“Esther, come sit with me. Let me pour you a cup, and we’ll think this through.”
She paused at the window to their private sitting room, arms crossed, spine straight, and yet her posture testified to despair in the very rigidity of her shoulders.
“Percival, they had been intimate. I could smell it. Dear God…”
There had been more Dear God-ing going on in the previous twenty minutes than His Grace could recall in the past twenty years—and all over young people acting exactly like young people were slated to behave from the beginning of time. He took his wife by the hand, seated her on the sofa, then came down beside her.
“What is it, exactly, my love, that has you so overset about the situation? Deene is honorable. If Eve wants him, there’s an end to it.”
“But Eve…” She laid her head on his shoulder. “We’ve raised ten wonderful children, Percival. We’ve known heartache and grief.”
That she would speak of it was unusual and gave His Grace a pang. After more than three decades, the glances and silences were often articulate enough that painful words need not be spoken. “We’ve known wonder and abundant joy, too, Esther.”
“We’ve buried two, Percival.”
He couldn’t argue with that, but thank God it had been only two. Most families somewhere along the way bore the sorrow of an infant taken before the first year, an elder snatched away… as he’d almost been snatched away.
“We still have eight, Esther, and though that cannot compensate for the loss of Victor and Bartholomew, it does console, as do the grandchildren.”
She nodded, but His Grace knew she was working up to something, something that might allow her to finally cry, which—as harrowing as it would be for him—was probably necessary before they could sort out Eve’s latest contretemps.
“Percy, I will always miss the boys, I will always worry over the others, but Eve…”
He put his arm around her shoulders.
“Tell me, my love.”
“Death will come for all of us, and in Victor’s case, it was almost a blessing. I am selfish to say so, a bad mother—”
That nonsense required immediate contradiction. “You could not be a bad mother, Esther, not ever.”
“But Eve… Our sons were taken from us, and it was awful, but what was taken from Eve… Percy, that broke my heart, over and over. I grieved for our daughter every day she lay in that bed, hurting in body and spirit. And yet, I have never been as angry, either, never been as upset as when I watched our baby girl lose all her spark, all her joy, and all her confidence. That awful, awful man, whom we brought into the household as an employee… I wanted to strangle him with my bare hands. I wanted to aim a pistol at his… directly at him. I wanted to pour oil on him and watch while he was consumed by flames…”
He loved this about her, the ferocity, the soul-deep protectiveness toward those she loved. He hated, however, for her to be distressed.
“Eve was daunted, but she did not lose all her fight, Esther. As long as we love her, she’ll never lose the God-given strength to fight. She is a Windham, and one tempered at a young age by vicissitudes her siblings cannot fathom. She’ll win through.”
Her Grace was on her feet again, pacing to the window. “She will not. She will not see this as an opportunity to seize happiness and the joy she deserves. She’ll punish herself, and Deene will be too much a gentleman to force her hand. She was on top of him, Percy, in his lap, straddling…”
Not something a father ever wanted to picture, though His Grace allowed a touch of approval that any child of his would take the initiative in such a moment. Young Deene had likely not stood a chance.
“She was not forced, then, Esther. She is well past her come out, and this was her choice.”
Her Grace’s brows rose, then settled. “That is something.”
“It’s a very telling something.”
Her expression grew thoughtful. “On the occasion of Your Comeuppance, I believe I made the same point to you.”
His Comeuppance. Something had indeed come up on that occasion.
“Just so, my love. Come drink your tea. We must plan our strategy.”
* * *
To sit beside Eve and not touch her was difficult.
To sit beside her and not argue his case was making Deene clench his jaw and ball his fists and recite the Lord’s Prayer in Latin, Greek, French, and German.
Marrying Eve made such sense. When last he’d considered the notion, he hadn’t been dealing with nasty rumors that had Mildred Staines eyeing his crotch and the clubs going oddly silent when Deene walked into the room. The idea of taking Eve to wife loomed as not just right, but necessary for them both.
The list of arguments in support of their wedding circled through his head faster than the wheels of their conveyance bore them toward a reckoning:
He and Eve were of appropriate rank.
They had shared interests.
Their lands marched.
They were compatible in ways both mundane and intimate.
He needed to marry well, and Eve needed to marry a man who’d be a true husband to her if she was to have the children and loving family that was her God-given right. He’d give her all the children she wanted and delight in doing so…
A white marriage, for God’s sake…
As Eve turned the cart up the Moreland drive, it occurred to Deene that in some convoluted, unfathomable female manner, Eve was probably seeking to relieve her family of worrying over her and punish herself in the bargain with this notion of a white marriage.
Which he could not allow. She deserved so much better. She deserved every happiness a family and home of her own could afford, and more, given… given everything.
She tooled the trap around the circular drive before the house and on to the stables, her driving flawless, as he knew it would be. “You need not come inside, Lucas.”
“If I want to live beyond next week, I will not let you face this gauntlet alone.”
She winced, a small, gratifying suggestion that the only plan Deene had been able to formulate might bear fruit. He’d never convince her they’d suit wonderfully, but he might be able to scare her into marrying him.
Though the idea made him wince. He lifted Eve from the cart as a groom came out to lead the pony away. They stood alone in the stable yard, Deene’s hands on Eve’s waist to keep her from bolting.
“I will say again, Lady Eve, you have nothing to apologize for, nothing to explain. I took advantage of you, and I will face the consequences.”
“Do be quiet. I am cross enough with you and with myself as it is.”
She took his arm and stomped along beside him, nearly dragging him up to the house. When she would have slunk in a side entrance, Deene led her around to the front door. This provoked a gale-force sigh.
“We begin as we intend to go on, Eve.”
“We won’t be going on, Lucas. I will not marry you. Papa would never think of calling you out, and thus you are safe from my brothers. We didn’t even…” She waved a hand in circles.
“Her Grace will think we did.” Another wince. So he twisted the knife in her conscience. “Lady Jenny will think we did.”
Eve paused on the top step before the front door, her expression stricken anew. “Oh, God… Jenny. Poor, sweet…”
A knife once twisted could not be untwisted, and here on the gracious front terrace of one of the most elegant homes in the shire, Deene could not take his intended in his arms.
The front door opened, but it was not a butler who stood there—apparently not even senior staff could be allowed to witness the coming confrontation. His Grace manned the door, blue eyes flashing fire, his face an implacable mask of banked fury.
“Young lady, you will attend your mother in her sitting room at once.”
And Deene was supposed to just toddle back down the stairs to await an uncertain fate?
“If Your Grace would allow Lady Eve and me a chance to discuss the events
of the—”
“You, sir!” His Grace was not inclined to keep his voice down when discretion might be most appreciated. This was known by all familiar with him, and beside Deene, Eve graduated from wincing to cringing.
“Your Grace, Lady Eve’s nerves are not aided by a display of temper, though you have every reason to rail at me.”
The ducal eyebrows went up. “I have every reason to kill you, young man. The harm you have done cannot be explained or excused, and no adequate reparation ever made to my daughter.”
This was the moment for Eve to step forward and explain that they were betrothed, that the indiscretion was just that, more a slip than a sin. Certainly not a matter of a lady’s slighted honor.
His Grace’s gaze went to his daughter while a silence stretched, a silence during which Deene wanted to go down on bended knee and beg the blasted woman to marry him.
“Unhand my daughter, Deene.”
Eve slipped away from Deene’s side and disappeared into the house.
His Grace waited a long moment while Eve’s footsteps faded rapidly, and then the older man glanced about. “You, come with me. And get that mulish expression off your face. The last thing Her Grace will do is castigate Eve for a situation that must lie exclusively at your handsome, booted feet.”
Was there a softening in His Grace’s eyes? Deene was not about to bet his life on it. When the duke led him to a chamber on the first floor, Deene noted an absence of footmen, maids, or other curious ears.
“Your Grace, I think you well might have to call me out.”
Moreland opened the door to the ducal study and preceded Deene through it. He closed the door, then turned, and without any warning whatsoever, delivered a walloping backhand across Deene’s cheek.
“Perhaps I shall have to call you out, Deene. Let’s make it a convincing show, then, shall we?”
* * *
“Mama, you cannot allow Papa to do anything rash.”
Eve stood over at the window, arms crossed at her middle, her shoulders back, and her chin up.
Their baby girl was such a little soldier.
Her Grace took a seat on the sofa, a fresh tea tray on the table before her. “I’d say if there was rash behavior this day, your Papa is not the one to be faulted.”
“And neither is Luc—” Eve’s jaw snapped shut and remained that way for as long as it took to pour one cup of tea. “Deene is not to be blamed either. There cannot be any duel.”
“Am I to felicitate you on your upcoming nuptials then?”
Another silence while the duchess added cream and sugar to the tea.
“You are not. You must know I have no desire to marry.”
“Come drink your tea, Eve, and to be honest, I know no such thing. You’ve had your Seasons. You’ve had many proposals. It’s time you settled down and had some babies to love.”
The duchess trusted implicitly in her husband’s command of tactics, but this course was difficult for a loving mother to carry off in the face of the bleak determination in Eve’s eyes.
“Mama…” Eve sat on the sofa, staring at the empty hearth. “I do not… I cannot…”
Esther passed her the cup of tea, unable to listen to Eve struggle to bring up things that had remained undiscussed for seven years. “Drink your tea, though if there’s to be no wedding, I expect we’ll see more than one duel.”
Eve set her teacup down on its saucer with a clatter. “More than—!”
“I don’t need to tell you His Grace is an old-fashioned man when it comes to a lady’s honor. Your brothers are almost more conservative than their papa.”
“Mama, how can you sit here, swilling tea and contemplating violence as if, as if—somebody could be hurt, somebody could be killed.”
“That would be a pity.” Esther took a sip of her tea, sending up a silent prayer that Percy was faring more successfully with Deene.
“I cannot marry Lucas Denning.” Eve sat forward and dropped her face into her hands. “Mama, I cannot.”
His Grace had patiently pointed out that Eve was not balking at the intimacies of marriage—men could be so blunt!—which had put things in a very different light, indeed.
“If you can ravish the man on a sofa in the broad light of day, Eve Windham, I beg to differ with that conclusion. You can marry him, but you don’t wish to.”
The look Eve shot her was not that of a dutiful, troubled, or even confused daughter. It was the look of a full-grown woman bitterly resenting her circumstances. “I can marry him. I do not wish to marry him. Doesn’t it count for anything that he’s already proposed to me twice and I’ve rejected him both times?”
Esther considered her teacup. She’d had the sense Deene was more than a little interested, and it was hard not to show satisfaction at being right—though two proposals was admittedly fast work.
“Your rejections count for nothing. Deene should have approached your father before mentioning any intentions toward you.”
“I am not a child, Mother, that I can’t be spoken to without permission from my father.”
“You are not a child, but your position is childish. Your refusal to accept an eminently desirable suit will put at least your father, if not your brothers, at risk, and go a very long way toward ruining any lasting chance Jenny has at a family of her own. You are apparently not shy of your marital obligations, Eve, which reservation I might have understood or been able to address, so you are just being stubborn. It does not become you in the least.”
The last statement was downright cruel, implying a disapproval Esther could never feel toward her daughter, but seven years was long enough to punish oneself—and one’s parents—for an understandable misstep.
“I hate this day.”
“You do not hate Deene.”
This remark seemed to double the sorrow in Eve’s eyes. “I like him a great deal, I care for him, I—”
The duchess let a beat of silence go by while words were not said that might have surprised even Eve were they spoken aloud. “If you care for him, then I don’t think you can jeopardize his welfare simply for a stubborn whim, can you?”
While Esther pretended to sip tea, the fight drained out of Eve’s posture. “Jeopardize Deene’s life, Papa’s, my brothers’…” She hunched in on herself. “I can’t do that, and Deene would never consider dodging off to the Continent for a few years.”
“Would you take such a course?”
The idea of Eve running and hiding hadn’t occurred to Percy, but from the duchess’s perspective, it was clearly an option under consideration.
“No, I cannot even be left in peace on some bucolic little French farm, because the idiot men in this family would blame Deene for that, and come after him no matter what I did or said. Everybody would conclude I had left the country to bear Deene’s child, and Jenny’s fate would be sealed.”
“I do believe you’re right.”
Eve slumped back against the cushions while Esther allowed herself a cautious hint of hope. “We’ll obtain a special license, hold the service here if you like. Every debutante making her come out will envy you the match.”
“You must do as you please, Your Grace.”
Your Grace. The chill in that form of address made Esther doubt the wisdom of Percy’s plan. “It’s your wedding, Eve, you ought to—”
But Eve was off the sofa and halfway to the door. “Please, excuse me, Your Grace. I find I need some solitude.”
She opened the door, and Esther had every intention of letting her go without another word, but there stood His Grace, and Eve’s… intended, the latter sporting a right cheek a good deal more pink than the left.
* * *
Papa had his tempers, his rants, his perpetual frustrations with the Lords, with Prinny, with the way the old mad king was treated, but nothing Eve had seen before prepared her for the cold-eyed stranger standing next to Deene.
She’d always known His Grace had served in the cavalry, known he’d faced Canadian winters, wo
lves, and worse, but the look in his eye now…
For the first time in her life, Eve Windham was afraid of her father. Not afraid he would harm her, afraid he would stop at nothing to protect her, even when such protection was hopelessly misguided.
She stepped back as His Grace stormed into the room, Deene following a few paces behind.
The duke had struck him. Such a blow in the context of a duel meant no apology could mend the situation. The beginning of a headache threaded itself into all the other miseries ricocheting around in Eve’s body.
“Eve.” His Grace turned a glacial stare on her. “Deene has something to say to you. I suggest you give him your entire attention, but mind me: he can apologize to you all he wants. That does not address the disrespect done to me and my house this day. Your Grace.” He turned to the duchess and offered his arm. “You have ten minutes, Deene. I suggest you spend them on your knees—in prayer if nothing else.”
They swept out, leaving Eve alone with a man who had every reason to think her daft or worse.
“Not here.” Deene took her by the hand and led her to the French doors. “They’ll post a damned sentry in the corridor, and what we have to say to each other requires privacy.”
He took her into the garden, which helped ease a claustrophobic sense gathering in Eve’s chest. While they walked along in silence amid beds of tulips and hyacinths, what registered in Eve’s benumbed brain was that Deene’s hand was warm and dry, not cold and clammy as hers felt.
“Here.” He gestured to a bench behind a privet hedge. Roses were leafing out in the nearby beds, but only a few tight buds had yet formed. When Eve took a seat, Deene lowered himself beside her and once again took her hand.
“Well?” It was all she could manage.
“Well.” He did a curious thing: he smoothed his fingers over her knuckles and brought her hand to his mouth, pressing his lips to her palm. “A kiss for courage. His Grace has given me three days to notify my seconds—Anthony is in Town, and I suppose Kesmore will serve in addition—while Rothgreb and Sindal are put on notice on His Grace’s behalf. We’ve agreed to recruit Fairly to serve as the surgeon.”
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