“Ian probably needs to put his baubles on ice after the week he spent with Mademoiselle—”
Ian kicked Colin silent. Polly Hawthorne had suddenly appeared at the table.
Pretty thing, dark and slim and young, graceful as a selkie, Polly had nurtured an unrequited youthful yearning for Colin, and never forgiven him for having the unmitigated gall to get married. She still refused to acknowledge his existence, but Ian suspected that at this point it was partially out of habit. You had to admire the way the girl could hold a grudge, he thought. He admired consistency. The women he’d known tended toward the fickle, and though he’d definitely benefited from that more than once, he still didn’t like it. It was probably hypocritical, but there you had it.
Ian had watched Polly grow up here at the pub her father owned—the Hawthorne family had owned the Pig & Thistle for centuries. He was protective of her, and of Culpepper and Cooke, and everyone else who made Pennyroyal Green the home he’d known and loved his entire life. Perhaps unfairly, he wanted to be able to come and go as he pleased—to war, to exotic countries—and arrive home again to find all them still here, exactly where they belonged, if a little older.
He smiled at Polly, and she flushed and began fidgeting. Such was the power of an Eversea smile. He wasn’t stingy with them. Watching women smiling and flushing never got tiresome.
“Three more of the dark, if you would, Polly.”
“Of course, Captain Eversea.”
“Mademoiselle who?” Chase prompted immediately, when Polly had slipped away again.
“LaRoque.” Ah, Monique. He remembered rolling out of bed, her fingernails lightly trailing his spine, as she tried to persuade him to stay. He never stayed. With any of them. It was one of his rules. He had another rule about giving gifts—he simply didn’t. He wanted a woman to feel persuaded by him as a man. Not to feel bought.
“You haven’t a romantic bone in your body,” Monique had pouted as he dressed. “Merely a bone of passion.” Her command of English was often tenuous, but she’d still managed to more or less sum him up accurately. He wasn’t insulted. She still wanted him. Because he did know how to give a woman exactly what she needed.
“Monique LaRoque. The actress?” Chase wondered.
“Impressive, or should I say, unseemly, knowledge of London gossip you have there, Chase. Yes. The actress.”
“I’ve heard of her. My wife once saw her perform.”
It was a casual enough sentence. But the words “my wife” were faintly possessive and Chase delivered them as if they were a benediction.
They fell on Ian’s ears like an accusation. Colin did the same damn thing with the same damn words. When he wasn’t talking about cows. He shifted irritably in his chair, as if dodging a lowering net.
“She’s uniquely talented, Mademoiselle LaRoque,” Ian said. Perversely. To induce a reverie in the two recently married men.
There fell a gratifying hush.
Colin had always been more innately a rogue, and Ian enjoyed prodding at him to see if the rogue in him was dead, killed by matrimony, or simply dormant. Then again, surviving the gallows could inspire any man to seek refuge in an institution like marriage. Or perhaps he’d gotten a little too used to Newgate after his notorious stay there to ever adapt fully to freedom again.
Finally, Colin asked hopefully, on a lowered voice: “How unique?”
Ian simply, cruelly, smiled enigmatically.
Monique was talented, but not particularly uniquely. Maneuvering her into bed had been a game involving copious charm, his very best innuendos, and outflirting other men. But not gifts. Never gifts. The conclusion had been nearly foregone, but they had both enjoyed it up to and beyond the moment she capitulated. She was skillful and nimble and soft-skinned and gorgeous and . . . showing distressing signs of devotion.
Which was why Ian was relieved to have an excuse to return to Pennyroyal Green—he’d promised his cousin Adam, the vicar, that he’d lead a crew of men—many of them admittedly a bit motley in character if willing in spirit—in much-needed repairs to the ancient vicarage. If he stayed in London too long, the mamas would remember how eligible Ian Eversea was. But if he stayed in Pennyroyal Green too long, his mama might remember how eligible he was, instead of devoting all of her attention to the matter of his sister Olivia. Who was, at last, submitting to a semblance of courtship from Lord Landsdowne, and in fact appearing to enjoy it.
Appearing. One never knew with Olivia.
All of the Everseas had been holding their breath ever since. And the flowers from the hopeful—or masochistic—continued to arrive for her.
The bloods who had voted against her in the Betting Book at White’s were beginning to perspire a little. No one thought Olivia Eversea would wed ever since Lyon Redmond had vanished, taking, it was said, her heart with him.
Funny, but he hadn’t given Monique a thought since he’d returned last night from London. Which was likely ungracious, at the very least. Given that she’d been all he thought about for weeks before that.
If he stayed in Pennyroyal Green long enough, Monique would probably forget about him. He wondered whether this was a relief.
Until he returned to London, that was. And the game began again.
If he wanted it to.
The notion of that made him restless, too.
Polly returned with ales and thunked them down.
“Chase is paying,” Ian told her. With a brook-no-argument eyebrow lift in Chase’s direction.
Chase gamely produced the proper coinage.
“To large baubles and willing actresses!” Ian toasted his brothers cheerfully.
They hoisted their tankards “To large bau—”
Their smiles froze. Their gazes locked on a point over his shoulder.
“What?” Ian swiveled his head to look.
“To large baubles!” the Duke of Falconbridge said easily.
Bloody. Hell.
How did he get in here? It was a wonder the entire pub hadn’t fallen silent, the way singing birds do when a stalking cat is spotted in the garden. But no: everyone was drinking, talking loudly and making broad, ale-fueled gesticulations, as usual, and Culpepper and Cooke were at the chessboard, and Jonathan Redmond was throwing darts at the board with his usual alarming precision. No one had noticed that an infamous duke wended his way into the Pig & Thistle.
Ian knew firsthand that the man could be stealthy.
His sister Genevieve loved Falconbridge, that much was clear. She had married him, throwing over Lord Harry in the process. And Ian loved Genevieve.
But it was damnably awkward to be tangentially related to someone who had once ordered him at gunpoint to climb out of his erstwhile fiancée’s window.
At midnight.
Naked.
It was a testament to Ian’s fortitude and general pleasure in risk that he was able to walk all the way home wearing only one boot (the duke had thrown the other one out the window, along with his clothes) and the shreds of his dignity and one half of his shirt, the only other clothing he was able to retrieve in the dark. His turn on the battlefield had prepared him to stoically confront an infinite number of eventualities.
Then again, Falconbridge ought to thank him for climbing into this fiancée’s window if it stopped him from marrying the wrong woman and brought him to Genevieve.
He was fairly certain the duke didn’t see it that way.
He wasn’t known as a forgiving man—nobody liked him, apart, it seemed, from Genevieve—and he was known to have a long memory for any perceived wrongs perpetrated against him and for righting the balance no matter how long it took. Genevieve had fervently assured Ian the duke hadn’t murdered his first wife, as popular rumor had it, and though in all likelihood he would refrain from murdering Ian for Genevieve’s sake, one just never knew.
Ian was hardly
proud of the episode. If he’d known he’d wind up related to the man, he would in all likelihood have never climbed that tree to Lady Abigail’s window.
The three Eversea men clambered to their feet and bowed to their brother-in-law, with cheerful and polite greetings, and then when they sat again, Colin extended a leg and used it to push out the empty chair next to Chase in an invitation.
Ian shot him a filthy look.
Colin fought back a grin.
Colin, who was the only other person (besides perhaps Genevieve) who knew about his midnight exodus from the window at gunpoint.
The duke settled into the chair, his shoulder within inches of brushing Ian’s.
Ian contracted all of his muscles.
Polly appeared as if by magic.
“Try the dark, Falconbridge,” Chase recommended.
Chase claimed to actually like the man. But then Chase enjoyed a number of things Ian found questionable, including goose liver, and puppets made him nervous. He might be a fellow war hero, but his judgment wasn’t sacrosanct.
Polly slipped away to do His Grace’s bidding.
“What brings you to our humble pub?” This came from Colin.
“I was out for a stroll and when I saw the Pig & Thistle, I seized upon it as an opportunity to see my brothers-in-law in their native habitat.”
They all laughed politely, giving him the benefit of the doubt that it was meant to be a joke.
“Chase has been promoted,” Ian told him.
“Congratulations, Captain Eversea,” the duke said. “Rising in the ranks there, are we? Aiming for a governorship?”
“I don’t think my wife would like to live in India, but it’s not out of the question.”
“I don’t think they have any puppets in India, so it’s safe,” Ian reassured him, and Chase kicked him under the table.
The duke either didn’t notice or chose to ignore this non sequitur.
“And Ian has been offered a promotion as well,” Chase said. “You did know his rank is Captain, Falconbridge?”
“Ian,” Ian said, “is taking a trip around the world, and will be booking passage very soon. And will be gone for quite some time.”
“Ah. Around the world you say,” the duke mused. “Coincidentally, we have a guest lately arrived from across the ocean. I’m not certain whether Genevieve has told you about my young ward, Miss Titania Danforth, and her imminent arrival from America.”
She had. But they’d all forgotten until now. A relative of the duke’s, who was to be married off apace to a title approved of by the duke. Something of that sort.
“Miss Danforth arrived yesterday.”
“Safely and well, I hope?” Colin said politely.
“Quite safe and well. And a more unspoiled, well-bred, impressionable young woman you’ll never meet. It’s my sincere hope that, while she’s here, you will consider her welfare in the same light with which you consider Genevieve’s, and treat her accordingly.“
No matter how obliquely stated, Ian knew at once it was a warning.
The man had a lot of bloody nerve. As if he couldn’t resist mounting any female in his vicinity. He had criteria.
There was a silence at the table, roughly akin to the sort that follows an invitation to duel.
Don’t say it, Ian. Don’t say it. Don’t say it.
“Or you’ll . . . what?”
Colin and Chase were motionless. He knew they were each holding a breath. In the silence that followed, Ian imagined he could hear the condensation trailing the glass of ale.
The duke said nothing.
“I would die for Genevieve,” Ian added into the silence. Grimly.
It was only what was true. He’d put his life on the line for others more than once. And it was one of the reasons his sleep, for years, had hardly been a peaceful one.
He didn’t do it lightly.
The duke finally moved, lifting and sipping at his ale leisurely.
“Well,” he said, “let’s hope you won’t need to die for Miss Danforth.”
He drained his ale in a final gulp, then raised his eyebrows in approbation. “Excellent brew. Perhaps I’ll have to visit the Pig & Thistle more often.”
And with that horrible threat he bowed and took his leave.
“She must be magnificent if the duke thought he needed to warn you.” Colin was thrilled.
“Nonsense. She sounds dull,” Ian said idly. “The innocent ones generally are.”
Chapter 4
THE DUKE SENT FOR Tansy that afternoon, and she smoothed absurdly clammy palms down her skirts before hurrying to a room with a large polished desk in it. He sat at it as though it were a throne, but then, nearly everywhere he sat would seem that way, she thought.
“In all likelihood I don’t need to remind you of the terms of your father’s will, I’m certain, Miss Danforth, but I’ll state them thusly: the entirety of your fortune will be released to you upon your marriage to a man of whom I approve.”
Why did he sound like a lawyer? Perhaps that was why her father had entrusted her fate to this man. Perhaps he was capable of communicating only in orders, or by flicking that formidable eyebrow. It was difficult to argue with that eyebrow.
“Thank you. I’m aware of them.”
There was an awkward little silence.
“The last time I saw you, you weren’t any taller than . . .” He held his hand a few feet above the floor. “You hid behind your mother’s skirts. It was at Lilymont.”
She smiled politely. If she’d hidden behind her mother’s skirts, it was, in all likelihood, the last time she’d ever been shy. He’d probably been intimidating even then. His wife—he’d had a different wife then—had been so pretty, she’d thought. She’d laughed so easily. She’d loved the sound of her mother and the duke’s wife laughing together in the garden.
The very word “Lilymont” had started up an ache again. She could see it clearly: the walled garden half wild, colorful and surprising and tangled, like something from a fairy tale, at least from her perspective at three feet tall.
And then she remembered the duke had lost that pretty, merry wife quite some time ago. Which was how he had come to be married to Genevieve.
She stared at him curiously, as if she peered hard enough, she might see some sort of give, something that might indicate that life had battered him a bit. She saw nothing but a sleek, older, inscrutable duke.
“I’m given to understand that you would like to marry.” He said this somewhat stiffly.
“Yes, thank you.” Of course, she almost added. She felt herself begin to flush.
When he paused, she saw an opportunity to intervene.
“I thought it might be helpful to make a list of qualities I should like in a husband.”
There was a pause, which she thought might be of the mildly nonplussed variety.
“You’ve made a list,” he repeated carefully.
She nodded. “Of qualities I might like to find in a husband.”
Another little hesitation.
“And . . . you’d like to share this list with me?”
She couldn’t tell whether he was being ironic. “If you think it might be helpful.”
“One never knows,” he said neutrally.
“Very well.” She carefully unfolded the sheet of foolscap and smoothed it flat in her lap, then cleared her throat.
She looked up at him, and he nodded encouragingly.
“Number one: I should like him to be intelligent . . .”
She looked up again, gauging the result of her initial requirement.
He gave an approving nod. “Half-wits can be so tedious,” he sympathized.
“. . . but not too intelligent.”
She was a little worried about this one.
“Ah.” He drummed his f
ingers once or twice and seemed to mull this. “Do you mean the sort who goes about quoting poetry and philosophers? Waxes rhapsodic about works of art? Uses terms like ‘waxes rhapsodic’?”
It was precisely what she meant. She hoped the duke wasn’t the sort who went about quoting poets and philosophers. She rather liked the term “wax rhapsodic,” however. She silently tried it in a sentence. Titania Danforth waxed rhapsodic about the balcony man’s torso.
“I think I prefer him to be . . . active. To enjoy the outdoors, and horses and shooting and such. I enjoy reading. But I’d rather not pick apart what I read. I’d rather just enjoy the pictures stories make in my head.”
And now she was babbling.
She hoped he didn’t think she’d sounded ridiculous. It had, rather, in her own ears.
“Do you?” She couldn’t tell whether he was amused or thoughtful. “I’m not one for reading a good deal myself. My wife, on the other hand, enjoys it very much. I tolerate the habit in her.”
Genevieve did have the look of the sort who would enjoy reading very much, Tansy thought glumly. He did, however, sound a little ironic.
“What’s the next item on your list, Miss Danforth?”
“Ah. Number two: I should like him to be of fine moral character.”
In truth, she’d added that one because she hoped it would impress the duke. She wasn’t entirely certain how he would interpret fine moral character. She wasn’t even certain how she would interpret it or whether she in truth possessed it. It sounded dull, but necessary.
“Of fine moral character,” he repeated slowly, as if memorizing it. “This is helpful in terms of narrowing the field,” he said gravely. “Thank you.”
When he said nothing more, she looked down at her foolscap again.
Between the Devil and Ian Eversea: Pennyroyal Green Series Page 3