Between the Devil and Ian Eversea (9 page)

Then turned abruptly when the ladies rounded the corner.

They stopped talking and gesticulating.

Their eyes rapidly tracked from Genevieve to Tansy and back again.

And they stalled on Tansy, as motionless as pointing hunting dogs.

She gave them a demure smile. And fluttered her lashes.

And then they all bowed, and when upright again, commenced variously gaping, toeing the ground, or fidgeting with their hair.

Which was just as well, because she couldn’t speak, either. Because she’d watched Ian Eversea clamber down from the roof and now he was striding ever closer. For a moment he seemed to use the air she needed to breathe. Her lungs had stopped moving.

She tipped her head a little back, as if the air were clearer there, and took a long breath.

Genevieve made the introductions as Ian drew ever closer.

“Gentlemen, this is our guest, Miss Titania Danforth. Miss Danforth, this is my cousin Reverend Adam Sylvaine. You met Simon last night at the ball, Miss Danforth, and Lord Henry Thorpe has returned from abroad and is kindly helping with repairs to the vicarage.”

Lord Henry was young enough to still have a few pink spots sprinkled on his cheeks. His hair was closely cropped.

The man leaning on his shovel found his voice first, and didn’t wait for the niceties of introductions.

“Mr. Seamus Duggan at your service, Miss Danforth.” He had curly black hair and green eyes and his Irish accent was a beautiful thing. It leaped and lilted like a jig. He bowed low, keeping one arm suavely slung around the shovel as if it were a spare lover. “I do mean that. If ever you need anything
,
and I do mean
any
—”

“We try to keep Seamus too busy to get into too much trouble,” the vicar interjected pleasantly.

“Ha ha,” Seamus laughed, in a hail-fellow-well-met way, but he shot a faintly aggrieved look in the direction of the very tall vicar.

The vicar was clearly from the Eversea mold of stunning men. He exuded an air of lovely calm and strength, and Tansy suspected it was the sort he’d earned the hard way. Because she knew a bit about learning things the hard way.

But she wasn’t interested in “calm.” She was interested in that spiky, breathless, ground-is-shifting-beneath-her-feet feeling she’d only felt for the man who was . . . now right upon them.

I
AN HAD AN
unerring instinct for excellent examples of the female form; like a weathervane, he invariably spun toward it. He’d been pounding a nail into the roof when something made him pause, and slowly rise to his feet, and . . . watch. His breath suspended. Something purely carnal touched its fingertips to the back of his neck and communicated with his nether region. All of his senses had marshalled to witness whoever she was.

Two women had entered the churchyard, and the way she moved—it was intangible, really, something about the line of her spine, the subtle sway of her hips—issued a call, and his body responded. His heart picked up a beat or two in anticipation of discovering her identity.

He shaded his eyes.

One of them was Genevieve—he recognized the color of the ribbon she’d used to trim her favorite bonnet.

The other one then must be . . .

. . . could it be Miss Danforth?

Alas, he feared it was.
Titsy
Danforth.

He gave a short humorless laugh at his own expense.

Still, he shaded his eyes and watched. He did like the way she moved. He frowned faintly as she plucked a flower from between the fence posts and knelt and laid it on a grave. Genevieve looked up at him and gave a surreptitious shrug.

And then she waved her arm in a great arc of greeting.

His manners drove him down off the roof.

Unsurprisingly, he could
hear
Miss Danforth well before he was upon the group of men.

“I’ll
definitely
keep you in mind, Mr. Duggan,” Tansy was saying as he approached. A bit like an actress trying to reach the back of the house. Perhaps she was a bit hard of hearing? She
had
laughed rather more heartily than a lady ought to the other night when they’d danced. “Thank you
so
much for your kind offer.”

What offer had Duggan made?

“Oh, please
do
keep me in mind, Miss Danforth,” Seamus said gravely.

And she smiled at that, slowly, and with great satisfaction.

And despite himself, her smile had an interesting effect on Ian, too. He was tempted to look away, and yet it was as though she’d flung a handful of fairy dust at them. He’d seen similarly dumbstruck, biddable expressions on a man subjected to a mesmerist’s pendulum.

“Good afternoon, ladies,” he interrupted politely. “I assume all introductions have been made?”

“They’ve been made,” Seamus affirmed fervently, “and I shall never forget this day for as long as I draw breath.”

Miss Danforth rewarded this stream of blarney with another dazzling smile. Not the least nonplussed.

She hadn’t yet looked Ian in the eye.

He frowned again, then caught himself just in time and arranged his face in more neutral planes.

“Will you be attending the Sussex marksmanship competition, Miss Danforth?” Simon wanted to know. “And my lady,” he hastily appended, including Genevieve as an afterthought. He’d known Genevieve his entire life. Calling her “my lady” had been a bit of an adjustment for everyone.

Genevieve shot Ian a wry glance.

“A marksmanship contest! How exciting!
May
we attend?” Miss Danforth clasped her hands beseechingly and turned to Genevieve. And then she swiveled back to the men. “Will all of you be shooting in it? You all
look
like marksmen. I’m absolutely certain each of you wield your tools with skill and precision.”

Ian’s eyes widened again and he intercepted a darted glance from Seamus Duggan, who was a dyed-in-the-wool rogue and a bit of a ruffian, and who could be counted on to hear that sentence precisely the same way he had.

“Of course. I think Ian is one of the judges this year,” Genevieve said. “Aren’t you, Ian?“

He gave a little grunt of confirmation and swiped a hand across his brow where perspiration had glued his hair to his forehead.

“It’s archery
and
shooting,” Genevieve volunteered. “And Adam took home the shooting trophy during the last competition.”

Adam, the vicar, shrugged modestly.

“Good heavens! A shooting vicar!” Miss Danforth seemed awestruck. “How
very
impressive. Remarkable skill and control are required to properly aim a musket, isn’t that so?” Her dark lashes flickered up and her blue eyes peered up at Adam through them.

“I suppose there is,” Ian heard his usually brutally pragmatic, utterly unpretentious cousin say, after what could only be interpreted as a moment of dumbstruck admiration.

Ian shot him a look, and Adam gave his head a rough little shake and turned. “If you’ll all excuse me, I need to finish writing a sermon. A pleasure to meet you, Miss Danforth. Good day, Genevieve.”

Everyone else seemed to ignore the departure of the vicar.

“But I came in fourth in archery,” Lord Henry hastened to brag. “And this year, I vow, I’ll take home the prize.”

She swiveled toward Lord Henry. “Oh, if there’s something I admire more than a man who is confident about repairing things with his hands, it’s a man who’s competent with a bow and arrows. So elegant! So primal! It calls to mind Greek gods and that sort of thing, don’t you think, Genevieve?”

Genevieve was startled to be called upon. She’d seemed bemused by the entire exchange.

“It wasn’t the first thing that came to mind,” she said, quite diplomatically. “But I suppose one might view it that way.”

“There’s nothing more impressive than men up on the vicarage roof for repairs,” Ian tried. Just to amuse himself.

No one heard him.

They were all muttering “mmm-hmmm” and nodding vigorous agreement with Miss Danforth, though in all likelihood none of them would have been caught dead calling themselves Greek gods in any other circumstance.

“I
love
to shoot,” Simon claimed wildly. “Guns, arrows, everything I can!”

Miss Danforth aimed the rays of her attention at him. “Oh, I often feel that nothing is more masculine than excellent aim. Such a useful skill.” She gave a delighted little shiver. “I suspect you’re very good at it.”

If a man could be said to preen, Simon—quiet, levelheaded Simon—preened.

And the expression on the others immediately darkened, and shifted.

Suddenly they began speaking over one another all at once, describing their prowess with weaponry. And her head turned to and fro between them, shedding upon each of them in turn the radiant beam of her attention.

If he didn’t know any better, Ian would have thought Miss Titania Danforth had played all of them as skillfully as an orchestra conductor.

And at last her eyes met his, and hers were as clear and innocent as ever.

Unless . . . well, surely that glint in them was just the sunlight.

“And how is
your
aim, Mr. Eversea?” she asked. Seemingly emboldened.

He met her gaze evenly.

And said nothing.

In seconds color crept slowly back into her tawny cheeks.

She cast her fluffy lashes down. And looked away from him.

He sighed.

“All right, back to work, gentlemen,” he ordered in a brook-no-argument voice. “The roof and fence won’t repair themselves, and I know some of you are going to need a few more points in your favor in order to get into Heaven . . . Seamus. Good day, ladies, and we’ll see you at home this evening.”

T
ANSY DID WHAT
amounted to brooding on the way home. Genevieve attempted conversation once or twice and then fell politely silent, too.

At home they took two steps into the foyer and stopped short.

“Please tell me no one died!” Genevieve blurted at the footmen.

There were flowers
everywhere
. Or it appeared that way. Vases stuffed full of them were scattered about the foyer.

“I am pleased to tell you that everyone lives, Your Grace, to my knowledge. Two of these arrangements are for Miss Olivia, and the other . . . three,” and the footman smiled fondly, “are for Miss Danforth. The mantels of the house can scarcely accommodate
two
such popular young ladies. How you do brighten up the house. We haven’t yet found places for all of them, and I thought Miss Danforth would like to see hers and decide where they should be placed.”

Tansy circled them with awe.

Three different admirers! After only just one ball! Her heart began to take up a steady beating. Dare she hope that one of them was from . . . ?

But it was a foolish hope.

She perused the cards. From two young lords and another young man she could scarcely recall, to her slight embarrassment. Boys. They were all boys.

The copy of Richard III seemed to glow like a little coal in her hand.

“And the table is set for luncheon if you ladies would care to go through,” the footman told them.

And when they did go through, Tansy found a small paper-wrapped, string-bound package next to her plate. She picked it up with delight and hefted it. “What could it be?”

She unwrapped it gleefully while everyone watched.

She laughed merrily and held her gift up to the assembled.

The Dancing Master
, by John Playford.

She read aloud from the sheet of foolscap enclosed.

“ ‘Please don’t construe this as a criticism of your dancing, but I’ve an extensive library, and I could spare this one.’

“It’s from Landsdowne. How very thoughtful of him! He did so graciously tolerate my clumsiness the other night.”

“Yes,” Olivia said politely and very carefully. “He is generally very thoughtful.”

Her grip, Genevieve noted, was a bit white on her fork.

Chapter 9

S
INCE HE WAS ALREADY
dirty from working on the vicarage roof and was too late to join everyone for a meal, Ian visited Mrs. deWitt in the kitchen for a chunk of bread and cheese, and decided to clean his old musket, the very first one he’d ever owned, an activity he found meditative. He thought about what manner of weapons he ought to bring with him on his journey, and the kinds of women he might encounter, and the opportunities to make money and friends, and he had the thing taken apart and was busy with oil and rags when Genevieve wandered in.

“Good afternoon, sister of mine. What do you want?”

“How did you know I . . . Never mind. Ian . . . what do you think of Miss Danforth?”

He paused mid-wipe. “Are you asking because of that interesting conversation outside the vicarage? Or because you’re gauging whether I’m merely biding my time until I ravish her?”

“Conversation? The word ‘conversation’ implies I was included. And if you wanted to ravish her, you’d have to plow through a thicket of other men.”

Ian laughed. “Ahhhh, Genevieve. Are we jealous?”

“Hush. Of course not. It’s just . . . does she seem to you . . . well, a trifle too . . . effusive?” She’d chosen the word delicately, Ian could tell, which amused him.

“Are you worried because not one of those men gave you a second glance, Genevieve, when usually they go misty-eyed at the mere sight of you? You’ve already landed
your
duke.”

She gave him a playful push.

“I think she’s a bit awkward, Genevieve. And young. And American. They seem a bit louder and brasher, Americans. But yes, pretty. She’s just accustomed to attention, no doubt. And knows how to get it.” He shrugged with one shoulder. “We’re on the whole, simple creatures, men are, and some women discover this sooner rather than later.”

Genevieve gaped at him. “
Awkward?
Are you mad? Are we discussing the same girl? She charmed Tingle at the bookshop—and you know what a skinflint he can be—into
giving
her
two
books for the price of one. I would wager poems celebrating her delicate grace and big eyes and the like will start arriving any day. She’s a bit . . . I do
wonder
if . . . well, she talked to a flower today when she was pulling it. She apologized to it, and then thanked it.”

“She apologized to the
flower
?”

“And then thanked it.”

“Sounds downright pagan. Perhaps she
is
a witch, and she’s casting a spell on all those men.” He waggled all ten fingers in Genevieve’s face like a conjurer. “One never knows what Americans get up to. Perhaps she wanted to visit the graveyard for a bit of graveyard dust, which I hear is useful in spells.”

Genevieve snorted softly. “I don’t think
magic
has anything much to do with it. Unless she can disorient men by batting her lashes and then—abracadabra!—transform them into glazed-eyed fools.”

Ian was pensive. “I do wonder something . . . she might be a bit hard of hearing. She seems to lose control over the volume of her voice rather regularly for no discernible reason. And does she have a tic? She tips her head back at odd times.”

“I’ve noticed the bit with the volume! Not with the head. Poor dear, to be so afflicted.”

“Yes, let’s pity the poor dear who has men eating out of her hand,” he teased Genevieve. “That should make her more tolerable to you and all the other women.”

She pushed him again.

“I knew a bloke like that at Cambridge who was subject to twitches and shouting. You’d be in the middle of a deep conversation, say, about economics or the Peloponnesian war, and all of a sudden his head would jerk violently to the left and he’d shout ‘Bollocks!’ Or something more profane than even
I
am comfortable saying aloud to you. All in all, a capital bloke, however. One got used to it. He said it was because he was dropped on the coal hod when he was a baby. But I doubt Miss Danforth is mad, or was dropped on the coal hod.”

“Conversations with you are always so edifying, Ian.”

“You’re welcome,” he said cheerily.

“Olivia doesn’t like her.”

“Olivia doesn’t like anyone easily,” Ian said shortly.

“Landsdowne sent Miss Danforth a book of country dances today.”

Ian went silent and his hands stilled momentarily on his musket.

“Did he?” he said disinterestedly.

He pictured his sister watching Miss Danforth dance with Landsdowne, his proud, proud sister who would never grovel or maneuver her way into a waltz the way Tansy Danforth had, who had already lost enough, and something cold and hard that didn’t bode well for Miss Danforth settled in his gut.

Ian was in fact considerably more skeptical of Miss Danforth than he was willing to reveal yet to Genevieve. Or to anyone. He was willing to watch and bide his time.

“And I know you aren’t preparing to ravish her, Ian, because I’d never speak to you again, and I know you’ll miss my conversation.”

“Nonsense. You aren’t
that
interesting,” he said easily.

But temper tensed his muscles, tightened his grip on his musket. He had only himself to blame; he wasn’t entitled to righteousness in that regard. He didn’t like the reminder, however.

“Are you any closer to buying a house in Sussex?” he asked.

“Falconbridge is most interested in Lilymont. It was Miss Danforth’s home as a girl, did you know? As charming a place as you’ll ever see. Rather compact for a duke, however.” She smiled.

He went still.

Lilymont. He knew the house. It
was
small. From its hill one could see the downs rippling outward and a generous silver wedge of the sea. Large windows and gracious simple lines, and weathered stone walls, amber in the sunlight. An ample, but not too ample, garden of fruited and flowering trees was enclosed by a high stone wall with wild vines of flowers growing up it. It would need a little taming, but only a little. He liked things a bit wild, a bit disheveled. He liked things to be themselves, when at all possible.

He’d never seen a more perfect house, in its way.

It was interesting to hear Tansy had once lived there. Oddly, he could picture her as a flaxen-haired girl little girl, performing pianoforte pieces for the guests or playing in the garden. He wondered if she missed it, or even remembered it.

“It’s a wonderful house. It deserves an owner who loves it,” he said.

“
A
RE YOU ENJOYING
your stay, thus far, Miss Danforth?”

While Genevieve and Ian were chatting about her, the duke had called Tansy into the study for another chat, and they were sipping tea together.

“I’m having a lovely time, and everyone is so very kind and generous.”

“I saw the flowers sent to you. I think your father would have been proud. And worried.”

She smiled at that. “Oh, I’m certain it’s nothing but generosity. The people of Sussex are just being kind.”

The duke’s eyebrows went up skeptically at that. “The male people.”

This made Tansy laugh. “And the Everseas are such a lovely family. Everyone is so warm and kind. And charitable, it would seem.”

She crossed her fingers in her lap over this little lie.

“Charitable?” This word bemused him.

“We stopped into town, and I met the vicar, Reverend Adam Sylvaine, and Mr. Ian Eversea was on the roof, hammering. It seemed a charitable pastime for a wealthy gentleman.” She said this as innocently as she could muster.

“Was he.” The duke had, rather quickly, gone so cold and remote it was like being thrust out of a warm cabin into a frigid winter. “I’m not surprised he was on the roof. Ian Eversea excels at climbing.”

She wasn’t certain what to say about this, but it definitely sounded ironic.

And hadn’t Genevieve said something very similar in the churchyard?

“I was surprised to see him at work with the others . . . not of his station.”

“I suppose it would be surprising.”

She sensed their conversation would rapidly end if she continued her Ian Eversea fishing expedition. It was all
very
interesting.

“My brother was a soldier,” she said.

The duke softened.

“As many of the Eversea men were. You must miss your brother.”

“He was irritating and bossy and protective and quite funny.”

“He sounds just about perfect.”

She dug her nails into her palm and smiled.

She would
not
cry. She could feel the urge pressing at the back of her throat. She was tougher than she looked, and she would not. She simply nodded.

He seemed to know it. How she liked him, even though he still frightened her just a very little.

“After my first wife died, I was a bit . . .” He seemed to be searching for just the right word. “. . . lost.”

He presented the word carefully. As if he was handing her something a bit delicate and dangerous.

It was a gift, she knew, this confidence of his. She was honored by it.

She knew precisely what he meant. But looking at him now, it was nearly impossible to imagine it. He radiated power; he seemed so very certain of himself, so rooted to the earth, it was difficult to imagine him feeling the way she did frequently now, like a bit of flotsam floating on the air.

“I know what you mean.” Her voice had gone a little hoarse. Close to a whisper.

“But I knew, because of my first wife, that I would make a good husband and a good father and that it was what I wanted to be. I didn’t want to make my life a monument to loss. In some ways I think the losses make us better at knowing how to be happy. And at knowing how to make others happy.”

It was a lovely way to put it, and she never would have expected it of him. Which hardly seemed a charitable thought, but there you had it.

“Do you think so?”

He smiled slightly. “I know so. And I think losses help you to understand who deserves your attention, too. For life is too short to spend the best of ourselves on, shall we say, people who will not appreciate it or return it in kind. People who do not deserve you.”

The duke fixed her with a gaze that seemed benign enough.

Tansy returned his gaze innocently, though she wanted to narrow her eyes shrewdly and study him.

Ah, but she was clever. All of this talk of knowing who deserves whom, she was fairly certain, was an oblique reference to Ian Eversea and implied a certain intriguing . . . unworthiness. But why? Because of glances exchanged with a wanton widow?

Then again
everything
since she’d seen Ian Eversea felt like an oblique reference to him. He had become the story, and everything was a footnote for now. She didn’t necessarily like it that way. But she would need to read it to the end.

“I shall remember that,” she said solemnly. “Thank you.”

He gave a short nod and turned toward the window, and she knew she was dismissed.

S
HE DIDN’T SEE
Ian again until evening, when most of the family gathered in the parlor after dinner.

His shirtsleeves were rolled up and he wore snug trousers and Hessians, and while she pretended to read her book about Richard III, she peered up at him and tried to imagine him without his shirt.

She looked down again quickly when warmth began to rush over the backs of her arms.

“Plan to stay in Sussex long, Ian?” This came from Olivia, who was stabbing a needle in and out of a hoop of cloth. Flowers were blooming in a violent profusion on it. As if there weren’t enough flowers in the house already.

Genevieve sat next to her, feet tucked beneath her on the settee, a book fanned open in her hands. The duke had gone off on some matter of business, apparently.

“Bored with me already?” He said it abstractedly, however, as his eyes were on the chessboard.

“It’s so very difficult to be bored when you’re around, even if one tries.”

The corner of his mouth lifted. He nudged a piece forward, and Colin, who had stopped in to borrow something from his father and was talked into a chess game, swore something beneath his breath.

“What did you ladies do in town today?” Olivia asked the two of them.

Tansy knew an opportunity when she heard one.

Her heart, absurdly, began to thud with something like portent.

“I’ve obtained a new book,” she said. “You may be interested in it, Mr. Eversea.”

All the Mr. Everseas present looked up, until it became clear she was looking at Ian. Too late, she remembered he was a captain now.

“Have you?” He glanced warily at the thing in her hand, as if to ascertain whether it was indeed a book.

“It’s a fine history of Richard the Third.”

His smile was small and polite. “Ah.”

Not a conversation encourager, the word “Ah.”

“You mentioned him the other night,” she prompted. “Whilst we were dancing.”

“Did I?” He looked bemused.

“He’s buried in Leicestershire?” she pressed, a bit desperately.

“Ah, yes. I recall.” His brow furrowed faintly in something like concern, as if studying her for signs of witlessness.