Slightly Married (4 page)

“And you know,” she said earnestly when there was no one else with them, “you are perfectly welcome to come and make your home with us, Eve. James agrees with me that nothing would suit us more.”

Eve glanced across the room at James. Poor man, it was something he would surely hate. But she was touched by Serena's kindness. The two of them had been friends since Serena's marriage to James five years before. But friendship had its limits.

“I do not even want to think beyond today, Serena,” Eve told her. “But thank you. You are most kind.”

Truth to tell, she had been finding it hard all day to think rationally at all. Even the memorial service had been hard to concentrate on, much as she had tried. Only the colonel's eulogy had captured her undivided attention.

Time was running out.

She might have saved herself and everyone else under her care from this predicament if only she had married sometime during the past year. She had had several offers. But she had not considered any of them seriously. She had been waiting for John. Oh, foolish, foolish—she was no longer convinced that John was coming back at all. Even if he did, he would come too late to save her servants and friends.

She could scarcely believe that she was doubting John. Against all reason, perhaps, she had loved and trusted him through fifteen long, silent months.

No one knew about John, not even Aunt Mari. John, Viscount Denson, whose father, the Earl of Luff, had strictly forbidden the match when her father had proposed it to him, was with the diplomatic service and currently at the embassy in Russia—or perhaps by now he really was on his way back to England. He had promised to come straight home when he returned in March and finally make their secret betrothal public. By then, he had told her, he would be a respected diplomat, an important person in his own right, and his father would be powerless to stop him from marrying the woman of his choice. They would marry before the summer was out.

Eve smiled wanly as yet another of her neighbors bent over her to commiserate with her and comment on the beauty of the memorial service. Everyone was so very kind. How good it was to have friends who cared.

Where was John now, at this precise moment? She had no way of knowing. They had not written to each other even once during the fifteen months of his absence—it was not at all the thing, after all, for a man and woman to correspond when they were not married or at least officially engaged. At least, that was what she told herself during the first long months when she did not hear from him. She had been unable to write to him herself as he had given her no address. But surely, she had thought more recently, though she had tried to suppress the thought, he could have found some way of communicating with her without damaging her reputation. If only he would come, she thought. If only she could look up
now
to find him standing in the doorway, blond and handsome, with his usual air of ease and confidence. But all she saw when she looked up was Colonel Bedwyn standing listening to Cecil.

Surprisingly, the colonel made no apparent effort to get away from him. Eve had almost laughed at the snub he had dealt Cecil on the churchyard path and was disappointed that he would now bolster her cousin's sense of importance by giving him his undivided attention. Nevertheless, she was glad to be relieved of the duty of being sociable to the dour colonel herself. She would have still felt in charity with him if the afternoon had not ended as it did.

She had gone down to the terrace to see James and Serena Robson on their way. She waved to them as they drove away, feeling suddenly very weary and very lonely. She turned to go back into the house, but Cecil and Aunt Jemima were just stepping out. Cecil's coachman was bringing up his carriage to take them home. Colonel Bedwyn was with them. Apart from the nervous little smile Aunt Jemima darted her way, they completely ignored Eve just as if she were invisible.

“Now
this,
” Cecil said with an expansive gesture of one arm to indicate both the house and the park, “is quite inadequate as a gentleman's seat. It might even be called an undistinguished rural heap. A marble portico with Greek-style sculptures and pillars and steps is what I have in mind. That will impress the eye, would you not agree, my lord?”

Eve looked incredulously at the ivy-clad beauty of the front of the house. She waited for the colonel's cutting set-down of such a tactless comment in her hearing.

“Both the eye and the visitor,” the colonel agreed, his voice languid with aristocratic hauteur. “Such an improvement to your property cannot fail to elevate you even further in the esteem of your peers, sir.”

Cecil swiveled about. “And the driveway must be widened and paved,” he said. “There is scarce room for two well-appointed carriages to pass each other along it. Some of the trees will have to go.”

Her precious, ancient trees, Eve thought, aghast.

“An admirable idea,” Colonel Bedwyn agreed. “They are only trees, after all. Of far less significance than a gentleman's carriage.”

Cecil observed his surroundings with a self-satisfied air until his carriage obstructed his view by drawing up in front of him.

“It has indeed been a pleasure to make your acquaintance, my lord,” he said. “And a pleasure and an honor for Mama, too. Perhaps you will visit us some other time when you are in Oxfordshire, after I have had a chance to make Ringwood into an estate worthy to entertain the son of a duke. Perhaps you will join me for a spot of shooting. Perhaps even the duke, your brother . . .” He allowed the preposterous suggestion to trail away.

The colonel inclined his head and offered his hand to Aunt Jemima, who was so flustered for a moment that she did not seem to realize that he was intending to hand her into the carriage. She clasped it and scurried up the steps when she did realize it.

“Eve?” Cecil finally deigned to take notice of her before climbing in to take his place in the carriage. “I shall return in four days' time to take up residence here. I trust you will not make any vulgar display of protest. You know how easily Mama's nerves become upset.”

“Good day to you, Cecil,” she said. “Good-bye, Aunt. Thank you for coming.”

Her aunt raised a black handkerchief to her eyes after smiling with watery tenderness at her.

“How are Becky and Davy?” she had whispered soon after they had arrived at the house, with anxious glances to both sides. But she had chosen her moment poorly—Cecil had been bearing down upon them. Aunt Jemima had smiled and nodded vaguely and remarked that she must get the recipe for the pound cake from Eve's cook.

When the carriage drove off, Eve was left standing on the terrace beside Colonel Lord Aidan Bedwyn.

“Ma'am,” he began, “if I may—”

She did not wait for him to finish. Even the sound of his voice made her bristle with indignation. She turned and walked into the house without a backward glance.

C
HAPTER IV

I
AB BUCH BETTER, SIR,
” A
NDREWS SAID.
“I
CAD HAVE US
on our way by sud-up.”

Aidan stood in his inn room, his back to his batman, and closed his eyes. Oh, the temptation! After a few moments he uttered—aloud—every ugly, filthy, obscene, blasphemous word in his considerable vocabulary.

Andrews sniffed.

“Blow your blasted nose,” Aidan commanded him.

Andrews obeyed, sounding like a cracked trumpet as he did so.

“My civilian clothes,” Aidan ordered, beginning to undo the buttons of his scarlet coat.

“Your riding clothes?” Andrews asked.

“No, not the riding clothes, blast it,” Aidan said, shrugging out of the coat and tossing it over the back of a chair for his batman to deal with later. “Did I ask for riding clothes?”

“Do, sir,” his batman conceded. “I thought perhaps you had decided to leave todight.” The nose-blowing had obviously done nothing to clear his nasal passages.

“You thought wrongly,” Aidan said curtly. “I will let you know when I plan to leave this infernal inn.”

Less than half an hour later he was wearing civilian clothes again—white shirt and neckcloth, blue superfine form-fitting coat, cream waistcoat, buff-colored pantaloons, and white-topped Hessian boots. He was freshly shaved. He was still in as foul a mood as he had been half an hour earlier—fouler.

He still could not quite believe what he had learned from Cecil Morris, whom he had milked for information with consummate ease simply by flattering the man with his attention and his questions and his unqualified approval of every asinine answer. He would have been far happier throttling the little weasel.

Old man Morris must have been a pretty piece of work, Aidan thought contemptuously as he sat down to dinner in his own room—he was in no mood to put in an appearance in the taproom. When he had failed to persuade his daughter to marry any of the socially superior men he had presented her with, he had tried to exert some control beyond the grave.

According to the will he had written shortly before his death, Morris had indeed left everything to his daughter for one year only before it was to pass to her brother or, in the event of his prior demise, to her cousin. But he had also dangled a juicy carrot before her face. She could retain her inheritance for the rest of her life
if she married
during that year.

There were four days remaining until the first anniversary of Morris's death.

Cecil Morris was about to inherit. But though he had apparently peppered his cousin with marriage proposals when it had seemed in his interest to do so, he was no longer prepared to be bothered with her now that he did not need her. She was to be turned out of the house in four days' time. Cecil Morris neither knew nor cared what would become of her.

News of the death of her brother, then, had come as a double blow to Miss Morris two days ago. There was no doubt that his death had upset her in a thoroughly personal way. But the other implication of that death must at least have contributed to the gaunt look she had been wearing ever since. Apparently Captain Morris had left everything to her in his own will and had even signed papers legally relinquishing all claims on the Ringwood property to his sister during his lifetime. Unfortunately, his generosity had gone for naught. He had died before he had any claim on Ringwood and therefore any right to dispose of it as he wished.

In four days' time Miss Morris was to be homeless and, presumably, destitute. Her father had not even left her a dowry or a pittance on which to live.

Aidan dismissed Andrews after he had finished his meal and then entertained the empty room with a deliberate repetition of every nasty word he had uttered earlier in Andrews's hearing. But he felt no better for the venting of spleen.

Four days.

Captain Morris had been right to worry about her, then. She did indeed need help and protection. And Aidan had solemnly sworn to provide both—
no matter what
. During his ride back to the inn from Ringwood he had pummeled his brain for ideas on what he could do for her. But even before arriving he had realized that there
was
only one answer. The trouble was, he did not like it at all—and that was surely the understatement of the century!

And there were only four days left.

Even though Miss Morris had pointedly snubbed him before he left Ringwood this afternoon—and who could blame her after that ridiculous scene with Cecil Morris she had witnessed?—he was going to have to persuade her to receive him again and listen to him and do what he suggested.

Those three words—
no matter what
—had just been hung about his neck like a millstone. They were about to deal him a life sentence just when he had begun to dream different dreams. There was only one way in which he could protect her.

Damn and blast,
there was only one way.

He rammed his hat on his head and took up his cane.

A
FTER THE LAST OF THE GUESTS HAD LEFT,
E
VE CALLED
her whole household together with the sole exceptions of the children and Nanny Johnson, who stayed with them in the nursery. Everyone else gathered in the drawing room, from which the tea things had been cleared.

There was no point in delaying this encounter any longer. Nothing was going to change now. Nothing could save any of them. The best Eve could do was give everyone a few days' notice—not that they would not all have given it to themselves by now. They all knew the truth.

“I doubt my cousin will keep any of you on,” she said into the heavy silence that surrounded her. She had invited everyone to be seated but had remained standing herself. “Perhaps you, Sam, since you were once a groom at Didcote and Cecil is impressed by such things.”

“I was dismissed for poaching, miss,” Sam reminded her bluntly. “No one else would take a chance on me but you. I wouldn't work for
him
if he was to ask me.”

“And you, Mrs. Rowe, have a reputation as the best cook in Oxfordshire.” Eve smiled at her.

“But it got out that I was once cook for all the girls and their fancy gents in a London brothel, miss,” the cook said. “And you was the only one who would give me a job. I am with Sam. If I was to cook for his nibs, I would poison his roast beef, I would.”

“Ned.” Eve turned to her one-armed steward. “I am so sorry. All our wonderful dreams and plans will have to be abandoned. You will not even have employment here.”

They had been going to buy a piece of land adjacent to Ringwood—at least
Eve
had been going to buy it after the year was over, with Percy's approval, and Ned had been going to manage it. They had been going to set it up as a farm where destitute, permanently maimed soldiers could live and work and become self-sufficient in a sort of commune. Eventually the price of the land would be paid back and it would be truly Ned's, though Eve had never planned to enforce that provision.

“That is all right, Miss Morris,” he said. “I'll live. You are not to worry about me.”

“Charlie. Dear Charlie.” Eve looked kindly at him. “I am going to speak to Mr. Robson and see if he will offer you employment. I will do my best.”

“Did I do something wrong, Miss Morris?” he asked, looking utterly forlorn.

Sam Patchett set a hand on his shoulder and promised to explain to him later.

“Thelma.” But Eve could neither look at the girl nor say any more. She closed her eyes and pressed one hand over her mouth. There was a sharp ache in her throat and chest. Where would Thelma go? What would she do? Who would give her employment? How would she be able to feed and nurture Benjamin?

“Eve,” Thelma said, “you are not responsible for me. Really you are not. You have been unbelievably kind to me. You have yourself to worry about now. I'll manage. I'll find something. I did before you took me in here.”

Eve opened her eyes and gazed at her aunt. Her little cottage in Wales had been sold. The pension Papa had allotted her had not been mentioned in his will. Aunt Mari was old and worn out and half crippled. It had given Eve intense satisfaction to bring her to Ringwood and to pamper her with some of the luxuries she had never known before.

“You are not to worry about me, my love,” Aunt Mari said firmly. “I'll go home where I belong and where I have friends to take me in. I'll make myself useful and earn my way. But what are
you
going to do? Your dada took you from your roots and brought you up as a lady, and now he has left you with nothing, the wicked man, all because he could not have his way. I'd tell him a thing or two if he was still alive to hear me. Believe me I would.”

But Eve was not really listening. She was thinking about Davy and Becky. They were orphans. Their parents had died within days of each other of some virulent fever, and the children had been sent on an endless journey about England, passing from one to another of their surviving relatives, none of whom wanted them or were even willing to tolerate them. Last on the list had been their great-aunt, Mrs. Jemima Morris. Left to herself, Eve had always believed, Aunt Jemima would have opened both her home and her heart to the children, but Cecil had persuaded her that doing so would have shattered her nerves and ruined her health.

Unknown to Cecil, Aunt Jemima had come running to Ringwood, and Eve had taken the children in even though there was no blood relationship between her and them. Her father had recently died, Percy was off at the wars, the wait for John's return seemed interminable, she was lonely despite the presence of Aunt Mari in her home—and she had been unable to withstand Aunt Jemima's pitiful tears.

Mrs. Johnson, a widow from Heybridge who was known to have a way with children, had agreed to come and look after them, and Eve had set about the task of seeking a governess for them. A married friend of hers, now living thirty miles distant, had informed her of an unfortunate governess in her neighborhood who had been dismissed from her employment after it was discovered that she was increasing with her employer's child and had been grubbing out a meager existence ever since by taking in laundry. A week later Thelma Rice and her baby son had been established at Ringwood Manor.

What was to happen to Becky and Davy? Could Cecil be persuaded to allow them to stay now that he would have a larger home and a larger fortune to enable him to be generous? Would he let Nanny Johnson remain so that the transition would not be too terribly frightening for them? Would he let Thelma and Benjamin—but no! That at least was something she knew was out of the question.

“Agnes—” she began.

“You don't need to say no more to me, my lamb,” her housekeeper said. “I did my time in jail more than once, I did, and I lived to tell the tale. I left London to look for a better life, and I got taken up for vagrancy. Then you took me in. I'll always remember that, and I'll bless you with my dying breath, but I'm not going to add one ounce to your burden. You are not my keeper, miss—I am. But if it's all the same to you, when you are forced to leave here, I'll stick with you for a while and be
your
keeper. It can be a cruel world out there.”

“Oh,
Agnes
.” Eve could no longer restrain her tears.

Agnes took charge of dismissing everyone, and they all tiptoed away—all except Aunt Mari—as if leaving the room of an invalid.

O
NE OF
E
VE
'
S FAVORITE TIMES OF DAY WAS AFTER
dinner in the evening, when she went up to the nursery and played with and read to the children while Thelma devoted herself to Benjamin and sang him lullabies when it was time for him to sleep. It was Nanny Johnson's time off.

This evening Eve was reading stories. Davy sat on one side of her, not quite touching her. He had learned during the months following his parents' death that the adult world was hostile and not to be trusted, and he was unlearning that cruel lesson with slow caution. Becky was curled up against Eve's other side. Placid and good-natured, she sometimes seemed to have been less deeply affected by her experiences than Davy. But she occasionally awoke in the night, Nanny reported, either crying helplessly or screaming.

Thelma was standing in the doorway to Benjamin's bedchamber beyond, listening to the story. The little boy must already be asleep. Muffin was curled up at Eve's feet, his chin on his paws, snoozing.

Everything seemed almost frighteningly normal.

Eve made every effort to concentrate her mind upon the adventures of two children who had escaped the clutches of an evil goblin in the dark forest only to find their way to safety barred by a ferocious lion with a thorn stuck in one paw. She tried desperately not to think about the future. She resisted every urge to set both arms about the children and hug them so tightly that she would convey her own fright to them. The little dinner she had eaten sat uneasily in her stomach.

Where was John? she kept wondering despite herself. Not that he could save everyone around her now even if he arrived tonight—it would be far too late to have the banns read in time. And it seemed selfish to think only of her own comfort and security. But where
was
he? It would be such an enormous relief just to see him, just to feel his arms about her again, just to be able to unburden herself of all her woes to him. Perhaps he would be able to think of something.