Scandalous Ever After

by Theresa Romain

  He touched the dimple in her chin. Like a kiss, it had always looked to him. “Then we’ll run.”

  Trees arched over the path where it continued through the wood, making a sun-dappled tunnel of branch and leaf. Their booted footfalls sounded soft on the path, carpeted with fallen leaves in all shades of yellow and brown.

  When the path broke into a small clearing, Evan tipped back his head. Through the dapple of gold leaves and the first bare branches, the sky was like cobalt glaze, translucent and blue, wisped with clouds like thrown cotton.

  “Sit with me,” he said.

  “Here?” Kate looked around, her hands working at the edge of her cloak.

  “Right here.” Evan whisked aside some damp leaves, then stretched out on the ground. He tossed his hat aside, folded his arms behind his head, and looked up.

  After a moment, Kate joined him, settling onto the ground in the soft folds of her cloak.

  It was easier to think about what was right in a place like this, and have it seem simple. There were no slides, no crowds to convince. There was land to cross, and his hands and eyes to use, and if something seemed gray, then he could look up toward the blue.

  “That cloud looks like a wedge of fried potato,” he said.

  Kate choked. “Does it? Well, that cloud looks like the expression of shock on your face when I…steal your hat.” With a quick snap, she caught it up and flung it back over her head.

  “Minx.” Evan didn’t even budge. “You can have my hat. I’ll only look more handsome if I get a bit of sun on my manly features.”

  She laughed, but the tone was a little out of tune. “Are you never serious? How can I know what you feel?”

  Listen to me. Look at me.

  But there were only so many times a man could be frank, then be left behind. Kate, the one to leave during the night. Kate, the one to take his kisses, then get up from the bed of straw.

  “I’m a man,” he said. “You’re not meant to know what I’m feeling. I have this stoic exterior, and within me, muscles and virility.”

  “How tempting.” She settled at his side again. Trailed a hand down his chest. “I like the muscles and virility, Evan.”

  “Oh, I could tell.”

  Her hand rested over his heart. “But in truth I like it all.”

  The gray cloak covered her arm, stretching across his body like a fog. And suddenly, he couldn’t bear that there was something so important about himself that she didn’t know.

  “You want to know what I’m feeling,” he said. “The truth is, I can’t always put a name to it.” And he told her about the grayness: how it came in a wave, how it sometimes ebbed. But it was like an ocean and a tide. It was always there, and it would always come back. It had always been with him, and it had never been understood, because it was beyond the scope of understanding.

  While he spoke, she looked at him—at first. Then she settled into a copy of his pose, her arms folded in a pillow behind her head as she stared up at clouds that shifted.

  When he finished, she was still looking into the sky. “It is like grief.”

  “It is like some grief.” He traced her profile with a gentle fingertip. “Everyone grieves differently. This is leadenness of spirit.”

  Although now that he had told her, he felt nothing but the blue above, reflected within.

  “I have not felt what you describe, so I do not understand it,” she said slowly. “But I want to. Does it last?”

  “It is always there, faint like mist. Sometimes I forget about it. Sometimes it creeps over everything.”

  What is the purpose of it all, Evan? What does it matter?

  So asked his mother, once, about his excavation of a midden. About his efforts to learn about the past: one of the only things that mattered to him.

  And so what did a question matter? What did it matter what food one ate? What drink passed one’s lips? What did any of the God-damned bits of everyday existence matter?

  He didn’t have an answer. But for the moment, he had Kate at his side, and a cloud above that truly did look like a wedge of potato.

  Or a smile.

  “What brings the color back, when you feel so gray?” Kate asked.

  “Sometimes, nothing but time. When I am more fortunate, I can bring myself out of it with an effort of will. Thinking of others. Trying to do something worthwhile in the world.” He raised himself onto one elbow, then dropped a kiss on her nose. “Being with you.”

  “Then you’d better be with me.” She crooked her finger into the edge of his waistcoat. “Do your best, Evan, to show me something worthwhile.”

  “What’s this, insatiable woman?” He feigned shock, covering the real thump of his eager heart. “Are you asking me to tickle your loveliest bits while you call them terrible names like lumpy?”

  “No. I’m asking you to be with me, as I am.” Her eyes were sea-deep and warm, and her lips held a tremulous curve. “I’m not perfect, Evan, but…I think I might be just right.”

  “I know you are,” he said. “I have always known that.”

  And beneath the blue sky, they banished the gray.

  Twenty

  While Kate was occupied with estate business that afternoon, Evan—and the sliced-off cinch from Con’s saddle—prepared to pay a call of his own.

  He rode this time. Since Lady Alix was likely to be footsore from the long journey across Ireland, he took a smart chestnut with a white snip on his nose that made the gelding look as if he’d been nosing about in cream. Their destination: a cottage on the edge of the village.

  Evan looped around Thurles, not expecting or particularly wishing to see anyone—but as he guided the sure-footed chestnut across a field, he overtook a small, wizened figure he soon recognized as the old apothecary, Petty.

  “Good afternoon to you, Mr. Rhys.” Petty squinted at Evan, his face a wreath of kindly wrinkles. “Out for a constitutional, I am. And yourself?”

  “Paying a call,” Evan said. To someone who might be more forthcoming than the magistrate. Driscoll had much to protect, including the safety of the town and his own reputation.

  Since Petty had come his way, Evan paused to question the old man as well. With him, Evan took a different tack. Relaxing his hold on the reins so the gelding could lower his head to crop grass, Evan said, “I did think I’d explore some of the sights while I’m here. I missed the old places, you know. Nothing gets in your heart like Ireland.”

  “Sure and certain,” agreed Petty. “Where would you be wanting to look? There’s the chase course, before the crowds start their flocking in another week.”

  “Always a fine sight.” Evan clucked at the gelding, halting the horse before it took too many steps away from Petty. “I’ve an interest in antiquities too, as you know. I thought of learning more about Irish history.”

  “I knew you were after being a smart man. And how would you like to learn? Thurles hasn’t much of an archive, though Whelan House might—”

  “Oh, I’m no scholar,” Evan interrupted cheerfully. “I’d rather get my hands dirty in a field than my nose dusty in a book. Which is the nearest castle I might explore?”

  The old man pushed back his hat, scratching at his head. “Killahara, I expect. But I don’t know if you could look around there. It’s Trant land, and the baron keeps his tenants in the castle.”

  “No, that wouldn’t do. An inhabited castle will have people making modern changes. I want to see history as it was.” He snapped his fingers in feigned realization—causing the chestnut to lift his head and eye Evan with doubt. “Loughmoe Castle is also near, isn’t it?”

  “It is, it is. If you’re on the back of a horse,” the apothecary agreed. “But I don’t know what sort of condition it might be in.” He slapped his thighs. “Old legs couldn’t make that distance in a constitutional.”

  “Do peop
le commonly visit there?”

  Again, Petty scratched his head. “Can’t say, really. The crops haven’t been good since the terrible cold year. People of Thurles, we keep busy enough getting by.”

  Ah, 1816—it had been a difficult year all over, for many reasons besides Con’s death. During a bad harvest, an apothecary might be shielded from immediate want, but if hungry tenant farmers hadn’t the money to buy his goods, he’d be feeling the pinch in his purse too.

  “Does anyone live in Loughmoe?” Evan asked. “I wouldn’t want to intrude.”

  “Not for years and years.” Petty spat on the ground. “Family were wild geese.”

  Evan racked his brain for an explanation. “I do apologize, but you’ll have to help me. I’m sure the castle was not owned by waterfowl.”

  “Not that sort of geese, no. The wild geese were Jacobites, those who fled.”

  “Ah.” This, Evan understood. Jacobites were those who disputed the line of succession to the English throne—broken during the Stuart years, when it seemed the world would be torn and made bloody between Catholic and Protestant. “So they were Catholic.”

  And when their safety was endangered, they picked up their wealth and fled—leaving behind the tenants who had been their foot soldiers, plus a castle to fall into ruin.

  For the first time, Petty looked wary. “And which church do you be going to, Mr. Rhys?”

  “One in Wales, and that not for years,” Evan said. “I’ve no goose in this fight.”

  But he wondered. Loughmoe would bear further examination after he paid his call.

  “I’ll let you get on with your walk,” he told the older man. “Not that you need it, Mr. Petty. You’re looking fit as a fiddle.”

  “More of your blarney.” The old apothecary looked pleased. “Off with you now. Off with you.”

  And with a tip of the hat on both sides, they parted ways. Evan clicked to the chestnut, nudging the horse back into stride, and continued his journey.

  He came to his destination from the west, where Thurles trailed out to farmland, and before the manicured racecourse grounds began. Here was a single cottage that backed onto the drifting River Suir. The building was small, a plain rectangle of whitewashed coarse stone. A stout chimney poked from each end, and a roof of thatch overlaid it like combed hair.

  All around the cottage, in a riot of warm autumn color, were woody shrubs and flowering plants. It took a skillful hand to coax so many varieties to life, to keep them looking wild but neatly in their places.

  “Mary, Mary, quite contrary.” Evan dismounted the gelding, tying him to a post beside the cottage door. “How does your garden grow?”

  Before he could lift his hand to knock, the door opened. “You were speaking that old rhyme again,” said a pleasant lilting voice. “I saw you through the window.”

  “I can’t help it. Your garden always brings it to mind.” When his hostess stepped back, allowing him over her threshold, he swept off his hat and made a bow of greeting. “How do you go on, Mary?”

  Mary O’Dowd was a woman of about thirty years, with hair of vibrant red and a pale face as mottled as the moon. She hadn’t always looked thus. When Evan, little more than a youth, first met her—then a kitchen maid at Whelan House—she’d been as smooth-skinned as a peach. Con couldn’t resist her, and he made her his mistress.

  That was before Con met Kate. But it was also after. The smallpox had almost taken Mary’s life three years before, and…well, there was something about almost losing a person who had been very dear. The threat of loss had made Con discard the had been and remember the very dear, and he nursed Mary back to health in this quiet cottage. Evan had never seen his friend display such tenderness.

  In a strange sort of way, it was almost honorable.

  “I’m all right,” said Mary. “Had a tough while going on these past years, since…”

  Since. There was only, ever, one since. “I know. You’ve made a fine home for yourself and the child.” A boy or a girl? He didn’t know. Mary’s baby hadn’t yet been born when he left Ireland—intending to stay away for good.

  “I’ve a fine son,” said Mary, “and he deserves no less than a home that suits him.”

  A boy. Con had another son.

  Evan was glad to see that Mary was getting on comfortably. The interior of the cottage was similar to the outside: whitewashed and crisp, chilly but cheerful. The rectangular space was divided into two rooms, one much larger that encompassed a cooking area, a small table, and a few chairs. The smaller space must be the bedchamber. Bright curtains trimmed the windows, and on the mantel above the cooking fire, a few precious ornaments had been arranged.

  A little black-haired boy ran from behind the single door. “Da? Da come?”

  He wobbled, the uncertain run of a chubby young child moving with more speed than steadiness.

  Mary darted to scoop him up, giving the boy a smacking kiss on one cheek. “He didn’t, love. Da can’t come. You know that. But this is one of Da’s friends, Mr. Rhys.”

  “Mitter Ree,” said the boy, and then buried his face in the curve of his mother’s shoulder.

  “Hello, lad,” said Evan. There was no mistaking his parentage, with the jet hair and the wicked dark eyes. “This one will be a handful for you, Mary.”

  “His name is Conall.” Mary looked at Evan over the shoulder of the boy. “Do you—I thought the earl might have liked it.”

  “It’s a fine name,” Evan replied. “Yes, I think the earl would have liked that.”

  As far as Evan knew, this was true. Con wanted what he wanted, and he never shied from notice. When Con wed Kate, he had paid Mary off with a stipend. Well-intentioned, doubtless, but good intentions didn’t last long. Evan knew his friend to be guilty of infidelity, the casual, emotionless sort. Con tumbled a pretty maid or visiting widow with as little care and as much delight as one would crack the crust of a fancy-topped crème brulée.

  Evan had never liked crème brulée, and he didn’t like the elasticity with which Con regarded his marriage vows. Somehow Con had never got a bastard on any of his paramours—until Mary.

  He’d been proud, excited. For Evan, that had been the beginning of the end, watching Con squander money, knowing he had not one family to take care of, but two.

  I’ll make sure Mary’s child is cared for, he’d insisted. Laughing.

  A bastard? What kind of life can a bastard hope to have?

  My child—Con refused to use the word bastard—will have a good one. I’ll see to it.

  See to it, then, said Evan. But I won’t watch it happen. I can’t watch what you’re doing to your family.

  You can watch Kate well enough, retorted Con—and Evan knew then, he knew, that Con had long understood Evan’s hopeless love for Kate. Maybe he thought Evan would love her enough for them both, while Con ran around with other women.

  Or maybe he didn’t care—not for his wife’s heart, and not for his friend’s.

  Everything Evan held dear, Con valued little. And so Evan left, swearing never to return. Remaining would be like watching someone shoot horse after healthy horse. It would be like a museum director watching every precious item in his holdings burned and crushed.

  But he had returned after all. And here was Mary, delivered of a healthy son, whom Con had not been able to care for.

  The cut-off cinch was heavy in Evan’s pocket. Driscoll’s odd, clumsy dodge about Con and false antiquities lay heavily on his mind.

  And he noticed something he hadn’t before.

  “Mary,” he said. “Where did you get that statue on your mantel?”

  Mary jogged the little boy on her hip. “The dolphin, you mean? Con gave that to me. He said it was a Roman one.”

  “So it seems.” Evan crossed the room to look at it more closely. The stone sculpture was the size of the O his fingers could
make curving together, the dolphin’s nose almost touching its tail.

  “Is it worth something?”

  Evan picked up the statue, hefted it—too light for solid stone—and squinted at it. Somewhere, if it were of the type he’d seen so often, there would be a join. Aha. With a wring of the dolphin’s neck and a squeak of tight-fitting stone, Evan yanked the sculpture apart. It was hollow within, and empty—like the false antiquities Evan had lectured on. And it had come to Mary from Con.

  What did this mean? That Con was connected to the forged antiquities somehow? As Driscoll had carefully not suggested?

  Evan looked into the little space, feeling just as hollow. “No,” he said. “It’s not worth any money. But if it’s worth something to you, you should keep it.” He pressed the pieces back together, unable to help admiring the skill of their join.

  “It is,” Mary said from behind him. “Besides my boy, it’s all I have of Con.”

  “You went to his funeral, didn’t you?”

  “I did, and I go to his grave all the time. Sometimes we see the countess.”

  “The countess?” Evan set the dolphin back on the mantel with unsteady fingers, then turned. “The—the young countess?”

  “The young one, Con’s wife,” Mary agreed. “She’s a real lady.”

  With a gentle hand, she covered her son’s ear. “She didn’t deserve to be run around on, but—Con was going to run around anyway, see? And I wanted it to be with me. I couldn’t be quit of him.” Her mouth trembled. “I took a few weeds from the churchyard wall. We’ll bring them back, and Conall can lay them for his da.”

  “Fowers,” said young Conall.

  “That’s right,” Mary said. “Flowers for your da. I want you to know him as much as you can.”

  What do you want your boy to know? Evan almost asked. Con was my closest friend for years. I don’t think anyone knew him better.

  Even so, there was much about him I never guessed.

  From the mantel, the dolphin seemed to smile.

  So Evan asked a different question instead, hand in his coat pocket to brush the sliced-off cinch. “Mary, did you know a groom named Adam Jones? He worked at Whelan House around the time Con died.”