Lady Eve's Indiscretion (25 page)

This question, with its unflattering implications toward Deene and his bride, Hooker did not ask before his minion.

Deene tugged on a pair of riding gloves. “The negotiations are concluded. I've reached a private agreement between me and the Windham family, a copy of which is kept with my personal papers, and another given into the keeping of the lady's brother, the Earl of Westhaven. The arrangements did not affect the business of the marquessate.”

“That is very unusual, my lord.”

“I want control of my situation, Hooker, just as I want control of my niece's future. I should hope you are clear on that point, if no other.”

The clerk returned with another sheaf of papers bundled together, this time with a gold ribbon. Such wits, these lawyers.

“I'll bid your lordship good day, then. Again, congratulations, my lord.”

Deene did not leave in any particular hurry, but the more time he spent among his solicitors, the more he dreaded the very scent of the place: old books, anxiety, and greed. That he would pollute the early days of his marriage with these trips to Town was a measure of how desperately he wanted to resolve Georgie's situation.

He was unmercifully plagued with the knowledge that he had yet to fully explain the matter to Evie. He waited for a quiet moment when he might casually mention it, but the quiet moments were so precious with his new wife, and they invariably became, or immediately followed, passionate moments.

He sought for a pause in the activities in the stables when he might casually pass along some relevant asides, but how to frame such a problem as this?

“By the way, I'll be plunging us into scandal and penury, attempting to gain custody of my niece.”

“Don't take this amiss, but I'll be wrecking the peace of our union by litigating a family issue in public.”

Almighty God in heaven, he had to tell her and soon, before some well-meaning gossip—or Windham family member—decided to see to the matter. If his marriage was to enjoy one-tenth of the potential he sensed it had, then he must find a way to make Eve understand Georgie's situation, and soon.

Deene climbed into his coach, equally preoccupied with the thought of joining his wife for dinner and the notion that he ought to pay a call on Dolan and make one last offer to settle Georgie's future like… civilized men.

“Gentleman” being too far a stretch for such a one as Deene's brother-in-law.

“Was this meeting any more successful than its predecessors?”

Anthony lounged against the squabs, looking as if he'd had nothing better to do than catch a nap in the middle of the afternoon.

“You've taken to lurking in coaches, Cousin?” Deene settled beside him on the forward-facing seat.

“Discretion seemed the better part of valor, and no, I didn't plan on this. Rather than loiter in the street, I appropriated a bit of privacy. I didn't know you'd be in Town today.”

“I did not particularly want to be in Town, but the pleadings in Georgie's case are finally drafted.”

Anthony smiled faintly. “So holy matrimony is agreeing with you?”

“Quite.”

His cousin's smile became wolfish. “And your marchioness, is she similarly pleased with the institution?”

The question rankled. “It is my pleasure and duty to ensure she is.”

Anthony's smile faltered. “Quaint, Deene. I give it two years or one healthy son, whichever shall first occur, and you'll be living separately.”

“I believe we've had this discussion. How goes the planting in Kent?”

Deene managed to keep the conversation oriented toward innocuous matters until they reached the Mayfair townhouse. The footmen were waiting outside the coach, the steps in place, when it occurred to Deene that marriage had put an option in his hands he needed to exercise.

“Eve and I will be spending more time in Town as time goes on, Anthony.”

“Is it wise to be showing her off when the rumors are still circulating at a great rate?”

“I want her to show me off, you idiot. The wedding should have the rumors scotched quite neatly.”

Now Anthony looked pained.

“Spit it out, Cousin. I was going to say I'd understand if you wanted your own establishment in Town, since dwelling with a pair of newlyweds might not be to your taste.”

Anthony's brows rose. “My own…? You think I'd desert the cause now, when just last night some jackass had the temerity to intimate your situation with Georgina might be comparable to Byron's with his half sister?”

Rage welled at Anthony's quiet question. Rage and a determination to see Jonathan Dolan ruined. Byron was rumored to be the father of his half sister's third child, though proving such a thing was impossible.

“Who said that?”

“I will
not
tell you. The man was far into his cups, and his fellows shut him up immediately with apologies and excuses all around. I did not want you to know, because now you'll challenge Dolan and you a newlywed and it all just being talk and a duel being no better for Georgina's situation than outright murder.”

“Talk that vicious is going to ruin Georgina's life, Anthony. Dolan has to be stopped.”

But why
now
? Why must this issue be coming to
point
non
plus
now, when all Deene wanted was to spend time with his wife?

Very likely because Dolan had planned it that way.

“If I need a second, Anthony, will you serve?”

“Of course. Is there anybody else you'd like me to speak to?” The reply was gratifyingly swift and certain.

“Not yet. Even asking such a thing will fuel the rumors.”

“Then I shall keep my counsel and wait for further orders from you. My regards to my new cousin, the marchioness.”

Anthony climbed out, and when Deene wanted to head directly for Surrey, he instead followed his cousin into the town house, wrote several notes to be delivered by messenger, and only then allowed himself to turn his direction toward home.

***

“My love, I grow concerned.”

Kesmore's expression suggested he wasn't quite teasing, though in the course of their marriage, he teased his lady wife a great deal.

“Then I am concerned as well,” Louisa replied. She had to stifle a yawn as she spoke though, since his lordship's version of a late-afternoon nap could leave even a stalwart wife more drowsy than refreshed.

“Such loyalty.” Kesmore rolled to blanket her naked body with his own. “I should kiss you for it.” He did, a lovely, thoughtful coda to the beautiful composition that was Joseph Carrington in an amorous mood.

When Louisa could form coherent sentences again, she seized the moment. “What's bothering you, Joseph?” Whatever it was, it could not be of too great moment, given that her husband's body was indicating a notion to add another
movement
to his most recent marital sonata.

He nuzzled her neck. “I got a note from Deene this morning, delivered out from Town by private messenger.”

No man had ever used his nose to such great advantage in the course of marital relations. Louisa's husband had a way of breathing her in, canvassing her features with his proboscis, gathering her scents the way other husbands might gather up compliments to toss back at their wives.

“That tickles, Husband.”

“Tickling is a fine thing, you might consider—given the magnitude of your devotion to my ever-precarious well-being—reciprocating. How well do you know Deene?”

Louisa did not tickle her husband. If the man wanted tickling, he was going to have to beg for it. She did, however, meet his gaze and saw his question was serious.

“Very well. He's a lifelong neighbor, he served with Bart and St. Just, he's of the same political persuasion as Papa most of the time, and he was always underfoot as a boy because he had neither male siblings nor much family with whom to associate.”

“And he served with me, and now he is family in fact. A situation is brewing, and while I do not know the exact extent of it, I believe Deene and his lady need our help.”

Louisa loved her husband for any number of reasons: because he was a wonderful father, because he made her feel like the loveliest woman on earth, because he was protective of those he cared for right down to the smallest runt piglet ever to squeal its way into their keeping.

At that moment, she loved him because he had neither charged off to Deene's aid without confiding in her, nor had he even considered such a notion. To be married to Joseph Carrington was to have not just an adoring and passionate husband, but to have a friend, a best, most loyal, devoted friend, and—almost as wonderful—to be that sort of friend to him as well.

Louisa brushed his hair back from his brow, wrapped her legs around his flanks, and kissed him on the mouth. “Tell me what's to be done, Husband. If there's something amiss with Deene, then it's amiss with our Evie too, and that we cannot allow.”

It took another half hour, but when they did get around to discussing the matter further, they were—as usual regarding anything of consequence—of one mind about it.

***

“You see how Aelfreth looks down and to the left?”

Deene saw no such thing. He saw the way his wife never took her eyes off the combination of Aelfreth and King William as they circled the practice arena. She had the same focus in bed sometimes, even when her eyes were dreamy with heat and desire.

“And the significance of this?”

“It's a matter of attention, Deene. Aelfreth signals the horse to pay attention in the same direction just by where he looks.”

“For God's sake, Eve, the horse can't see where the man on his back is looking.”

A particular dimple flashed on the left side of Eve's mouth. Deene had only recently discovered this dimple, and it fascinated him.

“When I'm… sitting on you, Deene, straddling your lap, and your eyes are closed, can you tell where I'm looking?”

“Of course.”

“Tell Aelfreth to lift his eyes up, then, unless you want William thinking the only interesting things in the arena are on the ground to the left of him. He'll eventually go crooked like that if you don't break Aelfreth's habit now.”

“This is just a schooling session, Evie, a little variety in the routine. When they're on course, Aelfreth will be looking from jump to jump, from straightaway to turn.”

She folded her arms, looking as prim as a governess. “Every time we're around King William, we're teaching him something, Deene. I have explained this to you.”

She had, and her little lectures and homilies were charming—also very insightful, and in just the two weeks his marchioness had been in residence, Deene could see a difference in the way his equine youngsters and their lads were going on.

He bellowed at Aelfreth that the marchioness said to look the hell where he was going, which provoked a sheepish grin from the jockey—and immediate compliance such as Deene's command alone would likely not have merited.

“You've made slaves of my lads, Wife. The horses are no better.”

“Such flattery. Are we to drive out today?”

If the weather was fine, they'd taken to picnicking at various secluded spots on the property. Sometimes Deene made love to his wife in the lazy afternoon sunshine, sometimes he dozed with his head in her lap, and sometimes—the times he suspected they both liked the most—they mostly talked.

“I had something else in mind today.”

Her expression became… guarded. “Husband, we got a late start this morning because you had something else in mind, and while I always enjoy what you have in mind—”

“As I enjoy what you occasionally have in mind, Wife, but this is not that kind of something else.”

And still she was wary. When it came to lovemaking, Eve took a little—a very little—convincing to try new things. Whether it was a new position, a new location, a new variation on something he'd shown her previously, she always hesitated:

“Lucas, this cannot be decent…”

“Husband, I am not at all sure…”

“Deene, are you quite certain
things
can go that way…?”

She was not shy, exactly, so much as she lacked confidence in her responses—or confidence in her entitlement to enjoy the God-given passion of her own nature.

And yet, she always gathered her courage and met him halfway, something he loved about her almost as much as he loved the way she gave him small touches and caresses throughout the day.

“Where are you taking me, Deene?”

He laced his fingers with hers and drew her in the direction of the unused foaling stalls. “This is a surprise, Evie. I wanted to give you this surprise the morning after our wedding.”

“You did give me a surprise, as I recall.”

He'd awakened her with an introduction to the pleasures of making sweet, sleepy love spooned around each other amid the warmth of the covers.

“One can't offer his new wife too many pleasant surprises.”

“Is this a pleasant surprise then?”

Always, the wariness. “I hope and pray you find it so.” At the serious note in his voice, Eve paused to peer over at him. He could not back out now, and maybe because of that, the vague anxiety in his chest gathered into a tighter knot. “If you don't like this surprise, you don't have to keep it. I can send it back.”

She resumed their progress, moving into the mostly empty barn. “This is a gift then?”

“Customarily, a husband presents his wife with a token of his esteem following consummation of the nuptials.”

“You are being sentimental, then. I love it when you dote on me, Deene, but I understand we must be mindful of the economies, and I'd have you freed from any—”

She stopped dead outside a roomy stall bedded in fresh, deep straw.

“Lucas, what have you done? Good God… what have you done?”