The Duke’s Wicked Wager - Lady Evelyn Evering: A Regency Romance Novel (Heart of a Gentleman Book 2)

by Isabella Thorne

  “We are not a match,” she said, flippant. “On the field, I mean. His horse will lag before two miles have passed. Diadem will not.”

  “I have learned not to doubt you where horses are concerned,” he said. “Since we have, by chance, ended up here together we may as well ride as a pair.”

  Evelyn’s fingers tightened on the reins. They should not. Out of the corner of her eye she could not help but admire the figure he cut in the saddle, straight-backed and proud, his hands easy on the reins. Before she could respond, three trumpet cries tore the air.

  “They have it!” Evelyn gasped. She spurred Diadem to a canter and The Duke did the same beside her.

  Over the hills they went. Horses began to flag and drop back from the pack, while Evelyn and The Duke moved up. Diadem, with The Duke’s horse close beside her, seemed to think it a race and worked to keep up with the bigger horse, whose strides ate the ground in great leaps. When they moved from the field to the forest, it was five of them at the front of the pack and Evelyn had yet to ask Diadem for speed.

  “She flies!” The Duke yelled. His face was split in a wide open grin, as boyish and uncynical as she had ever seen him. She knew that joy was reflected in her own eyes and they rushed to the hunt.

  They crashed through the woods, hooves striking hard-packed dirt and crunching leaves. Evelyn leaned low over Diadem’s neck to avoid the grasping branches. She leapt the first log on the ground, but the second was at an odd angle. Evelyn did not see it until it was too late to react. The Duke’s horse leap the first and second in quick succession, the trained beast never hesitating, but Diadem skidded to a stop and Evelyn, unable to compensate, flew over the mare’s head. The peculiar sensation of being airborne was halted in sudden, terrifying contact with the ground.

  ~.~

  She woke. Concerned faces hovered above her,

  “Lady Evelyn?” someone was saying her name, over and over. Someone else was shaking her. She lifted a hand to push them off. Her body was a mass of pain and something sharp and warm woke when she moved.

  “Do not move,” said a voice. It was commanding and it calmed her just to hear it. The Duke. “Stop shaking her you idiot.”

  “I beg your pardon?” another man’s voice. Older. Lord Ashwood.

  “It is not the time for wounded pride,” The Duke said, and it was a snarl. “Move aside.”

  Lord Ashwood gasped. She imagined Pemberton had followed his request with a more physical command. Arms, solid and warm, wrapped around and lifted her from the ground. Blackness threatened at the edges of her vision.

  “She is swooning again!” Adele’s voice, sounding thin and far away. “Put her on Ella, her brother can take her home.”

  “I will ride with her,” The Duke said. He left no room for arguments, but Evelyn could imagine the scandalized whispers of the riders around her. She tried to stir and push him away, but his arms were solid as stone.

  They lurched and she felt movement beneath her, The Duke’s horse. Lucky it was such a big beast now, carrying two all the way home. The roaring in her ears was growing louder, her vision tightened to pin pricks.

  “Rest now, Evelyn,” The Duke’s voice was a whisper. “I have you.”

  She did not have much choice, for blackness claimed her.

  ~.~

  ~Part 3 ~

  Promise Me This Dance

  Chapter One

  Lady Evelyn Evering woke alone. A pain blossomed in her head when she opened her eyes, and she shut them again. With a groan, she rubbed a hand over her face and along the back of her skull, searching for the source of her misery. She winced when her fingers found a lump. The skin was tender and warm with swelling, but she did not feel blood. Tentatively, she opened her eyes again. Her bedroom was bright with sunshine and she could hear the fire in the hearth, but did not dare turn to look at it.

  She was in her bed with a pile of pillows beneath her head and blankets pulled up to her chin as if she were sick. It was unbearably warm. Evelyn groaned again. Alone in the room and unable to move, she had no choice but to lie in her bed and sweat through her nightclothes. Someone had changed her into them, for she could not remember going to bed the night before, nor what she had done to cause such a terrible wound. Her thoughts were a nebulous cloud and the more she chased after them, the farther away they drifted. Blindly reaching out, Evelyn fumbled for the bell pull beside her bed to summon a servant to aid her.

  “Oh, Lady Evelyn!” Miss Adele Bouchard’s gleeful exclamation was heartwarming, but painful. Evelyn flinched as the shrill sound sent a stab of pain through her head. “Oh dear, I am sorry. It is just, you have been asleep so long; we were beginning to fear you would not wake.”

  Adele sniffled. She came into Evelyn’s view, looking weary and raw with her porcelain skin a blotchy shade of pink, as if this was not her first crying spell. The petite Frenchwoman sat down on the edge of Evelyn’s bed and reached for Evelyn’s hand.

  “I should tell your brother that you are awake,” said Adele, giving Evelyn’s hand a soft squeeze. Her hand was as polished and delicate as the rest of her. “He has been worrying himself into such a state, and he takes it out with a temper. Half of the staff hide from him now.”

  It was just as well that Adele had taken control of the conversation because Evelyn was not certain she could speak. Her throat was dry, whether from disuse or the still air, and when she opened her mouth nothing came out.

  “Oh do not try to speak yet.” Adele’s look changed from concerned friend to mother hen in a blink. “The doctor said that you should not attempt too much at once, if you woke. When you woke, I mean. I meant when you woke.”

  Adele looked down at their linked hands. She took a deep breath to steady herself.

  “The Duke of Pemberton returned home.” Her tone was conciliatory, gentle. She did not meet Evelyn’s eyes as she spoke. “But Lord Ashwood is still here. He sent for the finest doctor from London and insisted on paying for it all. It was the day after that The Duke left, and I have never seen someone so out of sorts.”

  Evelyn’s mind struggled to follow the line of conversation. Words swam to the forefront as if more important than the others around them. The Duke, George Pender. Those words came with a familiar face. But he had gone; he had left Evermont without waiting to see if she would wake up. It did not seem the behavior of a man who cared at all.

  “Do not cry, Evelyn, please,” Adele begged. She reached up to smooth Evelyn’s hair back from her face with tender fingers. “It was all such a mess when it happened. Emotions were high and I thought it might come to a duel between Lord Ashwood and The Duke. Pemberton left to ensure it would not happen, and he was correct to do so.”

  It was all too much to think about when she could scarce manage to think at all. Evelyn stroked her throat in a pleading gesture.

  “Mon dieu! How unconscionable of me.” Adele tugged the bell pull. “Of course you need the doctor straight away. I was being selfish, but I was just so relieved to see you wake!”

  Adele brushed Evelyn’s cheeks with two kisses and rose from the bed. She was out of Evelyn’s view, but she heard the door to her bedroom open and hushed, excited voices from the other side. A moment later, a man came into sight with Adele at his side.

  “Lady Evelyn, how happy we are to see you awake.” The man, the doctor Evelyn assumed, bent over the bed. His fingers prodded and poked at her skull. “It is healing quite well. Head wounds bleed a shocking amount, but it is what is happening inside rather than outside that worried me.”

  Adele was frowning at the man with dislike. “Must you stab at her? Look at her, can you not see it pains her!”

  The doctor and Adele surveyed each other with mutual expressions of annoyance. Evelyn was certain it was not the first time such a dispute had occurred over her.

  “I am a doctor,” the man said, drawing himself up. “Please sit down and allow me to work.”

  He pointed toward the corner of the room Evelyn could not see. Adele
obliged, but with a fierce expression that left no doubt she would be watching the man from her seat. The doctor tutted. From the leather bag at his side he removed two bottles, cloudy glass obscuring their contents. Evelyn watched with interest as he poured a dab of the liquid into a vial and held it out to her.

  “A sip of this and I think you will be feeling up to talking,” he said, thrusting it at her again when she did not immediately take it.

  Adele swept in and nudged the man out of the way with her hip, snatching the vial from him with a word of French that did not need an English translation for its meaning to be clear.

  “Tilt your head back, ma amie,” Adele coaxed. She lifted the vial to Evelyn’s lips and tipped the liquid into her mouth. It tasted of cinnamon and cloves and burned Evelyn’s throat as it slid down, leaving a foul, bitter taste on her tongue. “That is good.”

  Adele shrugged at the doctor and returned to her seat. He scowled and placed the two bottles beside Evelyn’s bed, then peeled back Evelyn’s eyelids to peer into her eyes. His peculiar behaviors were interrupted by a knock at the door. Frederic, The Marquess of Evermont, piled into the sickroom in a rush, quickly followed by Evelyn’s ladies maid, Bess. Her brother’s face was alight with joy, a countenance matched by her maid.

  “Evelyn!” he cried.

  “Shh!” Adele snapped. “She needs quiet, not some fool brother to yell loud enough to rouse the dead.”

  Frederic, chastened, tiptoed to Evelyn’s bedside. He looked ragged, as if he had not been sleeping. Bess sat on the other side of Evelyn and fussed over her, wiping a cool, moist rag across her forehead.

  “You can hardly blame me now for finding horses abominable,” Frederic said, with a smile that looked closer to tears. “I will never ride again, and I will forbid you from doing so as well.”

  Evelyn made a croaking sound. Bess, the saint, offered her a glass of wine and she took an eager gulp of it, washing away the taste of the draught the doctor had given her and at last easing the scratch in her throat.

  “You will not,” Evelyn rasped. She sounded hoarse and dreadful to her own ears.

  “She cannot be feeling too unwell, doctor,” said Frederic, looking back at the man. “If she feels up to arguing.”

  The doctor nodded. “No trouble with speech is a promising sign for recovery. Lady Evelyn, how is the pain? Is your vision clear?”

  “Do not bombard her with questions,” Adele said, cross. “If only I could have managed to bring my doctor from home. He is not such a thoughtless man.”

  “Excuse her, doctor,” Frederic said, staring daggers at Adele. “She is just distraught over my sister’s wellbeing. They are dear friends.”

  “The French are prone to such emotional displays,” he replied. “It may be best if Miss Bouchard is sent away, to allow your sister a proper peaceful convalescence.”

  Frederic pretended to consider the suggestion. “Perhaps, but she is my sister’s companion, and I think her presence is more comforting than disturbing. If Miss Bouchard can manage to be quiet for a time, she should be allowed to stay.”

  Adele scowled at him and Evelyn thought Frederic would pay for that remark later. Adele looked ready to attack, and either of the men would make a fine target. She stabbed her needle into her cross-stitching with vigor and both of the men turned away, unsettled.

  “How long have I been asleep?” Evelyn asked. The draught was beginning to take effect. She could turn her head a bit now without the sharp pains, but her mind was still fogged.

  “Three days now,” the doctor answered.

  “We were ever so worried.” Bess said softly. The maid hovered by Evelyn’s side.

  “Some of it has been the medicine,” Frederic continued. “The doctor thought your body would recover more easily if you were kept asleep, and would wake when you were up to it.”

  The thought of sleeping for three full days was an uneasy one. No wonder her body ached; it protested the idleness.

  “But what happened?” asked Evelyn, looking from face to face. It was Adele that finally spoke.

  “What do you last remember?”

  Fighting through the cloud, Evelyn grasped at the one solid thing she could bring to mind. Pemberton, but she could not just blurt out The Duke’s name. They had been together, hadn’t they? Riding, she thought. Yes, that was it, they had been riding together.

  “Riding,” Evelyn said. “Yes, a hunt! I remember the hounds barking, and I remember the field full of horses.”

  “It was that lawn meet you were so desperate to have,” Frederic said. From his tone it was clear what he thought of both Evelyn’s ideas and lawn meets in general. “Pure chaos.”

  Adele clicked her tongue. “You had pulled out ahead, with The Duke. There was a log in the path and he cleared it, but your mare did not. She balked and you…went over her head and into a tree I believe.”

  Evelyn gasped as events fell into place. She could recall pieces of the day and now the sensation of flying through the air, then nothing until she woke in bed. Her chest felt heavy with anxiety, and a question she was afraid to ask.

  “Is Diadem…” Evelyn’s voice wavered and she tried again. “Is Diadem okay? Was she injured?”

  Frederic snorted and threw up his hands. “Here you are in sick abed for three days and your first concern is for the stupid horse that put you here? Unbelievable.”

  “Your horse is fine, ma amie” Adele said. “Though she seemed quite ashamed for her actions and hung her head the whole way home.”

  Diadem had never been the sort of horse that enjoyed throwing her rider, as some mounts did. Evelyn could not fault the horse for throwing her. The hunt had been Diadem’s first, and perhaps Evelyn had asked too much of her, too caught up in her race with The Duke for caution.

  “I am relieved to hear she is well,” Evelyn said.

  She wanted to ask more questions about the incident, but they were all about The Duke and she did not want to reveal her feelings in front of her brother. Evelyn searched for a tactful way to ask the men to leave.

  “I will tell Lord Ashwood that you are awake and speaking,” said Frederic. “The poor man has been beside himself though I told him there was nothing to fret over, all would be well. And look, here you are.”

  Adele looked askance at Frederic. “He was the one fretting, hmm? And who has been unable to eat a bite? I do not think it was Lord Ashwood who sent the servants scurrying for cover, mon cher.” She grinned at Frederic.

  “There she goes again. One of those distinctly French outbursts.” Frederic scarcely managed to get the words out with a straight face. His lips twitched at Adele’s murderous look. “Doctor, will you join me for tea?”

  “I will, Lord Evermont, thank you.” To Evelyn, he said, “I am staying in the house for the week, Lady Evelyn, in order to oversee your recovery. This evening I will return to give you your next draught, but if there is anything you require of me before then, just ask.”

  The doctor, with a wary look at Adele, followed Frederic from the room. The three women were silent until the door closed, then Bess and Adele seated themselves on opposite sides of Evelyn’s bed.

  “Ask, My Lady” Bess said. “I can see the questions in your eyes fighting to be heard.”

  Though she trusted both Bess and Adele, it was difficult for Evelyn to reveal the depths of her feelings for The Duke. They were foolish and misguided and she had tried to stamp them out, only for them to return with renewed intensity.

  “Can you tell me what happened after I fell?” she asked Adele. “It is a blank spot in my mind, but I did not want to frighten Frederic by admitting it.”

  “I was there just a moment after it happened,” Adele said, face thoughtful. “Most of the hunt did not see what had occurred, and so continued on around you, but there was a small ring of riders. The Duke of Pemberton was there; he had dismounted and left his horse forgotten. He was holding you in his arms.”

  Bess’s inhale was sharp, scandalized. The Duke, George
Pender had held her and she could not remember it. It seemed the cruelest trick of her mind.

  Adele continued. “When Frederic and I rode up, Pemberton’s face was a fright. He was furious, at himself or your mare, I could not tell, but he did not want to release you to Frederic. Then Lord Ashwood rode up. Of course he offered to ride back with you, but The Duke refused. He would not let anyone else near you, and in the end, his horse was more equipped to ride double.”

  “Oh!” Evelyn closed her eyes, picturing the scene. Had The Duke held her close, as he had in the gaming parlor, or was it only a polite kindness, protecting her from further injury by trampling?

  “Without a word he climbed back up on his horse and rode back to the manor house with you in his arms. Lord Ashwood was left befuddled, but I think he has the measure of it now. Frederic is blind to it. The dullard.”

  “Blind to what?” Evelyn asked, in a small voice. The hole in her memory had been filled with something that did not seem real to her, as flimsy as a dream. The Duke had held her, tenderly.

  Adele and Bess shared a look.

  “That The Duke is sweet on you, my Lady,” said Bess, in her plain way.

  Evelyn opened her mouth to speak and then thought better of it.

  “He is a selfish man, “Adele said. “Lord Ashwood is right to not let The Duke frighten him away. Frederic thinks The Duke has just lost his mind, being no plausible reason for his behavior that he can imagine. Foolish men, the two of them.”

  “How deeply can he care for me if he left before I recovered?” Evelyn asked. Her draught had left in her in a hazy, detached state. Pain lingered on the other side of it and the true depths of her emotions as well. She rather liked being on this side. Everything felt a little fuzzy and soft and her headache was a little duller than it had been just a moment ago.

  “He did not wish to,” said Bess. She tilted her head at Adele. “I think he was persuaded to go.”