“Somewhat. I will try a quiet hack on Sweetness, mostly because I think you and I need a chance to speak privately, Deene.”
This did not bode well. If she was going to tell him she wanted her own bedroom, he’d fight her. If she wanted to visit her parents, he’d go with her. If she was going to try to talk him out of trying to gain custody of Georgie…
He’d listen. He wouldn’t make any promises, but he would listen.
“A hack is exactly what I had in mind.” He took her by the hand and led her to the stables, almost as if he were afraid she’d go marching off somewhere else did he turn loose of her.
When they reached the stables, Eve stopped in her tracks and dropped his hand. “My lord, what is your saddle doing on my mare?”
“A change of pace, so to speak. Willy was stale this morning. I was thinking you could hack him out, and I’d take your mare.”
Ah, the reaction was satisfying. Eve came to an abrupt halt, blinked, and then… she smiled. A slow, sweet curving of her lips, a genuine expression of pleasure that had nothing to do with firing shots or joining battles.
Until she cocked her head. “Are you trying to bribe me, Deene?”
“I am not—unless you want me to bribe you?” Though bribe her in what regard?
“Bribe me.” She put her hands on her hips and glared at him, as if…
“Oh. As in, you will not suffer any more headaches if I put you up on Willy?” Crudely put, but he’d apparently gotten the right of it. “This has not crossed my mind. The horse was dull this morning, not mentally engaged in his work, and I think having you up on him will address what ails him. And as for the rest of it…” He glanced around and saw the lads were all giving them a wide berth. “I need an heir, Evie, and you are my wife.”
He’d kept his voice down, but where such idiot words had come from, he did not know. They were the truth, of course, and no insult to anybody, but they’d come out of his mouth like so much ammunition, when what he’d wanted to say was something else entirely. Something to do with needing her in his arms and in his life.
Eve tugged on her riding gloves, looking damnably composed. “Shall we mount up?”
He tossed her onto Willy’s back—such a little thing, his wife, and so full of dignity—then swung onto the mare. Willy was a gentleman and Sweetness not given to coming into season at the first sight of a stallion, else the ride would have been a disaster, though Deene privately considered Bannister was right: as long as Willy had Eve’s attention, the horse would have nothing to do with mares or work or anything else.
Rather like his owner.
When the horses had cantered and trotted and hopped logs and otherwise had a good little romp—with Eve and Willy looking like they’d been hacking out together for years—Deene brought the mare back to the walk.
“If we’re to have a private discussion, Wife, then we have exactly one more mile in which to have it before every lad on the property will overhear us.”
She readjusted her reins then petted her horse. “Can you be dissuaded from filing this suit, Deene?”
“I don’t think so.” He spoke slowly, wondering where even the smallest doubt might come from. “Dolan was not my sister’s choice, and as far as I’m concerned, he cost her her life.”
Eve grimaced. “How does a husband cost his wife her life?”
“He forces children on her when she has already shown that her constitution is not suited to childbearing. I can only think what my sister suffered…”
He fell silent and disciplined himself not to tighten his hands on the reins. “She begged me with her dying breath to look out for her family, Eve. I cannot abandon the child now.”
“You’ve tried being a doting uncle?”
“Dolan won’t have it.”
“Here is what I will not have, Deene. I will not have you spending us into the poorhouse to create scandal, when in a few years, I am likely the one who will be responsible for presenting Georgie to Polite Society. I can prevail on Mr. Dolan to see reason in this regard if you’ll allow it.”
The mare came to a halt without Deene consciously cueing his mount. “It’s ten years until her come out, Evie. I cannot wait ten years to keep a promise to my sister, not when Dolan can betroth the girl wherever he pleases at any point, and have the contracts be binding on all parties. He can ship her to Switzerland, or France, to her relations in Boston or Baltimore, for God’s sake… Marie wanted her daughter raised here, in the style befitting…”
Eve regarded him steadily, Willy standing as still as a statue beneath her. “You need an heir, Deene, and I am happy to give you as many heirs as the Lord sees fit to bless us with, but I will not bring down more scandal on my family, much less allow you to use my good name, my standing, and my entire dowry to do it. Find another way to keep your promise to your sister, or until I do present your niece to the sovereign ten years hence, I’m afraid—should you file those papers—I will be besieged by an entire, possibly never-ending plague of headaches.”
She touched her heels to Willy’s sides, and the colt bounded off, a flat chestnut streak against the undulating spring grass, the woman on his back completing a picture of grace, beauty, and strength as she rode him home.
Ten
Eve realized after about a week that her strategy wasn’t working. Part of the problem was that other than preventing Deene from starting his lawsuit, she wasn’t entirely sure what her aim had been.
To keep him at arm’s length?
That wasn’t happening. Each night, he made deeper inroads on her attempts to separate their routine: he brushed her hair, he attended her baths, he helped her into and out of her clothing, and he asked for her assistance with his.
The staff was colluding with him, telling him when she ordered a bath, when she’d asked not to be disturbed in the middle of an afternoon. It was maddening, really, to find such a pleasant, considerate husband where Eve needed to find a calculating, underhanded, self-interested opponent.
And if she’d intended to keep him from her bed?
That wasn’t happening either. Each night he tended to his ablutions, then climbed between the sheets and took her in his arms. If she turned her back to him, he rubbed her back or her neck and shoulders. His attentions were unselfish, pleasurable, and in no way could Eve consider them intimate advances.
And for all Eve had been denying her husband—and herself—marital congress, the damnable papers were still in the drawer in the library. That was beyond maddening. He’d said he needed an heir. She’d said she’d oblige him as long as suit was not joined. What was the damned man waiting for?
“I do not understand you men.” Eve announced this to her brother when Westhaven stopped by ostensibly to offer good wishes to the newlyweds. Deene was out spying on some promising three-year-old colt, which meant Eve had her brother’s company to herself.
“We often don’t understand ourselves, much less you women. You are looking a trifle fatigued, Eve. Do I tell Her Grace married life agrees with you or make up some other fabrication?”
He spoke quietly—Westhaven was not given to dramatics—but Eve was relieved at his insight.
“Deene and I are quarreling.”
Westhaven picked up a sandwich and demolished it in about two bites. “I can’t very well call him out for you, love—he’s your husband now, and I was under the impression this marriage was motivated at least in part by your desire to see the man remain above ground.”
“You are no help.”
He studied her for a moment over his tea. In the opinion of his sisters, marriage was maturing Westhaven from being merely handsome into a sort of breathtaking elegance. He was going to make a marvelous duke—though this did not mean he lacked for shortcomings as a brother. “Anna and I went through a ninnyhammer stage, though we were fortunate to tend to it before the nuptials, for the most part. Even if I don’t call Deene out, I can talk to the man if you want me to.”