“He had no business attending.”
Did she pry, or did she back away and start mentally listing the things they would tacitly agree not to discuss? “I don’t think Her Grace gave it a thought when she made up the guest list, Deene. He’s raising your niece and thus he’s a part of your family. I gather you and he are not cordial?”
Eve would not pry, but she would invite.
“He all but killed my sister after making her endlessly miserable and ashamed. If I hold my father accountable for one thing, it’s selling Marie into that grasping, ungrateful, ignorant vulgarian’s arms.”
The very lack of inflection in Deene’s tone was chilling, particularly when Eve herself might be the object of her husband’s ire before a few more hours had elapsed.
“He seems a devoted father for all that.”
Deene was silent, while the countryside rolled along outside their window for a good portion of a mile. “Anthony had been courting Marie, a match she apparently welcomed. It made sense, they were enamored, and between themselves, I believe they had an understanding.”
Eve took Deene’s hand in hers. “And then?”
“And then Dolan came strutting along, all trussed up in purchased finery, and offered for her on terms my father didn’t even attempt to refuse. Marie was wed to a stranger, one with no family to speak of, no gentility, nothing to recommend him except a growing fortune and a reputation for grasping at any opportunity for financial or social gain.”
Something wasn’t adding up, though Eve found it difficult to put her finger on the discrepancy. “If Marie was integral to Dolan’s plans for betterment, he’d hardly treat her ill.”
“She was seventeen years old, Eve. She’d been sheltered all of her life and fully expected to marry into the world she’d been raised in. She tried to talk me into getting her a horse so she could run off the day before the wedding, as if that option were any safer for her.”
“How old were you?”
“Nearly thirteen.”
What a burden to put on a boy, particularly a boy being raised to fill his papa’s titled shoes. “How did she die, Lucas?”
He was silent for so long this time Eve thought he might not answer, and part of her didn’t want him to. The tale had to be painful for him, and there would be enough to cope with on their wedding day without adding this recitation to it.
“She lost a child, and they could not stop the bleeding. She faded, and her last request to me was to make sure I took care of Georgie. Dolan will call the child only Georgina—he must ape his betters even in speech—but to Marie, she was Georgie.”
Eve let her head rest against her husband’s shoulder. “You fault him for getting her with child.”
“Georgie’s birth was not easy. I have no doubt the accoucheur had cautioned them against having more children, but to Dolan he’d bought and paid for a broodmare, and a broodmare he would make of her.”
Many men regarded their wives in this light—many titled men, who would set the broodmare aside if she failed to produce. They’d find a way to nullify the union, strip their wives of any social standing or decent company, and set about procreating merrily with the next candidate, all with the complicity of both church and courts.
“You should know the skeletons in the Deene family closet, Eve, though I’m sorry to bring this up today of all days.”
Were she any other bride, she’d like that he felt that way, like that he was confiding in her. “Windhams have their share of skeletons.”
This earned her another curious smile, but rather than permit Deene to interrogate her, Eve closed her eyes and leaned her head back. “Weddings are tiring, don’t you think?”
Her… husband did not reply.
Deene’s wife was not asleep on his shoulder as she’d have him believe, and she was nervous.
Like a procession of sensory still lifes, his memories of the day told him as much:
Eve’s hand, slender and cold in his when he’d put the wedding ring on her finger.
Eve’s cheek, equally cool when he’d been unable to deny himself the smallest display of dominion outside the church—and she had not kissed him in return.
Eve, clinging in her oldest brother’s embrace for a desperately long moment, until St. Just’s countess had touched her husband’s arm and embraced Eve herself.
A whiff of mock orange coming to Deene’s nose and bringing with it a sense of calm until he saw the way Eve gripped her wine glass so tightly he thought the delicate stem might break.
He’d been prepared for bridal nerves. He’d even been prepared for his own nerves—this was the only wedding night he ever intended to have, after all—but he had not been prepared for his wife to be on the verge of strong hysterics.
A change of plans was called for, or neither one of them would be sane by bedtime.
“Evie.” He brushed her hair back from her temple. “Time to wake up, love. We must greet our staff.”
She straightened and peered out the window. “So many of them, and this is not even your family seat.”
“Let me pin you up.”
She turned on the seat while he fashioned something approximating a bun at her nape. The moment was somehow
“You are going to be the sort of husband who is indiscriminate with the placement of his lips on my person, aren’t you?”
She did not sound pleased.
“When we are private, probably. You always smell luscious, and I am only a man.”
His wife looked surprised, but before she could argue with him, he handed her down and began moving with her along the line of waiting servants standing on the drive. They beamed and bobbed at her. She smiled back with such warmth and graciousness that Deene revised his earlier estimation of her state of mind.
She hadn’t been anxious; she’d been terrified of what was to come—and likely still was. As soon as he scooped her up against his chest to carry her over the threshold, all the warmth left her expression, and the corners of her mouth went tight again.
Deene did not set her down when they gained the foyer but addressed the rotund factotum who’d hurried ahead to get the door for them.
“Belt, we’ll take a tray in our sitting room, and my lady will be needing a soaking bath as soon as may be. We’ll not be disturbed thereafter unless we ring. Understood?”
“Very good, my lord.”
“Deene, you may put me down now.”
He started up the steps. “Not a chance, Wife. You’ll dither and dally and want a tour of the place from top to bottom, or get to talking about menus with the housekeeper. You would leave me to my agitated nerves and no consolation for them but the decanter.”
They cleared the first landing. “Agitated nerves? You cannot possibly be serious, Deene.”
He was, somewhat to his surprise. “Humor me, in any case.”
She went quiet, now when he would have appreciated some chatter, some resistance, some measurable response to distract him from the perfect weight of her cradled in his arms. He reached what was to be their private suite and set Eve down on a blue brocade sofa by the windows.
“You’ll have to assist me out of this attire, Wife. I haven’t worn such finery since I took my seat in the damned Lords, and even then it was mostly robes…”
She was up off the sofa, wandering around the room. “I haven’t seen these chambers before.”
