Lady Eve's Indiscretion (23 page)

His Grace turned his back on Polite Society in all its spring finery and once again surveyed his daughter. “Tell me something, Evie.”

She set the bouquet aside and offered him a painfully brave smile. “Papa?”

“Why are you marrying Deene? Is it because I was wroth with him for trespassing on your… for taking liberties?”

She blinked, looking very like her mother after His Grace had made some inelegant remark before the children. “I was not comforted to think of either you, my brothers, or Deene coming to harm on your idiot field of honor, but that wasn't the entire reason.”

His Grace closed the door to the chamber, signaling, he hoped, that he'd have an answer, and Polite Society could go hang until he did. “I should wish regard for your intended played some role. Deene's not a bad fellow.”

“Lucas is a good man, and I esteem him greatly.”

He crossed his arms, as that little recitation wouldn't fool the most dense of fathers.

“I've seen Deene's racing stables in Surrey, you know.” She picked up her bouquet and started fussing the little sprigs of hawthorn. “It's a lovely place, very peaceful. We'll be there for the next few weeks, possibly through the Season.”

Which His Grace took for a bit of genius on Deene's part. The newlyweds would get no peace in Kent or in Town. “What has this to do with marrying the man, Evie? And don't think to bamboozle your old papa. I was young once, and I know marriage is a daunting business even when you're entirely besotted with your intended.”

She frowned. She did not smile hugely and assure him with a mischievous wink that she and Deene were quite besotted, though His Grace suspected, hoped, and prayed they were.

“When I was with Deene in Surrey last time, I helped birth a foal. The colt had a leg back, and the mare was small. I was best suited to aiding her, and Deene says the foal is thriving.”

What this had to do with anything was… His Grace tried not to show his surprise. Eve had recently started driving out. That signal fact had contributed to her being unchaperoned at Lavender Corner, but it had also given Her Grace the first glimmer of hope Eve was “putting that whole sorry business behind her.” Hope was a welcome if anxious burden for both of Their Graces.

“You always enjoyed foaling season, always enjoyed the stables.” He made the observation cautiously, pretending to make a final inspection of the ducal regalia in the mirror while he instead studied his daughter's reflection.

“If I hadn't been there, Papa, the mare and foal both might have perished, or they'd have lost the mare for sure and tried to save the foal. But I was there, and Lucas allowed me to help her.”

Lucas. That Eve thought of her prospective husband as Lucas was encouraging. Only Her Grace called His Grace by name, and likely conversely.

“I'm to name the colt, Papa, but it's as you used to say: you can't just slap a name on an animal willy-nilly, you must first learn who the beast is. I want to learn who that little, bucking, playing, gorgeous beast is.”

He cracked open the door and peered into the church, lest he interfere with whatever point Eve was leading up to. “And you needed to marry Deene to do that?”

“Horses can live a long time, thirty years or more with luck and good care. Someday, I want to walk down to that colt's paddock with my granddaughter and feed the old boy some apples. I might tell her tales of his races and his sons, tell her how magnificent he was when he swept across the finish line, or what heart he had in the hunt field.”

What
on
earth
was
she
saying?

“I often enjoyed taking you children to the stables on fine summer evenings. You would talk to me then. I could have you to myself one or two at a time.”

He'd forgotten this. It was a dear, dear memory, and he'd forgotten it.

Now she smiled at him, perhaps not radiantly, but genuinely.

“I have not forgotten those fine summer evenings, Papa. And when I take my granddaughter down to see my old friend, I will tell her he had to struggle very hard to come into the world and make his way here. I will tell her… he could have given up, but he didn't—he fought and struggled and eventually prevailed, and I did not give up on him either. Not ever, not for a single moment.”

Good…
God
.

Mercifully for His Grace's composure, the organist chose that moment to begin the fanfare, sparing the duke from any reply. As he led his dear daughter up the aisle, past all the curious smiles and doting acquaintances, all he could think was that on her wedding day, Eve had talked to him of never giving up on a loved one, and of horses.

It had been seven years since she'd spoken to anybody of horses, and she'd chosen to start with her papa—which only made it harder today, of all days, to give her away.

***

No thunderbolt had stopped the ceremony at the last minute; no messenger of God had spoken up to state a reason why the union should not go forward. Eve Windham had been pronounced a wife, though the bishop's voice had sounded as distant to her as the hunting horn blowing “gone away” on a far, windy hill.

“Eat something, Evie.”

Deene bent close to her, his smile doting though concern lurked in his blue eyes.

“I couldn't possibly.”

His smile slipped, and Eve wondered if they were to have another bad moment. They'd already avoided one when Deene had realized Mr. Dolan had been present at the wedding, little Georgina dutifully turned out in her finest, the governess looking a good deal more spruce at her side than when Eve had met them in the park.

“Perhaps you'd like to leave?” Deene made the offer quietly.

“May we?”

“At some point it's obligatory, if these good people are to truly indulge in the excesses of a ducal wedding breakfast.”

“How do we do this?”

She did not want to leave with him, did not want to take any single step closer to the ordeal facing her at the end of the day, but neither could she abide the noise, the good wishes, the concerned looks from her family, and the increasing ribaldry from the guests.

And her wishes became moot, for Deene had apparently colluded with her brothers to choreograph the moment. At some subtle signal, Westhaven stood up and tapped his spoon against a delicate crystal glass.

“Friends, esteemed guests, beloved family—if I might have your attention?”

The long tables filled with guests grew silent as Westhaven went on speaking. “For reasons understandable to any who beholds my baby sister and her adoring groom, we must now bid Deene and his bride farewell. A round of applause to speed them on their way!” Westhaven lifted his glass, and Eve was scooped into her intend—her
husband's
arms. Deene had her out the door and bundled into a waiting carriage before the last guest stumbled onto the terrace, and then she was on her way to Surrey… and God knew what kind of confrontation with her intend—her husband.

“You had the grays put to. Papa likes to save them for special occasions because they look so smart with the black coach and red trim.”

Deene gave her an odd smile, and it occurred to Eve that small talk wasn't going to get them very far. Not at this moment, not in this marriage.

“Eve?” He turned on the seat beside her and undid the veil and headpiece she'd worn all day. “This is a very special occasion.”

“Oh. Of course.”

He withdrew pins from her hair, making Eve realize how uncomfortable that part of her wedding ensemble had been. He had kissed her once outside the church as the reception line was forming, just a little buss to the cheek she'd found both fortifying and alarming.

“Come here, Wife.”

Merciful heavens. To
have
a husband was one thing, to
be
a wife quite another. Deene's deft hands had undone even her bun, so her hair hung down her back in a braid.

“Husband.”

“That would be me.” His arm settled around her shoulders.

“I'm practicing. I have neither had a husband before nor been a wife. This will take some adjustment.”

Now she was babbling. Deene shifted beside her, so his fingers closed on her nape and gently kneaded her neck. “We will adjust together. So far, I regard my station as an improvement over the unwed state.”

He wasn't teasing. “In what regard?”

“It's more peaceful, for one thing. I'm not prey to the matchmakers, the rumors have lost a great deal of their interest for everybody, and I can look forward to spending much of the Season in our honey month rather than being stalked like a sacrificial goat.”

Not very romantic of him, but honest. “Did those rumors trouble you?”

“A bit.”

Maybe a decade from now she'd be able to fathom exactly how much “a bit” was when uttered in just that tone while Deene glanced out the window with just that grim expression. Or maybe by then they'd be entirely estranged.

“You were troubled when you saw Mr. Dolan and Georgina at the wedding.”

He scowled at the lovely spring day, probably the first nasty expression Eve had seen on her…
husband's
face.

“He had no business attending.”

Did she pry, or did she back away and start mentally listing the things they would tacitly agree not to discuss? “I don't think Her Grace gave it a thought when she made up the guest list, Deene. He's raising your niece and thus he's a part of your family. I gather you and he are not cordial?”

Eve would not pry, but she would invite.

“He all but killed my sister after making her endlessly miserable and ashamed. If I hold my father accountable for one thing, it's selling Marie into that grasping, ungrateful, ignorant vulgarian's arms.”

The very lack of inflection in Deene's tone was chilling, particularly when Eve herself might be the object of her husband's ire before a few more hours had elapsed.

“He seems a devoted father for all that.”

Deene was silent, while the countryside rolled along outside their window for a good portion of a mile. “Anthony had been courting Marie, a match she apparently welcomed. It made sense, they were enamored, and between themselves, I believe they had an understanding.”

Eve took Deene's hand in hers. “And then?”

“And then Dolan came strutting along, all trussed up in purchased finery, and offered for her on terms my father didn't even attempt to refuse. Marie was wed to a stranger, one with no family to speak of, no gentility, nothing to recommend him except a growing fortune and a reputation for grasping at any opportunity for financial or social gain.”

Something wasn't adding up, though Eve found it difficult to put her finger on the discrepancy. “If Marie was integral to Dolan's plans for betterment, he'd hardly treat her ill.”

“She was seventeen years old, Eve. She'd been sheltered all of her life and fully expected to marry into the world she'd been raised in. She tried to talk me into getting her a horse so she could run off the day before the wedding, as if that option were any safer for her.”

“How old were you?”

“Nearly thirteen.”

What a burden to put on a boy, particularly a boy being raised to fill his papa's titled shoes. “How did she die, Lucas?”

He was silent for so long this time Eve thought he might not answer, and part of her didn't want him to. The tale had to be painful for him, and there would be enough to cope with on their wedding day without adding this recitation to it.

“She lost a child, and they could not stop the bleeding. She faded, and her last request to me was to make sure I took care of Georgie. Dolan will call the child only Georgina—he must ape his betters even in speech—but to Marie, she was Georgie.”

Eve let her head rest against her husband's shoulder. “You fault him for getting her with child.”

“Georgie's birth was not easy. I have no doubt the accoucheur had cautioned them against having more children, but to Dolan he'd bought and paid for a broodmare, and a broodmare he would make of her.”

Many men regarded their wives in this light—many titled men, who would set the broodmare aside if she failed to produce. They'd find a way to nullify the union, strip their wives of any social standing or decent company, and set about procreating merrily with the next candidate, all with the complicity of both church and courts.

“You should know the skeletons in the Deene family closet, Eve, though I'm sorry to bring this up today of all days.”

Were she any other bride, she'd like that he felt that way, like that he was confiding in her. “Windhams have their share of skeletons.”

This earned her another curious smile, but rather than permit Deene to interrogate her, Eve closed her eyes and leaned her head back. “Weddings are tiring, don't you think?”

Her… husband did not reply.

Deene's wife was not asleep on his shoulder as she'd have him believe, and she was nervous.

Like a procession of sensory still lifes, his memories of the day told him as much:

Eve's hand, slender and cold in his when he'd put the wedding ring on her finger.

Eve's cheek, equally cool when he'd been unable to deny himself the smallest display of dominion outside the church—and she had not kissed him in return.

Eve, clinging in her oldest brother's embrace for a desperately long moment, until St. Just's countess had touched her husband's arm and embraced Eve herself.

A whiff of mock orange coming to Deene's nose and bringing with it a sense of calm until he saw the way Eve gripped her wine glass so tightly he thought the delicate stem might break.

He'd been prepared for bridal nerves. He'd even been prepared for his own nerves—this was the only wedding night he ever intended to have, after all—but he had not been prepared for his wife to be on the verge of strong hysterics.

A change of plans was called for, or neither one of them would be sane by bedtime.

“Evie.” He brushed her hair back from her temple. “Time to wake up, love. We must greet our staff.”

She straightened and peered out the window. “So many of them, and this is not even your family seat.”

Our
family seat. He did not emphasize the point.

“Let me pin you up.”

She turned on the seat while he fashioned something approximating a bun at her nape. The moment was somehow
marital
, and to Deene, imbued with significance as a result. Deene had laced up, dressed, and undressed any number of ladies, but there was nothing flirtatious in the way Eve presented to him the pale, downy nape of her neck. He kissed her there and felt a shiver go through her.

“You are going to be the sort of husband who is indiscriminate with the placement of his lips on my person, aren't you?”

She did not sound pleased.

“When we are private, probably. You always smell luscious, and I am only a man.”

His wife looked surprised, but before she could argue with him, he handed her down and began moving with her along the line of waiting servants standing on the drive. They beamed and bobbed at her. She smiled back with such warmth and graciousness that Deene revised his earlier estimation of her state of mind.

She hadn't been anxious; she'd been terrified of what was to come—and likely still was. As soon as he scooped her up against his chest to carry her over the threshold, all the warmth left her expression, and the corners of her mouth went tight again.

Deene did not set her down when they gained the foyer but addressed the rotund factotum who'd hurried ahead to get the door for them.

“Belt, we'll take a tray in our sitting room, and my lady will be needing a soaking bath as soon as may be. We'll not be disturbed thereafter unless we ring. Understood?”

“Very good, my lord.”

“Deene, you may put me down now.”

He started up the steps. “Not a chance, Wife. You'll dither and dally and want a tour of the place from top to bottom, or get to talking about menus with the housekeeper. You would leave me to my agitated nerves and no consolation for them but the decanter.”

They cleared the first landing. “Agitated nerves? You cannot possibly be serious, Deene.”

He was, somewhat to his surprise. “Humor me, in any case.”

She went quiet, now when he would have appreciated some chatter, some resistance, some measurable response to distract him from the perfect weight of her cradled in his arms. He reached what was to be their private suite and set Eve down on a blue brocade sofa by the windows.

“You'll have to assist me out of this attire, Wife. I haven't worn such finery since I took my seat in the damned Lords, and even then it was mostly robes…”

She was up off the sofa, wandering around the room. “I haven't seen these chambers before.”

She hadn't seen her husband completely naked before either, but Deene doubted she'd inspect him quite as assiduously as she was peering at the titles of the books on the shelves in the corner. He came up behind her and put his arms around her waist.

“Evie, have mercy upon me and help me get undressed.”

She turned, and he did not step back, so they remained in a loose embrace. “Haven't you a valet, Deene?”

“I'm married now. Many married fellows make do with a handy and accommodating wife, the last I recall the arrangements.”

“My father…” She paused and started working the sapphire cravat pin loose from all the lace at his throat.

“Your father is old-fashioned in the extreme. I'm not. What was St. Just whispering in your ear about in the receiving line?”

By virtue of one question after another, one article of clothing after another, she eventually got him out of all but his knee breeches. He took pity on her enough to slip into the dressing room between their bedrooms and exchange the last of his wedding finery for a dressing gown and loose trousers, by which time a quantity of food had arrived in the sitting room.

“We are certainly getting the royal treatment,” Deene observed. “Belt himself wheeled that cart in, did he not?”

“Belt.” Eve shoved a book back onto the shelf. “I will recall his name because butler and Belt both begin with B.”

This was important to her. Getting out of her wedding dress was apparently not.

“Let me be your lady's maid, Evie.” He wanted to take her in his arms and whisper this in her pretty ear, but she was looking quite… prickly.

“I thought my maid came down from Morelands to join this household?”

“And she's no doubt in the kitchen, partaking of the general merriment occasioned by our nuptials. Hold still.” He moved around behind her and started divesting her of all the layers of clothing hiding her from his view. When she stood only in a sheer white chemise—with a hem lavishly embroidered in gold, blue, and green—Deene took a step back and shrugged out of his dressing gown.

“Take this. The fires aren't lit yet, and until my naked body is draped over your delectable and satisfied person, it will keep you warm.”

She looked like she wanted to say something off-putting, so he kissed her on the mouth—a swift, no-you-don't kiss that worked only because he kept his hands to himself rather than pull her tight against his body.

His lady wife took her revenge by shutting the dressing room door when the bath had been delivered. Deene let the wine breathe while he stared at the door and pictured his naked and curvaceous wife all rosy and delicious in her solitary bath. By the time she emerged an hour later, Deene had lowered the level in the champagne bottle by more than half, and the sun had set.

“Shall we light some candles?” Eve asked—perhaps a shade too cheerfully.

“Let's not. Let's light the fire and enjoy the shadows.”

She pulled his dressing gown closer around her, but Deene's lust had been riding him hard, and he could tell she wore nothing beneath the velvet and silk of his clothing.

“My bath revived me,” Eve said, still standing in the dressing room doorway. “I'm quite famished.”

Deene said nothing. The food was before him on the low table in front of the sofa, and Eve was across the room. Unless he was to toss strawberries at her, she'd have to approach him.

“I've started the first bottle, Wife. Shall you imbibe?”

“Just a bit, if you please.”

While she perched on the first three inches of the sofa cushion, Deene held his wine glass up to her mouth. She sipped about as much as would inebriate a small Methodist bird.

For a few minutes, he tried—he honestly did—to feed her. She responded with an increasing number of agitated and unhappy looks, until Deene realized the situation was growing desperate.

And between when a man thinks he needs to say something and when the words start spilling from his idiot mouth, insight befell him: Eve's nerves, her quiet hysteria, whatever she was grappling with, it had to do with her accident.

There would be no teasing her past it, no getting her just tipsy enough, no cajoling or tickling her into more confidence than she honestly possessed. Deene set the wine glass down and rose.

“Come to bed, Evie.”

“To…
bed
?”

If she'd been pale before, she was a wraith now.

“Going to bed is a signal part of the wedding-night festivities, unless you'd rather spend a few moments before the fire?”

“I would. I very much would. My hair, you see, is still damp, and it goes all to a frazzle if I don't…” Her voice trailed off, and Deene kept his hand extended to her. When she put her fingers on his palm, they were again—still—ice cold.

It was time to end this. Not because banked lust was beating a physical pulse in Deene's brain, but because Eve deserved to put these nerves, this lapse of faith in herself—whatever it should be called—behind her. When she came to her feet, he kissed her.

He kissed her the way he'd been longing to kiss her for three weeks, with tenderness and passion and even a little frustration—anger, maybe?—that Eve would bear any lingering burden from a situation she could not have been responsible for.

“Come.” He took her by the hand and led her to the hearth, pausing to retrieve a pair of thick quilts from the dressing room before settling beside her before the fire. “You are nervous, Wife. I would have you explain to me the basis for your disquiet.”

“Wife.”

“That would be you.”

She drew her knees up and laid her cheek on them. “I am not nervous.”

He had the sense she was being honest, which was not encouraging. If she was not nervous, then she was afraid. “There is not one damned thing to be anxious about, Eve Denning. I am the one who has grounds for worry, for it falls to me to ensure your experiences are wholly pleasurable.”

“You do not appear to suffer doubt on this score.”

Her voice was calm enough, but he'd seen her start when he used her married name. “I suffer a proper respect for the challenge before me. Perhaps a kiss for courage won't go amiss.”

Her hesitation was minute, but then she went up on her knees and kissed him on the mouth. Deene took her by the shoulders and let himself topple back so she was sprawled on top of him.

“That is not a kiss such as would encourage a horny flea, my love.”

“A what?”

“Horny, which indelicate term means a Mister Flea who is hot for his Missus.”

“You are being vulgar and ridiculous.”

Her tone was prim, but his vulgar ridiculousness was working, because she hadn't moved off him, and her expression bore a hint of curiosity. Deene wrapped his arms around her and started rubbing her back lest she take a notion to retreat.

“Allow me to demonstrate, Marchioness.”

He set his mouth to hers and his will to her seduction. By slow degrees, he investigated her mouth and invited her to do likewise with him, to taste and tease, to explore, to indulge. Somewhere in that kiss, he positioned her so she was straddling him, and he arranged their clothing so he was naked beneath her and they were pressed breasts to chest.

“Deene.” She pulled back and closed the dressing gown.

“I don't know what you're fretting over, Evie. We've two enormous, fluffy beds to choose from when it comes time to consummate our vows.”

“So we're just to indulge in these courageous kisses?” By the firelight, her skepticism was evident.

“Precisely so. Kiss me. I was beginning to feel somewhat encouraged.”

She started to smile. He wanted to howl with impatience when he saw caution overtake the curving of her lips. Instead, he palmed her breast through the silk of the dressing gown.

“You're feeling frisky,” Eve said, watching his hand on her person.

“I'm feeling married.” He levered up by virtue of a dedicated equestrian's abdominal strength, and continued to fondle her while he reinitiated an openmouthed kiss.

Her control slipped a gratifying degree when Deene applied a gentle pressure to one nipple.

“Husband…” She breathed the word, infused it with a touch of surprise, and graced it with a hint of wonder. He repeated the caress, and she went still, as if her body were listening for the sensations a man intent on pleasuring his lady could create with just his thumb and first finger.

Before she could start
thinking
about it, Deene rolled with her, so he was above her and she was on her back beneath him.

“Are all husbands as inclined to move their wives about like so much dry goods?”

“Touch me the way I touched you, Evie. We'll see who's dry goods.”

She frowned but ran one palm down his chest. “This hair…” She ruffled it, which had Deene's vitals ruffling as well. He didn't push his erection any more snugly against her, but neither did he make any effort to disguise it.

“Is it to your liking, Lady Deene?”

“It's…” She ran her nose through the dusting of hair on his chest, the oddest, most erotic, endearing touch Deene had ever withstood. “It's peculiar. Soft, but… male. Manly. Even your chest smells good, Deene. I do approve of a fellow who takes his hygiene seriously.”

There followed a bit of torture, while Eve—apparently secure in the notion that marriages could not be consummated on the floor—made a scientific study of Deene's chest. She listened to his heart. She tentatively, then more firmly, touched his nipples.

The sizzle of pleasure that set off in places low and reproductive had Deene clenching his jaw.

She sniffed at him, and while submitting to all these experiments and investigations, Deene subtly shifted himself above her, until his cock was nestled against the glorious damp heat that was his wife's sex.

Damp. Thank a merciful God she was damp. Her body was ready for what came next, even if her courage was not. When Eve ran her tongue over Deene's right nipple, he lowered himself more closely to her and got one arm around her shoulders.