“You’ve never given a direct response in your life, have you?”
Evelyn laughed in his annoying high-pitched way.
“What would be the fun in that? I do so like to prod and poke the metaphorical wound of unconsummated love. It’s just a pity I can no longer play my viola at the same time as I pontificate. Makes for a dramatic accompaniment to one’s feelings! I used to, y’know. Prance about in high heels, viola under m’chin, providing endless entertainment and wet eyes for my audience—mostly women, but there were my fellow musicians who appreciated my compositions. Light as meringue, but delicious nonetheless.” He sighed heavily. “Sadly, those heady days are behind me, as are my two fingers!” He laughed again and shook his head. “But let’s not get maudlin on my behalf. I’m here to talk about you and m’cousin—”
“I certainly won’t discuss the Lady Mary with you.”
Evelyn gave Christopher a friendly punch in the shoulder. “Do shelve that stubborn streak and shut up, Squire Backwater. The rain is coming and I’ve something to say.”
“And you haven’t yet?”
“Touché. Now be quiet and listen. And I will be succinct for your benefit, because I fear it is the only way you will comprehend what it is I am offering you.” He glanced up at Christopher and seeing he had his full attention, continued. “I said in the millhouse Mary is to be mine in a month’s time. You cannot have failed to comprehend what I meant by that, surely? But just in case you are incredulous, or think me capable of acting the scoundrel with m’own cousin, let me assure you I mean to ask her to marry me. I am confident she will accept my offer. I may be a bit tatty around the edges these days, and I am missing partial digits, but I’m still quite a catch. I come with an earldom and a great pile of stone somewhere up north. Could marry a pretty little virgin straight out of the schoolroom—and plenty of mamas would sacrifice their daughters for a title and pedigree like mine—if that was my wish, but it isn’t. So you can lift that ugly frown back up off your manly chest. Virgins don’t interest me. Mary does. And I know she interests you, too, Silvanus—mightily interests you, and has done for years, is my guess. So. Tell me: What are you going to do about it?”
“About it? About what?”
Evelyn threw a hand in the air and rolled his eyes. “This perfectly wonderful marriage proposal of mine to make Mary my countess, that’s what.”
Christopher drew in a breath and swallowed. It was the only visible sign of emotion he allowed himself to this life-crushing news.
Of course. This was no surprise. But to hear it said out loud… That made it fixed. It also made perfect sense. Two noble cousins. Two childhood friends—secret sweethearts—married to others and now free to marry one another. A romantically fitting outcome. Why did he think it would be any different? He always knew Mary had to remarry, and marry well. But a little part of him, even if it was only the size of his smallest toe, believed in the possibility that when she did, it would be for love, and to him. He loved her. She loved him. It had been left unsaid between them and yet he knew, and so did she. It was a feeling, a sense, which was always with him. And so he had allowed himself to dream of asking her, and in his dream she always said yes. It was that simple.
But now…
That dream was but a daydream, and would remain so. It was for the best. And best to know sooner rather than later. Best to get on with life. He had so much to do. Perhaps he would take Kate on holiday to the seaside, let her feel the salt air in her hair and on her skin, the sand under feet. She always did love the sea…
Mary was to marry her cousin in a month… She would become the Countess of Stretham-Ely and leave the vale to live anywhere but here…
Mentally he turned away to face the wall, gut tightening and head pounding, and curled himself into a ball. And then the wall collapsed, leaving him in pitch black. Was he still curled on the floor, or was he floating? All he knew was that he was surrounded by nothingness. He felt nothing. He thought nothing. There was nothing left for him to say, or do, or want, or need. Ever. He wondered if he were going mad. He knew he was numb…
With supreme effort of will he forced his body to respond. And while he mentally remained in this emotionless void, spinning in blackness, he managed to make his limbs obey to make Evelyn a formal bow. And when he straightened and met the nobleman’s gaze, he made certain he did not blink or look away, but stayed staring into his icy blue eyes. And then from somewhere far off he heard his own voice echoing in his ears, flat and detached and cold. And all he wanted to do was howl his despair at the moon.
“I wish you happy, my lord. She deserves—she deserves to be happy—to be your countess. Thank-you for—for telling me here, away from—away from—If you’ll excuse me, I must see to the mill—”
“No! No you don’t!” Evelyn grabbed his coat sleeve. “Don’t walk away from me, Silvanus! I’m not done with you.”
Christopher swayed and stared at the fingers holding fast to his arm, not knowing what he was supposed to do. But there was one thing he knew he wanted, and knew he had power over, and that was to put distance between him and this man, and fast, before he did something he regretted. The only thought that kept him in check was knowing that as they stood on higher ground at the sluice gate, he was in full view not only of his workers and their families, but also of those seated about the table. Mary sat facing him, and Teddy was down by the stream watching the village children cast lines into the water. And both could see him and Lord Vallentine seemingly in congenial conversation.
He jerked his mind and his arm free.
“But I’m done with you, my lord. And I’ve offered you my felicitations. Now I must return to my guests.”
Evelyn blocked Christopher’s exit. With both arms outstretched and palms flat on the top of the sluice gate frame, there was nowhere for Christopher to go unless he turned away and crossed to the bank. But that would leave him on the wrong side of the canal. He had to get past Evelyn, and he did not want to knock him out of the way for fear of him toppling over and into the fast-flowing water; he would surely drown. So he waited, a glance down at the rushing water beneath their boots.
“I’ve not asked her—yet,” Evelyn told him. “She knows my intentions. She has a month to think it over. But then,” he added, sticking out his bottom lip, “she is free to refuse me, if that is her wish.”
That did bring Christopher hurtling out of the abyss of numbed despair to huff with incredulous anger,
“Refuse to marry you? Her closest cousin? Whom she has known since her childhood? You’re offering her safety, security, wealth, and the title of countess. Oh, and a marriage vastly different from her first. Refuse you? Ha! I think not! She’s been too well-trained, bred up from the cradle to know her own worth and yours. If you think for one moment she’ll not accept a marriage proposal from you, then you’re battered on the inside as well as out! It’s a noble family alliance everyone will whole heartedly embrace. Her witch of a mother will be in seventh heaven. That should at least put a stop to her badgering; and not soon enough! And whatever your past indiscretions, they’ll be forgiven. Roxton will slap your back with a hearty congratulations. Bravo! You’ll be the hero of the hour.”
Evelyn rolled his eyes and looked sheepish. “I know. I know. Burden of family expectation fulfilled and all that.”
Christopher stepped up to him menacingly. “You’d best be doing this for the right reasons, Apollo, or so help me I’ll—”
“—break every bone in my noble body? Rattle m’bone box? Call me out?” Far from cowering, Evelyn eyed him up and down with a smirk. “I dare say you’d like to do all three. But fortunately for me we are not social equals. So a duel ain’t on the cards, is it? Besides, I didn’t bring you out here to goad you with the news of our impending engagement, but, as I told you earlier in our full and frank discussion, to give you fair warning and fair play”
“Fair play? This isn’t some sort of game! I won’t be drawn in to satisfy some perverse amusement.�
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It was Evelyn’s turn to huff. “Won’t you? And I thought you were in love with M—”
“Of course I’m in love with her! You know I’m in love with her. I have been for eight excruciating years. And now you’ve goaded me into finally saying it out loud. Bravo, my lord!”
Evelyn regarded Christopher coolly and enunciated, “So I say again, Silvanus: What are you going to do about it?”
Christopher threw a hand into the air. He wanted to look out across the stream to the picnic party, to see if Mary was still there. Instead, he stared down at the rushing water. He wasn’t given to dramatic gestures, and up until a moment ago, he would not have thought himself capable of a heated outburst either. Other people—Kate—behaved in such a fashion; he was always pragmatic and phlegmatic to a fault. His father said to be a good farmer required patience; to know how to wait, and with good grace. But not today. And, so it seemed, not where his feelings for Mary were concerned. With the internal void of nothingness threatening to swallow him up, he took a deep breath, wanting this conversation over with, and said quietly, “What would you have me do about it?”
“Ah! Now that’s more like it! I’ll tell you what I told Mary. I’m going away for a month. Some unfinished business for Shrewsbury. What happens while I’m away is of supreme indifference to me. It’s what happens once I return that is most important. So I’m contracting you to look after her while I’m gone. You’ll be her cicesbeo—”
“I’ll be her what?”
“Oh do listen! The rain is coming. You know very well what I’m talking about.”
“I will not take on such a role with her!”
“Whyever not? You did it often enough in Lucca. Half a dozen times in fact.”
“That was completely different. There can be no comparison.”
“That’s true. Mary doesn’t have an understanding elderly husband to make up a threesome at cards, or to fund your lifestyle, or turn a blind eye when his much-younger wife spends the night with her lover. And poor Mary is vastly more under-experienced in the bedroom than were your previous contracted lovers.”
“Never!”
“And we won’t commit anything to paper, not in this country. People wouldn’t understand. What is a perfectly acceptable arrangement in Lucca is considered sordid in the extreme here. Fellows here are emasculated by such an arrangement, but not I! So, Silvanus, it will be a gentleman’s verbal agreement. But in every other respect, I’m perfectly amenable to such an arrangement.”
“You are battered in the brain if you think I’ll agree to it!”
Evelyn feigned surprise. “But why would you refuse? I’m giving you permission to be my future wife’s lover—for you to have unlimited access to her person for four weeks. This is the woman who has kept you throbbing for release for eight years—you did use the word excruciating—and you’re going to decline such a golden opportunity? You’re the one with gruel for brains, Silvanus! Dear me, you never balked at a contract in the past—”
“That was different! I was different! She is different!”
“Yes. Love changes everything, doesn’t it? More’s the pity…” Evelyn looked Christopher up and down, smiled and said flippantly, his tone at odds with the hard glint in his eye, “Then do it for love, Silvanus. Make her happy for four weeks. Give her some of that vast carnal experience you acquired as the kept lover of other men’s wives. Give her a wicked past. Something to make her blush and smile once in a while when she’s sitting at her stitchery, the countess of my pile up north.”
“She’d never agree to such an arrangement! She—”
“—doesn’t have to know. But what she does know is that I’m not opposed to her having a brief, torrid affair—with you. I’ve given her permission.”
“How magnanimous of you!”
Evelyn sighed and waved a hand, “I thought so.”
Christopher had second thoughts about throwing him into the canal. His eyes narrowed. “Why are you doing this? Why are you torturing me? Or should I ask the obvious: What’s in it for you?”
“I do want her to be happy. But you’re right to be suspicious. I’m not altruistic. As far as I’m concerned you can keep your physical frustrations bottled until you pop. But when Mary chooses to marry me, then I’ll have her all to myself, body and soul.” His mouth twitched. “And she’ll know a thing or two about making love, thanks to you. Which means her mind won’t wander to what might have been—with you. She’ll know, and it won’t matter a jot to me, or to her.”
“No.”
Evelyn let out a small sigh of resignation and pushed himself away from the wooden cross post of the sluice gate and stood tall. He brushed his hands, and after pulling on the lace at both his wrists he looked up at Christopher. He saw the stubbornness in the hard clench to the strong jaw. But then he chanced to look into the Squire’s damp brown eyes—eyes that reminded him of Deborah Roxton—and they were a window to a different story. Here was conflict, desolation, and uncertainty writ large, indication the Squire was experiencing an internal moral struggle of epic proportions. So Evelyn appealed to him in a way he knew would allow Christopher to seriously consider the proposal he was offering him.
“Very well. Have it your way,” he said, with a shrug of feigned indifference. “You still have a month. A month to accomplish what you haven’t been able to in the eight years you’ve known each other. You have a month to convince her you’re the better man and she should marry you.”
Evelyn then turned and walked back to join the picnic party. Christopher, a few paces behind, crossed to the mill where his millwright was waiting to speak with him. Neither man spoke of their conversation again, to anyone.
CHRISTOPHER WAS ABLE to give his guests a tour of the waterwheel and have them all safely on their way well before the rainclouds rolled in to darken the sky, and which sent the villagers rushing to collect the cloth off the tenters to bring indoors before the heavens opened.
The wagon loaded with picnic things and those servants from Abbeywood who had accompanied it set off for home just as the picnic party reentered the mill to see Smeaton’s waterwheel in action.
The ladies, far from being disconcerted by the noise, were exhilarated, though they did clap their hands over their ears at the thunderous racket of rushing water as it fell onto the blades of the gigantic wooden wheel, driving it ever forward. No one spoke. No one would be heard had they tried. And when signaled to do so by Mr. Bryce, everyone returned to the upper floor, happy and satisfied that their visit to his mill was now complete, and a wonderful time was had by all. Rory waylaid the millwright and was deep in discussion about the natural powers of water and wind to turn various wheels and the subsequent generation of energy until her grandfather gently reminded her about the prospect of the entire party being soaked to their skins if they did not set off at once.
After much leave-taking and thanks, Teddy giving her Uncle Bryce a big hug because she was off on her month’s stay with Granny at Cheltenham at first light, the ladies and Teddy set off for home accompanied by two of the farm’s stablehands. Evelyn, Lord Shrewsbury, and Mr. Audley remained behind, the Spymaster giving the excuse that he had Crown business to discuss with the Squire, and so neither lady asked any further questions and went off none the wiser. The gentlemen would catch them up at the Puzzlewood.
But no sooner had the horses disappeared from view, the gentlemen waiting patiently for the ladies to be out of sight, than Philip Audley turned to Lord Shrewsbury and said with a condescending smile and his habitual sniff of disdain at Christopher,
“I can only assume you asked that I remain behind because this business with Mr. Bryce concerns Abbeywood. And no one knows the estate better than I—”
“Or its housekeeper!” Evelyn interrupted with a snort.
The secretary blinked. “I beg your pardon, my lord?”
Evelyn dug in a frock coat pocket and pulled out a small ceramic cylinder. This he dangled before Audley’s gaze. “Recognize thi
s?”
“No. But it looks to be a billet doux, my lord.”
“Give the man a macaron.”
It was Lord Shrewsbury’s turn to snort. He shook his head and said to Evelyn, “He’s cooler than an icebox in January, ain’t he!”
“And where he’s going it’s all fire and brimstone, so he’ll need plenty of ice,” Evelyn quipped.
“If you have no further use of my time, I have work to get on with,” Christopher stated, interrupting the private reverie between the Spymaster General and his subordinate.
“Eh? Not interested in seeing the thorn in your side get his comeuppance?” Shrewsbury asked, disappointed.
Christopher eyed the secretary, who stood ramrod straight and had yet to break a sweat. The man looked untouchable and unimpeachable. He had been subjected to this man’s petty-minded arrogance time and again, all in the name of his ducal employer, and knew that had the secretary been the duke, he’d have been an overbearing tyrant, most particularly with his servants. He was also an opportunist and a suspected traitor to his King and country. If that were true, he deserved everything and more that Shrewsbury had planned for him. Yet, Christopher had no wish to see him suffer, or to watch his humiliation, so he shook his head.
“No.”
“Very well. But we require your full cooperation. Your mill is requisitioned for Crown business—”
“The mill? Whatever for? I have workers, and—”
Evelyn interrupted Christopher with a dismissive wave. “Hold onto your cloth, Squire. Just for tonight. And just the lower floor.” He forced a grin. “Your tour of Smeaton’s waterwheel was most illuminating. I was skeptical at first, but his lordship was in the right. No one can hear you scream down there—”
Proud Mary Page 26
