“There are behaviors, my lord, that…”
“I’ll take that as a ‘yes’.” He grinned down at Moira who had readily taken his offered arm. “And you, brat, how are you today?”
Moira returned his smile with a sunny one of her own and fairly batted her eyelashes at him. “I’m very well, my lord. And you?”
“Call me Francis, darlin’.” He grinned devilishly at Evelyn with a wink, enjoying her gasp of surprise tremendously. He was determined to tease her from her prim decorum if it took him all day. “I suppose if I were wearing my best morning hat, I would tip it and offer you a good morning. But, I’m not, so I suppose I won’t.” He offered his arm again to Evelyn with a raised eyebrow. “Well, my lady?”
“I think that it would be best if we did not acquaint ourselves, my lord.”
“I do not agree, but be assured I will be a perfect gentleman.” He placed a hand over his heart. “I offer my word of honor, my lady, that I will behave.”
“Oh, come along, Evie,” Moira taunted her, “enjoy yourself for a change.”
Outdone by their show of alliance, Evelyn fell in… for a change.
The earl couldn’t help but notice that Eve looked conservatively lovely today in a very nice walking gown of dark green woolen with black cording and black short jacket that just hugged the sides of her breasts. The skirt was drawn up to drape in folds over a black underskirt and gathered up in the back of the tournure. The slim silhouette of the outfit enhanced her tall, willowing figure, showing the flair of her hips and fullness of her breasts to perfection. Just the sight of her stirred his blood beyond the polite boundaries of his vowed friendship. It was all he could do not to stare.
“What should we do today, ladies?” Francis asked casually, as they strolled from the gardens and across the lawns.
Moira tossed a coy look to Eve as she hung on Francis’ arm earning a stern frown from her friend. “Oh, Evie has events and entertainments planned for the rest of the weekend.”
“Do you now?” he asked with a raised brow. “Is there to be no spontaneity then?”
“Any hostess knows that in a large house party there should be plenty of activities planned to entertain everyone,” Eve lectured, while fighting back a blush as if she should be embarrassed by proper organization.
“It’s almost like you are reading from a book, my dear,” he lightly chided. “You should relax a bit. Everything will be just fine.”
“You don’t understand at all, my lord,” she rejoined.
“Francis,” he reminded. “Why don’t you enlighten me?”
“A hostess’ duty…” she began.
“Can be laid to rest when there is only family in residence. I understand from Abby that most everyone who is staying is a relation. Is that not so?” he asked.
“It is, my lord.” Francis scowled at her and she sighed in defeat. “Francis.”
He sent her a lopsided grin that made her heart skip a beat before it raced. “Well, family does not need to be constantly entertained. They can fend for themselves, leaving you free to also enjoy yourself.”
I was planning on enjoying myself, she insisted to herself, but didn’t say it aloud lest he tease her that she must need to plan time for enjoyment into her day.
“Evie planned for archery today,” Moira told him when Eve remained silent. “Of course, the only reason she did so is because she was always best at it and wants to show off her skills to everyone.”
“Moira! That is not true!” Eve’s cheeks warmed as she felt Francis’ teasing eyes on her face. “It is an enjoyable pastime for all.”
“That you happen to be very good at,” Moira added.
Francis looked at Eve, intrigued. Such a skill seemed much more like the Eve he had met years before. “Are you very good?”
“I have had my moments,” she shrugged modestly.
“Eve won the pin at some big summer tournament in Newport three years running,” Moira clarified.
Francis was impressed and gave a low whistle to signify that fact. “Is that so?”
“It is,” Moira answered for her. “Of course, Evie has always been something of an athlete. Very unladylike behaviors,” she tsked although her grin was wide and playful. “Tennis and golf, as well. Though Abby and I are the ones who taught her to play.”
“You play golf as well?”
“Probably better than you,” Eve amended primly.
“I would not be so sure,” he offered with a challenging glint in his eye.
“Perhaps then, my lord, you should try to do your best at facing me over a chess board, since I have no hope of besting you on a golf course?” A twinkle flashed in her eye before she glanced away.
“You play chess as well?” he asked though he supposed he should not be surprised.
“Ummm,” she hummed mysteriously.
Pleased that the countess was emerging from her shell more and more when challenged, Francis bragged in a way that was sure to prick at her feminine sensibilities, “‘Tis a man's game, you know. Strategy of war and all that. You can’t possibly beat me, you know. I am very good.”
“We’ll see, my lord. We’ll see,” she offered demurely but with a challenging gleam in her eye that gained a delighted grin from him.
“So I will, sooner rather than later, but I would like to see you play golf as well. I have a small country manor just south of St. Andrews that the family stays at when we play, you know. Perhaps we can go there sometime and play a round,” Francis offered. He imagined her swinging a golf club or chipping up to the green against the seas and sky of St. Andrews. It was a sight he truly wanted to see one day. However… he braced himself for what he was sure was coming, and he wasn’t disappointed.
“I am sure that would be completely improper,” was her stiff response as she closed up again. Getting used to this new version of Evelyn, he wasn’t surprised.
“Evelyn Preston, lighten up!” Moira chided suddenly. “You are acting as if you have never bent the rules before. My friend, you spent the majority of your formative years breaking more rules than you followed!”
“Did you indeed?” Francis asked. He was even more intrigued now as he realized how little he had known about Eve really. Sassy and athletic? “Do tell.”
Encouraged by the blatant interest in his eyes, Eve relented for a moment. “My Da always encouraged me to do what I wanted to do, not what others expected of me. I just wanted to travel, see new places, learn new things and meet new people. That’s why I went to university to study art and architecture. I speak three languages, did you know?” she bragged just a bit, though she winced in self-disgust the moment the words were out. She couldn’t comprehend that she was actually trying to impress the man.
“Indeed, I did not know.” He led them to a bench near the firth where Eve had sat the previous morning and brushed it clean before gesturing for them to sit for a moment. It might have been only April, but the sun had moved high overhead now bringing with it undeniable warmth. A few moments of rest were due to the ladies. The bench was in the shade of the large oak and the breeze across the water was cool.
They nodded their heads and thanked him.
“And I liked being an athlete,” she gave the word the same emphasis that Moira had, as if it were something naughty.
“Heavens, Francis,” Moira chimed in. “She wore crimson and diamonds to her debut! Even I was not so daring!”
Francis chuckled at the picture that came to his mind, so far from the standard whites and pearls of the debutantes he had seen, as he lowered himself to the ground at their feet and loosened his tie, thankful that Eve seemed relaxed enough now not to comment on his further bad behavior. “Did you truly?”
Eve shrugged, dismissing the moment, but again there was that glimmer in her eyes that told him she was enjoying the memory of her rebellious self. “Mother was aghast, of course. Da said to do what I want and damn the consequences. The Season we were here, he would always thumb his nose at the sticklers a
nd give them a good ‘Cheerio!’”
Eve turned her face to the breeze, closed her eyes and thought fondly of her father. Despite their standing in Society, Eve had always called him ‘Da’ rather than the proper ‘Father’ and he called Eve his ‘little sinner’; a nickname many considered common and not a little blasphemous. Kitty he called his ‘little kitty-cat’ showing, in the opinion of many, his distasteful heritage. The Prestons had laughed openly and showed affection for each other in public, which was nearly unheard of in their social set.
“Yet we were very popular here and at home as well, despite our unconventional ways,” she told him. Their popularity was the result of their wit and charm; their acceptance in Society the result of their wealth and connections. The combination of the two had forgiven the Prestons their regrettable Irish heritage and lack of proper form.
“Your mother must have quite despaired in you,” he commented with a chuckle.
Eve shared a laugh and a smile with Moira remembering some of the letters her mother had sent her while at school. “Indeed, she did,” she admitted.
“Well, she had Kitty anyway to mold into her image,” Moira laughed.
“Kitty?” Francis questioned.
“My sister,” Eve reminded, “the one who looks enough like me to be my twin?”
“Ah, I remember.”
“Kitty was always the one who did best following the rules,” Moira laughed. “The rest of us never did! I think Eve might have been the worst of us!”
Moira and Francis laughed over this together but for a moment Eve remembered how she used to be – a mixture of what was right and what was wrong. She and her father, as well, may have lived in a society of rules and rituals, but neither had been very good at consistently doing what was polite and proper, as she was now.
Was either way better or worse?
One did not need to be always proper to have friends and be accepted. She had already proven that. Perhaps she could find her way back to the girl she was without completely flouting the rules of Society. Perhaps there was a way to blend who she had been with who she was now without getting lost in between. The idea bore some thinking about.
“I guess I was too much like my Da.”
“What is he like?”
“Shouldn’t you be asking some questions of Moira, my lord?” Eve asked primly. “I should hate for her to feel excluded from the conversation.”
“I have known this brat from the day of her birth!” Francis poked Moira in the side as she laughed down at him. “There is nothing about her I do not know, but there is much about you that I do not. Now tell me about your father.”
Eve glanced at Moira and received an encouraging nod. With a shrug, she went on. “Strong-willed, stubborn. To my knowledge he has only admitted that he was wrong about something once in his life.” That had been when Eve told him the truth about her marriage and asked him to help her get a divorce. He had said he was wrong to have forced her to marry. “He is a good man, though, a real fighter for what he wanted out of life.”
She told him the story of how Lelan Preston had come to America from Ireland with hopes of making his fortune, just as so many others had in those years, though not so many as current years had brought. Her father had known what he wanted to do and be, and had chased that dream to New York and, frankly, had gotten very lucky. Not long after his arrival, Preston had met a businessman up and coming in the industry of shipping and railroads, a man well on his way to becoming one of the richest men in New York, or even the country. Her father had offered his knowledge of shipping (an area in which he was well-tutored as it was his family’s business in Ireland) and partnered with that businessman in several ventures in that area. Later he expanded his interests into railroad contracts with the man as well.
Though after thirty years Lelan Preston could in no way rival the immense fortunes that Cornelius Vanderbilt had left his heirs, he knew well that he owed his own financial success to the faith that great man had put in his judgment and abilities.
And so Preston had made his fortune in a relatively short time. A fortune that continued to grow, but it was ‘new’ money and not worth much to the old guard of Society. Once it was discovered however that Preston was not just another Irish immigrant but the second son of Viscount Gormanston, the doors opened for him just a crack… just enough, as her father liked to joke, for him to thrust through them into that Grand Society. His family’s was a low rank, and Irish at that, but peerage was peerage. New Yorkers loved nothing better than nobility among their ranks.
Though Preston was clearly not cut out for the confines of such a close social atmosphere, only one thing keep him content to be there. Actually, one person. Not long after his road to wealth had started to be paved, Preston had wed Margaret Winters, a cousin of the Astors, one of the oldest and most respectable families in New York. Theirs was a true love match, quite unheard of at the time.
Lelan Preston had left his wife a year later to fight for his new country during the War Between the States. Also quite unheard of for a man of his financial circumstance, but Eve’s father was a man of strong convictions and beliefs. Throughout her entire life, Evelyn had learned that a person should always fight for what they believe in. Evelyn herself was born just months after the war ended. During those years of war, Maggie Winters Preston controlled the Preston industries, especially active in shipping during the war, much to the disapproval of her peers.
It remained Mrs. Preston’s single deviation from the confines of her role as society matron as dictated by generations of Knickerbocker elite.
“So your father was a self-made man, huh? Very impressive to amass such a fortune.” A frown wrinkled Francis’ brow. “Lelan Preston?”
Eve nodded, giving him a sly look from the corner of her eye. “Your father is Lelan Preston of New York? Owner of Preston Shipping and Transport?”
She nodded again and was rewarded with his whistle of amazement. “You did not know then?” she wondered aloud the question that had plagued her for years. “When we first met, that I was his daughter?”
“How would I have known?”
“Da had insisted you must have known, but I knew I was right, that you weren’t just another person who was out to gain something from my father, as he thought,” she confessed.
“No, I never knew until this moment. But I see more clearly now why Jack was so determined to pursue you.” Francis shook his head in amazement. And I am surprised he gave in so easily.
Chapter 16
To Evelyn’s chagrin, as the afternoon turned into evening, she could not determine whether Francis’ presence warmed her or disturbed her. His genuine interest in her family and interests was beyond flattering and appealing. She would guess that he knew more about her in one morning than William had garnered from their entire marriage. Francis was playful and teasing, but no more so than he was to Moira and Abby. Though she tried her best to maintain a barrier of formality between them, Francis bombarded her with his own style of familiarity until it was nearly destroyed.
When leaving to retire to her rooms for a rest and to change before dinner, the earl insisted on seeing her to her room, as unnecessary as it was. As they reached her door, Eve politely nodded her thanks and turned away only to have Francis take her hand and pull her back to face him. He gazed down at her with serious eyes. “Are you going to continue to deny this, Eden?” He ran the backs of his fingers down her cheek sending a flush of warmth in their wake and a trembling to her heart.
“Deny what?” she stuttered.
“Ahh, I see that you are. There is nothing for it then,” he opened her bedroom door and pulled her in quickly, shutting the door behind them.
“What are you doing?” Eve had meant to put some outrage in her voice but what emerged was a bit breathless as he backed her against the wall by the portal.
Francis cupped her face in his big hands as he stared down at her, his calloused thumbs caressing her cheeks. “Reminding you…” Tho
se low words were Eve’s only warning before his lips descended upon hers. His mouth was hot and hungry against hers, parting her lips and delving deeply.
Eve caught his wrists in her hands in an attempt to pull him away, but instead she was caught in the moment, overwhelmed by his passionate kiss. Helpless to fight him, she slid her hands up his bulging arms until she found his shoulders and hung on as he continued to plunder her mouth. After the briefest moment, she gave in and returned his kiss with equal measure, welcoming him and softening beneath him. His kiss lightened then as well, tenderly sucking her bottom lip between his as he dropped his own arms to pull her into his embrace, fitting his big body flush with hers. Eve could feel his heart pounding in his chest and felt hers answer the call.
Her head fell back in surrender and Francis took advantage, running his lips down her neck as she shivered and clung to him. “Oh, Francis,” she sighed. Eve could feel her blood racing hotly through her body, a coil of tension between her legs that had her clenching them tightly together. Never in all the years of her marriage had she felt such lust as Francis could inspire in a single kiss. She wanted it to go on forever. She never wanted it to end.
“Eden, my paradise,” he murmured, before claiming her lips once again pushing his hands into her hair until it spilled from its arrangement and fell around her shoulders. Francis wrapped the mass around his hands and pulled her closer. “How I want you, my love. I want to make love to you.”
Eve shuddered as another wave of overwhelming desire flooded her. She wanted him as well, wanted to feel the strength of his massive body around her. Over her. In her. She shuddered at the realization.
“Francis, I…” She pulled back and met his hot gaze, read all the wanting there. She swallowed deeply. Her eyes roamed his face, its swarthy, sun-kissed hues, the crinkles at the corner of his eyes, the fullness of his lower lip. With one hand she caressed the rough planes of his cheeks, feeling the stubble breaking through. She noticed the slight graying at his temples. Never had she seen a man so handsome, so compelling. A man whose sheer size made her feel petite and safe. She wanted so badly to just sink into him and lose herself in everything that they were together. But…
A Question of Love Page 11