Hot wax dripped upon his hand, but Richard only laughed softly at the sting of it, for he had forgotten he was still holding the candle as he kissed her. Setting it aside on the table beside the bed, he blew out the flame, and removed his robe even as he slipped into the bed beside her.
He could see nothing of her except what the fire in the hearth and the moonlight streaming through the windows revealed; but the darkness and the brief glimpses of shoulder and breast and thigh were as erotic as the half-remembered dreams of his adolescence. He touched her body and kissed her, and it was as if it was before the war, before he had known he had lived under his father’s disapproving eye. He remembered instances of joy long ago, and here it was again, magnified, as he moved upon her and felt her hands move upon him in tentative innocence. No trembling chill shook him as it had when he had seduced her, but only the hot trembling of leashed passion. He moved, he touched, he stopped and started, only to hear her sighs and moans of pleasure.
It was almost too much for her, the pleasure—an elixir of sensation and happiness that he had come to her and wakened her from her drowse. In their intimacies Eveline knew the barrier between them had disappeared. This was what and who he was: as tender and strong and gentle as his caresses were upon her body, a laughing man, who tickled and nibbled until she did not know if she convulsed from laughter or ecstasy. He murmured her name and called her “sweet” and “love” as he touched each part of her. Then she knew the ecstasy, the flash of heat and light that made her cry out involuntarily, and made him kiss her fiercely as he moved deep and quick to the finish.
Richard rolled to his side, holding her close and carrying her with him, kissing her eyes and lips and cheek while he did so. Eveline waited for the wall to rise between them again, the slow tensing and withdrawal she had felt the first time they had bedded. He made no movement from her, but his body relaxed even more except for his arms, which held her closer than ever. Eveline sighed in relief and laid her head upon his chest. For now, she thought drowsily, now he was here with her, and not disappeared beneath his cool civility or obscured by the shadow she had sensed in him from time to time.
His arms loosened from around her little by little, and he, too, drowsed. But Eveline did not notice, for she was fast asleep, dreaming of soft touches and laughter.
The chirping of birds woke Richard, and he opened his eyes, momentarily disoriented. This was not his bed or his room … it was Eveline’s. He recalled the night before, and smiling, turned in the bed toward her. She was asleep and still, but he remembered when she was not, last night, how warm and sinuous her movements had been against him. He let his gaze wander over her face, her uncovered breasts, and hot desire surged through him again. Softly he lowered the bedsheets from her, following the course of its removal with his hand. Eveline shifted, stirred, and opened her eyes. A smile warmed her face when her eyes met his, and she held out her arms to him in frank affection and invitation. Happily he sighed and accepted.
Again they kissed and caressed and loved, and when they both reached the height of their pleasure, Richard felt cleansed, emptied of the guilt and free of the snare in which Teufel had kept him. He was married to Eveline, his wife, whom he loved. There was nothing better than this, even the possible redemption of his estates, for hope had come upon him again, and the feeling that he could restore all by his own efforts grew as well. He had defied Teufel, and nothing had come of it. He could defy the situation in which his father had left the estates and learn to do something to restore them.
Richard moved reluctantly apart from Eveline, and he grinned at her sound of protest. He could not resist kissing her again, but that warmed him to thinking of more pleasure, when he really knew he should get on his way to learning what he could do with his lands. He moved away from her again.
“Enough, Eveline.”
She looked at him in surprise.
“No, you did not do anything, except look so beautiful and inviting that I wanted to love you again.”
She blushed, but said, “Well, that is not my fault! I cannot change how you see me, to be sure.” Her stomach growled suddenly and loudly, and she pressed her hands upon it as if to suppress the sound. “My! I am very hungry. How odd!” she said, amazed. “I never feel hungry in the morning. I wonder why I am now?”
Richard looked at her disheveled hair, her love-flushed face, and well-kissed lips and laughed. He did not wonder at her hunger at all.
“What is so humorous?”
He merely shook his head and chuckled, rummaging amongst the bedsheets for the robe he was sure was there.
“Tell me!”
He grinned mischievously at her. “No.” He pulled up a sheet and looked under it. Ah, there it was. He drew on one sleeve of the robe over his arm, but it was all for naught, for a pillow hit him over his head and the sleeve slid off again.
“Minx!” Richard growled. He grabbed the pillow and pulled back his arm to throw.
Eveline ducked and grinned. “Not fair! You would not tell me why you laughed at me, and so you thoroughly deserved a pillow in your face.”
“And you deserve it for making me lose my robe again in the bed.” He threw the pillow but missed, for Eveline dodged it.
“Ha!” she cried triumphantly, but her glee was shortlived. Richard leaped at her and pulled her down on the remaining pillow.
“You must give in now, my love, for I have caught you and will not let you go until you cede to me.”
“No.”
“Yes! Or else I will …”
“What?” she challenged.
“Tickle you!” And he suited the deed to his words.
“No!” she shrieked, laughing, but he held her firm and wiggled his fingers against her ribs. “No, don’t! Stop!”
“Don’t stop? Very well, my lady, I will continue.” His fingers found all her ticklish spots—her ribs, her neck, the backs of her knees. She pushed him away, laughing, but he moved himself atop her to hold her firm. His fingers found her neck again. She convulsed with laughter and tried to wriggle out from under him. His fingers stilled then, and his hands’ movements became a caress.
“Ah, God, Eveline …” He sighed and kissed her on the sensitive part of her neck he had just tickled.
“Ahh …” she whispered, but then her stomach growled loudly, and she began to laugh again. Richard raised his head and cast an affronted look at her, but his lips quivered upward and she could feel him shake with suppressed laughter. He rolled away from her and rose from the bed, draping his robe around him as he did so.
“I suppose I should take pity on your starving state and allow you your breakfast.” His stomach rumbled noisily then, too, and Eveline burst into giggles.
“And you!”
Richard gazed mournfully down at his stomach. “Traitor!” he said. This made Eveline laugh again, quite helplessly.
“Oh, do go, Richard! I shall die laughing if you stay here,” she gasped.
“Very well.” He kissed her once more, lingeringly, until her laughter died away, replaced by sighs. With a last grin he went to the connecting door and left the room.
Eveline sighed again, happily, and clasped her arms around her knees. She had not known quite what to expect after the wedding day; she had hoped she and Richard would brush along amiably after the disastrous start of their betrothal. This, however, this laughing Richard, whom she had only glimpsed before their marriage was more than she had dreamed. For he was all that she thought he was the few months after they had met—droll, intelligent, kind, and gentle. But then it seemed a cloud had descended upon him from time to time, chilling his expression when he did not look upon her, and when he thought she did not look upon him. She did not know what had changed, but she wished it would continue. No, she would make sure it continued. For once she had seen Richard as she believed he could be, and indeed was; she would not let that part of him disappear again.
Sighing, she rose from her bed and pulled on her robe, which Nurse had draped
over a chair the night before. Eveline rang the bell for a servant and thought of the day ahead. If it were the estate’s problems that made Richard grow cool in his manner, then perhaps there was something she could do to help. She went to her little desk and trimmed a quill. She would write the letter she had been thinking about last night, and ask for a copy of the marriage contracts and agreements. She did not remember all of the funds that were to come to her at her marriage, but there was one she thought she might be able to use for the estate’s purposes. Or, if not that, to use in other ways … Eveline smiled to herself, thinking of Marianne and the Earl of Wyvern. Perhaps there was a way Wyvern could lose his most estimable governess, so that the only way he could see Marianne again was as his betrothed. Her smile grew wider at the thought, and she dipped the quill in the ink and began to write.
Chapter Fifteen
If the wedding night and the month after were the pattern card for the rest of a married couple’s days, then, Eveline felt, all of her days afterward would be a life in near paradise. And so it seemed to her. There was not one day that passed without laughter or stolen kisses, and her happiness flowed outward to touch Richard and bring him closer to her.
It was not that Eveline did not see the poverty of Richard’s, and her, tenants. They had gone riding across the property, Richard on his horse, Satan, and she on Marianne’s gelding, Jupiter. He had reluctantly shown her around the estate and would have avoided the tenants’ cottages, but she insisted.
“I am your wife, Richard,” she had said. “What you must bear, I will also.”
His face had tightened with shame, but he nodded. “Then be prepared for the most abject poverty you have seen outside of the London slums,” he’d said grimly, and he had thundered off on his horse toward the first set of houses huddled around a well, not waiting for her reply.
If the tenant farmers were not as wretched as the people she had seen when passing the London slums, they were not far from it. The children were thin and hollow-eyed, the parents not much better. The buildings in which they lived were run-down things, worse maintained than the stables in which the Clairmonds’ horses were kept. Eveline had bit her lip to keep from weeping at the despondency in the people’s eyes. Yet, as they gazed upon the viscount, their eyes lightened with a faint elusive hope. She did not know what inspired them to feel so, or come to Richard to bow and shake his hand, for objectively he had done little to ease their hardship. But perhaps they saw the same thing she had; the kindness in him, and the sincere wish to do something for them.
Her heart ached for them, too, and so she made sure her hands ached for them as well. She was a fine needlewoman, and so she raided the attics of Clairmond Hall to see if there was anything that could be used to clothe some of the people. She found a trunk full of old clothes, not moth-eaten at all, for the trunk was fortunately made of cedar. They were out of fashion, and a few were worn at the elbows, but that would matter little to those who had no clothes at all. She mended what needed to be mended, took some bolts of plain cloth that had been laid away by an unknown Clairmond relative, and cut and pieced them together. There were also some very fine pieces of cambric and lawn, a bit yellowed, but enough for a few shirts and shifts; some deep blue muslin and cherry cotton as well. At the very bottom of the trunk, however, lay a length of silk satin of a pale peach color—it would not look well on her at all, but she knew the warm color would suit Marianne to perfection. Her sister-in-law was of a similar shape to herself, except Marianne was perhaps a few inches taller. Eveline smiled and thought how she would secretly make this dress, and then invite Wyvern to dinner with them to see the result. She remembered Richard’s cool civility toward the earl, but shrugged it off. If Richard did not wish to discuss his animosity toward his perfectly amiable neighbor, how could she justifiably shun the earl? She could not, especially since she was sure it meant Marianne’s happiness.
Richard encountered Eveline after her sojourn in the attics and grinned at her dusty dress and cobwebbed hair.
“Look, Richard! I do believe these old clothes are just the thing for the Wardles, and some for the Johnsons as well. I will just mend some of them and perhaps in a sennight I can bring the clothes when next we see them.”
“The Lady Bountiful, I see,” he said, then grimaced. “Not that there is much bounty on this estate to distribute. But certainly we can spare the clothes. I hope.” His slight smile lessened the import of the last two words, but it was enough to sober Eveline a little.
“I found some other cloth as well, good enough to make you some shirts and some dresses for Marianne and myself.”
Richard’s brows raised. “Treasures in the attics. Well, perhaps after I see what the latest accounts are, after quarter day, you can seek out a seamstress to make them up for you.”
“Oh, no, I mean to do them myself.” At Richard’s skeptical look, she said, “I have always been handy with the needle. Indeed, I know how to make a pattern and set a sleeve as well. You shall see.”
He smiled and kissed her. “Very well, then. I am sorry that you have to do this at all, though.”
Eveline merely smiled in return. She expected to receive her father’s solicitor’s reply to her letter any day now, perhaps tomorrow. If she remembered correctly, there would be cause to clear the lines of worry from Richard’s brow.
She suddenly noted that he wore no jacket; indeed, he was wearing what looked like a rough shirt that a farmer would wear. He wore old boots, well worn at the toes. She looked at him quizzically.
“Irrigation,” he said and smiled wryly. “A ditch needs to be widened, and our bailiff said we were short of hands. I therefore offered my own.”
“Ah, yes,” she said and nodded, as if this were a common thing for viscounts and the rest of the nobility to do.
“Scandalous,” Marianne said, who had come up behind Richard. “We have come down in the world, Eveline.” Her smile matched his.
Eveline grinned at her. “I do not know what you have to complain about, Marianne. Richard has turned into a ditchdigger, and I a seamstress. You, however, are a most superior governess, and outrank either of us.” Both Richard and Marianne burst out laughing.
“You mustn’t say that, Eveline,” Richard said. “She will get ideas above her station, and there will be no talking with her at all, then.”
“Seamstress?” Marianne raised her eyebrows at Eveline. “I thought you were the consummate housekeeper, unrivaled in six counties. Surely you must acknowledge that a housekeeper is at least of a class with a governess.”
“You are right.” Eveline turned to Richard, eyeing him up and down, and linked her arm with Marianne’s. “I do not know what we are about, associating with a common fellow like Clairmond, here.” She haughtily raised her nose in the air, and Marianne giggled.
Richard grinned, bowed very low, and shuffled his feet. “Yes, milady, only wanting to oblige, milady, beggin’ yer pardon.”
“Very well, then!” Eveline said and proceeded to move past him, but he grabbed her and gave her a loud kiss on her mouth. “Richard! Really!” she cried, blushing, and threw a shirt at his head from the pile she had under her arm. He threw the shirt back at her. Marianne shrieked with laughter, then seized a piece of clothing from Eveline and threw it at Richard.
By the time Richard surrendered, clothes were scattered along the hall in which they stood, and they were gasping with laughter. They gathered up the clothes again, and each went on their way.
But it was this sort of thing, Eveline thought afterward, that happened every day despite their difficulties, although the difficulties had eased, to be sure. She had found she could contribute in a large way to the maintenance of the household, for she was shrewd and knew how to economize and bargain. Food became a little more plentiful, and Marianne gained a pleasing roundness to her figure. Eveline did not blame her sister-in-law for not knowing how to economize as she, Eveline, did, nor did she blame Richard for that matter. They were not raised to account for
every penny as she was. She was glad, then, that she was able to do something they had not known how to do, and to help in her own way.
She thought also that perhaps there might be a way she could look at more than the household accounts. Had she not conducted Papa’s business for him when he had been so ill? Surely, the accounts for the estate could not be so very different.
Approaching Richard was not easy, however, not as much as she thought it’d be. For as she went to the library a few days later where Marianne had told her he was, an image of his face, becoming cool as she spoke to him of her ideas, came before her. She made a moue of impatience. It would not be so easy to broach this subject with him, worse than with Papa, for Papa knew well what her abilities were, and Richard did not. Further, she was not at all sure that her stubbornness—which her father knew too well to stand against unless it was extremely important—would work against her husband. His face would turn polite, his manner elusive, and he would coolly retreat; she did not know how to apply her persistence to this, whereas it was easy to do so with her father’s blunt words and heated arguments.
Upon entering the library, she found, both to her disappointment and relief, Richard’s valet, Lescaux, there instead. She rarely saw him, for he mostly attended to Richard’s clothes, and the rest of the time he seemed to disappear, only to appear again at Richard’s side when the valet was needed. He was quick and efficient, and she appreciated this in a servant. He also, it seemed from the household accounts, drew extremely small wages for a valet. She knew Lescaux had served under Richard in the army; she supposed there must be some loyalty that remained that the little man still stayed with his master despite the wages.
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