“Eve doesn’t cry much.” Except sometimes, deep in the night, when they’d made a particularly tender kind of love, and then she clung and wanted to be held securely until she dropped off to sleep in Deene’s embrace.
And he wanted to hold her.
Kesmore glanced over sharply. “Your wife had best not be crying on your worthless account, Deene. My lady would take it amiss, and you do not want such a thing on your conscience, presuming you survived the thrashing I would be bound to mete out.”
“Marriage has made you quite ferocious, Kesmore.”
Kesmore paused outside a roomy foaling stall. “On behalf of a woman I care about, I will always be capable of ferocity. See that you recall this should you ever be inclined toward the wrong sort of weak moment. This mare is new, but what is she doing in a foaling stall when she’s neither gravid nor boasting a foal at her side?”
Kesmore was not a charming man, something Deene was coming to like about his brother-in-law more and more. “This is Eve’s mare, and she will always merit the very best care we have to offer.”
“This is a mature animal.” Kesmore was a former cavalry officer, gone for a country gentleman sort of earl who rode regularly to hounds. He extended a gloved hand toward the mare, who sniffed delicately at his knuckles. “She’s in good condition—I suppose she’s come off a winter hunting?”
“She is, and Eve takes her out almost daily. So what have you heard in the clubs about your new brother-in- law’s licentious nature?”
“Not one word, if you must know. I have swilled indifferent wine by the hour, read every page of every newspaper, and all but lurked at keyholes, and I have heard not one thing to your detriment, save that you are unfashionably enamored of your new wife. The suppositions are that you are tending to the succession and dodging all the disappointed debutantes. I saw no reason to disabuse anybody of such notions.”
The mare went back to her hay. “I am enamored of my new wife.”
“I am in transports to hear it. Likely she is as well.”
Deene turned and hooked his elbows over the mare’s half door. “I wasn’t aware a man bruited such sentiments about, or is this another aspect of domestic life about which I am too newly married to be knowledgeable?”
Kesmore looked like he might be considering parting with a smile in a few weeks time, provided the weather held fair. “You’ll learn. They teach us, no matter we’re slow to absorb the lesson. Make the first time count, though.”
“The first time?”
“For God’s sake, man, the first time you tell her you love her. Make it count. Even His Grace knew that much.”
“Of course I love her.” Who could not love such a courageous, generous, fierce, passionate… The words trailed off in Deene’s mind, disappearing into a mist of surprise, wonder, and joy. He was at risk for babbling and laughing out loud, for doing something outrageous, like kissing Kesmore on the cheeks. “
The feeling settled around Deene’s heart, warm, substantial, and right. He loved his Evie; he would always love her. The certainty was his both to keep and his to share with her when the moment was right.
“Of course you love your wife. Is this the mare Lady Eve came a cropper on?”
“How did you know?”
“Louisa has described her to me in detail. She said Eve used to have dreams or nightmares about this horse. Well done, Deene, to retrieve the lady’s familiar. I had my doubts about you, but this is quite encouraging.”
“Glad to oblige.”
Kesmore’s expression suggested another dry rejoinder was about to be served up, but the man went still, his eyes becoming watchful. “Our ladies approach. I’ll keep my vigil in the clubs, at least when we’re in Town, but so far, Deene, your marriage seems to have worked its magic with the gossips and with your lady wife both. See that you don’t muck it up.”
Deene smiled, walked forward to take Eve’s hand, and bestowed a kiss on her knuckles while Kesmore’s warning faded from his ears.
Eve was to recall a small moment from the balance of the day, the first moment when she felt well and truly married. Her husband had taken her hand upon greeting her, kissed her knuckles, and then tucked her against his side as they saw Louisa and Kesmore into their coach.
As the conveyance rattled away with Louisa’s handkerchief waving cheerily out a window, Deene sighed gustily. “I am displeased with myself.”
The sentiment sounded at least partly genuine. “Why would you be displeased with yourself, Husband? After a day with the solicitors, my father is usually airing his best vocabulary to regale Her Grace with his displeasure with his factors.”
Deene smiled down at her and began to escort her toward the house. “His best vocabulary?”
“You know.” Eve waved her free hand. “Damned, befouling, toadying, parasitical, blighted, bloated… There, I’ve cheered you up.”
“You could cheer me up further, except I’ve gone and invited Anthony to dine with us tonight.”
Their first dinner guest, and Eve had to like that Deene assumed she’d welcome his cousin without any fuss —for she surely would. “I will cheer you up when we retire.”
“This thought will console me as I reflect upon a confidence Kesmore let slip.”
“Kesmore is not a confidence-slipping sort of fellow.” They slowed as they approached the house. Deene would disappear to their rooms to change; Eve would have to let the kitchen know they were having company for dinner. She’d missed her husband the livelong day and considered helping him undress, attending him at his bath, and then notifying the kitchen, except dinner would be served at midnight if she adopted that course, which did not comport with an early bedtime.
“Kesmore is… He suspects his wife to be in expectation of an interesting event, but he has not confronted her.”
“And he did not swear you into the familial brotherhood of secrecy over this,” Eve pointed out. “He must be rattled, indeed. Louisa suspects she is carrying, but she doesn’t want to burden him with such a hope until she’s certain. They are very… considerate of each other. Surprisingly so, given how brusque each can be individually.”
Deene stopped on the back terrace, wrapped Eve in his arms, and propped his chin on her crown. “Evie? I should not say it, because they’ve scarce been married longer than we have, but I am jealous of this secret they’re keeping from each other.”
Eve leaned into her husband and reveled in the simple closeness of the moment. Because she and Deene were a couple—a unit of marital trust—they knew something about Louisa and Kesmore’s union that the parties to that union had not yet shared openly with each other.
This was what it meant to be married, to have a husband, to no longer stand alone in the world. This was what it meant to love and be cared for in return.
When Deene stepped back, Eve smiled at him, blew him a kiss, and at the foot of the main staircase, sent him off to his bath while she went in search of the cook.
The kitchen took the news of a dinner guest very well, almost as if they too had been waiting to demonstrate their willingness to put their best, most gracious foot forward. The housekeeper sent maids to ready a guest chamber, “just in the event the gentlemen get to lingering over their port,” and dispatched a maid to cut flowers for fresh bouquets.
Leaving Eve free to be preyed upon by the odd worry: If the gentlemen got to drinking their port in the library, would there be a lone pillow peeking out from under a table skirt to betray some of the marital activities pursued yesterday in that same library?
Would all the writing implements still be pushed off to the side of the blotter…?
Merciful heavens, might there still be a certain pink, brocade pillow
