Richard gazed at her, and she thought she saw the shadows in his eyes again where there had been light the night before.
“Of course,” he said. He did not move for a moment, looking at her somberly, then leaned toward her and lifted a curl of hair from her shoulder. He dropped the curl, then turned away. “I believe your clothes are still by the fire. I shall bring them to you.”
“Thank you.” She looked away from him as he rose from the bed and pulled on his trousers. She shook her head at herself. He was the same this morning as he was last night—lean of limb, but with well-sculpted muscles—and she had gazed her fill at him then. She loved the way he looked, so different from herself; he was like an adventure in a foreign land, filled with breathless sights and sensations. Yet, the night’s darkness and his embrace had surrounded her reason like a hot mist, and now in the cool morning light she felt … alone, adrift. Eveline shook her head at her thoughts and firmly dismissed them. What was done was done. She bent to pick up her shift, which had fallen onto the floor during the night. She dared to glance toward him again when she rose, but he had silently left the room.
Richard shut the chamber door quietly behind him and leaned upon it, closing his eyes. He opened them again immediately. It was useless. All he could see was Eveline, her green eyes full of light and joy, her soft lips, her body slim and pliant. Images came to him of her face in the night, eyes half closed in passion, tender and soft in the morning; and the way the quilt had draped over her bosom when she rose from the bed, revealing part of one curving hip. Even now he wanted her.
He despised himself.
He had forgotten his intention not to seduce her, to defy Teufel’s edict by at least another day. But he had not. His own lust for her had moved him, and he had done it, and quite thoroughly. She was now “damaged goods.” And he, Richard, Viscount Clairmond, had done this to her. He, who loved her.
Shame and agony shot through him, as intense as the pain that had wracked his body when he had been in the field hospital. He clenched his teeth over the groan that almost escaped him. He had pushed away all thought of what he had done until this morning when she had mentioned her father. The cottage had seemed a protective shelter for them, from the elements, from the world. Eveline had been a surcease from the chill that seemed to permeate his body often these days. He had woken to her joyful eyes and suppressed laughter and had wanted to love her again.
Then her words had slapped reality into him, and he had to move away from her. For even though she was now a ruined woman, he knew he was, in truth, the defiled, the one whose soul was soiled. He had looked at her, her skin like pure cream, and felt he should not touch her, lest he somehow stain her.
Nonsense. Nonsense, he told himself. He was the same as before—Richard, Lord Clairmond. He shook his head, for the words seemed almost meaningless to him, somehow.
He sighed and pushed himself away from the closed door. Enough. As the most sensible Miss Eveline Seton said, they had to return home. Both of them had to face the world and its certain censure; he might have sold his soul, but he was not, at least, a coward.
His shirt was thoroughly dry now, as was her dress. Both were ruined by the wet, hers more so than his. Mud streaked the hem of her dress, and the rain had made the color run into a mottled pattern. His blue superfine coat was not much better. He put on his shirt, then draped the dress over his arm.
“Come in,” came Eveline’s voice in answer to his knock. He pushed the door open. He caught his breath. The sunlight shone through the window and laced its rays through her shining dark hair. Light touched her forehead and her cheek and outlined her softly smiling lips. Her green eyes were partly in shadow, seeming larger somehow because of it. One sleeve of her shift had fallen off her shoulder and made the line of her throat long and elegant. God, she was beautiful.
Richard pulled his gaze from her with an effort and brought her dress to her. “I’m afraid your dress is quite ruined.”
“It will have to do, however.” Her voice was brisk, and he looked at her again. Her lips were pressed together in a firm line, but her eyes were anxious.
He could not help it; he touched her cheek and kissed her. “There was nothing we could do, Eveline.”
“I know,” she said.
But he knew there was; he did not have to seduce her last night. He wondered if she regretted it. No doubt she did; perhaps that was the source of her anxiety. What’s done is done, he thought. I must go on. He did not want to think of what he had to go on to next.
A silence settled between them as they dressed and tidied themselves and the cottage the best they could. Occasionally, Richard would glance at Eveline and see her teeth worrying her lower lip. She moved with haste; he could tell she was anxious to go.
Finally, they were done, and Richard opened the cottage door. The sun was bright, and the sky mocked them with its cloudless blue, as if the thunderstorm of the night before had never happened. He found Eveline gazing at him, her expression uncertain. He smiled at her in reassurance, and she seemed to relax. They stepped out of the cottage.
The road was wet and slick with mud. Lescaux would grumble at the state of Richard’s Hessians once he returned home, he knew. Eveline’s half boots were no doubt in worse shape. She stumbled and slipped, and he pulled her upright.
“Take my hand,” he said, holding it out.
She did, and he laced his fingers with hers. He noticed her blush and the trembling smile upon her lips. He remembered he had held her hands thus last night when he had made love to her. A little warmth grew in his heart. Perhaps she did not regret all of it. That, at least, was something he had done for her, as small as it was, and however much it would not last.
They walked for about an hour before Richard heard a splash and a rumble behind them. He turned to see a farmer’s cart trundling at a fairly good pace through the puddles on the road. He hailed the farmer and when the man stopped, pressed some coins into the man’s hand at his skeptical look. The man’s expression lightened at this largesse, and he cheerily welcomed them onto the cart. Richard lifted Eveline onto the soft hay within, which they shared with two sweet-faced, newborn lambs, much to her delight; she was city-bred and apparently had never been close to such young animals before.
Richard sighed and leaned against the side of the cart. It would not get them to Bath much faster, but it would at least relieve them from another two hours’ walking. He grimaced. He would take whatever respite he could get. God only knew he would get little of it later.
A flood of relief entered Eveline when they reached her house at last, and it was echoed in her butler’s eyes.
“Thank goodness you’re well, Miss Eveline! Your father, Mr. Seton—”
She looked at him sharply, anxiously. “What has happened to him, Laidlaw?” She walked quickly up the steps, conscious of Richard following her into the house, despite her worry for her father. Please, God, Papa cannot be ill now.
“No, no, you need not worry, miss,” replied the butler. “He is not ill, precisely. He has merely overexerted himself, or so the doctor says.”
“Doctor?” Fear clutched at her heart, and Eveline’s steps quickened even more. “Oh, heavens!” She felt a hand grasp her arm, and she paused. She turned to see Richard gazing at her gravely.
“My dear, stop. It would do him little good to see you in this state. You may want to look at yourself before you go.”
She turned to look at a tall mirror in the hall. She gasped.
“Oh, heavens!” she said again. Her dress was spattered with mud, and one streak of it smeared her cheek. The mud had acted as a sort of glue and had stuck hay on her skirt. Her hair was straggling from out her bonnet. She looked a fright, and if her father saw her, it would do nothing to lessen his anxiety. “You are right. I must wash and tidy myself, to be sure.”
“Is … there anything I can do Ev—Miss Seton?”
She shook her head. “No. No, it is better that you leave now and look to your ow
n clothes.” She smiled mischievously. “You do not look much better than I, I assure you!”
Richard grimaced. “No doubt you are correct. I dare not even look in the mirror, or all the way home I shall be thinking of the scolds I shall receive from my valet.” He lifted her hand to his lips. “I shall call upon you later.”
Shyness suddenly overcame her and she looked away. “Y-yes, of course.”
He took her hand and pressed it. “Good-bye,” he said. He seemed to hesitate, but after staring into her eyes for one long moment, he left.
She hurried up the stairs to her room, impatient to see her father. All she needed was to change her clothes, wash her face and hands, and then go to him. She was halfway to her chamber when the door to her room burst open and her nurse bustled out of it.
“By the blessed saints!” cried Nurse Connor. “Oh, my lamb, my precious! Are you hurt? Oh, your dress! It’s a bath for you, then, to be sure, and some fresh clean clothes.” Nurse bustled into the room again and rang for a maid. “And then some victuals—I’ll warrant you have not had one bite to eat since yesterday! Ah, I knew that Lord Clairmond was a bad ’un!”
“Nonsense! He is no such thing!” Eveline said impatiently. “And I have no time for food, Nurse! I need nothing but to see Papa.” Nurse fell abruptly silent. Eveline felt a pang of remorse and took the woman’s hand in her own, squeezing it affectionately. “Oh, Conny, I’m sorry! I am tired and I have been so very worried about Papa. Lord Clairmond has been all that is … kind to me.” She saw Nurse’s expression soften. “If you please, Conny, will you help me? I look positively frightful, and my dress is ruined. I cannot see Papa, looking like this.”
A martial light grew in Nurse Connor’s eyes as she gazed at the mess that was Eveline’s clothes.
“I should say not, Miss Evie! And how you got yourself so dirty I cannot imagine!”
“I walked in the rain and mud.”
“Walked in the— My word! And where was his lordship and his carriage, pray?” Nurse pulled the bell rope for a maid, clucking her tongue disapprovingly.
Eveline grinned. “He was walking in the rain and mud beside me, Conny. Our carriage broke, you see, and then the horses bolted when lightning struck nearby.”
The older woman shook her head and pulled a screen toward the fire. “Thank heaven you were not killed outright! Although if you catch a chill from it all and die from lung fever, I should not be surprised. Not that I think it will happen, mind you, now that you are home, but it would not be an unlikely thing! Why, my very own niece, God bless her innocent soul …”
Eveline let her nurse ramble on as a servant came in with the bath and warm steaming water was poured into it. She took off her clothes—which Nurse gingerly picked up between thumb and index finger—and sank thankfully into the bath.
A sudden gasp brought her attention back to her nurse. “Conny, what is it?”
“Your shift …”
Eveline turned in her bath and gazed at the shift Nurse Connor was holding in her hand. It was stained, but not with mud; it was a brownish red, like blood.
Eveline looked at her nurse’s pale, worried face, and she blushed. “It … it must be my monthly courses. I felt so miserable with cold, I must not have noticed.”
Nurse’s face grew more anxious still. “Miss Evie, you had your courses but a week ago.”
Uneasiness crept into Eveline at the older woman’s expression, though she did not know what her nurse was implying.
“Miss Evie, what did his lordship do to you?”
She remembered, suddenly, the pain when he had pressed into her last night for the first time. She remembered, too, at the Young Ladies’ School in London years ago, the schoolgirls’ whisperings about beaus, of scandal, and confused reports of what occurred in the marriage bed.
She had paid no heed to them, for it all sounded like nonsense. Now she could not avoid making connections in her mind between those rumors and the intimacies she had shared with Lord Clairmond. A tightness grew in her stomach, and she looked away. “Nothing. I have told you, he was all kindness and—”
“Ah, no, my poor lamb! I knew he should not have been trusted! Oh, dear—”
“Stop! Stop,” Eveline said fiercely. “He loves me! He told me so!”
Nurse shook her head, beginning to weep. “Oh, Miss Evie, that’s what they all say to get their way with a maid.”
A wild fear caught hold of Eveline’s heart. “No. He asked me to marry him, before … before it happened. He is an honorable man, truly, I know it! Listen, listen to me—” She grasped Nurse’s arm, heedless of the water that dripped from the bath onto the floor. “My reputation was as nothing by the time we reached the cottage—we had been too long absent. He asked me to marry him, to save me from ruin. If he were truly a dishonorable man, he would not have asked me. He could have ravished me then and there, without asking me to marry him. But he did not, do you see?”
Grief still crossed Nurse’s face. “But he should not have taken advantage of you, whatever he might have said!”
Eveline looked away. “It was not all his fault. I love him. I did not say no.”
“Mary and Joseph save you!” The tears slid down Nurse’s cheeks once more. “Eh, I knew you had taken the bit between your teeth, and nothing I could say would stop you, for I know your stubbornness, Miss Evie, that I do!”
Eveline made herself sit back in her bath. “Not a word to Papa, promise me! Not until Lord Clairmond has spoken to him.” She picked up some lavender soap and began to wash.
“Miss Eveline! I can’t be telling half truths to your father now! Why I never—”
“Conny, please! It would do no good, and he must have been worried about me already for him to have overexerted himself. I will tell him myself, if you please!”
Nurse stopped her blustering and sighed again. “Very well, miss! Sure and your father was in a rare taking when you did not appear when you should have.”
Eveline looked at her nurse anxiously. “Conny, is Father … very ill?”
The older woman hesitated. “No, I don’t think—” She threw up her hands in exasperation. “It is hard to say, Miss Evie. He is very tired, that is all I know. He was very upset when you did not return home yesterday.”
Relief washed over her. Surely Papa could not be feeling so poorly if Nurse was exasperated rather than worried.
Eveline finished bathing and dressed hastily. She almost ran to her father’s chambers. His valet, Simpson, let her in, and she gazed at her father propped up in his bed. She tried to discern any problems from his expression. There was little to tell. Simpson seemed calm, but there was an uncertain air about him, as if there were developments he could not quite comprehend as yet. She touched his sleeve.
“Simpson, how is my father?” she whispered.
The valet hesitated. “Just the same, and better, I think in some ways … but I do not want to hope …” He sighed. “I don’t know, Miss Eveline, and that’s the truth of it.” He nodded toward the bed. “Best ask Mr. Seton. He’ll be glad to see you, that’s for sure.”
She smiled at him reassuringly and turned to her father. He was a little pale, his eyes closed, but when she came to his bedside, he opened them. A relieved joy spread itself across his face, and Eveline took his hand and squeezed it affectionately.
“You see, Papa, I am here.”
“Thank God, my dear. I was very worried.”
“You need not have been, I assure you. But I have been worried about you! What is this that Simpson tells me? That you overexerted yourself?” Eveline knew she was postponing the inevitable, but she felt she must know how her father fared first.
“Oh, do stop fussing, girl! Simpson is an old woman, as is my doctor! Indeed, I am much better—better than I have been since my accident.”
“Oh, really, Papa? Which is why you are now in your bed, and not in your Bath chair, I suppose?” She made her voice light, though she could see that weariness made his eyes heavy.
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Mr. Seton let out a short laugh. “Oh, very well, yes, I did overexert myself. But hear this: I rose from my chair yesterday—without the footman’s help! My foot moved, Eveline!”
Eveline clasped her father’s hand tightly, and tears came to her eyes. “Oh, Papa! This is wonderful! What … what does your doctor say about this?”
He snorted and waved his hand dismissively. “Ah, what does he know? He is cautious—as all doctors are, to be sure!—and does not want to say a recovery is on its way. But no one keeps a Seton down, eh?” His face sobered, and he looked at her keenly. “However, you will not keep me from what needs to be said, my dear. A valiant effort on your part to avoid the subject, but I have seen more years than you, Eveline.”
She smiled at him, but her eyes avoided him. “Lord Clairmond took care of me very well.”
“Forgive me if I doubt it, my dear!” Mr. Seton said with a heavy sarcasm that was rare in him. “I will be blunt with you—you must know your reputation is in shreds. Unless … he lodged you with respectable folk.”
Her words clearly deserved the sarcasm. Eveline was glad of her father’s forthrightness, nevertheless. “And well do I know that I have little reputation left, Papa! It could not be helped, however. The rainstorm was very bad, and our carriage slid into the ditch because of it. If we had not found shelter, I am sure I would be deathly ill with the ague, and Lord Clairmond as well!”
“With respectable folk, of course,” Mr. Seton repeated. His voice was hard, as if he hoped the tone of his words would make his statement true.
His daughter looked away from him briefly. “No, I am afraid it was in an untenanted cottage.”
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