“Oh, believe me, he would.” The Arthurs’ was one marriage that had more than doing their duty to hold them together. “And as I don’t want to find myself facing him in the park at dawn, I rescind my offer. I’ll go and congratulate the happy couple and make a swift getaway. Already I feel hundreds of pairs of eyes boring into my back.” It was true. He had a very uncomfortable itch that ran up and down his spine. “It is not a comfortable experience.”
“Not hundreds, dear. There aren’t even half that many people here. We kept it to a select few. But it’s your own fault, you know,” Julia said, unperturbed by his scowl. “You have stayed around for so long, people think you have had a change of heart.”
“I haven’t,” he said. “Nor will I.”
Julia chuckled. “I wish you luck in trying to persuade the debs and their mamas of that.”
He nodded and sighed as he left her side and went toward the happy couple. Although Anne Arthur was a dozen years younger than him, Gibb had always had a soft spot for her. A quiet girl, albeit with a wicked sense of humor, she was the perfect match for the young Earl of Sonning. David Sonning worshiped her and she him. Although it made Gibb slightly nauseated to see so much blatant affection on display, he could own up to a slight bewilderment as to how anyone got into that state.
“So we wanted that knife-thrower to come and entertain us,” Anne said as Gibb stood by the happy couple. “Evangeline someone. But we couldn’t find a way to get in touch with her. Mama said we should have asked you,” she finished. She raised one eyebrow in a speculative manner. “Is she right?”
Gibb shrugged. “I know her,” he said with a nonchalance he didn’t feel. “But I have no influence on what she does or who she entertains.”
“Pity,” David said. “If you ever do, remember us.”
The incident unnerved Gibb. If his and Evangeline’s names were being linked together he’d need to keep an even more careful watch that it was not detrimental to Evangeline and her livelihood. Although she had never mentioned why she had to work, and he hadn’t pursued the question, it was evident Evangeline needed to and wanted to. He was not going to harm that.
As he pondered the knotty question, and sought to find an answer that would satisfy everyone, Gibb hunted down the room set aside for gentlemen to relieve themselves. Lady Arthur had flat out refused to allow anyone to water her beloved plants, and told them to use the commode like right-minded people. Gibb did the necessary, and wandered into the small room next door to give himself a few moments to regroup before he braved the ballroom and left.
The room was unfurnished, and Gibb assumed that was why the door wasn’t locked. It was not somewhere anybody would need to enter. Unless, of course, you were someone like him, who needed a respite from the crowds. Gibb headed toward the velvet drapes that partially covered the window and noticed with pleasure it was open to allow fresh air into the room. He stood behind the curtains for a second to enable the night-scented flowers outside to invade his senses. At this time of year, when the spring flowers were at their best, it was a heady perfume. Farther north, his daffodils would have just about flowered. Here they had been superseded by other blooms, and a strong sense of homesickness made his head light.
So light he didn’t realize the room had been invaded until he heard someone speak.
A female—and she didn’t speak to him, but to someone with her.
“Tarnation, I know he came in here, and it is my best chance,” the unknown female said. “If we are found here alone he’ll have to marry me. You’d leave and I could cry—”
“Rape? Never, for no one would believe that of him. Besides it is unethical,” someone else said. “I can’t believe you would stoop so low.”
“Who cares about things like that? Can you imagine,” the first female sighed dramatically. “To be the one who wins the dangerous and tortured duke’s hand?”
“You’re playing a dangerous game, Cornelia.”
Cornelia? Cornelia? The only Cornelia he knew off was Denby Crowe’s sister. The one Crowe has asked if he could stay in town to escort for a few weeks. What was she up to? Without alerting the occupants of the room to his presence, Gibb climbed over the windowsill and moved behind a convenient tub filled with a nice bushy syringa, its pink flowers providing even more cover for him. He was lucky it was a still night, albeit cloudy, and he could hear the occupants of the room with ease.
“It is no game,” Cornelia said. “I need to wed and as he has refused you then it is up to me to throw my cap at him.”
“I didn’t offer myself to him, Anthony my idiotic brother did, and I still think you are playing with fire. Anyway, he is not here. Time to go.” It must be Tarporly’s sibling who spoke.
“He was here and he could not have left,” Cornelia said in a stubborn tone. “We would have noticed.”
Oh, couldn’t I? Lucky for me you are wrong.
“Then stay by yourself, that is what you want anyway. Don’t involve me in your games anymore, Cornelia. I thought you wanted to speak to him about leaving me alone. To champion me, you said, not to compromise him.”
“Lord, you are naïve. You’ll be the old maid and I will be a duchess,” Cornelia said. The spite in her tone was easy for Gibb to hear. It would almost be worth appearing to give her a piece of his mind. Almost but not quite. To be unnoticed would give him the upper hand.
“I think the response to that is in your dreams and not your reality.” There was the sound of the door closing with a definite thud.
Gibb waited. It seemed Margaret Tarporly wanted him no more than he wanted her and this chit, just out, was all set to be allegedly compromised to get him to the altar. Presumably to repair her family’s fortunes.
Not in his lifetime. Gibb backed along the terrace and headed for the kitchens. He’d go inside that way and out of the front door post-haste. With a bit of luck the chef would understand and he’d be able to snaffle a couple of the man’s famous pork-and-apple patties as he exited.
* * * *
The resounding clang of her doorbell woke Evangeline out of a light doze. Her head had spun from all the worrying thoughts that filled it, and she had kicked off her shoes and sat down to rest her eyes. That, she realized as she squinted at the clock on her way to the door, had been over two hours earlier. The time surprised her. Judging by his usual appearances after he’d attended whatever he needed to, she had expected Gibb a good hour before and it was perhaps a good thing she’d dozed. Otherwise she might have been in bed.
She rushed downstairs in her stockinged feet and pulled back the lock before the thought that Gibb usually let himself in hit her. Once she saw him, that thought fled her mind.
Gibb stood there with one arm on the doorjamb, the other on his cheek. He looked weary, and a slight tic showed at the corner of his eyes. Eyes that once more were dull and lifeless. “You should check who is here, I could have been anyone. I forgot my key.”
Was this what stopping in the capital on her behalf did to him? Evangeline’s heart sank as she watched his eyes light up briefly—all too briefly—as he looked at her and leaned in to kiss her cheek. His lips were cold and his skin clammy. The weather was neither hot nor cold but a pleasant and warm temperature with little breeze. What on earth was wrong with him?
“Salut, cieux, what’s wrong?” She stood back to let him enter and relocked the door behind him. He smiled as they climbed the stairs side by side, although it didn’t reach his eyes.
“Now? Nothing. Before, everything. I need your company and a drink in that order.”
The total exhaustion in his tone was something she had never heard before and it worried her more than she thought possible.
“Then you shall have my company.”
“Lord, you are too good for me.” He sighed as they entered her sitting room. “God, this is all such a mess. We need to talk, but first, can I make one more request?”
She raised one eyebrow, a trick she had learned from him.
He ga
ve her a tired smile. “A dram, please.”
“That is an easy request to solve.” Evangeline nudged him away from her until the backs of his knees hit the daybed and he toppled into the mounds of billowing pillows. “Stay,” she commanded. “I’ll get your dram.” He’d sent her several bottles a few days earlier. “A double with half water?”
Gibb yawned behind his hand and did his best to turn it into a cough. “That sounds perfect.”
“I won’t be a moment.” Evangeline left the room. She would wager he’d be asleep by the time she returned and she was right. He’d turned his head to one side and rested his cheek on his hand. In repose he looked boyish, with all his cares wiped away. His face was clear of frown lines and his mouth relaxed into a half smile. Evangeline put the glass of spirit and carafe of water down on the sideboard. Gibb didn’t stir as she tucked a tartan rug around him and moved to sit in a fireside chair.
Stealthily, Evangeline toed off her slippers, tucked her feet up under her and picked up her book. Then left it unread in her lap as she watched her friend sleep. If she could do nothing else for him she could give him this.
The clock ticked and a coal slipped in the grate, but Gibb slept on. As the fire died down, a sneaky breeze swirled around the edge of the window frame and under the door. Rain began to patter on the windowpanes and branches of the oak tree outside tapped in time to the watery splatters. Gibb blinked, stretched and gazed at her owlishly.
“Hell, I fell asleep. How rude, why didn’t you shake me?”
“You did,” she confirmed. “And I did not. Why should I shake you? You must have needed it.”
He nodded and his mouth twisted into a wry grimace. “How contorted I was. It’s a wonder I wasn’t rig welted. Stuck,” he elaborated. “I suppose anger takes it out of you. How long was I asleep?”
“Not long.” Evangeline made up the fire and waited until the flames leapt around the coals once more. “But evidently long enough. Let me get you your dram.”
* * * *
“You have news?” Gibb said a short while later as they sat side by side on the daybed with a table full of food and drink in front of them. “We never got round to speaking about it.”
Evangeline wriggled until her bottom was in a more comfortable position and tore a chunk of bread off the loaf she’d baked earlier that day. Bread making soothed her and after hearing what Eloise had had to tell her she’d needed soothing. She chewed with care as she selected her words.
“It is known you have a box at Vauxhall next week,” she said once she had finished eating. “And there is a lot of conjecture over which one it is.”
“I could hardly keep it a secret I suppose,” he said. “It doesn’t matter. Anyhow, I have things to do before then.”
“You do?
He nodded. “I need to go and check over my latest acquisition. I’ve been waiting to buy Cresswell House for years. It was my late godmother’s. Now at last it will be mine. I owe it to Godmama to restore it to its original glory.” Gibb paused as he went over everything he was committed to in the next few weeks.
“I need to go and see what needs doing. This will be a brief visit—there and back in one long day. But later I will spend time on the estate and meet with everyone needed to bring it back to what it was in its heyday.” He looked at her, considering. “Would you like to come?”
“Come?”
“With me to Cresswell for the day. It would mean leaving at first light and getting back at dusk.” He kept his face impassive. Or so he hoped. It mattered not what she decided.
If I believe that I am a worse idiot than Denby Crowe.
Evangeline considered him for what seemed like hours. “When?” she asked him as the silence between them spun out and he was about ready to tell her to forget it, it had been a bad idea.
“Tomorrow or the next day? I want to have a first look before I start work there in earnest.”
“Hmmm.” She tilted her head and stared into the distance. “What time do we set off?”
* * * *
“So, do you have any more news?” Gibb asked her as he tooled his phaeton out of the city and along the reasonable road toward St. Albans. The gray light of dawn could be seen in the eastern sky, and the lamps were being extinguished one by one
A black cat chased a large rat across the road ahead of them and Evangeline shuddered. “Rats. I have never liked them. Neither the rodent nor the human kind.”
“Not many do, except, I suspect, the cats,” Gibb said. “We have perhaps a three-hour drive, so settle in.”
“And entertain you?”
He chuckled. “Why not?”
“Because what I have heard is perhaps not entertaining but perturbing.” Her voice was somber. “And I do not believe it is all tittle-tattle, as you say. There is truth in it.”
“Nevertheless I need to know and I need feeding. There is a basket at your feet with our breakfast in it.”
“Of course.” She cleared her throat and handed him some cheese and took a chunk for herself. Once she had swallowed and washed it down with some wine she cleared her throat. “So. Your attendance at Vauxhall is now the center of gossip. Are you prepared?”
Gibb popped the crumbly Cheshire cheese into his mouth. “Hmmph?”
“I think.”
He nodded his agreement, and in spite of her reawakened worries Evangeline laughed. “It is also known you do not intend to invite anyone, or,” she amended conscientiously, “you have not yet invited anyone to share it.”
“I’ve invited you,” Gibb said, as he was once again able to speak without spitting cheese crumbs all over everywhere. He navigated around an accommodation coach and increased speed once more. “That cheese is good. Please pass the wine.” He drank from the bottle. “My apologies for being uncouth, but this is easiest. Any more cheese? You were saying?”
“That I am to be your guest is not known, to many, if any, nor do I want it to be,” Evangeline replied as she passed another chunk of Cheshire to Gibb. “The consensus is you have rented the box and intend not to share, or to have a woman with you whom no one as yet is aware of. For reasons not undisclosed. The majority of those talking about it are swayed toward the first.”
“Correct in one way, I suppose.”
“Eloise had two young ladies in her salon today, and as she went out of the room to collect some ribbons she overheard their very interesting conversation.”
Gibb toyed with a slice of apple she passed to him. “Go on,” he said, aware his voice was flat as he held his temper in check. “About me?
She nodded. “It seems so, although you were not referred to by name. The fact is Eloise knows I am to appear. Since I shared my story of the night we met, she keeps her ears open even more than usual. I told her you were going to watch over me, therefore she shamelessly, as she puts it, eavesdropped.”
“And was it worth her while?” Gibb asked and crunched his apple slice.
“You can be the judge of that, although forewarned is forearmed. The gist is that one of the females, for I hesitate to call them ladies, was going to secret herself in your box when it was empty and the other would arrange for her to be found with you in a compromising position. If another female was to be present they would find a way of enticing her away for long enough to enact their plan.”
“The young lady in question wouldn’t be Cornelia Crowe, would it?” Gibb asked. Only the white lines around his mouth gave his temper away.
“Why, yes,” Evangeline said in amazement. “How did you know?”
“She has already tried once,” Gibb replied. “Last night, and it was by pure chance I was able to thwart her. It seems she has more than one trick up her sleeve.”
Evangeline sat aghast as Gibb told her of his evening. Where were the so-called rules of good behavior people said existed in the ton? Was this the etiquette that was extolled? “The coquine. Hussy,” she explained at his blank look. “Why you? Apart from the lure of the unattainable.”
“Money,” Gibb said with indifference, as he let the reins out a little and the carriage moved in a steady way up a short, steep hill. “Whenever is it not?”
“Ah, yours, I presume?”
He shrugged. “I expect anyone would do but I am regarded as an easy target. The Crowes are strapped for cash. They imagine me as their savior. Someone to be used to rescue them from whatever mess they have got themselves into. I won’t be,” he said in an adamant tone.
“Hmm.” Evangeline tapped her teeth with her nail and did her best not to notice how Gibb watched the action out of the corner of his eye. “They do not know you very well, do they.” It was not a question. “So what shall we do?”
“We?”
“Of course we,” she said. She had no patience for prevarication. “Unless you tell me otherwise, we are in this together, are we not? For if I was not here neither would you be. No.” She put her finger over his mouth—a favorite occupation of hers, she thought. “You would have left London by now if it were not for me. Own up.”
“I would still want to vote next week,” Gibb pointed out. “In town and at their mercy.”
“Yes, but you would have gone away and come back just for that. So I got you into this situation, n’est-ce pas vrai?”
“Not necessarily,” he argued. “It could have happened at any time.”
“Hmm.” She wasn’t convinced, but there was no point in continuing to argue. “Whatever, we now fight together, yes?”
He smiled. “Oh yes, so let us plot and decide what we should do.”
“I have an idea,” Evangeline said.
Gibb laughed, kissed her nose, and she wrinkled it.
“Watch the road,” she said in alarm. “We want to get there in one piece. So, are you pleased I have a thought on what we need to do? Have I surprised you? Are you flabbergasted?”
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