Lady Eve's Indiscretion

“We would manage well enough. We’re each of appropriate station, we know one another’s families, the lands all but march, and it would spare you from the importuning of the Trit-Trots of the world.”

Drat him for his common sense. Were he speaking from the heart rather than his pragmatic male brain, she might have considered what he was saying for a few moments before rejecting him.

“It would also spare you from the Mildred Staineses of the world.”

“With the Season looming, that is not a small consideration. We have something else weighing in favor of a marital union.”

He was proposing without asking her to marry him. His aplomb was impressive, also… heartbreaking. Deene was, to her surprise, a man she would enjoy being married to in some regards, and he was bringing his addresses to her first, not to His Grace—and still, his proposal must be rejected just like all the others.

“What is this something else, my lord?” His politics no doubt all but marched with His Grace’s; he’d charged the French with Devlin and Bart; he wasn’t afraid of Louisa or muddled by Jenny’s sweet good loo—

Her only warning was Deene’s bare hand on her chin, gently turning her face up to receive his kiss, the most beguilingly gentle kiss so far. His lips pressed softly against hers, and his hand cupped her jaw then slid back into her hair to cradle the back of her head.

Not this again. Not this lovely, spreading warmth rising from her middle and obliterating all reason; not the raging desire to shift herself beneath him and taste his skin and breathe his scents.

Bodily loneliness swamped her as Deene’s mouth moved on hers. Nobody was intimate with her the way Deene could be; nobody touched her except for the fleeting contact permitted by Society’s rules or familial affection. She opened for him, fisted her hands in his hair, and dragged him closer.

And when she was aching for him to give her one last taste of pleasure and passion, he eased away, resting his forehead on hers.

“We have passion, Eve Windham. That is no small consideration either.”

Passionate kisses did not always tell the tale. Eve knew this from bitter experience. A man, even a very young man, could kiss like a dream and make a girl lose every shred of common sense and still, the man’s most intimate attentions could be… distasteful. Painful even.

Deene, by contrast, would be a sumptuous lover, generous, skilled, beautiful…

She cut the thought off and made herself speak in brisk, ruthless tones. “I appreciate the honor you do me, Lucas, but I am no more interested in your proposal than I am in Trit—in Mr. Trottenham’s. We would not suit.”

He pulled away, straightening beside her. To suffer the loss of him with indifference was necessary if Eve was to make her point.

“Eve Windham, if the way we kiss is your idea of not suiting, then God help the man you do suit. He’ll go up in flames the moment you bat your eyes at him.”

“There will be no such man.”

An argument would help a great deal, but no, Deene sat beside her, his arm around her shoulders, his thumb idly stroking the side of her neck. Eventually, she allowed herself to yield to the temptation he offered and rested her head on his shoulder. Soon enough they’d reach Town, she’d climb out of the carriage, and the day that had gone from hell to heaven back to hell would be over.

There was time enough to cry later.

* * *

“Where in the hell is Lord Andermere?”

Deene used Anthony’s courtesy title before the staff routinely, though he seldom adopted such an impatient tone of voice, much less profanity.

“His lordship was called down to Kent, my lord.” Gower spoke with the studied calm of a butler who’d spent forty years in service to the Denning family.

“When was he called down to Kent?”

“Yesterday morning, I believe, my lord. He said he received a note from Mr. Bassingstoke.”

Bassingstoke was the land steward at Denning Hall. It made sense that Anthony might be called away on a property matter, but it made no sense whatsoever that he’d leave without a word to Deene, when they were supposed to spend the morning poring over ledgers.

“Send a note around to Hooker. I’ll be paying a call on him before noon.”

Gower bowed. “Very good, my lord. Will that be all, my lord?”

“No, it will not.” If Deene couldn’t start on the ledgers, he’d tackle the matter from another angle. “Send Mrs. Hitchings to me in the library in twenty minutes.”

Gower withdrew quietly—Gower did everything quietly—leaving Deene to pour himself another cup of tea, finish reading the financial article he’d started when he sat down to breakfast, and polish off the rest of his eggs and toast. Mrs. Hitchings was waiting for him when he arrived to the library.

“Ma’am, good morning.” Deene took a seat behind the estate desk, hazarding that the housekeeper would be more nervous if he instead paced the room. “You are welcome to sit, Mrs. Hitchings.”

Relief crossed her tired features as she perched at the very edge of a chair, her back ramrod straight, her gaze fixed on some point beyond Deene’s left shoulder.

“How long have you been housekeeper here?” In her white caps and drab dresses, she’d been a fixture in the townhouse as far back as Deene could recall.

“Nigh twenty years, your lordship.”

An answer, and not one word beyond the question she’d been asked. They hadn’t been easy years.

“And how many housemaids do we have?”

“Twenty at the moment, your lordship, though they tend to turn over.”

“How many footmen?”

She frowned slightly. “The footmen answer to Mr. Gower, your lordship. I would put their number at about the same as the maids.”

“And their wages?”

At that question—and only that question—her gaze flickered across Deene’s face, her eyes betraying a wary consternation. “I wouldn’t know for certain, your lordship. Lord Andermere sees to the paying of the wages.”

“What about the marketing, do you keep an account of that?”

“I hand in the sum to Lord Andermere at the end of each month, your lordship. If he’s not in Town, then I give it to Mr. Gower.”

There was no house steward for the townhouse—except Anthony, apparently.

“I would appreciate it if in future, Mrs. Hitchings, you apprise me of the sum expended as well. That will be all. Please send Gower to me directly.”

Gower’s litany was the same, though he of course remained standing while Deene interrogated him. Neither servant knew much of the household finances other than the single sum they reported to Anthony.

As Deene called for his horse to be saddled, he concluded such an arrangement was likely in the interest of domestic harmony, it being the province of the lower orders to grouse about wages, working conditions, and the tightfistedness of employers generally.

The ride into the City gave Deene an opportunity to consider yesterday’s developments with Lady Eve Windham—to further consider them, just as he’d been awake considering them for half the night.

She was attracted to him; of that there could be no doubt.

Nonetheless, she’d also unhesitatingly rejected a proposal from a very eligible catch, when her own tenure on the marriage market was growing woefully long. Her rejection stung more than it should have, but it also puzzled, which was annoying as hell.

Solicitors were annoying as hell too, but in a way that allowed Deene to vent and posture away some of his irritation.

“This is very short notice, my lord.” Hooker came up from his bow and took hold of a velvet coat lapel in each hand. “Very short notice indeed. May I inquire as to the nature of your lordship’s errand?”

Why was it the legal profession excelled in planting a sense of shame in a paying client?

Deene remained standing, requiring that Hooker do likewise. The skinny, younger associate was hovering