She worried her lip with a nod. “Very well. Although I must point out that our engagement will make it all the easier for us to be alone. At least in theory.”
“Theories are something I like to test,” he said with a laugh. “And I very much look forward to that one.”
He leaned in and kissed her again, this time with more distraction and less purpose. Then he moved to the parlor door, where he paused and turned back.
“I know this future we are so carefully designing means as much to you as it does to me,” he said, meeting her gaze evenly. “And I swear to you, I will do everything in my power to make sure you aren’t sorry you chose me for your madcap plan.”
The warm feelings she’d been experiencing froze to ice with those words. Here he was making promises. She’d heard enough of those to wonder if they’d be broken. She nodded slowly. “I appreciate that, Henry. Goodbye.”
He wrinkled his brow in confusion at her cooler tone. Then he tipped his head and was gone, leaving her alone to ponder all her unexpected reactions to him. And torture herself with all the ways they could make the future go so wrong.
Henry entered his father’s study a quarter of an hour later, his mind cleared by the crisp winter air. Or at least somewhat cleared. It seemed he was never far from thoughts of Evangeline and the powerful ways she affected him, despite her constant refrain that their marriage was going to be nothing more than one of friendship and mutual benefit.
“Henry.” His father rose from his desk and eyed him carefully. Of course he would. The viscount had to believe Henry had come to speak to him about his ultimatum. The one he was supposed to answer by tomorrow afternoon.
Funny how that had fled his mind so easily once he touched Evangeline.
“Good afternoon, Father,” he said, reaching out a hand to the viscount.
He shook it warily and motioned his head toward the seat across from his desk. As Henry settled in, his father narrowed his gaze at him. “Did you come to finish our discussion?”
“In a way, I suppose yes. I actually have news for you,” Henry said, watching his father’s every move. He’d never been able to make the man happy for longer than a five-minute span. It would be interesting to see what that would look like.
“Great God, tell me it is good news,” the viscount said with a frown.
“I think it is good for me and for you.” Henry leaned forward. “I am to marry Lady Evangeline after the new year.”
His father stared, unblinking and unspeaking for almost a full minute. Long enough that Henry began to worry he might have been struck by an apoplexy. Then he shook his head slowly. “The Duke of Allingham’s daughter?” he asked, incredulity all but dripping from his words.
Henry shifted at the lack of faith in his tone. He lifted his chin slightly. “The very one, my lord.”
His father rose from his seat and looked down at him through a narrowed gaze. “Just how did you manage that?”
Henry shrugged. “The lady and I have always been friends. In recent weeks that has…blossomed. I asked for her hand today and the duke agreed.”
For a moment his father remained silent, but then he let out a great whoop and began to pace the room. “Great God, what news, what news! You have linked us to the very family I have spent decades infiltrating. It will solidify our friendship and make my entry into every level of Society all the easier.”
Henry fought the urge to roll his eyes. “Good that you see the benefit to yourself, Father.”
The viscount cast him a side look. “She is a comely girl, of course. And her dowry is a thing of legend. Good things for you. Yes, I’m very pleased.”
Henry got up and walked to the window. He’d been trying to please this man for years, and it was just this manipulation that did it. Wonderful. “I’m glad you are happy. I am happy, as well. I’m sure the duke will want to do an engagement ball, perhaps after Boxing Day since the Christmas holiday is just days away.”
“Excellent, excellent. I will co-sponsor it, of course. A very good way to make our alliance public.” He clapped his hands together and then he froze, staring at Henry. “I spoke to him about my concerns regarding your…activities.”
“He mentioned it,” Henry said with an arch of his brow. “You seem to be regretting that mention of my work now.”
“God’s teeth, boy, don’t call it your work, it makes it all the more vulgar.” His father ran a hand through his graying hair. “So he mentioned it, did he? You know it is more imperative than ever that you give up your nonsense. He will force it and I would assume that young woman will also turn up her nose at linking herself to someone who makes their pursuits so public and ostentatious.”
Henry let out his breath slowly. Here was the lie. Evangeline might be good at it, but for him it was harder. He’d never had much of a face for cards…which ironically his father would have been more accepting of as a vice.
“The duke made his thoughts on the matter very clear,” he said, sticking to facts. “It was a term of his agreement that I agree to give up my work in astronomy.” His stomach turned. “I said yes.”
His father’s face lit further. “Very good, you have sense in you yet. You and Lady Evangeline. What a lucky man.”
There was something slightly lewd to his father’s tone and Henry straightened up a little as his hackles rose. “Indeed, for who could ask for a more intelligent and witty bride?”
His father looked confused by that statement, but then shrugged. “To each his own. Well, I shall send word to Allingham right away. This shall be the engagement party to end all others, I will make sure of it.” He sat back down at his desk and waved his hand. “You are dismissed.”
Henry walked from the room slowly and went to the foyer where he could make his way back to his home across the park. Although he had done exactly as was asked and expected of him, he felt less than victorious in his actions.
After all, it seemed he was trading one control for another. And for the first time in his life he wanted something more than to just study his books and be left alone. He wanted something more than to be managed by his father or his brothers or even Evangeline.
He wanted the life he suddenly saw as a potential future. A life where he and Evangeline were equals, were partners, were truly bound together in spirit and soul and yes, in heart. Where control or manipulation didn’t come into the equation.
And he wondered if there was any chance for that life at all.
Chapter 13
The party to announce the surprise engagement between the Duke of Allingham’s eldest daughter and the Viscount Killam’s youngest son was the party of the decade, just as their fathers had desired. The ballroom was full to the point of bursting, and around Evangeline people were drinking and making merry and toasting not just her happiness, but the spiraling end of the old year and the near arrival of the new.
It all should have made her happy. After all, her plan was in full swing and everything was falling into place. And yet there was a nagging sensation in her chest, one she didn’t like. That sensation told her she was missing something. And if she was missing it, that meant she could not prepare for the contingencies it might bring.
She let out her breath in a long sigh and looked around the room. Her brother and his wife and Evangeline’s younger sister and her husband were all standing together. The women looked dutifully quiet and utterly bored as the men laughed with each other. She shivered.
Her gaze shifted and she found Tamsin Lesley in the crowd. There were many people watching her friend, actually, since her plan to be ruined had very much succeeded. Which was exactly why Evangeline had been certain to invite her, for she certainly wasn’t about to let her friend be destroyed by her plans.
Not that Tamsin was making it any easier by standing with Simon. Not just standing, but moving onto the dancefloor to take a turn with him. Evangeline wrinkled her brow as she wondered if ruination and a life with cats was still what Tamsin required. The way the two looked
at each other certainly felt like…connection.
She’d have to talk to Tamsin about it later, for at that moment she caught a glimpse of Henry. Henry, who she would wed in just a few weeks, once the banns began being read that coming Sunday.
He was standing alone by the punch table, an untouched drink in his hand and a faraway gaze in his eyes. He had not been himself all night. In fact, she hadn’t felt he was himself in the entire time since their engagement.
Something was off. Something she longed to uncover and fix. She was becoming emotionally attached and the fear that realization created was painful. Still, she couldn’t ignore her desire to help him…or even to be near him, and she found herself going across the room to him with a false smile on her face.
“You look very serious for a man celebrating his engagement,” she said, nudging him gently as she stepped up to take a place beside him.
“Marriage is a serious business,” he said with a flash of a smile in her direction. She had no idea if it was any less false than her own.
“Still, you will have people saying I’m forcing you to the altar with that dour expression.”
He chuckled, and now there was a relaxation of his mouth and shoulders that made her own do the same. “Based on our positions in life, I would guess some people are arguing I’m forcing you somehow.”
“Then dance with me—let’s show them we are both very pleased with the match,” she said, holding out a hand to him as the first bars of the waltz began.
He inclined his head and took the hand, guiding her onto the dancefloor, where they began to turn in time to the music. His arms were warm around her, his hand heavy on her hip and his gaze locked with hers as they sashayed around the floor again and again.
“What is troubling you, Henry?” she asked at last, uncertain she wanted to know the answer. It felt very personal.
He held her gaze. “A—a few things,” he admitted. He seemed to struggle with the words a moment and then he let out a huff of breath. “I suppose one thing is that it is difficult for me not to work.”
She frowned. She had thought he might struggle when his active mind was asked to be idle. And with the holiday, they’d had little time to see each other in the past few days.
“Would you have worked so very much during the merriments of the past few days?” she asked gently.
“I would have to escape those celebrations.” He shook his head. “Instead I was forced into a room with my father, my brothers and their families. Everyone was crowing over our match, of course, but also so very tedious about everything else. The things I care about are so different from what they find important. I think they feel they’ve won something by my giving up my endeavors toward science.”
She frowned. Henry defined himself so strongly with his search of the stars, his figures and experiments. She wasn’t certain she had fully understood that until now.
“I can imagine that is difficult,” she said, squeezing his hand gently as they turned around the ballroom floor yet another time. “But it is only short time. The sacrifice of a few weeks will result in a lifetime of freedom for us both.”
“I know you are right,” he said. “And I suppose it must sound foolish to you, my avoidance of societal norms. After all, you love the company of those of our rank. You must have enjoyed the past few days immensely.”
Evangeline worried her lip a little at the statement. She knew she should just agree and toddle off to the next benign subject, but before she could, he stared into her face.
“Didn’t you?” he asked.
She swallowed, and when she opened her mouth, words came out she hadn’t expected or planned for. “To be honest, not all that much.”
“Why?” he asked.
She sighed. “I spent the last few days with my family, too. My brother and sister brought their spouses. It should have been a very happy group, and often if was. But…”
She trailed off, trying to cut off the vulnerable revelations that seemed to be forced from her lips by a power beyond herself.
“But?” he pressed gently.
“But whenever I spend time with the women in my family, it only makes me…sad. My brothers, both in blood and in law, are men of rank and privilege. They do not expect or desire for their wives to have opinions. And they married women who comply, even when they are not in the company of their spouses. And like you, I was regaled with advice whenever I was alone with the women.”
“Advice about marriage?”
“Yes.” She shook her head. “How I shall have to give up my opinions, be ready to come at your beck and call, make my interests only your own.”
“That sounds utterly depressing,” he said with a twist to his expression. “And boring. The fact that you have your own opinions and pursuits is very attractive to me. I look forward to hearing them over our supper table. Two people should not become one when they are united. The best marriages I have seen, the true love matches that seem to last, are those where each partner does have their own separate life. They choose to unite with each other, not become…a—a symbiotic unit like a fungus on a tree.”
Evangeline couldn’t control the laughter that bubbled out of her lips at that image. She broke her hand from his and covered her mouth as the giggles kept coming. Luckily the waltz was coming to an end at the same time.
Henry laughed with her as he bowed, and she took his hand to let him lead her from the floor. “I’m glad to have amused you, though I’m not sure how.”
Tears were streaming down her face as she continued to laugh. “I’m just trying to imagine which of my siblings is the fungus and if any of them could be the tree in their marriages. I rather think my entire family is fungus. My father might be the tree.”
“Well, neither of us will be fungus,” he said, and held up a hand. “I solemnly vow as much. We shall be very separate trees, both of us.”
Her laughter subsided at the “very separate” part, even though that was exactly what she’d told the man that she wanted. He continued to stare at her, his expression changing and then he glided a thumb along the hand he still held.
“Will you escape with me?” he asked. “To one of the parlors for a quiet moment…alone?”
Her lips parted, for there was no denying the seductive tone to his voice. And no denying the way her body called back to that seduction, willing and able to surrender to whatever he planned.
She nodded. “I’d like that.”
“Good. What about the music room where we first kissed what feels like a lifetime ago, even though it wasn’t? I’ll step out first, you make your rounds and then follow?”
“An excellent plan, Mr. Killam,” she said. “I’ll see you there.”
He lifted her hand to his lips and brushed his mouth across her knuckles, letting her feel the steamy heat of his breath on her skin before he winked at her and walked away. She watched him go, her heart pounding, and one thing became patently clear as she did so: she was in trouble. And she didn’t want to escape it, even though it was in her best interest to do just that.
Henry moved around the music room, lighting a few candles and stirring the fire. He wanted the room to be beautiful when his fiancée arrived. His fiancée. That was still taking some getting used to. And the moment he became accustomed, she would then be his wife, and he wasn’t certain that fact would ever set in.
When Evangeline had asked him what was troubling him, he’d turned to the subject of his work and his family, and that had been true. But it was also proof of his cowardice. There were other reasons he was distracted, and all of them had to do with her and the riot of emotions that had been building in him over the past few days since their engagement.
Emotions he was going to have to resolve. Discuss. Express. But not in a ballroom. Not in a public place where they could be interrupted or she could escape him too easily.
So he had a plan. A very good plan, or so he kept telling himself and hoping it would be true.
The door behind him
opened, and he straightened and turned to watch Evangeline enter the room. In the soft glow of the candlelight, she was even more beautiful than ever. Her shiny black hair reflected the light when she turned her head, almost with blue tones. Her dark eyes scanned the room, settling on him at last with both interest and anxiousness. She wanted him.
Which was the first step in his plan. Evangeline clung to control and he was beginning to understand why. But when she’d shattered with pleasure a few days before, she’d let all that go and given him her trust. He would claim it again before he asked for even more.
“You asked earlier what was distracting me,” he said, stepping toward her. “And I told you a portion of the truth. Another part of it is you…” He caught her hand and drew her closer. She didn’t resist and molded to his chest with a shuddering sigh. “…this. Have you also thought about that day in my parlor?”
For a moment he thought she might deny that charge. Deny him because giving even this inch was so difficult for her. But then her expression softened and she squeaked out, “Every day, Henry. Every night. Every moment.”
He bent his head and swallowed the last words, cupping her cheeks as he plundered her mouth and drowned in the sweetest taste of her. He felt her give over to him as her muscles loosened and her mouth opened, and he could have crowed in triumph. Earning what she did not easily give was all the more pleasure. He wanted to never give her pause in doing so.
His arms tightened around her back, and she lifted into him as the heat in the room ratcheted up. Slowly he moved her toward the settee. Someday he would really like to do this in a bed, but that wasn’t going to happen right now. He laid her back, settling her against the cushions and going down on his knees before her, just as he had the first time.
“Are you going to do…to do that again?” she whispered, her voice breaking in the quiet.
“Oh yes,” he murmured as he pushed her skirts up slowly, reveling in the reveal of silky stockings, long legs, slightly parted thighs. “Assuming you’d like me to do so.”
Betrothed by Christmas: A Holiday Duet Page 11