Evangeline stumbled to a stop. “What?”
A violent blush crept up Susan’s cheeks. “It’s just, the thought of bedding a husband is daunting enough, without having the husband be a vicious blackguard. When I think of our wedding night, I…Don’t scowl at me so, I didn’t say ‘Lionkiller,’ I said ‘vicious blackguard.’ You cannot deny his temper—he admits the flaw himself.” Susan’s voice lowered even more. “I have heard there is pain under the best of circumstances, and I cannot imagine the lovemaking skills of a recluse like Lioncroft being the best of anything.”
“I disagree,” Evangeline muttered, leaning one shoulder against the nearest wall and closing her eyes tight.
She didn’t have to imagine Mr. Lioncroft being the best of anything. She well knew it from experience. The very thought of his kisses weakened her limbs and heated her flesh. And the thought of him sharing those selfsame kisses with Susan…for the rest of their lives…Angels above, it was enough to make a woman scream.
Not because of Susan’s blithe comments, exactly—she was a friend, and as such, Evangeline wished the best for her. And not because she wanted Mr. Lioncroft for herself; there were any number of reasons why they could never be together, and not a single reason to suggest they could. But…oh, very well.
A part of her did want Mr. Lioncroft for herself, despite him being an arrogant rogue with little to recommend him as husbandly material. But he was the son of a viscount and she was the daughter of a—of a—tatterdemalion gypsy, who had passed down to her daughter untamable hair and a so-called Gift. And a streak of independence, and twenty years of unconditional love, and a value system requiring her to use her talent to better the lives of those who did without, who judged each other on their own merit rather than a hierarchy of inherited titles as prescribed in Debrett’s Peerage.
Yes, despite her shameless complicity in Mr. Lioncroft’s intoxicating kisses, he was unquestionably the wrong sort of man for a woman determined not to have any man, for fear she relive her mother’s mistakes. And, Evangeline hated to admit, Lady Stanton was probably also right in pronouncing Evangeline likewise the wrong woman for Mr. Lioncroft. Especially when compared to someone like Susan Stanton.
Who now poked Evangeline in the shoulder and sang out, “I’m still waiting…”
Evangeline opened her eyes. “For what?”
“For an explanation, of course. I said I could not imagine Lioncroft’s lovemaking. You said, ‘I disagree.’ A more intriguing phrase has never been spoken. Do continue.”
“I said that?” Evangeline pushed off from the wall and started walking again. “If so, that’s all I meant to say. In fact, I’m fairly certain I didn’t even mean to say that much.”
Susan rushed to keep up with Evangeline’s increased pace. “Well, if you won’t be forthcoming on your own, I shall be forced to ask questions based on your response. Do you think about Lioncroft’s lovemaking?”
“I—what?”
Prurient curiosity laced Susan’s tone. “Have you and he…”
“No!” Although this lack owed more to his gentlemanliness than to Evangeline’s guardianship of her maidenhood. “I’ve—I’ve only even been kissed by one man.”
Susan huffed, as though disappointed. “So his style of lovemaking was supposition on your part.”
“I…” Evangeline stared at her for a moment before facing forward once again and striding down the hall with a vengeance.
Within seconds, Susan re-linked her arm with Evangeline’s and slowed the pace to a more manageable saunter. “While we are admitting suppositions, I will admit I don’t imagine him to be a gentle lover. He is a publicly acknowledged brute, and brutes are not known for gentleness. Do you suppose otherwise?”
Evangeline supposed she’d vomit all over her nice clean dress if she was supposed to discuss in lurid detail the mechanics of Mr. Lioncroft disposing of Susan’s virginity. “If I’d had any idea you wanted to have this particular conversation, I would’ve…”
“Would’ve what?”
“I don’t know.” Evangeline sighed. Better to finish with this topic now than to have it creep up again and again. “No, I don’t suppose brutes are known for gentleness. On the other hand, I don’t consider Mr. Lioncroft brutish.”
“You think him gentle?”
“Hardly.” Evangeline paused to consider what she truly felt about the gentleness or lack thereof in Mr. Lioncroft’s manner. The very thought of those stolen moments increased the beating of her traitorous heart. “Gentleness isn’t always preferable, is it? I mean, surely passion takes a middle ground. What if…what if a man desires you, despite himself? Despite yourself. What if a man wants you so much and so badly, he can’t help himself from…from touching you, from grabbing you, from shutting up both of your weak objections by pressing his body to yours and kissing you senseless? Hypothetically speaking.”
Susan shuddered. “Sounds horrible. Precisely how do you define ‘brutish,’ Evangeline?”
“Unwanted force,” Evangeline responded promptly. “If you’re screaming and crying and fighting back and he forces himself upon you anyway, that’s brutish and wholly unacceptable under any circumstance. But if you secretly kind of like finding yourself up against the wainscoting when he can’t keep his lips from yours a moment longer—”
“Who in the world would like something like that?” Susan laughed and shook her head. “Consummation is supposed to happen in the bedroom, Evangeline. Lying down. At night. With the candles unlit. You close your eyes, he does his bit, and if you’re lucky enough to bear heirs right away, he leaves you in peace. Then you go shop or something. Perhaps take tea.”
Evangeline rounded the next corner, steering Susan into the marble tiled anteroom. “I’m not sure it works exactly like that.”
“Of course it does. Mother told me so. And she has more experience with marriage than you and I combined.”
“That may be, but…” Evangeline bit her lip. As ill-suited as she and Mr. Lioncroft might be, he and Susan would be an equally disastrous match if Susan flung herself into a binding contract with a husband who terrified her. Evangeline didn’t want either of them locked into an unhappy marriage. “What I’m saying is, I don’t think he’s as bad as you think. I don’t think he’s really bad at all. He may have a temper, yes. But from what I’ve seen, his temper gets the best of him when he’s protecting those he cares about. Like his family. And if you”—Evangeline choked on the word—“marry him, you will also be family. Which would mean he would use his strength to protect you, not hurt you. I imagine him to be the sort who would fiercely cherish a wife. If a woman could get him to want one.”
“But he won’t want me!” Susan blocked Evangeline from opening the front door. “Mother plans to force him. I won’t be cherished. I will be quashed.”
“Nobody will be quashed. Mr. Lioncroft isn’t the sort of man to be forced into anything he doesn’t want to do, false compromise or no.” Evangeline hoped. “Your mother knows he doesn’t plan to marry unless he chooses to marry.”
Susan’s shoulders slumped. “Then how am I to trap him?”
“You cannot trap him,” Evangeline blurted out. “That is to say, you oughtn’t trap him. Or any man. You can only…You can only”—angels above, how could she have this conversation without retching?—“entice him.”
A frown creased Susan’s brow. “Entice him how?”
“By being yourself. By letting him be himself. By talking to him. Getting to know him. And seeing if you like the person who he is inside.” Evangeline tugged on the door handle. “And vice versa.”
“I don’t know.” Susan stepped aside. “Sounds complicated.”
Evangeline pushed upon the front door and led the way from the porch to the front garden.
Jane Heatherbrook bounded up to them, face flushed and eyes sparkling. “Just in time! Uncle sent me to fetch you. We’re four to a blanket. Five if you count the twins as two people, which nobody ever does. I’m afraid you mu
st mingle separately, however, as one remaining seat is with me and Uncle Lioncroft, and the other with Mother. The third blanket is already full with Lady Stanton and the Rutherfords. Did you see my jewelry? Look!” She beamed at them both while pointing toward her neck. “A cunning little portrait-locket. There’s no portrait yet, but there will be soon. And I’m to have a new wardrobe as well. I’ll look just as smart as you, Miss Stanton!”
Evangeline tried not to be wounded at being excluded from this last statement. She couldn’t deny the truth of it, having left such a trail of hairpins from her bedchamber to the front gardens that even someone as directionally inept as Susan would be able to use them as a path back to the guest quarters. So much for looking a fraction as elegant as the ever-coiffed soon-to-be Mrs. Lioncroft. Evangeline’s stomach roiled.
“Go on, then.” She nudged Susan with an elbow and tried to keep the peevishness from her tone. “Sit with him and Jane and Nancy. I shall sit with Mr. Teasdale, Lady Heatherbrook, and the twins.” Under no circumstance would she sit with Edmund Rutherford, who even now leered at her from behind a silver flask.
“I don’t know,” Susan stammered, but already Jane was tugging her toward the square of red cloth where Mr. Lioncroft lounged in conversation with his niece Nancy.
Evangeline began a solitary trek to the far corner of the grass where Lady Heatherbrook was making a valiant effort to wrestle two blond tornadoes onto a picnic blanket. This would be fun. This would be fun. She loved children. She’d hardly be missing anything by not sharing Mr. Lioncroft’s blanket. And even if she was…well, self-sacrifice made her a better person. Wasn’t that what Mama always said?
Besides, Evangeline had a mystery to solve. She could begin by questioning Lady Heatherbrook. With any luck, she’d oust the true killer before the last canapé was eaten and be well on her way from Blackberry Manor, never to be seen or heard from again.
Evangeline smiled grimly as Mr. Lioncroft rose to help Susan onto their shared blanket. By leaving so soon, she’d have to miss the upcoming nuptials.
Pity.
Chapter 27
Why the hell was he picnicking with the Stanton chit instead of Miss Pemberton?
Gavin had purposefully orchestrated the seating arrangements so as to split up Nancy and Father Time, and to have a space available for a certain luscious female. A certain luscious female he sometimes felt like shaking sense into, yes, but first he owed her an apology. An apology for preemptively ruining her apology. How he would’ve loved to have been on the receiving end of an apology! Gavin wasn’t sure such an event had ever transpired.
The moment he finished helping the blond disappointment into a seated position, he rounded on his niece, busy frolicking in circles round the group.
“Jane,” he said slowly, careful not to appear angry with her as it was in fact her birthday. “Did you deliver my message?”
“Yes, Uncle Lioncroft.”
“Exactly as I told you?”
“Yes, Uncle Lioncroft.”
“Then what the devil just happened?” His jaw clenched at Jane’s startled expression and he belatedly wished he could recall his abrupt words.
“Please sit, both of you,” Nancy called from her position on the blanket. “All your looming is making Miss Stanton nervous.”
Gavin glowered at them both before sitting. He didn’t care if he made the Stanton chit nervous. He was glad he made the Stanton chit nervous. If it would make the Stanton chit nervous enough to get up and trade positions with Miss Pemberton, he’d drop on all fours and snarl like a rabid lion.
His thirteen-year-old niece plopped down across from him and grinned.
“It’s my birthday, birthday, birthday,” Jane sang under her breath. She opened and closed the locket hanging around her neck with every repeated word. “It’s my birthday, birthday, birthday, birthday, birth—”
“Enough!” Nancy threw a piece of crusty bread at her sister. “We’ve all seen your necklace. Leave it be long enough to let us eat, will you?”
Jane’s lips curled smugly. “You’re just jealous because nobody asked you to sit for a portrait. We’ll be lo-o-o-ng gone before your birthday, birthday, birth—”
“So,” the Stanton chit interrupted tentatively, leaning forward to inspect Jane’s locket. “A portrait artist is coming to Blackberry Manor?”
“No,” Gavin said shortly, hoping to curtail this train of thought before it bloomed into a full-fledged conversation.
Jane dropped a jar of marmalade into her lap and chortled. “The portrait artist lives here, Miss Stanton. It’s Uncle Lioncroft!”
The Stanton chit’s jaw tumbled open, giving her already-narrow face the impression of a gaping fish. “You are a portrait artist?”
“No.” He ripped off a bit of bread and shoved it in his mouth, so as to render himself incapable of participating in the topic further.
“He’s not usually a portrait artist. You’ve seen Uncle Lioncroft’s landscapes,” Nancy prompted helpfully. “They’re on every wall.”
The Stanton chit reprised her gaping-fish impression. “You are a landscape artist? You painted all those…paintings?”
He pointed to his mouth and commenced exaggerated chewing. The Stanton chit was clearly a featherbrain. He’d eat ten loaves of bread if it allowed him to escape her pointless chatter.
“Talented all his life, Mother says,” Jane added as she spread marmalade atop her bread. “When he wasn’t fencing or racing curricles, and the like.”
If the Stanton chit gaped at him any more, he feared she would pass out.
“I’ve a marvelous idea!” Jane’s sticky bread fell into her lap as she clapped her hands together. “You should ask Uncle Lioncroft to paint your portrait! Uncle Lioncroft, will you paint Miss Stanton’s portrait, too?”
Gavin swallowed so quickly he choked on the dry crumbs. “No.”
“Oh.” Jane returned her focus to the slice of bread now stuck to her stomach.
The Stanton chit found her voice. “What about Miss Pemberton’s?” she asked, a certain shrewdness in her eyes belying the innocence in her tone. “Would you paint hers?”
He glared at the Stanton chit until she paled and broke eye contact, which took approximately one second. Of course, he would paint Miss Pemberton’s portrait. He had one unfinished in his studio this very moment, did he not? But his private obsession was none of the Stanton chit’s damn business. Impertinent fluff.
Where was Miss Pemberton, anyway? Still over there. Seated between the twins. Passing a basket of fruit to Rose. Chuckling at something Teasdale said. Chuckling at something Teasdale said? Had that deaf old codger managed to wake up long enough to be amusing? Perhaps he was snoring again, and Miss Pemberton was simply laughing at his adenoids.
Why wouldn’t she look this way? Couldn’t she feel his gaze on her? If he stared any harder, he might burn holes in the back of her head. Her gorgeous, ever-mussed head. God, had any other woman ever looked so deliciously rumpled, as if just roused from his bed? That slumberous way of lifting her eyelashes ever so slowly, to send surreptitious little glances his way…Where were those surreptitious little glances now? He wanted glances! It was the least she could do, with all the staring he was doing.
There she was, laughing again. Teasdale couldn’t possibly be that diverting. She had to be driving him insane on purpose. Why would she choose an old roué with one foot in the casket over him? Was it the botched apology? Or the extortion? Gavin bet it was the extortion. Well, what else could he have done? Underhanded, he supposed, but at least it worked. She was here, wasn’t she? As were his sister and his nieces. Everyone was smiling. Laughing. Having fun. None of which would’ve happened if he hadn’t resorted to manipulation. Had he known it would be a sticking point, he would’ve added “dining with me upon occasion” to his list of demands.
“Right, Uncle Lioncroft?” Nancy’s voice came a little too loudly, as though she’d been repeating herself for some time.
“Er, righ
t,” he muttered without taking his eyes from Miss Pemberton’s head.
Jane erupted into peals of laughter. “I told you he wasn’t listening! She said the house was on fire, Uncle Lioncroft. Nancy said the house was on fire and you said, ‘Er, right.’ She said—you said—” Words dissolved into hiccupping, choked laughter. The Stanton chit was forced to thump Jane on the back until she could breathe again.
Gavin scowled at all three of them.
What had Miss Pemberton meant by saying she was unable to get visions from his touch? Was that typical? That wasn’t the only reason she endured his company, was it? Mental immunity? Because he was pretty sure he’d die right here on this blanket if the only thing to recommend his touch was a lack of accompanying visions.
Granted, he could see how lovemaking would be impossible if every touch of mouth or hand or cock sent her off on a vision of the-devil-knew-what followed by one of those hellacious headaches or, worse, blacking out completely. Nothing would kill the mood quite like unconsciousness.
But, still. No man wished to be settled for simply because his touch was the lesser evil. Gavin preferred his lovemaking to be a product of mutual passion. Surely the tension between them wasn’t all in his head.
Or was it? Was that why she was off giggling with that rotter Teasdale again? Did she plan to circle the entire party to discover which other men’s touches might be able to bring her pleasure without visions? Gavin wouldn’t stand for such an act. He’d put a stop to any other man’s attentions right now. He’d—
“Uncle Lioncroft?”
“What?” Oh, Lord. He was on his feet and ten paces from his blanket in the direction of hers. He wouldn’t really have planted a facer on a septuagenarian, would he? Damn. He might’ve. Better sit down and have more bread. And a little less wine. Matter of fact, he better trade seats with Jane so he couldn’t see Miss Pemberton at all, or who knew what trouble he’d get himself into. Luckily, Miss Pemberton hadn’t noticed him launch up from the blanket and charge in her direction. She was far too busy. Laughing. With Teasdale.
Too Wicked to Kiss: Gothic Love Stories #1 Page 21