Lady Eve's Indiscretion tdd-4

by Grace Burrowes

  Deene pulled one of his gloves off with his teeth, then used two fingers to give a piercing, three-blast whistle. “Sorry.”

  All the while he kept his arm around Eve’s waist, a solid, warm—and quite unexpected—bulwark against complete disability. “The coach will here in moments. Is there anything that helps?”

  “Absolute quiet, absolute dark, time.” Though her mother used to rub her neck, and that had helped the most.

  He said nothing more—Deene wasn’t stupid—and Eve just leaned on him. Her grandmother had apparently suffered from these same headaches, though neither Eve’s parents nor her siblings were afflicted.

  The clip-clop of hooves sounded like so much gunfire in Eve’s head, but it was the sound of privacy, so Eve tried to welcome it. Deene gave the coachy directions to the Windham mansion and climbed in after Eve.

  “Shall I sit beside you, my lady?”

  An odd little courtesy, that he would even ask.

  “Please. The less I move, the less uncomfortable I am.”

  He settled beside her and looped an arm around her shoulders. Without a single thought for dignity, skirmishes, or propriety, Eve laid her head on his shoulder, closed her eyes, and was grateful.

  * * *

  To see Eve Windham brought low ought to have been satisfying in some private, ungentlemanly regard. Instead Deene felt unwelcome inclinations toward protectiveness and—it was hard to admit such a thing even to himself—helplessness.

  And if there was one feeling he resented with a passion, it was helplessness where a female was concerned.

  Small, silent, and miserable beside him, Lady Eve was obviously suffering with every bump over the cobbles and turn on the streets.

  “Evie, is there anything I can do?” The name had slipped out, harking back to a time when he’d been more an older-brother-by-association to his fellow officers’ sisters. “Evie?”

  She cuddled closer, like a suffering animal looking for relief. “My mama used to rub my neck. I hate this.”

  She was helpless too, he realized, and equally unhappy about it. How strange, that after growing increasingly quarrelsome with each other, they’d find pride as their common ground. This temporary truce put him in mind of the way the French and British armies would declare an unspoken détente regarding the use of rivers and streams flowing between their respective warring camps on the Peninsula.

  “Let’s try something.” He pulled a lap rug from under the padded bench and spread it over his knees. “Down you go.”

  With him braced against a corner of the coach, he eased Eve facedown over the makeshift pillow on his knees. When she made no protest, he found her nape with his bare hand and started a slow massage. “Does that help?”

  “Heavenly.”

  He could feel her ease somewhat, though in deference to her condition, the horses were moving only at a walk. “Shall I take your pins out?”

  “Please, God. I can feel them. My hair hurts.”

  He might have smiled, but her torment was obvious in her voice. Carefully, so carefully, he eased the pins from her coiffure, until her hair hung down in a long, golden braid. She was unmoving against him while he alternated between gently squeezing the sides of her neck and rubbing her nape.

  They would not speak of this peculiar interlude, and Deene had been a fool to bring up their one stupid kiss at Christmas past. Eve had been adorably tipsy, having swiped his glass of thoroughly spiked punch, and he’d enjoyed the effects of the alcohol on her demeanor. Enjoyed her passionate, artless, determined kisses much more—and much longer—than he should have.

  She’d been a cheerful, even mischievous girl, dear and sweet and easy to tease. With her brother Bart’s death, something had changed and not for the better. When Deene had made some courtesy calls after selling his commission, he’d found Eve Windham to be punctiliously proper, stiff, and even chilly toward him, though Bart had more than intimated that the lady had her reasons.

  She wasn’t chilly now. She was utterly undone. It pleased him not at all to see it.

  He had, though, been pleased to find himself accosted in the coat closet out at Morelands over the holidays. The old Eve had been there in that kiss—wicked, sweet, playful, but also all grown-up in the best places.

  “Eve, we’re here. Shall I carry you?”

  She sat up slowly, her hand going to her forehead. “I can walk.”

  Or she’d crawl, or expire of pride in the filth of the mews before she’d allow him to assist her where others might notice. He handed her out of the carriage, and any fool could see she was none too steady on her feet. “You can ring a peal over my head later, my lady.”

  “Deene, no.” Such a weak protest wasn’t going to deter him from scooping her up against his chest and proceeding toward the house.

  “For once in your stubborn life, hush. Your brothers would expect this much of me.”

  The reference to her brothers was intended as a sop to her pride and a warning—it was also the truth. In addition to the late Lord Bart, Deene had also served with Devlin St. Just, now Earl of Rosecroft. If Rosecroft got wind Evie had received cavalier treatment when in distress, a friendship Deene valued greatly would falter. To say nothing of what the lady’s father would do to Deene should Moreland learn his daughter had been allowed to suffer needlessly.

  “Where are you taking me?”

  “Inside.” He’d run tame in this house for years, so he was able to clarify. “To your room.”

  He managed the service door off the kitchen, it being the family practice not to lock it until everyone was in for the night. Two flights up had him in the family wing, where he himself had been an occasional guest.

  “Which door, Evie?”

  “Don’t call me that. Next one on the right.”

  The listlessness of her scold rankled, and when Eve’s lady’s maid came scampering out of the dressing room, Deene felt a reluctance to surrender his burden.

  “Lady Eve is suffering a megrim. You’ll want to fetch the lavender water and perhaps a tot of the poppy. You’re not to brush out her hair or do anything other than exactly as she directs.”

  The woman’s expression suggested she’d never beheld her lady in a strange gentleman’s arms, much less in the confines of the lady’s own apartments. “I’ll take good care of her, my lord.”

  “See that you do.” He wanted to deposit Evie on the bed, but her dignity would not thank him. Carefully, he set her on her feet, keeping an arm around her shoulders.

  “Turn down the bed, Hammet.” Eve’s voice was a weary thread of sound. “Please.”

  The maid bustled off to put coals in the bed warmer, leaving Deene to peer down at the woman half-leaning on him. “Shall I alert anybody?”

  “Hammet is used to this. Good night, Deene, and thank you.” She went up on her toes, blinked her pretty green eyes at him once, then kissed his cheek and subsided on a sigh.

  After that, there was nothing for Deene to do but bow courteously over her hand and take his leave.

  * * *

  “Papa?”

  “Oui, mon coeur?”

  Mischievous blue eyes peered up at Jonathan Patrick Francis Dolan. “Why don’t you speak the Irish anymore? I hear it only if you sing to me.”

  Dolan smiled down at the prettiest female he’d ever beheld. “Because a proper lady knows her French.” He turned a page in a worn copy of Robinson Crusoe. “Shall I read about poor Crusoe in French?”

  Translating as he went would be a challenge for a man who’d picked up his French on the docks of Calais, but for her he’d muddle along.

  “Please don’t.” Georgina shifted on the sofa beside him. “Miss Ingraham makes me recite in French every morning. Will you sing to me tonight?”

  Eight years old and already she was learning to wheedle. He didn’t know whether to be proud or dismayed. “Will you apply yourself to your French, acushla mo chroí?”

  She pursed her lips while Dolan ran his hand over a tidy golden brai
d. Thank a merciful God she’d gotten her mother’s English blond locks and not Dolan’s unruly auburn hair.

  He’d stopped up in the nursery suite when he should have been down in his office, reviewing the accounts of any number of lazy subcontractors, thieving factors, and useless suppliers. The next thing he knew, he’d been cozened into reading just a few pages of an old favorite, and an hour had gone by.

  Not a wasted hour, but a precious hour stolen from a press of business that never left him enough time with his only child.

  “Tell you what,” he said, setting the book aside. “If Miss Ingraham gives a good account of your French, I’ll sing to you tomorrow night.”

  “Why not tonight?”

  “I’m going out, my heart, and you are going to mind Miss Ingraham, say your prayers, and dream sweet dreams.”

  She reached for the book and laid it open on her lap. “I’ll dream of a pony.”

  “Learn your French, and I’ll get a pony for you to keep at Whitley.”

  The look she gave him was curiously adult. “We won’t go to Whitley until it’s summer, and it’s not even completely spring yet.”

  Before she could start needling him, Dolan kissed her crown and rose. “Learn your French, Georgina dearest, and then you’ll be in a stronger bargaining position.”

  “You’ll start on my needlepoint, next. I’ll never get a pony.” Fortunately, she was grinning.

  “Who wants a pony when there are magical unicorns to be had?” He tapped her nose with one callused finger and took himself off, before she could tell him there were no unicorns. The first time she’d informed her father of this truth, Dolan had permitted himself a wee drop of medicinal whiskey despite it being broad daylight.

  He’d recognized it as the beginning of a slippery slide away from the innocence and ease of parenting a very young child, toward the utterly bewildering prospect of shepherding a wealthy young Englishwoman into a happy and pampered adulthood.

  “A caller for you, sir.”

  Every time he heard Brampton’s voice, Dolan felt a little satisfaction. His butler had been lured away from nothing less than a duke’s household, and was the embodiment of English dignity and propriety.

  Brampton held out a little silver salver—gold, Dolan had learned, was too ostentatious—and Dolan peered at the card thereon.

  “Tell the marquis neither I nor Miss Georgina are at home, and don’t expect to be for quite—” No, let the sodding beggar keep coming around and being turned away. “Just tell him we’re out for the day.”

  “Very good, sir.”

  Brampton withdrew, having the knack of moving silently and at just such a speed as to convey determination on an important errand, but not quickly enough to suggest urgency. Dolan watched him processing down the paneled corridor.

  Someday, Jonathan Dolan would visit his daughter’s household and see just such a butler, except that fellow would address the lady of the house as “my lady.” Dolan let himself into his office and went back to dealing with the thieves, rogues, and charlatans with whom he did business every day.

  * * *

  “You look like you could spit nails. Hardly encouraging to all the sweet young things twittering about the ballroom.”

  Deene knew that slightly ironic bass-baritone, and turned to see Joseph Carrington, Lord Kesmore, sipping champagne at his elbow.

  “Evening, Kesmore. What has lured you from the wilds of Kent so early in the year?”

  Kesmore’s dark brows twitched down. “Raising hogs is vulgarly profitable. I say this to you in strictest confidence as your neighbor and friend, and as a man who has seen you so drunk you sing odes to the barmaid’s feminine attributes. There is, however, a certain hardship upon the man—particularly a man newly married—who undertakes such a commercial endeavor when the weather moderates and the hog pens must be cleaned of several months’ worth of pig shit.”

  Despite the cloying heat of the ballroom, despite the gauntlet forming for him as the orchestra warmed up, Deene’s lips quirked up. “You came to Town to avoid the smell of pig shit?”

  “Pig shit wafting in my bedroom window at night, pig shit scenting my linen, pig shit… but I am whining, and thank all the gods it’s not me the mamas are trolling for this year.”

  Deene snagged a glass of champagne from a passing footman, lest he look over and see pity lurking in Kesmore’s typically impassive gaze.

  “My cousin Anthony, who is much more socially astute than I am, says I must accept all of the invitations now that I’m done with mourning, and leave the tedious business of the marquessate to him as my second-in-command. I suspect him of something less than selfless devotion in his advice.”

  “Let’s head for the card room then. In my company, fewer of the sweet young things are likely to approach you directly.”

  A generous offer, except in the card room one gambled—an undertaking best reserved for those with ample disposable income.

  “I’ll bide here among the potted palms.” Deene paused for a fortifying sip of his wine. “The mamas patrol out here in the ballroom, but the aunts and grandmamas are in the card room, and those dragons I am not yet drunk enough to deal with.”

  Kesmore did shoot him a look of pity, or perhaps simple commiseration, since the earl was himself newly married. “I’m off then, and I’ll leave you to your fate. You could always say your old war injury is acting up and the dancing is beyond you.”

  As Kesmore stalked away, Deene lifted his flute to salute that helpful notion, and went back to leaning on a shadowed pillar as unobtrusively as he could. Given that he was several inches over six feet, his hair was golden blond perfectly hued to gleam by candlelight, and his title the highest available on the marriage mart in three years, he suspected his evening—and likely he, himself—were doomed.

  Two hours later the suspicion was a patented, sealed conclusion.

  “My lord, you really must lead my darling Mildred out.” Lady Staines affected a simper that came off more like a glower. “She’s ever so shy, and yet quite the most graceful thing on two feet.”

  The ever-so-shy Miss Mildred Staines was the selfsame young lady who’d not fifteen minutes ago tried to accost Deene on his way to the men’s retiring room. She had claws where her fingernails should be, and if Kesmore hadn’t come along at an opportune moment—

  “Oh, Deene! There you are!” Eve Windham swanned up to him, a blond, green-eyed confection in a pale blue ball gown that showed only a hint of cleavage. Though why would he allow himself to remark such a thing when he was about to be dragged by the hair into holy matrimony by Lady Staines and her familiar?

  “Lady Eve.” He bowed over her hand, which bore a slight, pleasing scent of mock orange.

  Eve greeted the ladies with voluble good cheer then beamed a smile up at Deene. “Come along, my lord. The sets are forming.”

  For just one moment, just the merest blink-and-he’d-miss-it instant, Eve looked him directly in the eye. She was trying to tell him…

  Bless the woman. And it was the supper waltz, too.

  “My apologies, Lady Eve. I was distracted by the charm of my companions. Lady Staines, Miss Staines, if you’ll excuse me?”

  He led Eve to the dance floor and bowed as protocol required. “You have my thanks.”

  She curtsied gracefully. “Repaying a favor owed.” She came up smiling, a different smile from that brilliant, cheerful—and, he suspected, false—smile she’d dispensed before the Staines women.

  The introduction sounded, and he took her in his arms to the extent called for by the dance. “Have we waltzed before, my lady?”

  “You have not had that pleasure since I put my hair up. The last time was at a Christmas gathering at Morelands. You were on leave with Bart and Devlin.”

  The music began, and as they moved off, Deene cast his memory back. He’d danced with several of the Windham sisters, even Maggie, who had been accounted the family recluse until she’d married Hazelton.

  He had d
anced with Eve on the last leave Lord Bart had taken before his death. When Deene glanced down at his partner, he saw a shadow of that recollection in her eyes, which would not do. He pulled her a trifle closer on the next turn.

  “Deene.” She made his title, just five letters, sound like an entire sermon on impropriety.

  “If you’re going to rescue me, you have to do a proper job of it.” He aimed a smile at her, pleased to see the shadows had fled from her eyes. “If I’m not seen to flirt with you, the Lady Staineses of the world will think I am still quite at large, maritally speaking.”

  “You are at large, maritally speaking. Just because I appropriated your company for one dance doesn’t mean I’ll be your decoy indefinitely.”

  “Decoy.” He considered the notion. “The idea has a great deal of merit. And you’re bound to me for supper as well, you know.”

  He saw by her slight grimace that she hadn’t intended this result. Her generosity had been spontaneous, then, which meant she hadn’t watched him being hounded and chased and harried the livelong evening.

  “A waltz and supper.” She paused while they twirled through another turn, and this time Deene pulled her a shade closer still then let her ease away. “Lucas Denning, behave, or I shall put it about you have a fondness for leeks.”

  He danced her down the room—she was very light on her feet—realizing that his taunt had backfired. In that one moment when she’d been against his body, he’d felt an unmistakable flare of arousal.

  “Just for show, my dear. You must tell me how you’ve managed all these years to avoid wedded bliss. I will pay you handsomely for such a secret.”

  Her gaze flicked up from where she’d been staring determinedly at his shoulder. “You need a wife, Deene. You’ve only the one cousin to manage the succession, and he’s not married. Besides, I’m not avoiding anything. I simply haven’t taken.”

  “Haven’t taken?” He’d heard her brothers grumbling about having to beat Evie’s swains away with muttered threats and thunderous scowls.

  “I’m short. A proper English beauty is willowy, like Jenny.” She gave him the false smile again.