Between the Devil and Ian Eversea: Pennyroyal Green Series

by Long, Julie Anne

  And yet here he was at Lilymont, as if he’d been driven there with no choice in the matter.

  He did want her.

  But that was neither here nor there. And while he normally got what he wanted when it came to women, he was sensible enough to know that the danger here wasn’t in the getting of the woman but in the woman herself.

  He dropped the ivy, watched her name vanish behind it.

  Symbolically dropping the curtain on the entire episode.

  The sun was higher now, and he could feel it on the back of his neck.

  He wasn’t certain whether it was this that made him turn suddenly. Only that something about the hush in the garden seemed to have shifted slightly, as if to accommodate another presence.

  When he swiveled.

  The Duke of Falconbridge was standing at the entrance.

  There was an absurd moment when he actually wondered whether his conscience had spoken aloud and summoned the duke. Or perhaps he was dreaming, for dreams certainly had a way with presenting one with the worst scenarios possible. He ought to know.

  The two of them froze and stared at each from across the silent, woolly garden.

  And Ian, as he always did when he saw Falconbridge, felt a certain amount of shame. They had both shamed each other, on that fateful night, and really, it was hardly conversation kindling.

  “Good morning,” Ian said politely.

  “Good morning.”

  Their voices echoed absurdly in the cool morning air.

  A silence. Ian supposed it would be just a little too ironic if he scrambled up a fruit tree and clambered over a wall instead of walking past the duke, back to where he’d tethered his horse.

  “Interested in Lilymont, Eversea?” The duke asked it idly.

  “Yes,” Ian said simply.

  “Why?”

  A presumptuous question.

  It deserved a curt answer. “Curiosity.”

  The duke looked around at the trees. He strolled deeper into the garden, and Ian took a subtle step away from the ivy-covered wall, as if it would incriminate him. “I thought I’d stop by to have another look around. Genevieve likes it. It’s a bit on the small side. Needs a good deal of work.”

  And it’s a bit too close to where the rest of our family lives, no doubt.

  “I can see why she likes it,” Ian said instead.

  Another silence. Not even a bird obliged them with a song. They were all collectively holding their little avian breaths, apparently.

  “This was Miss Danforth’s childhood home,” the duke volunteered casually. He strolled deeper still into the garden, but not toward Ian. He took a sideways route, as if the apple trees and cherry trees were of critical importance to his decision whether to buy the house.

  “It has a good deal of charm.”

  The duke turned to look at him. “You aren’t interested in purchasing the property, too.” More of a statement than a question.

  “No. I’m departing for a long ocean voyage in a matter of weeks. Every penny of my savings will be devoted to that.”

  The duke nodded politely, as if none of this was of any true interest to him. “Ah. Yes. I recall. Your trip around the world.” He paused. “Sometimes movement is precisely what a man needs.”

  Ian stared at him. He imagined the duke would be delighted that in a matter of weeks he would be moving inexorably farther and farther away from him. And given the caprices of sea travel, not to mention foreign cultures and food, could very well never return.

  The duke simply turned, reached out, gripped a fine branch and pulled it down as if to inspect it. “And sometimes what he needs is someplace and someone who feels like home.”

  Ian fought a frown. Why was Falconbridge philosophizing about what a man needed? The duke knew nothing at all about him, apart from what he looked like naked and in the dark, and the fact that he was an excellent climber.

  “I imagine you’re right on both counts,” Ian said politely.

  The duke paused in front of a cherry tree, his profile to Ian, who could see the deep lines at the corners of his eyes.

  My sister loves this man.

  And suddenly he knew a moment of regret. A wish that he could turn back time and know him, too, to see in him the things Genevieve valued in him.

  “I’ll be off then, Falconbridge. My cousin expects me at the vicarage. Repairs, you know.”

  “Of course. Good day, then.” The duke nodded, but didn’t quite look at Ian.

  They subtly skirted each other at a safe distance, like tomcats too conscious of each other’s strengths to make even a token fuss about territory. Falconbridge going deeper into the garden, and Ian heading for the arched gate.

  Once he’d seen the hem of Ian’s coat whipping around the corner, the duke moved swiftly toward the ivy in the corner. He’d been watching Ian a little longer than Ian knew.

  He lifted up the ivy and shaded his eyes. It was a moment before he saw the word.

  Tansy.

  He went still.

  Ian Eversea had caressed that word with something like . . .

  The duke could only describe it as reverence.

  He pivoted slowly and shaded his eyes, stood listening thoughtfully, grimly, as the hoofbeats of Ian’s horse tore away, like a man trying to escape something.

  THIS AFTERNOON THE duke had asked Tansy to pour during their visit, and she was delighted with the ritual and the comforting sounds: The tinks of cubes of sugar dropped against porcelain, the bell-like music of the tiny silver spoons against sloped sides as they stirred.

  “I’ve had word Lord Stanhope will be visiting his properties here soon. He’s the Duke de Neauville’s heir.”

  A duke!

  The word jolted her pleasurably, and a bit of tea splashed into the saucer.

  She couldn’t help it. Duchess Titania de Neauville. She tried on the sound of it in her head. Good heavens, it was almost the only time the name Titania seemed appropriate.

  Clearly she was born to be a duchess.

  Would he be handsome? Clever?

  Would he try to kiss her until she forgot her name?

  Would he try to pretend it was all her fault that he’d kissed her, and that it had been a lesson, then dodge her for a week, when she knew better?

  Oh, how she knew better.

  She bit down on her back teeth against a little surge of righteous anger.

  And to squelch the sensation again, which she found, both to her delight and dismay, she could conjure at will, of his fingertips trailing her throat then sliding into her bodice.

  She looked down into the tea and remembered the hot demanding sweetness of his mouth, and a wave of weakness swamped her. And she didn’t dare look up at the duke.

  Ian Eversea was infinitely more sensible than she had credited. For he had made himself scarce after that kiss. Then again, she was not eligible for a complete seduction, unlike a certain attractive widow, for instance, and what use was she to him in that regard?

  Although she suspected the reason for his absence was quite different, she couldn’t help but regret his wisdom in keeping his distance.

  Her face was heating, and she looked up, to find the duke’s eyes on her speculatively. Perhaps he thought she’d gone rosy over the idea of a fledgling duke. The notion of whom had been introduced not a moment too soon.

  “I thought you were the only duke.”

  He smiled faintly, indulging her. “We’re a small club, to be certain. His son is a decent fellow. Pleasant, well-bred, educated, not a shred of controversy associated with his name. I daresay even handsome, and possessed of a certain amount of moral turpitude.”

  “Kind of you to remember my list.”

  He smiled again. “And wealthy. Very wealthy.”

  She hadn’t listed wealth, oddly enough, because
she would possess her own once she married. She certainly had nothing at all against it. She imagined the carriages, the gowns, the servants, the parties, the horses.

  The home. The family. The children.

  “He has a beautiful home here in Sussex,” the duke added, when she didn’t speak. “About twice the size of Lilymont.”

  The word, as it always did, made her stop breathing for just a moment.

  “Lilymont always struck me as a very good size,” she said. “But then, I was very small when I lived there. It’s for sale, I understand,” she added tentatively.

  “Genevieve is interested in it. But we haven’t yet made a decision about it.”

  A ferocious, rogue little surge of envy took her, and then she tamped it.

  “How lovely it would be to keep it in the family.” It would be lovely to know she would be welcome there, at the very least.

  She did like saying the word “family.” It occurred to her then that she was glad they were her family: the duke and his wife.

  “The gardens were quite lovely, then, when you were a little girl. You used to run about there with your brother.”

  “I did,” Tansy said faintly, smiling. “We used to play at being soldiers. And then he went off to be one.”

  She didn’t say, And didn’t come back. The duke knew that.

  “So often the ones that return . . . never really leave war behind. In so many ways. War changes a man irrevocably. There’s a roughness and a recklessness that can . . . sink in, become integral to his character.”

  She regarded him guilelessly.

  Or what she hoped was guilelessly.

  “But doesn’t life change you, too?” she asked. “Rather inevitably? One can hardly predict what will happen, isn’t that right?”

  The duke hesitated, then slowly nodded in concession, raising a brow.

  “But I think sometimes it’s like setting a broken arm,” he said. “If it isn’t done quite right, by someone very skillful and knowledgeable, it fuses in a particular shape and can never be quite right again.”

  Tansy fought to keep from narrowing her eyes. She suspected she was being warned in some fashion. Again. About Ian Eversea.

  “Sometimes things are broken in such a way to fit with other things, are they not? Like the pieces of a puzzle or of stained glass?”

  The duke drummed his fingers on the desk. A silence drifted by, and it lasted so long that the chink of a melting sugar cube against the side of a teacup was startlingly loud.

  “You certainly are your father’s daughter,” he finally said.

  GENEVIEVE WAS ALREADY in bed, reading, her hair roped into a dark braid, when he slid in and wordlessly reached for her.

  She abandoned her book and went willingly, sighed while nestling into his chest as he burrowed his face into her hair. They lay in silence for a time, humbled by how fortunate they were, humbled by the miracle of loving and being loved and by how vigorous lovemaking really seemed never to lose its novelty.

  “I’ve heard from the Duke de Neauville,” he said. “His heir is arriving in Sussex to visit.”

  “Ah. I imagine you’d like to introduce him to Miss Danforth.”

  “How restful to know that I need never speak again, since you read my mind so perfectly.”

  She laughed.

  He loved the feel of her laugh vibrating against his chest.

  “Miss Danforth’s brother was a soldier. Decorated. Lost in the war. Bayonet got him, I recall.”

  “Ah,” Genevieve said softly. “Poor Tansy. Ian was decorated, too. For valor, I believe. He’d saved a life. He has quite a terrible bayonet scar.”

  “I’ve seen it,” the duke said simply.

  The two of them were silent at that, because Genevieve knew full well when the duke had seen it.

  She nestled a little closer into her husband. Both because she knew he didn’t like to remember that, and because she was grateful that whatever happened had ultimately brought the duke to her.

  “Is he really leaving on a long sea voyage?” he asked.

  “Ian?” Genevieve said sleepily. “Sometimes I feel like he’s already on it. But yes. He is.”

  “Good,” the duke said.

  Chapter 18

  A STEAMING BATH HAD CHEERED Ian immensely after a long, long day of physical labor, and Ned had to nearly push him out of the door of the Pig & Thistle, but he was sober enough by the time he arrived home.

  He paused in the middle of his room. The bath, the pleasure of it, had made him unduly aware of his skin and his body and his muscles and his senses, and what a glorious pleasure it was to possess them. To be alive. To be able to feel and taste and . . .

  And now his muscles tensed again. He slowly flattened a hand against his still warm, damp chest.

  How . . . new . . . her hand had felt against his skin, the tentative unfurling of her fingers, that discovery of him, brave and reckless and innocent and yet somehow not.

  She didn’t kiss like a virgin. She kissed like she was born to do only that, with only him.

  He wanted to touch her again.

  He wanted to feel his skin against hers again.

  He wanted to taste her. Everywhere.

  And the need he’d been holding at quite sensible bay for over a week rushed over him like a bonfire.

  He’d avoided his window for a week. He would not go to it now. He would not.

  He told himself this all the way to the window.

  When he got there, he peered out. A wedge of light emerged from her windows. His heart gave a lurch. For there she was, out on the balcony, doing . . .

  What in God’s name was she doing?

  She was leaning far out over the balcony edge, one leg out behind her, and her arms had begun windmilling. His heart shot into his throat until she seemed to find a certain balance. Still, she remained in a precarious position.

  Ian bolted from his room and flung open her chamber door, which mercifully wasn’t locked, and was out on the balcony in a few steps.

  He managed to keep his voice calm. “What the bloody hell are you doing? Everyone was speaking euphemistically when they refer to you as an angel. You haven’t any wings, Miss Danforth. You’ll hit the ground with a thud when you fall. And you will fall, if you maintain that angle.”

  She froze. There was a heartbeat of silence before she spoke.

  “Oh, good evening, Ian. Aren’t you funny.”

  “Step back from the balcony, Miss Danforth. I’m not worth jumping over, believe me.”

  “Ha. Believe it or not, I don’t spend every waking minute thinking about you.”

  “Just most of them?”

  She merely slowly, gracefully, straightened again, stepped back from the edge of the balcony, turned and looked up at him. It wasn’t with reproach, necessarily, but she didn’t say a word.

  And suddenly he didn’t think that was very funny, either.

  “Then we’re back to my original question—what the bloody hell are you doing?” He lowered his voice.

  She hesitated. Her lips worried over each other.

  And then she heaved a defeated sigh.

  “It’s just . . . well, I can’t find the stars I need.” She sounded abashed.

  “The . . . stars you need? Are you an astrologer? Is that why you can read into my soul? Or perhaps you intend to use them to navigate a ship all the way back to America?”

  “No, and I know you’d pine yourself right into the grave if I did navigate all the way back to America. I’m looking for the Seven Sisters. Or whatever it is you might call them in this country.”

  He was already smiling, damn the girl, and it was suddenly very clear to him, alarmingly clear, that her presence made everything better, colors brighter, the air more effervescent, and her absence over the last week had muted his experience
of life altogether. It was like breathing air again after being trapped in a box.

  Very, very alarming.

  “Ah. The Pleiades. You can just see them from this side of the house if you crane your head . . . so. No need to risk life and limb by leaning over the balcony. See that very bright star there?”

  “Where?” She leaned backward, far enough that her shoulder blades brushed his chest.

  He suspected it was calculated.

  He ought to move away.

  He really, really ought to move.

  He didn’t move away.

  “Oh! I see it! I see them! Or part of them.” She sounded so delighted and relieved, he gave a short laugh.

  She startled Ian by settling back against him as if it where the most natural thing in the world and stared up at the sky. And the thing was, it felt natural. In his weary state, the faint lavender sweetness and soft warmth of her made him dizzy. And he suddenly thought he might know what it would be like to be a planet, endlessly, gracefully spinning through the solar system. He couldn’t, for a moment, think of why he hadn’t held her just like this before.

  “Why the Seven Sisters?” his voice had emerged somewhat huskily.

  Hers was soft, too, when she replied. “My mother used to tell me a story about how they got up in the sky when I was a little girl. I loved it. It changed a bit, each telling.” She gave a soft laugh. “That’s why I liked it so much. She used to say to look for her in the sky when she was . . . gone. She said she’d be at a tea party with the Seven Sisters. And I guess I never thought she . . .” She hesitated. “. . . well, do you know how gone ‘gone’ is, Ian?”

  He was struck dumb by the hollowness in her voice. He knew that sound. It came from the absence of someone you loved.

  And oddly, he knew exactly what she meant. All the talk of living forever in Heaven wouldn’t change the fact of gone.

  “I do know,” he said gently. “It’s as though . . . death is merely a sort of theory, until it takes someone you know. Let alone someone you love. I was a soldier. ‘Gone’ was my daily way of life there, for a time. One never, never really gets used to it.”