Scandalous Ever After

by Theresa Romain

  Kate cleared her throat. “What can I get you, Gwyn?”

  The effect was instant and delightful: the dowager shot upright, scattering cushions to the floor. “You dare call me by my Christian name?”

  “Yes, indeed.” Kate blinked as placidly as one of the little black cows she pastured. “You have always called me by mine, and therefore you clearly wish for greater familiarity. Which makes sense, as I am your nearest living relative and the mother of your grandchildren. I must apologize that it took me so long to grasp your preference.”

  “I need a headache powder.” Gwyn swung her feet to the floor, half-rising. “It’s no use to ask for one—”

  “Of course it is!” Kate sprang from her chair. “I’ll ring for a maid, and you can go with her to the stillroom and show her exactly how you want it prepared. You know best about your own health.”

  With a sniffle, Gwyn plumped back onto the sofa seat. “I haven’t the energy to rise right now.”

  Good Lord. Kate put up with this every day? Gwyn’s demands were no kind of a replacement for a friendly evening of chat. Even the fire, with its rounded bricks of peat, flickered in seeming exasperation.

  Before Evan could protest, Kate was speaking in a soothing tone. “I understand, Gwyn. You must be exhausted after taking such tender care of the children. We’ll cover you with a blanket and leave you to rest.”

  “I’ll manage.” One of Gwyn’s feet came down right onto a fallen cushion. “Is there anything left from dinner? A little something to soothe my nerves…”

  Kate sat again, then looked at Evan, questioning. “Oyster patties, I think?”

  “Maybe a few,” said Evan. “I ate them as though I were a shark. And Nora and Declan have probably finished the remaining ones.”

  “Oysters? Such a common food!” Gwyn’s mouth pursed. “Con would never have allowed oysters on the table.”

  “That’s true,” Kate said. “He preferred much costlier food.”

  “And now you eat oysters in his absence!” God. The dowager could make eating oysters sound like a moral trespass worthy of an eternity of fire and brimstone.

  Kate’s eyes were hard, but her tone was honeyed. “We do. We must retrench.”

  Of all her agreements with Gwyn’s nonsense, this was the first one that rang completely true. He took her side with the most ridiculous comment he could think of. “If the vicar hasn’t forbidden the eating of oysters, surely it’s permissible.”

  Gwyn sniffed. “Just because he has not forbidden it does not mean it’s not wrong.”

  With weary docility, Kate replied, “I agree. There must be many things that are wrong that the vicar has not yet addressed.”

  Evan pushed back. “What about hoisting a sheep through a window? Con and I did that once at school.”

  A smile touched Kate’s lips. “Quite wrong, surely.”

  “Or riding a horse into church? We did that too. Well, I rode and Con led the horse.”

  “I should have to ask the vicar,” said Kate. “Likely you were both wrong, but one of you was more wrong than the other. I shall ask him about that when I ask if I may eat oysters anymore.”

  “You may not,” said Evan, “for the oyster season is over. Today’s patties were the last available.”

  “This is true. I shall ask ahead for next year.”

  Gwyn tracked this exchange with watery eyes, doubtless wondering where she could stick out a verbal foot. “You shall make me sob with all your talk of Con!” she burst out.

  “I could remind you of him by putting a sheep through your bedchamber window,” Evan said.

  “Oh! You make mock of me.”

  Evan shrugged. “Not really. The sheep was Con’s idea.”

  At that moment, the children thundered back into the drawing room. “We ate all the oyster patties,” announced Nora. “Cook said she was saving them for you, Uncle Evan, but—”

  “We told her we were starving!” Declan sounded proud. “And she gave them to us with extra melted butter.”

  “Oysters,” groaned Gwyn. “Starving! After all I’ve done…”

  “How about a game?” Kate said brightly. “Let’s play who’s-the-saddest, and see which of us can be the most morose.”

  “Ah—no, thank you,” Evan broke in with hurried words. God. That was the sort of invitation Gwyn did not need. “That’s not the sort of game that has a winner. Who would like to see my magic lantern?”

  “I would!” said Declan. “Do you have any horrid slides?”

  “That depends on what you think of my artistic abilities.”

  “Uncle Evan’s slides are not horrid,” said Kate. “They’re clever.”

  He knew she was being “agreeable” Kate, yet the compliment was like a warm touch. “Thank you.”

  “Awww.” Declan kicked the side of his grandmother’s sofa. “I wanted to see something disgusting.”

  “Forgery of historical artifacts for the purposes of smuggling is disgusting,” Evan said in his serious-lecturer voice. Declan laughed.

  “I cannot bear the sight of a magic lantern.” Gwyn sighed. “That bright lamp! The glass slides! An abomination against human eyesight. No, no, you must excuse me.”

  “Very well,” said Kate, almost too quickly for politeness. “You may certainly be excused.”

  “I’ll fetch my lantern case,” Evan said.

  Kate followed him to the doorway of the drawing room. “Now you have the full experience of residents of Whelan House,” she whispered. “How did this compare to dinner with your family? Which was the more torturous ordeal?”

  She was flushed and pretty, curious and indignant, and he wanted nothing more than to collect her in a crushing embrace. “The dinner with my family was far more torturous,” he replied. “Except for the bits with you. I do love watching you play the delightful brat.”

  “You could try to sound a little less triumphant,” she said, but she sounded mollified.

  “I could, but I don’t want to. It’s nice being Gwyn’s golden boy for a few minutes. Did you hear how pleased she was to see me?”

  “You almost sound serious.”

  “Do I? I shouldn’t have let that happen. Terrible habit to get into.” His heart beat more quickly as she looked at him. Close enough to see within him—close enough to kiss.

  “So you say,” she said. “But I know better. One of us must change.”

  From her glance backward toward the sofa, from which her mother-in-law was rising, Evan understood that by us, she meant herself and Gwyn.

  “Why only one?” he asked, and he included himself too.

  * * *

  Kate could not remember the last time she had enjoyed one of her mother-in-law’s visits more—or at all. But the enjoyment came only from testing the strangling bond between them.

  She had not needed to let Good Old Gwyn take over the manor house for all these years, had she? And she had not needed to be alone.

  Had she done the best she could?

  Was she doing her best, even now? She’d played the—what had Evan called it? The delightful brat again, and she felt shaky.

  Con had been Gwyn’s only child, and Kate had allowed her mother-in-law the refuge of deep grief. But it was not a feeling on which she wished to dwell. Not after the first shock of Con’s loss, and certainly not now. Gwyn was as mired in loss as the people of Thurles expected Kate to be.

  If she were not lost, how ought she to feel instead?

  As Evan lit a lamp and set up his magic lantern, Kate exited the drawing room and closed the door on everything she wanted. Peace. Warmth. The smiles of her children.

  Instead, she retrieved a pistol and powder from the locked gun case in the study. Exiting through the front door into the sunset coolness of evening, she tacked a slip of paper to a tree and shot a tidy hole through all her que
stions.

  Sixteen

  The following morning, Evan descended from his customary guest bedchamber—another spot in Whelan House that had changed not at all—to find the servants in a bustle.

  Declan and Nora, it seemed, had been absent from the nursery since their governess rose, and they had not returned in time for the morning’s lessons. The house had been searched from attic to cellar—but quietly, so as not to disturb Lady Whelan. The countess had been in the study since dawn, sorting through the accumulated papers of her absence, and doubtless would not take kindly to the news that her children had been misplaced the day after her return.

  “The rogue housekeeper has returned,” Evan murmured. In a normal tone, he asked the actual housekeeper, “Do the children run away from their lessons often?”

  “They didn’t used to.” Mrs. Teagan, plump and black-clad like every housekeeper Evan had ever seen, clasped her hands in worry. “But these last few months they have, and it’s a fuss every time.”

  Maybe the fuss is what they like. But Evan kept this thought to himself, only asking, “Have any of the grounds been searched? Or have the servants combed only the house?”

  “Only the house as yet, Mr. Rhys. Why—have you an idea?”

  “I have,” he said.

  Where else would the children of a Chandler and an Irish earl go when distressed, but the stables?

  He left the house, crossing the grounds, and soon reached his destination. The stables of Whelan House were of solid old stone construction, like the manor house. Also like the house, they had been maintained well, and much had been done to make them comfortable. The windows were large, the floors slightly sloping for drainage. The walls were thick, hushing the space within, and the earthy scents of horse and manure and grass-sweet straw were as comforting as a fire on a cold night.

  In short, it was a good place to hide from one’s lessons. A good place to come even if one had nothing to hide from. Although what that might be like, Evan couldn’t say.

  He walked from stall to stall, peering in, catching grooms at work, noting a few empty stalls where animals had been sold. But horses kept for everyday work or for the steeplechase were less expensive and finicky than Thoroughbreds, and Evan was relieved to note that most of the empty stalls were being mucked out—indicating that their inhabitants were at pasture or being exercised.

  And then he spotted them: two dark-haired children, not even trying to hide as they curried Lady Alix. They had put her on a lead and taken her from her stall. Declan had shrugged off his jacket, and Nora had strewn her shoes and stockings on the floor.

  Lady Alix turned her head toward Evan and fixed him with a tolerant gaze. Children. What can one do?

  When Declan and Nora didn’t look up, he knocked on the swinging door of the cob’s vacated stall. “Oy, you two. Have you become stable hands?”

  “Hullo, Uncle Evan.” Nora passed a currycomb over the mare’s barrel in a gentle, practiced pattern. “When I took off my shoes, she tried to eat them. Can you believe it?”

  “I can, actually.”

  “I want to be a stable hand.” Declan was combing out the mare’s long tail, standing in just the right place to avoid a kick.

  “And what are you two doing out here?”

  “We had to meet the new horse,” Nora said innocently. “Watch this.” She picked up a fallen stocking and draped it over the cob’s head. Lady Alix rolled her eyes upward, curious, then shook her head until the stocking fell to the ground again. “She didn’t try to eat it that time, but sometimes she does.”

  “She likes tossing things to the floor,” Evan said. “You’ve found her favorite game. Congratulations.” He swung open the stall door. “But it’s not the right time to play destroy-the-stockings with my horse, you know.”

  Declan frowned. “You’re here because we ran away from lessons.”

  “Smart lad, not to pose that as a question,” Evan said. “Yes. To be specific, I’m here because the servants were worried that they couldn’t find you.”

  “I’m glad they couldn’t find us,” Nora replied. “We didn’t want to be found.”

  Evan stepped onto the bottom of the z-shaped frame at the stall door’s back. He kicked off from the floor, riding the arc of the door as it swung fully open, then began to shut. “You know,” he said idly, “your governess might lose her post if you don’t learn.”

  “I don’t want a governess,” said Nora.

  “I don’t want to learn,” Declan replied.

  “Fair enough. I was the same way at your ages.”

  Declan waved at him with the comb. “And you grew up right enough.”

  Lady Alix tossed her head. Smart girl.

  “Did I?” For the most part, he supposed he had. He had not lacked for comforts, and he had been safe and content. But the broad arc of his life—hopeless love from the age of twenty-one, life lived under a cloud of grayness—he would not wish on anyone.

  “I didn’t say I was allowed to have what I wanted, you might note. Only that I wanted it.” The hinges of the stable door creaked, and Evan stepped to the floor, easing the door back into its open position. “You’ve got to decide for yourselves what sort of people you want to be. But I can tell you, I’ve never been sorry to learn something. Only not to learn something. And I never had to administer an earldom or entice a gentleman into falling at my feet.”

  “Disgusting,” said Declan.

  Nora giggled. “It sounds awful.”

  Maybe, just maybe, they had listened to him—so before he could be tempted to use the serious-lecturer voice again, he turned the subject. “How did you like your gifts from England?”

  “I liked Nan’s.” Nora curried a spot she had surely curried twice already, while Lady Alix bent her head to nibble loose straw on the stable floor. “Mama gave her a prayer book, did you know? I liked the face Nan made when she opened it.”

  “It looked like she ate moldy cheese!” Declan crowed.

  “I got ribbons. And cloth.” Nora spoke these words with such scorn she might as well have been talking of moldy cheese herself. “She wants me to grow up and be a lady.”

  “Oh, the horror of it.” Evan leaned against a latched stall door. “Are you sure that’s what she meant, Nora?”

  “I’m twelve. I’ll have to leave the schoolroom soon and wear long dresses and never take off my stockings to put them on a horse’s head.”

  Well, shite. He hadn’t a clue what to say to this sort of youthful feminine distress. “I think,” he ventured, “your mother wants you to have what she hasn’t. New things, made the way you like them. And remember what I said about being a lady? You already are one, because you have worth.”

  Nora opened her mouth to protest.

  “No, sorry,” Evan said. “No protests. I’m right. You’re a lady, and your mother loves you and wants good things for you. It’s a heavy burden, but it’s yours.”

  Nora closed her mouth and tried not to smile.

  “What about me?” Declan asked. “Why did Mama bring me toy soldiers?”

  This, Evan had to think about. “Maybe because she’s good at shooting.”

  “That’s for damn sure,” said Declan.

  “You’ll have to excuse him,” Nora said. “He says that word all the time.”

  “I’ll try to bear up.” Evan folded his arms. “How was it staying with your Nan?”

  “Fine,” Nora said. “I’d rather be home.”

  Declan pulled a face. “We still had to have lessons.”

  “To be expected,” Evan said. “If the ten plagues of Egypt cover the land, lessons will still remain.”

  “Is that in Nan’s prayer book?” Declan asked.

  Nora cuffed her brother with the currycomb. “She didn’t see us much. Mostly, she was in her chamber. When I saw her through the open door.”

>   “You opened the door! Spy!” the boy hooted.

  “It swung open,” Nora said hotly. “I bumped it by accident.”

  “On the handle.”

  Evan held up a quelling hand, and Nora continued. “She was looking out the window a lot. I think she’s sad.”

  “Why, was she looking at Whelan House?” Evan could not recall the arrangement of the dower house.

  “No, the other way. North, toward the woods.”

  “Maybe she was watching the riders,” Declan suggested. “People are always riding through the woods to practice for the chase.”

  “I wish I could ride in the chase,” Nora said. “Mama rode in it every year except for the years Declan and I were born.”

  “I remember that. I saw her ride, time and again.” Evan was delighted by the memory that came to mind. Kate, flushed and whooping, guiding her cob over jumps and hedges with grace and glee.

  “Da did too, every year. And now chase season is beginning, and everyone in Thurles will be utterly boring about it.” Declan said this with the desperate scorn of a boy who wanted very much to take part in the forbidden activity.

  From past years, Evan remembered this season. The chase was a point-to-point race, held every November when the ground was soft and spongy. Formal chases for purses were held on the Thurles racecourse, but a steeplechase could be any good pounding race across terrain, held for any wager at any time.

  “Maybe someday you’ll be a part of it,” Evan said. “Now, tell me what you think of Lady Alix. You’ve buffed her till she’s gleaming.”

  “She’s funny.” Nora set aside the currycomb. “But she did ruin my stockings.”

  “I think her name should be Spider.” Declan regarded the neat tail with pride, then tossed the comb to Nora for her to place alongside the currycomb.

  “Why is that?” Evan had to ask.

  “Because Declan always wants to name the horses something horrible,” Nora grumbled.

  Evan covered a laugh. “Spiders make fine webs. Lady Alix can step a beautiful pattern, so the name wouldn’t fit her ill. But she’d miss her honorific, I think. Would you like to ride her sometime?”