by Liz Tyner
He’d seen beauties. But Vivian’s beauty came from within and then reached out, arresting him. It pulled all of a man. He could not get trapped in her.
When she’d first asked him to kiss her, he’d been entranced. He’d never, ever seen such innocence. He didn’t even think children were born with such. He’d not even suspected it existed.
She shouldn’t have requested a kiss. His whole body had responded to just the one word from her lips. Kiss. He’d never been given a gift such as that.
And he’d been hard for days.
Then, he’d thought of trying for an invitation to Vivian’s house from Lord Darius. Everleigh had used all his strength and told himself not to be foolish. He could never have her. It would not be right to court her when she was ill. It would put her at a disadvantage. And, perhaps, hurt her health.
Because as much as she intrigued him, and as much as he suspected he would desire her if he stayed in the same room with her more than a few minutes, he truly didn’t have the kind of feelings she wanted.
He liked Vivian. He liked her tremendously. But love—love was nonsense with the same kind of frills Mrs Rush had used in the room.
Utter rot.
A humbug.
A lie from a person’s insides that faded away quickly and life became routine again.
He couldn’t understand why Vivian would want such nonsense.
That just proved she was correct and that they were not suited.
Taking the stairs to his room, he hoped he would find no more decorations.
Everleigh paused at the top, his hand still on the banister. Then he gave a push and moved into the silence of his sitting room. He had his wish. Nothing brightened the room.
He could feel his heartbeat sounding in his own ears.
This was the life he’d have for the rest of his days.
A life without Vivian, a woman who truly belonged in the world she inhabited.
He would make sure not to travel about when he might see her. He would make sure to keep his world closed and confined to business where she would not venture.
He imagined her hair lying on a pillow next to his. The glossy strands running through his fingertips, each strand brushing his skin and caressing his body.
He checked the furnishings in his bedroom. Nothing had changed. Exactly as it had been all the years he’d lived there. Except for the new pillows on his bed.
There were not enough swear words in the world...
* * *
He sat in the library, head bowed, holding the side of the empty brandy glass to his forehead, letting the coolness ease the warmth of his body. The night had moved with the speed of ice melting on a frigid midwinter day.
Trying to keep himself from getting hard if the house creaked because it reminded him of the first secret meeting when she’d walked the hallway with him. The day they’d kissed.
She wasn’t in his house. She was in her own home.
He gritted his teeth.
Vivian was exactly what he needed in a wife.
She had taken what could have been a scandal and earned the praises of society. The ton wanted to see the best in her because of her genuine nature.
Vivian had appeared so soon after Alexandria and, for a moment, she’d seemed to be cut of the same cloth.
Yet, when she believed that her mother might suffer because of Vivian not fulfilling her promise to Ella Etta, he’d unknowingly not co-operated and she’d decided she would take the consequences.
Like in the book about martyrs, Vivian had chosen the path of sacrifice.
But his attraction to her went beyond that.
When he’d spoken with her in the darkness at his father’s estate, her presence had filled him with a calmness—a peace he’d been unaware existed. He’d been teased with an indication that his life could be different. That illusion had settled in the recesses of his mind, forming stronger and stronger until it overwhelmed him.
He’d never imagined someone such as Vivian. She stirred him so that he could think of nothing else.
He had once said he would savour showing her all a woman needed to know about a man’s body.
But that wasn’t to be.
Could he live with the knowledge that she might fall in love with someone else?
Stepping to his bedside, he reached to touch the miniature of his grandfather that he had brought to the town house. His hand stopped in mid-movement, resting over empty air. He scrutinised his grandfather’s portrait.
The miniature had been given to his grandmother once. His grandfather had had it painted before he married, for his wife-to-be to have while he travelled. He’d wanted her to have a likeness of him to be the last thing she saw at night and the first object she viewed in the morning.
Everleigh had known about the miniature. After Everleigh’s grandmother had died, his grandfather carried it and always slept with it at his bedside. He’d said it reminded him of his wife.
Everleigh had taken it from his grandfather’s bedside when he died, both in respect for his grandparents’ union and to keep as a reminder of his grandfather.
He stared at it. When his grandfather had had the painting done, he must have been about thirty.
Shoving the thoughts away, Everleigh prepared for bed.
As he lay down, his brain whispered the word fool to him.
He was alone, in his room, with a picture of his grandfather at his bedside.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Everleigh knew by the sound of the cane following along with the footsteps that his father had arrived in town.
Everleigh strode to the doorway of his drawing room. He put both palms high on the door frame.
‘Had you already started out before the post arrived?’ Everleigh asked, stepping aside to let his father enter the room.
‘No.’ His father clasped the handle of the cane in one hand and the other held a book. ‘I’d been thinking about visiting, though...with or without your invitation.’ He softly clouted Everleigh’s shoulder with the book. ‘Good to see you.’
Then he put the tome in Everleigh’s hand. ‘I found one of your books in my room. One you used to read a lot, but I wasn’t sure if you still liked it.’
Everleigh looked at the volume. He’d suspected the novel had made its way to his father’s collection, but he’d not minded enough to search it out.
‘Thank you.’
His father walked closer and thumped him on the back this time. ‘It’s—’ His voice choked. ‘But what really means a lot to me, Son, is your accepting Mrs Trimble.’ He sniffed. ‘Your housekeeper is finding her a room. She cried happy tears all the way here. I just kept patting her hand.’
Everleigh lowered his chin. ‘Did you care a sixpence about my mother?’
‘I know I didn’t show it—’ His father’s voice broke. ‘I was young. Foolish. But I did care for her. I really did. She was dazzling. Almost too stunning to be in my path. I was overpowered by the assuredness surrounding her.’
‘You brought your mistress into the house so soon after Mother died.’ Everleigh narrowed one eye. ‘I suspected that you went to Mrs Trimble after Mother’s funeral.’
His father examined the rug. ‘I will only say it was very difficult for me to put your mother to rest. Your grandfather needed you and your brother at that time. I wept a long time that evening. I did not want you to see that.’
Everleigh grunted, but didn’t argue with his father’s perspective.
‘Mrs Trimble was my first love. She wasn’t in a position to marry me. There was a Mr Trimble. He’d just walked out of her life one day and no one knew if he lived or had died. Your mother became my wife. My father insisted that I marry someone suitable and I knew the family home could not remain without the funds.’ He stopped speaking. ‘I thought you’d forgiven me when you invit
ed her here.’
Everleigh thought of the joy he’d heard in his father’s voice when he’d arrived. He pushed acceptance into his words. ‘I have forgiven you. Now. I understand.’
He didn’t feel the same forgiveness for his father’s mistress, exactly, because she’d defaced the portrait, but if it made his father happy to have Mrs Trimble accepted, then he would act the part.
His father walked to the table and inspected all the frills in the room. ‘It looks like a clown died in here.’
‘We were to celebrate my betrothal. Mrs Rush wanted to surprise me.’
Rothwilde paused. ‘Have you seen Miss Darius since you left the estate?’
‘No.’
His father looked around the room. ‘Would you mind if I invited her parents?’ Rothwilde asked. ‘Perhaps tomorrow or the day after. I could ask Darius if his wife would mind if Mrs Trimble shared tea with us. Lady Darius spoke kindly with Mrs Trimble when she visited. I think they might get on. It would mean the world to Mrs Trimble.’
‘That does sound joyous,’ Everleigh said. He put the book on a shelf.
Joyous.
Then he went to the small drawer where he kept the ink, and pulled out a pen, a page of paper, and put it on the table. ‘If you write out the invitation, I can have it sent around. Perhaps they would be able to arrive tomorrow. I’ve another appointment, so I will not be able to make it.’
* * *
Rothwilde went to bed early, as he tended to do, and with a book from Everleigh’s library tucked under his arm. Everleigh sat alone, twirling an empty glass in his hand.
He rose from the chair and went to the window. The darkened houses along the street showed no life.
The fire had died down and the temperature in the room was dropping.
But all he could think of was Vivian.
The kiss. The lovemaking.
He liked Vivian.
He didn’t understand why she demanded love. Love was that drunken feeling that wrung out a person, then evaporated after they’d made a fool of themselves.
It was a nonsensical feeling.
That would make a man keep a miniature of himself at his bedside, as his grandfather had.
He wasn’t waking up with a dislike for Vivian, he was waking with an entirely different problem.
Love.
He’d never experienced whatever he was feeling before. Never. It was consuming him from the inside out. That had to be love. It wasn’t Vivian he was disliking. It was himself. For not going to her. For not begging her forgiveness for withdrawing the proposal. For not courting her. But he still didn’t want to court her.
He wanted to wed her first, then court her the rest of his life.
Everleigh put down the glass.
Love. The type of feeling that would cause a man to make a fool of himself and not care who knew.
It really wasn’t that late. He heard the clock chime. Twelve.
Perhaps she was still awake.
Chapter Twenty-Three
He knocked at the Darius household, ever so politely. No one answered. Then he gave it a thump.
Blast it.
Someone moved a curtain, peering into the darkness.
‘It’s Everleigh,’ he shouted at the window pane, knowing it was unlikely the person on the other side could recognise him as he couldn’t comprehend who they were. ‘I’m here to see... Lord Darius.’
The curtain fell into place.
Everleigh retraced his steps to the front door and, at what he gauged to be a quarter-hour later, someone unlocked it.
A servant and Darius stood on the other side, Darius holding a lamp.
Darius shooed the servant away.
‘Here for tea?’ Darius said.
‘Thank you for the offer.’
‘We’re all out.’
‘In that case, I have a note from Rothwilde for you.’ Everleigh held out the paper.
Darius snatched it away, crumpling the edge. ‘I will read it in the morning.’ Darius shifted his slippers while he regarded Everleigh. ‘I would have thought you had a servant you could trust to deliver a letter.’
‘I do.’ Everleigh planted his feet. ‘It’s late. I didn’t want to disturb them.’
‘Is that the only reason you’re here?’
‘No.’
Darius squinted. ‘I still haven’t got around to that breach-of-promise suit.’
‘I’m more than willing to negotiate. With Vivian. I’d like to see her.’
‘You’d have better luck with me.’ His jaw firmed. ‘Follow me. You can wait in the drawing room while I see if she is...’ his footsteps stopped ‘...at home.’
Darius took Everleigh into the drawing room, where a few coals glowed in the fireplace.
‘If she is “at home”...’ he glared at Everleigh, the lamp thudding on to the tabletop ‘...you have a quarter of an hour. Or less. If what you wish to say can’t be said quickly, then it doesn’t need to be said.’
* * *
Vivian walked into the room, her hair haphazardly pinned. The dressing gown she wore covered her more than any high-necked, long-sleeved dress could. She tugged the tie close. His imagination feasted on her. He saw beyond her to the warmth of her skin. The scent of her. To her goodness.
‘Can we talk about the future?’ He barely heard his own words, he was so awash with the emotion of seeing her again. He moved closer, touching her upper arm.
She pushed the door shut. ‘I’ve missed you.’
She slid her fingers up his sleeve, stopping at the base of his neck.
He placed his head in her hand, raised his shoulder, almost trapping her with his cheek. He rubbed the side of his jaw against her fingers.
When he lifted his head, his arm moved out and he pulled her into his grasp. He held her with one arm and, when her hands went to his chest, he was so close he could feel the tips of her eyelashes.
She wasn’t the same wraith he’d touched the first time. This woman was bursting with life—vibrating with spirit.
He didn’t know how he’d lived so long without her.
* * *
She didn’t care if she never moved again as long as she stayed in Everleigh’s arms and he kissed her.
The room was still, except for the bursts of impulses from inside her, wanting to be closer to him.
He pulled away. She couldn’t find words for the loss of him against her and the nagging fear that he would soon leave.
He put his hand at her temple and brushed back the hair that had fallen forward.
‘I could not have waited until morning. I would have expired before then.’ He spoke against her hair. ‘I had to see you tonight.’
She laughed. Strength flooded into her bones and surrounded her.
She pulled herself closer to him. ‘Perhaps this is the secret to my good health. Your kisses. They make me feel so alive.’ Then she studied him. ‘Until you leave.’
‘We’ll travel. Together. Married or unmarried.’
‘I’m not sure that is as important to me as it was.’
‘Vivian.’
‘I don’t want a marriage—or a husband—without love. Husbands seem to have the most choices in life: whether to spend the night with a mistress or a bottle of brandy, or both. I don’t ever want to be in that world.’
‘My father was not first in my mother’s life. Her initial consideration was her position in life caused by wealth and she wished to increase it. Second, her children. Third or fourth, Rothwilde.’
‘I suspect there is something inside you that causes you to fear being close to someone. It’s almost as if you refused to commit your heart to me, even with words that didn’t matter to you. And if you don’t, you will always find something else to put before me. Perhaps work or politics or warfare. I don’t know that I
want to always be behind something else in my husband’s life. It is better to be unmarried.’
‘I thought I had fallen in love before and it had always brought me closer to someone that schemed or wanted to use me for position in society. I’d seen that with my parents. I didn’t want such a thing in my own house. I saw all women as...similar to Alexandria.’
‘You see marriage as safer without love.’
‘I don’t want a wife who is merely reflecting my smiles back at me.’
‘Smiles, Everleigh? When do you smile? Not often, I assure you.’
‘When I am with you. That is when I smile.’
‘It doesn’t show on your face.’
‘I will have to change that, then. When I see you and I smile, I want you to know that I’m not just smiling on the outside, I’m saying I love you on the inside.’ Everleigh pulled her against him.
A knock slammed on to the door, then her father walked in.
Vivian stepped out of Everleigh’s arms.
‘Do I need to continue with the breach of promise?’ Her father’s irritation flared.
‘Father. You know it is not any such thing. We had no contract. No announcement of any kind. I do not even think I ever agreed to marry him.’
He glanced at Everleigh. ‘Tell Rothwilde that my wife and I accept his gracious invitation.’
Then he mumbled to Vivian, ‘See, that is how easily it is done. You simply accept.’
Everleigh reached out, pulling Vivian into the shelter at his side. ‘She is perfectly within her rights to refuse marriage.’
Lord Darius bit his bottom lip. ‘Hope I wasn’t interrupting anything.’ He smirked before glaring at Everleigh. ‘Except your departure. I wish you could stay longer, but it’s getting ever later and I have an appointment with your father tomorrow. Want to be at my best. It’s not every day I get invited by an earl.’ He speared a glance at Vivian. ‘Not that it wouldn’t be pleasant to have one in the family.’
‘You would never force me to wed if I didn’t wish to,’ Vivian said. ‘I know it.’
