Slightly Married

by Mary Balogh

  “He threatened you with bodily harm?” The earl frowned.

  “A joke, my lord,” Cecil Morris protested, jumping to his feet. “Why would I threaten my own dear cousin. It was—”

  “Sit down, Mr. Morris,” the earl directed.

  “He knows that I love the children,” Eve said. “He was humiliated at being thwarted and at having Colonel Bedwyn witness his threat to me. He saw a way of getting revenge on me through the children.”

  “Mr. Morris,” the earl said with a sigh he did nothing to hide, “do you have any questions to ask Lady Aidan?”

  “I do,” Morris said, jumping to his feet. “Where have you been for the past two weeks, Eve, while the children were languishing alone at Ringwood, abandoned by the woman who supposedly loves them so dearly?”

  “I was in London at the invitation of the Duke of Bewcastle,” Eve said, looking at the earl, “to be presented to the queen and to society as the bride of Colonel Lord Aidan Bedwyn. I was there to attend a state dinner at Carlton House last evening, though I missed that in order to hurry home when I heard what had happened here. I left the children in the care of my aunt, Mrs. Pritchard, and of their nurse and their governess. I wrote to them daily. I missed them dreadfully.” She touched her heart with the fingertips of one hand. “I missed them here.”

  “Very affecting,” Morris said with heavy sarcasm. “And tell me, Eve, what is Davy going to do for a father figure, so important to a growing boy? Your house is filled with women. Your husband is, I believe, about to leave you and never return. Everyone knows that you married him only so that you could hang onto Ringwood and your fortune.”

  There was a buzz of indignation from the gathered spectators.

  Aidan rose to his feet. “I would like to answer that question if I may,” he said.

  Luff waved a weary hand in acquiescence. “Let us hear from you, then, by all means, Colonel Bedwyn,” he said. “I have never in my life heard such a fuss over two orphans.”

  “For the last number of years I have fought my way across the Peninsula and into the south of France with Wellington's forces,” Aidan said, thankful that he had chosen to wear his dress uniform again, uncomfortable as it was, especially on what had turned into a warm, humid day. “And who knows that even now all the hostilities are finally over? Europe must be put together piece by piece again after years of warfare and pillage. My duty lies with the army. My home is Ringwood Manor. It is where my wife lives. It is where my heart will stay when I leave. It is where I will settle as soon as I am able. My wife's relatives and friends are mine, her servants mine, and her foster children my own. As far as I am able, even if only by letter for the next few years, I will be a father to young Davy—and to Becky.”

  Eve watched him, pale and wide-eyed. And the devil of it was, Aidan thought, he did not feel as if he were lying.

  He sat down. So did Morris.

  “And you, ma'am,” the earl said, addressing Mrs. Morris. “What do you have to say in this matter? Do you want these children? Do you care for them? Do you love them?”

  “Yes, my lord,” she said in a voice that was little more than a whisper. “I love them dearly. But—”

  They all waited politely for her to finish, except her son, who turned to glare at her.

  “And so,” the Earl of Luff said when it became clear that she had no more to say, “I have to weigh the claims of a man and his mother who have custody of the children and are related to them and claim to love them against those of a man who is presumably about to return to his battalion for an indefinite length of time and a woman who has no tie of blood and no legal claim to the children and who is perhaps unable to give them a balanced sense of family.”

  They were going to lose, Aidan thought in some astonishment.

  “In that last matter, of course, you are quite wrong,” a soft but quite distinct voice said from the back of the room.

  Aidan looked sharply behind him. Wulf was standing just inside the door, dressed for travel but as immaculate as if he had just stepped out from under his valet's care, his quizzing glass halfway to his eye.

  “Who in thunder—” the earl began. Then he peered more closely. “Oh, it is you, is it, Bewcastle?”

  Eve, still beside the earl's table, grasped the arms of her chair.

  “Quite so,” Bewcastle said, strolling forward, looking as haughty and bored as he had ever looked. “Lady Aidan with no family to protect her and her foster children while Colonel Bedwyn is away serving his king and country? That is a patent absurdity, Luff. She has all the considerable support of the Bedwyn family behind her.”

  “You are willing to take these two waifs under the wing of the Bedwyns?” the earl asked.

  Wulf's eyebrows arched upward. “Are they not already there?” he asked. “Are they not under my sister-in-law's wing, even if only figuratively speaking at the moment? And is not Lady Aidan a Bedwyn?”

  The Earl of Luff gazed at him as if he might well have two heads and then shook his head as if dismissing such absurdity. “Your sudden affection for these children does seem somewhat suspect, Mr. Morris,” he said. “The relationship apart, your concern for them certainly appears to be motivated by spite. And with a single but Mrs. Morris has set in doubt her claim to love them. One wonders if they would not be considerably happier in Lady Aidan's household even if Colonel Bedwyn is to be gone for years. With the assurance that they will be under the Duke of Bewcastle's protection, I feel I must pronounce that it is for the greater good of David and Rebecca Aislie to be given into the legal custody of Lady Aidan Bedwyn, who gave them a home and affection when no one else wanted them. It is so ordered.”

  For a moment Aidan thought Eve was going to collapse. But she held herself erect, her knuckles white against the chair arms. And then her eyes sought his.

  He smiled at her.

  CHAPTER XIX

  EVE WAS WEDGED BETWEEN BECKY AND DAVY ON the carriage seat, one arm about each of them. She could not bear the thought of letting them go—not yet. Becky was showing her a little lace handkerchief filled with treasures—a brooch with one of the paste diamonds missing, a silver earring whose partner was apparently lost, a bracelet with a broken clasp—all of which Aunt Jemima had given her. Davy was silent.

  They appeared to have been well cared for. Aunt Jemima had apparently fussed over them and pressed food—especially cakes—on them in vast quantities. She had tucked Becky into bed each night and kissed her and sung lullabies to her.

  “But I did miss your stories, Aunt Eve,” she said. “And I missed you. And Benjamin. And Aunt Thelma and Aunt Mari. And Nanny.”

  “And everyone has missed the two of you,” Eve said, hugging them both tightly. “I missed you dreadfully all the time I was away. I am not going away again, not without you. I am going to stay with my family. With my children. And no one is going to take you on a vacation again unless you are asked first if you wish to go and I am there to see that you are asked. It was rather thoughtless of Cousin Cecil to send Mr. Biddle to fetch you merely because someone imagined there were bad men in the area. He might have frightened you. But Aunt Jemima really did wish to see you.”

  “He said we were not to be allowed to go back to Ringwood,” Davy said, speaking for the first time.

  “He was mistaken,” Eve said. “I daresay Aunt Jemima did not say that, did she? No less a person than the Earl of Luff, who is a magistrate in this part of the world, has just now stated that Ringwood is to be your permanent home and that I am to be your mama—or standing in place of your mama,” she added carefully. She had always encouraged the children to remember their parents and talk of them.

  Becky was gazing at Aidan, who was sitting on the seat opposite, his knees occasionally brushing Eve's. “Are you our new papa?” she asked.

  He did not answer immediately, and Eve raised her eyes unwillingly to his. He would surely be leaving tomorrow, especially now that his brother was here with a private carriage to convey him. There was no further
reason for him to stay. She had been aware of it from the very moment of victory, which had brought knee-weakening relief and soaring happiness, echoed in the loud cheer with which the earl's verdict had been greeted. But it had been a bittersweet moment. He would be leaving tomorrow.

  Yet he had smiled at her.

  It had not been just the expression with the eyes she had interpreted as a smile during the ball at Bedwyn House. This had been a full-faced, radiant smile, curving his mouth, crinkling his eyes at the corners, brightening his whole face. All the dark, forbidding harshness had fled, to be replaced by a beauty full of light and warmth and potential laughter.

  It had been somehow, strangely, more intimate than any of their couplings had been. Something deep within him, some joy brighter than the sun, had reached out to envelop her, to enfold her more closely than arms.

  Or so it had seemed. It had been merely a smile.

  He had smiled at her. For an eternity. For perhaps ten or fifteen seconds, until Cecil had stormed out of the room and Aunt Jemima, weeping piteously, had come hurrying forward to hug Eve and tell her that she loved the dear children, she did, she did, but she was too old and weary to cope with their day-to-day care. Eve had hugged her back and assured her that she could come and visit them—and visit her—whenever she chose. By the time she had returned her attention to Aidan, he had been at the back of the room in conversation with the Duke of Bewcastle and the Earl of Luff, looking remote and rather grim again in his uniform.

  She had not tarried. She had just learned from Aunt Jemima that the children were below stairs in the taproom, being entertained by two of the Three Feathers' chambermaids. Eve had dashed down the stairs, taking them two at a time in grossly unladylike fashion, and had rushed into the taproom to scoop them up, one at a time, laughing and dancing them in circles. She could scarcely remember a happier moment in her life.

  “I daresay,” Aidan said now to Becky, “you remember your papa, do you? He will always be your papa even though he is unable to be with you any longer. I am here to stand in for him, to make sure that you are always safe and warm and that you have the care and the education to help you grow into a fine young lady and Davy into a fine young man.”

  “What will I call you?” Becky asked.

  She had taken him by surprise, Eve could see. His eyebrows rose.

  “Hmm,” he said. “Let me see. My wife is Aunt Eve. I suppose that makes me Uncle Aidan.”

  It sounded absurd. So absurd that Eve laughed. Who would ever have thought it? Colonel Lord Aidan Bedwyn inviting two waifs to call him Uncle Aidan? How she loved him! But it was too painful a realization to cope with at the moment. She smiled down at Becky again.

  Tomorrow he would be leaving.

  THE DUKE OF BEWCASTLE HAD ACCEPTED AN INVITATION to stay for one night at Ringwood Manor. Anything was better, he had said in his habitual soft, haughty voice, than staying at the Three Feathers again, and judging from the look on the landlord's face when he had seen him enter the inn below the assembly rooms earlier, his grace had added, that worthy shared the sentiment.

  It amazed and puzzled Eve that he had come, but she had not given much thought to his motive until she entered the drawing room just prior to dinner and found him there alone. There was no sign of Aidan.

  She had always disliked the duke. She was also, she admitted at that moment, just like everyone else in his orbit, afraid of him. But it was a fear she had never allowed herself to succumb to. She resisted now the urge to make some excuse to disappear from the room again or to chat brightly about inconsequentials. She advanced deliberately across the room, both hands outstretched. He had no choice but to take them in his own, looking faintly surprised and perhaps also a touch uncomfortable.

  “Thank you,” she said. “From the bottom of my heart, thank you.” She squeezed his hands before releasing them—more slender, longer-fingered, than Aidan's, a ring on each hand.

  “I am unaware,” he said, “of having done you any great service, Lady Aidan.”

  “I do not know how long you were standing there before you spoke,” she said, “but you must have understood that the verdict stood very much in the balance, that the earl was just as likely to uphold his decision to grant custody to Cecil as he was to give the children back to me. It was what you said that swayed his decision. More even than that, though, it was your presence.”

  “I am glad to have been of some slight service, then,” he said.

  “Why did you come?” She wanted to retreat, to sit down and busy herself with something. His silver eyes with their very direct gaze were disconcerting at the best of times. But she stood where she was, a mere couple of feet from him. “It could not have been for the children's sake. You can feel nothing but indifference for the orphans of a shopkeeper. It could not have been for my sake. You tolerate me at best, despise me at worst, I believe, and I annoyed you considerably by insisting upon missing the dinner at Carlton House. It must have been for Aidan's sake, then.”

  “It is soothing,” he said, “to discover someone who knows me so well that she can answer her own questions for me and thus save me the effort of forming them for myself.”

  She flushed at the haughty reproof. “Why did you come?” she asked.

  “I came, ma'am,” he said, “because I am head of the Bedwyn family and have always considered it my duty to concern myself with its members. You are now one of their number and will continue to be, no matter how strongly you assert your independence, no matter how firmly you send Aidan away forever when his leave is over. It appeared that you might have need of my influence, which is, as you have witnessed, considerable. And so I came.”

  “You came for my sake, then?” She frowned. He seemed too cold a man to have acted out of kindness. But it had not been kindness. He had just said it himself—it had been duty. Just like Aidan, he was motivated by duty more than by anything else. They were so similar, the two brothers, in many ways. Yet they were not friends.

  The duke slightly inclined his head.

  “What is between you and Aidan?” she found herself asking. “Why are you not . . . close? You are similar in age and in temperament.” That was not quite right, though. There was fire behind Aidan's reticence, ice behind the duke's. “You both place honor and duty above all else. Why are you not close?”

  His eyebrows had gone up, his quizzing glass was in his hand, and his light eyes froze her. He had, she realized, retreated behind the thickest of his masks. She wondered suddenly if there was a real man behind even the thinnest of them.

  “Do brothers have to be demonstrative in the Welsh manner, then, ma'am,” he asked her, “clasped to each other's bosom, weeping sentimental tears with every parting and every quarrel and reconciliation, proclaiming the depths of their sentiment for each other in florid, impassioned language? Must there be something between them if they comport themselves with a more English restraint?”

  She had rattled him. He whipped her with cold words and open contempt for her compatriots. But she had rattled him.

  “Do you love him, then?” she asked.

  “You use women's words, Lady Aidan,” he said. “Love. What is love but an abstract term that cannot even be defined except in terms of action? Aidan is a Bedwyn. He is my brother and—unless or until I produce a son of my own—my heir. His life is important to me as is his . . . happiness. I would die for him if such an extreme and dramatic gesture were called for. Is that love? You may decide for yourself.”

  The door opened before he had finished speaking and Aunt Mari came in, supporting herself on her cane. Thelma was with her—Eve had insisted that she dine with them, as she always did. Aunt Mari immediately began to talk with great enthusiasm about the trial, as she insisted upon calling this afternoon's hearing. The duke's expression became pained as he listened to the thick Welsh accent.

  Five more minutes passed before Aidan put in an appearance, no longer in his uniform, but clad in elegant blue and gray evening wear with crisp white li
nen.

  “Andrews arrived from London so late this afternoon that he had not got my shirt ironed,” he said. “He would not hear of my wearing it unironed despite the fact that there was not a wrinkle visible to my unpracticed eye. I decided that being a little late was preferable to seeing him weep with mortification.”

  Turning toward him, Eve felt nothing but pain. He had come all this way with her, braving his brother's wrath. He had fought for her today and for children who meant nothing to him. He had smiled at her.

  And he was leaving tomorrow.

  “But then you always were rather careless of your appearance, Aidan,” the duke remarked.

  “Dinner will be ready,” Eve said. “Shall we go into the dining room?”

  Belatedly, as Aidan offered Aunt Mari his arm and the Duke of Bewcastle stepped forward to offer her his, Eve thought that she should have had Agnes bring drinks into the drawing room. How gauche they would think her.

  EVEN TO DASH DOWN INTO THE COUNTRY FOR ONE day Bewcastle had brought a veritable cavalcade with him—his own crested carriage, a baggage coach to carry his belongings and his valet, two coachmen, two footmen for his own carriage, and six outriders, all dressed in glorious livery.

  Aidan, standing on the terrace next morning with Eve to see him on his way, felt a strange pang of sadness. This was what Wulf had come to—that bright, energetic, mischievous boy of memory, now a cold, lonely aristocrat with so much power that he could exert it with the mere lifting of one long finger or the raising of one dark brow. Or with one softly spoken word. For a moment Aidan felt an unfamiliar tightness in his chest. He was not usually affected by farewells, especially when he expected to see the other again within the next few days.

  Why had Wulf come? He had puzzled over the question ever since yesterday afternoon, yet could still not quite accept the obvious answer that his brother had come merely because a Bedwyn was in distress and his consequence might settle the matter. Why would Wulf care that Eve would suffer over the loss of two orphans, even if she was a Bedwyn? Was it possible that he had come—was it?—because he knew Aidan cared for Eve and he cared for Aidan? Cared, that was, not just out of ducal duty but out of brotherly . . . love? There had been no point in asking him. He would have looked back at Aidan with his silver eyes and raised eyebrows, quizzing glass in hand, looking as if he had never heard of the word.