Lady Eve's Indiscretion

disastrous.

This time, if she did marry Lucas Denning, they would be equally disastrous.

And if she did not marry him, they could be even worse.

When the groom led Grendel from the stables, the little trap rattling along behind, Deene tied Beast to the back and deposited Eve on the seat. He climbed in and sat beside her, not touching the reins.

She wasn’t going to drive. The man was a lunatic if he thought she could manage the reins in her present state. Grendel stomped a small hoof, likely quite aware that this journey would lead homeward and back to his nice grassy paddock.

“Deene, this proves nothing.”

“You’re not helpless. I have that on the best authority. It’s not two miles by the lanes, and you know the terrain intimately.”

Intimately. To elbow him in the ribs or not to elbow him in the ribs?

She hated him, no dispute about that now. She hated him, her life, this day, and herself.

But she took the reins.

* * *

Her Grace never paced, never worried a fingernail between her teeth, never appeared anxious. His Grace watched while she did all three, until he could bear it no more.

“Esther, come sit with me. Let me pour you a cup, and we’ll think this through.”

She paused at the window to their private sitting room, arms crossed, spine straight, and yet her posture testified to despair in the very rigidity of her shoulders.

“Percival, they had been intimate. I could smell it. Dear God…”

There had been more Dear God-ing going on in the previous twenty minutes than His Grace could recall in the past twenty years—and all over young people acting exactly like young people were slated to behave from the beginning of time. He took his wife by the hand, seated her on the sofa, then came down beside her.

“What is it, exactly, my love, that has you so overset about the situation? Deene is honorable. If Eve wants him, there’s an end to it.”

“But Eve…” She laid her head on his shoulder. “We’ve raised ten wonderful children, Percival. We’ve known heartache and grief.”

That she would speak of it was unusual and gave His Grace a pang. After more than three decades, the glances and silences were often articulate enough that painful words need not be spoken. “We’ve known wonder and abundant joy, too, Esther.”

“We’ve buried two, Percival.”

He couldn’t argue with that, but thank God it had been only two. Most families somewhere along the way bore the sorrow of an infant taken before the first year, an elder snatched away… as he’d almost been snatched away.

“We still have eight, Esther, and though that cannot compensate for the loss of Victor and Bartholomew, it does console, as do the grandchildren.”

She nodded, but His Grace knew she was working up to something, something that might allow her to finally cry, which—as harrowing as it would be for him—was probably necessary before they could sort out Eve’s latest contretemps.

“Percy, I will always miss the boys, I will always worry over the others, but Eve…”

He put his arm around her shoulders.

“Tell me, my love.”

“Death will come for all of us, and in Victor’s case, it was almost a blessing. I am selfish to say so, a bad mother—”

That nonsense required immediate contradiction. “You could not be a bad mother, Esther, not ever.”

“But Eve… Our sons were taken from us, and it was awful, but what was taken from Eve… Percy, that broke my heart, over and over. I grieved for our daughter every day she lay in that bed, hurting in body and spirit. And yet, I have never been as angry, either, never been as upset as when I watched our baby girl lose all her spark, all her joy, and all her confidence. That awful, awful man, whom we brought into the household as an employee… I wanted to strangle him with my bare hands. I wanted to aim a pistol at his… directly at him. I wanted to pour oil on him and watch while he was consumed by flames…”

He loved this about her, the ferocity, the soul-deep protectiveness toward those she loved. He hated, however, for her to be distressed.

“Eve was daunted, but she did not lose all her fight, Esther. As long as we love her, she’ll never lose the God-given strength to fight. She is a Windham, and one tempered at a young age by vicissitudes her siblings cannot fathom. She’ll win through.”

Her Grace was on her feet again, pacing to the window. “She will not. She will not see this as an opportunity to seize happiness and the joy she deserves. She’ll punish herself, and Deene will be too much a gentleman to force her hand. She was on top of him, Percy, in his lap, straddling…”

Not something a father ever wanted to picture, though His Grace allowed a touch of approval that any child of his would take the initiative in such a moment. Young Deene had likely not stood a chance.

“She was not forced, then, Esther. She is well past her come out, and this was her choice.”

Her Grace’s brows rose, then settled. “That is something.”

“It’s a very telling something.”

Her expression grew thoughtful. “On the occasion of Your Comeuppance, I believe I made the same point to you.”

His Comeuppance. Something had indeed come up on that occasion.

“Just so, my love. Come drink your tea. We must plan our strategy.”

* * *

To sit beside Eve and not touch her was difficult.

To sit beside her and not argue his case was making Deene clench his jaw and ball his fists and recite the Lord’s Prayer in Latin, Greek, French, and German.

Marrying Eve made such sense. When last he’d considered the notion, he hadn’t been dealing with nasty rumors that had Mildred Staines eyeing his crotch and the clubs going oddly silent when Deene walked into the room. The idea of taking Eve to wife loomed as not just right, but necessary for them both.

The list of arguments in support of their wedding circled through his head faster than the wheels of their conveyance bore them toward a reckoning:

He and Eve were of appropriate rank.

They had shared interests.

Their lands marched.

They were compatible in ways both mundane and intimate.

He needed to marry well, and Eve needed to marry a man who’d be a true husband to her if she was to have the children and loving family that was her God-given right. He’d give her all the children she wanted and delight in doing so…

A white marriage, for God’s sake…

As Eve turned the cart up the Moreland drive, it occurred to Deene that in some convoluted, unfathomable female manner, Eve was probably seeking to relieve her family of worrying over her and punish herself in the bargain with this notion of a white marriage.

Which he could not allow. She deserved so much better. She deserved every happiness a family and home of her own could afford, and more, given… given everything.

She tooled the trap around the circular drive before the house and on to the stables, her driving flawless, as he knew it would be. “You need not come inside, Lucas.”

“If I want to live beyond next week, I will not let you face this gauntlet alone.”

She winced, a small, gratifying suggestion that the only plan Deene had been able to formulate might bear fruit. He’d never convince her they’d suit wonderfully, but he might be able to scare her into marrying him.

Though the idea made him wince. He lifted Eve from the cart as a groom came out to lead the pony away. They stood alone in the stable yard, Deene’s hands on Eve’s waist to keep her from