Lady Eve's Indiscretion

“May I have one sip of the spiked variety? A lady grows curious, after all.”

This earned her another of those amused, unsmiling expressions. He passed over a glass, which allowed Eve to note the earl’s hands were bare. “Slowly, my lady. Our hosts are gracious with their offerings.”

She slipped off her gloves and took a drink from the proffered glass.

“Merciful… My goodness. How do you gentlemen remain standing?”

He passed her the other glass, though she just held it while the burn in her vitals muted to a rosy glow.

“Some of us don’t remain standing, at least not much past midnight. One has to wonder what you were about, Lady Eve, to stand up with Enderbend this late in the evening.”

He sounded almost as if he were scolding her, which was a considerable margin beyond a passing spate of gruffness.

“My choice of dance partners should be no concern of yours, my lord.” She spoke as gently as she could, telling herself Kesmore’s leg was hurting him, and he’d very likely been dragged to the evening’s gathering as a function of Louisa’s continuing loyalty to her unmarried sisters.

“I am not concerned, exactly. One more sip?” He held up his glass of punch.

“Perhaps one more.” It was a lovely, fruity concoction, and his lordship had spoken nothing but the truth regarding their host’s hospitality, for the punch was cold, even at this advanced hour.

And yet it warmed nicely, in small sips.

Eve pondered that contradiction while she took yet another sip.

“I apologize if it seems I chide you for your choice of partner, Lady Eve, but I have little to do at these engagements save observe the company in all its folly. I cannot think you harbor any serious attachment to these buffoons you stand up with, and yet you are comely, well dowered, and of marriageable age. Also very consistent in your behaviors.”

He was leading up to something, so Eve let him natter on. If she was going to be subjected to some avuncular lecture, she might at least enjoy his punch while she did.

“I note you allow I’m comely.”

“Quite, though you hardly use it to your advantage, which I also note to be part of your pattern. Though I am loathe to pry, I am a gentleman, and I account myself at least on friendly terms with Their Graces, so I will be blunt: Are you in need of a friend, Lady Eve?”

She stared at her drink—his drink, what remained of it—and tried to puzzle out what he was asking. “Everybody needs friends.”

Did Kesmore have friends? She’d never had occasion to wonder. She suspected Louisa was his friend—an odd and vaguely disquieting notion.

Did Deene have friends? As the punch brought a little sense of relaxation to go with the warmth coursing through her veins, Eve tried to recall if she’d ever seen Lucas out among his fellows, riding in a group in the park or sharing the top of a coach with a few other men at some race meet.

Kesmore took the drink from her hand. “I will regard your answer as a ladylike affirmative and presume to offer myself in that humble capacity. Let’s sit a few more minutes before we subject ourselves to the company inside once more.”

While the couples ten yards away continued to chatter, and the throng in the ballroom started up a waltz, Eve wrinkled her nose at her unspiked drink and tried to fathom what on earth could have prompted Kesmore’s peculiar offer.

Then it occurred to her: on her list—on her private list—of attributes a husband of convenience ought to have, the most important characteristic was that he should be capable of befriending an adult woman.

What an unlikely coincidence that Louisa’s taciturn spouse should possess this very trait.

Her companion broke the silence. “Will you be attending the Andersons’ soiree on Friday, my lady?”

Eve didn’t know what interest her new, self-appointed friend might have in her schedule but saw no reason to dissemble.

“I am not. Jenny and I are taking a two-week repairing lease at Morelands before the Season starts up in earnest. We miss our sister Sophie.”

“I have never understood why the social Season must start up just as spring is getting her mitts on the countryside. It’s quite the most glorious time of year, and we spend it here in Town, sleeping the days away, sweating en masse in stuffy ballrooms by night.”

In the presence of a lady, a gentleman did not typically refer to anybody sweating, except perhaps an equine. Eve did not point this out to Kesmore.

She patted his muscular arm. “Louisa says you miss your piggies. Perhaps you need a repairing lease as well.”

His brows shot up, and then the man did smile. He looked positively charming, almost dear, so softly did a simple change in expression illuminate his features. His eyes lost their anthracite quality and developed crows’ feet at the corners, while his mouth, which Eve might have honestly described as grim, became merry.

“I do miss my piggies. Lady Louisa is correct.”

“She very often is. One gets used to it.”

The smile did not entirely fade; it lingered in Kesmore’s eyes as he rose and offered Eve his arm. They left their empty glasses on the bench, and Eve had to admit a short interval in the company of a friend—even such an unlikely friend—had done much to restore her spirits.

And still, when Kesmore had bowed over her hand and taken himself off to ache for another hour at the edge of the room, Eve found herself visually searching the ballroom again for just a glimpse of the Marquis of Deene.

* * *

“Come along, Deene.”

Deene nearly stumbled as Kesmore snagged him by the arm and pulled him toward a staircase at the corner of the ballroom.

“Taking English peers prisoner went out of fashion several years ago, Kesmore, even among the French.”

“I’m not taking you prisoner, but if we’re to get a fresh start in the morning, we can’t be dawdling about here until all hours.”

“So now I’m taken prisoner and kidnapped?” Though leaving was a capital notion indeed. Mildred Staines had been positively ogling Deene’s crotch at the supper buffet. It gave a man some sympathy for the suckling pig in the middle of all the other offerings.

“You’re due for a repairing lease in the country, a final inspection of the home farm and so forth before planting begins. Then you may take yourself back to Town to be chosen by your bride.”

Deene paused at the top of the steps. “The fellow still does the proposing, as I recall, not the other way around.”

“Comfort yourself with that illusion if you must, but as of tomorrow, we’re going to Kent for a couple of weeks.”

Deene’s retort died on his lips.

Another two weeks of watching Eve Windham be drooled on, leered at, stumbled over, and danced down the room, and Deene would be left witless indeed.

“I’ll catch up with my steward and show the colors before the tenants. A fine idea indeed.” He couldn’t get out of the ballroom soon enough, though by rights, they ought to say good night to their hostess first.

“Shall I make our farewells, Kesmore?”

Kesmore didn’t answer immediately. Deene studied the man and saw that his gaze was fixed on Lady Louisa twirling around the dance floor as graceful as a sylph in the arms of some dashing young swain.

“You fetch the coaches. I must retrieve my lady wife and put that poor devil dancing with her out of his misery.”

Deene watched as Kesmore all but swaggered down the stairs, and wondered if Lady Louisa would protest —even for form’s sake—over the early end to her social evening.

* * *

Evie had long ago concluded that some edict had gone forth from Their Graces that no Windham coach was