Lady Eve's Indiscretion (15 page)

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.