A Scandalous Proposal

by Julia Justiss

  His face. That face.

  Evan turned away from it to see Francesca, and motionless beyond her, Emily.

  For a moment they simply stared at each other.

  Chapter Eight

  “Mama, what a lovely house! I’m so glad you let us visit!” The lad dropped his arm and scampered over to throw himself at Emily. She bent and hugged him close, nuzzling her cheek against his dark hair.

  Holding him to her side, she straightened and looked back at Evan, her face expressionless. “I see you have met my son. And this learned gentleman is his tutor, Father Edmund. May I present to you both the Earl of Cheverley. Drew, make your bow.”

  “Honored,” the cleric murmured, the child echoing an “Honored to meet you, your lordship,” and offering a very proper bow. Numbly Evan nodded in acknowledgement.

  The pastor looked uneasily from Evan to Emily and back. “Is this time inconvenient, Mrs. Spenser?”

  She hesitated but an instant. “Not at all, Father. I am happy to welcome you to my home.” She stressed the last words slightly. “Francesca, will you take them in for tea? I had Cook prepare fresh currant cake especially for your visit. I’ll join you shortly.”

  “Of course, Mistress. Senhor?”

  “Ama!” the lad cried, squirming out from under Emily’s arm and running to Francesca. She caught him, swung him high and, gesturing at the pastor to precede them, bore him off. Arm in arm the two retreated down the hallway, exchanging a torrent of unintelligible words Evan concluded must be Portuguese.

  Silently Emily turned and walked into the front parlor. Silently Evan followed, went to the sideboard and poured himself a brandy.

  She waited as he took a swallow. “It is my house?”

  “Your—of course it is!” Slamming down the glass, he advanced on her, urged her none too gently to a seat on the sofa, then flung himself down beside her. She slid away, crossing her arms as if armoring herself against him.

  The shock was still so great, he hadn’t begun to sort out his whirling emotions. “Yes, it’s your home. You may invite whomever you choose. But why, Emily? Why did you not tell me you have a s-son?” He stuttered over the word.

  His son, his mind screamed. Your beloved husband’s son, your cherished lover’s son. A scouring jealousy spiraled up, choking him so he could scarcely speak.

  “I thought we were friends, intimate friends,” he said quietly. “I thought we knew each other. At least, you know almost everything about me. Not mentioning your change of name, that I can understand perhaps. A trifle. But a son? How could you have thought I’d be uninterested in that small detail? Did you think even knowing about me—us—would corrupt him?”

  “Not, it’s not that!” she cried. “It’s…more complicated.”

  “I would be most appreciative, then, if you would trouble to explain to me the complications.”

  She sighed heavily. Clasping her hands together, she began in a low voice. “Most of it you know. That I ran away to marry, that the families disapproved. That my father-in-law would not even bestir himself to visit his dying son. When I heard nothing from him then, I thought our connection at an end.”

  Her face averted, her eyes gazing trancelike into the distance, she continued, “So I was surprised when, several months after Andrew’s p-passing, I receive a message from him. ‘Send me the brat,’ it said. I realized he saw Andrew’s death as an opportunity to control his grandson as he had never controlled his son.”

  She turned to Evan, passionate now as she had been ice before. “The stories my husband told of his boyhood! The floggings, the deliberate cruelty alternating with indifference. Oh, Andrew laughed with me about it, claimed his papa no longer had any power over him. But I saw his face after he broke the news that he was marrying me. In words that must have been the most wounding imaginable, his papa absolutely forbade it. I’ll never forget how bleak, how…devastated he was. I knew, whatever I must do to avoid it, I could never let that man have our son.”

  She jumped up, paced the room. “I decided to quickly finish the portrait I was working on and slip away. My patron, Don Alvarez, may the Lord bless him, found me another commission, gave us secret transport and pledged to swear ignorance of our whereabouts to the agents I knew my father-in-law would dispatch when I did not answer his summons. Dispatch them he did, but as they did not speak the language, and friends abetted me, they haven’t been able to catch us. Yet.”

  The fire seemed to leave her; her shoulders slumped and she exhaled a long sighing breath. “Eventually I must give him up. When his studies with Father Edmund are complete, when he goes to Oxford, I can no longer keep him hidden. And his grandfather will claim him.”

  Evan tried to work through his roiling emotions, tried to focus on facts. “You think his grandfather will still wish to acknowledge him?”

  She looked back at him then. Tears had gathered at the corners of her eyes; one large droplet spilled down her cheek as she turned. “My Drew bears his name. He’s too proud not to acknowledge him.” Her chin jutted up, her jaw clenched, and she gazed squarely at Evan with the defiance he imagined she would show her absent father-in-law. “But until then, Drew will grow up surrounded by affection, knowing I am proud of him. Knowing he is loved.”

  The fact of her abandoned in Spain, near to starving, her father-in-law knowing of her plight but refusing to assist, suddenly caught in his mind. And flamed instantly to outrage.

  “If your boy is some aristocrat’s grandson, he should be living in wealth and comfort. As should his mother! Regardless of your father-in-law’s opinion of you, if you were his son’s legal wife it is only his duty to care and provide for you both. As he should have from the moment your husband died!”

  She smiled, a bitter twist of lip. “No notion of ‘duty’ has ever intruded between him and doing exactly what he wishes. Besides, I think I should rather starve than live as his dependent.”

  “That matters not. He has a legal, as well as moral, obligation to provide for you. And should be made to do so, if common sense and decency do not prompt him to it.”

  She stiffened, then rounded on him. “My lord, I absolutely forbid you to intervene in this. No one that draws breath has ever influenced my father-in-law to do anything he did not wish. If you think he would listen to your prompting, you delude yourself.”

  Evan drew himself up. “I am neither his son nor a green youth. He would listen.”

  “And contact the nearest magistrate to have Drew taken from me! Do you not understand? He is a powerful man. Drew is his legal grandson. It makes my head spin to think how fast he would have me declared unfit to raise my son. Your intervention would only make that easier!”

  “But ’tis unnatural and unjust,” Evan sputtered.

  She gave him a long look. “We have not much ground to stand on in prating of morality. Oh, your friend Mr. Blakesly told me how much you dislike bullies, but you must see your meddling in this would result in disaster. If he should ever discover us, my only recourse would be to take Drew and disappear. Beginning again elsewhere would be difficult, but if necessary I shall do it.”

  She drew a deep breath and looked at him defiantly. “I swore on Andrew’s grave I would not allow his father to brutalize our son as he had Andrew. And I would die, if I must, to honor that pledge.”

  She faced him, her body taut, her hands fisted, as if…as if she feared Evan meant to rip away her security and her son. “Emily, sweeting, I would never hurt you! Or risk having taken from you what you hold most dear. Surely you know that!”

  “Yes, I know you would never knowingly harm me. But he is out there somewhere, still looking. To challenge him would be to destroy us.” She sighed and let her hands go limp, looking battered and weary. “The fewer people who know the truth, the fewer to let slip a name or location, the safer we stay.”

  As her meaning penetrated, he stared at her, affronted. “You think I would babble out information? I’m glad the Army Department has more confidence in me!”
>
  “No, I don’t think you indiscreet! Rather I…” she broke her gaze from his “…I felt there was no need to tell you, that probably our…arrangement would end before I need say anything.”

  That was even worse than her doubting his judgment and discretion. In two long strides he reached her and seized her hands. “I’m not going to just…go away, Emily! Not now. Not ever!”

  She stared at him, her wary, defensive eyes searching his. Slowly her face gentled to a smile. “Oh, Evan. Neither of us can promise forever.”

  As the second tear fell, he pulled her roughly into his arms, the only reassurance he could give her—or himself. Her words were irrefutable.

  Leaving his spent horse in the mews, Evan summoned a hackney to bear him back to Portman Square. He didn’t wish to intrude on the little party Emily had promised her son. The stunning discovery of the boy’s existence was still too new for him to sort out how he felt about it, much less how he should behave toward the child.

  That flesh-and-blood reminder of a hero husband so much more powerful than a miniature tucked at the back of a drawer.

  He wouldn’t encounter the lad often—Emily had made that clear. She felt it safer for her son to remain in residence with his tutor, she explained, and had no intention of bringing him to live at their—her house, at least not…

  She’d left the sentence dangling. Not until he no longer came to her.

  Jealousy clawed him again, prowling through a wasteland of hurt, puzzlement—and fear. She had run with the boy once and would again if she felt him threatened. Little as he knew about her, Evan could easily lose her without a trace.

  Giving the driver of the jarvey his address, he climbed in. Equally dismal thoughts, irritating as the day-old stubble on his chin, scratched at him as the vehicle lumbered off.

  She regarded their relationship as so temporary she’d felt it unnecessary to divulge the fact of her son. Evan had never really considered how long their liaison would last, at the beginning being too dazzled to think, and now…

  Had she not felt the growth of their affection? How could she still look on their bond as temporary, a fleeting flash of passion to be enjoyed and as swiftly forgotten?

  Too disturbed to remain trapped in the narrow, ill-smelling confines of the vehicle, he banged on the roof. After clambering out to pay the bemused driver twice his normal fare, he paced off.

  What did Emily feel for him—and he for her? She seemed to care for him, in the smile that sprang to her lips when he entered the room, the small, tender touches she sometimes gave, the fierce intensity of her passion. But never in words had she vouchsafed any emotion at all.

  He couldn’t be sure she didn’t feel only the pull of lust tempered with a bit of fondness—nothing more. Not the same deep, intense, awesome emotion he felt for her.

  When he’d first come to town after Oxford, he conceived a violent attachment to a lovely opera dancer. His obsession, however, dissipated considerably once his passion was slaked, and died altogether after several evenings of the lady’s uninformed chatter.

  In subsequent years, he’d never again felt that immediate, irresistible attraction to a woman. No lady of his own class inspired him to more than affectionate warmth. By the time Richard sailed off to war, Evan had felt confident in pledging to look after Andrea, having concluded the soul-stirring emotion poets rhapsodized about was simply not in his nature.

  Then Emily burst into his life like a shooting star, captivating him from the first moment. Time spent with her had only deepened his initial attraction to a more complex, all-encompassing bond that made the mere thought of another woman distasteful even as it honed the first sharp edge of passion into something purer and more lasting than desire.

  A state of being that mimicked every nuance of depth and intensity the most rapturous of poets might have used to describe “love.”

  Emily—his beloved. The words sounded so right together. His heart soared and he laughed in giddy delight.

  Emily the middle-class shopkeeper. His grin faded.

  Each year a handful of the aristocracy, desperate for funds, married into the ranks of the merchant-princes in a business transaction of lineage for wealth. Such daughters of rich bourgeois were virtually indistinguishable from their better-born peers, attending the same schools, clothed by the same couturiers and living the same socially restricted, idle lives as the daughters of the gentry.

  A captain of industry would no more allow his own daughter to work in a shop than would an earl. Evan had never heard of a man of title marrying a woman who actually earned her own bread. ’Twas worse than bad ton, ’twas—unthinkable.

  What a clever man, Evan thought, kicking viciously at a flagstone. He’d finally discovered what love was. So clever, in fact, that his passionate affection had been inspired not only by a woman whose own feelings toward him he had no assurance about, he’d managed to fall head over heels for a woman society would never accept his marrying.

  The ramifications of that conclusion were so daunting he refused to think further on it. Cursing himself for a fool, he picked up his pace.

  A few days later he assisted Andrea, becomingly garbed in one of her new gowns, up the steps to attend her first party. A dinner given by one of his mama’s friends, it would be followed by an informal dance and attended only by a limited number of close acquaintances, to ease Lady Cheverley’s shy charge into society.

  Despite those precautions, Andrea was unusually silent as they made their slow way up the stairs. She’d been subdued ever since her arrival in London, displaying none of her usual animation even when Clare teased her into showing off some of her lovely new wardrobe. And her limp was more pronounced than ever, a sure sign of distress.

  A flurry of activity at the office and repeated demands by his mother to escort them to visit various relations before the official presentations began had occupied all his time since his return to London. He’d managed only that fleeting visit with Emily the morning he’d met her son. All the disturbing, unresolved questions raised by that event still roiled uneasily beneath his surface calm, exacerbating his frustration in not being able to break free to see her. His teeth were already on edge at the prospect of sitting through this interminable dinner and a portion of the dancing to follow. At which time, he vowed, come what may, he would go to Emily.

  But Andrea needed him now, so once more he buried his own concerns. “Lean harder on my arm and spare your knee, Andy,” he murmured. “And don’t worry. That shimmery blue gown brings out the bluebells in your eyes and the gold of your hair so well, if I didn’t remember the scrubby schoolgirl underneath, I’d think you a princess. So will everyone tonight.”

  She gave him a brief, strained smile, her face unnaturally pale. “Until I clomp across the floor like some crude mechanical toy. Oh, why did I promise Richard I would do this? I know I’m a coward, but either I shall render them all uncomfortable, like the poor squire and his wife at home who can never think of anything to say when we meet, or they will laugh. Not to my face perhaps, but behind my back. Like the Wimberley village children who throw pebbles when I pass.” Her voice hushed to a whisper with the threat of tears. “I’ll embarrass you all.”

  “Those urchins should be switched,” he replied, appalled by the casual cruelty she’d encountered. “I daresay here no one will disdain you.”

  She squeezed his hand, her smile brightening to a pale imitation of the sunny glow he remembered. “Not with my champion at my side, perhaps.” The smile faded. “But you can’t be with me every moment.”

  “I don’t need to be. Once people know you, they’ll love you for yourself. How could they help it?”

  But even as he delivered that heartfelt encouragement, his mind furiously searched for ways to reduce her anxiety. One occurred as they reached the top of the stairway.

  If walking in front of everyone distressed her, why should she? “Andy, once we’ve greeted our hostess, I’ll help you to one side. Nothing says we must strol
l about—I’ll bring the guests over to you. The ones worth meeting, of course,” he added with a wink. “And when dinner is announced, we’ll bring you in toward the last. As most everyone will be at table, your entrance will scarcely be noticed. Agreed?”

  The unshed tears in her eyes made them appear even bluer as she looked up at him. “Yes. You are so kind and clever, Evan. No wonder Richard trusts you so.”

  Uncomfortable under her worshipful scrutiny, he looked away. “It’s settled, then. I’ll alert Mama and Clare. With my sister’s giddy friends around, you’ll have time to think of nothing but how silly they all are.”

  Accordingly, after a quick word to his mother, he busied himself ferrying friends and acquaintances over to the Cheverley party. Actually, he thought wryly, requiring guests to come to her only increased Andrea’s consequence. After half an hour, he noted with satisfaction, she appeared more relaxed, regaining her color and some of her normal animation.

  Just before dinner, as he arranged with a political friend to escort Andrea to table, he noticed a commotion in the group clustered about the Cheverleys. Concerned, he walked over to find his sister enthusiastically embracing a young woman with dancing brown curls and large green eyes.

  “Evan,” Clare called to him. “Come, you must meet Delia Winstead—quite the best of my school chums! Delia, this is my brother Evan, Earl of Cheverley, but as you can see he’s not the least puffed up with his own consequence.”

  “A remarkable feat for so ancient a fellow,” he replied with a grin as she made her curtsey. “Charmed, Miss Winstead. You’ve met my mother’s ward, Miss Marlowe?”

  “Oh yes,” Andrea replied for her. “We’ve called several times, and Miss Winstead has been everything kind.”

  Evan noticed the lone soldier standing stiffly by the wall, half-hidden by a knot of guests, just as Miss Winstead gestured to him. “I’ve brought someone I especially wanted Miss Marlowe to meet—my brother, Captain Giles Winstead. Giles…”