Lady Eve's Indiscretion

Canby had referred to her repeatedly as “Eve, the temptress.” At the time, she’d thought it made her sound grown-up, alluring, and mysterious. In hindsight, the implication that she was responsible for his behavior, that she’d caused him to violate every rule of decency was… infuriating.

Apples could be infuriating by association.

At services, Eve had volunteered to attend the children in the nursery, and this time—this time—she’d looked at all those boisterous, healthy children with their clean faces and broad smiles, and considered that her life would be devoid of the blessings of motherhood. For the rest of her life, while her sisters were raising up children, and her brothers were raising up children, and her cousins were raising up children, she would be… childless.

That was infuriating too.

And now, Louisa and Jenny would hop into the gig and tool over to Kesmore’s without a backward thought for their safety, their nerves, their ability to cope with a darting hare or approaching storm.

Eve loved her family, but still, there was much to be angry about.

She scooped up the apple slices that hadn’t gone into a pie and wrapped them in a cloth. The day was a pretty day. She was in good health and had the afternoon to herself—she’d try not to be angry about that too.

Meteor was in his paddock, one shared by an aging pony named Grendel. They paused in their grazing as Eve approached, but only Meteor sidled over to the fence.

“Hello, old friend.”

Between his cheekbones, at the throat latch where his neck and his head joined, Meteor had a sweet spot, a place he couldn’t reach himself that he loved to have scratched. Eve’s ritual with this horse started with attending to that spot for him, and Meteor’s ritual with her with allowing the familiarity.

“Have you ever been so angry you’re sick with it?”

The pony flicked an ear, but being a pony, did not abandon his grass merely to watch another horse being cosseted.

“Deene said, of course I’m angry. What does he know? Would you like an apple?”

The horse did not answer, except by ingesting the proffered slice and turning big, brown, beseeching eyes on Eve.

“You are such a gentleman, my friend.”

Deene had been a gentleman. Eve was going to have to thank him, and that would rankle, but not thanking him rankled more.

Everything rankled. “I can hardly think. I’m so overset these days. If I were a girl, I’d saddle up and go for a gallop, leave the grooms behind, and let the wind blow the cobwebs from my soul. Another slice? Grendel will soon come to investigate.”

Grendel did not investigate, exactly, but he turned his grazing in the direction of Eve’s tete-a-tete with Meteor.

“I keep recalling things, things that make no sense. We had an early spring that year, and then an onion snow, so as I lay there in the mud, I smelled both green grass and snow. Snow has no scent, but it did that day.”

She fed the stallion another slice. “I did not call for help because I was afraid Canby would find me.”

And oh, the shame of that, to lie in the cold mud not just helpless and hurting, but terrified—and afraid she’d wet herself from fear if nothing else. Grendel lifted his head as if considering the probability of cadging an apple slice and took a step closer to the stallion.

“All I could think was I would never be able to face my family, though if I hadn’t been in such a tearing hurry to get back to them, I might not have overfaced my mare on bad ground, and lamed us both for the duration. Thank God my brother Devlin found me first. I had been such a fool. I did not know the half of it then.”

Meteor had another sweet spot, just below his withers. As a girl, Eve had scratched that spot for him until her arm had ached. She pushed the cloth full of apples near the fence and climbed between the boards.

“I don’t have to marry. I know this.” When she applied her fingernails to the horse’s shaggy spring coat, a shower of coarse dark hairs cascaded to the ground. “But where would that leave me? Papa’s little charmer, the doting maiden aunt who isn’t a maiden.”

Who will never be a maiden again.

Who threw away her greatest treasure on a worthless, scheming, lying, manipulative, evil man.

The anger hit her then like the initial staggering gust of wind announcing a brutal tempest, had her leaning into Meteor’s neck just to stay on her feet. Yes, she was angry. She was infuriated, enraged, magnificently wroth over a past she could not change and a future with too few choices.

Deene had been right about that, but as Grendel sidled close enough to poke his nose under the fence and help himself to an apple, Eve identified the emotion fueling all her anger, and maybe some of her shame as well.

As the tears came down again, what Eve felt was bitter, heartrending sorrow.

* * *

“Where the hell have you been?”

Anthony stopped short at Deene’s tone, and from the surprise on his cousin’s face, Deene surmised nobody had warned Anthony that Deene was in residence at Denning Hall.

“Good morning to you, too, Cousin.” In a blink, Anthony’s features had composed themselves into a slight smile.

“I beg to differ.” Deene aimed a look at the footmen stationed at either end of the breakfast buffet, and they silently left the room. “I thought you were summoned here from Town, Anthony. I come down on your heels and find my cousin is nowhere to be found.”

“I’m to report all my comings and goings to you now?” His tone was mild as he helped himself to a full plate.

“Since you are my only adult family, my heir, and what keeps my senior stewards in line, yes, I think that would be both courteous and prudent. Tea?”

“Please.”

Deene moved the pot that had been sitting by his left elbow to Anthony’s place on his right. “I came out here in part to find you, Anthony, and instead spent more than a few minutes wondering what had become of you. They were not comfortable minutes.”

“I’m touched. Pass the cream, if you please.”

The alternative to bracing his cousin on sight would have been an interview in the library, with Deene seated at the estate desk and Anthony called onto the carpet like a truant schoolboy awaiting a birching.

That would not serve. They were family first, employer and employee second—or so Deene hoped. Deene passed the cream and the sugar.

“I was in Surrey, and congratulations are in order. I’ve become a papa again. Where’s the salt?”

Deene passed the salt cellar too, but took a moment forming his reply. “A papa, again? Did I miss a wedding, Anthony?”

“Of course not. There is cheese in this omelet.”

“I prefer cheese in my omelets, and because the kitchen had no notion you’d be gracing us with your presence, my preferences carried the day. Anthony, explain yourself.”

“There’s little to explain.” Anthony put a spoonful of egg on a toast point and took a bite. “I maintain a household in Surrey for my domestic comfort, and as happens in the usual course, the household includes children. I have two girls and now a boy. There was a stillbirth too, so the children’s mother was a trifle worried this time around.”

Deene looked at the fellow munching on toast and eggs beside him and saw a familiar figure: blond hair, blue eyes, a lanky, elegant build, and the Deene family features on his face.

And yet he saw a stranger. “One can understand why you would detour to greet your son upon his arrival into the world. I gather mother and child—children—are doing well?”

“She’s from peasant stock. Mary Jane knows how to look after herself, and I provide amply for her and the children. Do I take it you also like cinnamon on your toast?”

Deene’s gaze fell on the little container sitting near the butter. “Occasionally, and in my coffee.”