And yet it was Evie he was going to find.
The bloody bane of his existence…and the woman his blood still hummed for, even now.
“What is it?” he bit out, glaring at Brynne. He knew his twin was plotting something. She had that glint in her eyes. The kind that she got whenever she was starting a painting and was throwing all manner of colors at the canvas to see what stuck.
“Try, for once, to follow your heart instead of your head. I believe you’ll be pleasantly surprised with where it leads you.”
Not bothering to justify such drivel with a response, he traced Evie’s steps out of the solarium whereupon he promptly lost her trail. There was no sign of his quarry in the hallway or the foyer, but after a maid informed him that she’d seen a guest fleeing in the direction of the library, that was where he found her.
Surrounded by books, she sat perched on the windowsill, a breathtaking vision in violet satin with sunlight in her hair and a wistful smile curving her mouth.
“You changed your dress,” Weston observed gruffly as he stepped into the room and closed the door behind him to afford them the privacy he instinctively sensed that they were going to require. Because there was no reality, no world in this one or next, in which he could see her sitting there, like a stunning goddess of old torn straight from the pages of Greek mythology, and not kiss her.
“You changed your shirt,” she said without looking at him.
“I changed more than that.” An oak floorboard, polished to a dull shine with beeswax and sealed with varnish, creaked beneath his foot as he walked to the middle of the library and stopped beside a round table piled high with books. “Thanks to you, all of the clothes I had on will likely need to be burned.” He stared at the slender line of her neck where a single curl lay nestled, glossy mahogany against sheer ivory touched with the slightest hint of pink. “Why did you run from me at the pond, Miss Thorncroft?”
“You called me Evelyn, before. In my bedchamber.”
“Did I?” he said, startled. He did not recall that particular detail.
“Indeed,” she said, keeping her gaze on the glass. Beyond the window, the sky had turned an ominous gray, signaling bad weather…both outside the library and within it. “And I did not run. I walked at a fast clip.”
Picking up a book from the table, he tossed it aimlessly from his left hand to his right. “I could have drowned.”
“One does not drown in twelve inches of water.”
“Twelve inches of mud, you mean, with water on top of it.”
“Yet here you are, alive to pester me.”
There was an edge in her voice he’d never heard before. Even from across the room, with her facing away from him, he felt its sharp bite.
“Are you angry with me, Miss Thorncroft? Is that why you left the breakfast? To sit and sulk by your lonesome over some imagined transgression of mine that I am unaware of?”
“I am not sulking.” Finally, she turned her head to look at him. Her expression was fierce, but her eyes, those big, beautiful blue eyes that a man very well could drown in if he wasn’t careful, were filled with sadness. “I’ve fallen in love with you.”
The book fell to the floor.
His heart plummeted along with it.
“Miss Thorncroft, I…”
“It’s not your fault,” she said with a dismissive wave of her hand. “It’s mine. I put myself in this situation. I thought…I had planned…to marry you. For your money, and your title, and my mother’s ring.”
An icy chill passed between Weston’s shoulder blades.
“You planned what?” he said in a very soft, very dangerous sort of tone. The kind that sent anyone who did not want to die a painful death scampering for the hills. But Evelyn stayed where she was and regarded him calmly.
“Don’t look so shocked.” She rolled her eyes. “Did you honestly believe I put myself through a hundred mile trek in the desert for my good health?”
“It was eight miles in the countryside,” he growled. “And you were free to return to London at any time. Instead you–you inserted yourself here under false pretenses and–”
“Please,” she scoffed, raising her palm. “I am not some Yankee spy come to pilfer all of your precious gold. I was after a good match, the same as every other debutante sitting in that solarium. Besides, if I’d told you what I wanted on the first day of our journey, you’d have tossed me out of the carriage without waiting for it stop. No use denying it.”
As loath as Weston was to admit it, she had a point. The entire ton was built on the basis of matching young, eligible women with young (and sometimes not so young), eligible men. They did not refer to it as the Marriage Mart for nothing. Still, he’d have preferred that Evie had revealed her motivations outright…even though he most likely would have thrown her out of the carriage.
“Why tell me now?” he asked.
“Because I am no Lady Martha Smethwick.”
His temple creased. “Of course not. You’re…you’re Miss Thorncroft.”
He’d almost–almost–called her “my Miss Thorncroft”.
Which was how he thought of her, deep down.
As his.
Only his.
To hold, to kiss, to argue with.
Except she wasn’t his. And he wasn’t hers. And it was for the best that they were getting this all out in the open now so that he could proceed with finding her a suitable husband.
“I am,” she said quietly, and although her mouth smiled, her eyes remained sad. “I am Miss Thorncroft. A penniless American who made the grave error of falling in love with a man far, far above her station. It should make a lovely book, if only I could change the ending.”
She looked at him then. At him and into him. Where he kept all of his innermost shame and secrets. Where he never let anyone look, not even Brynne. Not even himself. And he knew what she was asking. He knew what she wanted. But he couldn’t give it to her. Not today. Not tomorrow. Because what she truly desired…what she deserved…he was incapable of giving to anyone.
“I am not a writer, Miss Thorncroft. And even if I were…” A lump formed in his throat. Hard and knotty, like a burl in a slab of pine. “Even if I were, I believe all endings have a way of serving their intended purpose. This one is no different, and I would not change it.”
“You’re certain,” she whispered.
The lump expanded. “I am.”
For a long while, Evie was silent. He watched her closely, waiting for a tear to form or a cry of anguish to tumble from her lips. If she’d made but a sound, he would have gone to her. He would have been helpless not to. But her eyes remained dry, and when she spoke, her voice was remarkably even.
“Then I shall see myself out, Lord Hawkridge. If you could arrange a carriage to take me back to London–”
“Wait.” As something akin to panic clawed at him, he moved in front of the door. As if that small motion in and of itself could somehow keep her trapped in the library forever. Because as much as he did not want to marry her, he also did not want to let her go. “You…you cannot leave yet. The house party has barely begun, and…and Brynne would be devastated if you disappeared without an explanation.”
“Your concern for you sister is admirable, Lord Hawkridge, but I am confident that she will be fine.” Evie slid off the windowsill and approached the door, but he refused to move away from it. “I fail to see why you are making this immeasurably more difficult than it needs to be,” she said as twin blotches of color appeared high on her cheeks. “Have I not embarrassed myself enough already?”
“You want a husband,” he said desperately. “I can find one.”
She placed her hands on her hips. “A husband is not a lost sock. You cannot simply look underneath the bed and find one.”
“I am an earl and the heir to a dukedom. I can do whatever I damned well please. Give me…give me three weeks.” What the devil was he doing? Weston hadn’t the bloodiest idea. He only knew that he’d do anything, say
anything, to keep Evie from leaving Hawkridge Manor. From leaving him. “Three weeks,” he repeated. “There’s more than half a dozen eligible suitors here. You can have your pick, after I’ve had them weighed up. Any would consider themselves fortunate to marry you.”
She stared at him incredulously. “I told you that I love you. I’ve never said that to a man before. And your response, your solution, is to find someone else for me to marry?”
“Isn’t that what you wanted? A wealthy, titled husband.” He felt like he was hanging off the edge of a cliff and grabbing for anything that would prevent him from falling. “I can give you that.”
“You can give me a husband,” she sneered. “How charitable of you.”
“It wouldn’t be charity.”
“Then what, precisely, would it be? I have no dowry to offer.”
“Then I’ll provide one.”
Her eyes slowly cooled, like a sheet of ice spreading across a lake. “Why?” she asked. “Why would you do such a thing?”
Because it will keep you here, for just a while longer.
Because when another man marries you, I’ll no longer want you.
Because you’ve driven me absolutely mad, and this is pure insanity.
“Because when I retrieved my family ring, I robbed you and your sisters of the financial means with which to support yourselves. Consider this repayment in kind.”
“Repayment in kind,” she repeated. “You are going to procure me a husband because you stole my mother’s ring.”
When she put it that way…
“Yes,” he said unabashedly. “Yes, I am.”
“And it won’t bother you?” she asked, studying him closely. “To see me marry someone else?”
Bother him?
It was going to bloody well kill him.
But it was better than the alternative.
It had to be.
It had to be, or else everything he’d convinced himself of was a lie.
“No.” Through sheer force of will, he managed to keep his tone detached. Emotionless. Aloof, when he was anything but. “It won’t bother me in the slightest.”
Hurt flashed in her eyes, but she blinked it away, like a speck of unwanted dirt.
“Fine. A rich husband in exchange for a stolen ring. It could be worse, I suppose.” She lifted her chin and even though she was at least six inches shorter than he was, she somehow managed to look down her nose at him. “But you have two weeks, not three. It has come to my attention that my sister is still in London, and I should like to see her sooner rather than later.”
Two weeks.
Fourteen days.
It was both too long…and not nearly long enough.
For an instant, his gaze betrayed him as it slipped to her mouth. If things were different, if he were different, he’d snatch her into his arms and kiss her until the embers in the fireplace faded to black and rain poured from the heavens. But the very second she’d admitted that she was in love…with him…everything had come into sharp, unrelenting focus.
Their attraction towards each other was no longer a harmless dalliance. There were real emotions involved. And if he wasn’t careful, if he wasn’t mindful of his words and his actions, there would be real hurt as well. Something that he was intrinsically cognizant of. For as cold and aloof as he could be, it was never Weston’s intention to cause deliberate harm.
He knew what it felt like, to give love and never experience the sweet warmth of its return. The agony of emptying himself out, again and again, in the hopes that if he just gave more, or earned better marks at school, that his father might finally, finally love him enough to show even the smallest hint of interest in his only son’s wellbeing.
But the Marquess of Dorchester never had.
Years ago, Weston had resigned himself to the fact that he never would.
And he’d made peace with that. Even better, he’d made himself into someone who did not require love to survive. But the price for encasing a heart in ice was a steep one, and he was paying it now.
Maybe…maybe he’d be able to love Evie as she loved him.
But he wasn’t going to base a marriage on such a tenuous assumption.
“If there is nothing else?” she said, arching a brow.
“No.” Tamping down the tendrils of desire that threatened with a stern hand, Weston gave a curt shake of his head. “There is nothing.”
“Splendid. I shall see you at the picnic, then.” She glanced at the window where the clouds had grown even darker. “If we are not rained out, that is.”
Trailing frost in her wake, she brushed past him and sauntered out of the library.
Chapter Seventeen
It rained for the next four days straight.
Trapped inside lest she wished to succumb to a good drenching, Evie spent a large portion of her time with Rosemary. The cousins explored the manor’s vast art collection, worked on their embroidery, listened to an impromptu recital put on by Lady Martha (who, it went without saying, was a consummate pianist with a lovely soprano), and spent a memorable night skidding down a marble hallway in their stockings after imbibing too much wine at dinner.
For the most part, Evie managed not to think about Weston at all…until came the night, and he was all she could think about.
Staring up at the canopy above her bed while rain pummeled the windows and wind howled through the trees, she went over every conversation they’d ever had, beginning with when they’d met.
He’d asked her to dance and without knowing anything about him except that he had the most arresting stare she had ever seen, she’d accepted.
When she had bumped into his chest (his fault, as he’d pulled her into a turn a tad too forcefully), she’d been surprised at the spark she felt. The first sign that they were always destined to catch fire.
“I am sorry, my lord,” she’d said, even though she hadn’t been. Not really.
“The error was mine,” he had replied, although the gleam in his gray eyes revealed that he wasn’t sorry for it.
“I suspected as much, but am always loath to point out other’s errors unless they are deserving of it.”
“And I am not deserving of critique?” he’d asked.
“That remains to be seen,” she had replied coyly.
Moving in flawless unison, they’d waltzed around a slower couple and Weston’s hand had slid just a little further down her back than propriety allowed.
“What is your name?” he’d wanted to know. “You are not from around here.”
“Was it the accent that gave it away?”
“That, and I never forget a face.”
“Do you find it memorable?” she’d asked. “My face, that is.”
“You’re beautiful. Only a blind man could forget you.”
“And you’re not blind.”
“I am not,” he’d confirmed.
“Just rude, then, for asking me to introduce myself to you when it is a gentleman’s duty to introduce himself to the lady.”
He had grinned at her. A scoundrel’s smile, she remembered thinking. If only she had savored it more, as she’d yet to see it again.
In the present, Weston was…guarded. In both his actions and his reactions. But that night at the ball, before she’d told him her name, he’d been remarkably more relaxed. Charming, even. And perhaps…perhaps a tiny part of her had started falling even then.
“I never said I was a gentleman,” he had said.
Her eyes had sparkled with coquettish amusement. “That’s fine, as I never claimed to be a lady.”
Unfortunately, things had gone downhill from there, and had culminated in Weston telling her to sod off before he’d stormed away.
Such a charmer, that earl.
And now she couldn’t sleep but for thinking of him.
Evie rolled onto her stomach, then her side. She placed a pillow over her head. Under her head. Kicked the blankets off, then dragged them back on. At last, with a loud, annoyed huff of br
eath, she gave in to her Weston-induced insomnia and padded downstairs and into the kitchen in search of a warm glass of milk.
The house was still and silent, almost eerily so, causing her to cast an apprehensive glance over her shoulder as she retrieved some milk powder from the pantry and mixed it with water before pouring it in a kettle to heat in the stone hearth where a handful of logs glowed red and orange.
There was a stove, a massive, iron beast fueled by coal, but it had been shut down for the night and she dared not attempt to revive it. Thankfully, while a tad old fashioned, cooking in the fireplace was all but foolproof and as she poured her steaming milk into a mug, she silently thanked whatever servant had thought to bank the fire.
While Evie hadn’t enjoyed the mindless chatter and socialization over the past few days as much as she’d anticipated that she would, she did love having a bevy of maids and footmen at her beck and call. Why, she barely could set an empty teacup down before it was filled again! There was no cleaning for her to do. No laundry that needed washing, or food that had to be prepared. Courtesy of Hannah, she didn’t even have to style her own hair if she didn’t want to.
Being waited on hand and foot was a welcome respite from arguing with Joanna and Claire over whose turn it was to scrub the water closet.
It was a life she could easily become accustomed to…just not with Weston.
Sliding onto a stool, she stared pensively into her cup as she waited for the milk to cool. She should have been pleased that Weston was taking the effort to find her a husband. A wealthy, titled husband who would give her everything she’d ever wanted. While Weston married Lady Martha and received everything he’d ever wanted.
It was the perfect happily-ever-after.
But then why didn’t she feel particularly happy?
A rustle of movement had her squinting at the doorway. While she’d brought an oil lamp from her room and the fireplace emanated a soft glow of light that staved off some of the shadows, it remained quite dark.
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