Lady Eve's Indiscretion

Nine

Eve was to recall a small moment from the balance of the day, the first moment when she felt well and truly married. Her husband had taken her hand upon greeting her, kissed her knuckles, and then tucked her against his side as they saw Louisa and Kesmore into their coach.

As the conveyance rattled away with Louisa’s handkerchief waving cheerily out a window, Deene sighed gustily. “I am displeased with myself.”

The sentiment sounded at least partly genuine. “Why would you be displeased with yourself, Husband? After a day with the solicitors, my father is usually airing his best vocabulary to regale Her Grace with his displeasure with his factors.”

Deene smiled down at her and began to escort her toward the house. “His best vocabulary?”

“You know.” Eve waved her free hand. “Damned, befouling, toadying, parasitical, blighted, bloated… There, I’ve cheered you up.”

“You could cheer me up further, except I’ve gone and invited Anthony to dine with us tonight.”

Their first dinner guest, and Eve had to like that Deene assumed she’d welcome his cousin without any fuss—for she surely would. “I will cheer you up when we retire.”

“This thought will console me as I reflect upon a confidence Kesmore let slip.”

“Kesmore is not a confidence-slipping sort of fellow.” They slowed as they approached the house. Deene would disappear to their rooms to change; Eve would have to let the kitchen know they were having company for dinner. She’d missed her husband the livelong day and considered helping him undress, attending him at his bath, and then notifying the kitchen, except dinner would be served at midnight if she adopted that course, which did not comport with an early bedtime.

“Kesmore is… He suspects his wife to be in expectation of an interesting event, but he has not confronted her.”

“And he did not swear you into the familial brotherhood of secrecy over this,” Eve pointed out. “He must be rattled, indeed. Louisa suspects she is carrying, but she doesn’t want to burden him with such a hope until she’s certain. They are very… considerate of each other. Surprisingly so, given how brusque each can be individually.”

Deene stopped on the back terrace, wrapped Eve in his arms, and propped his chin on her crown. “Evie? I should not say it, because they’ve scarce been married longer than we have, but I am jealous of this secret they’re keeping from each other.”

Eve leaned into her husband and reveled in the simple closeness of the moment. Because she and Deene were a couple—a unit of marital trust—they knew something about Louisa and Kesmore’s union that the parties to that union had not yet shared openly with each other.

This was what it meant to be married, to have a husband, to no longer stand alone in the world. This was what it meant to love and be cared for in return.

When Deene stepped back, Eve smiled at him, blew him a kiss, and at the foot of the main staircase, sent him off to his bath while she went in search of the cook.

The kitchen took the news of a dinner guest very well, almost as if they too had been waiting to demonstrate their willingness to put their best, most gracious foot forward. The housekeeper sent maids to ready a guest chamber, “just in the event the gentlemen get to lingering over their port,” and dispatched a maid to cut flowers for fresh bouquets.

Leaving Eve free to be preyed upon by the odd worry: If the gentlemen got to drinking their port in the library, would there be a lone pillow peeking out from under a table skirt to betray some of the marital activities pursued yesterday in that same library?

Would all the writing implements still be pushed off to the side of the blotter…?

Merciful heavens, might there still be a certain pink, brocade pillow on the blotter?

Eve was in the library without willing her steps to take her there. No pillows lurked in questionable locations, not a slipper peeked out from beneath the sofa, not an inkwell betrayed the many occasions when the desk had served some purpose other than the composition of correspondence.

Three days ago, however, Deene had stuffed a handkerchief into one of the desk drawers. Eve dreaded to think of Anthony searching for sealing wax and coming across such a thing. She sat in Deene’s high-backed chair and began opening drawers one a time, only to find the very handkerchief—crumpled, but otherwise inoffensive—in a drawer that also sported two bundles of paper, one tied with a red ribbon, the other with gold.

Was this also something Anthony should not happen upon? Deene was very sensitive to the need to avoid slighting Anthony’s feelings, for though he held a courtesy title, the man was essentially the senior steward over the entire marquessate holdings, Deene’s heir, and family into the bargain.

Eve and her husband were a unit of marital trust. She’d coined the term not an hour earlier, and that meant she was bound to protect her husband’s confidences even before such confidences could be bestowed.

In this spirit of protectiveness, she tucked her husband’s linen into a pocket and unrolled the document tied with a red ribbon. By the time she’d rolled up and retied the one with a gold ribbon, three quarters of an hour later, her focus had shifted.

She was feeling protective not of her husband, though she would at least allow him a chance to explain himself in private—but once again of her own heart.

Something was off with Deene’s wife. He sensed this without knowing how, sensed it as a certainty all through dinner. Eve was gracious and charming to Anthony, who looked a little dazed to be on the receiving end of such smiles and warmth.

Prior to the meal, when Deene would normally have been helping his wife to dress and perhaps helping himself to a small taste of marital pleasure as well, their timing had been off. Deene had been quick to bathe, while Eve had lingered at her ablutions, the dressing room door closed “to prevent a draft.”

She’d brushed out her own hair, she hadn’t asked his opinion regarding her choice of gown, and most telling of all, she’d worn very plain undergarments. No embroidery, no lace.

As the fruit and cheeses were finally brought out, it struck Deene that his wife was perhaps getting her courses. This little insight was warming in the extreme, an intimacy such as a husband might guess without being told, such as he might intuit before the lady herself realized she was leaving her devoted spouse any clues.

“Wife, if you’d like to retire early, Anthony and I can take ourselves to the library. I’m sure your day has been long, and I would not tire you unnecessarily.” He added a small, smoldering look, one that had Anthony studying the cheese tray.

“Thank you, gentlemen.” Eve got to her feet and aimed a wide smile at Anthony. “Cousin, you must make our home your home as well for the duration of your stay. Husband, good night.”

She withdrew before Deene could offer to light her way upstairs, before he could do more than bow her from the room and hope Anthony wasn’t going to want to linger over the damned port.

“The library has the best selection of libation,” Deene said. He turned to the waiting footman. “Bring the fruit and cheese along, if you please. Anthony, shall we?”

“Sounds just the thing to settle a wonderful meal. Having spent some time with your marchioness, Deene, I can see why you’re keeping her all to yourself out here in the shires. It fuels the talk, I’m sure, but what’s one more rumor?”

Damn Anthony, anyway. Deene waited until they were in the library, the door closed, drinks in hand, before he inquired further. “What are you hearing now?”

“Just more of the same, and that you’re ruralizing with your wife to make sure your firstborn is truly yours. The usual innuendo and nastiness. How did the interview with Dolan go?”

Deene turned to study the fire. “The stage lost a considerable thespian talent when Dolan decided to keep his dirty hands in trade. He was angry to think I’d invite him to my wedding, then turn around and accuse him of spreading vile gossip regarding the nature of the union. Shocked and livid.”

But quiet with it, not reeling with melodramatic outrage, which was puzzling.

“Did you tell him about the lawsuit?”

“In no uncertain terms. Suffice it to say an amicable settlement is not in the offing.”

A soft rustling in the shadows near the door suggested the fruit and cheese had been brought along.

“You’re married now,” Anthony said, coming up on Deene’s elbow. “Eve’s dowry can finance the lawsuit, her respectability will lend your petition impeccable credibility, and if you can knock her up posthaste—I assume you’re giving that a decent go as well—then you’ll be a parent yourself by the time anything reaches a public courtroom. Well done, Deene. Too bad the rest of our family business doesn’t come as neatly to hand as your litigation strategies have. And from the look of the lady, you’re even enjoying the duties the union has imposed on you, while she believes this whole marriage to have been at least half her idea.”

Deene was forming some snappish, off-putting rejoinder in the ensuing silence—he did not care in the least for Anthony’s tone—when a cultured female voice spoke from the door.

“I’ll put the food on the desk, gentlemen, and once again bid you good night.”

Eve had turned her back before Deene could utter a word, while Anthony reached out and plucked a succulent bunch of grapes off the tray, and the door clicked quietly closed.

“She even waits on you hand and foot, Deene. Very well done of you. Well done, indeed.” Anthony popped a grape into his mouth, his smile conspiratorial.

Eve’s voice had been calm and more than civil. She’d spoken with a terrible, ducal cordiality Deene found as unnerving as the prospect of charging into a French artillery barrage.

“You will excuse me, Anthony, and if you ever make such cavalier comments again about the nature of my marriage, my motives for marrying, or my regard for my wife, I will disinherit you, call you out, and aim to at least terminate your reproductive abilities.”

Deene stalked toward to the door, only to be stopped by Anthony’s hand on his arm.

“You are not going to fly into high dudgeon and act the besotted spouse on me, are you?”

“I am in high dudgeon, and I am a besotted spouse, but more to the point, Eve has every right to be in high dudgeon.” She had every right to go home to her parents, to eviscerate Deene in his sleep, to bar Anthony from the house… Deene recalled Anthony’s words phrase by phrase, and aimed a thunderous scowl at his cousin.

“If she’s truly that sensitive, Deene, then give her a few moments to compose herself. She’ll want her guns at the ready before you wrestle her into coitus forgiveness, and believe me, I know of what I speak in this regard.”

He popped another grape into his mouth, the picture of a man undisturbed by what could be the end of Deene’s domestic bliss. Deene’s determination to join his wife wavered in the face of such sangfroid. “You will apologize to her at breakfast, Anthony. You will apologize on your knees and mean it.”

And still, Anthony merely smiled. “But of course. Now, you’ve been pestering me these weeks for a discussion of the profits to be had from the estates in Kent. Pull up that decanter and prepare to listen.”

Now, now when Deene wanted nothing so much as to crawl into his wife’s bedroom and explain that his only adult relation was an insensitive oaf with execrable timing, Anthony started spouting facts and figures at a great rate. The very information Deene had been seeking for weeks, provided in an orderly, articulate fashion.

He listened, he asked questions, he asked more questions, and even though he nearly glared a hole in the door and paced a rut in the carpet, Deene did not join his wife above stairs until it was quite late indeed.

Eve did not cry. Not this time, perhaps not ever again. She wasn’t going to give the situation that much effort.

She’d been a fool, again, believing herself cared for and valued, when what had been sought was her wealth, her position, her standing, her status.

Perhaps even her body—her womb—but not her heart. Again, she’d tossed the best part of herself at an undeserving, scheming, handsome man, and found her greatest treasure of no value whatsoever.

And where was her husband now? Munching grapes and swilling brandy one floor and several universes of arrogance away. Well, so what? His cavalier behavior gave Eve time to marshal her composure, to recall that if she had given her heart into Deene’s keeping, she could just as well snatch it back without him being the wiser. She’d made no declarations; she’d let no impassioned endearments slip even in their most intimate moments.

Her pride was intact, and she intended to keep it that way.

In the dark, the door to the dressing room eased open. Eve knew exactly the way it creaked, the top hinge being the culprit. She’d purposely not had the thing oiled, because she liked knowing Deene was coming to bed.

“Evie?”

“I’m awake.” A war started up inside Eve’s chest. Part of her wanted to throw herself into Deene’s arms and make him tell her he’d blistered Anthony’s ears for his disrespect of their marriage, and another part of her wanted to order her husband from the room.

“I didn’t mean for you to wait up.”

What was that supposed to mean? “Do you need assistance undressing?”

“No, thank you.” She felt him sit on the bed, heard first one boot then the other hit the floor. “I suppose you have some questions?”

So civilized. The offer was tired, almost casual—not the least wary or apologetic. “About?”

“You overheard Anthony mentioning litigation strategy.”

“You are suing Mr. Dolan for custody of your niece.”

A silence, while Eve flattered herself she’d surprised him.

“How do you know?”

Eve manufactured a yawn while she cast around for a reply. “I use the estate desk too, Deene. The papers were all but in plain view.”

In the darkness, she felt him measuring her words, trying to decide how long she’d known. “You’re not upset?”

“Lawsuits between family members are the very essence of scandal, Deene, but I am merely a wife. If you are determined on this course, I cannot stop you.”

She had intended to plead with him not to file his damned lawsuit. His niece’s entire future would be blighted, and even Jenny’s remaining Seasons would feel the taint. Their Graces would be disappointed, and the idea that Eve’s parents would have to weather one more scandal on her account was enough to make her throat constrict with unshed tears.

“I cannot tell you, Eve, how relieved I am to find what a sensible woman I’ve married. Wresting Georgie from her father’s grasp means a great deal to me.”

He did not sound relieved. He sounded wary, which suited Eve nicely, even as it made her sad. She heard more sounds signaling his end-of-day routine. His cravat pin, cuff links, and signet ring dropping into the tray on his bureau. The doors to his wardrobe opening and closing. Wash water dripping into the basin as Deene wrung out a flannel, then the faint scents of lavender and cedar wafting through the air.

He was coming to bed, just as if Eve hadn’t been served up the miserable truth of her marriage a few hours before. In her idiot, grasping, scheming husband’s mind, nothing was to change.

Seven years ago, Eve had been a victim, little more than a child, and left unable to even walk to the close stool without assistance.

She was Marchioness of Deene now, a grown woman, and not without resources or the resolve to use them.

Deene slid under the covers, a clean, warm, devastatingly skilled specimen of a husband, toward whom—despite all—Eve still felt a damnable quantity of attraction. She rolled up to her side, presenting him with her back, but the lunatic man slid an arm around her waist and spooned his body around hers.

“I am sorry you overheard Anthony’s unfortunate sentiments, Eve. They do not reflect my own.”

“Deene?”

“Hmm?” His cheek rested on her hair.

“I’m afraid I’m at risk for a slight headache tonight. I’m sure you understand?”

She felt the understanding go through him physically. He went still, even to a pause in his breathing. Then his hand settled on her shoulder and began to gently knead her muscles.

“Sleep, then. The last thing I want is to impose on you when you might be suffering.”

She waited, waited for that hand of his to slide around and stroke over her belly or her breast, waited for his lips to presume to touch her nape, waited for him to hitch himself closer so the burgeoning length of his erection pressed against her buttocks.

She waited until his hand slowed then stilled on her shoulder, until his breathing evened out and became measured.

She waited until she was sure he’d well and truly dropped off to sleep, until, with her husband’s arm around her and his body pressed close in the darkness, it was at last safe to cry.

Deene found himself in the middle of a wrestling match, though it was as if he were doing battle with his own shadow. He could not anticipate his opponent’s moves, could not divine the rules, could not study the combat long enough to find patterns.

At breakfast, Eve was again all cordial smiles, and Anthony charmed by those smiles.

“Deene says you overheard my plain speaking last evening, my lady, and that I must apologize for such blunt speech over the port.”

“Nonsense, Anthony.” Eve didn’t pause as she topped up her teacup. “Deene and I have a sensible union. I understand he did not marry me out of any excesses of sentiment, nor I him, though we are of course fond of each other. Would you like an orange?”

Eve had fired some sort of shot across Deene’s bow with that offhand observation, but Deene was at a loss to know from which cannon it had been launched or at what particular target. She peeled Deene an orange, the same as she did every morning, and put most of it on his plate.

He watched while she munched one of the three sections she’d kept for herself. “I note you are not dressed for the stables this morning, my lady. Might I inquire as to your health?”

“I did not sleep as well as I might have liked. More tea, Anthony?”

She’d slept well enough. He’d been the one to lie there feigning sleep, arms around her, listening to her tears and wondering how many times he was supposed to apologize—except he had the sense his efforts in that direction had only made the situation worse.

“I’ll accompany you to the stables, Deene,” Anthony said. “I’ve been hearing a great deal about your stud colt, and he’s beginning to show up on the book at White’s.”

Deene glanced up in time to see the interest in Eve’s eyes and the way she masked it behind a sudden need to rearrange the eggs on her plate. “People are placing bets on King William?”

“A few,” Anthony replied. “That he’ll win by so many lengths if rematched against Islington’s colt. That Dolan’s colt would beat him on the flat but not over fences.”

“Dolan’s colt didn’t run all last year,” Deene said. “Word is he’s retired to stud.”

“Would that we all…” Anthony had the grace to leave the sentiment uncompleted. One had to wonder if the lady in Surrey missed Anthony’s company at her table if such was Anthony’s conversation.

“I didn’t know Mr. Dolan had a racing stable,” Eve said. For a woman who’d fended off a headache and slept badly, she was putting away a substantial breakfast.

“He has any accoutrement that would proclaim him a gentleman,” Deene said, “except the right to call himself one. Anthony, pass the teapot.”

Anthony obliged, his expression the usual bland mask mention of Dolan provoked.

“Empty.” Deene passed the pot to a footman. “I will miss you in the stables, Eve. Will you ride out with me later?”

She arranged her cutlery. She folded her serviette on her lap. Deene had the satisfaction of seeing she was at least torn.

“It’s a lovely day,” Anthony said. “I’ll be toddling on back to Kent, there to deal with lame plough horses and feuding tenants. Join your husband on his ride, Lady Deene. All too soon he’ll be absorbed in the race meets, and you’ll hardly see him.”

Anthony was trying to help, but Deene resented his cousin’s assistance, implying as it did that Anthony would be working shoulder to the plough, while Deene drank and gambled and frolicked. If Anthony had kept his big mouth shut…

While Aelfreth put William through his paces an hour later, it occurred to Deene that if Eve hadn’t overheard Anthony, Deene would still be left trying to puzzle out a way to explain the custody suit to her. The papers had sat in the desk drawer for days, with Deene making up a new excuse each day for why he did not give the solicitors leave to prime their barristers and fire off the first true scandal of the Season.

“Yon colt is pouting.” Bannister’s tone was lugubrious. “He wants the lady to watch him go.”

“Lady Deene is a trifle indisposed.”

“Then the colt will be indisposed too. Your horse has fallen in love, and though you breed him to half the shire, he’ll not try his heart out until her ladyship is on that rail, watching him go.”

“For God’s sake, Bannister, he’s a horse. He can’t fall in love.”

Bannister snorted and fell silent, leaving Deene to watch as his prized stallion put in a lackluster performance for no apparent reason.

“He wants her ladyship,” Aelfreth said when the horse was making desultory circles on the rail. “He kept looking at her spot, and she’s not there.”

Even Deene had seen that much. It was pathetic, how a dumb animal…

“Keep walking him, Aelfreth. My wife has taken me into dislike, but she’s as smitten with the damned horse as ever, or I very much mistake the matter. Bannister, have my saddle put on the mare.”

When Deene reached the house, he was relieved to find Eve in one of her divided skirts, her hair neatly arranged into a bun pinned snugly at her nape.

“You’re feeling better.” He made the observation cautiously, no longer certain of anything except that where his marriage ought to be, a battleground was forming.

“Somewhat. I will try a quiet hack on Sweetness, mostly because I think you and I need a chance to speak privately, Deene.”

This did not bode well. If she was going to tell him she wanted her own bedroom, he’d fight her. If she wanted to visit her parents, he’d go with her. If she was going to try to talk him out of trying to gain custody of Georgie…

He’d listen. He wouldn’t make any promises, but he would listen.

“A hack is exactly what I had in mind.” He took her by the hand and led her to the stables, almost as if he were afraid she’d go marching off somewhere else did he turn loose of her.

When they reached the stables, Eve stopped in her tracks and dropped his hand. “My lord, what is your saddle doing on my mare?”

“A change of pace, so to speak. Willy was stale this morning. I was thinking you could hack him out, and I’d take your mare.”

Ah, the reaction was satisfying. Eve came to an abrupt halt, blinked, and then… she smiled. A slow, sweet curving of her lips, a genuine expression of pleasure that had nothing to do with firing shots or joining battles.

Until she cocked her head. “Are you trying to bribe me, Deene?”

“I am not—unless you want me to bribe you?” Though bribe her in what regard?

“Bribe me.” She put her hands on her hips and glared at him, as if…

“Oh. As in, you will not suffer any more headaches if I put you up on Willy?” Crudely put, but he’d apparently gotten the right of it. “This has not crossed my mind. The horse was dull this morning, not mentally engaged in his work, and I think having you up on him will address what ails him. And as for the rest of it…” He glanced around and saw the lads were all giving them a wide berth. “I need an heir, Evie, and you are my wife.”

He’d kept his voice down, but where such idiot words had come from, he did not know. They were the truth, of course, and no insult to anybody, but they’d come out of his mouth like so much ammunition, when what he’d wanted to say was something else entirely. Something to do with needing her in his arms and in his life.

Eve tugged on her riding gloves, looking damnably composed. “Shall we mount up?”

He tossed her onto Willy’s back—such a little thing, his wife, and so full of dignity—then swung onto the mare. Willy was a gentleman and Sweetness not given to coming into season at the first sight of a stallion, else the ride would have been a disaster, though Deene privately considered Bannister was right: as long as Willy had Eve’s attention, the horse would have nothing to do with mares or work or anything else.

Rather like his owner.

When the horses had cantered and trotted and hopped logs and otherwise had a good little romp—with Eve and Willy looking like they’d been hacking out together for years—Deene brought the mare back to the walk.

“If we’re to have a private discussion, Wife, then we have exactly one more mile in which to have it before every lad on the property will overhear us.”

She readjusted her reins then petted her horse. “Can you be dissuaded from filing this suit, Deene?”

“I don’t think so.” He spoke slowly, wondering where even the smallest doubt might come from. “Dolan was not my sister’s choice, and as far as I’m concerned, he cost her her life.”

Eve grimaced. “How does a husband cost his wife her life?”

“He forces children on her when she has already shown that her constitution is not suited to childbearing. I can only think what my sister suffered…”

He fell silent and disciplined himself not to tighten his hands on the reins. “She begged me with her dying breath to look out for her family, Eve. I cannot abandon the child now.”

“You’ve tried being a doting uncle?”

“Dolan won’t have it.”

“Here is what I will not have, Deene. I will not have you spending us into the poorhouse to create scandal, when in a few years, I am likely the one who will be responsible for presenting Georgie to Polite Society. I can prevail on Mr. Dolan to see reason in this regard if you’ll allow it.”

The mare came to a halt without Deene consciously cueing his mount. “It’s ten years until her come out, Evie. I cannot wait ten years to keep a promise to my sister, not when Dolan can betroth the girl wherever he pleases at any point, and have the contracts be binding on all parties. He can ship her to Switzerland, or France, to her relations in Boston or Baltimore, for God’s sake… Marie wanted her daughter raised here, in the style befitting…”

Eve regarded him steadily, Willy standing as still as a statue beneath her. “You need an heir, Deene, and I am happy to give you as many heirs as the Lord sees fit to bless us with, but I will not bring down more scandal on my family, much less allow you to use my good name, my standing, and my entire dowry to do it. Find another way to keep your promise to your sister, or until I do present your niece to the sovereign ten years hence, I’m afraid—should you file those papers—I will be besieged by an entire, possibly never-ending plague of headaches.”

She touched her heels to Willy’s sides, and the colt bounded off, a flat chestnut streak against the undulating spring grass, the woman on his back completing a picture of grace, beauty, and strength as she rode him home.