The view from the top of the hill was as breath-taking as Eve had claimed, though Andrew was more interested in the view sitting alongside him.
As soon as they’d escaped the house, Andrew had followed Evelyn’s lead as to where to go so they could be alone, but not far enough away that they should raise suspicion by being gone for too long. He had no desire to bring her aunt’s rage down on her head for impropriety, and less desire to ruin any part of her reputation.
When he’d suggested such a thing, Eve had quipped that they’d be forced to marry in that case, and Andrew had been surprised by the sharp pain of disappointment that the thought would be so terrible to her.
Not that he was planning on getting down on one knee any time soon. But, perhaps when they’d dealt with this mess with her uncle, perhaps then they could start to look to a future.
They had set off at a brisk pace in the direction of the small hill that was situated just beyond the border of the estate.
The walk was a pleasant one, only slightly exerting. Evelyn explained it as her choice because, not only did it afford lovely views of the countryside surrounding the Park, but it was enough of a toll for it to be out of bounds for Aunt Millicent, and Anna was too polite with guests in the house to leave and come up here.
Jonathan wasn’t a problem either since he hardly ever made an appearance at this hour. All in all, they would be completely alone, and nothing could have pleased him more.
Once they’d reached the top of the hill, Andrew had set about laying out a blanket and feeding her, since she’d missed breakfast, and they spent a happy half hour eating a simple repast of breads, cheeses, and scones with Cook’s exceptional jams.
Eve sighed in contentment beside him, and the sound brought, along with the expected lust, a feeling of pride that this simple act had made her happy.
She’d had a tough life so far, Andrew could see that. And every day, it became more and more difficult not throttle her aunt and shoot her uncle. He’d considered the latter after she’d told her tale of deception, greed, and murder.
He was a Peer and the son of a rather more influential Peer. He could very nearly do whatever he wanted. Not only that, but he’d earned more than one favour in his work for the Crown. He had a very good chance of getting away with the murder.
What stopped him was the thought of Eve never getting her justice, Jonathan hating him forever, and the fact that, although he had killed in his line of work, he wasn’t a coldblooded murderer, and he didn’t want to be one.
“Andrew?”
His name on her lips always gave him a jolt of pleasure, and he turned to face her.
They’d sat so the sun was behind them, and now that she’d removed her bonnet, the pale autumn rays lit her golden curls, making her look almost otherworldly. He found that he had to swallow hard just to be able to speak.
“Yes, Eve?”
He waited while she worried her bottom lip, and he felt an explosion of lust from just watching her.
“I-I just wanted to thank you. For this, for your help, for believing me.” She gave a self-deprecating little laugh. “For everything, really. I don’t think I’ve had someone truly in my corner since my father died.”
Her words were like a punch in the solar plexus. He wanted to just pick her up and run. Carry her off to some place they could be happy, free from her family’s lies and injustices and cruelty. Somewhere they could love each other every day for the rest of their lives.
For he did love her. He knew that now. Had known it but had been afraid to name it.
Now, it couldn’t be denied. His feelings were overwhelming, unexpected, and absolutely terrifying.
Had it only been a couple of weeks ago that he’d been bemoaning the fact that he had to stay at Spencer Park? Had he been complaining about boredom and lack of female company?
He wanted to bare his soul, but now was not the time. He needed to bring her uncle to justice, give Eve her life back, and allow her to live it.
She’d never been given the chance to be her own person, to be free from the constraints of an aunt who could barely stand her and an uncle who was determined to see her impoverished.
Andrew wouldn’t be able to live with the thought that, maybe, she’d agree to be his, just to escape the life she’d led so far.
It wouldn’t be fair to either of them.
No, he would help her get her freedom. And hopefully, she would still choose him, and they could be together.
“I’m glad you know that I am in your corner, Eve. Always.”
She smiled at him, a bright, happy smile full of promise.
“I do know it. I just don’t know why.”
“Can you not guess?” he asked softly and was charmed all over again by the blush that stained her soft cheeks.
She turned away to look out at the village that lay below them, and Andrew mourned the loss of her deep brown gaze piercing his heart.
“I think it is because you are a good and honest man. I think you would help anyone in distress.”
Her words, rather than please him, made him think of the life he’d led up until this point. The things he’d done for his country. The things he’d done to try to forget the things he’d done for his country!
Out of nowhere, an image of his last assignment with Jonathan in Paris flashed into his mind: Jonathan trying desperately to get to the lifeless body of Gabrielle, Andrew dragging him away, never allowing the man to even check that she was dead.
She had been. Andrew knew it. Jonathan did too, really. But Andrew hadn’t allowed him to go back. It had been too dangerous, and he’d never really understood Jon’s insistence or his grief.
Now, he imagined it being Eve, and suddenly it made perfect, awful, terrible sense. He never would have been able to leave her behind, dead or alive. And he’d forced Jonathan to do so, had never given him the choice.
Andrew turned back toward the view himself and kept his tone emotionless. She had him painted as some sort of knight in shining armour. She had no idea how tarnished that armour was. He didn’t risk looking in her direction. He didn’t think he could handle the disappointment, the fear even, in those eyes.
“Don’t make the mistake of thinking I am good, Eve,” he said quietly, hating having to ruin her idyllic image of him, but knowing it was necessary. “I have done things, seen things, which would give you nightmares for the rest of your life. I am not proud of some of my actions over the years. I am not good. Even now, the way I feel about you, the things I’m imagining…” He looked at her now, had to know she was hearing him, and was drowning once again in her beautiful, soulful eyes. “Trust me, sweetheart. They are the opposite of good.”
Evelyn’s breath caught at Andrew’s words, at the pain in his vivid green eyes. Ever since meeting him and seeing him and Jonathan together, she’d suspected that they were more than carousing rakes with too much good looks and wealth between them.
Now, she was quite sure of it. Oh, she didn’t know what they’d done, but she knew it had been more than waltzing around the most debauched cities of Europe enjoying things young innocents like her weren’t privy to.
Though his tone was flat and emotionless as he spoke, his eyes were filled with distress and self-loathing, and she hated that. Her heart ached for him. Other parts of her ached when he said such things about what he imagined between them.
Evelyn suddenly wished she’d paid more attention when the local farmers’ cattle were breeding.
The fundamentals were probably the same between animals and humans, after all.
But now wasn’t the time to be contemplating such things. For the first time since they’d met, it felt very much like Andrew needed her for once and not the other way around.
Timidly, for she still wasn’t quite used to being as bold as when she was with him, Evelyn reached over and placed her hand on his face.
“I don’t believe you,” she said softly, her heart hammering in her chest. “I don’t believe that you ar
e bad.”
He looked about to argue, so she carried on, not giving him the chance.
“Oh, I believe you when you say you have done bad things. But that doesn’t make you a bad person. It makes you a good person who has made mistakes. And even if they weren’t mistakes, I still do not believe you are bad.”
She dropped her hand but moved closer and knelt in front of him, making him look into her eyes, making him see her sincerity.
“Nothing you say will convince me that you are not a kind-hearted, good-spirited man, Andrew. I might not have known you long, but I know you well enough to be sure of that.”
“How can you be so sure?” he asked, his voice raspy.
She smiled at him, in no doubt about what she was saying.
“You wanted to help me even when you didn’t know who I was. You are willing to help me now and keep my secrets. Jonathan is broken, I can see that. And I know that you can too, and that you want to help fix him.”
This next part was more difficult, and Evelyn felt her voice wobble as her nerves took hold.
“A-and as for how you feel about me, well—“ She lost courage and dropped her eyes to her clenched hands in her lap. “—well, I feel the same way about you, and I do not think I am a bad person because of it, so it follows that you must not be either.”
As soon as she’d said the words, she wished them back. What if he thought her a wanton? What if she’d misinterpreted what he’d meant? What if—
All doubts, questions and rational thought flew away as Andrew lifted her face and captured her lips in a searing kiss.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Bloody hell, he would have to stop attacking her like this.
Andrew lifted his head and gazed down at the incredible woman who had turned his world completely on its ear.
He was perilously close to losing all control and was now quite sure she wouldn’t stop him. Much as the thought gave his male ego a massive boost, he cared too much about her to have her first time be a quick fumble on a hilltop.
Only half way in his right senses, he’d quickly allowed the flames of desire to explode into a raging inferno the second those words had left her lips.
What man could resist after the things she’d said?
She understood him more than his friends, more than his disinterested family, more than he did himself probably.
And she wanted him.
That thought alone was enough to drive him mad with desire.
When she’d returned his kiss with enthusiasm, he hadn’t been able to resist pressing her soft body onto the blanket below them.
The feel of her beneath him, her lips against his own, her sounds of pleasure almost killed him.
He moved his hands slowly, torturously over her curves. He half prayed she’d stop him, half prayed she wouldn’t.
Never had he been in such turmoil, experienced such pleasure and pain.
He’d removed her shawl and opened her spencer fully before any sort of common sense kicked in and, with herculean strength, moved away from her, cursing his damned sense of integrity, that goodness of his she’d spoken so highly of. Right then it felt like nothing but an inconvenience.
He gazed into the depths of her eyes for what felt like an eternity. And she gazed right back, her own eyes filled with a desire that he was sure matched his own.
Growling in pure, unadulterated frustration, he moved off her and held out a hand to help her up.
“I should be bloody sainted,” he grumbled as he moved himself to the other side of the blanket.
Which action, to be fair, was completely pointless since he didn’t think an ocean would stop him if he gave himself permission to see this through to the conclusion he wanted.
He set about packing up their leftovers, throwing things into the basket with more force than necessary, admittedly. But he needed to work out this frustration somehow.
Once Andrew felt as though he had himself under some sort of control once more, he could offer his assistance for her to get up. They really should be getting back, since he hadn’t actually told anyone he was taking her out.
Besides which, they had plans to make.
In fact, he realised with a start, they hadn’t actually discussed last night or their plans for her uncle at all. Instead, they’d talked about themselves, about her father, and his family, and everything in between.
Andrew was surprised. He’d decided yesterday after hearing the tale to treat this like an assignment, and he never, ever lost focus during an assignment.
Rather than annoying him, the thought was rather pleasant.
Turning round to Eve once more, his mind blanked completely and utterly.
She had sat up, but their embrace had wreaked havoc with the pins in her hair, and now it fell down her back in glorious, uninhibited waves like a waterfall of pure, molten gold.
Her lips were reddened from his kisses, and her eyes were still glazed with the desire they’d awakened in each other.
But those things, while distractingly attractive, were nothing compared to the sight of her demure gown opened and falling from her shoulders, exposing her petal soft skin and almost killing him.
He frowned as his unusually sluggish mind worked through the haze of lust. He hadn’t opened her gown. At least, he didn’t remember doing it.
Andrew had always prided himself on his prowess when it came to the opposite sex, but even he wasn’t good enough to merely think a garment off a body, and he was quite sure he hadn’t opened hers.
She was looking at him in confusion now, and he was sure his statue-like stillness was causing her some concern.
“Y-your gown,” he rasped, hating that he sounded as nervous as a green lad.
She looked momentarily more confused before glancing down and, with a gasp, pulling the dress back up to her shoulders.
He had to remind himself sternly that her covering up was the right thing to do.
“I didn’t—” he began in utter confusion, “—I didn’t do that, did I?”
Her cheeks flamed brighter still, and he loved her all the more for still being so shy and virginal after she’d been under him and completely uninhibited mere moments before.
“Oh, n-no. I — uh — I am running out of gowns that fasten at the front, and, well… I couldn’t very well ask Molly to assist me in dressing, so I had to leave it open,” she mumbled, and he felt like an absolute heel.
Of course she’d be restricted in what she could do. And he, being the cad that he was, hadn’t even worried about her arm when he’d been flinging her onto the cold, hard ground.
“Oh, sweetheart, I didn’t hurt you, did I?” he asked coming over and kneeling in front of her, searching her face for signs of pain.
She smiled and shook her head.
“Not at all,” she assured him. “It’s healing marvellously well.”
Andrew let out a sigh of relief, but the reminder of her injury was a sobering thought. He needed to stop seducing her and start helping her bring her uncle to justice.
“Come,” he said trying valiantly to seem unaffected by the exposed skin and the knowledge that if she couldn’t fasten the buttons, then she certainly wouldn’t be able to manage her own stays, which meant that there was little or nothing under that dress. “Turn around, and I’ll button you up.”
Her jaw dropped open; no doubt she was scandalised by the intimacy of his dressing her, but if she went around half dressed now that he knew about it, he’d never get anything done.
“Th-that’s very kind of you,” she stuttered. “But if you button it now, then I shan’t be able to get it off later.”
The woman was trying to kill him. Torture him and then kill him.
Closing his eyes, Andrew lifted his face to the heavens and prayed for strength.
“Then I shall come and help you get it off later,” he said, looking back down into her eyes.
Her eyes widened once more at his words.
“You — you. What?” she fina
lly manged to splutter.
“I shall come to your bedchamber before the dinner hour and help you,” he said, exercising iron control over his thoughts so that he wouldn’t imagine or think of anything past this current conversation.
“But… but...”
“Eve, it’s cold, and we’ve been gone a long time. We do not have time to argue about this. We have plans to make and your relatives to appease.”
The mention of her relatives was probably a low blow, considering he knew she’d immediately worry about her aunt’s wrath, but it worked, and she moved slowly, turning round and pulling her hair over one shoulder until her back was exposed to him.
Andrew found himself having to close his eyes again. Her back was smooth and delicate like the rest of her, and his mouth dried as his heartbeat sped.
Slowly he reached forward until his fingertips skimmed her satiny smooth skin. His body stirred at her delicate shiver, and he couldn’t resist leaning forward and grazing the exposed arch of her delicate neck.
Her scent surrounded him, sunshine and citrus.
“You’re killing me, sweetheart,” he rasped, and her answering whimper told him she was suffering as much as he.
If there’d been a parson nearby, Andrew would have abducted him by now and demanded he marry them.
As it was, he had to set about buttoning her up as fast as his trembling fingers would allow.
As soon as they got back to the house, he was having a bottle of brandy and an ice bath, he thought desperately.
When he’d finished with her dress, he scrambled away as though afraid of getting burned, which he was. Immensely.
He moved to fold up the blanket and lift the basket, and when he considered himself strong enough to face her again, he was relieved to see that she’d donned her spencer once more, along with her shawl, and that her hair was no longer down, but up and safely under her pale pink bonnet.
He still wanted her more than anyone he’d ever met in his life. But at least now he’d be able to walk.
Reaching out and grasping her hand, Andrew shunned the more proper protocol of offering the crook of his arm.
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