“Oh, his vile deception began to crumble when Cranham returned from India. He began stalking Cranham; he was obsessed with where he went, to whom he spoke. Yet publicly, Howell avoided him.” Her voice turned to an almost steely whisper. “You see, Cranham made no secret of the fact that he wanted to make trouble for Rannoch. Howell was afraid to answer Cranham’s questions, for the man was like a loose cannon. I tried to warn Cranham away, to no avail. I suspect my husband knew that a meeting between Cranham and Rannoch was inevitable, given their animosity. And then, they might realize the truth: that Cicely had another suitor. Neither of them. A lover to whom she had easy and unsuspicious access …”
“I am not sure I understand.”
“Oh, my lady! The scandalmongers would have ruined Howell had his incest become public. And, of course, there was his dishonorable conduct in allowing an innocent young man to be blamed for Cicely’s death. He would never have been received in good drawing rooms again.”
“I see,” whispered Evangeline.
“But as long as her suitors remained on separate continents, it was easy for them to go on blaming each other. Then that actress—Antoinette Fontaine—managed to learn the truth somehow. I think she was blackmailing Howell. I found her name and direction in Howell’s ledger. He had begun to spend large sums of money, larger even than his outrageous gaming debts. He killed her … yes, I really think he killed her.”
Fontaine. Tanner. An inn near Wrotham Ford … what was the connection? Suddenly, Evangeline felt her throat begin to constrict.
The strain of the last several hours was telling. She felt driven to escape. To return to Elliot’s side. She needed to touch him, to talk to him, to persuade him to fight to get well. For them, and for their child. Moreover, as much as she knew she should be grateful to this guilt-ridden woman, she was still seized by an irrational, nearly overwhelming urge to flee from her presence.
It was simply too much, too much ugliness to comprehend in one such tragic day. Abruptly, she rose and muttered what were almost certainly incoherent words of sympathy and thanks. Then, fighting the inclination to break into a run, Evangeline picked up her skirts, rushed from the room, and up the two flights of stairs to Elliot.
Evangeline spent a restless night by Elliot’s bed, carefully considering what Lady Howell had said yet saying nothing that might distress her husband. By the following morning, Elliot was well enough to slump weakly against a stack of pillows, drink a bit of beef tea, and spend a quarter hour sequestered with Gerald Wilson.
By that afternoon, however, matters took an altogether different turn. The dreaded fever seized hold with a vengeance. His huge body was wracked, first by chills, then by scorching heat. Potter returned to shake his head and make soft, sympathetic noises but otherwise did little. Kemble mixed up a bitter tea of bark and herbs which Evangeline dutifully sponged into his mouth during his more settled moments. They shared the task of changing the bandages and applying the appropriate compounds, for the wound must, the surgeon emphasized, be kept free of putrefaction at all cost. Evangeline remained by her husband’s bed, sleeping on a cot MacLeod had sent up.
Throughout the first full day, the worst throes of fever would seize Elliot, seemingly out of nowhere, and together Evangeline and Kemble would be forced physically to restrain him. Twice, they were required to ring for footmen. Elliot would thrash about violently, and each time Evangeline feared that the sutures in his thigh would rupture. Within twenty-four hours, Elliot’s fever began to spike faster but less frequently, and for the most part he slept restlessly, his breathing rapid and shallow. During the febrile spells, however, he would first rage wildly, then cry out for Evangeline.
Occasionally, he would carry on entire conversations, almost coherently. When his temperature dropped and the chills took hold, Elliot would plead with her to come to bed. Evangeline did so, gingerly at first, fearing that she would somehow worsen the wound, yet the heat of her body seemed to ease his otherwise uncontrollable shivering. The cycle went on and on into the second day, until both she and Kemble were on the verge of collapse and Elliot severely weakened.
It was following just such an episode when Evangeline awoke, somewhere near daybreak, to find herself tightly ensnared in Elliot’s arms. After three days of sleeping only intermittently, Evangeline realized she must have dozed off. She came fully awake with a start. Elliot had managed to roll toward her and now lay on one side. Sliding one hand up against his massive shoulder, she tried to press him back down against the mattress, but his eyes flew instantly open.
He blinked once, twice, then focused his smoky gaze upon her with a breathtaking intensity. “Evie … ?”he whispered. The desperation in his voice was almost tangible. His eyes searched her face with a strange urgency. “I thought—that is to say, I dreamed—that you were gone.”
“Gone?” she answered uncertainly.
“That you had left,” he muttered vaguely, lifting an unsteady hand to touch her face. “Aye, gone away … before I could explain …”
“Shush, Elliot,” she softly replied, touching his fingertips lightly to her lips, then placing his hand back atop the coverlet. “You must lie still. You have been feverish for quite a while, but I am here.”
As if perplexed, Elliot lifted his hand again and scrubbed the back of it across his four-day growth of beard. He eyed her speculatively across the pillow. “Aye, quite a while indeed,” he murmured. Then his mouth turned up into a weak, roguish grin, but his words were laced with doubt. “Had you worried, I hope?”
Evangeline rolled up onto one elbow to look down into his haggard face. Elliot had always been dark, his beard heavy, but he now gave every appearance of being a dockyard thug. A faint purple bruise colored the outer edge of his left brow, while harsh black stubble covered his face. His cheekbones, more pronounced than usual, were slashed with deep hollows beneath. And now that he was fully awake, Elliot’s eyes seemed darker, sunken, and ringed with shadow. Her expression apparently betrayed her thoughts.
“Umm—that bad?” One eyebrow went up as he struggled to maintain the grin.
Still propped up beside him, Evie shook her head. “A little gaunt, perhaps. And yes, you had me worried.”
Elliot reached out with surprising strength, circled his arm about her waist, and pulled himself a half inch closer before the pain obviously overcame him. He looked at her with a grimace. “Very worried?” he asked softly.
“Terrified, truth be told,” she answered grimly.
“How long?” he asked tentatively. “How long since Vauxhall?”
Evie pulled her gaze from his and pushed the bedcovers incrementally away. “This is the fourth day,” she answered.
“And you have remained here every moment, have you not?” He reached out to touch her chin lightly and turn her face back toward his. “Look at me, Evie. I know it. ’Tis as if I was aware of you throughout … throughout whatever it is I have been through these many days and nights. Aye, I sensed your presence. And then I dreamed—well, I cannot say quite what I dreamed. Just don’t leave me, Evie, promise that you will not?” He swallowed hard, and as she watched the faint movement of his throat, Evangeline was flooded with an overwhelming sense of relief and gratitude.
“I will never leave you,” she answered with unwavering certainty.
Mutely, Elliot nodded, fell back against the pillow, and dragged his arm across his forehead. For a long moment, he was still, and she thought he was sleeping. “Do you know, Evie?” he asked at last, the question punctuated by a little grunt of discomfort. “Did they tell you about Howell? I remember now … the bounder meant to shoot Cranham. And I think he shot me, too, though I’m damned if I know why.”
Gingerly, Evangeline moved across the bed and tucked in close to his side. “She came here,” Evangeline answered softly. “Lady Howell. Her husband is dead, Elliot. Did you remember that Major Winthrop had to kill him?”
Elliot’s soft voice was slow and uncertain. “I—don’t know what I rememb
er. If he is dead, then I am not much saddened by it … but why would Lady Howell come here, Evie?” he asked, his voice suddenly protective. “Did she distress you in any way?”
Elliot lifted his arm and turned to look at her as she shook her head. “No, not distress. Upsetting, yes. She was that. But she was driven by grief and guilt. She came only to confess. To say that it was Howell who—who—”
Evangeline fumbled weakly with the end of her sentence, for she and Elliot had never openly discussed the death of his fiancée. “It was Howell, Elliot. It was Howell who got Cicely Forsythe, his niece, with child,” she finally managed to say. “You have a right to know the truth, though you should not hear it from me. In fact, you are too weak to have this discussion at all.”
Suddenly wincing, Elliot sucked air through his teeth and squeezed shut his eyes. A moment passed before he spoke again. “Aye,” he said bitterly, “that may be, but I’ve got a bloody hole in my leg for my trouble, Evie, so I’d like to know why. Go on.”
“Well, that’s about it,” she concluded softly. “I take it that theirs was a long-standing affair. You—and Cranham, too, for that matter—were merely used.”
Elliot remained quiet for a protracted moment until, at last, Evangeline sat up in bed and looked down at him. His eyes were closed, his face fixed in an expression of unmitigated grief. Had he loved her so very much then? Did knowing the name, not to mention the utter perfidy, of one’s betrayer make it worse? Of course it did, she acknowledged.
Elliot had a troubled past; she had known it, and been wounded by it, when she wed him. What she had not known, and had not bothered to consider, was just how badly his past had wounded him. Far more, Evangeline was beginning to realize, than she had ever imagined. She had been wrong about a great many things, and perhaps she had unwittingly wronged him in the process.
Though the artist inside Evangeline well understood that life was never black and white, the woman who had fallen in love with Elliot Armstrong had been unwilling to tolerate shades of gray in her life. Perhaps, she suddenly realized, that was just a bit too much to ask. Elliot was not, and never would be, perfect. He was just a man. A strong, good man who was honest at heart yet fraught with inner demons and insecurities which he was at last struggling to overcome.
Smoothly, she leaned forward to touch her lips to his forehead. “You were ill used, Elliot,” she whispered against his forehead, “and I know you must hurt. I wish it had been otherwise.”
For a moment, he said nothing. “Aye, I hurt sometimes, Evangeline,” he finally admitted, his voice soft. “What’s worse, I’ve hurt you as well. And right now, I fear that nothing I may do will rid us of the past and make us free.”
“Perhaps we need not hide from it, Elliot, but merely get beyond it?”
His eyes flickered open, and in their smoky depths Evangeline suddenly saw it all, the sorrow, the doubt, the love, and the seemingly eternal weariness that lingered there. “Do you think we can manage it?” he asked hesitantly.
With infinite care, Evangeline slid down into the bed and moved her head to share his pillow. “I love you, Elliot,” she answered, curling one arm across his chest and setting her lips close to the turn of his jaw. “I have always loved you. Together, perhaps we can overcome anything. We can try.”
“Do you love me, Evie?” he asked solemnly, his eyes focused on the ceiling above. “I must confess, I cannot go on teasing such words from your lips, no matter how desperately I need to hear them. And on the one occasion when you said them from your heart, you said them to another man. Not to me.”
“No, I think you are wrong about that,” she softly countered.
Elliot exhaled a long agonizing sigh. “Tell me true, sweet, for I think I very nearly made you a widow before you’d hardly become a wife. I will confess, that fact has rather unnerved me, and I want nothing more standing between us.”
“What are you saying?”
“Life can be short,” he answered gently, “and when I met you, I discovered a newfound desire to know where mine was headed. This throbbing pain in my leg makes for quite a reminder. So what I am asking is, can you set aside my past, which has admittedly been less than virtuous? And can you forgive me for pushing you into this marriage too quickly?”
“Yes,” she answered simply. “And yes. But as to whether or not we wed too quickly—” Evangeline paused to run her free hand down her belly. “That remains to be seen.”
Elliot turned to look at her, his expression suddenly one of gentle astonishment. “Evie, I—why, I cannot think what to say. Do you mean it? All of it?”
Evangeline shot him an enigmatic, feminine smile and tilted up one eyebrow. “Certainly, I mean the yes and yes part. We shall shortly know about the last part.” She watched, enthralled, as utter amazement, then joy, chased across the gaunt angles of Elliot’s face.
With a little effort, he shifted his weight toward her, then trailed one big hand slowly down to rest across the flat plane of her belly. Smiling in obvious contentment, Elliot let his heavy eyelids fall shut. “Aye, if not now, soon,” he whispered. “Soon, love. I promise.”
They remained thus for a time, wrapped in each other. Elliot seemed to drowse, his breathing even, his hand still lingering restfully upon her stomach. Eventually, however, his fingers came up to slide through the hair at her temple. “Evie?” he whispered.
“Umm?”
“Let’s go back to Chatham. As soon as I may stir from this bed, let us leave.”
“Yes, of course,” she answered uncertainly. “But why?”
“If you are indeed with child, you’ll have need of Winnie and plenty of clean, country air. And for my part, I feel a need to be there just now. ’Tis a healing place, Evie. You know that, do you not? I will recover, we will recover.” He turned to smile softly at her. “And with any luck at all, I shall be able to watch your lovely, lithe figure grow round and fat.”
“Oh?” she said archly. “Fat, is it?”
“Aye,” he said arrogantly. “And I’ll likely make you paint, as well. I shall stand over you like a good Scottish husband and make you work. I’ll be wanting another portrait, of course. One that doesn’t look so bloody grim. And you’ll need your exercise, of course, so I’ll have you walk with me, Evie, through the woods, by the river … mayhap we’ll even go swimming, eh?” He shot her a wicked, suggestive wink, then shut his eyes.
“Oh, Lud!” she breathed. “Did you know about that?” But Elliot, feigning sleep, would not answer.
Epilogue
On these small cares of daughter, wife or friend,
the almost sacred joys of home depend.
—HANNAH MORE
A utumn at Chatham Lodge was the most beautiful of seasons under any circumstance. This year, it was glorious indeed. The smell of late-summer flowers drifted through the air, carrying with it the exuberant voices of the children who played in the gardens below. Indolently, Evangeline reclined in her chair upon the terrace and watched as Zoë whacked a croquet ball soundly against Theo’s booted ankle, setting off a theatrical howl which the remaining players summarily ignored.
The match had been in progress off and on for the better part of the afternoon, interrupted only for arguments, accidents, and a bounteous al fresco luncheon which Mrs. Crane had laid out in the rose garden. Evangeline patted her growing stomach and wondered if the tray of cold ham had been taken in yet.
“Oh, my,” drawled a languid voice behind her. “Quite a rackety lot, are they not? Too early for it, my lady! Far too early in the afternoon for such vigorous merriment.”
“Aidan!” Evangeline leapt from her chair to kiss Lord Linden enthusiastically upon one cheek. Behind him, she saw Elliot closing the distance more slowly. In his left hand, he held a gold-knobbed walking stick, but he bore very little weight upon it now.
“Discretion, my darling!” whispered the elegantly attired viscount as he pulled away from her embrace. “I don’t think the old boy yet knows about my having taken you t
o bed.”
“Go bed someone else’s wife, you lecherous dog,” muttered Elliot, sinking into his chair with a grunt. He tossed the cane into the grass in feigned distaste. “I grow weary of you and Winthrop gawking at my wife. Besides, she’s big with child, for heaven’s sake. Have you no restraint?”
“I am hardly big with anything as yet,” Evangeline retorted, grinning at her husband. “Linden, it would serve him right if I grow as large as a house, would it not? And speaking of Major Winthrop, why has he not come with you? Was that not the plan?”
“Matt sends his regrets, my dear, for he was called home to his family seat,” answered Linden, but Evangeline did not miss the telling glance that passed between the viscount and her husband.
“To Cornwall?” Elliot’s brows lifted in mild surprise. “Family trouble?”
“Hmm,” droned Linden absently as he watched the croquet match with newfound interest. “Something like that, I suppose. But I did not come to discuss Matt’s troubles. I came, rather, to discuss yours, old man.”
“Then it shall be a short visit, Linden, for I haven’t any,” replied Elliot cheerfully. “Cannot an injured man retire to his country home to recuperate? After all, I have only another week before Mother arrives from Scotland to cut up my peace.”
“That’s make peace, darling,” corrected Evangeline gently. “Recollect, if you will, that the two of you have agreed to set aside your distinctly different personalities on behalf of your heir.”
Linden smiled, pulled out his ever-present snuff box, and flicked it open with an expert finger. “Familial concerns aside, you shall both rest more peacefully in your marriage bed when you hear what I have learned. Congratulate me, for I have discovered the identity of Evangeline’s mysterious Mrs. Pritchett!”
“No?” interrupted Evangeline, who then blushed effusively. Confessing her assumptions to Elliot had been difficult enough, but the appearance of the ruby bracelet had required something by way of explanation Knowing that Elliot had shared with Linden the tale of the redhaired housekeeper’s visit, however, was worse still.
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