But since she had demanded this course of action, she could think of no way to escape it and so followed him to the chairs and took the place he motioned to. He sat beside her and closed his eyes, lifting his face to the sun with a long, satisfied sigh.
She took that moment to look at him again. By God, but he had the nicest lips. He was awful. She had to remember that. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t appreciate his finer qualities.
“So your mother said that Audrey’s nuptials are being discussed in London,” he said, finally opening his eyes and sliding his dark gaze toward her. “What are they saying?”
“Aside from the part about the love match?” Josie asked. He nodded. “They say that it was a whirlwind.”
He arched a brow. “You know what I’m asking. Are they speaking unkindly about her? About Jude?”
Josie shifted. “They—they do call him a servant, though it seems that isn’t really true once what he did for your brother is described. And they talk about that his uncle is a viscount but that the family shunned him.”
Evan straightened up and those full lips she had been secretly admiring flattened into a hard line. “I see.”
“But,” she continued, “everyone likes Audrey so much that the talk just seems to be matter of fact, rather than cruel.”
He shook his head. “That doesn’t seem likely.”
“Trust me,” she whispered. “I know the difference.”
He turned toward her and she saw his intention on his face. “Josie—”
“So is it true?” she interrupted, rather rudely she knew, but it didn’t matter. She just didn’t want to have this conversation with Evan. Not again.
“Is-is what true?” he stammered.
“What they say, what you said about Audrey truly finding love? I mean, I’m happy for her if it is. She’s lovely and kind and deserving, but just a few months ago, she was half-heartedly pursuing a Season along the wall with me.”
Evan pondered that question a moment, then shrugged. “I suppose that sometimes two people can know each other, or think they know each other, for a very long time. Then something happens that changes everything between them.”
Josie turned her face. Somehow she didn’t want him looking at her when he said those things. “I suppose.”
“Josie—” he began again, and again she heard his intention in his voice before he said another word.
“Why did Audrey invite us?” she interrupted.
He jolted slightly. “You have always been so direct,” he chuckled.
She shrugged, though heat filled her cheeks. “I only mean that if this day only involves family it seems we are intruders. I wouldn’t want to encroach.”
He shook his head. “It is silly for you to feel that way,” he said. “Josie, you must know why you were invited.”
She finally made herself look at him fully. Sitting side by side, their faces were very close together and he was examining her so carefully. Like he was seeing her for the first time.
“Wh-why?” she squeaked out, hating that her voice broke. Hating that she showed Evan anything resembling weakness.
“Because of Claire,” he said.
The moment shattered. Here she had been considering how handsome he was and of course the only reason she meant anything to anyone in the Woodley clan was because of her connection to the sister they’d lost.
“Of course,” she murmured. “Claire.”
He leaned in a fraction closer. “Audrey saw her just a few weeks ago.”
Josie tensed. “Hmm,” she offered, trying not to commit to saying anything more.
“Have you…have you heard anything from my sister?” he asked.
Josie pushed to her feet and walked away from him, pausing at the edge of the terrace wall to look down below. She didn’t want to talk about Claire with anyone. Certainly not with Evan, who she didn’t like or trust, despite the fact that she found his face alluring. But she had never been very good at lying. So she stood exactly where she was, hoping that they would be interrupted. Or that the terrace would open beneath her feet and she would disappear.
Evan stared at Josie’s trembling back and his heart began to pound faster. He had mentioned Claire as a way to somehow connect to this girl who despised him so completely that she wouldn’t even let him apologize again. But now he saw something else in her reticence to answer.
Something more than hatred toward him.
“Josie,” he said, rising to his feet and taking a long step toward her. “Do you know something about Claire? Have you heard from her?”
She refused to face him, even when he slid closer. But he saw her tense even more, saw her react to him even when she couldn’t see him.
“What are you talking about?” she said, her voice shaking.
He reached for her slowly. “Claire. Your reaction when I said her name was clear. What do you know about—”
“There you are!”
Evan squeezed his eyes shut at the sound of Gabriel’s voice coming from the veranda door. When Evan looked, he saw his youngest brother was not alone. He had their mother’s arm while Jude followed behind, guiding his own mother. Mary was on the arm of the vicar, and Josie’s mother and the healer, Miss Gray, took the final position in their line.
“Oh, Josie darling,” his mother said, releasing Gabriel and crossing to her. The dowager folded her into a hug. “It has been too long. I’m so very glad you came. Come and sit with me. Audrey will be down shortly and we will begin.”
At last Josie did look at him, but he saw the relief on her face. To be away from him. To keep whatever she knew about Claire to herself. She moved to sit with his mother, her own mother on the other side, and began chatting as the rest of them took their seats and Jude moved to his position at the wooden archway with the vicar.
Behind them, the doors to the house opened and Edward and Audrey came into view. For the moment, Evan forgot Josie’s odd behavior and took a sharp breath. His sister was beautiful in her silver gown and fine lace veil. But she had eyes for no one except for Jude at the end of the aisle. She all but floated to him, only acknowledging Edward when he lifted her veil from her face and placed a kiss to her cheek.
The vicar began his ceremony then and Evan found his gaze moving to Josie. She was utterly frustrating, that one. But he somehow hadn’t recalled that she was so damned pretty. As a little girl, she had been plump, but the baby fat had melted as she turned into a woman, leaving only lush curves that made her very proper gown seem less so.
And then there was her face. No, Josie was not traditionally pretty like the china dolls who lined up in ballrooms to be called the Diamond of the Season. There was something different to Josie, something…better. Maybe it was her heart-shaped face in a sea of fine-boned ovals. Or perhaps it was the bright intelligence to her sparkling green eyes. Then again, Evan could see how one might be enthralled by the tilt to her full lips that hinted at a smile a man could want to coax out, kiss out.
He blinked. What the hell was he doing? This was Jocelyn Westfall he was thinking about! Josie, the annoying childhood friend of his oldest sister. Josie, who couldn’t stand him. She wasn’t the girl he dreamed about. She was just…Josie.
“Mr. and Mrs. Samson!” the vicar said with a smile.
Evan blinked as Jude caught Audrey in his arms and planted a very improper and highly passionate kiss on her lips that inspired both gasps and applause from the friends and family gathered there. Audrey’s face was beet red as Jude set her back on her feet and they began to make their way together up the aisle.
As they passed, the dowager got to her feet, dabbing her eyes with a lace handkerchief and said, “We will go to the ballroom for refreshments and be joined there by many friends!”
The family began to stand, stretching their legs and chatting softly as they moved toward the house behind the happy and now very married couple.
“Why do you have such a long face?” Gabriel asked from beside him.
Evan looked at his brother with a frown. “Well, you saw who I was with when you came out.”
Gabriel chuckled. “Your nemesis, yes.”
“She isn’t my nemesis,” Evan corrected as the two took up the rear of the line that was weaving its way to the house. “If anything, I seem to be hers. I hardly think of her at all.”
Of course, that wasn’t true a moment ago, but he wasn’t about to share that fact with Gabriel.
“Hmmm.” His brother sounded less than convinced. “And did she tell you anything about Claire?”
Evan’s eyes went wide. “What? How did you know we were discussing Claire?”
Gabriel shrugged. “When I came out, she wouldn’t look at you, she wouldn’t look at me, she could hardly even make eye contact with Mama, even while they chatted. The only reason I can deduce for those facts is that she feels a little guilty about something. Hence…Claire.”
“God, it is annoying that you can do that,” Evan muttered.
“What?”
“Put together all these truths just from a few slim shreds of evidence.” He rolled his eyes.
Gabriel thought about that for a long moment. “I suppose I think it must be annoying not to be able to do it. Don’t you get bored?”
“Only occasionally,” Evan said with a meaningful look toward his brother.
Gabriel only laughed. “But what did she say to you?”
“Not much,” Evan admitted. “But it doesn’t take your deduction skills to guess she has something to hide. One mention of Claire and she jumped out of her seat like I had stuck a tack in her backside.”
Her really very perfect backside, now that he saw it twitching up to the double doors ahead of him. A man could really hold on to a set of hips like that. Holding her steady while he—
“What are you going to do about it?” Gabriel asked.
Evan blinked, still distracted by where his entirely errant mind had taken him. He moved into the house and down the hallway toward the ballroom where the families would take up positions in the receiving line and greet the great many people in the village and friends who had traveled for the celebration to come.
“Do about what?”
“Her!” Gabriel said with a snort of frustration. “Great God.”
“Why should I do anything about her?” Evan asked, taking his place in the line and dropping his voice so no one would hear. “You should talk to her. She likes you.”
The moment he said the words, he wished he could take them back. After all, his younger brother was very handsome in his own right and he and Josie had their love of Claire in common. Spending time together could easily lead them to…to something Evan didn’t want to consider.
But Gabriel was staring at him like he had grown a second head. “Are you so daft?”
Evan wrinkled his brow. “What? What are you implying?”
Gabriel rolled his eyes with a laugh that drew the attention from several of the young ladies in the line that was forming outside the ballroom.
“I’m afraid she won’t say a word to me,” his brother said.
The line began to move and suddenly there were hands to shake and felicitations to accept. For a few moments, he and Gabriel did that, and Evan was unable to address the strange statement. But finally one of the villagers stopped at Audrey and Jude’s side, holding up the line for enough time that Evan could face Gabriel again.
“Why wouldn’t she say anything to you?” he whispered.
His brother shook his head. “Can’t you see? Josie Westfall has a tendre for you.”
“That is patently ridiculous—” Evan began, but Gabriel cut him off by motioning across the room where Josie was standing with her mother. To Evan’s surprise, Josie was staring at him. But the moment she caught his gaze on her, she darted her eyes away with a deep frown.
Gabriel laughed. “She hates herself for it, but she does.”
CHAPTER THREE
Josie stood on the terrace, letting the cool night air waft over her bare arms, and tried to calm herself. She was failing, failing miserably, and no amount of deep breaths or attempts to clear her mind were working.
It had not been her most stellar of days. After the wedding she’d had the distinct displeasure of post-wedding talk. Her mother had sighed theatrically and lamented how she might never get to plan a wedding.
Even when Josie had pointed out her mother had planned not one but three weddings, two for her older sisters and one for her brother, she would not be consoled. And then there were the rest, kind-meaning people who approached her and asked when she would take a husband.
As if she just hadn’t thought of plucking one from the crowd of men lining up to wed her.
“The nonexistent crowd of men,” she muttered as she looked up at the full moon and tried not to curse it.
When she was honest with herself, the usual conversation about her spinsterhood wasn’t what was truly bothering her. It was really her conversation with Evan that made her anxious. She didn’t like being with him. It made her feel all odd and hot and not herself. Because she didn’t like him.
Except there had been moments when they were sitting together when he’d smiled that she’d sort of…forgotten how much she didn’t like him.
“Oh, why can he do that to me?” she snapped, happy to be alone outside so she could berate herself in private. “Why?”
Except she feared she knew why. That little candle she’d burned for him as a girl hadn’t ever fully gone out. Even when she hated him with all she was, she’d still found herself watching him. Just like she had all night tonight.
“Idiot. I’m an idiot,” she muttered.
The door behind her opened and Josie tensed as she turned to face the intruder. She truly hoped it wasn’t her mother or, God forbid, Evan himself. But instead Audrey stepped out into the fresh air and Josie found herself smiling. She had not had the pleasure of more than a few moments of her happy friend’s time.
“Are you running away from your wedding?” Josie teased as Audrey came up beside her and took a long breath of air.
She laughed. “Oh, heavens no. I’m far too happy to run. I only needed some air. Do you know that the moment you say ‘I do’ they then start harassing you about having babies?”
Josie shook her head. “Not being married, nor even close to it, I did not know that.”
Audrey glanced at her. “Well, to be fair, until just a few weeks ago I was no closer to marriage than you are now. And a few months before that Edward would have told you he would never wed again. We are proof positive that you never know what is going to come around the next corner.”
Josie stifled a laugh. “Oh, please don’t try to tell me that fairytale that my prince is just waiting for me and I haven’t met him yet.”
“Perhaps you have met him,” Audrey suggested. “You just don’t realize he’s right there.”
Josie suddenly had the oddest image of Evan standing across the ballroom, watching her from the receiving line at the beginning of the night, but she shoved it aside and tried desperately to find a way to change the subject.
“I suppose it makes sense that everyone is pressuring you to immediately have a child or eight. We are brood mares, after all. Some of them see our only value as providing more people for the Empire.”
Audrey’s smile went soft. “Luckily that is not what the man I married thinks.”
“No, he stares at you like you are a diamond that he must protect,” Josie agreed, and heard the unintentionally wistful sound to her voice.
Why did she sound like that? She certainly didn’t expect a man like Audrey had found. At twenty-six, the best she could hope for was a man with a bunch of motherless children who was willing to offer her a name or a title in exchange for her help. At the rate she was going, she couldn’t even truly expect that.
“Yes,” Audrey said. “And I do love him, Josie. I know people have talked about our marriage and wondered why everything went so swiftly. The truth is, I love him so compl
etely.”
Josie couldn’t help but smile at her friend’s joy and wrapped her arms around her. “Well, you deserve that, Audrey. You deserve it and a lifetime of happiness producing those eight beautiful children Society demands.”
Audrey giggled at her quip and then both women let out a simultaneous sigh.
“I wish Claire were here,” Audrey whispered.
Josie nodded. “I was just thinking the same thing.”
She almost said more. She almost admitted that she knew Audrey had seen her sister just before her engagement was announced. But that would mean admitting she sometimes heard from Claire. And her friend had made her promise not to do that. Josie kept her promises.
So instead she merely stood there with Audrey, staring up at the moon above, their arms around each other. When a few moments had passed, Audrey stepped away and her sad smile brightened.
“You were my sister’s best friend.”
Josie shook her head. “No, she had two.”
Audrey’s face lit up at the words and she swiped at a sudden tear. “Goodness, this will not do.”
“Then talk of something else,” Josie encouraged as she blinked away her own unexpected tears. “What are your plans now that you are wed?”
Audrey nodded. “London, actually, is next on my list. Jude and I will return to the city with Mary and Edward in the next few days. My brother’s gift to us was time off for my husband and a cottage by the sea in the north. So London first and then a glorious, romantic honeymoon that I can hardly wait to start.”
Josie blushed at how animated Audrey’s face had become. As an avid reader with a father who had hidden some very naughty books before his death, she had some vague understanding of what went on between a woman and a man. Audrey seemed to have a much more detailed one.
“So,” she said, grasping on to the less scandalous points of Audrey’s statement. “You will all return to London, then?”
In truth, she was relieved. She and her mother intended to spend at least another month rusticating at their small estate on the other side of the village. The fact that Evan wouldn’t be there as a distraction was a blessing.
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