my Goblin.”

Deene’s expression had become that bland, handsome mask of impassivity Dolan could only envy. The English were arrogant, ungrateful, and not to be trusted, and they could not be relied upon to turn up stupid at times that suited any but themselves.

“Your Grace.” Deene made a lovely little bow to the duchess, who bestowed a dazzling smile on the idiot.

“Deene, good day.” She turned, that smile still on her lips, and waited for Deene to handle the introductions.

A sweet moment, to be introduced to a duchess, and by no less than his own seething brother-in-law in view of all and sundry.

“Your Grace, may I make known to you my brother-in-law, Mr. Jonathan Dolan? Dolan, Esther, Duchess of Moreland.”

And abruptly, the sweet moment turned… tainted. For one instant, Dolan forgot how a man—a gentleman—behaved upon introduction to a duchess.

Deene had bowed. Dolan bowed to the same depth and came up with his best charming smile in place—Her Grace was an easy woman to smile at, pretty even at fifteen years Dolan’s senior, with a palpable graciousness about her not typical of her kind.

Not that Dolan had been introduced to so very many duchesses.

“Mr. Dolan, a pleasure. My daughter was complimenting your Georgina just the other day. If raising my five girls is any indication, your daughter will soon be turning your hair gray and breaking hearts. Deene, I’ll be expecting you for supper Tuesday next. The numbers won’t balance if you decline.”

She murmured her good days in such dulcet, cultured tones Dolan could almost forgive her for being a damned duchess.

“I’d heard you were driving out with the woman’s daughter. I wouldn’t mind having the daughter of a duke for Georgina’s aunt.”

Deene had recovered himself thoroughly. He aimed a stare at Dolan that felt uncomfortably pitying. “Dolan, there is more to choosing a wife than the benefit she brings you and your bogtrotting relations.”

“And do you number your sister’s only child among those bogtrotting relations, Deene?”

They’d descended to insults that hit dangerously close to tender places, and lowered their voices accordingly. As Dolan watched his brother-in-law’s handsome face, he reflected that learning to trade insults like a true English gentleman was not an accomplishment to be proud of.

“You had best hope your Goblin never finds himself running against King William. I would not want to have to explain to my niece why English bloodlines are superior to all others, even as they relate to lower species.”

Dolan smiled, so English was that insult.

“Perhaps you’re right, my lord, at least when it comes to running fast. Shall we part on this cordial note between enthusiastic horsemen, or go another three rounds?”

For one disturbing moment, something bleak flickered through Deene’s eyes.

“Good day, Dolan. Please give my compliments to Georgie and tell her I asked after her. You have my thanks as well for the flowers you keep on Marie’s grave.”

“Good day, Deene.”

On that civil—and puzzling—note, they did part, though Dolan felt the need for a quiet place to sit and reflect on the entire conversation before administering the week’s verbal beating to his solicitors.

Marie had loved her brother. It was probably accurate to say that upon being forced to marry Dolan, her brother was the only person she’d loved. Dolan could acknowledge that he and Deene had both loved Marie in return, though of course in quite different ways.

And yet, for the one moment when bleakness had flickered through Deene’s eyes, Dolan would have sworn that they also shared another emotion where Marie was concerned, an emotion more burdensome than love.

Dolan had to wonder on what grounds the marquis might be entitled to feel guilt where his sister was concerned—if indeed that had been guilt Dolan had seen flickering in Deene’s handsome blue eyes.

“Eve Windham, what on earth can you be poring over in here when any sane creature is outside on such a glorious day?”

Louisa sat herself—uninvited and unwelcome—right beside Eve on the small sofa.

“I’m making a list, if you must know.” Eve set the list aside, though she’d hardly kept her aims secret from her sisters.

“Of?” Louisa, having the advantage of greater reach, helped herself to Eve’s scribblings. “These are names of men.”

“My sister is a genius.”

This provoked a grin as Louisa perused the admittedly short list. “These are single men, but what a group you’ve gathered on your paper, Eve. Trit-Trot; Sir Cleaveridge Oldman, better known as Old Sir Cleavage; Harold Enderbend, known to his familiars as Harold Elbowbend.” Louisa continued to study the list, her grin fading. “These are your white marriage knights, as it were?”

“They are a start.” Though it had taken Eve all morning to come up with even a half-dozen names.

“Scratch Trit-Trot off your list. Joseph says he gambles excessively.”

Eve took up the paper and did as Louisa suggested, but it was no great loss. Trit-Trot would bow and blather her witless in a week.

Cleaveridge would not keep his hands to himself.

Enderbend was a sot whose drunken wagering would bankrupt them in a year.

Eve nibbled her pencil. “Can you think of anybody else? Mind you, this is strictly in the way of contingency planning.”

“We should ask Jenny. She notices things. This discussion will require sustenance.”

That Louisa wasn’t laughing at Eve’s project was both reassuring and unnerving. While Lou rang for trays—plural—another footman was sent off to retrieve Jenny from the gardens.

“We’re trying to find Eve a white knight husband, but it’s rather difficult going,” Louisa explained to their sister. “We need a fellow who will leave her in peace but be attentive and civil. He must be goodlooking enough to be credible and have all his teeth.”

Jenny took a seat in the rocker and frowned at the list. “He must be able to keep Eve in the style to which she has become accustomed.”

Before the tea trays had arrived, Eve’s sisters had concocted a list not of eligible husbands, but of the characteristics such a man must possess.

He must like to travel—preferably to foreign parts for extended periods.

He must be mild mannered, but a man of his word.

He must be affectionate enough, but not too affectionate.

It wouldn’t hurt if he already had an heir.

Nor if he were devoid of relatives who would be curious about the nature of the marriage.

Such an effort her sisters put forth to secure Eve a list of appropriate possibilities, and yet nowhere on their list were the things that might have made a white marriage bearable:

He must be kind.

He must be that rare man who could befriend an adult woman.

He must be loyal—faithful was a ridiculous notion under the circumstances.

And it really, truly would not hurt matters if he loved horses, either.

“Eve has left us.” Jenny made this observation when Louisa had laid siege to the sandwiches and cakes an hour later.

“I’m thinking,” Eve said, which was not a lie. She was thinking of never seeing Franny’s foal grow up, never bestowing a name on the little fellow, or petting Willy’s velvety nose ever again. Never again kissing the only man to make her insides rise up and sing the glories of being a healthy young female…

“Jenny has come up with a capital notion. You must marry this portrait painter everybody is raving about. I forget his name, though he and Joseph are cordial.”

Eve forced herself to attend the topic, more because her sisters left unsupervised would have her betrothed to the fellow without her even being introduced to him.

“Elijah Harrison. He has a title,” Jenny said, “but he doesn’t use it. He’s mannerly and quiet, also very talented and an associate member of the Royal Academy, one of the youngest so far.”

Louisa got up to brace her back against the mantel and cross her arms. “He’s also mostly to be found dozing among the ferns at the fashionable entertainments.”

Jenny set the list aside, her chin coming up. “He must work during daylight hours and has not the luxury of sleeping until noon every day; moreover, he’s a marvelous dancer.”

Oh-ho. Louisa’s lips quirked up, as did Eve’s. “Jenny is smitten,” Lou pronounced. “S-m-i-t-t-e-n. We must strike his name from your list, Evie. Alas for you and My Lord Artist.”

Eve resisted the urge to join in the teasing. Jenny showed her hand so rarely that Louisa was probably right in her surmise.

Louisa was right a maddening proportion of the time.

But drunks and painters?

Eve looked at the list again. “Perhaps we should ring for a fresh pot.”

Jenny looked relieved, Louisa determined, and though the list of requirements grew longer, the list of names did not.

“Are you suffering a bilious stomach, Deene, or have you taken to glowering the matchmakers into submission?”

Kesmore’s question caused Deene a start, for the man had given no warning of his presence.

“And when did you take to lurking among the ferns, Kesmore?”

“Perhaps I’m lurking among the shy, retiring bachelors. It isn’t like you to be demonstrably out of sorts, Deene, particularly not in company with the fair flowers of Polite Society.”

No, it was not, which sorry state of affairs Deene laid directly at Lady Eve Windham’s dainty feet. “Cleaveridge is all but drooling on his partner’s bosom.”

“What a lovely bosom it is, too. Moreland’s women are a pretty bunch.”

This casual observation from a man who appeared to have no interest whatsoever in bosoms pretty or otherwise—save for that of his countess—made Deene want to stomp across the dance floor and pluck Eve from Cleaveridge’s arms.

“She’s up to something.”

“The ladies usually are. We adore them for it, and in polite company refer to it as a mysterious feminine quality.”

Deene turned to study Kesmore amid the shadows under the ballroom’s minstrel’s gallery. “With the exception of your recently acquired countess, I’ve yet to see you adoring a human female since you mustered out, Kesmore. One hears rumors about you and your livestock, however.”

“My livestock are lining the Kesmore coffers sufficiently to launch my daughters in style when the time comes. You insult the beasts at your peril.”

Though Kesmore’s voice was mild, Deene had the sense the man was genuinely protective of his pigs. This ought to be a point of departure for much raillery between former officers who’d served together under Wellington, but it was instead an odd comfort.

A man could apparently do worse than be protective of the woman who’d rejected his very first marital proposal… though Deene doubted Kesmore was actually jealous of the boar hogs courting his breeding sows.

“Cleaveridge does have an unfortunate tendency to stare at the wrong parts of a lady’s person, doesn’t he?” Kesmore kept his voice down, though as Deene watched Eve’s progress through the concluding bars of the dance, he wanted to shout at Cleaveridge to turn loose of Lady Eve.

At her final curtsy, Cleaveridge bowed to precisely that angle most convenient for ogling and even sniffing at Eve’s breasts.

“Deene.” Kesmore’s hand on Deene’s arm prevented him from starting across the ballroom. “Enderbend is making a charge from the punch bowl.”

“All of his charges start and end at the punch bowl.”

“Perhaps Lady Eve is on a charity mission to dance with all the hopefuls who will never graduate to the status of eligibles.”

She was on a mission to part Deene from his few remaining wits, making a strategic retreat the only sane course. “I’m off to play a hand of cards. Care to join me?”

Kesmore gave him an unreadable look. He had Deene’s height, though Kesmore’s coloring was dark, his build heavier, and somewhere in the middle of Spain his features had lost the knack of smiling.

“Take this.” Kesmore shoved an empty glass against Deene’s middle and limped away. Deene could only watch in consternation as the crowd parted before Kesmore with the hasty manners shown a man condemned to limp for the rest of his life.

Consternation turned to outright surprise when Kesmore offered his arm to Lady Eve and left Enderbend looking like a besotted fool at the edge of the dance floor.

Lest Deene be caught wearing the same expression in public, he did withdraw to the card room.

Eve could not have been more surprised when her most recently acquired brother-in-law, Joseph, the Earl of Kesmore, informed her she’d agreed to take some air with him at the conclusion of the quadrille.

She should have refused, particularly with Mr. Enderbend looking so eager for his dance—and flushed, and red, and savoring quite noxiously of spirits. Eve caught a whiff of Enderbend’s breath and accepted Kesmore’s unexpected offer.

In addition to being Louisa’s spouse, Kesmore was a neighbor. In the settled countryside of Kent, this meant that even prior to his marriage he could be accounted a family friend. He rode to hounds with His Grace at the local meets. He attended the assemblies and balls. He made calls and returned them, particularly at the holidays.

Eve would not have said he was her friend, however.

“I am capable of dancing, you know.”

“I beg your lordship’s pardon?”

He glanced down at her, his expression amused without anything approaching a smile lightening his saturnine features. “If you’re making some sort of penance for yourself out of dancing with the dregs, Lady Eve, you must include me on your card. Waltzing with a cripple has to rank with partnering the sots and lechers among the company.”

He was gruff. Widowers, even widowers who did not limp, might be gruff, but this was… needling.

“If I refuse a gentleman a dance without cause, then I must sit out the rest of the evening, my lord. What purpose is there in attending such a gathering, if not to dance?”

Another glance, somewhat measuring. “What purpose, indeed?”

Eve realized her rudeness too late. “I apologize, my lord, but do I surmise you choose not to dance rather than that you cannot dance?”

His expression softened, making him look for a moment almost wistful. “With the right woman, I dance well enough, as your sister can attest. Shall we avail ourselves of the terrace?”

The ballroom was stifling, the noise oppressive, and supper had only just been served. “Thank you. That would be lovely.”

He paused by the punch bowls to fetch them each a drink, then led Eve from the ballroom to the torch-lit terrace where two other couples were in desultory conversation by the balustrade.

“Shall we sit, Lady Eve?”

“Nothing would be more welcome.”

She chose a bench against the wall of the building, one more in shadow than torchlight. Kesmore held their drinks while Eve arranged her skirts, then came down beside her with a sigh.

“I am not an adept dancer, mind you, but prior to my marriage I was damned if I’d sit about with the dowagers as if longing for my Bath chair. So I learned to stand and aggravate my deuced knee and grow blasted irascible as a result. Apologies for my language.”

“His Grace can be much more colorful than that.”

Kesmore peered at their drinks. “Suppose he can. Would you like the spiked version or the unspiked one? I warn you, I’ll poison the nearest hedge with the unspiked one if that’s the one you leave me.”

Eve resisted the urge to study him more closely but found his lack of pretense a relief. This was the man who’d captured Louisa’s heart, though nobody had quite figured out how.

“May I have one sip of the spiked variety? A lady grows curious, after all.”

This earned her another of those amused, unsmiling expressions. He passed over a glass, which allowed Eve to note the earl’s hands were bare. “Slowly, my lady. Our hosts are gracious with their offerings.”

She slipped off her gloves and took a drink from the proffered glass.

“Merciful… My goodness. How do you gentlemen remain standing?”

He passed her the other glass, though she just held it while the burn in her vitals muted to a rosy glow.

“Some of us don’t remain standing, at least not much past midnight. One has to wonder what you were about, Lady Eve, to stand up with Enderbend this late in the evening.”

He sounded almost as if he were scolding her, which was a considerable margin beyond a passing spate of gruffness.

“My choice of dance partners should be no concern of yours, my lord.” She spoke as gently as she could, telling herself Kesmore’s leg was hurting him, and he’d very likely been dragged to the evening’s gathering as a function of Louisa’s continuing loyalty to her unmarried sisters.

“I am not concerned, exactly. One more sip?” He held up his glass of punch.

“Perhaps one more.” It was a lovely, fruity concoction, and his lordship had spoken nothing but the truth regarding their host’s hospitality, for the punch was cold, even at this advanced hour.

And yet it warmed nicely, in small sips.

Eve pondered that contradiction while she took yet another sip.

“I apologize if it seems I chide you for your choice of partner, Lady Eve, but I have little to do at these engagements save observe the company in all its folly. I cannot think you harbor any serious attachment to these buffoons you stand up with, and yet you are comely, well dowered, and of marriageable age. Also very consistent in your behaviors.”

He was leading up to something, so Eve let him natter on. If she was going to be subjected to some avuncular lecture, she might at least enjoy his punch while she did.

“I note you allow I’m comely.”

“Quite, though you hardly use it to your advantage, which I also note to be part of your pattern. Though I am loathe to pry, I am a gentleman, and I account myself at least on friendly terms with Their Graces, so I will be blunt: Are you in need of a friend, Lady Eve?”

She stared at her drink—his drink, what remained of it—and tried to puzzle out what he was asking. “Everybody needs friends.”

Did Kesmore have friends? She’d never had occasion to wonder. She suspected Louisa was his friend—an odd and vaguely disquieting notion.

Did Deene have friends? As the punch brought a little sense of relaxation to go with the warmth coursing through her veins, Eve tried to recall if she’d ever seen Lucas out among his fellows, riding in a group in the park or sharing the top of a coach with a few other men at some race meet.

Kesmore took the drink from her hand. “I will regard your answer as a ladylike affirmative and presume to offer myself in that humble capacity. Let’s sit a few more minutes before we subject ourselves to the company inside once more.”

While the couples ten yards away continued to chatter, and the throng in the ballroom started up a waltz, Eve wrinkled her nose at her unspiked drink and tried to fathom what on earth could have prompted Kesmore’s peculiar offer.

Then it occurred to her: on her list—on her private list—of attributes a husband of convenience ought to have, the most important characteristic was that he should be capable of befriending an adult woman.

What an unlikely coincidence that Louisa’s taciturn spouse should possess this very trait.

Her companion broke the silence. “Will you be attending the Andersons’ soiree on Friday, my lady?”

Eve didn’t know what interest her new, self-appointed friend might have in her schedule but saw no reason to dissemble.

“I am not. Jenny and I are taking a two-week repairing lease at Morelands before the Season starts up in earnest. We miss our sister Sophie.”

“I have never understood why the social Season must start up just as spring is getting her mitts on the countryside. It’s quite the most glorious time of year, and we spend it here in Town, sleeping the days away, sweating en masse in stuffy ballrooms by night.”

In the presence of a lady, a gentleman did not typically refer to anybody sweating, except perhaps an equine. Eve did not point this out to Kesmore.

She patted his muscular arm. “Louisa says you miss your piggies. Perhaps you need a repairing lease as well.”

His brows shot up, and then the man did smile. He looked positively charming, almost dear, so softly did a simple change in expression illuminate his features. His eyes lost their anthracite quality and developed crows’ feet at the corners, while his mouth, which Eve might have honestly described as grim, became merry.

“I do miss my piggies. Lady Louisa is correct.”

“She very often is. One gets used to it.”

The smile did not entirely fade; it lingered in Kesmore’s eyes as he rose and offered Eve his arm. They left their empty glasses on the bench, and Eve had to admit a short interval in the company of a friend—even such an unlikely friend—had done much to restore her spirits.

And still, when Kesmore had bowed over her hand and taken himself off to ache for another hour at the edge of the room, Eve found herself visually searching the ballroom again for just a glimpse of the Marquis of Deene.

“Come along, Deene.”

Deene nearly stumbled as Kesmore snagged him by the arm and pulled him toward a staircase at the corner of the ballroom.

“Taking English peers prisoner went out of fashion several years ago, Kesmore, even among the French.”

“I’m not taking you prisoner, but if we’re to get a fresh start in the morning, we can’t be dawdling about here until all hours.”

“So now I’m taken prisoner and kidnapped?” Though leaving was a capital notion indeed. Mildred Staines had been positively ogling Deene’s crotch at the supper buffet. It gave a man some sympathy for the suckling pig in the middle of all the other offerings.

“You’re due for a repairing lease in the country, a final inspection of the home farm and so forth before planting begins. Then you may take yourself back to Town to be chosen by your bride.”

Deene paused at the top of the steps. “The fellow still does the proposing, as I recall, not the other way around.”

“Comfort yourself with that illusion if you must, but as of tomorrow, we’re going to Kent for a couple of weeks.”

Deene’s retort died on his lips.

Another two weeks of watching Eve Windham be drooled on, leered at, stumbled over, and danced down the room, and Deene would be left witless indeed.

“I’ll catch up with my steward and show the colors before the tenants. A fine idea indeed.” He couldn’t get out of the ballroom soon enough, though by rights, they ought to say good night to their hostess first.

“Shall I make our farewells, Kesmore?”

Kesmore didn’t answer immediately. Deene studied the man and saw that his gaze was fixed on Lady Louisa twirling around the dance floor as graceful as a sylph in the arms of some dashing young swain.

“You fetch the coaches. I must retrieve my lady wife and put that poor devil dancing with her out of his misery.”

Deene watched as Kesmore all but swaggered down the stairs, and wondered if Lady Louisa would protest—even for form’s sake—over the early end to her social evening.

Evie had long ago concluded that some edict had gone forth from Their Graces that no Windham coach was ever to stop or even pause to water horses in the hamlet of Bascoomb Ford. She’d been complicit in this ducal fiat by making certain she always had a book with her on the journeys to and from Town, always had knitting, or—failing all else—a nap she absolutely had to take.

And in a nice, comfortable traveling coach shared with her sisters, there was no reason to suspect the day’s trip to Morelands would be any different.

Which meant once again Eve put aside the nagging thought that someday, someday when she had the time and the privacy, she was going to come back to Bascoomb Ford and revisit the scene of her worst memories.

“I’m thinking of dodging the Season.” Louisa lobbed this cannonball into the middle of a perfectly amiable silence.

Jenny looked up from her knitting. “The notion always has a forbidden sort of appeal, doesn’t it? I couldn’t imagine leaving Mama to make the explanations though. We might have given up, but she has not.”

Such a forthright reply from Jenny was not to be brushed aside. “Papa hasn’t given up either,” Eve pointed out. “His darling girls must find their true loves.”

Louisa’s smile was subdued. “Or their convenient husbands. You were certainly trolling the ballroom diligently last night, Eve. Make any progress?”

There was understanding in Louisa’s eyes, no taunting, not a hint of teasing.

Eve let her gaze go to the window. Bascoomb Ford was just over the rise and down a long, gentle declivity. The approaches to the town she knew well, but the inn, the green, the little church… they were hazy in her mind and sharp at the same time.

“I need a longer list. I’m thinking a couple dozen names, and we should start with the men known to have left-handed preferences.”

Jenny’s needles ceased their soft clicking. “Such preferences can get a man hung, dearest. If he has a title, it could be attainted, his wealth confiscated. Why would you marry into such a possibility?”

Yes, why would she? And who would have thought such direct counsel would come from Jenny?

“It’s my best hope of finding a situation where my willingness to accept a white marriage is viewed as an asset to the fellow. My alternatives are the men seeking my fortune, and that leaves me no guarantee my spouse would honor the terms of the bargain.”

“An unenforceable bargain at law,” Louisa agreed.

Eve had given up her innocence to learn that a man intent on exploiting her as a means of wealth was no bargain on any terms—her innocence, her ability to trust, and for months, her ability even to stand without excruciating pain.

“Ladies,” Jenny said, putting her knitting back into her workbasket, “I find I must ask you to permit me a short delay here at the next inn. Nature calls in a rather urgent fashion.”

Louisa did not react with anything more telling than a yawn. “I could tolerate stretching my legs. The horses will appreciate a rest and some water.”

With no more ado than that, after seven years of seeing the place only in her nightmares, Eve Windham was once again at the modest posting inn of Bascoomb Ford.

“I’ll be along in a minute,” Eve said as the coach carrying the ladies’ maids and extra footmen came rumbling up before the inn. “I want to move around a bit as well.”

They did not even exchange a glance. Jenny slipped her arm through Louisa’s, and they disappeared into The Coursing Hound. Eve got as far as the bench on the green across from the inn, though even that was a struggle. Her legs felt a peculiar weakness; her breath fought its way into her lungs. When she sat, it was of necessity.

The little inn stood across the rutted street—spring was a time for ruts and treacherous footing—looking shabby and cozy at once. A white glazed pot of pansies graced the front door, just as it had seven years ago—purple and yellow flowers with one orange rebel in the center of the pot.

The orange pansy was different; not much else had changed.

The white glaze on the pot was still smudged with dirt, the boot scrape was still rusty and encrusted with mud, and in the middle of the inn yard, an enormous oak promised shade in summer.

Just a humble country inn, and yet… Eve saw not the inn, but what had transpired there, just there in that upstairs bedroom. Canby hadn’t even pulled the curtains shut, hadn’t gotten them a quiet room at the back. He’d jammed a chair under the door, muttering something about not being able to trust the locks in these old places.

She’d forgotten that. Forgotten the sight of him hauling the chair across the room, and the excitement and dread of knowing what would come next.

Though she hadn’t known. She hadn’t had the first clue that a man could profess his love and show her only tender regard for weeks, then turn up crude and businesslike about enjoying his intimacies. She hadn’t known he might backhand her and tell her to be quiet lest somebody be concerned and all her lovely money slip through his greedy hands.

His lovely money, and not even the dowry she might have brought him, but money her family would pay him to keep quiet about ruining her. When he’d finished with her and gone back to his celebratory drinking, she’d pretended to sleep until he’d passed out beside her on the bed. She’d spent hours afraid he’d come at her again, until she’d realized she had another option.

Her slight stature had allowed her to slip out the window at the first sign the sky was lightening. She’d crossed the roof of the porte cochere and dropped to a pile of dirty straw raked into a corner of the inn yard, dreading each rustle and squeak as she’d made her way to the stables.

The same dread she’d felt all those years ago—no giddy anticipation about it—welled up from her middle in a hot, choking ball of emotion. She forced herself to breathe, in… out… in… out, and the ball only grew larger.

As if she were watching a horse race where she held no stake, Eve tried to observe this monstrous, long-unacknowledged feeling, but it had turned to sheer pain, to oppression of every function she possessed—heartbeat, thought, breath—and she might have fainted right there on that worn bench except a sound penetrated her awareness.

Hoofbeats, regular, rhythmic, more than one horse. Not the dead-gallop hoofbeats of her brothers coming at last to rescue her, but a tidy, rocking canter.

Even to turn her head was an effort, but one well rewarded.

Two men approached riding a pair of smart, substantial mounts. The chestnut on the left looked particularly familiar.

Her heart, her instincts, some lower sense recognized the animal before her brain did. “Beast.”

The awful emotion subsided, not into the near oblivion she’d been able to keep it at before, but enough for Eve to realize there was no other horse she’d have been more grateful to see.

Save perhaps one gray mare, of whose fate Eve had allowed herself to be kept in ignorance for more than seven years.

“As I live and breathe, that’s the Windham crest on those coaches. My lady is making good time.”

Deene was too disturbed by the journey’s earlier revelations to wonder why Louisa would be traveling in a Windham coach rather than Kesmore’s own conveyance. Though it occurred to him Louisa might be traveling with her sisters, and what Deene would do when next he and Eve Windham crossed paths again, he did not know. Throttle the woman.

Or kiss her—or both, though not in that order.

And there she sat, serene and lovely, on a bench across the way.

Kesmore flicked his hand in an impatient motion. “Give me your reins, Deene, and I’ll see the horses tended to and some luncheon procured.”

“My—?”

“Or you can stand here gawping like the village idiot for a few moments longer. I’m sure Lady Eve is admiring the sight of you in all your dirt.”

Kesmore snatched the reins from Deene’s hand, and nodded at Eve on her bench. She lifted a hand but did not rise, of course, her being the lady, and Deene being… the gentleman.

He sauntered over and offered her a bow. “Lady Eve, good day. Might I join you?”

“Deene, good day. Of course you may.”

She pulled her skirts aside in that little maneuver women made that suggested a man mustn’t even touch their hems, despite any words of welcome.

“I gather your mother and sisters are within?” His Grace would be riding, of course. Not even a duke could be expected to have the fortitude to ride in the same coach with four women on anything less than an occasion of state.

“Louisa and Jenny, along with the three Fates.”

“Beg pardon?” There was something off about Eve’s voice. Something distant and subdued.

“Our lady’s maids.”

She said nothing more, and when Deene studied her, she looked a trifle pale. There was an uncharacteristic grimness to her mouth, as if she’d just taken a scolding or would dearly like to deliver one.

Perhaps being leered at and drooled upon was exhausting.

“Kesmore is ordering up some luncheon in whatever passes for a private parlor at yonder hostelry. We’ll make a party of it, I’m sure.”

“The inn boasts a private dining parlor and four rooms upstairs. Two at the back, two at the front. The front rooms should be cheaper, because they’re noisier and dustier, but the innkeeper claims they have a pretty view of the green, so the difference in cost is slight.”

She did not offer these lines as conversation so much as she recited them. The subtle detachment in her voice was mirrored in her green eyes. And how would she—a lady through and through—have reason to know the cost of the rooms at such an unprepossessing establishment?

He studied her a moment longer, and any thought of teasing her over her choice of dance partners—her choices in any regard—fled Deene’s mind.

“Shall we go in to lunch, Eve?” He rose and offered her his hand. She stared at it—a well-made, slightly worn and very comfortable riding glove on a man’s hand—then put her palm to his.

Deene was mildly alarmed to find it wasn’t merely a courtesy. Eve borrowed momentarily from his strength to get to her feet. When she rose, she stood next to him, making no effort to move away, their hands still joined.

He shifted her grasp so he could assume the posture of an escort, but kept his hand over hers on his arm. “Eve, are you feeling well? Is a headache trying to descend?”

“Not a headache. Let’s join the others.”

Not a headache, but something. Something almost as bad, if not worse. At lunch, she said little and ate less, and seemed oblivious to her sisters’ looks of concern. Kesmore proved a surprisingly apt conversationalist, able to tease even the demure Lady Jenny with his agrarian innuendos.

When lunch was over, Deene offered to see Eve out to the coaches.

She paused at the bottom of the stairs in the common. “Deene, will you indulge me in a whim?”

“Of course.” Though whatever she was about, it wasn’t going to be a whim.

“I’d like to see one of the front rooms.”

He followed her up the stairs, dread mounting with each step. This whim was not happy, it was not well advised, and yet he did not stop her.

The guest room doors stood ajar, two at the front of the building and, very likely, two at the back, just as she’d said. She moved away from him to stand motionless in the doorway on the right-hand side.

Over her shoulder, he saw plain appointments: a sagging bed that might accommodate two people if they were friendly with each other and diminutive; a wash stand; a scarred desk gone dark with age; and one of those old, elaborately carved heavy chairs that would be uncomfortable as hell and absolutely indestructible. Curtains gone thin from many washings, a white counterpane that might once have sported some sort of pattern.

Just a room, like a thousand others along the byways of Merry Olde England.

And yet… He rested a hand on Eve’s shoulder when what he wanted was to pull her back against his body, or better still—take her from this place altogether, never to return.

For an interminable moment while he could only guess her thoughts, Eve looked about the room. Her gaze lingered on the bed then went to the window.

“Thank God for the window.” She spoke quietly but with a particular ferocity. And yet she stood there until Deene felt her hand cover his own.

Her fingers were ice cold.

“Thank you, Deene. We can leave.”

She made no move to return below stairs, so Deene turned her into his embrace. “We’ll stay right here until you’re ready to leave, Eve Windham.”

All of her was cold and stiff. Whoever this woman was, she could bear no relation to the warm, lithe bundle of Eve with whom he’d stolen so many delightful moments. A shudder went through her, and she drew back. “Take me to the coach, Lucas.”

And still, her voice had that awful, brittle quality.

He took her to the coach, and when he wanted to bundle her directly inside, shut the door, and tell the driver to make all haste to Morelands, the inevitable delays associated with a party of women ensued.

Lady Jenny decided to travel with the maids so she might have somebody to hold the yarn while she wound it into a ball. Lady Louisa’s maid had yet to take a stroll around back—to the jakes, of course.

Kesmore bore it all with surprising patience, but then, the man had likely traveled with small children, which was trial by fire indeed.

At Deene’s side, Eve stood silent and unmoving.

“Shall we walk a bit, Eve?”

A pause, and then, “Yes, we shall. That direction.”

She pointed down the road toward what was likely unenclosed common ground, a gently rolling expanse of green bordered by a woods no doubt prized by every local with a fowling piece.

When Eve moved off, she did so with purpose, while behind them, Deene heard Lady Jenny mutter to Lady Louisa, “Let her go, dearest. It’s better this way.”

If he’d had doubts about the significance of the locale before, the concern in Lady Jenny’s voice obliterated them. Eve kept walking in the overland direction of the main road, until the rise and fall of the land obscured them from the view of the others.

At some point in their progress, she’d dropped his arm and marched ahead, her intent unquestionably to put distance between them.

“I just need a moment, Lucas.”

“You want me to leave you here?” The notion was insupportable. She’d gone as pale as a winding sheet, and her breathing had taken on an odd, wheezy quality. She didn’t answer, other than to turn her back, so Deene ambled off a few yards and sat on a boulder.

He was not going to marry this woman—she’d made that plain—but fate or the well-intended offices of certain meddlesome individuals had put Deene here with her at this precise moment, and here he would stay until her use for him was done.

She stood in profile, as still as a statue, her arms wrapped around her middle, the breeze teasing at stray wisps of her blond hair.

And something was clearly very wrong. “Eve?”

Her shoulders jerked. “I can’t breathe. Don’t come any closer.”

He hadn’t heard that hysterical note in a woman’s voice since his sister had learned she was to be sold in marriage to a brute of a stranger. The same cold chill shot down his spine as he went to Eve.

“Go away, Lucas.” She held a hand straight out, as if she could stop him so easily. “This is—”

The breath she drew in was loud, rasping, and heart wrenching. He got his arms around her, the only alternative to tackling her if she tried to run off.

“Eve, it’s all right.”

“Go away, damn you. Just leave me alone. It will never be all right.” A hint of tears—tears were far preferable to this cold silence.

“I’m not going anywhere.”

“I can’t breathe… Lucas, I can’t—”

He cradled the back of her head, tucking her against his chest. “Then don’t breathe, but for the love of God, cry, Evie.”

He held her close, close enough to feel the cataclysm building in her body, to feel not a simple storm but a great tempest breaking loose from long imprisonment.

Her sobs were more terrible for being silent, and had he not been holding her, Deene knew she’d have collapsed to the ground under the weight of her upset. Where she’d been cold and stiff before, she was giving off a tremendous heat now, her body boneless as she clung to him.

She did not quiet exactly—her tears had been far deeper than a mere noisy outburst—but she shuddered at greater and greater intervals. Deene scooped her up and carried her to the boulder he’d recently vacated. What he wanted was to cradle her in his lap; what he did was sit her beside him and keep an arm around her shoulders.

“This is where you fell.”

She lifted her forehead from where she’d pressed it to his shoulder.

“This is indeed where I fell. Have you a handkerchief?”

He passed her the requisite monogrammed linen, knowing he must not look at her while she used it.

“The scent of you is calming, Lucas, at least to me.”

“Then you must keep my handkerchiefs near at hand. I gather you hadn’t been back here in some while.”

She sighed out a big, noisy sigh. “Not in seven years. The place—the memory—sneaked up on me today, and I thought I was brave enough.”

No count of the months this time. That had to be progress. “You are brave enough.”

He recalled the bleakness in her eyes as she’d stared at the miserable sagging bed, and he wanted to howl and shake his fist at God.

“I’m not so sure. I hadn’t expected to feel such rage.”

If he let her say more, she’d regret it. And he wasn’t certain he was brave enough to hear more.

Repairing lease, indeed.

“You were bedridden for months, Eve. Of course you’re entitled to be angry.”

Her head came up, and though her eyes were red and glistening with the aftermath of her tears, Deene was relieved to have her meeting his gaze.

“What? I can’t divine your thoughts, Evie.”

“You say that so easily, of course I’m entitled to be angry.”

“Your horse tripped and went down in the damn sloppy, spring footing—horses trip every day, but this horse tripping left you having to relearn how to walk, and despite how cheery the letters you wrote to your brothers made it sound, that process was hell.”

“It was hell.” She spoke as if trying the words on and then said them again. “It was hell.” More confidently. “It was awful, in fact. Bloody miserable, and not just for me.”

He knew what she was recalling, because he’d heard her brothers fill in the missing parts: the indignity of bodily functions when one was bedridden, the forbearance necessary when loved ones offered to read yet again a novel that had once been a favorite, the tedium so oppressive it made the pain almost a diversion.

Eve Windham had courage, of that Lucas Denning would never be in doubt.

“Can you walk now, Eve?”

She pulled her lower lip under her top teeth, her expression thoughtful. “Do you mean, can I walk to the coach?”

“Can you walk?”

The thoughtful expression became a frown. “I can walk.”

“Then be as angry as you need to be, for as long as you need to rage, but applaud yourself for the fact that while other women would have taken permanently to their beds, you have given to yourself the great gift of once again walking. This is no small thing.”

She didn’t argue, didn’t diminish her own accomplishment, which was fortunate, because he would have argued at her right back.

“I have always wondered about something, Lucas.” She tried to return his wrinkled, damp handkerchief, but he closed her fingers around it and pushed her fist back to her lap.

“What have you wondered?”

“Did Papa shoot my mare?”

Ah, the guilt. Of course, constraining all the anger she’d been entitled to, all the hurt and bewilderment, would be the guilt. It was all Deene could do not to kiss her temple.

“Your brothers talked him out of it, possibly abetted by your mother.”

“How do you know this?”

“Sieges are the very worst way to conduct a military campaign, in one sense. The effort is tedious beyond belief.” He fell silent, memories resonating with other associations in his mind. “Your men spend days, even weeks, digging trenches while the sappers dig their tunnels and the artillery batters the walls, and pretty soon, morale goes to hell—pardon my language. The drinking and brawling pick up, nobody sleeps, and by the time you’re ready to breach the walls, men will volunteer for even the suicide details just to end the siege.”

“What has this to do with my mare?”

“When sleep wouldn’t come, and Old Hooky wasn’t inclined to permit inebriation among his staff, we’d lie awake and talk, or sit around a campfire and talk. Your brother St. Just was profoundly comforted to have gotten your mare out of His Grace’s gun sights before reporting back to Spain with Lord Bart.”

Eve hunched in on herself, becoming smaller against Deene’s side. “Her name was Sweetness, but she had tremendous grit. I know both her front tendons were bowed. As I lay on the ground, she could barely stand beside me, but she would not leave me. I told myself if Papa shot her, it would have been out of kindness.”

Deene sat beside her and tried not to react. That passing comment about shooting a horse was not just about a horse: Eve had considered taking her own life. Right there, sitting on that cold, miserably hard boulder, Deene made a silent promise to the woman beside him that had nothing to do with marriage proposals and everything to do with being a gentleman.

“Bowed tendons can heal. All it takes is lengthy rest and proper care.”

Eve was not placated. “A horse who’s gone through such an injury can never be as good as new, Lucas.”

“We’re none of us as good as new.” He rose lest he wrap her in his arms and never let her go. “I expect your sisters have gotten themselves sorted out by now.”

He did not offer his hand. She stood on her own.

“I expect they have. Would that I could say the same for myself.”

Deene did not pounce on the lure of that comment; he instead walked beside her, not touching her, until they returned to the coaching inn.

“A fine day for a constitutional,” Kesmore remarked briskly. “Lady Jenny and Lady Louisa went ahead with the maids, and Deene, your nag is tied to the back of the coach. If you will both pardon me, I’ll go on ahead lest I eat your dust for the rest of the afternoon.”

He bowed to Eve and swung up onto his black horse, cantering off with a salute of his riding crop.

“Will you keep me company, Lucas?”

He did not want to. He wanted to put as much distance between himself and Eve Windham’s tribulation as he could. She had borne too much for too long with too little real support, though, and he knew what marching on alone entailed all too well.

He climbed into the coach and sat beside her, but that was as far as he could go. He did not put his arm around her.

In fact, the sensible part of him—the part that would be heading back to Town in two weeks—hoped never to put his arms around her again.

Eve’s thoughts bounced around like skittles in her head:

Her sisters had taken off, probably without a second thought—or had they?

Deene was so wonderfully warm next to her, but how was she to face him after such a display?

She was hungry.

What had Kesmore made of this situation?

And when all that effluvia had been borne away by the passing miles: Why was I so bitterly angry?

At some juncture, she’d taken Deene’s arm and put it about her shoulders, the better to use him for a bolster. He was being delicate, as he’d call it. Keeping his silence out of deference to her feelings. Dratted man.

She wished he’d kiss her—not a wicked, naughty kiss, but a comforting kiss, a kiss to anchor her back in her body, to steady her courage. Such a wish was foolish, allowable only because she and Deene were bound to become nothing more than cordial acquaintances. On that list of possible convenient husbands, she’d have to put the contenders with family seats in Kent toward the bottom of the pile.

That would cut down on chance encounters with Deene… and his future marchioness.

“Why was Mildred Staines ogling you like you’d hidden the entire table of desserts in your smalls, Lucas?”

To prevent him from removing his arm, Eve laced her fingers with his.

“Why, indeed? Kesmore informs me there are rumors going around regarding my past, among other things.”

“You’re the catch of the Season, of course there will be rumors.”

“These are nasty rumors.”

Damn him and his delicacy. “Do these rumors involve red-haired beauties of dubious reputation?”

She felt him tense up, then relax.

“You’ve heard them too?”

“No. Westhaven, duke-in-training that he is, won’t tell us, and if he tells Anna, she doesn’t pass along the best gossip either. We’ve hardly seen Maggie since she married Hazelton—and I know you had a hand in that, Lucas, so get your prevarications ready for the day I inquire about it. But as to your rumors, I thought men strutted about the gaming hells, twitting one another over such things where the decent women couldn’t hear them.”

“They do.”

He said nothing more, but rather than return to her own brown study, Eve decided to further investigate his.

“Are the rumors untrue?”

“They are… exaggerations and inaccuracies, also very ill timed.”

“Then they’re very likely started by those fellows who want to knock you out of contention for the best marital prospects. It’s ruthless business, acquiring the right spouse. I wish you the joy of it.”

He did remove his arm. “Are you enjoying your own endeavors in this regard? Having turned down my suit, Evie, are you now recruiting more appropriate candidates?”

He apparently wanted a nice, rousing argument, but Eve was too wrung out to oblige him.

“I was taking pity on the unfortunate, like a gentleman dances with the wallflowers. Would you be very offended if I attempted a nap, Lucas?”

Under no circumstances was she going to allow him an opportunity to interrogate her about all that drama back at Bascoomb Ford. She needed to interrogate herself first, and at some length.

“Nap if you can.”

She lifted his arm across her shoulders again, needing the comfort of it. Today had been an exceptional day, and Eve permitted herself the indulgence of Deene’s proximity on that basis alone.

For once the Season started and they were off hunting their respective spouses, who knew when they might ever be private again?