“Mr. Killam, my lady,” Hughes said as he stepped into the parlor ahead of Henry and announced him to Evangeline.
She turned from the sideboard where she was fussing over the tea and smiled at Henry. His heart stuttered. She was beautiful. Her thick black hair had been elaborately done in a twisted and curled mass of coiled silk atop her head. She wore a dark blue gown with a pattern of swirls stitched through it in gold thread. The blue matched her eyes perfectly and brightened them. Although it was meant to be a casual dress, something a lady would wear to tea, she could have strolled into a ballroom and caught the eye of everyone in attendance.
And she would be his. His to laugh with and touch and watch as she charmed the world for the rest of his life. A strange thought, but oh-so-very pleasant.
Of course, she wanted nothing more, but in that moment he could forget that troubling thought.
“Evangeline,” he breathed.
She nodded to the butler, who stepped away and left them alone. “Will you close the door a moment?” she said softly.
Henry’s entire body clenched and he reached back and gently did as she asked. She folded her hands before herself and said, “I wanted to talk to you alone before—”
He didn’t allow her to finish. In three long strides, he closed the distance between them, cupped the back of her neck and dropped his lips to hers.
She was still for a moment, he thought perhaps in surprise, but then her hands lifted to his forearms and she clung there, opening her mouth to his, sighing against him as he tasted every inch of that delectable mouth of hers.
At last, he found the strength to break the kiss and she stared up at him with a foggy, unfocused gaze. “Well, that was unexpected. And very welcome, I assure you.”
He grinned at her bewilderment. It was actually fun setting her control to the side and making her blink like she’d never seen the sun before.
“I have been thinking about doing that since the moment you left my home yesterday,” he admitted. “But I interrupted you, my lady, very ungentlemanly of me. What was it you were saying?”
She shook her head like she was trying to clear it and then shot him a playful glare. “As if one could retain any kind of focus after that. We will have to make some kind of arrangement once we’re married so you’ll know when I have something important to say and won’t interrupt me.”
“I think I will not tire of interrupting you.” He shrugged. “But certainly I am happy to devise systems to make you happy, Evangeline.”
She laughed and the sound was like music on the air. “Oh yes, I recall now what I wanted to say. I wanted a moment alone with you to discuss the best way to approach my father today.”
Lightness escaped Henry’s body and he focused as she wished him to do. The Duke of Allingham was a serious and rather terrifying person, truth be told. Henry had been trying to avoid thinking about how he would explain to the man that he wished to take his eldest daughter’s hand.
“I am all ears, as you know the situation best. I defer to your judgment.”
She blinked. “You respect my opinions, you mean?”
“Of course,” he said. “On this and many topics.”
There was a shadow of a smile that crossed her face. “I spent all of last night priming him for you. I mentioned my spending time with you more than once and got him to speak highly of your family and your father. He ought to be in a receptive mood when you go to him. I would suggest you be polite but direct. Look him in the eye, he likes that. Try not to push your spectacles up.”
He drew back. “Push my spectacles up?”
“Yes, you do that when you’re nervous and he’ll mark that,” she explained.
Henry stared at her. “I don’t do that.”
“Of course you do!” Evangeline laughed. “You’re doing it right now!”
He jolted as he realized he was, indeed, fiddling with his glasses, shoving them up his nose. He jerked his hand away and shook his head. “Trust in me to marry the most observant woman in London. We will be quite a pair.”
“Unstoppable if we play our cards right. He is in his study. I’ll have Hughes take you. In a few moments I’ll come in and help the situation along if you need it.” She moved to ring the bell, and as they waited for Hughes, she held out her hand for him.
Henry moved to her, taking it, and for a moment there was a deep peace that came over him. It was so strange, for Evangeline was a force of nature. And yet, when he touched her, there was a calm to her storm. A protected place where everything could be quiet.
She leaned up and pecked his cheek. “You’ll be fine.”
She released his hand and smiled at the butler as he entered the room. “Mr. Killam needs to speak to my father, Hughes. Will you take him?”
The butler’s expression fluttered with surprise at the statement, but the reaction was gone in an instant. “Certainly. Come with me, sir.”
As he followed Hughes away, Henry cast one last look at Evangeline over his shoulder. She smiled, gave a little wave and mouthed, I’ll come in soon.
And so, buoyed by the fact that she would save him if need be, he made the rest of the walk with Hughes to the Duke of Allingham’s study. He was announced and entered the room as the duke rose from his desk in greeting.
“Mr. Killam,” he said, nodding to Hughes to send him away. “I did not realize you were calling today. Did we have an appointment?”
Henry felt his hand stir toward his spectacles but forced himself to stop and instead meet Allingham’s gaze. It was very much like Evangeline’s: dark blue, sharp, impossible to read. All of which did not help his nerves.
“Mr. Killam?” Allingham repeated with a tilt of his head.
“I beg your pardon, Your Grace,” Henry said, stepping into the room further. “We did not have an appointment. I was here to meet with Lady Evangeline, actually.”
Allingham’s eyebrows lifted. “You two have been seeing each other a great deal lately, it seems.”
“We have, Your Grace,” Henry said slowly. Now was the time. Though how did he do this? How did he say this?
In the end, he had to be truthful. It was the easiest way to proceed, after all.
He straightened his shoulders. “You should know how much I admire your daughter. How I have always admired her, though from afar.” He paced another step closer. “Recently I have had the honor of being allowed a bit nearer. I understand what a rare thing that is, for Evangeline could have any man she desired, I think.”
Allingham chuckled. “She would take whatever she wanted regardless. Too much like her father, I suppose. But what you are saying, I think, is that you care for my daughter beyond a mere friendship?”
Henry cleared his throat. “Indeed, I do, Your Grace. I care for her very deeply and I came here today with the wish to ask for her hand in marriage.”
Chapter 12
Allingham’s smile fell and he stared at Henry in what looked like pure disbelief. Immediately, Henry’s tension increased and he had to force himself not to push up his glasses. Damn Evangeline, making him aware of his nervous habit.
After what seemed like a silent eternity, Allingham came around his desk slowly. “You do realize you aren’t the first man to ask this. All have been adeptly swatted away by her. She can have a cruel tongue and seems to have no wish for love in her life. Do you have any hope that my daughter would agree to a union?”
Henry wrinkled a brow. Allingham was speaking of Evangeline in such cold terms, as if she were more machine than woman. But that had never been his experience of her, even when she was not pursuing him. Evangeline was kind, he’d seen it a dozen times with those who needed her influence. She was never cruel to anyone who didn’t deserve a set down.
If she was standoffish or cool, he was beginning to understand why. It was a shell she wore, a protective layer that kept the world and all who would hurt her away. Getting past that layer was a worthwhile endeavor, indeed.
He set his jaw, and this time m
eeting Allingham’s gaze was far less difficult. “I have every hope that she will want a future with me,” he said, his voice stronger than it had been since he entered the room.
There was a light knock on the door behind him, and he turned to find Evangeline standing there, her gaze locked on his in support. He smiled at her and she returned the expression.
“I see,” Allingham said with another chuckle as he looked between them. “It seems this was all a manipulation on my daughter’s part. Come in, Evangeline, since this is your doing.”
Again, Henry found himself feeling defensive of Evangeline in the face of her father’s characterization of her. But she seemed unbothered and entered the chamber to stand beside him.
“Mr. Killam has asked for your hand, my dear,” Allingham said with an arched brow. “It is not the lofty match I might have made for you myself…” He shrugged at Henry apologetically. “…but I wouldn’t stand in your way if this is what you truly desire. Is it?”
Evangeline licked her lips and Henry saw a slight crack in her façade. She was as nervous as he was. Somehow that was comforting rather than frightening. He longed to reach for her, to hold her hand and bring them both into that calm center of the storm, away from where the rain and wind lashed.
He couldn’t, of course. Not yet. But if they resolved this, he could do that any time he wished.
“It is,” she said softly. “Henry and I have a friendship and a connection that I think would make for a happy union, Father. Please grant us your approval.”
Allingham tilted his head. “I see. I have no objection save one, but it must be dealt with before I give any consent to the match.”
Henry glanced at Evangeline, but she looked as confused by this statement as he felt. “What is it?” she asked, her voice calm, very calm, too calm.
“Recently you published a paper about your mathematics work, Mr. Killam,” Allingham said. “Which is all fine and good—a man should have a hobby, though I do wonder at your choice. Still, the problem is that you have published this under your own name. I know your father shared my concerns, as he railed about it endlessly during the most tedious game of billiards I have ever had the displeasure to be a part of.”
Everything in Henry felt like it had sunk a few inches. Publishing his paper had seemed such a small thing when he did it, and yet these men, these men who cared nothing for study or science and everything for appearances…they judged him harshly for it.
“If you are to marry my daughter, I would have to insist, as I know your father has, that you cease such activities immediately. It is one thing to drag your father’s little name through the mud of trade, but to do so to the House of Allingham is another. I would not wish my son-in-law to be associated with trade of any kind.”
Henry barely kept himself from glaring at the man. People of his ilk were so judgmental of those who actually did something. It was disgusting, really, for these men of rank made their entire lives off the backs of those they looked down upon.
“Your Grace,” he began.
“Is that your only objection?” Evangeline asked, interrupting Henry with a hard look in his direction.
Allingham thought a moment and then nodded. “Yes.”
“Then there is nothing to worry about, Father,” she said with a light laugh that was nothing like the real, musical one she sometimes gifted Henry with. He felt the falseness of it. “Henry and I have talked about this at length. I am of your same mind that it would not do for my husband to be seen as a man of work. So he has agreed to give it all up and focus on pursuits more suited to a gentleman.”
“With seventy thousand he’ll be able to do so, eh?” Allingham said with a laugh.
There was a flutter across Evangeline’s expression even as she said, “Quite. Isn’t that so, Henry?”
She shot him a hard look that cut through the ringing in his ears. “Y-Yes.”
“Well, then I have no further objection,” her father said with a shrug. “You have my permission to wed. When would you wish to do so?”
Henry gaped, but Evangeline stepped in effortlessly, managing the entire situation as she always did. “Just after the new year, I think. Before February, certainly. We could begin to read the banns just after Christmas is over.”
“Very good,” her father said. “In these cases, I think it makes no sense to wait. If that’s all…”
Evangeline caught Henry’s arm and guided him toward the door. “Yes.”
“Yes,” Henry repeated. “Thank you, Your Grace, and good day.”
“Good day.” He was already back at his desk, working at his figures as if he had not just agreed to this union. As if it meant little to him.
Evangeline didn’t seem troubled by that fact. She grinned as she all but dragged Henry back to the parlor where they’d originally met. She shut the door behind them and proceeded to flounce a little jig across the floor. He might have been charmed by the rare lack of decorum in his future bride, but for the sentence that rang in his ears.
“You did not mean what you said to him, did you?” he asked, sitting down hard on the settee. “About my giving up my pursuits. This wasn’t all some deception to get your way, was it?”
Evangeline stopped dancing around in glee and spun on Henry. He did not look like a man well pleased to make an advantageous match at all. Rather, he looked sick. And like he didn’t trust her, which stung a great deal more than it should have.
“You and I discussed this at length,” she said, moving to take the seat beside him. “Of course I do not expect you to stop researching your astronomy and math and whatever else strikes your fancy. But one cannot be truthful with a person who is being unreasonable. My father wanted to hear a certain answer. I gave it to him. Once the money for my dowry is safely under our control, what can he truly do to us?”
“He could insist that we no longer be invited to events,” Henry mused.
For a moment she froze. Would her father do that? More to the point, could he damage her socially? She ran through the scenario in her head, and it was terrifying. And yet…
She waved her hand. “I could manage that. Can you imagine how sorry everyone will feel when I talk about my great love and how my father is punishing you for your superior mind?”
His brow wrinkled. “Great love?”
She halted and her heartbeat increased. “A—a stretch, of course. But everyone loves a love story, don’t they? It won’t hurt us for them to believe our friendship developed into something more.”
“If it serves your purpose,” he said.
She worried her lip at his tone, but nodded nonetheless. “Our purpose. Perhaps the old guard will limit us a fraction, but that story would make the younger set invite us all the more, I’d wager.”
He stared at her a beat and she was surprised that didn’t make him happier. “Another collection of lies.”
She shrugged though her defenses raised in the face of what felt like his disapproval. “You want to benefit from this match, don’t you? Then let me handle the details. You must pretend a disinterest in your work for, what? A month, perhaps six weeks? It is not so much of a surrender as all that, is it? To have a lifetime of freedom?”
She could see him processing that question. When his mind turned, he got a wrinkle of concentration in his brow that she longed to lean up and smooth, though of course she didn’t. That would be a foolish action.
He moved a little closer at last and traced a finger along her jawline. She felt her smile waver, then melt away as her body reacted to that simple touch.
“You are correct, but of course you always are,” he drawled. When had he started drawling? Like a rake! And why did her stomach clench at that sound when she’d always found it mightily annoying in other men? “But for the next month to six weeks, that means I’ll be quite bored. Will you provide my entertainment, my lady?”
Her throat worked as she swallowed. Who would have thought Henry Killam could be so seductive? If she’d guessed, she mi
ght not have risked this plan with him, for it felt like she couldn’t resist what he implied. What she already knew he could do to her.
She wanted that. Wanted more. And they had agreed more was exactly what they’d have together, at least until the shine wore off and they both moved on from the physical attraction.
For now, though…
She placed a hand on his chest and loved how his heart pounded against her palm, even through all the layers of clothing he wore. His breath hitched and his pupils dilated. There was power in that. Control. Which meant this was a situation she could manage and win, despite how he had made her shatter the day before.
“I’m certain I can think of something that will fill your time,” she whispered before she lifted on her tiptoes, her mouth lifted toward his.
He met her halfway and his lips just brushed across hers. She opened slightly, trying increase the pressure and the pleasure. To her surprise, he drew back, continuing a gentle exploration of lips. She gripped her hand into a fist against his chest and he chuckled, then guided his hand against the back of her head. He angled her slightly, and at last his tongue met hers.
She let out a sigh of relief, hating herself for how much she needed what he had withheld. Control, she was supposed to have control. This was not control, not by a great margin. And yet she surrendered even though it wasn’t her nature to do so, letting him be her guiding light as he brought her anticipation up notch by notch, caress by caress.
She was overheated with it by the time he broke away, smiling as he shifted around. She saw the proof of his desire, outlined against his buff-colored trousers. And yet he had not yet allowed himself pleasure, at least not with her.
Didn’t he want that?
“I ought to go tell my father our news,” he said. “Before I do something we might both suffer from.”
She worried her lip with a nod. “Very well. Although I must point out that our engagement will make it all the easier for us to be alone. At least in theory.”
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