Veiled in Blue (25 page)

“We will share a room,” Julius said smoothly. “I do not wish to inhabit my old rooms. I want a suite close to the nursery. To my daughter.”

The duchess shot her a vicious glare. “You indulge that child too much.”

“That, madam, is our concern.”

Could Julius sound any icier? Eve could barely remember the warm, loving man he had been, the persona he had jettisoned along with his name. Why had she not read any more gossip sheets? Why had she closed her ears when her mother had read the salacious articles aloud? Serve her right for pretending superiority to such matters. If she’d listened, she’d have known who Julius Vernon was.

“You are not a private person, Winterton.” The duchess took a delicate sip of tea before going on, replacing the dish in the saucer with barely a clink. “I take it you will be leaving Helena in our care now? You will hardly have time to care for her if you are concentrating on your family.”

“Then you assume wrongly, mother. I will of course be taking Helena back into my house.” A trace of anger quivered in his voice.

“How happy she is does not concern me. Helena will do her duty.”

“That she will,” Julius said. “However I believe we vary in our ideas of duty regarding my sister, madam.”

The duke added his voice, his tones calm and reasoned, his features impassive. “Helena will do as she wishes. She is old enough to choose for herself.”

This was turning into a family argument. Lifting her head, Eve met the sympathetic eyes of Lord Valerian.

His mouth tilted in a smile. “Welcome to the family,” he murmured.

Eve smiled back.

“Eve is one of the daughters of the Old Pretender,” Julius said abruptly. “Someone has already tried to kill her. Unfortunately he died before I could question him. When I went to London to obtain the marriage license, I tried to establish which of the two camps he belonged to.” He paused and glanced at her. “I believe it is the more dangerous of the two.”

“Which is?” Lord Darius prompted.

“The Young Pretender. Every child is a threat to him. He is hunting them down. Including my wife.”

Eve took a deep breath and tried to calm her racing pulse. He was telling people the deep, dark secret her parents had warned her not to divulge to anyone.

“So you married her to protect her?” Lord Valerian raised a brow, his mouth curved in a sardonic smile.

“Partly.” Julius reached out his hand and took hers. His warmth enclosed her, radiated through her. However hard she tried to put him at a distance, he found his way back into her life. “But I could have protected Eve without marrying her.”

He glanced at her, and for an instant, the old Julius found his way through. Eve smiled back.

He said nothing further, but turned his attention back to the room. “Augustus is looking through the records held at Oxford on his way here. There is some confusion about Eve’s birth certificate.”

That was the first she had heard. She frowned. “Problems?”

“No doubt because you were born abroad.” Julius waved his hand in a vague but elegant gesture. “A small detail, but my brother likes to be precise. It does not matter in the larger scheme of things. Charles Stuart believes you are his half-sister, born legitimately, and that is enough for him. The man is half-mad.”

“Only half mad?” Lord Valerian put in, humor in his voice.

Julius shrugged. “Maybe all the way.” He shot a glance at her again, and whatever he saw made him get to his feet and draw her up with him. “Eve is tired. I wanted everyone to know the situation because I want her to receive the strongest protection until we hear. My hope is the Young Pretender will hear of our marriage and will cease his suit. He must know I have no pretensions to royalty.”

Eve found her voice. “Neither do I.”

After bowing to the company, Julius took her from the room. A hubbub broke out behind them, but he took no notice and led her on inexorably.

Once out of the room, he drew her closer, but that might have been because the corridor, spacious though it was, only allowed them to walk together in that way. But he kept her that way when he took her up the broad staircase. In silence, he led her along another corridor to a set of double doors at the end and into a bedroom that made her gasp.

Only then did he turn and face her, his grasp on her arms gentle, his eyes sincere, his face stark. “I would have done anything to spare you that ordeal.”

She could not doubt the sincerity in his eyes. More fool her, but he had revealed himself too late for her to change the way she felt about him. She would have to learn to deal with this new person, this great lord. Either that or trail behind him as the wife from the lower orders, and that she absolutely refused to do.

“I’ll answer every question you ask me as truthfully as I can.” Regret traced the blue of his eyes. “I’m sorry, so sorry, Eve. In my arrogance, I assumed my position and consequence would come as a pleasant surprise to you.”

Indignation swamped her shock, replaced her horror. “Why would you think that? I married a man who I could be comfortable with, who I could love, and what do I get? A public figure. Did you think me so downtrodden and poor that I would welcome that status?” A vision swam before her, of her mother laughing and sometimes deriding the behavior of the upper echelons of society. The brief indulgence gave them pleasure but meant nothing to them. However, these people were real, not figures enacting a play for their benefit. Now she was one of them. How could she live with that? How could she not? She had jumped into this situation, and now she had to deal with it.

She wasn’t ready for the pressure, but she had to be, had to make herself ready fast.

“Promise me you will never lie to me again.”

“I didn’t lie—”

She wouldn’t let him get away with that. “You lied. You knew what I expected.” A lie by omission was still a lie.

He sighed, the breath heavy enough to lift his chest and momentarily press it against her breasts. Even that made them tingle. She should not allow it, but her reaction to his nearness seemed to be something she couldn’t prevent. “Am I allowed small lies?”

“No.” He was too tricky for her to allow him any concessions.

The trace of a grin flicked his mouth up at the corners before he turned serious again. “I promise. Eve, I cannot express how sorry I am all this is now forced on you. Otherwise, how could I protect you?”

She was very much afraid that she did. “I’m royal. Did you want a princess for a wife?”

He snorted. “Hardly. In any case, the Vernons have traces of royal blood from various sources. But you and your siblings give the Stuarts new hope. King George is ailing, his heir a boy and under the influence of unsavory individuals.” He squeezed her hands. “A claimant free of the taint of treachery could force questions, could even affect the balance of power in Europe. Even if the Stuarts give up all pretensions to the throne, they can still affect decisions.”

“It’s nonsense. The law decides who is king. The Divine Right of Kings died a long time ago.” A mirror was set on the wall, within her eyesight, she discovered, when she glanced around. This sunny, beautifully appointed room held treasures aplenty, and the elaborately gilded mirror was one. Eve saw herself anew. “Do I look like a Stuart?”

“You look like Eve.”

She turned back to him. None of this seemed real, any more than discovering the man she had married was heir to a dukedom. It was all a fairy tale, and she would wake in her old room with the ill-fitting windows that she had to stuff with rags in the winter to stop the draughts. That was reality, not this.

“You said I was the third child of the Pretender that you have discovered. Did you want to marry them?” And she had siblings. She would ensure she met them. Perhaps together they could work something out.

“One is male.”

She ignored the amusement that lit his eyes that she had found so irresistible such a short time ago. “The other. Would you have married her?”

He closed his eyes. “No. I would not.”

Restlessly she got to her feet, took a few paces, and turned, her skirts swirling about her.

“Do you take part in politics? Is that it?” With the pretense of opening her modest dressing case, she went to the chest where it had been carefully laid. She had but a brush, a comb, and a small mirror inside, but she had inherited the set from her grandmother, and she cherished them. Now she stroked a finger over the tortoiseshell back of the mirror, comforting herself with the smooth texture, as she had so many times before. “You wanted a stake of your own?”

“I would not have the stability of this country disrupted by a worthless power seeker,” he said softly. “James Stuart has no idea how to rule, only to scheme, and his son is worse.”

“So you would claim the throne through marriage rather than see them in power?” Julius Vernon would not have done such a thing. He had a practical turn of mind that would have laughed at the very idea of becoming King. This person, the Earl of Winterton? Eve was not so sure. She didn’t know him. Julius had only shown her part of himself when he had courted her and asked her to marry him. This man could have hidden so much more. A vaunting ambition to rule, for instance.

That would not be so far-fetched, not from the Earl of Winterton.

She had supposed her mother’s stories to be fanciful at the least, but it appeared her parents had told her the cold, hard truth. The tortoiseshell had warmed under her fingers. She picked up the mirror, but kept its back toward her. “What prevents me from being a monarch?”

“Your brother, the one you have not yet met. Your grandfather, James Stuart, would want you to strengthen his claim. Your half-brother would want to destroy you.”

The Stuarts really thought they still had a chance at the monarchy? “They’re mad.”

“They are indeed, but madmen often succeed where the sane fail.”

She turned the mirror. Did she see the trace of the Stuarts in her dark hair and her long nose? Would others see it?

She had no answers, only more questions.

Spurning Julius’s offer of having a meal served to them privately, Eve went down to dinner later that afternoon. At her request, he left her to get ready on her own. Taylor attended her in silence. Better to face everything now than leave it festering. She had always been that way, preferring to confront obstacles and overcome them, rather than try to go around.

Eve had done her best, but even her burgundy silk could not compare to the gowns the women she met in the drawing room were sporting. Fine silks and brocades met her gaze, adorned with the best and most elaborate lace from Brussels and Vincennes, the threads so fine they could barely be seen by the naked eye. Filmy lawn gauze adorned the bosoms of the ladies, and cosmetics tinted every face.

Except hers. With little experience with face paint, Eve had decided against it, even turning down the offer of a patch for the corner of her eye. Her maid had retreated, disappointed, but Eve wanted the gossips to see her as she really was, not the person she might wish to become. Or not. She had yet to decide what kind of countess she would be.

The heads swiveling to shoot her hard and curious glances meant they had been talking about her. Eyes glinted, fans flicked out and wafted the air like a flock of fluttering birds. The colors of myriad silks swirled as they turned and reformed like dancers in an elaborate measure she did not understand.

One woman broke away from the group gathered in the center of the large room and came towards her, a welcoming smile wreathing her features. She wore her fair hair unpowdered and gathered in a gleaming mass on top of her head, a couple of curls allowed to escape and tease the bare skin of her shoulders. “Since no one thought to introduce us, I will do it myself, if you have no objection.”

How could Eve object to this exquisite creature?

“You are my brother’s wife.” The lady bestowed a gentle smile on her, but it disappeared as fast as it came.

Eve found herself unable to speak. The news had travelled. At least she would not have to face the embarrassment of introducing herself. She had thought to find Julius here, but only women inhabited this room, and now she came to distinguish between them, only half a dozen.

Of course, society dined later than she was used to. Her mother would have told her, but her mother was not here yet.

Eve curtseyed. “I’m Eve.” Should she call herself something else? Lady Eve? No, that was wrong. She was Eve, Lady Winterton. Surely too formal for before-dinner conversation?

“Helena.” The lady smiled. “His sister. Tricky devil, isn’t he?”

Exactly what Eve had been thinking. Her grin broke through her reserve and she nodded. “Yes he is. I fear I’m only just beginning to understand him.”

“Oh, nobody understands him.” Helena turned, so they were facing in the same direction. “Allow me to introduce you to the others.”

In short order Eve met Lady McComyn and her lovely daughters Mary and Elizabeth, Lady Murtagh and her lovely daughter Charlotte, and Miss Sophia Kershaw. They were uniformly beautiful and coolly welcoming. The younger ladies were obviously here so Julius could select his bride from them, like chickens waiting to be plucked, or more likely hounds chasing a hare.

Except Julius was no hare. He would not want to be anyone’s quarry. Whether he wanted it or not, he was being pursued. That would be enough to drive him into the arms of someone else. Her, to be precise.

The women eyed her with suspicion, but all bore smiles, none as welcoming as the one Helena had offered.

“Would we know your family?” Lady Murtagh said.

Eve took instant dislike to the fashionable drawl. “I doubt it,” she said. “Until recently we lived in Appleton, a village near Bath. My father was connected to some notable people, but they never concerned themselves with us, and we were only too happy to reciprocate. Our lives did not intersect.”

“I see.” Her ladyship looked Eve up and down as if she were a prize horse up for sale. “I merely wondered what dear Julius was up to now. You are married, I take it?”

“Knotted tightly,” Eve replied, working hard to prevent her teeth clenching. If only she could deny that small fact. She might have had a chance to befriend one of the ladies, to learn what she was to become, had Julius not taken the notion into his head to marry her quickly. Was he afraid she would get away or he would lose his nerve?