“Deene, good day. Of course you may.”
She pulled her skirts aside in that little maneuver women made that suggested a man mustn’t even touch their hems, despite any words of welcome.
“I gather your mother and sisters are within?” His Grace would be riding, of course. Not even a duke could be expected to have the fortitude to ride in the same coach with four women on anything less than an occasion of state.
“Louisa and Jenny, along with the three Fates.”
“Beg pardon?” There was something off about Eve’s voice. Something distant and subdued.
“Our lady’s maids.”
She said nothing more, and when Deene studied her, she looked a trifle pale. There was an uncharacteristic grimness to her mouth, as if she’d just taken a scolding or would dearly like to deliver one.
Perhaps being leered at and drooled upon was exhausting.
“Kesmore is ordering up some luncheon in whatever passes for a private parlor at yonder hostelry. We’ll make a party of it, I’m sure.”
“The inn boasts a private dining parlor and four rooms upstairs. Two at the back, two at the front. The front rooms should be cheaper, because they’re noisier and dustier, but the innkeeper claims they have a pretty view of the green, so the difference in cost is slight.”
She did not offer these lines as conversation so much as she recited them. The subtle detachment in her voice was mirrored in her green eyes. And how would she—a lady through and through—have reason to know the cost of the rooms at such an unprepossessing establishment?
He studied her a moment longer, and any thought of teasing her over her choice of dance partners—her choices in any regard—fled Deene’s mind.
“Shall we go in to lunch, Eve?” He rose and offered her his hand. She stared at it—a well-made, slightly worn and very comfortable riding glove on a man’s hand—then put her palm to his.
Deene was mildly alarmed to find it wasn’t merely a courtesy. Eve borrowed momentarily from his strength to get to her feet. When she rose, she stood next to him, making no effort to move away, their hands still joined.
He shifted her grasp so he could assume the posture of an escort, but kept his hand over hers on his arm. “Eve, are you feeling well? Is a headache trying to descend?”
“Not a headache. Let’s join the others.”
Not a headache, but something. Something almost as bad, if not worse. At lunch, she said little and ate less, and seemed oblivious to her sisters’ looks of concern. Kesmore proved a surprisingly apt conversationalist, able to tease even the demure Lady Jenny with his agrarian innuendos.
When lunch was over, Deene offered to see Eve out to the coaches.
She paused at the bottom of the stairs in the common. “Deene, will you indulge me in a whim?”
“Of course.” Though whatever she was about, it wasn’t going to be a whim.
“I’d like to see one of the front rooms.”
He followed her up the stairs, dread mounting with each step. This whim was not happy, it was not well advised, and yet he did not stop her.
The guest room doors stood ajar, two at the front of the building and, very likely, two at the back, just as she’d said. She moved away from him to stand motionless in the doorway on the right-hand side.
Over her shoulder, he saw plain appointments: a sagging bed that might accommodate two people if they were friendly with each other and diminutive; a wash stand; a scarred desk gone dark with age; and one of those old, elaborately carved heavy chairs that would be uncomfortable as hell and absolutely indestructible. Curtains gone thin from many washings, a white counterpane that might once have sported some sort of pattern.
Just a room, like a thousand others along the byways of Merry Olde England.
And yet… He rested a hand on Eve’s shoulder when what he wanted was to pull her back against his body, or better still—take her from this place altogether, never to return.
For an interminable moment while he could only guess her thoughts, Eve looked about the room. Her gaze lingered on the bed then went to the window.
“Thank God for the window.” She spoke quietly but with a particular ferocity. And yet she stood there until Deene felt her hand cover his own.
Her fingers were ice cold.
“Thank you, Deene. We can leave.”
She made no move to return below stairs, so Deene turned her into his embrace. “We’ll stay right here until you’re ready to leave, Eve Windham.”
All of her was cold and stiff. Whoever this woman was, she could bear no relation to the warm, lithe bundle of Eve with whom he’d stolen so many delightful moments. A shudder went through her, and she drew back. “Take me to the coach, Lucas.”
And still, her voice had that awful, brittle quality.
He took her to the coach, and when he wanted to bundle her directly inside, shut the door, and tell the driver to make all haste to Morelands, the inevitable delays associated with a party of women ensued.
Lady Jenny decided to travel with the maids so she might have somebody to hold the yarn while she wound it into a ball. Lady Louisa’s maid had yet to take a stroll around back—to the jakes, of course.
Kesmore bore it all with surprising patience, but then, the man had likely traveled with small children, which was trial by fire indeed.
At Deene’s side, Eve stood silent and unmoving.
“Shall we walk a bit, Eve?”
A pause, and then, “Yes, we shall. That direction.”
She pointed down the road toward what was likely unenclosed common ground, a gently rolling expanse of green bordered by a woods no doubt prized by every local with a fowling piece.
When Eve moved off, she did so with purpose, while behind them, Deene heard Lady Jenny mutter to Lady Louisa, “Let her go, dearest. It’s better this way.”
If he’d had doubts about the significance of the locale before, the concern in Lady Jenny’s voice obliterated them. Eve kept walking in the overland direction of the main road, until the rise and fall of the land obscured them from the view of the others.
At some point in their progress, she’d dropped his arm and marched ahead, her intent unquestionably to put distance between them.
“I just need a moment, Lucas.”
“You want me to leave you here?” The notion was insupportable. She’d gone as pale as a winding sheet, and her breathing had taken on an odd, wheezy quality. She didn’t answer, other than to turn her back, so Deene ambled off a few yards and sat on a boulder.
He was not going to marry this woman—she’d made that plain—but fate or the well-intended offices of certain meddlesome individuals had put Deene here with her at this precise moment, and here he would stay until her use for him was done.
She stood in profile, as still as a statue, her arms wrapped around her middle, the breeze teasing at stray wisps of her blond hair.
And something was clearly very wrong. “Eve?”
Her shoulders jerked. “I can’t breathe. Don’t come any closer.”
He hadn’t heard that hysterical note in a woman’s voice since his sister had learned she was to be sold in marriage to a brute of a stranger. The same cold chill shot down his spine as he went to Eve.
“Go away, Lucas.” She held a hand straight out, as if she could stop him so easily. “This is—”
The breath she drew in was loud, rasping, and heart wrenching. He got his arms around her, the only alternative to tackling her if she tried to run off.
“Eve, it’s all right.”
“Go away, damn you. Just leave me alone. It will
“I’m not going anywhere.”
“I can’t breathe… Lucas, I can’t—”
