Deene still had her hand in his when he shifted the topic slightly. “What will you name the colt?”
The lads decreed she should have the naming of Franny’s foal; Deene had loudly approved the notion, and that had been that: she was godmother to a baby horse.
And that had been what put the day to rights. Being allowed to be useful, to pitch in despite the proprieties, was what had allowed Eve to climb into a carriage behind a pair of horses who had already given her a good fright.
“I haven’t named a horse in ages.” Though she used to name all the fillies at Morelands. “A stud’s firstborn son needs a substantial name, something that resounds with virtue. My sisters and I used to debate what to name our children as we practiced putting up our hair.”
That last had slipped out, a function of approaching nightfall and the pleasurable warmth of Deene beside her.
“So you want children?”
Inane question—every woman wanted children and a home of her own. The inane question put a small puncture in Eve’s sense of wellbeing.
“We don’t always get what we want, Lucas. Some things are beyond human control.” She resisted the impulse to slip her hand from his. An argument was drawing closer, one she did not want to have with him.
Not now, not ever.
“I would like the opportunity to try to provide you with children, Eve Windham. We could raise them up in Kent, not far from your parents. I have enough land that I can move the stables there if you prefer. I think we’d suit wonderfully.”
“You think we’d suit?” Her voice did not shake with the impossibility of his offer—she was the daughter of a duchess, and knew well how to maintain her composure, but, God help her, she had not seen this coming.
He was going to ruin this wonderful day, ruin it thoroughly, and all Eve could think was that she’d misplaced her parasol.
“We would manage well enough. We’re each of appropriate station, we know one another’s families, the lands all but march, and it would spare you from the importuning of the Trit-Trots of the world.”
Drat him for his common sense. Were he speaking from the heart rather than his pragmatic male brain, she might have considered what he was saying for a few moments before rejecting him.
“It would also spare you from the Mildred Staineses of the world.”
“With the Season looming, that is not a small consideration. We have something else weighing in favor of a marital union.”
He was proposing without asking her to marry him. His aplomb was impressive, also… heartbreaking. Deene was, to her surprise, a man she would enjoy being married to in some regards, and he was bringing his addresses to her first, not to His Grace—and still, his proposal must be rejected just like all the others.
“What is this something else, my lord?” His politics no doubt all but marched with His Grace’s; he’d charged the French with Devlin and Bart; he wasn’t afraid of Louisa or muddled by Jenny’s sweet good loo—
Her only warning was Deene’s bare hand on her chin, gently turning her face up to receive his kiss, the most beguilingly gentle kiss so far. His lips pressed softly against hers, and his hand cupped her jaw then slid back into her hair to cradle the back of her head.
Not this again. Not this lovely, spreading warmth rising from her middle and obliterating all reason; not the raging desire to shift herself beneath him and taste his skin and breathe his scents.
Bodily loneliness swamped her as Deene’s mouth moved on hers. Nobody was intimate with her the way Deene could be; nobody touched her except for the fleeting contact permitted by Society’s rules or familial affection. She opened for him, fisted her hands in his hair, and dragged him closer.
And when she was aching for him to give her one last taste of pleasure and passion, he eased away, resting his forehead on hers.
“We have passion, Eve Windham. That is no small consideration either.”
Passionate kisses did not always tell the tale. Eve knew this from bitter experience. A man, even a very young man, could kiss like a dream and make a girl lose every shred of common sense and still, the man’s most intimate attentions could be… distasteful. Painful even.
Deene, by contrast, would be a sumptuous lover, generous, skilled, beautiful…
She cut the thought off and made herself speak in brisk, ruthless tones. “I appreciate the honor you do me, Lucas, but I am no more interested in your proposal than I am in Trit—in Mr. Trottenham’s. We would not suit.”
He pulled away, straightening beside her. To suffer the loss of him with indifference was necessary if Eve was to make her point.
“Eve Windham, if the way we kiss is your idea of not suiting, then God help the man you do suit. He’ll go up in flames the moment you bat your eyes at him.”
“There will be no such man.”
An argument would help a great deal, but no, Deene sat beside her, his arm around her shoulders, his thumb idly stroking the side of her neck. Eventually, she allowed herself to yield to the temptation he offered and rested her head on his shoulder. Soon enough they’d reach Town, she’d climb out of the carriage, and the day that had gone from hell to heaven back to hell would be over.
There was time enough to cry later.
* * *
“Where in the hell is Lord Andermere?”
Deene used Anthony’s courtesy title before the staff routinely, though he seldom adopted such an impatient tone of voice, much less profanity.
“His lordship was called down to Kent, my lord.” Gower spoke with the studied calm of a butler who’d spent forty years in service to the Denning family.
“When was he called down to Kent?”
“Yesterday morning, I believe, my lord. He said he received a note from Mr. Bassingstoke.”
Bassingstoke was the land steward at Denning Hall. It made sense that Anthony might be called away on a property matter, but it made no sense whatsoever that he’d leave without a word to Deene, when they were supposed to spend the morning poring over ledgers.
“Send a note around to Hooker. I’ll be paying a call on him before noon.”
Gower bowed. “Very good, my lord. Will that be all, my lord?”
“No, it will not.” If Deene couldn’t start on the ledgers, he’d tackle the matter from another angle. “Send Mrs. Hitchings to me in the library in twenty minutes.”
Gower withdrew quietly—Gower did everything quietly—leaving Deene to pour himself another cup of tea, finish reading the financial article he’d started when he sat down to breakfast, and polish off the rest of his eggs and toast. Mrs. Hitchings was waiting for him when he arrived to the library.
“Ma’am, good morning.” Deene took a seat behind the estate desk, hazarding that the housekeeper would be more nervous if he instead paced the room. “You are welcome to sit, Mrs. Hitchings.”
Relief crossed her tired features as she perched at the very edge of a chair, her back ramrod straight, her gaze fixed on some point beyond Deene’s left shoulder.
“How long have you been housekeeper here?” In her white caps and drab dresses, she’d been a fixture in the townhouse as far back as Deene could recall.
“Nigh twenty years, your lordship.”
An answer, and not one word beyond the question she’d been asked. They hadn’t been easy years.
“And how many housemaids do we have?”
“Twenty at the moment, your lordship, though they tend to turn over.”
“How many footmen?”
She frowned slightly. “The footmen answer to Mr. Gower, your lordship. I would put their number at about the same as the maids.”
“And their wages?”
At that question—and only that question—her gaze flickered across Deene’s face, her eyes betraying a wary consternation. “I wouldn’t know for certain, your lordship. Lord Andermere sees to the paying of the wages.”
“What about the marketing, do you keep an account of that?”
“I hand in the sum to Lor
d Andermere at the end of each month, your lordship. If he’s not in Town, then I give it to Mr. Gower.”
There was no house steward for the townhouse—except Anthony, apparently.
“I would appreciate it if in future, Mrs. Hitchings, you apprise me of the sum expended as well. That will be all. Please send Gower to me directly.”
Gower’s litany was the same, though he of course remained standing while Deene interrogated him. Neither servant knew much of the household finances other than the single sum they reported to Anthony.
As Deene called for his horse to be saddled, he concluded such an arrangement was likely in the interest of domestic harmony, it being the province of the lower orders to grouse about wages, working conditions, and the tightfistedness of employers generally.
The ride into the City gave Deene an opportunity to consider yesterday’s developments with Lady Eve Windham—to further consider them, just as he’d been awake considering them for half the night.
She was attracted to him; of that there could be no doubt.
Nonetheless, she’d also unhesitatingly rejected a proposal from a very eligible catch, when her own tenure on the marriage market was growing woefully long. Her rejection stung more than it should have, but it also puzzled, which was annoying as hell.
Solicitors were annoying as hell too, but in a way that allowed Deene to vent and posture away some of his irritation.
“This is very short notice, my lord.” Hooker came up from his bow and took hold of a velvet coat lapel in each hand. “Very short notice indeed. May I inquire as to the nature of your lordship’s errand?”
Why was it the legal profession excelled in planting a sense of shame in a paying client?
Deene remained standing, requiring that Hooker do likewise. The skinny, younger associate was hovering near the fire, which Deene noted was burning cheerily on a temperate day.
And how much was that costing the already strained Deene coffers?
“My errand, as you put it, is to accept from you a status report regarding the pleadings I asked to have drawn up well over a week ago.”
Hooker pursed his lips. He turned loose of his lapels and stared for a moment at the floor. When Hooker had studied the floor long enough to make Deene’s jaw clench, the solicitor looked up and turned to his associate. “Bring me his lordship’s file.”
The associate fairly scampered out of the room while Deene let a silence extend.
“Perhaps your lordship would like some tea?”
“No, thank you.”
“Do you take coffee, then? Some sustenance? What we have on hand is modest, your lordship, but certainly available for your comfort and convenience.”
From his own father, Deene had learned that the best rebukes were offered in the most civil tones. “This is not a social call, Hooker.”
“Of course not, your lordship. Might I inquire if we’ll be looking at any marriage settlement documents in the near future?”
An attempt at cross-examination and surprise, both. If the old windbag was half as good at the law as he was at conducting himself like a lawyer, then—with a half-decent barrister added to the payroll—Deene should soon have custody of his niece.
“Have you seen any announcements in the Times, Hooker?”
“Announce—? I have not, your lordship.”
Deene turned to survey the narrow street below, allowing Hooker to conclude for himself that solicitors would no more be privy to Deene’s personal attachments than would the general public.
After a soft tap, the door opened to reveal the scholarly associate. “The file, Mr. Hooker.”
A fat, beribboned folder was passed over to Hooker with a ceremony befitting High Church on a solemn holiday.
So much theatre, when all Deene wanted was to hug his niece. To know she was happy and thriving, to see her occasionally and have all of Polite Society know she was, unfortunate paternal antecedents notwithstanding, a Denning.
“Ah, yes. Here we are.” Hooker bent over the folder, setting papers in various piles on his desk. “We are making quite good progress on the pleadings, your lordship. Bitters here is taking the lead.”
“I’d like to see the draft documents.”
Hooker straightened, his expression all benevolent concern. “My lord, you must understand, such an undertaking requires a command of arcane legal language, law Norman, knowledge of appropriate precedents, and a great deal of preparation.”
“Nigh two weeks have gone by since I indicated these papers were to be drawn up, sir. Show me the draft.”
Hooker’s look of long-suffering should have been studied on Drury Lane. He passed over a single sheet of foolscap, which Deene took in at a glance.
“This is a list of cases.” And no date. The list might have been hastily tucked into the file in the past five minutes.
“One starts with the relevant precedents, my lord, and a good deal of research into how those cases bear on the present circumstances. As I said, this is an arcane and complicated legal undertaking. Allow me to say to you we are honored to ensure it will be handled in the most thorough and competent fashion possible.”
Deene unclenched his jaw and set the single piece of paper on the desk.
“Allow me to say, Hooker, that you will not be paid for all this painstaking research—which I do appreciate, of course—until such time as I have pleadings in my hand, suitable for submission to a court of appropriate jurisdiction. I bid you good day.”
He had the satisfaction of seeing Hooker’s brows crash down.
“And, Hooker? One more thing. I dipped my toe in the law at university, at least to the extent a man likely some day to serve as magistrate ought to. Those cases listed on your precious paper relate to trade agreements and civil contracts. While not a lawyer, I’m hard put to understand how custody of a girl child involves those aspects of the law.”
For Deene to close the door softly on the way out was a small triumph and short lived. The truth of it was Hooker and his imps had been sitting on their backsides, swilling tea—or coffee—eating cakes, and doing exactly nothing to pry Georgie loose from the clutches of the climbing cit who called himself her father.
As Deene made his way to his horse, he found his mind turning to the nonlegal means of extricating Georgie from Dolan’s custody. A concocted duel, a rigged card game, a flat-out kidnapping… each dishonorable, dangerous alternative was becoming increasingly tempting.
Four
“If this isn’t a providential blight on an otherwise fair spring day.” Dolan offered his brother-in-law a cheeky smile calculated to irritate his Royal Importance-ship no end. “Deene, good day to you.”
The marquis’s rapid progress down the sidewalk halted. “Dolan, good day. I want to see my niece.”
Some burr had gotten under the saddle of Love’s Young Dream—one of Marie’s terms for her younger brother. His blue eyes were spitting fire, and his lean form was bristling with indignation.
“We don’t always get what we want, your lordship.”
Deene was hanging onto his composure by a gratifyingly obvious thread, and yet a rousing set-to on the street—though mightily entertaining—would serve no one, least of all Georgina.
“Perhaps your lordship might explain to me why you want to see your niece?” Dolan turned and ambled along in the direction of Deene’s travel. “Grown men don’t typically associate voluntarily with small girls.”
Deene at least comprehended the need to avoid a scene—the English were predictable in this regard—for he fell in step beside Dolan.
“I do not have to explain my motives for seeking the occasional company of my sister’s only offspring.”
It was an effective hit, but the wrong answer.
“Perhaps you need not explain your motives to God Almighty, your lordship, but I am the girl’s father.” Oh, the pleasure of being able to say that so gently and implacably. Dolan considered brightening his future perambulations about Town with more frequent collisio
ns with his benighted Lord Brother-In-Law.
Marie’s wit was not the least of the attributes Dolan missed about his late wife.
“Let me put it this way, Dolan. Either I see her with your permission, or I will take any means necessary to see her without.”
“I’m quaking in my muddy bogtrottin’ boots, your lordship.” Dolan let his brogue broaden perceptibly, then noticed no less a person than the Duchess of Moreland making a brisk progress down the street. “Heard your colt finally put that braying ass Islington in his place. One would hate to miss the rare opportunity to offer you a sincere compliment, Deene, particularly when the compliment can be rendered in public.”
“And my thanks for your kind observation is rendered just as publicly. At least tell me how Georgie goes on.”
Marie had always sworn her brother wasn’t cut from the same cloth as the previous marquis and marchioness, but Marie was—had been—blind when it came to the people she loved. Dolan silently apologized to his wife’s sainted memory, but allowed himself to doubt the sincerity of Deene’s query.
“Georgina, as always, thrives in my care, Deene, and you’d better hope your colt never comes up against my Goblin.”
Deene’s expression had become that bland, handsome mask of impassivity Dolan could only envy. The English were arrogant, ungrateful, and not to be trusted, and they could not be relied upon to turn up stupid at times that suited any but themselves.
“Your Grace.” Deene made a lovely little bow to the duchess, who bestowed a dazzling smile on the idiot.
“Deene, good day.” She turned, that smile still on her lips, and waited for Deene to handle the introductions.
A sweet moment, to be introduced to a duchess, and by no less than his own seething brother-in-law in view of all and sundry.
“Your Grace, may I make known to you my brother-in-law, Mr. Jonathan Dolan? Dolan, Esther, Duchess of Moreland.”
And abruptly, the sweet moment turned… tainted. For one instant, Dolan forgot how a man—a gentleman—behaved upon introduction to a duchess.
Deene had bowed. Dolan bowed to the same depth and came up with his best charming smile in place—Her Grace was an easy woman to smile at, pretty even at fifteen years Dolan’s senior, with a palpable graciousness about her not typical of her kind.
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