James, Willy, Scott, and Michael, her four employees, as well as Mr. Brewster, were ready and waiting. But that wasn’t all. To her immense surprise, her father and stepmamma were standing just outside the big enclosure.
Eva stared. “What are you doing here?”
Mia grinned. “We come bearing gifts.” She gestured to a rude, squat table that stood at a safe distance. On it were a bottle of champagne and several glasses. “We’ve come to toast the new endeavor in the time-honored fashion: with champagne.”
“Oh,” Eva said, flushing with pleasure. “Why, thank you. But we’ve not got Clancy yet, so it’ll only be old Liberty and two nurse mares. Besides,” Eva added, “I thought champagne was for ships?”
Mia shrugged. “Ships? Horses? Champagne is perfect for all occasions.”
“Well, as long as you don’t try breaking the bottle over Liberty’s hindquarters.”
There was laughter all around as her father opened the bottle with a loud pop and then poured pale golden liquid into each glass. It was Mia who handed the glasses around.
“To a fruitful breeding season, the first of many to come,” the marquess said, raising his glass.
“To a fruitful season,” they all echoed, followed by the clinking of glasses.
Once they’d each had their drink, James and Willy went off to fetch the horses, and the other two lads readied the room for its first inhabitants, not that everything wasn’t already prepared.
“You’ve done a good job here,” the marquess said, his look encompassing both Eva and Mr. Brewster.
Brewster nodded. “Aye, Master, but ’tis her ladyship and James what did it all.”
Mia squeezed Eva’s shoulder and pulled her aside as her father spoke with his stable master. “I’m so happy for you, Eva. This is what you’ve always wanted, isn’t it?”
She met Mia’s huge green eyes and saw the reservations hidden there.
“Yes, Mamma, this is exactly what I wanted.”
“Exactly? I hope so, Eva. I want all three of you girls to be happy.”
Eva looked away from her too-knowing eyes, and then remembered the pair of brown eyes she’d just left in the courtyard. “Mel is certainly getting into the spirit of the preparations—I almost feel bad this ceremony will be so small and unimpressive.”
Mia smiled, but it was not her normal, joyous expression. “Yes, she is enjoying going on these jaunts, for now, at least.”
Eva frowned. “What do you mean? For now?”
“Are you ready, my dear?” the marquess asked, coming up alongside his wife.
“I am, darling.”
“Oh, are you two leaving?” Eva asked, unable to keep the disappointment from her voice. “I thought you might stay?”
Mia grinned. “Oh, the last thing I want is to give your father any more ideas about breeding.”
Eva’s jaw dropped.
The marquess sighed heavily and shook his head. “I can see I shall have to start muzzling you before I let you leave the house.”
Naturally, Mia laughed and the two wandered off, her stepmother leaning her head against her husband’s shoulder, the marquess holding her tight with one arm, as if he would never let her go. Eva had to swallow several times as she watched them depart. What must it be like to be so obviously in love, even after many years?
Somehow, she suspected she would never know the answer to that question.
* * *
Godric had been staring at the same letter for some time. So he turned it over and picked up the next, continuing the farce that he was actually doing work. Not that anyone was watching or cared what he was doing. Hell, not even he cared that he was sitting in the vast cavern of a library going over correspondence. Alone.
Oh, stop or you shall make me weep.
Godric felt nauseated by his self-pity—an emotion he was generally able to restrain until the wee hours of the morning. But tonight not even Andrew was here, and he was having difficulty keeping the feeling in check. He’d become accustomed to the younger man’s presence at meals and in the evening, the times of the day when solitude was least desirable.
You didn’t have to be here alone, the annoying resident in his skull pointed out.
That was true. He’d been invited to the same dinner party as Andrew—the one at Lord Ingram’s, the second largest landowner in the area after Godric. When he’d been a younger man, Godric had often got up to mischief with Baron Ingram’s sons, all of whom were long married with families of their own.
Godric was the area’s most eligible bachelor—albeit long in the tooth—and his neighbor, Lady Ingram, seemed to labor under some compulsion to throw young females at him. The last dinner party he’d attended, three weeks earlier, had been horrifying. At least for Godric.
Andrew, however, had enjoyed himself thoroughly, even though, as a penniless young male, he was not particularly marketable. Still, that didn’t seem to matter to the younger man as he appeared to have no eye to marriage.
But just because Andrew did not wish to marry did not mean he didn’t wish to socialize.
So Godric was alone tonight. How pitiful had he become, sighing heavily over the loss of his nineteen-year-old dinner companion?
He put aside the letter in his hand—a bill for candles—and picked up the familiar spidery handwriting of his grandfather.
The letter was not long, and a cursory reading of it was sufficient to communicate the thrust of its content: When was Godric coming to the ducal seat?
This was the third letter in six weeks, and Godric had responded to the prior two with vague references to repairs, obligations, et cetera. But he would have to go soon; it was cruel to keep the old man waiting. He set down the letter and went to pour himself another brandy—the third, and final—for the evening.
When he’d first come home to Cross Hall, he’d waited until Andrew went to bed each night to drink himself into unconsciousness.
After two weeks of that, Andrew had come to him, his sensitive face frightened and concerned. “You look ill, my lord. Very ill. I feel it would be remiss of me not to recommend a physician.”
“Your recommendation is duly noted. Consider yourself relieved of any responsibility,” he’d said, and then continued on his path of self-destruction for another week.
Once again Andrew had come to him, but this time he’d come to Godric’s bedchamber with a quack in tow.
Godric had placidly submitted to the requisite poking, prodding, and inevitable bleeding, after which he’d informed the physician—privately—that it would be worth his life if he said anything to Andrew other than the words, “His lordship is as healthy as a horse.”
Rather than return to his downward spiral, Godric had taken the opportunity to examine himself and his future. If he wanted to put a period to his existence, surely he could do so more efficiently and expeditiously than drinking himself to death?
After a visit to his weapons room, which Andrew had explored a mere thirty minutes after arriving at Cross Hall, Godric decided he did not quite wish to shoot himself yet, no matter that he now had a bewildering array of options. The boy had organized and repaired every one of a remarkable number of antique weapons there.
And so Godric had gotten on with the business of living, albeit without any joy. But then, he’d given up expecting any joy in his life a year and a half ago, hadn’t he?
As receptive as several local widows and more than a few tavern wenches had been to his attentions, Godric had lost the energy to carouse—in any form or fashion. The extent of his gaming was the occasional hand of cards with Andrew, which was generally enough to exterminate all interest in gambling of any sort.
He slept as poorly as ever, although when he closed his eyes now, he increasingly saw a different face from those that had haunted him for so long. The expression he saw on Eva’s face was one he’d only ever seen in his mind’s eye: that of a young woman who’d been thoroughly crushed by what Godric had cruelly and knowingly—but not truthfully�
�said within her hearing.
It was for the best.
That was a refrain he told himself often. For most of the day it either was not necessary to repeat in his head, or if he did need to remind himself, the five words functioned quite well as a thought suppressant. But at night, when he was sitting in his large, empty house, alone, the five words were less than compelling.
He took a sip of brandy and allowed himself to revel in his pain, like a dog rolling in its own excrement. He hadn’t seen Eva again after delivering his killing words. She’d dined in her room and then left the following morning with her father and Byer.
It was for the best.
After all, what had he wanted? A last glimpse of her angry or tearstained face? Or had he wanted her to do what she seemed so very good at: to fight for those she cared about—the way she’d fought for her brother and his wife?
But that’s assuming that she ever cared about you, isn’t it, Godric?
Godric laughed softly; as if he’d done anything to earn her respect, friendship, or even affection.
They might have been approaching something nearing friendship, but he’d killed that as thoroughly as one squashed a wasp.
He couldn’t stop seeing her just as she’d looked when he and Andrew had encountered her on that road. She’d strolled away from near death—rejecting the offer of a ride, incidentally—and a nest of bandits, with nothing more than an empty pistol. Surely there could not be another woman in England like her?
But just as surely there were things even her fearless soul chose not to confront; or at least there were things she deemed not worth confronting, and Godric was one of them.
He took another miserly sip from his glass, put on the spectacles he needed for reading—smiling at the thought of how Eva would taunt his decrepitude if she saw him, and just as quickly banishing the thought from his mind—and then turned back to the pile of correspondence and picked up another letter.
He was halfway through the first paragraph when it occurred to him to look at the salutation: it wasn’t to him, it was to Andrew.
Andrew sorted and opened the mail and laid it out for him. Obviously he’d put this private letter in the wrong pile.
Godric was about to place it aside, no matter how intriguing the contents of that first paragraph might have looked, when he caught sight of the cramped signature at the bottom of the page.
What the devil? His hand tightened and the crinkling sound of paper brought him back to himself.
You are an honorable man; honorable men do not read other men’s letters.
That was true.
Godric stared at the page he’d turned facedown and was about to release. How could he not read a letter from this person?
Very easily. You put it aside and move on to the next.
So he did that. And then commenced to read half a page of the new letter without seeing it before tossing it aside and again snatching up Andrew’s personal correspondence.
Oh, Godric.
Godric slammed the door on the chiding voice. And then he read Andrew’s letter.
Chapter 23
“That’s a good girl,” Eva crooned into Meadow’s twitching ears as she waited for James to return with Liberty.
Meadow was the last of the mares Mr. Brewster had brought in. They’d placed her one-year-old in the nearest stall as the proximity of stablemates kept mares—even experienced, older mares like Meadow—calmer.
Their operation appeared to be off to an excellent start and her staff of three were doing excellent work, but Eva was rather anxious about tomorrow.
The stud she was bringing in, Clancy, was both wildly expensive and young. He’d be servicing four maidens—young mares who’d never been covered—and Eva suspected the procedure would be far different from that of the past few days.
Liberty, her father’s stud, was a stallion the marquess had won many years ago, along with the rest of some bankrupted lord’s stables. Her father had ridden Liberty quite regularly until the stallion had strained a tendon and never really been one hundred percent afterward.
A few years ago the marquess had spoken of selling Liberty, and Eva had exerted all her efforts to keep the old boy. He was a remarkably placid stallion who always seemed to have an expression of amusement.
Her father had given in but had wanted to geld him. Again she’d begged. And when James’s father had weighed in—arguing Liberty could earn back his fodder and more as a stud—the old stallion had been left intact. His offspring littered the area and were a fine infusion into the rural bloodlines.
Indeed, her father had kept several of Liberty’s foals, such as one by Meadow, which now pulled the gig Mel liked to use.
Thinking of Mel made Eva recall her sister’s odd behavior these past few weeks. Eva might be oblivious when it came to other people’s emotions, but she would wager a pony that her sister was sweet on Tommy.
Eva wasn’t sure what to think about that. On the one hand, it was probably normal—after all, Mel knew so few handsome young men. Although she was seventeen, she’d not gone away to school as Eva and Catherine had.
While it was true that Mel was active in their small neighborhood, her sister had been exposed to few men—certainly none with Tommy’s fine looks and polish. Unlike Eva, who hated social functions, Mel enjoyed attending the local assemblies, but she was so very, very shy that she rarely danced or—
“Here then, my lady. You awake?”
Eva’s head whipped up at the sound of James’s voice, and she recalled that she was hanging on to poor Meadow, who likely was wondering what was wrong with her.
“I’m awake, James. Go ahead and bring him in.” Eva didn’t bother with a twitch for the older mare. Instead she’d clipped a lead to her halter and stood off to one side as James brought Liberty closer.
They watched as Liberty and Meadow got reacquainted. The old stallion was a gentleman and didn’t rush broodmares, even ones he knew as well as Meadow.
“Are you sure you don’t want one of the lads here to help?” James asked with a huge yawn as Liberty politely sniffed Meadow’s raised tail.
Predictably, Eva yawned, too. “I’d rather not pull them away from their tasks, but what do you think?”
James eyed the two older horses, who seemed to be having a quiet conversation like friendly old acquaintances. “We shouldn’t make a habit of it, but I think we can let the lads be.”
She cut him a wry look. “That wouldn’t be because you have something you want to say to me, would it?”
James gave her an innocent look, but she wasn’t persuaded.
“I saw you hovering around earlier when Lord Byer came to the office.” By office she meant the stall where they kept the papers that had already started to add up, even though they’d only acquired the four mares. But they’d also managed Liberty this season, and she’d kept notes for all his mares, too. Organization was not her strong suit, but she was trying her hardest. “Tell me, how much of my conversation with his lordship did you hear?”
“I’d never Evasdrop.”
Meadow’s tail began to twitch and James gave Liberty more slack to allow the stallion to nuzzle the mare’s hindquarters.
Eva had to smirk at his use of Gabe’s term for her habit of lurking. “I saw you, James.”
James opened his mouth to answer, but then Meadow squatted and leaned back into the stallion, her position eager and receptive. Even a smallish stallion like Liberty could be dangerous to humans while covering a mare, so Eva didn’t distract James.
Liberty was experienced at his job and Meadow remained stationary, so the entire procedure took less than a minute.
Once the stallion uncoupled, James walked him back and forth in the large area to cool down while Eva guided Meadow into the adjacent stall, where her colt was eagerly awaiting her.
At first, she’d been unhappy that her father and Brewster had cautioned against taking on more than four broodmares this year, but now she was grateful. It would be h
ectic enough to move this many animals, especially when she wasn’t quite sure what the facilities at her new husband’s house would be like.
Husband.
Eva swallowed hard and latched the stall gate, leaving mother and child together and coming around to where James was stroking Liberty’s neck and crooning calming words.
“Hopefully that calmed him some for tomorrow.”
“Oh, aye,” James said in his silly horse voice. “Liberty’s a lad, ain’tcha?” he asked the stallion, who indeed appeared to nod his head. “And you’re kind to all the lasses, hmmm?” Again the horse seemed to know what he was asking.
“So, back to the question I asked you earlier,” Eva said. “What did you hear today and why were you frowning?”
James gave her a lofty look. “It ain’t for a groom to tell his mistress such things, my lady.”
“It ain’t for a groom to abandon his mistress on the Great North Road, either,” she reminded him. “But that didn’t stop you.”
A red stain crept up his neck and colored his face. “You’re never going to forget that, are you?”
“No.” Eva didn’t tell him why she wouldn’t forget it—that it had been the best five days of her life. That was all he needed, to think he’d actually helped her have a fine adventure. “But you know I forgive you,” she added, even though she’d already told him that.
He glanced at her. “Was he cruel to you?” Eva heard the raw concern in his voice.
Although she’d been back for weeks, she’d never spoken of Visel—even to James. Instead, they’d gone back to their pre-kidnapping relationship as if the whole affair had never happened.
“No, he wasn’t cruel.”
They led Liberty back to his stall.
“You know when we were at that inn—the, er, Greedy Vicar?”
As if Eva would ever forget. “Yes?”
“I met that lad who was with Lord Visel—the one with the blunderbuss—Andrew. He was a nice bloke,” James added awkwardly as he removed the stallion’s halter and scratched behind his ears.
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