Outrageous

by Minerva Spencer

  Moonspinner’s back feet were bagged in thick felt booties on the off chance she kicked back at Clancy. James had strapped a thick blanket to her neck, back, and withers, in case Clancy became overly amorous.

  Horse breeding, as Eva knew from years of loitering around the stables—and particularly after the last few busy days—could sometimes be a violent event. The actual time the stud spent servicing the mare was brief and generally trouble-free. It was the few seconds before and after the mount that were the most critical, and everyone worked in silence.

  Luckily, Clancy was skilled at his job and finished with a minimum of thrashing and, remarkably, after he’d dismounted, there were no visible signs on either horse that hundreds of pounds of living flesh had just come together.

  Eva didn’t realize she’d broken a sweat—she’d been holding Moonspinner’s front leg—until Gabriel tossed her a clean cloth.

  “Thank you,” she said, wiping her brow. “It was good to have you here,” she added, meaning it.

  “She’s a lovely mare,” Gabriel said, stroking the quivering flesh of the mare’s arched neck. “You chose well, Evil.”

  She grinned at him as the lads led both horses off.

  “Are you done here—at least for the time being?” Gabe asked. “Did you eat breakfast?”

  “No, I had to get down here.”

  “Of course you did.” He snatched off her hat and ruffled her hair. “Perhaps we might go find a bite to eat.”

  Eva grabbed back her hat. “Just let me record Moonspinner’s information and I’ll go with you.” She hesitated and looked down at herself. She was wearing her usual outfit—buckskins, boots, and coat—and most of her family members were accustomed to it by now. But there were guests. “Unless you think I should go clean up first?”

  Gabriel laughed. “Who is this woman and what has she done with my sister?”

  She smacked his shoulder as they walked to the small office.

  Eva pulled off her gloves—which she’d actually remembered this morning—and entered the information with comments and observations about both horses and the manner and duration of the covering. With any luck, Clancy had done the trick and Moonspinner would produce her first foal in eleven months.

  When she’d finished, they left the stables side by side.

  “So, what did you think?” Eva asked, even though she didn’t want to seem as if she needed his approval.

  “I’m impressed, but not surprised. I believe you have an aptitude for horses in general. I think you will do well.” Coming from Gabe, whose father had owned thousands of horses, that was a compliment, indeed.

  “You might want to tell that to Tommy,” she said. He frowned and Eva flicked a dismissive hand. “Forget I said that. Instead, why don’t you tell me what it is you’ve come to say to me? And whose message are you delivering?”

  Gabe smiled. “That obvious, am I?”

  “You wouldn’t be awake and about this early without a reason. I just don’t know what your reason’s name is.”

  He sighed. “Nobody said anything, but I can see how it is between you and Tommy.”

  Eva groaned.

  “What?” he asked, opening the door for her before following her into the cool dimness of the castle. “Are you two fighting?”

  “Not exactly.”

  He took her by the arm and stopped her, turning her toward him. “What were you thinking, accepting him, Eva?”

  She jerked her arm away. “Lord, Gabe, don’t beat around the bush.”

  “I won’t, because it seems everyone else is. Have you all gone mad? Even Mother has nothing to say on the matter.”

  She began walking. “There is nothing to say.”

  “You don’t love him.”

  She cut him a sneering look. “Look who is suddenly the expert on love.”

  “Don’t try to start a fight—I won’t be distracted.”

  This time it was Eva who stopped, shoved Gabe into an alcove and whispered, “I’ve discovered something dreadful.”

  His eyes widened. “Good Lord, what, Eva?”

  She swallowed and bought herself a few more seconds while she made sure she wanted to say the words out loud. “I think Mel may be developing a, er, tendre for Tommy.”

  Gabriel’s face shifted into an expression of disbelief, and then he laughed.

  “What is wrong with you?” Eva demanded. “That’s not funny. It’s—it’s, well, I don’t know quite what it is, but if it is true, it certainly isn’t good.”

  “Mel has been wild over Tommy for years, Eva. Trust you to only notice it now.”

  It was her turn to stare wide-eyed. “You’re jesting.”

  “Ask anyone.”

  “Does Tommy know?”

  “Lord, I don’t know. I should think he does—he’s not oblivious, like some people.” Eva smacked him. “Besides, it’s not as if Mel has taken pains to hide her infatuation—well, other than from you.”

  Eva ignored the dig. “How did I not see this?”

  He cocked an eyebrow at her.

  “Fine, never mind, I know. I’m Evablivious.” Yet another word Gabe had invented for her. “I never really believed it until this moment,” she said, “but it’s true—I really am oblivious.”

  He chuckled and grabbed her in a huge hug that lifted her off her feet. “You are, but we love you anyway.”

  “Put me down, you savage,” she muttered. “I’ve always believed Mel and I were close. Why didn’t she say anything to me?”

  He lowered her feet to the ground but did not release her, resting his hands on her shoulders and staring down at her.

  “I daresay she didn’t want to embarrass herself, Eva.”

  “I don’t understand—how?”

  “Well, Tommy made his admiration for you obvious—disgustingly so, in my opinion, as did every other single male under fifty who wandered within your radius—while Mel is—” He chewed the inside of his cheek.

  “Mel is what? Why can none of you ever finish a thought without prodding?”

  Gabe ignored her question. “Mel possesses neither your beauty nor your rather magnetic personality.”

  “I’ll give you beauty, because I can’t avoid it in the mirror—but magnetic personality? Ha! You were with me all Season. The only thing I seem to magnetically attract is taunting and abuse.”

  He shook his head. “You are, indeed, oblivious. But that is a topic for another day—or eon. Right now I want to know more about your discovery of Mel’s feelings for Tommy. Is that the reason for your distant behavior toward him?”

  “Well, that’s part of it,” she said, not completely untruthfully. “How can I marry a man my own sister is in love with?”

  Gabriel grimaced with distaste. “When you put it that way . . .”

  “What other way is there?”

  “I don’t know. You should talk to Mother about such things—you know she revels in opportunities to spout wisdom.”

  She punched his arm. “Show more respect.”

  “Ow.” He rubbed his arm, his eyes speculative. “I know what you mean about Mel, but, Eva, you can’t make Tommy fall out of love with you and into love with her. People simply love whom they love; there is nothing you can do to change it.”

  She wanted to tell him she understood that all too well. Instead, she said, “I realize that, Gabe. But I also don’t have to marry the man my sister has been mad about for what—five?—” Gabe nodded and she groaned. “Ugh, five years of unrequited love? How horrid. If I were Mel, I would have stabbed me while I slept years ago.”

  Gabe laughed. “Well, I suppose we should all be grateful you’ve never fallen in unrequited love. I’ll advise everyone to lock their doors, just in case.”

  Eva forced herself to laugh, rather than throwing her arms around him and wailing out the truth.

  “If it makes you feel any better, Eva, Tommy has felt the same way about you for almost as long. So although you might be dashing one person’s hopes, you’re f
ulfilling another’s.”

  She cut him a dark look. “Why didn’t you tell me this before?”

  “Because I didn’t want to.” He dodged Eva’s fist this time. “Honestly? I wasn’t quite sure of his feelings for you until you were out of the schoolroom—likely because he knew I would hurt him if he showed any overt intention of taking you as his child bride.” He opened the door to the breakfast room and Eva stopped in the open doorway to stare at the assemblage.

  “Look who I brought to join us two-legged creatures,” Gabriel announced to a smattering of laughter.

  Eva glanced at her father, who was looking at her apparel—scuffed top boots, scarred leather breeches, and dusty coats—with a pained expression.

  Her stepmother laid her hand over the marquess’s and he sighed and turned back to his plate. Mia grinned and winked, and Eva mouthed the words, thank you.

  When Eva risked a look at Tommy, she saw he seemed just as displeased as her father.

  She also saw that Mel sat beside him, immaculately coiffed and dressed, her adoring gaze riveted on the man who was aiming his own—censorious—gaze at Eva.

  Eva stumbled and Gabe had to steady her. “All right, Evil?” he whispered, his expression worried.

  Eva couldn’t answer. All she could do was look at the other two sides of this ridiculous triangle she was in. Lord, what a bloody farce. How was it that she, who had always avoided romantic or emotional imbroglios, now seemed to be enmeshed in one?

  That hardly matters now, does it?

  No, she realized quite suddenly—it didn’t. What mattered was that she figure out a way to extricate herself. And soon.

  Chapter 25

  With less than two days until the wedding, Eva knew she did not have time to devise the perfect speech—not that she would have been capable of doing so had she been given a hundred years. She knew that the longer she dragged her heels, the worse it would be. Still, she simply could not seem to make herself pull Tommy aside and have The Discussion.

  Even she—as oblivious as she was—was not insensible to the embarrassing mess she had created for her family. In forty-eight hours many of her relatives and some of their closest friends would be sitting in the family chapel expecting a wedding; a wedding she simply could not go through with.

  Of course, not going through with it meant there was only one choice for her: She would have to confess the truth to her father, and then go away somewhere to have her child. And afterward she would have to turn the baby over to some family to raise—people who would be well paid to treat the child decently, although they might not ever learn to love it. The notion left her feeling empty and ill.

  “Bugger and blast and bloody damn,” she hissed under her breath as she strode toward Mia’s apartments. Her stepmother had sent a message down to the stables, and the tenor of it had been such that Eva knew she could not ignore it. So she’d handed over the rest of the day’s duties—not much was left—to James and then went to her room and submitted to her new maid’s attentions.

  The poor woman barely spoke as she untangled Eva’s unruly mop, her pensive gaze settling on Eva’s unfashionably sunburnt face—the result of always forgetting a hat—and moving on to her battered and scuffed hands.

  Based on the woman’s—Philpot’s—horrified reaction, she wouldn’t be with Eva long.

  Eva was now dressed in one of her least vomitous morning gowns and hurrying to arrive at the appointed time, cursing herself all the way that she’d not made the time to speak to Tommy. So now she would have to don the gown Mia would want her to try on, rather than tell her the truth.

  Ugh.

  She rapped on the door and then entered Mia’s lair.

  “Ah! There you are.”

  Mia grinned up at her from a settee, where she was reclining with her son, David, and watching her youngest daughter play.

  “Eva!” Julia jumped up and thundered across the room with a clumsiness she could not have inherited from either parent, but must have somehow gotten from Eva.

  Eva caught her up and spun her around, inadvertently clipping a bronze statue and sending it clattering on the wood flooring. She grimaced and set her half-sister down before turning to face the music.

  But Mia was smiling. Of course she was. Eva had never seen her stepmamma angry, and never wanted to.

  “And how is young Master David?” Eva asked, peering at her newest sibling, who was snoring softly.

  “He’s far better behaved than Jibril was at this age,” Mia said, nodding to the nursemaid who was sitting in the window seat with her mending. “Can you take him to bed, Mary. I’m afraid we have some serious wedding-gown business to attend to.”

  Once the maid was gone Mia turned to her daughter and smiled. “Julia asked to be here when you tried on your bridal gown, didn’t you, darling?”

  Julia nodded her reddish-brown head vigorously and Eva grinned and squeezed her hand. “All right, I guess I’d better get about it.”

  Mia’s maid helped her into the gown, which even she had to admit was lovely. It was an unusual shade of blue and she couldn’t help noticing it made her eyes appear larger and more violet.

  Knowing Eva’s hatred of lace and ribbons and furbelows, the gown had a simple, snug, low-cut satin bodice with a narrow skirt that had a single thin petticoat. The only adornment was a wide blue velvet ribbon that ran beneath her bosom. The effect was to accentuate her figure, which she knew was a much admired hourglass. For all that she generally found her overlarge breasts an inconvenience, they looked rather nice sitting within the tight bodice, the tops of them creamy swells.

  When she came out into Mia’s sitting room, both her stepmamma’s and Julia’s mouths formed comical O’s.

  Eva glanced down and saw a flush spreading across her prominently displayed breasts.

  “Mamma, Eva looks like a princess.”

  Eva’s face was scorching.

  Mia nodded. “Yes, darling, she does.” To Eva she said, “I know your father has a necklace that belonged to your mother. It is a pretty thing—a thin silver chain with a beautifully wrought, lacy cross. I will have him send it to your room. Whether you wear it on your wedding day or not, I think you should have it.”

  Eva nodded, unable to speak for fear of blubbering. Trust her stepmamma to think of her predecessor, a scorned woman who’d been dead for almost a decade and a half and whom nobody mourned. She swallowed convulsively and turned so abruptly she stepped on her hem and heard a familiar ripping sound. She stopped and shook her head, disgusted and disheartened and simply tired of being her.

  She heard a rustle behind her and the soft click of a door before Mia came up and took her into an embrace. They were almost the same size, but her stepmother always felt so much more substantial.

  “It is only a small tear, Eva, and easily fixed.”

  Eva nodded. “Thank you for thinking about my mother.” She swallowed yet again, but could not stop the tears from trickling down her cheeks. Lord, but she’d been a watering pot these past weeks.

  “I know she would have been very proud of you—of all three of you. Any mother would.”

  “Do you think I am like her? Will I become like her?” The words were so soft, Eva could barely hear them.

  Mia’s arms tightened. “I think you are like Eva—and there is nobody else in the world quite like you. I cannot speak for your mother—other than looks, and you are indeed as she was, one of the great beauties of your age. But I can speak for your father. You are not him, Eva. While you have some of his characteristics—your loyalty, your intense need for privacy, and your keen, ready wit—there are many parts of you that are your own. This life you are living is your own—not your mother’s or your father’s. For years Adam hid from his life. And your mother, Veronica? She was driven to end hers by demons none of us can ever know.”

  Mia turned Eva around, which was when Eva realized there were tears in her brilliant green eyes. Her stepmamma was truly lovely, but her face bore evidence of a li
fe that had not always been easy. Strands of white mingled with her vibrant copper hair. And the lines around her eyes were deep—laughter and sadness combined—the signs of a life thoroughly lived.

  “I hope you live your life to the fullest, Eva. I believe your mother would have had the same hope for you.” And then she took Eva in her arms and let her cry. Great wracking sobs for the woman she had never known.

  * * *

  “I beg your pardon, Eva, but have you gone quite mad?”

  Eva cocked an eyebrow at Tommy’s question, aware of the exact instant when he realized what he’d just said.

  “Ah, Christ!” He scrubbed a bare, pale, exquisitely manicured hand over his face, pressing his fingers against his eyelids. “I didn’t mean that, Eva.”

  “I know you didn’t.” Lord, but she was exhausted. She’d wanted to go back to bed after speaking with Mia, but she owed Tommy—and everyone else—better.

  So, here she was, engaging in a second emotional episode before dinnertime.

  She grabbed Tommy’s wrist and pulled his punishing fingers off their delicate targets. “What has happened to us? We never used to spend every moment together arguing.”

  He sighed and leaned back against the bookshelf.

  He’d been in the library with Mel when she’d gone looking for him. The two had been sitting at a respectable distance across from each other, on their own settees, each cradling an open book in their lap. The atmosphere in the room had been . . . Well, Eva didn’t know what it had been—charged perhaps. When Eva apologized for interrupting and had asked Tommy for a moment, Mel had almost fled from the room.

  “Is aught amiss with Mel?” she asked now, as they both strove to recover from what she’d just told him: that she would not marry him.

  “Hmm?” His eyes were on the monstrous fireplace, which even at this time of year needed to be kept burning to banish the chill from a room made entirely of stone.

  “Mel—she looked, well, I don’t know, but not the way she usually does.”

  Tommy gave a dismissive shrug. “There is nothing wrong that I’ve noticed.”