Scandalous Ever After

by Theresa Romain

  Her head snapped up. “How terribly unfair you are. I always had something to say to you. You are the one who went silent.” Flags of hot color stained her cheeks. “And that’s not what I meant, wanting you to sit with me and another in a trio. No—neither of those weres you suggested! I don’t want that. There was always more to our friendship than that.”

  “Was there?” He ticked on his fingers. “So you don’t want anyone else, and you also don’t want me. You don’t want anything to change between us, nor do you want our friendship to go back to the way it was.”

  She attempted a smile. “You could throw toast at me if you like.”

  “I will decline that honor for now.” Desperate to move, to leave, he folded his serviette and slapped it onto the table. “Lady Whelan, I am off to the races.”

  * * *

  If Evan had thought Kate had been the rogue housekeeper before, it was nothing compared to the frantic level of activity she maintained through the remainder of the week. It was clear that she’d have run away if she possibly could. But since he was a guest in her father’s home, he made himself as unobtrusive as possible. During race week, there was much to do: drink and wager, walk the horses, even flirt and dance a little at the nightly revelry in Newmarket.

  If he did a great deal of all those things, he could almost not notice the shush Kate’s skirts made when she whipped around a corner to avoid him. He could almost not conjure the sound of her bedchamber door closing as she left him slumbering, fool that he was, in her bed.

  By the time race week came to a close, they had returned to a tolerable state of friendliness. It was the sort people displayed with a person they didn’t know well and wanted to treat with courtesy.

  It was a poor substitute for the easy intimacy they’d shared.

  But imagination was a poor substitute for reality. Fruitless love was a poor substitute for having one’s affections returned. Evan was familiar with poor substitutes.

  He and Kate, along with Kate’s lady’s maid Susan, left Newmarket on a Monday. The waxing moon was still faint in the sky as they made their early-morning farewells.

  “It’s good to see you happy again,” Jonah told his sister gruffly, engulfing her in a great embrace.

  “Close enough,” came Kate’s muffled voice from within his arms. She wiped at her eyes when he let go, and everyone pretended not to notice.

  Jerome and Hattie, the staid chestnuts who had drawn Sir William’s carriage from Cambridge to Newmarket, would now take the travelers to Holyhead, the port on the Irish Sea.

  This first leg of the journey back to Ireland was over land, a great stripe across England and Wales. A week’s travel at the best of times, the roads were uncertain in autumn when rain made them soft and pitted.

  A week in a carriage, jostled about with Kate and her maid. This would be…interesting.

  Evan shook Sir William’s hand and thanked him for his hospitality. The baronet nodded. “Take good care of my horses,” he said. “Jerome and Hattie are the best-tempered of creatures, but Jerome is stubborn about his meals. If he’s hungry, he won’t go another step. And Hattie…” The baronet looked around Evan, where the chestnuts were being harnessed. “Check her shoes each day. They come loose more often than any female’s shoes I’ve ever seen, and I include humans.”

  “I will see to it,” Evan said. “And I’ll make sure your daughter is safe too.”

  Sir William’s hazel gaze was narrow. “That, I took for granted.”

  The trunks were loaded, a hamper was stowed, and the travelers climbed within. Kate and her maid sat on the forward-facing squabs. Evan seated himself across from them. The coachman put up the steps, closed the carriage door, and took to his box. With a cluck to the horses and a jingle of harness, the carriage began to roll.

  Thus began the journey to Wales.

  Evan had expected it to be a silent and awkward journey, but within a few minutes he realized it would be nothing of the sort. Because of the presence of Kate’s maid, a young Irish woman named Susan, they could speak of nothing private.

  This was for the best. Words had served them ill since the night they’d spent together. So as the women made pleasant chat about the scenery, speculated about the next week of races, wondered if they had forgotten this or that…Evan began to seduce Kate again.

  He did it subtly, so that she thought his gestures an accident at first. Small touches of the toe of his boot against hers; a secret smile directed her way when she met his eye. A joke to put the maid at ease when the jolting of the carriage made Susan queasy; a pair of apples retrieved from the hamper for the horses to crunch. A midday stop at an inn, ostensibly to stretch his legs, where the ladies used the necessary and he bought them hot buns and strong tea.

  Yes. Evan was going to seduce Kate by being absolutely necessary to her well-being. By making traveling with him a damned delight.

  And it worked. By the time they halted for the day at a clean and cozy inn, Kate was having trouble meeting his eyes, and her cheeks were constantly pink.

  They only became pinker when the trio disembarked from the carriage, and Evan considered how to arrange their rooms. “You’re not wearing black.”

  Kate looked down at her garments, which were all sorts of pleasant autumn shades. “Correct. Is that a problem?”

  “You don’t look like a dried-up, bereaved widow. How could it be proper for us to be traveling together? We’ll have to be…something. Brother and sister.”

  At once, they made a mutually horrified noise.

  “Husband and wife?” Evan suggested. A man could hope.

  Kate blushed, then lowered her voice. “I think it best we not share a bedchamber again. What about uncle and niece?”

  “Ruthless woman. I am, what? Four years your senior?” Evan considered. “If anyone asks, we are cousins.”

  After arranging lodging for the night, Evan and John Coachman saw to the horses with the help of the inn’s ostler. Yes, Hattie’s shoes were nailed on properly. Jerome had his nose in a manger as if he hadn’t eaten for a week. When Evan stroked their forelocks, both chestnuts gave him a whuff of warm breath, their ears relaxed with the simple pleasure of contented animals.

  “Good creatures,” he said, scratching behind the ears of first the gelding, then the mare. “Thanks for your steadiness today. I wish I needed only warmth and food to be happy.”

  Hattie bumped him with her nose, as though admonishing him.

  “I know. I should be.”

  Should, should. Even here in a warm stable, with contented horses and the low talk of stable hands about, the gray feeling hovered. It waited, always, for the inactivity that meant a gap in his armor. Then it sank upon him, dissolving certainty into questions. What should I have done? Why did that happen? What if I had done this? What will happen next? What will I do if? Until the very acts of everyday living took on a weight so great as to make them impossible.

  Almost impossible.

  “I’m tired,” he told Hattie. “That’s all.”

  She bumped him again with her nose, the whuff more of a snort this time.

  “You don’t believe me?”

  She blinked long-lashed eyes darker than his own. Then, with a shake of her head that sent her chestnut forelock into a tangle, she turned her attention to her hay.

  “You’re right. I’m talking bollocks.” He had to smile.

  The battle between thought and external cheer was ceaseless, but only because he would not surrender.

  Instead, he went inside the inn to see to Kate’s comfort again—and when she blushed as sweet and pink as a rose, to see her and Susan to their chamber and bid them good night.

  “Sleep well,” he told Kate.

  If his wishes were granted, her dreams would flutter in his direction, and in the morning her waking self would see him anew.

  Ten
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br />   Kate could not remember when she had enjoyed a journey so much.

  Yes, the roads were dreadfully rutted and bumpy, jolting the travelers all about. But on their second day in the carriage, Evan had made a game of things. Whoever bounced the highest off the squabs got to pick a surprise from the hamper, which he had filled at the inn with biscuits and dried fruit. By the time they halted at midday, both Kate and Susan were groaning with sweets, far too full to do their meal justice.

  That afternoon, one of the wheels stuck steadfast in mud, and not the combined efforts of Jerome and Hattie could pull it free. The wheel only sank further, setting the carriage at a crazy tilt.

  “We’d best see what’s going on,” Kate said. Evan hopped out of the carriage, then helped Kate and Susan clamber down.

  The coachman climbed from his seat to look at the buried wheel. “Aye, she’s stuck good and proper. Need something to dig with, I reckon.”

  “We don’t have such a thing!” Susan’s light eyes were wide. “What’ll we do, Lady Whelan? How long will we have to stay here?”

  Susan was so young, and she had been drawn so far away from the village of her birth. Kate put a calming—well, she hoped it was calming—hand on the maid’s arm. “We’ve got something we can use, surely. We just have to think of it. Even if we have to get Hattie to throw a shoe, we could dig with that.”

  The coachman crossed himself. “Never say it, Lady Whelan. That mare’s the worst for throwing shoes.”

  Within the harness, the mare tilted her head to regard them with reproachful eyes.

  “Sorry, Hattie,” Kate murmured.

  Evan frowned. “I have a little trowel in my trunk. A brush and pick too, though I doubt those will be of help.”

  “Your antiquarian tools,” Kate realized. “How fortunate.”

  “It would be more fortunate if I were carrying a spade with me, but we’ll make do.”

  John Coachman helped Evan wrestle free his trunk, and he pawed through it and came up with a small case.

  When he unfastened it, he cursed. The little digging tool was hardly longer than his hand. “I could swear it’s got smaller since I packed it. This was made for delicate work, not excavation.”

  “Then let’s be delicate about digging out the wheel.” Kate gathered her skirts about her ankles and crouched beside him, near the stuck wheel. It was buried almost to the axle.

  “My lady, you let me work on that.” John Coachman pulled her to her feet with more vigor than solicitude, then hesitated. “But we can’t leave the horses on their own.”

  “They’re not going anywhere. This stuck wheel has seen to that well enough,” Kate said. “But I’ll see to them.”

  As she stepped aside, she let the weight of her skirts brush against Evan’s body. He looked up, curious, and she did not know whether she ought to grin or to pretend ignorance.

  She only looked at him, and it was difficult to look away.

  The air was heavy with mist and the scent of wet grass, and as she crossed to the well-trained horses, a light rain began to fall.

  Susan dogged her steps. “What can I do to help?”

  “Dear Susan.” Kate considered. “Would you like to look for rocks that the men could use to smooth the path of the stuck wheel? Or would you like to get into the carriage and stay warm?”

  “I’d be a fool not to want to get into the carriage, and I’m no fool.” A thin young woman, Susan’s lips were already losing color. “But I’d be an arse if I didn’t help, and I’m not that either.”

  “That you’re not,” Kate agreed. “I would welcome your help, but you must get into the carriage if you start to shiver.”

  “I will, my lady.” The maid set off, kicking at the wet grass.

  Kate stood before the team, lightly holding their heads and talking soft nonsense to them. They were so large and powerful, these chestnuts, but they loved the sort of gentle voices and patient treatment that a mother lavished on her infant.

  “Who’s a good boy,” she crooned, petting Jerome’s head until he closed his amber eyes and hung his head with contentment. “You’re like a big puppy, aren’t you?”

  Hattie stomped—just once, just hard enough to draw attention. “Keep your shoes on,” Kate said, then turned her attention to the mare. One at a time, she talked soft nonsense to them, occasionally peeking around the side of the carriage to follow the progress of the work.

  Susan had found some fist-sized stones to jam into the softening mud. Evan was using the sharpest of them to carve free the wheel, while John Coachman took to the other side.

  Wet and cold and stuck, they ought to have been utterly miserable. But the trace of dewy rain on Evan’s features was like a glow, and at the sight of him, Kate had to bite her lip against a swell of emotion. How had she borne the journey from Ireland without him?

  She had borne it because she knew no other option. She had borne it because she had never expected to see him again.

  Sometimes she wondered at all she had managed to bear over the past years.

  “Now!” called Evan. “Walk them forward, slowly!”

  Kate clucked to the horses, tugging lightly at the pole and pole straps between them. “One step now…after me…”

  Broad gray-brown hooves lifted and stamped into the earth. Powerful necks strained against the harness collars. “Come on, dear ones, follow me.” Kate backed away, glancing over her shoulder to make sure the road was clear. “Another step.”

  The carriage swayed, its alarming angle deepening, then lurched upright again—and halted.

  “Wait here.” Kate held out her hands to the horses, who looked at each other with as much doubt as equine faces could hold.

  She raced around the side of the carriage. “What happened? Are we still stuck?”

  Evan stood, mud-spattered from forehead to boot. “No, the wheel’s free.” He wiped at his face, smearing the mud. “See here? Between the digging and the stones, it’s rolled up onto solid ground. Until the rain makes a swamp of the whole road, that is.”

  John Coachman groaned. “Did Hattie lose a shoe?”

  “Definitely not,” Kate said. “She stomped her hooves at me, and all her shoes were on.”

  “I’m getting into the carriage,” Susan decided, “even if it never goes anywhere again.” She climbed in and huddled on the floor.

  John Coachman climbed atop his box again and took up the reins. “Come on, now. Let’s get into the middle of the road.” He chucked at the horses. Hattie shuffled her hooves, but the carriage stayed stubbornly still.

  “What the devil?” Kate bent over, skirts trailing on the dirt as she looked at the four carriage wheels. “They’re fine.”

  When she straightened up, Evan was grinning, his teeth white against his earth-smudged skin. “It’s Jerome, I’d wager. Your father told me he was an awful brat about his meals. If he gets a treat, he might walk on.”

  “Geldings,” huffed Kate. “Such brats.”

  “They have much to feel bratty about,” said Evan, with a gesture that made Kate redden.

  She turned away, hiding her laugh, and asked Susan for the hamper. “If we didn’t eat all the biscuits…ah, he might like this.” She pulled a plum cake from the depths of the hamper and broke it in two.

  Why not? Hattie pulled the same weight.

  With the encouragement of the plum cake held out of reach, the horses extended their heads—then took a step, then another, and another, and soon the carriage was rolling. Kate scrabbled backward, skirts tangling about her ankles. With a whoop of glee, she let the team nibble the cake from her outstretched hands, then hitched up her skirts and bolted for the carriage door. Evan hopped inside, then hauled her in and pulled the door shut behind them.

  They plumped onto the squabs, each sighing. In the dim of the carriage interior, the three wet, muddy, bedraggled peop
le looked at each other—and as one, they laughed.

  “We smell like a farmyard.” Kate looked ruefully at her gown. The cloth was rumpled and stained, probably beyond saving. A shame. She had few pretty clothes that had escaped the black dye of her mourning year.

  “We’re wet as ducks!” Susan exclaimed. “John Coachman’s got his nice oilcloth, and we’ve got…”

  “We’ve got brandy.” Evan reached into his coat pocket. “I took it from my trunk before we stowed all the tools again.” He leaned forward, shaking the silver flask. “Go on, take it. It’s fine Chandler brandy. All the best people use it.”

  Use it, he said, and she remembered how she’d trailed it over him. So awkward, so eager. As hesitant as a virgin to whom everything was new.

  The memory caused a pulse between her legs. When Susan offered her the flask, Kate demurred. “I’m warm enough already.”

  Going back to the way we were had been a silent and tentative business. She should have known there was no going back once people became lovers. But how might they go forward?

  For the rest of the day, and for the days of travel thereafter, the carriage rolled on, but she never came up with an adequate answer.

  * * *

  For the final two days of the journey, Evan felt his birthplace drawing nearer, along with the inevitable visit to his family. Wales was embraced by the sea, the touch of the water about the land always felt, even if not seen. The sea made it seem small and stretching at once, close to infinity and crushed by it. This swoop of dissonant feeling was what Evan liked best about it. A man had to be jarred free from his own grayness when he saw the blue of the sea.

  Their destination, Holyhead, lay at the far reach of Wales on Holy Island—a nub of land off the Isle of Anglesey. Anglesey was itself cut off from the Welsh mainland by a river. The gap between the lands was not much wider than a man could fling a pebble in spots—if he had a wind in his favor and a strong throwing arm. The river was shallow when the tide was out, but with a quick current. Travelers were wiser to take a ferry than to try fording the river, especially if they traveled with a magic lantern and its fragile slides.