The Book Of Scandal (26 page)

“It’s not as easy as that,” Evelyn said morosely. “There is a huge hole in my heart that I cannot fill,” she said, pressing a fist to her chest. “Lord knows I’ve tried.”

“Oh, Evelyn, you can never fill that hole—but you can face it headlong and cope with it in the bounds of your marriage. And really, what choice have you? You can’t honestly expect that anyone will entertain this foolish notion of divorce.”

Evelyn hadn’t thought of anyone else entertaining it other than Nathan, and even then, she supposed she knew he’d never allow it.

Her mother squeezed her knee and stood. “I think the first order of business is to make amends with your husband.”

“Please, Mamma!” Evelyn groaned. “Do not attempt to advise me—”

“He deserves your esteem,” she continued. “He has suffered greatly in your absence.”

Evelyn laughed with surprise. “If the rumors of my life have reached you, then surely you have heard of the Libertine of Lindsey!”

“Yes, I have,” her mother said, frowning with displeasure. “But you cannot deny his loss was very great. He not only lost his son, he lost his heir.”

Evelyn sighed. “Thank you, Mamma, for explaining my husband’s grief to me.” She stood, picking up her gown. “For what it is worth, you should know that only days after we buried Robbie, Nathan was gone with his friends, playing the tomcat. He came and he went, flitting in and out of the blackest days of my life. He did not appear to me to be a man grieving the loss of a bloody heir!”

“Evelyn!”

“I am sorry, Mamma, but you have made me the villain since the earth was spilled into my son’s grave!” She shrugged out of her dressing gown and stepped into the day gown.

“Only because you were out of your mind!” her mother retorted. “I’d never seen such grief, and I feared for you! I believed you were making an impossibly wretched situation even worse.”

“That’s the difference between us, I suppose,” Evelyn said crossly as her mother began to button her gown. “I cannot pick and choose my emotions. I gladly would have died to ease the pain. But you mustn’t worry. I have picked myself up. I no longer want to die, I just miss him terribly.” She walked toward the door.

“I beg your pardon, where are you going?” her mother demanded.

“Away from this interminable interview!” she called over her shoulder, and walked out of her suite, her eyes straight ahead, looking neither left nor right.

She sailed down the curving staircase, her feet flying down the marble steps. She scarcely stopped in the foyer, grabbing a cloak from the coatrack and throwing it around her shoulders before sweeping out of the main doors and running down the steps into the drive. The gloom of yesterday had lifted; the day was cool and breezy, but filled with bright sunlight. Her spirits rose instantly, and she began walking with no particular destination in mind. She wanted to be away from the orangery, the smell of which still hung in the air. She wanted to be away from the little rose garden, where she had seen the illness in the eyes of her son. She wanted to be away from the house itself, where the nursery was ever looming and her parents were overbearingly present.

She might have walked away from it all, kept walking all the way to London, had it not been for a single thought in her head: Nathan.

Nathan, who’d told her in no uncertain terms that he loved her. Last night, she had begun to believe that perhaps she had misjudged him, but then her parents had ruined everything by reminding her of the worst time of her life, a time when Nathan hadn’t loved her, but more likely, had despised her. She remembered how angry they’d been with one another. He was frustrated with her inability to stop moping about. She was frustrated that he didn’t understand it. He would come to her bed, and she was lifeless.

He took her lack of response to heart. And he’d sought comfort with Alexandra.

How long might it be before his memories began to revive and he despised her again? The question worried her, and lost in her private thoughts, Evelyn didn’t realize she’d walked as far as the graveyard until she happened to see the cherub looking up to heaven above her son’s grave.

She followed the cherub’s gaze up to a cloudless blue sky. When she looked down again, she saw a patch of red behind the cherub. She squinted; the patch of red moved.

It was a boy. It was Frances. She watched as he walked around the back of the cherub and bent down. He carried a shovel.

A shovel?

Her mind racing through all the things he could possibly be doing with that shovel, she moved quickly. The iron gate to the graveyard was open, and she strode through.

He was nowhere to be seen at first, but then she caught sight of him again through the obelisks and grave markers. He went down on his knees at Robbie’s grave and seemed to be digging.

With a gasp, Evelyn ran forward, reaching him just as he stood and picked up a bucket. Her sudden appearance startled him; he cried out and dropped the bucket, spilling leaves and dirt and plants of some sort.

Evelyn caught him by the shoulder. “What do you think you are doing?”

“Nothing!” he cried fearfully. “Only what his lordship told me!”

“What? What did he tell you?”

He tried to back away from her, but she held tight, leaning over to see his face. “To keep it tidy, mu’um!”

Evelyn blinked. She turned her head and looked at the headstone and the cherub, then slowly straightened, dropping her hand from Frances’s shoulder. The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away…

She looked up to the cherub’s angelic face and waited for something to wash over her—overwhelming grief, a sadness that would drive her to her knees.

Nothing came but a dull ache.

“He said he would depend on me,” Frances said nervously.

Evelyn looked at him. He was frightened of her, and she felt wretched for it. She smiled. “Please forgive me, Frances. I did not realize my husband had entrusted the care of our son’s grave to you.”

But Frances firmly shook his head. “’Tis his lordship that tends to it, mu’um. But he said I was to look after it for a time because you needed him. And I’ve come every day, I have,” he said, and nervously dragged the back of his hand under his nose.

Her smile grew. She didn’t know which of them touched her more—Nathan or Frances. “You’ve come every day?”

“His lordship, he came every day, too. Until you came home, that is.”

He came every day… She looked at the grave again. It was clean of debris, save that which had scattered when she’d caused Frances to drop his bucket. The grass was trimmed, the weeds were pulled, and she could see now that the shovel had been used to clean a trough around the headstone.

Slowly, Evelyn sank down onto her knees at the foot of her son’s grave. She picked up a pair of leaves and handed them to Frances for the bucket. He looked at her curiously, but then placed the bucket next to Evelyn and went down on his knees to pick up leaves, too.

“My papa says your baby would be almost six years now.”

“Yes, that’s true,” Evelyn said.

“What was he like?” Frances asked blithely.

Evelyn grew still.

“His lordship, he doesn’t like to talk about it. But he said your baby was a good boy. Sometimes, I wonder what he was like.”

“Well, he was only a baby when he died, but he was a very smart little boy,” she said, smiling at the memory. “He began to walk when he was only eleven months old, and he’d hold his arms out straight, like this,” she said, holding her arms perpendicular to her body, “and waddle about the nursery. Then he began to talk.”

“What did he say?”

“Just a few words. He said Mamma, and Papa. And words like shoe, or door, or pony. He loved strawberries but he hated peas.” She slanted Frances a look. “He took after me in that. I despise peas,” she said, wrinkling her nose.

Frances wrinkled his nose, too.

“He loved ponies,” she said with a sigh. “He loved them very much. He had one that was on wheels, and he’d pull it everywhere he went.” She picked up more leaves. “Sometimes, his father would take him riding. He’d sit in front of the earl, and he’d shout, hossy, hossy! He’d grip the pommel so tightly that we’d have to pry his fingers from it.” She laughed, recalling how she and Nathan could scarcely get him off the horse. “He was a good boy,” she said, looking thoughtfully at the cherub. “A very good boy.”

Frances grinned. “My papa says he died of a wasting fever,” he remarked as he scooped up a handful of dirt and debris and placed it in the bucket.

“Something like that,” Evelyn acknowledged. “He was sick when he was born, you know—something wasn’t right with his little heart, and fevers weakened him. He had one too many,” she said, and glanced down at her son’s grave.

God in heaven, she was doing it—she was talking about him, thinking about him, looking at his grave…and she wasn’t fainting from grief. That she could even breathe so close to his grave was nothing short of a miracle—she was so enthralled with the realization that she didn’t see Nathan standing against the fence, watching her, until Frances called out, “My lord!”

She sat back on her heels and shielded her eyes from the sun with one hand. Nathan pushed away from the fence and walked to where they were, his eyes on Evelyn.

Frances held up the bucket to Nathan. “I’ve tidied up, milord, just as you asked.”

“You’ve done a fine job of it,” he said. “You always do, lad. Perhaps you should return the bucket and the shovel to Mr. Gibbs. He’s probably missing them by now.”

“Aye, milord,” Frances said cheerfully, and stood up, grabbing the bucket and the shovel. He paused, propped the shovel against his chest, and tipped his hat to Evelyn. “Good day, mu’um.”

“Good day, Frances. And thank you for tending to my son’s grave so carefully.”

Frances ran off, the bucket banging against his legs.

Evelyn glanced up at Nathan, who came down on his haunches next to her, his eyes full of concern. “Stop looking at me like that,” she said with a hint of a smile. “I am not going to fall to pieces. Frankly, I’m feeling remarkably strong at the moment.”

He smiled, rose up, and offered his hand to her. Evelyn took it and let him pull her to her feet. She paused to dust the dirt and leaves from her cloak, then looked again at the grave marker.

She felt Nathan’s hand slide around her waist, and he drew her in close. “The inscription,” she said, folding her hands over his. “‘The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away.’ How did it come to pass?”

“You don’t recall?”

There were so many blank spots in her memory and she sheepishly shook her head.

“The vicar suggested it.”

Evelyn nodded. They stood there together, staring at the cherub, his hopeful face turned to the sky.

“D-did you…” She paused and swallowed down a sudden lump of grief that had risen up in her throat.

Nathan bent his head close to hers, as if he couldn’t hear her, in the same way he used to whisper intimate little things to her when they were first married.

Evelyn cleared her throat. “I have often w-wondered,” she said shakily. “Does he have his pony?”

Nathan tenderly caressed her arm. “Yes.”

Her relief and gratitude was almost overwhelming. She sagged against him, resting her head against his shoulder. Nathan curved his arm around her waist, holding her.

They stood silently together, looking at the cherub until the cold seeped into Evelyn’s consciousness.

The man stood deep in the woods, his horse tethered to a tree just off the river path. He held a small brass telescope to his eye and watched Lindsey and his wife standing at the grave of their son. A very touching picture.

Pity the fire hadn’t done the trick.

He lowered the telescope and withdrew the pistol from his waist. He pointed it at the couple, closing one eye to better sight them.

He was at too great a distance, of course. He’d need a flintlock musket to have any hope of succeeding from here.

He lowered the pistol and smiled a little. He’d not fail a second time. He turned away from the parents of the dead boy and untethered his horse. He heaved himself up and calmly turned in the direction of the river, in the opposite direction of the graveyard.

P redictably, the marquis was perturbed when Nathan informed him that he’d arranged for the Greys and the Brantleys to dine at the DuPauls’—without him or Evelyn. The marquis was a clever man and saw the ploy for what it was and promptly upbraided his son for it. “It is the height of inhospitality!” he snapped.

Nathan stood calmly, his hands clasped behind his back, listening attentively as he knew he ought, having just gained the upper hand.

When his father had finished, he glared at his son, waiting for a response that would not come. “Have you nothing to say for yourself?” he demanded at last.

“No,” Nathan said calmly.

“You show an incredible lack of decorum!”

“I believe the lack of decorum was in your declining the DuPauls’ hospitality at the last moment and arriving here uninvited.”

“Are you saying that I must have an invitation to call on my son?”

“If you intend to scold me like a wayward child…yes.”

His father’s face turned red. He abruptly pivoted and marched to the sideboard in Nathan’s private study, helping himself to a generous tot of Donnelly’s whiskey. Nathan thought to warn him against it, but decided that would infuriate his father further.

The marquis tossed it down his throat and quickly poured another one as a harsh cough rattled his lungs. “This is the thanks I am to have,” he said hoarsely before tossing back the second tot. “I have only come to help you, Nathan. But if you won’t accept it—”

“I fail to see what help you have offered,” Nathan said, “other than to cause both Evelyn and me to feel like a pair of wretches.”

“Don’t think for one moment that I am blind,” the marquis said. “I know about you and your ways, and all of London knows of hers. It’s a disgrace, what she has put us through, but your carousing is as much a source of discord as her mental weaknesses.”

“She is not weak,” Nathan said angrily. “Stop making her sound like an invalid.”

“You’ll have a rather hard time convincing anyone in this shire that she’s not,” his father shot back. “But I fear your weakness is far more harmful than hers.”