Passion and Pride (A Historical Romance)

Evan Blake was returning from an afternoon ride when he saw the woman who would bewitch him the rest of his life.

He was riding his black steed across the fifteen-hundred acres that made up the family’s ancestral grounds of Blakewood, enjoying the warm spring day. His younger brother Andrew followed along at his side on a brown mare.

“Good Lord, will you tell me nothing of your visit to London?” Andrew laughed. He was 20 now, a man in stature but an impetuous boy in all other ways. It was only ten weeks before that their father had ordered Evan to remove his brother from university, when Andrew’s indiscretions with wine, women, and gambling had proven too much for the old man to abide.

Mostly the gambling,
Evan thought with a hint of a smile.
Or rather, the debt incurred by the gambling.

Their father, Baron Phineas Blake, could stomach a great deal of impropriety concerning wine and women, but the unnecessary loss of even a few shillings of the family fortune was intolerable. Especially to mere
commoners
.

In fact, the company Andrew had kept during cards and dice was even more distasteful to his father than the several hundred pounds that had to be repaid. Had it been fellow gentlemen who were owed, that would have been bad enough.

“But shopkeepers? Sailors? Servants? Soldiers?” the old man had railed. “Why doesn’t he just take up with cutthroats and murderers and be done with it? My money, going to the likes of
those
…”

Evan personally did not care whether Andrew consorted with paupers or the Prince of Wales. Lord knows, he had done his own bit of carousing during his years at university. But despite Evan’s protestations on his brother’s behalf – that he was young, that he was spirited, that all young men make foolish mistakes – Lord Blake would not be persuaded, and dispatched Evan immediately to Oxford to force Andrew’s return.

Andrew had not spoken to his brother for weeks afterward, angry at the perceived betrayal. Having been confined to the grounds of Blakewood, though, he had grown hungry for distraction and novelty. Now he was all smiles as he plied his brother for news.

“I have told you all there is to be told,” Evan answered as their horses cut across the rolling fields of Blakewood. “I met with the lawyers on father’s behalf, made arrangements concerning our property holdings in the south, and dined a couple of times with Pemberly. Nothing more exciting than that.”

Alan Pemberly was Evan’s best friend from his school days. He was the son of the Marquess of Ashford, one of the richest men in the south of England, and he used his family’s considerable fortune to take advantage of all the gaiety that London had to offer. Pemberly’s father was a good deal more indulgent than Lord Blake. Lord Pemberly not only funded his son’s lavish lifestyle, but also tolerated (barely) his eccentric hobbies – of which the latest was Alan’s decision to become a publisher of fiction.

“Anytime Pemberly is involved, there is sure to be more to the story than what
you
relay,” Andrew snorted.

It was true, Alan Pemberly was an incorrigible scoundrel, an instigator of high times and merriment. His temperament was much closer to Andrew’s… at least where wine, women, and gambling were concerned.

“A play and dining, nothing more,” Evan answered truthfully.
Though not for lack of trying on Pemberly’s part,
he thought.

“No balls? No salons? No brothels? Odd’s blood, Evan, you truly do waste every opportunity presented to you.”

“I have seized plenty of opportunities in the past. But I know when it is time to play, and when it is best to be prudent,” he chided his brother gently.

Andrew ignored the rebuke. “What of the women?” he pressed eagerly. “Tell me, did you see any beauties in London?”

“There were many fetching ladies in town, yes.”

“And did you come to make a more intimate acquaintance with any of them?” Andrew asked with mischievous glee.

Evan gave his brother a reproving look. “I did not. But the fact that you would ask me such a thing makes me doubt your discretion, brother.”

“When a man is 26 and does not yet have a wife, it leads one to certain conclusions.”

Evan grimaced. The topic of his bachelorhood provoked endless discussion amongst the elderly matrons of the area. Not surprisingly, all had daughters for whom they were hoping to secure a husband. Thus his status as a single man (more accurately, a
wealthy
, single man) had resulted in countless introductions to eligible young ladies. And invitations to dances. And picnics. And dinners. And afternoon tea.

He felt like a fish in a river, surrounded by delectable bits of food, and every one of them a baited hook.

Despite all that, he might have actually enjoyed the proceedings if he were convinced that they would lead him to the love of his life.

But he was not at all sure that she actually existed.

Evan had never fallen in love, not once. He had been infatuated, certainly, and had discretely enjoyed a number of ‘intimate acquaintances’ with women.

But he had never lost his heart to one.

He sometimes wondered what was wrong with him that he had never felt anything more for a romantic partner than lust and simple affection.

Oh, he was not a rake or a heartless libertine; he held a tenderness and sentimental regard for every woman he had bedded. He was ever the gentlemen with them, both before and after. Discrete in all
rendezvous
, careful of a woman’s reputation, whether she cared or not.

But no matter the woman’s attitude towards him – whether she adored him, or simply enjoyed the physical delights he could provide her – his own feelings never progressed to what he would call ‘love.’

The soaring heights described by the poets?

He had never experienced them.

The all-consuming passion that caused other men to go mad with desire?

It had never touched him.

But now he was approaching the age that he should begin to search for a wife.

The prospect was… unsettling.

Would he ever find a woman to beguile him? To make him lose sleep as he pined for her touch? To wake up feeling more alive than the day before, hungry for the very sight of her?

Or would he find himself trapped in a loveless marriage? Not an unpleasant union, necessarily, but one more friendship than love affair?

He would not mind the relationship lapsing into such a complacent state, but he hoped it would occur after many years, and not be the starting point of the marriage.

On the other hand, he had enjoyed several dalliances with women whose only attractions for him were physical. And while he still cared for them, he had learned that to marry a woman who engaged his body only, and not his mind or spirit, would be worse than marrying one for whom he felt no lust at all. Physical attraction waned, no matter how beautiful the partner, and if there were nothing to take its place…

He wondered sometimes if he were too picky. Or if he were arrogant and narcissistic, and blind to his own faults.

It was not that the women were not beautiful enough. Some had been angelic in their loveliness… though after the initial infatuation, beauty did little to prolong his affections.

It was not that the women were not smart enough or clever enough. God knows (as did Evan) that he was not the cleverest man in all of creation.

It was just… that something was
missing.

He wanted to marry a woman who inspired in him a divine madness. Who made him feel lucky to be alive, simply because he had her in his life.

Barring that, he wanted to feel that burning need at least once – just
once
– before he settled into a mundane, respectable existence.

But Father was growing impatient. His prime concern was that Evan provide him a male heir to inherit the family name and fortune.

Andrew’s prime concern was Evan’s imagined, untold dalliances.

There had been quite a few over the years, truth to tell… but Andrew was so indiscreet that Evan never provided anything beyond vague generalities. And never names or details. He could only imagine the scandal some poor girl (or more established lady) might have to endure as the result of a slip of his brother’s incessantly wagging tongue.

“And what would those conclusions be, pray tell?” Evan asked.

Andrew grinned. “That perhaps my brother is happier sampling the wares of a great many merchants, rather than settling on one as a lifelong business partner.”

Evan smiled wryly. “I can assure you, when I meet a…
merchant
who appeals to my heart, I shall make her an offer and forsake all others’…
wares
.”

“You won’t find one around here,” Andrew scoffed. “The local beauties are but cowslips compared to the roses of London.”

“Roses have their thorns, brother.”

“Ah, but the pricking is the best part, is it not?” Andrew laughed.

Evan had to suppress a smile. There was a good-natured
joie de vivre
to Andrew that transcended mere lasciviousness. He was like a five-year-old boy who acts naughty simply for the joyful glee of it.

“I hope you don’t speak this way in the presence of ladies, or Father will not only have to keep you confined to the grounds but to your room, as well – hullo, what’s this?”

Far across the meadow, a carriage broke out of the woods and hurtled along the road to Blakewood Manor at breakneck speed. The horses were in a fury as their hooves thundered across the ground.

In the front of the carriage, an old man slumped unconscious. Behind him on the passenger’s seat, a young woman was screaming in terror.

Without a second’s thought, Evan spurred his horse forward to intercept the runaway carriage.

After fifteen seconds at a gallop, he brought his horse abreast of the carriage and then edged it still closer. The driver looked half-dead, but he still clutched the reins in his hands, though they had gone slack.

Evan leaned over as far as he could from his own mount, grabbed the reins, and slowly pulled back on the team of horses, calling out, “Whoa there! Whoa!”

After a tenth of a mile, the carriage horses began to slow. Gradually they came to a halt.

Finally he turned to look at the female passenger… and saw the most intoxicating creature he had ever laid eyes upon.

She was young, not much older than 20. She was dressed in a simple blue dress and jacket that suited her modest curves. Ordinarily her hair would have hung halfway down her back, but after the wild ride it was blown in every direction, flashing dark gold like honey.

Her skin was not perfect porcelain, but slightly browned by the sun – though now her cheeks were flushed pink with both terror and relief.

Her greatest asset were her green eyes. When she smiled, they danced and sparkled with light like none Evan had ever seen before. The very essence of sunlight shimmering on water seemed distilled in her gaze.

And her mouth! Far from being perfect, it still beguiled him: the pink lips framing the whitest of teeth, all of them even and straight except for a single crooked one. As the Persians consciously wove flaws into their rugs to emphasize the overall beauty, so that tiny imperfection drew attention to the greater beauty around it.

And her smile! Not a coquette’s pout, or the dainty simpering of ladies in drawing rooms, but a great, joyous smile that radiated happiness.

She was not the most conventional beauty by the standards of the day – but there was a life and a passion in her that surpassed any other woman Evan had ever encountered.

As she stared into his eyes and brushed a strand of unruly hair away from her face, she laughed – the most beautiful sound he had ever heard, a music that would have shamed Mozart.