Lane snorted. “Portland’s gelding will win the day.”
“Aye, I agree with you, Lane.” Aigen kept his grin. “I’m sorry we can’t wager on it, for I’d like to take some coin from you.”
Camber’s eyes sparked. “Win by a length.”
“That much?” Lane brushed the tip of a thumb over his lower lip. “No. Can’t happen. Not with Viceroy in the field.”
“Care to wager on it?” The duke locked his hands behind his back.
“Indeed, your grace, I do.”
Fenris returned his attention to Eugenia, and as the discussion of racing continued, he wrapped his fingers around the underside of her forearm and brought her to her feet.
“What’s this?” Lane said. “Are you taking her away?”
“Only for a moment.” She could not look away from Fenris. Nor, it seemed, could he look away from her. “I’d like some of those biscuits Mr. Lane so enjoyed.”
Camber gave his son a sharp look. He still held the flowers in one hand. “I was about to ask Mrs. Bryant and Miss Rendell if they’d walk out with me later this afternoon or the next. I thought they might like to visit Ackermann’s.”
Eugenia curtseyed. “That sounds lovely, your grace. You’re kind to think of us.”
“Not at all.”
Hester plucked at the duke’s sleeve. “Camber.” She went on tiptoe to look at the flowers he held. “Are those your violets?”
“Indeed, they are, Miss Rendell.” Camber held out the flowers and, with a bow worthy of a courtier, presented them to her.
She took them and examined them with a gimlet eye. “Excellent scent. Good color. Large blossoms perfectly formed.” She lifted her head. “Precisely as your sketches and paintings depicted them. Ought you to have cut them?”
“Not from our experimental set, but they are from Bouverie.”
“They’re very pretty.” She bent over the flowers and breathed in. “I do love violets.”
“I thought you might like to wear them in your hair.” The duke coughed. “You modern young ladies still do that sort of thing, don’t you? Put flowers in your hair? I know the girls did in my day. Very pretty.”
“Of course they do, Camber.” Fenris let go of Eugenia’s arm, put aside his hat and riding whip, and took Hester’s violets. He held them beside the curls arranged atop her head. “Yes, I think this will do quite nicely. Have you any spare hairpins, Miss Rendell?” He took the pins Hester hastily pulled from her dark curls. “Thank you. A moment if you please. Don’t fidget.”
“No, sir.” Hester watched Camber during the process, with one of her serene smiles on her lips.
Fenris fastened the violets in her hair and stepped back. “What do you think, Mrs. Bryant? Camber? Does she not look lovely?”
Lane cleared his throat. “The very picture of beauty.”
“Look in the glass,” Eugenia said.
She did and touched the violets gently. When she returned, she smiled in a way that made Fenris cock his head. Lane and Camber, too.
“Very pretty, Miss Rendell,” Aigen said.
“No one’s ever given me flowers before.” She took Camber’s hand in hers and pressed it. “Thank you, your grace. I’m sure I must have the most beautifully arranged coiffure of anyone in the room. In all of London, I daresay. There’s no one with violets as lovely as these.”
Camber coughed again, and Eugenia wondered if it was possible that Fenris was right, and his father was enamored of Hester. He couldn’t be. He thought of Hester as a girl. The daughter he’d never had. Didn’t he?
“Shall I crystallize them, Lady Eugenia? I’ve been meaning to make a chimney ornament for you.” She sent a glance in the direction of the fireplace. “They would make us a lovely reminder of Camber. And Bouverie, of course. Don’t you agree?”
“Yes.”
Fenris retook Eugenia’s arm and walked her away while his father and the others stayed with Hester. He’d retrieved his hat and riding whip and now had them tucked under his arm. Near the door, he drew a bouquet of white violets from his pocket. “I’m afraid they’re a poor second to Camber’s specimens, but on our way here, we passed a girl selling them, and I thought if Camber was to bring flowers for Miss Rendell, then you ought to have them, too. A gift from me. Or a peace offering if you’re still angry with me.”
“I’m not angry.” She took them from him, absurdly touched by his gesture. “Thank you. They’re lovely.” Flowers. Such a small thing, really. A penny or two spent, but he’d thought of her.
He stayed near her. “I chose the white violets because they made me think of you. Delicate. Not the usual sort at all.”
“Really.” She gave a laugh. “You’ll turn my head with talk like that.”
He fingered one of the blossoms. “A lovely color for you, with that hint of purple here at the center. You ought to have a gown just this color.” Lightly, he touched her fingers. “I’d insist you put these in your hair, too, but Hester ought to have her moment, I think.”
He looked in the direction of the corridor. “Come away so I can kiss you, Ginny.”
“Stop trying to distract me from properly thanking you.”
“I’d never distract you from that.”
She brought the violets up to inhale the scent. “Incorrigible. That’s what you are. They smell so lovely.”
“I think of you often.” He tugged on her elbow.
“Stop. I’ll laugh at you and everyone will wonder what you’ve done.”
“Let them.” They ended up staring at each other, caught, the both of them. “Ginny.” His soft voice sent a shiver down her spine.
She broke the rather terrible silence. “I was terrified. Terrified something awful had happened.” The words came out too quickly, and she hurried to cover the emotion. “I mean to say I’m glad you weren’t hurt.”
“I confess I share the sentiment.” Such a noncommittal reply.
“I’m glad everything’s come right.”
“You think it has?”
Her heart turned over, and she gave in to the mass of insecurity that roiled inside her. “Let’s us make the best of this, Fenris, shall we?”
He gazed at her. “The best of what?”
“This. Everything. You and Mr. Lane. All the gossip. What else would I mean?”
He cocked his head. “A man who’s had to face the prospect of death finds himself with a different perspective of what’s worthy of his attention.”
“I’m sure.”
He lowered his voice. “Being with you is worth any cost. Any price.”
“I’ve not asked you for anything.” Her pulse thumped in her ears.
His mouth turned up at the corners. “Ask. I’ll give you anything you like. My fortune.”
She rolled her eyes at him.
“My collection of dueling pistols.”
“I’ll gladly take those from you.”
“My name.”
Panic filled her. She lifted the flowers. “I have these.”
“My heart?”
“Fenris, no.” She patted his chest, and was horrified to find she had to blink away tears. “You don’t want that.”
“The question is what you want.” The light in his eyes flattened, and she hated that she’d made that happen. “We must talk. You know we must.”
“Not here. Someplace quieter.”
“Where, then?”
She sighed. “There’s a parlor in the back of the house.”
Chapter Twenty-seven
EUGENIA TOLD HERSELF THAT THIS TIME SHE WOULD not lose her head. There was nothing of substance between her and Fenris. Nothing that would sustain a relationship of any meaning. Quite the opposite. What they’d shared was purely physical. They were lovers, nothing more. She did not have a heart to give him.
As they walked to the parlor she meant, her body felt light as air. The slightest breath would blow her off her feet. Noise from the front parlor receded as she walked, and she had the odd conviction she wa
s entering a different world.
The back portion of the town house was almost eerily quiet. Fenris walked silently behind her, but when she reached the parlor, he moved past her to open the door. He closed it after them. The room wasn’t large, so once they’d stepped inside, her heart banging against her chest, because Fenris always did that to her, they were hardly ten feet apart. She was safe now, but she soon would not be. Not with Fenris looking at her with that dark and brooding gaze.
She tucked his violets into her bosom because she didn’t know what else to do with them, and instantly wished she hadn’t, for his gaze dipped downward. There were six chairs here, all of them set with their backs against the wall, waiting for someone to move them to some convenient and agreeable place. A scarlet velvet sofa faced the fireplace. She thought about sitting there, but in the end, she didn’t. If she stayed on her feet there was a chance she’d not give in to him. Her sewing was here, on the floor beside the sofa, as well as a wooden frame that held her embroidery work. On a table was a stack of books from the subscription library. She and Hester took turns reading them when they did not have an engagement outside the house.
“Do sit.” Fenris gestured.
“I’d rather stand, I think. My lord.” She lifted her eyes to him and, as always, meeting his gaze only reminded her how physically lovely he was. Her belly tugged at her. He moved between the sofa and the fireplace. Heavens, but he was a lovely man. But what he wanted from her, she could not give. She’d loved once. She’d loved Robert so deeply his death had destroyed her, and she could not face that again. That kind of love was not safe, and she knew that’s what Fenris wanted from her.
He let out a short breath. “I think we can be less formal than that with each other, don’t you? Fenris will do if you can’t bring yourself to call me Fox when we are in private.”
His acerbic reply irritated her enough that a similar note crept into her voice. She wasn’t perfect. She wasn’t the creature he’d obviously built up in his mind over the years. The paragon Robert had loved. Well, she wasn’t a paragon, and Robert had known it. “Was there something you needed to say to me?”
“Yes.” He glanced past her shoulder to the door. “Please make sure it’s locked.”
She did turn back to the door, and she did turn the key in the lock.
“Thank you.”
Eugenia crossed the room but stopped short of where he was standing at the fireplace. “Yes?”
He put his hat and whip on the mantel. “I know it’s early yet, but have you anything to tell me?” He spoke in a low voice. Politic of him. She trusted her staff not to listen at the door, but there was no sense taking a risk that anyone, someone else’s servant, one of her guests, even, might eavesdrop.
“I thought the point of dragging me away from my guests was that you had something to say to me.”
“We ought to be married.” He let out an exasperated breath and set a fisted hand on the mantel. “You know. You know.”
“What do I know?”
“Ginny. My God, Ginny. I did nothing to prevent a child.” His eyes darkened. “I don’t regret it, don’t think for a moment I do. I’d not change anything about that.”
Why, Eugenia wondered, was there never a sinkhole when one needed one? Right now, she wished intensely for the ground to swallow her up. And it didn’t.
“I understand your feelings for me are not what either of us might wish, but surely you understand me. I took no precautions. Did you?”
She couldn’t speak. Such things were done, but she didn’t know the methods herself. Or, rather, she’d heard things, but she would have had to ask for the details of what to do. Martine, mostly likely, would know, but Eugenia hadn’t asked her or anyone else.
“I’ve a right to know, too, if you suspect you might be with child by me.”
This was a serious matter. The most serious of her life. “Yes, you do.”
“Well?”
She moved behind the sofa, her hands on the carved arch of the back. “Not yet. That is, I’m not certain. As you said, it’s early.”
“Not certain is not the same as no.”
She couldn’t meet his gaze any longer so she stared at the rosette carved in the wood along the back of the sofa. That she was having this conversation with Fenris was incomprehensible. Nothing in her view of what her life was to be like had prepared her for this. She was Eugenia Hampton Bryant. A widow who had once married and lost the love of her life. She was sister to a duke. Her life was otherwise unexceptional. Events flowed around her, never distinguishing her. She had friends she liked and some she loved. She had family she adored and a life that had no drama. No excitement. Not the slightest risk of scandal. Until Fenris.
“In a few days, I think.” She rubbed her palm across her forehead and wished herself anywhere but here.
“Ginny,” he said softly. “Are you saying your courses are late?”
“I don’t know.” She glanced at him, expecting he’d be as horrified as she was at the possibility. But his expression was, as was so often the case with him, unreadable. “I’ve never been…regular. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize.”
She didn’t say anything to that. Her chest was tight, because now that he was forcing her to confront their situation, her situation, she couldn’t entirely keep back the panic. “I never meant to trap you.”
“Don’t look so terrified. I am prepared to marry you whether you are certain or not.”
“No.” She shook her head. “No. You mustn’t marry without love.”
“Yours or mine?”
“Either. There’s a woman out there for you.” She swallowed hard. “I’m sorry. So sorry to think I might take that from you. You deserve to be loved.” She only just kept back a sob. “I cannot love you as you deserve.”
“Well, then.” He remained by the fire. The chimney glass, which stretched the width of the mantel and the height of the wall, reflected his back from the shoulders up. “We shall have to be patient awhile longer.”
She looked at the door. The real world was out there, and she did not want to rejoin it.
“Don’t go yet,” he said.
“We’ll be missed.”
“If you go out there now, someone is sure to ask you why you’ve been crying.”
“I haven’t been.” She blinked and was mortified to feel tears slide down her cheek. Not many, but enough.
He went to her and put his handkerchief in her hand. “Stay here a moment. Until the horror passes and you’ve forgotten, for now, that you might be forced to marry me.”
“God, Fenris.” She crushed his handkerchief in a fist. “Must you speak so bluntly?”
He did not immediately reply. “We may find it necessary to make the best of things. A child out of wedlock would destroy us both.” He touched a finger to her chin. “You know that.”
“Yes. I know.”
“Ginny.” He shook his head and lowered his voice, though there was no one in the room. “We could elope. We needn’t tell anyone what we’ve done.”
She gaped at him. “We can’t.”
“We’re of age, you and I. Mountjoy’s permission, while desirable, is not required. Nor is my father’s. We’ll marry and say nothing until circumstances force us to reveal what we’ve done. Who knows but that as time passes, you might learn you like me better than you do at present.”
“I don’t see why I wouldn’t. I don’t hate you anymore.”
“Progress.”
“It isn’t love.”
“Have I asked for that? If you are with child, we have some time before we’d need to confess the sin of a clandestine marriage.”
“That’s absurd.” She pressed his handkerchief to her eyes. “What if I’m not? We’d be married. A divorce or annulment would be a worse scandal than a secret marriage. And that’s supposing you could get one.”
“No divorce. No annulment.” He hesitated, and she had the impression that he discarded several thought
s before settling on what to say. “If we don’t marry, and there’s a child, the damage to Hester’s reputation might well be irreparable.”
“We can’t marry in secret.”
“I don’t see why not.” He shrugged. “I leave the choice to you.”
“I’ve never been able to deceive Mountjoy. He’ll know. He’ll take one look at me and know.”
“Then we’ll tell him.” He reached for her hand, and she let him take it.
“Tell him what? That we must marry?”
“I’ll tell him I love you.”
“God, Fenris, no. No lies. Please. Besides, he wouldn’t believe you.”
She could see him try not to scowl and fail at it. “Why do you persist in coloring my every remark with the worst possible intent?”
“I promise you, Mountjoy will know if you lie to him. You can’t tell him that. No one will believe it.”
“I’ll tell him the truth, then.”
She sat down hard on one of the chairs. For several seconds she stared at her lap. “One duel is more than enough.”
When she looked up their gazes locked. “Lord, Ginny, how late are you?”
She swallowed hard, got up and paced to the sofa, and stared at one of the carved roses again. “Not very.”
“Not very? Marriages are made on less certainty than that.”
She pressed a finger on each of the petals of the rose in turn. “I’m sure I’m not. I mean to say, I’d feel something if I were, and I don’t.”
Fenris strode away. She presumed he was headed toward the door. Thank God for that, for she did not want him to see her break down. But he didn’t proceed to the door. No, he stopped near her. Behind her. “Ginny,” he said.
She jumped, because he was much closer than she expected. And now the chimney glass reflected back her face and his. Objectively, they made a handsome couple. Him with his dark hair and hers so pale in comparison. If one knew nothing about them, one might think they suited.
“I beg your pardon.” His voice was soft. Too soft. “I did not intend to startle you.”
Not Proper Enough (A Reforming the Scoundrels Romance) Page 24