The Book Of Scandal (23 page)

“It’s just as well, if you ask me,” Kathleen said as she wound a string of seed pearls through Evelyn’s hair. “Now that you’ve come home, mu’um, Eastchurch should return to a proper place befitting a grand lady, as it was meant to be.”

Evelyn merely smiled at her reflection in the mirror. She wasn’t certain Eastchurch could return to being a “proper place,” or if she was capable of transforming it.

Kathleen continued to prattle on with household gossip, but Evelyn’s thoughts wandered. The fluttering in her belly was the nerves of anticipation. She’d debated going down to supper at all—what purpose would it serve? She knew precisely what her husband wanted—his conjugal rights—but that unbridled desire only muddied the waters even more.

Yet the memory of the way he’d looked at her in her bath kept shocking her with tiny little tremors of deep, deep desire.

In the end, it was that unearthly yearning that propelled her down to supper. She convinced herself that it wouldn’t hurt to hear what her husband had to say. Or that after years of pain and heartache, there was no reason the end of their marriage had to be acrimonious.

She was dressed in her best gown. The top skirt was made of raw silk the color of new grass, over a skirt of royal fuchsia that matched the embroidery on the sleeves and the train. It was beautiful. It made her feel strong.

As she fingered the locket that hung at her throat, she idly wondered what had happened to the eager young woman who had come into this house ten years ago, the naïve young woman whose head was filled with fantastic ideas of marriage.

In actuality, marriage had been much harder than she ever imagined, and in many ways, too hard. The woman going down to supper now—the one who had spent years in London watching couples who were joined in marriage by law but not in heart—wondered if it was even possible to have the sort of fantasy marriage she’d once dreamed of having.

No. This marriage had been based on the need to maintain rank and privilege. The sort of marriage she had dreamed about was based on the need for love. She had loved Nathan, and perhaps he had loved her in his way, but their marriage had crumbled into sand when the strength of it was tested.

A strange sense of sadness drifted over her as she walked down the stairs, destined to dine with the man she had lost in what he called the scaffolding of a fragile marriage.

B enton was waiting in the foyer for Evelyn at a quarter to seven. “Good evening, madam,” he said, and gestured to the corridor to the right. “His lordship requested that you meet him in the morning room.”

“The morning room?”

“If you please,” he said, and walked briskly in that direction, pausing by the corridor’s entrance to await her.

Evelyn paused, too, and peered down the long hall. “Why?”

“His lordship has requested it,” was all Benton would say.

Eyeing him suspiciously, Evelyn started for the morning room, Benton at her side. “What is in the morning room?” she tried again.

“I am not at liberty to say.”

“Benton!” she said with a smile. “We’ve known each other for quite a long time. You might at least tell me if I should draw my sword.”

Benton allowed her a ghost of a smile. “I cannot, madam. I have been threatened with my position if I as much as breathe a word of what is in the morning room, or do not replace the paraffin candles in the upper floors with beeswax.”

“What has that to do with the morning room?”

“Not a thing. But it is likewise a condition of my continued employment.”

Evelyn smiled. She’d long admired Benton’s unflappable dedication to the earl.

“Here we are,” Benton said, and put his hand on the door’s handle. “Good evening, Lady Lindsey.”

“What…you’re leaving?” Evelyn asked, confused.

His expression unreadable, Benton opened the door to the morning room and stepped aside.

The scent of lavender wafted out. Evelyn looked into the room and gasped with delight—it was filled with flowers and greenery. Giant palms and ornamental elm and ash trees had been brought up from the sun room and scattered about the room. Vases of hothouse flowers were interspersed in between the trees, covering most of the floor. A birdcage hung in the corner of the room, and a trio of twittering canaries hopped from one swing to another. At the far end of the room was the hearth, where a fire was burning.

Evelyn walked into the room. Before the hearth, a green cloth covered the carpet. Big, thick pillows were scattered in a semicircle around the cloth. In the middle of the green cloth was a large basket covered with a gingham cloth. Perhaps the most amazing thing of all was the large canopy umbrella, the sort servants dragged out to hilltops to shade ladies who picnicked.

Evelyn realized it was precisely that. “A picnic?” she said aloud to no one.

“Yes. A picnic.”

She turned about—Nathan was leaning against a sideboard across the room from the hearth, his arms folded and one ankle crossed over the other. He was watching her reaction closely.

“I don’t understand,” Evelyn said.

“You once professed a liking for picnics. The time of year prevents me from giving you a proper one, but madam, here is your picnic nonetheless.”

She couldn’t help but feel delighted. “Nathan, this is…” She couldn’t think of the correct word. Insanity? Charming?

“Is what?” he asked, pushing away from the sideboard and walking toward her.

Her pulse fluttered. “Madness.” She unthinkingly took a step backward. “This is not a picnic.”

“By whose definition?”

“By mine.”

He paused and looked around. “What is lacking?”

“The sun, for one,” she said, folding her arms.

Nathan arched one dark brow and pointed heavenward. Evelyn looked up; the ceiling was painted sky blue with white puffy clouds floating across it. “That’s new,” she said wryly.

“Benton’s idea,” he said with a flick of his wrist. “There are trees,” he continued, gesturing to the palms and the ornamental potted trees. “And a lovely lawn,” he added, nodding to the green cloth that had been laid over the carpet. “All the makings of a picnic are here.”

He’d gone to quite a lot of trouble. It reminded her of the occasion of her twenty-second birthday, when he’d awakened her with a trumpeter outside her window. When she’d opened the drapes and looked down, she’d laughed with delight—he was dressed in the costume of a king. He’d swept a bow low over one extended leg, then motioned to the white horse behind him—borrowed, as it turned out, from the DuPauls. “Come down, my love, so that I might whisk you away and ravage you properly on this important occasion.” Inside, Kathleen had appeared, holding a gold dress with long tapering sleeves and a hat in the style worn hundreds of years ago.

Evelyn had been more than happy to go off with her husband and be properly ravished, but Nathan had taken her up to the abbey ruins where her family and many friends from around the shire were waiting to surprise her, all of them dressed in the clothing of a medieval court. It had been a magnificent day; they’d feasted on turkey and ale, and musicians from the village had played country dances. They’d danced in what was once the common room of the old abbey.

That night, when they lay in bed, Evelyn had twined her fingers in his. “You went to much trouble and expense,” she’d said.

“Did you enjoy yourself?”

Oh, she’d enjoyed it. It was one of the best days of her life. “It was marvelous, Nathan! However shall I repay you?”

He’d gathered her up in a strong embrace, pulling her on top of him. “I can think of one or two ways, indeed…”

He had disappeared the next morning, of course, off with his friends. But the memory of that birthday made her smile nonetheless.

Tonight, Nathan did not wait for her to decide—he strode to the sideboard and poured two glasses of wine. He returned, handing her one.

“This is all very creative,” she said as she took the wine and sampled it.

“Try not to look so astonished,” he said with a lopsided smile. “I thought that after yesterday’s high drama, you deserved it.”

She didn’t know if she deserved it or not—for all she knew, Nathan was right and she’d somehow, accidentally, burned down the orangery—but this room was so cheerful on what had been a cold and drab day, she was beginning to feel a bit jolly. “Does this picnic include food, or do we just sit on our make-believe hill and look down at our make-believe village?”

“Is there food?” he repeated with feigned shock. “Madam, you may think I do not know you well, but you must at least grant that I know you have an appetite so healthy that it belies your tiny waist.”

Evelyn laughed. “I shall consider that remark a compliment.”

Nathan’s smile deepened, and he held out his hand, palm up. “Then come to my picnic, Evie.”

Out of habit or desire—she didn’t know which—Evelyn slipped her hand into his.

He led her to the green cloth and helped her down onto her knees. He crouched down beside her and removed the cloth from the basket. She gasped with surprise when she saw the feast within. Grapes, cheeses, cold chicken, a fresh loaf of bread. There were other items wrapped in cloth at the bottom of the basket, too, but Evelyn was more interested in the fare that Nathan heaped onto a Sèvres china plate for her.

She picked up a grape and popped it in her mouth. “Did you grow these in your botanical cottage?”

Nathan laughed as he bit into the chicken. “No, I grow lavender in my ‘botanical cottage.’ Not grapes. These come to us courtesy of Mr. Roberts’s hothouse. You recall him, do you not?”

“I recall his wife,” Evelyn said with a snort. “She was quite awful to the servants’ children. On rainy days, they would walk through her hedgerow on their way to the schoolhouse, and she would chase them with a broom. It frightened Mary Stern’s son so badly, he refused to go to school for a time.”

“Mary Stern died a year ago,” Nathan informed her.

“Died?” Evelyn exclaimed, wide-eyed. “But she was so young!”

“Yes, she was,” he said, and proceeded to tell her about the woman’s illness and subsequent death. That led to questions about other residents in the shire, and as they ate, Nathan told her the news she had missed over the last three years.

He did not speak of London, or remark on her long absence. He spoke to her as if she’d been gone a fortnight—not a lifetime.

Evelyn was struck by their easy companionship, and how relaxed she felt dining at their make-believe picnic. It was almost as if they were two old friends who had not seen each other in a while—not an estranged couple. He made her laugh with ease, just as he’d done in the early days of their marriage.

For the space of an hour or so, there was no past between them, no questions about the future. There was just the two of them in that moment, two people content in one another’s company, and Evelyn enjoyed herself as she had not done in a long time.

Nathan had just poured them a second glass of wine when Evelyn discovered the pudding cakes. She cried out with delight when she saw them. “My favorite!” she exclaimed. “Cook remembered!”

“Cook,” he scoffed. “While I suspect the entire sovereign nation knows of your love of pudding cakes, it was I who requested them.”

“You did?” she asked, and beamed at him as she bit into the cake. She closed her eyes and sighed. “Oh, they are heavenly.”

Nathan chuckled and propped himself beside her, his back against the pillows, stretching his long legs toward the fire. With his finger, he swiped a crumb of cake from her lip and put it in his mouth.

Evelyn smiled.

“Do you recall that wretched winter, and a particularly cold and snowy night?”

Evelyn playfully rolled her eyes. “Yes,” she said with a smile. “How could I possibly forget?”

“We were snowed in,” he said. “No one could come or go, and we were filled to the rafters with guests.”

“The vicar and his mother,” Evelyn giggled.

“Your parents,” Nathan reminded her. “Lambourne, Donnelly, and Wilkes.”

“Naturally,” Evelyn said, nudging him with her shoulder.

“New snow was falling on old snow, and it looked as if it would never end.”

“I feared it would end with us eating the draperies,” Evelyn said with a laugh. “How is it possible we ran out of meat? We were sick to death of carrots—raw carrots, stewed carrots, mashed carrots…”

“Then Cook found the sack of flour,” Nathan said with a chuckle, “and made pudding cakes.”

“Oh, what a relief it was!” Evelyn exclaimed. “We ate pudding cakes until I thought I could never bear to see another one,” she said, and took another bite from the one she held.

“I am happy to see you are wholly recovered.” Nathan laughed, and closed his hand around her wrist, pulled the pudding cake she held to his mouth, and took a healthy bite.

“Completely,” she assured him, and took another bite, savoring it. “I’ve not seen pudding cakes in London.”

“I remember you wore a dark red dress that night. The décolletage was rather spectacular.”

Evelyn gave him a coy smile.

Nathan looked at her décolletage now. “I remember licking the crumbs from your breast,” he said, and brushed his knuckles across her collarbone.

A flutter of desire rose up in her again. Evelyn lowered the pudding cake. “Are you attempting to seduce me?”

The look in his eye sparked the memory of his body that strange dark night only days ago, and it quite literally snatched her breath away.

“I am not attempting,” he said low, as his eyes languidly took in the swell of her breasts above her bodice. “I am determined.”

“You are remarkably arrogant.”

“Arrogant?” He grinned wolfishly. “I think you mistake an eagerness to please for arrogance.” He touched the hollow of her throat, tracing a line down into her cleavage. “Yet I confess I can’t help myself. I see a certain light in your eyes, Evie, and I know it well. I see the flush of your skin and the set of your mouth…” He brushed his thumb across her bottom lip. “And I am reminded that I am your husband. I want to make love to you.”

He’d always held a seductive power over her—there was a time he could seduce her with a look or a tender touch. But Evelyn was not so impressionable any longer. She knew a man’s game, and as much as her body heated at his touch, as hard as her pulse beat at his suggestion, there was too much beyond the bed that weighed on her.