Passion and Pride (A Historical Romance) (13 page)

In the evenings they would talk – that is, after they had temporarily drunk their fill of love, and if Marian did not drift off to sleep. They would discuss everything from religion to politics to literature.

At one point she was stroking the thin scars on his chest and arms. “What are these from?”

“Dueling.”

She looked up at him in alarm. “Sword fights?!”

“Yes.”

She looked at the scars, counting them. There were at least half a dozen. “Did you fight many duels?”

“Unfortunately, yes.”

“Over women?” she asked, her voice a mixture of romantic enthrallment and envy.

“Over women, over slights, over petty insults… the bored sons of the aristocracy have little to do, so playacting at killing one another is a favorite pastime.”

“…did you ever kill anyone?”

Evan stared up at the ceiling. He hesitated before he answered.

“Nearly. After that, I never fought again.”

“I’ve seen the sword in your room. Sometimes it’s not in the same place.”

He smiled at her. “I never
fought
again, not in earnest… but I still practice.”

On another occasion, after he had made love to her for half an hour and brought her to several shattering climaxes, she murmured, “
Tu es incroyable,”
as she was drifting off to sleep in his arms.

“
Merci,
” he answered. “
Et toi aussi.
”

“You know French?” she asked, suddenly awake.

“
Unlike you, I can speak it better than I can read it,
” he answered in a passable French accent.

She lifted her head and looked at him with renewed interest. “That’s very good!”

“That is what eight months in France will do for a young man.”

“When you went abroad at seventeen?”

“Yes.”

“Did you travel through France?”

“I stayed five months in Paris and another couple months touring the countryside.”

Her eyes lit up. “I have always wanted to go to Paris.”

“Why?”

“It seems to me the most romantic city in the world.”

“It has a certain charm, to be sure.”

“Not perhaps as much as Venice, hm?” she asked saucily.

He smiled, but did not take the bait. “And if you went to Paris, what would you do?”

“See everything there is to see, of course – and mingle with the artists who live there.”

“The artists?”

“The writers, the painters, the musicians, the actors.”

“We have writers and painters and musicians in merry old England. This is the land of Shakespeare, after all.”

She made a face. “Men and women from around the world go to Paris to create their masterpieces. They come to London to eat poorly and suffer the cold and wet.”

He laughed. “Some would say they go to Paris to suffer the rudeness and arrogance.”

“The people who do so are not artists.”

“And are you an artist?”

She shrugged. “I am a writer. I want to entertain, perhaps provoke a little thought. I would not call that an artist, but I think they will save a place at the table for me.”

“And England would not?”

“The only place saved for me here is at a servant’s table.”

It was not the first time her words on the subject stung him. He was well aware of the gulf between them in social standing. Constantly aware, truth be told. He wanted to be with her, to stay with her, to grow old and have children with her…

…but he knew that was impossible.

So, as always, he pushed the thought away.

“Besides, a prophet has no honor in his own country,” she continued.

“Ah, so now you’re a prophet!”

“Not of Christianity. They don’t particularly like women.”

He looked at her in shock. Evan was not religious, exactly, but to hear anyone speak ill of it unnerved him.

“Whatever do you mean?”

“Who are the most famous women in Christianity?”

“Well, Mary, of course.”

“A virgin. So, Christianity would not be so fond of me. In the
olden
olden days, they would take me out to the city gates and stone me to death.”

“I’m not a virgin, either.”

“You’re a man.”

“So?”

“So the rules are different for men. We’ve had this discussion. Moving on: who else?”

“Well… Mary and Martha…”

“A dutiful housekeeper and an adoring woman at the master’s feet. Do you see me playing either of those parts very well?”

He laughed. “Not particularly, no.”

“What others?”

“Um…”

“Let me rattle off a list for you. There is Eve, who is flogged continually and for all time as the conduit of sin into this world… never mind that Adam did the exact same thing as her. She’s the one who gets all the blame. Then there’s Mary Magdalene, the reformed harlot. A woman’s only good to the church fathers if she’s a virgin, a mother, or renounces her desires completely. Leah and Rachel, who were auctioned off like cattle to Jacob, who in return did not love one of them. Esther – another dutiful wife. Ruth, a dutiful daughter-in-law. Rahab – another prostitute, saved because she betrayed her countrymen. Sarah had the nerve to laugh, and was rebuked for it by God Himself.

“Where are all the amazing women? Where are the female equivalents of Moses, and Joshua, and the twelve apostles? Where are the women to rival King David and Solomon? Women only serve as their adulterous consorts, like Bathsheeba, or their nameless wives and concubines. Or their duplicitous downfalls, like Delilah to Samson. The women in the Bible who are as strong as men – not strong in faith or virtue, which is all well and good, but women who can stand toe to toe with men in every way, in all their appetites and abilities and strength of will – are evil temptresses like Jezebel, who met her end with the dogs lapping up her blood. So I fear it is Paris for me, rather than Jerusalem or Canterbury.”

Evan shook his head. “You are completely unlike any other woman I have ever met.”

She looked over at him, a smile in her eyes. “Is that a compliment or a complaint?”

“More compliment than complaint, but a little of both.”

She laughed. “At least you are honest. And at least you are content to let me be myself.”

“What do I get in reward, hm?”

“A kiss.”

He leaned over to collect his reward, but she surprised him by moving down to his thighs, where she placed the smallest of kisses on his softened manhood. Immediately it began to grow in size.

Evan groaned.

“And another,” she said coyly, brushing her lips along the shaft.

Evan grasped the sheets in both hands.

“And another,” she whispered, running her tongue along the full length of him as she stared into his eyes.

He was entranced. Enslaved.

“And another,” she whispered, then took the head into her mouth and began to gently lick and suck.

His member grew thicker and harder by the second, expanding inside her.

She repositioned herself and took as much of him in her mouth as she comfortably could, savoring the velvety softness of his skin against her tongue. She moved up and down, slowly, softly, wetly caressing his massive staff with her lips… teasing him, enveloping him, loving him.

Evan was almost beside himself with pleasure.

Suddenly she stopped and looked back at him. “On the other hand… do you think it would be better for me to go to a nunnery?”

He tackled her to the sheets as she shrieked with laughter, covered her mouth to silence her cries of hilarity, and then made furious love to her, which made her shriek with cries of pleasure instead.

The nights and days unfolded in a haze of carnal pleasure and tender love, a paradise on earth…

…and then the letter came.

Evan was returning from practicing marksmanship with his pistols. Ordinarily he would have practiced his swordsmanship with Andrew, too, but they were still not on speaking terms, so Evan stopped after an hour of shooting at targets in the woods.

As he rode Bucephalis back, he saw a rider approaching on the road – a postman with a leather satchel.

Evan intercepted him at the house. “What news, my good man?”

The man tipped his hat. “A letter, sir, for Mr. Evan Blake.”

“I am he.”

The man handed over an envelope affixed with Pemberly’s seal.

“Harcourt, give this man a threepence for his troubles, will you?” Evan said to the servant at the door, then opened the letter to read it.

To the Right Dishonorable Evan Blake,

For God’s sake, old man, why do you toy with me so? Hiding a great talent away in that awful country barn of yours, where she might be lost forever. Luckily for her, the public, and my pocketbook (since Father has indeed clipped my monthly allowance, as feared), your imprisoning her in the backwaters of England has not stopped Providence from guiding me to her. Destiny, old boy, destiny. Soon her scandalous, delicious, and most delectable novels will paper the streets of London and beyond. If my powers of literary prognostication are correct, her adoring public will pay not only for my fill of champagne and oysters at the dining club, but a charming little residence for herself, as well.

Though oysters and champagne above all.

So, please relay to Miss Marian Willows that her presence is most officiously requested. Yours will be tolerated.

Also, tell her to bring everything she has written to date. I wish to see how deep the vein of gold runs.

Get thee to London at once! There are contracts to be signed and empires to be conquered!

Yours,

A.P.

PS – How goes the collecting of the fee?

Evan grinned with an absurd joy, and ran into the house to find Marian.

The only sound in the study was the
tick tock tick
of the grandfather clock. Marian did not look at the fine furnishings or the hundreds of books on the shelves, though, but kept her back straight and her eyes on the floor. Her aunt – the Housekeeper of Blakewell – paced back and forth in front of her, looking for all the world like a tiger eyeing its prey in the darkest of Indian jungles.

“What have you to say for yourself?” Mrs. Chapman snapped.

“I do not know what you mean, ma’am,” Marian murmured.

“Oh, I believe you do. I have watched you very carefully the last month.”

Marian’s heart jumped slightly, but she made the effort to keep her face composed.

“Your work has suffered dreadfully. You are distracted, you are sloppy, you are continually making mistakes.”

“‘Tis the summer heat, ma’am.”

“Is it the heat that makes you yawn all day long?”

“I do not sleep well at night, Auntie.”

“That is the first true thing you have said so far,” Mrs. Chapman snarled. “Do you think me a fool? Do you think I am blind?”

“No, ma’am.”

Mrs. Chapman stopped pacing and leaned her dour little face close to her niece’s. “I know why you were sent here, Marian. Oh, yes; I know all about your ‘indelicate situation.’”

Marian’s cheeks blushed slightly – though more out of anger than embarrassment.

“It is none of my business how you run your life, but…”

Here the old woman stopped and sighed. Her tone suddenly changed, and took on a tone of saddened resignation.

“…it disappoints me that you would choose to ruin it once again when given the chance to start over.”

Marian finally looked up. In her eyes flashed an even greater anger, though she still said nothing.

“Do you think he loves you?” Mrs. Chapman asked – simply, calmly, without rancor.

The question was like a slap on Marian’s face. She had thought that no one knew, and yet it was obvious that her aunt did.

Of course he does!
she wanted to yell, but kept her silence.

Almost as though she had read her niece’s mind, Mrs. Chapman tilted her head to one side. “I suppose the better question is, do you really think he would marry you?”

If the first question was a slap, the second was a savage blow.

It was a question Marian had asked herself on occasion more than once, though only when she was alone. With Evan, she was too happy for such dark musings; without him, though, sometimes her mind strayed to more somber questions.

Such as,
What if he gets me with child?

And,
What will be our future together?

Her aunt, apparently, had pondered them too. “He is a wealthy gentleman who could marry any lady within a hundred miles. You are the daughter of a poor London clerk, and a servant girl to boot. Do you really think that you will become Lady Blake someday, a future baroness?”

She looked her aunt straight in the face. “I do not need to be Lady Blake. I am Marian Willows; that is enough.”

Mrs. Chapman shook her head slowly, as though marveling at her niece’s stupidity. “A changer of sheets and chamber pots – that is enough, is it?”

“That is not all I am,” Marian said fiercely. “I will make a name and a life for myself. I do not need a man to do it for me.”

“You may believe that now, because you are young and foolish,” Mrs. Chapman said, not unkindly, “but you will see that reality has a way of intruding on daydreams.”

“I do not – ” Marian began, but was interrupted by a knock at the door.

Evan walked into the room. His smile was radiant.

Her heart soared, and all shadows were banished from her mind.

“Mrs. Chapman,” Evan said.

“Mr. Blake,” the older lady greeted him, and curtsied – though she did not look at him. Now it was her turn to stare at the floor morosely.

Evan looked back and forth between aunt and niece. “I trust nothing is amiss?”

“I was just addressing Miss Willows’… unsatisfactory performance in her duties the last few weeks, sir.”

“Oh. Well, I am sure it was a minor lapse of small importance.”

Mrs. Chapman’s eyes flashed angrily at the younger man before she dropped them back to the floor. “Not minor, sir. Not minor at all.”