“You will tell me if there’s anything else I can do to make you more comfortable, Wife.”
His lips grazed her nape. A casual caress, one he’d indulged in many times before, and each time, Eve felt the impact of it in low, wonderful places. She wanted him to do it again.
And he did, more lingeringly, more tenderly.
Never in their marriage had he made her ask for his attentions, and Eve was not about to start now—no matter how badly she needed the reassurance, no matter how passionately she wanted… him.
And yet… she needed to find the compromise that would allow them to move ahead, and Deene had not filed his lawsuit.
She shifted so they were facing each other on the mattress. “Do you think to get me with child and then file your lawsuit, Deene?”
He looked for a moment as if he’d rise up from the bed and not come back, but then his features composed themselves. “And if you had a girl child, Evie, would you then expect me to wait to file the petition until you were carrying a second child? To withdraw the suit until we had a son, and then file yet again? And what of a spare? Anthony does not want to marry, and the burden of the succession is ours.”
He was so angry.
And so hurt. They were both hurt, and even as Eve despaired, she also recognized that any common ground was better than none.
“Please make love to me, Lucas. I need you to make love to me.”
He was on her in an instant, poised over her, one arm under her neck, the other on her hip, pushing her nightgown up. “We cannot go on like this, Wife, but if I tell you I will not file that damned lawsuit, will you agree not to take any rash measures yourself?”
Rash measures? With her husband’s weight pressing her into the mattress, Eve tried to fathom his meaning.
Women could prevent conception, or try to. They could take herbs to make it less likely a child quickened. She’d had reason to learn these terrible things seven years ago.
“I will not betray the vows I took at the altar, Deene.”
“For God’s sake, call me Lucas. At least here, at least when we’re like this…”
He fell silent, and Eve closed her eyes, feeling the hot length of his engorged manhood against her belly. “Lucas, please… I want… I need…”
He slid into her, a slow, hot glory that had her body fisting tightly around him in a welcome that should have been ecstatic. He loved her slowly, thoroughly, ravishing her with physical pleasure until she understood that until that night, he’d been holding back with her.
He’d been her husband and her lover but had denied them both the greatest depth of his passion. When at long last he allowed himself to spend in her body, when Eve had lost awareness of anything save the pleasure he showered upon her, she lay beneath him, sheltered in his arms and saddened beyond measure.
Deene had made his point: if they did not find a way through their current difficulties, Eve would be giving up not just her husband’s expert lovemaking, not just passion and pleasure and companionship of the deepest order, she would also be giving up the only man she would ever love.
Eleven
“The Marquis of Deene, sir. He calls upon you alone.”
Deene pushed past the butler—a stuffy old fellow who smelled of camphor—and found Dolan in his shirtsleeves at a massive desk much like the one in Deene’s own library.
“We’re family, Brampton. I hardly think I need be announced.”
Dolan did not rise, which showed exactly the kind of animal cunning Deene expected from his brother-in-law.
“That will be all, Brampton, though have the kitchen send up a tray. Marriage has apparently put his lordship off his feed.” Dolan waited until the butler had withdrawn before turning an expression with a lot of teeth—and no welcome whatsoever—on his guest. “How is it you know my butler’s name?”
“They all know one another’s names, Dolan. It’s what we overpay them for.”
Dolan did not roll down his shirtsleeves, though Deene had the sense it wasn’t an intentional rudeness; it was instead a function of having been caught off guard by an opponent.
“How’s Georgie?”
Dolan’s brows rose. “Still protesting her French lessons, though she has an aptitude for them. You may use that against me in court: I force her to learn French by withholding my granny’s Irish lullabies from her.”
“You had a granny? I am astonished to find you were not whelped by some creature sporting scales and breathing fire.”
Dolan fiddled with a gleaming silver penknife. “Insult my sainted mother, Deene, and a lawsuit will be the least of your problems.”
“My apologies. I meant only to insult you.”
Except he hadn’t, exactly. Antagonize, of course, but not quite insult. If Evie would not countenance a lawsuit, she’d certainly not countenance a duel.
Dolan brushed his thumb over the blade of the penknife. “I was under the impression a gentleman—using the term as loosely as present company necessitates—plotting to do murder on the field of honor generally slapped a sweaty riding glove across his opponent’s chin before witnesses of similar rank.”
“I cannot challenge you to a duel, Dolan, though every day you draw breath offends me.”
“Oh, of course. Because I married your dear sister, whose hems I was not fit to kiss, though I certainly paid enough to have them trimmed in lace. You’ll not be seeing your niece very frequently if this is the tack you take, Deene. A bit more charm is wanted or some lordly attempts at groveling—one’s in-laws ought to be a source of amusement at least.”
“I don’t see Georgie at all as it is, Dolan. I have nothing to lose.”
This point must have struck Dolan as valid. He rose from his desk, his expression thoughtful. It remained that way until a lavish silver tray fit for the highest tea before the highest sticklers was brought in and set on the desk.
“You will please pour,” Dolan said. “I haven’t the knack.”
This was not said with any particular sneer or smirk, and it set the tone for an oddly civilized session of tea, crumpets, sandwiches, cakes, fruit, and cheese.
“There is an issue between us,” Deene said when the tray had been decimated. “You made my sister miserable, and you are not the best resource to have the raising of her daughter.”
“You are so confident of your facts, Deene. One would envy you this, except the quality is an inherited reflex of inbred aristocracy and not a function of any particular wit or study on your part.”
Dolan had a way with irony—the Irish did; the Scots did as well.
“You are telling me Marie went into your loving arms at the altar and never once looked back? You are telling me she consented to marry you of her own free will? You are telling me she was happy and well cared for married to you?”
“She was a minor at the time of the wedding. Her consent was neither needed nor binding, and I have been patient with your rudeness long enough. You may either leave or state your reasons for imposing on my fast-dwindling and unlikely-to-be-repeated hospitality.”
The moment became delicate, all the more so for having to seem otherwise.
“I am prepared to leave here and go directly to White’s, where I will place the following wager in the book in legible script: I propose a match race, my colt against yours, the stakes to be as follows.”
Dolan listened, then sat back and rubbed his chin.
“You would make these terms public, Deene?”
This was the crucial moment, when Dolan’s shrewdness and social ambition had to blend and balance so the choice Deene wanted Dolan to make became the choice Dolan grasped as his own device.
“You would not trust my word any farther than you could throw me, Dolan.” Deene shot his cuffs and fiddled with a sapphire-encrusted sleeve button.
“Would you trust mine?”
Deene wrinkled his nose. “Marie accused you of many things, but dishonesty was not among them. Your reputation, plebeian though it is, is one for veracity
.”
“Such flattery, Deene… I can only return the compliment. You are a pompous, arrogant, overstuffed exponent of your most useless and only occasionally decorative class, but if you give me your word you’ll abide by the terms laid out here today, then I will give you my word as well. Neither of us would be served by visiting notoriety on Georgina’s situation.”
Deene thrust out a hand. “Done. On the terms stated.”
Dolan had a firm handshake, and somewhere along the way, somebody had explained to him that the gentleman’s handshake was not an exercise in breaking finger bones.
“When shall we do this, Deene, and where?”
“There’s a practice course not two miles from Epsom, and I’m thinking the week before the June meet. Much later, and the heat can be oppressive.”
He should have been more casual, should have kept his cards closer to his chest, but to let the matter linger was going to wear on Eve and see the horse overconditioned.
“Last week in May, then, with the social crowd still preoccupied in Town. The alternative would be July, when the house parties start up, or after the grouse moors open in August.”
Dolan was watching him, no doubt gauging from Deene’s reaction just what the state of King William’s conditioning was.
“Suit yourself, Dolan. I was going to enter William at Epsom—anybody with ears has heard that much in the clubs.”
“May, then. I’ll be having a look at this course before I agree to turn my pony loose on it, Deene. Dirty footing or rotten timber serves no one.”
“Now you do attempt to insult me, Dolan. I thought Greymoor might head the ground jury.”
“A ground jury? This isn’t exactly a Jockey Club match, Deene.”
“Nor is it merely a lark between two gentlemen.”
Dolan appeared to consider the point. “Greymoor and two fellows of his choosing, one from your set, one from mine.”
“Fair enough.”
“And, Deene? This match will be conducted as if it were a lark between two gentlemen. I want a damned crowd to see you go down to defeat, a big, not entirely inebriated crowd, the titled half of which is going to line my pockets every bit as much as you are.”
“But of course.” Deene had the sense this boasting was where the real posturing had begun. “We’ll make it the usual holiday, and see who goes down to defeat before whom.”
Dolan smiled again, but this time, the expression reached the man’s eyes. It struck Deene that had he wished to, Jonathan Dolan might have been a charming man, even handsome in his way.
“I’ll see myself out, Dolan, and wish you best of luck.”
“Oh, and the same to you, Deene. You’ll need it.”
A beat of silence went by, during which Deene suspected he was to ask again after his niece, perhaps even ask to see her. He did not ask; Dolan did not offer.
Deene took his leave, trying to formulate how he’d convey this development—some acceptable version of this development—to his wife.
***
“What is this?” Eve looked at the shreds of paper in her lap, and the red string among them.
“That is my promise to you, Eve.”
Deene stood over her where she sat at breakfast. Since they’d last made love a week ago, it was as close as he’d come to her, even in bed.
“Your promise?” Eve glanced up and noticed that the footman typically assigned to tend the sideboard was nowhere to be seen. “What promise is this?”
“We’re at a stalemate, Wife.” Deene moved off and closed the door to the breakfast parlor. “You cannot countenance a lawsuit. I cannot abandon a promise made to my sister. I am promising you I will not now, I will not ever, resort to litigation to keep my promise to Marie.”
He looked very fierce but also guarded. The guardedness kept Eve from throwing her arms around his neck in relief.
“I am very pleased to hear this, Deene. Can we discuss this?”
“What is there to discuss?”
He took the seat at the head of the table, which was at Eve’s right elbow. The way he snapped his serviette across his lap only confirmed Eve’s sense that their problem was intensifying, not resolving.
“How will you keep your promise to Marie when Mr. Dolan does not allow you to be a proper uncle to our niece?”
Our niece. Deene speared Eve with a look at her word choice, a look laden with incredulity and maybe even—God help them—resentment.
“Are you sure you want me to answer your question, Eve? If I do answer, you might like it even less than you liked the idea of a perfectly legal civil suit brought by legal intermediaries and resolved by a judge according to rules of evidence, statute, and case law.”
The tea Eve had begun her day with started rebelling in her belly. “I do want you to answer the question, Deene.”
But Eve wondered what he could say that she’d want to hear? That he’d decided his niece meant nothing to him? That his niece meant less than his wife? Was this what Westhaven had been intimating all those days ago? Was Eve angling for some assurance of her place as foremost in her husband’s affections?
Was she still that insecure? Still that much afraid her past controlled her future?
“There is to be a friendly little match race between Dolan’s colt and King William. A sum of money has been wagered, all quite symbolic and good-natured.”
She studied him as he poured a cup of tea for her, then one for himself. The pleasant scent of Darjeeling wafted to her nose, and steam curled up from their cups as Deene set the cream and sugar by Eve’s plate.
“You have wagered my dowry, haven’t you?”
He spooned sugar into her cup. “I have made a gentleman’s wager with Dolan. It will not be reflected on any betting books. The amount remains between Dolan and myself, and even he understands that to bruit it about would only redound to our mutual discredit.”
Deene poured cream into Eve’s cup and gave her tea a stir. So attentive, her husband, so considerate.
What had she done?
“I was given to understand our finances are tentative, Deene.”
“By whom?”
“Anthony, for one. He was apologizing for the household allowance at Denning Hall before he last took his leave of us, but I honestly cannot agree with his assessment of matters.”
Deene stirred his own tea. “In what regard?”
“The allowance is ample, at least based on what I know so far. Her Grace and Westhaven have been on something of a campaign in recent months to make sure Jenny and I understand and can manage our own funds. It isn’t complicated.”
Deene blew out a breath. “It should not be, but add properties all over the realm, throw in a sorry lot of bankers, allow a few solicitors onto your dole, and fairly soon, it’s all Anthony can do to keep the picture up to date, much less make improvements upon it.”
His words, tired, quiet, and laced with despair tore at Eve even as they enraged her. “So why in God’s name would you wager money we cannot afford on a stupid race that’s run for pride’s sake?”
It was the worst thing she could have said. She knew it as the words left her mouth, and yet… Deene’s attempt at a compromise was scaring her more than any lawsuit might have.
“My pride is indeed a stupid thing, Wife, and yet I cannot seem to misplace it long enough to please you.”
He lifted his tea halfway to his mouth, then put it down untasted. If Eve could not find something to say—the right something to say—this was the moment one of them would stalk out of the room, and tonight, for the first time, they would sleep in separate beds.
“Deene, I don’t want to quarrel with you. I should not have said what I did just now, but I don’t understand… I cannot understand how I am to accept this.”
“And I cannot understand how you expect me to do nothing, Eve, while I watch my niece grow up from a distance, as if I’m some sort of monster, a leper because of my title and standing, because of things I cannot change. Marie loathed the
notion of marriage to that man, and Georgie is the only good thing to come of the entire tragedy. I cannot abandon her. I cannot.”
Eve nodded. His reasoning, stated thus, made a kind of sense.
But so did hers: if she’d wanted proof that her marriage ranked below this claim the past held on Deene, her husband had just handed it to her. He was wagering at least the sum of her dowry on the outcome of a single race, money they could not afford, money he’d garnered solely by marrying Eve.
She sipped her tea in silence, wondering what else her husband had tossed to the winds of chance along with their financial well-being, and any hope their marriage had of thriving.
***
The decision to withhold the entirety of Deene’s bet with Dolan sat uneasily, but less uneasily than it had several days ago.
Deene understood clearly that his wife disapproved of the match race, disapproved of the stakes as she knew them, and disapproved of the notion that Deene had concocted the entire scheme without consulting her.
And as to that last, Deene could only reason that had he discussed it with her, she would have somehow prevented him from challenging Dolan. She would have turned her big green eyes on him, let him see her disappointment, and that would have been that.
“He’s getting a sense of purpose about him,” Eve said from her perch on the rail. “He’s growing up, and none too soon.”
Deene followed his wife’s gaze out across the practice field, where Aelfreth and William were tearing around a course of three-foot jumps.
“He’s getting stronger,” Deene allowed. “He still isn’t where I’d want him to be, though he’s trying his heart out.”
Eve sighed and glanced over at him, suggesting to Deene that yet again, he’d said something that could be taken on different levels. Their marriage had become a chess tournament played out on several boards at once, and over it all lay a compulsion to apprise Eve of what exactly hung in the balance with this race.
“The difficulty is that Aelfreth has not settled into his role.” Eve climbed down from the fence, nimble as a monkey in a pair of boy’s breeches and old tall boots. “When they approach the jumps, they’re still in discussions about whose job it is to pick the take-off spot. They should be well past that by now.”
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