by Mary Balogh
“See here, Wulf,” Aidan said, “I will not have you taking Eve to task over this. She came here unwillingly because you convinced her that her presence was necessary for my reputation. She stayed because she would not give in to what she perceived as cowardice. She has suffered in silence through all the little ways we have as a family of demonstrating our superiority over the daughters of mere coal miners. She has worked hard to fill in the gaps of her education so that she can move comfortably in tonnish circles. And she has done it all at the expense of her own personal need to grieve for a brother she undoubtedly loved. What she is doing today is an expression of defiance, yes. It is also an expression of grief. I will allow it. I will not censure her, however disastrous her appearance at court turns out to be. And I will not have you censure her. I will not, Wulf.”
Bewcastle did not move except to continue stroking the feather.
“Do I really not love any of you?” he asked at last, staring at the pen as if he had not heard a word of his brother's tirade.
“Eh?” Aidan frowned at him.
“She said her brother was every bit as precious to her as mine are to me,” Bewcastle said. “Perhaps more so because she loved him. Do I not love any of you, then, Aidan?” He looked up at last, an uncharacteristic look of puzzlement in his eyes. “Or my sisters either?”
If Bewcastle had ever doubted himself before now, he had certainly never shown it—not from the age of twelve on, anyway.
“Did I love you,” Bewcastle asked, “when I insisted upon purchasing your commission when you were eighteen though you begged me not to? Did I love Freyja when I refused to allow her to betroth herself to Kit Butler when he was a mere second son? Do I love Morgan by insisting that she remain in the schoolroom until she is eighteen and that she come here for a come-out Season next year though she does not want it? What is love anyway? It is not something I can remember feeling. It is not something a man in my position can afford to feel.”
Aidan felt intensely uncomfortable. Although they had been the closest of friends as boys, they had not been since. Bewcastle had no close friends, to Aidan's knowledge. Yet they were brothers.
“I believe you always do what you consider best for us,” Aidan said. Unfortunately, it was not always what they considered best for themselves. Love? He did not know much about love himself either. Duty he could recognize. Wulf always did his duty.
“I hoped for a good marriage for you,” Bewcastle said, sounding more like himself.
“This is not a bad marriage,” Aidan said.
“Is it not?” His brother looked up at him. “Are you bedding her?”
Aidan held up one hand. “Not your business, Wulf.”
“But it is,” Bewcastle said. “You are my heir, Aidan, and since I have no plans to marry, I had hoped to pass on to you the responsibility of begetting future heirs.”
“Even if Eve were to have a child,” Aidan said, “and even if it were a son, he would be as much hers as mine, heir to Ringwood as well as second heir presumptive to the Bewcastle title. I truly believe she would consider the former of more importance. And she would have the raising of the child, not you.”
“Or you either?” Wulf asked. But he made a dismissive motion with one hand before Aidan could answer. “I will say nothing about the black court dress. Truth to tell, the color becomes her far better than gray does. But she must not wear either tonight, Aidan. I trust you will see to the matter. You have married a stubborn woman.”
Aidan chose not to comment.
Bewcastle got to his feet. “I have some matters to attend to in the ballroom,” he said. “We will all gather in the drawing room when Lady Aidan returns.”
And they would all be there in obedience to the ducal wishes, Aidan reflected, staring at the open door after his brother had left the room. It was strange how it was Eve who had found a chink in Bewcastle's armor and caused that rare slip into vulnerable humanity. Even Wulf, then, sometimes had doubts about his life and the choices he had made during the course of it?
WHEN EVE RETURNED FROM ST. JAMES'S PALACE, SHE felt so drained both physically and emotionally that she would have liked nothing better than to withdraw with all speed to her private suite—especially as there was a ball to attend in the evening. But alas, the Marchioness of Rochester descended from the carriage with her and there was no avoiding accompanying her to the drawing room, where the butler informed them tea awaited them.
Away from the unreal atmosphere of the palace, where everyone had been dressed in a similar fashion, Eve felt yet again as if she were participating in some sort of masquerade. She looped her long train over her left arm and prepared to ascend the staircase. But Aidan was coming down it to meet them.
“You have both survived, then?” he said as he came, his eyes moving from one to the other of them. It was hard to tell if he was angry or not. One rarely could tell with Aidan. If she had not had a few glimpses of a real person, she might mistake the emotionless mask for the man. But she knew different now.
“And why would we not?” his aunt asked as he offered them both an arm.
They ascended slowly to the drawing room. Eve was very glad that the age of hooped skirts was past.
“Well, Bewcastle,” Lady Rochester said as she swept into the drawing room, “that is done. There is nothing more tiresome on this earth than making a formal appearance at court. The crush was dreadful and the wait interminable. I am thankful there is only Morgan left to present. When she and Freyja marry, they can have their mamas-in-law perform the duty.”
“It is possible, aunt,” the duke said, looking at Eve with his quizzing glass halfway to his eye, “that Lady Aidan will save you the bother and present Morgan herself next year.”
Aidan was helping Eve through the difficulty of sitting down with hoops and a train. Their eyes met, her own wide with astonishment. As usual, his were quite inscrutable.
“It would seem,” Lady Freyja said, “that the queen did not order you to be dragged off to the Tower to be beheaded for wearing black, Lady Aidan.”
“Did anyone make a ghastly fuss, Eve?” Alleyne asked.
“No.” They were all looking expectantly at her, Eve noticed. “No one.”
“Well, girl,” the marchioness said brusquely, “you might as well tell them the whole of it.”
“We waited with all the other ladies in the long gallery for what seemed like forever,” Eve said. “Then finally it was my turn and we were summoned. A lord-in-waiting straightened my train and another took my card and announced my name to Her Majesty, who was seated very grandly on her throne. I advanced, made my curtsy, kissed her hand, and then backed out, all without mishap.”
It was already like a story taken straight from a book written to delight little girls. She, Eve Morris, daughter of a coal miner, had curtsied to the queen on her throne and kissed her hand! She could imagine Aunt Mari listening in rapture to the tale and wanting to hear it over and over again. It would surely become a family legend. Tomorrow she would certainly have plenty to write home about.
The Duke of Bewcastle was regarding her haughtily. Aidan was standing beside her chair, his hands clasped behind him, his face expressionless. Alleyne looked amused, Lady Freyja a little disappointed.
The Marchioness of Rochester clucked her tongue impatiently. “If that were all,” she said, “I would not have urged you to speak, girl. Freyja has done as much. So has every lady of the beau monde above the age of seventeen or eighteen. The queen almost never speaks to any lady being presented to her.”
“She spoke?” Lady Freyja's eyebrows rose.
Eve had not realized it was so unusual. “Her Majesty leaned forward and asked me for whom I wore mourning,” she explained, “and I told her it was for my brother, who fell in action at the Battle of Toulouse. She smiled very kindly at me and commended me for putting love of my family before any temptation to wear pretty clothes into her presence.”
“She added,” Lady Rochester said, “that the whole
country went into mourning for her brother just a few months ago.”
Alleyne chuckled. “A coup, by Jove,” he said. “You will be the toast of the ton, Eve.”
The duke spoke. “You have acquitted yourself well, it would seem, Lady Aidan,” he said. “And you have done honor to Captain Morris. Now, do you intend to pour the tea, Freyja? Or is it to be allowed to cool in the pot?”
Eve looked up at Aidan, who was gazing back. He said nothing but turned away to fetch her tea. She wondered if he agreed with his brother's cold and surely grudging praise. Had she angered him? Humiliated him? Hurt him? And did she care?
Yes. Yes, perhaps she did.
She drank her tea while conversation flowed around her and then retired to her own rooms at the duke's suggestion to rest before the exertions of the evening. Aidan would have escorted her, but Lady Freyja spoke up first.
“I will walk up with you, Lady Aidan,” she said.
Eve looked at her in surprise. While her sister-in-law had not ignored her during the past week, neither had she made any effort to spend time with her or converse with her. Eve curtsied to Lady Rochester before she left the room—a less deep curtsy than she had made to the queen, of course, but one suited to an older lady of elevated rank.
“Thank you, ma'am,” she said, “for what you have done for me today.”
The marchioness regarded her through her lorgnette. “I believe, Lady Aidan,” she said, “it is time you addressed me as aunt.”
“Thank you, Aunt Rochester.” Eve smiled at her.
Lady Freyja held Eve's train for her as they ascended the staircase.
“These things are such an abomination,” she said. “So is the whole silly ritual of making one's curtsy to a fossil of a queen, whose fashion sense is stuck in the last century.”
An abomination? A silly ritual? A fossil? Oh, dear.
“But it will all make splendid telling when I return home,” Eve said.
“It was a magnificent joke,” Lady Freyja said. “Our first sight of you was priceless. Did you see Aunt Rochester's face? And Wulf's? I daresay even my chin dropped to my chest. And Aidan was even more poker-faced than usual. I will admit to a direct hit when one is given. I commend you.”
“I did it for my brother,” Eve said as they turned to walk along the wide corridor to the gold suite and Lady Freyja dropped her train.
“Did you?” she asked. “But not just for that reason, I think. I believe an equally strong motive was to deal a set-down to the lot of us, Lady Aidan. You chose a particularly spectacular way of doing it and by a stroke of amazing good fortune you came away, not only unscathed, but vindicated too. You were very courageous. If the queen's brother had not died a few months ago, perhaps she would not have looked so kindly upon you.”
Eve stopped outside the suite, her hand on the handle.
“I respect anyone who can stand up against us,” Lady Freyja said. “I daresay it is not easy. I'll not come in. Wulf has ordained that you rest, and rest you must. I shall see you later. Shall I call you Eve?”
“Please do,” Eve said.
“I am Freyja.” Her sister-in-law held out her right hand and shook Eve's firmly before turning and walking back the way they had come—no, really she was striding. She was a small, shapely woman, but she moved and talked and sometimes behaved like a man.
An olive branch had just been extended, Eve realized as she stepped inside the magnificent cream and gold room that was the private sitting room she shared with Aidan. The duke had said she had acquitted herself well. The marchioness had given her leave to call her aunt.
Progress had been made indeed. All because she had defied them. Was that the key to survival with the Bedwyns?
But what about Aidan? Had she shamed him? Would they all believe he could not control his wife and think the worse of him?
But all she could really think about at this particular moment, she decided, was getting out of these confining, ridiculous clothes and getting herself horizontal on her bed. However would she find the energy to attend a ball tonight? And her own presentation ball at that? The very thought of it caused her stomach to perform an uncomfortable flip-flop.
How she longed for Ringwood!
CHAPTER XV
SHE HAD PULLED IT OFF, BY JOVE! IT WAS NOT UNTIL she had returned home and told her story—or rather until Aunt Rochester had told the significant part of it for her—that Aidan realized how much he had feared all week that something would go wrong and she would be horribly humiliated. He had stayed away from her all week, during the daytime and evenings anyway. He had sensed her concentration upon everything she needed to learn and practice and had not wanted to distract her. He had also, of course, been leaving her free to plan and execute her great rebellion.
He was glad she had not been cowed by the grandeur of his family. It was what he had feared most, perhaps, when she had insisted upon returning to Bedwyn House from The Green Man and Still instead of going home the next day on the stage. He had come to like her at Ringwood, even to admire her, strange as he found her attitude to orphans, vagrants, and other society undesirables.
But there was another test to be faced today, and perhaps it would be a more difficult one than the presentation to the queen. This evening she had to face the ton, mingle with them, converse with them, dance with some of them. And every single moment she would be watched and judged. Aidan felt little doubt that somehow word had spread of her humble origins.
He was wearing his dress uniform, with dancing shoes, as he had for the assembly at the Three Feathers a few weeks before—how long ago that seemed now! He was waiting to escort Eve down to the ballroom. She did not keep him waiting. Her dressing room door opened even as he glanced at the clock above the mantel to note that there were still a good fifteen minutes to go before Bewcastle would expect them to take their places in the receiving line.
She looked very different from usual and quite breathtakingly lovely. Gone was the drabness of the habitual gray and the magnificent severity of the unrelieved black. Her slim, high-waisted gown, artful and alluring in its simplicity, was a pale primrose in color. Embroidered primroses adorned the delicately scalloped hem and the short, puffed sleeves. Her slippers matched the gown while her fan and gloves were ivory. Ivory and primrose plumes nodded above her piled hair, which looked prettier than usual with curled tendrils feathering the back of her neck and her temples. Her bosom, above the low décolletage of the gown, was bare, he was pleased to see.
“I assume,” she said, “that you are looking at me with greater approval than you did this morning. But one can never tell for sure. You always look grim.”
That accusation was beginning to irritate him. However, he realized that she was nervous and therefore on the defensive. He said nothing but stepped forward and held out the long jeweler's box he had been holding in one hand since coming from his own dressing room.
“What is this?” she asked, looking down at it.
“A wedding gift,” he said. “I did not give you one at the time.”
She frowned. “But we are not—”
“Let us not have that nonsense repeated,” he said. “We are married, Eve. Very much so. Take it.”
She still hesitated, her frowning look now bent on his face. He clucked his tongue and opened the box himself. He gathered the gold chain in one hand, set down the box, stepped behind her, and placed the chain about her neck. She bent her head without a word while he secured the clasp. By the time he had finished, she was fingering the jewel that was pendant from the chain. It was a single diamond with no fancy setting. He had decided upon simplicity for her. The chain was just the right length, he noted. When she let go of the diamond—it was now clasped in her hand—it would nestle perfectly just above the valley between her breasts.
At first when he stepped away from her he was chilled and a little angry. She said nothing, but merely kept her head bowed. Then he heard her swallow and realized that she was fighting tears. What the devil? He
clasped his hands at his back, feeling uncomfortable.
“Thank you,” she said at last. “It is very beautiful and I will always treasure it. But I have nothing for you.”
He made a dismissive sound.
“Aidan,” she said, looking up at him, “all my new clothes have been delivered from Miss Benning's. But there has been no bill yet.”
It was his turn to frown.
“Have you paid it?”
“Of course,” he said brusquely.
Her lips pressed together and he thought he was going to have a battle on his hands again.
“It was not supposed to be like this,” she said. “Not any of it. There was not supposed to be any—any relationship. I am so sorry.”
“We had better go down,” he said, offering his arm. “Wulf will not be amused if we are late.”
“Is he ever amused?” she asked, laying her gloved arm along his sleeve. “Is he an unhappy man, Aidan? Or just a naturally cold one?”
“No one knows for sure,” he said. “He never allows anyone close enough.” Except that Wulf had allowed her to pierce his armor this morning. Perhaps there still was someone inside that armor.
EVE HAD BEEN NERVOUS DURING THE MORNING. BUT somehow defiance against the disapproval of Aidan, the Duke of Bewcastle, the Marchioness of Rochester, and even, if necessary, the queen, had helped mask her fears. She had no such defense this evening. She only wondered that her legs would convey her along the corridor and down the stairs. She concentrated every effort upon not leaning too heavily on Aidan's arm.
How had she ever got herself into this predicament? Just yesterday, it seemed, she had been in the dell at Ringwood, surrounded by her nearest and dearest, picking bluebells. Yet now she was about to attend a ton ball at Bedwyn House in London, and it was in her honor.
And then they were downstairs and approaching the ballroom, and Eve could see the duke and Alleyne, both dressed immaculately in black tailed coats, the duke with gray knee breeches and silver waistcoat, Alleyne with fawn breeches and dull gold waistcoat, both with very white linen and copious amounts of lace at neck and wrists. Freyja stood a little beyond them, looking startlingly handsome in a gown and plumes of varying shades of forest green, sea green, and turquoise. All three looked the consummate aristocrats they were. And of course there was Aidan in his dress uniform.