Lady Eve's Indiscretion

ever to stop or even pause to water horses in the hamlet of Bascoomb Ford. She’d been complicit in this ducal fiat by making certain she always had a book with her on the journeys to and from Town, always had knitting, or— failing all else—a nap she absolutely had to take.

And in a nice, comfortable traveling coach shared with her sisters, there was no reason to suspect the day’s trip to Morelands would be any different.

Which meant once again Eve put aside the nagging thought that someday, someday when she had the time and the privacy, she was going to come back to Bascoomb Ford and revisit the scene of her worst memories.

“I’m thinking of dodging the Season.” Louisa lobbed this cannonball into the middle of a perfectly amiable silence.

Jenny looked up from her knitting. “The notion always has a forbidden sort of appeal, doesn’t it? I couldn’t imagine leaving Mama to make the explanations though. We might have given up, but she has not.”

Such a forthright reply from Jenny was not to be brushed aside. “Papa hasn’t given up either,” Eve pointed out. “His darling girls must find their true loves.”

Louisa’s smile was subdued. “Or their convenient husbands. You were certainly trolling the ballroom diligently last night, Eve. Make any progress?”

There was understanding in Louisa’s eyes, no taunting, not a hint of teasing.

Eve let her gaze go to the window. Bascoomb Ford was just over the rise and down a long, gentle declivity. The approaches to the town she knew well, but the inn, the green, the little church… they were hazy in her mind and sharp at the same time.

“I need a longer list. I’m thinking a couple dozen names, and we should start with the men known to have left-handed preferences.”

Jenny’s needles ceased their soft clicking. “Such preferences can get a man hung, dearest. If he has a title, it could be attainted, his wealth confiscated. Why would you marry into such a possibility?”

Yes, why would she? And who would have thought such direct counsel would come from Jenny?

“It’s my best hope of finding a situation where my willingness to accept a white marriage is viewed as an asset to the fellow. My alternatives are the men seeking my fortune, and that leaves me no guarantee my spouse would honor the terms of the bargain.”

“An unenforceable bargain at law,” Louisa agreed.

Eve had given up her innocence to learn that a man intent on exploiting her as a means of wealth was no bargain on any terms—her innocence, her ability to trust, and for months, her ability even to stand without excruciating pain.

“Ladies,” Jenny said, putting her knitting back into her workbasket, “I find I must ask you to permit me a short delay here at the next inn. Nature calls in a rather urgent fashion.”

Louisa did not react with anything more telling than a yawn. “I could tolerate stretching my legs. The horses will appreciate a rest and some water.”

With no more ado than that, after seven years of seeing the place only in her nightmares, Eve Windham was once again at the modest posting inn of Bascoomb Ford.

“I’ll be along in a minute,” Eve said as the coach carrying the ladies’ maids and extra footmen came rumbling up before the inn. “I want to move around a bit as well.”

They did not even exchange a glance. Jenny slipped her arm through Louisa’s, and they disappeared into The Coursing Hound. Eve got as far as the bench on the green across from the inn, though even that was a struggle. Her legs felt a peculiar weakness; her breath fought its way into her lungs. When she sat, it was of necessity.

The little inn stood across the rutted street—spring was a time for ruts and treacherous footing—looking shabby and cozy at once. A white glazed pot of pansies graced the front door, just as it had seven years ago— purple and yellow flowers with one orange rebel in the center of the pot.

The orange pansy was different; not much else had changed.

The white glaze on the pot was still smudged with dirt, the boot scrape was still rusty and encrusted with mud, and in the middle of the inn yard, an enormous oak promised shade in summer.

Just a humble country inn, and yet… Eve saw not the inn, but what had transpired there, just there in that upstairs bedroom. Canby hadn’t even pulled the curtains shut, hadn’t gotten them a quiet room at the back. He’d jammed a chair under the door, muttering something about not being able to trust the locks in these old places.

She’d forgotten that. Forgotten the sight of him hauling the chair across the room, and the excitement and dread of knowing what would come next.

Though she hadn’t known. She hadn’t had the first clue that a man could profess his love and show her only tender regard for weeks, then turn up crude and businesslike about enjoying his intimacies. She hadn’t known he might backhand her and tell her to be quiet lest somebody be concerned and all her lovely money slip through his greedy hands.

His lovely money, and not even the dowry she might have brought him, but money her family would pay him to keep quiet about ruining her. When he’d finished with her and gone back to his celebratory drinking, she’d pretended to sleep until he’d passed out beside her on the bed. She’d spent hours afraid he’d come at her again, until she’d realized she had another option.

Her slight stature had allowed her to slip out the window at the first sign the sky was lightening. She’d crossed the roof of the porte cochere and dropped to a pile of dirty straw raked into a corner of the inn yard, dreading each rustle and squeak as she’d made her way to the stables.

The same dread she’d felt all those years ago—no giddy anticipation about it—welled up from her middle in a hot, choking ball of emotion. She forced herself to breathe, in… out… in… out, and the ball only grew larger.

As if she were watching a horse race where she held no stake, Eve tried to observe this monstrous, long- unacknowledged feeling, but it had turned to sheer pain, to oppression of every function she possessed—heartbeat, thought, breath—and she might have fainted right there on that worn bench except a sound penetrated her awareness.

Hoofbeats, regular, rhythmic, more than one horse. Not the dead-gallop hoofbeats of her brothers coming at last to rescue her, but a tidy, rocking canter.

Even to turn her head was an effort, but one well rewarded.

Two men approached riding a pair of smart, substantial mounts. The chestnut on the left looked particularly familiar.

Her heart, her instincts, some lower sense recognized the animal before her brain did. “Beast.”

The awful emotion subsided, not into the near oblivion she’d been able to keep it at before, but enough for Eve to realize there was no other horse she’d have been more grateful to see.

Save perhaps one gray mare, of whose fate Eve had allowed herself to be kept in ignorance for more than seven years.

* * *

“As I live and breathe, that’s the Windham crest on those coaches. My lady is making good time.”

Deene was too disturbed by the journey’s earlier revelations to wonder why Louisa would be traveling in a Windham coach rather than Kesmore’s own conveyance. Though it occurred to him Louisa might be traveling with her sisters, and what Deene would do when next he and Eve Windham crossed paths again, he did not know. Throttle the woman.

Or kiss her—or both, though not in that order.

And there she sat, serene and lovely, on a bench across the way.

Kesmore flicked his hand in an impatient motion. “Give me your reins, Deene, and I’ll see the horses tended to and some luncheon procured.”

“My—?”

“Or you can stand here gawping like the village idiot for a few moments longer. I’m sure Lady Eve is admiring the sight of you in all your dirt.”

Kesmore snatched the reins from Deene’s hand, and nodded at Eve on her bench. She lifted a hand but did not rise, of course, her being the lady, and Deene being… the gentleman.

He sauntered over and offered her a bow. “Lady Eve, good day. Might I join you?”