Lady Eve's Indiscretion

“If you’re cold, there’s a blanket under the seat for your lap.”

“I’m fine.”

He glanced over at her. “You’re pale, Eve. Has another megrim been afflicting you?”

The shops and stately homes of Mayfair sped by, though in a couple of hours the streets would likely be too crowded to proceed at such a lively pace. “A gentleman would not remark such a thing.”

He leaned a little closer, as if imparting a confidence. “A lady would not be gripping the handrail as if her driver were about to capsize the vehicle.”

Dratted man. She relaxed her grip.

“Take a breath and make yourself let it out slowly.” He said this quietly too, still in that conspiratorial tone. Eve wanted to elbow him in his ribs. Out of deference to the welfare of her elbow, she took a breath.

Which did help, double drat him.

“We have two perfect gentlemen in the traces,” Deene said. “I traded your brother Devlin for them and got the better of the bargain.”

“How old are they?” Another breath.

“Rising six, and the most sensible fellows you’d ever want in harness.”

Eve considered the horses, a pair of shiny chestnuts, each with white socks on both forelegs. “Why didn’t Devlin want them?”

“They’re quite good size for riding mounts, but I think mostly he wasn’t looking to add to his training responsibilities.”

There was nothing in Deene’s tone to suggest he was being snide, yet Eve bristled. “You saw Devlin at Christmas. He’s doing much better now that he’s married.”

Deene drove along in silence, turning the horses through Cumberland Gate and onto The Ring. Eve kept breathing but realized part of the reason she was in such difficulties.

Since the accident, she’d driven out only with family. She didn’t know if this eccentricity had been remarked by Polite Society, but given the level of scrutiny any ducal family merited, it very likely had.

Her brothers hadn’t been on hand to drive her anywhere for ages. In recent memory, she’d driven out only with her mama. While Her Grace was a very competent whip, even a noted whip among the ladies, Deene at the ribbons was a very different proposition.

A more confident proposition, in some regards. For one thing, he was a great deal larger and more muscular than any duchess; for another, he was former cavalry; and on top of that, he was just… Deene.

“I did not mean to scold,” Eve said. “Devlin had us worried when he came back from Waterloo.”

Deene kept his gaze on the horses. “He had us all worried, Lady Eve.”

She wanted to ask him, as she’d never asked her own brother, what it was that made a man shift from a clear-eyed, doting brother with great good humor and a way with the ladies, to a haunted shell, jumping at loud noises and searching out the decanters in every parlor in the house.

Except she knew.

She must have moved closer to Deene, because he started in with the small talk.

“The leader is Duke, the off gelding is Marquis. They’re cousins on the dam side.”

“There must be some draft in them somewhere,” Eve remarked. Quarters like that didn’t result from breeding the racing lines exclusively. “They’ve good shoulder angles too. Have you ever put them over fences?”

This earned her a different glance. “You’re right, they do. I suppose the next time I take them out to Kent, I’ll have the lads set up a few jumps. Is His Grace still riding to hounds?”

“In moderation. I think you do have a loose shoe on the… on Marquis. Up front.”

“How can you tell?”

“The sound. That hoof sounds different when it strikes the ground. Listen, you’ll pick it up.”

They clippety-clopped along, though to Eve the sound of a tenuous shoe was clear as day.

“Your brothers said your seat was the envy of your sisters,” Deene remarked a few moments later. “When they talked about you taking His Grace’s stallion out against orders, they sounded nothing less than awed.”

“I was twelve, and I wanted to go to Spain to look after my brother. Proving I could ride Meteor seemed a logical way to do that.”

“I gather your plan did not succeed.”

She hadn’t thought about this stunt in ages. Meteor had been a good sort, if in need of reassurance. He was in the pensioner paddocks at Morelands now, his muzzle gray, his face showing the passage of years more than his magnificent body. Eve brought him apples from time to time.

“I had a great ride, though.” It had been a great ride. Her first real steeplechase, from Morelands to the village and back across the countryside, with grooms bellowing behind her, her brother Bart giving chase as well, and all hell breaking loose when she’d eventually brought the horse back to the stables.

“I bet it got you a stout birching, though.”

She had to smile. “Not a birching. His Grace stormed and fumed and shouted at me for an age—not about riding the horse, but about taking him without permission—then condemned me to mucking stalls for a month. Mama was in favor of bread and water and switching my backside until I couldn’t sit a horse anymore.”

“I gather you were sad when the punishment ended?”

He was a perceptive man, and he’d also known her before.

And there it was again, the great divide in Eve’s life: Before the Accident versus After the Accident. She forced herself not to drop the thread of the conversation, because that divide was private, known only to her.

She hoped.

“I learned a very great deal in that month from watching the horses, listening to the lads, and seeing them working the horses in the schooling ring. I learned how to care for my tack, how to properly groom a beast and not just fuss about with the brushes, how to tack up and untack, when a horse was cool enough to put away, what to do with an abscess or a hot tendon.”

She fell silent. In some ways that had been the happiest month of her childhood.

Of her life.

Beside her, Deene went abruptly alert. Eve followed his gaze to where a little girl was playing fetch with a spaniel. The governess or nanny was on a bench nearby, reading a book.

“Take the reins, Evie.”

Before Eve could protest that she couldn’t take the reins, she did not want to take the reins, and she would not take the reins, Deene had thrust them into her hands.

He hopped out of the still-moving vehicle and approached the child.

“Uncle Lucas!” The girl squealed her greeting and pelted toward Deene, arms outstretched. The horses shifted a bit at the commotion, making Eve’s insides shift more than a bit.

“Steady, gentlemen.” Thankfully, she still had the equestrian skill of sounding more relaxed than she felt. While Deene swept the child up in a hug, Eve also made her hands and arms relax, then her middle, lest the horses pick up on her tension and decide to leave the park at a dead gallop.

She exerted the same discipline over her thoughts as she had her body.

“And, ho.” Obediently, both geldings shuffled to a halt. “Stand, gentlemen.” She gave a little slack in the reins, and thank God, and perhaps Deene’s ability to train a team, the horses stood like statutes.

“Shall I hold ’em, miss?”

The tiger—whose existence Eve had completely forgotten—scrambled off the coach and stood blinking up at her.

“That won’t be necessary. I don’t think his lordship will be long.”

The nanny was speaking to Deene in low tones, her hand plucking at her collar. Deene kept the girl perched on his hip but reached out with one hand and snatched the ball from the woman’s hands. He pitched it quite hard, then set the girl down while the dog ran off after the ball.

While Eve watched, Deene took the girl’s hand and led her over to the curricle.

“Lady Eve, there’s somebody I’d like to introduce you to. This is my niece, Miss Georgina Dolan. Georgie, Lady Eve is my friend, so please make your curtsy.”

The girl dipped a perfect curtsy. “Pleased to meet you, my lady.”

She came up grinning, as if she knew she’d done it exactly as instructed.