“Run them off.” So it had been intentional. “Except you,” he added gruffly. “You’ve stayed a day longer than anyone before you.” The person who had least place to be here.
But he has let me in. Whether she deserved it or not...and Eve desperately wished to know more of Captain Lucas Rayne... a man who’d been scarred by the aftermath of battle—not unlike her. In him, there was a kindred bond she’d not known with a single person since her return to England. He knew suffering and, in that, shared sadness. She was no longer alone.
She pushed to a stand. “As I said, I’m made of far sterner stuff.”
***
Sterner stuff, indeed.
Lucas had known battle-hardened soldiers and lead commanding officers who didn’t show the same remarkable poise and strength as this tall, too-slender creature before him. Where crude comments and hurled chamber pots had sent others rushing off, this bold-as-you-please woman casually moved and touched artifacts scattered about the room as though she were mistress of the bloody place. Instead of fleeing and abandoning her post, she’d struck a deal of sorts with him. One that he’d gladly take, if he were capable, just to be free of her.
He dug around, searching for the proper fury and safe annoyance, but came up—empty of anything but...interest, and an unwilling appreciation for any woman who could look upon him with anything other than pity and fear. Lucas followed her movements with his gaze. “What is your name?” he called out, loudly.
She moved on to dusting the mahogany spiraled posters of his bed. “Mrs. Nel—”
“Your Christian name,” he demanded impatiently. “If we’re going to be forced into one another’s company, we might exchange our given names.” It was a lie. Since his brother-in-law had seen him rescued from that French prison, Lucas had not allowed himself to be forced into anything—including the servants selected by his family to tend his rooms. But this woman who stood undaunted before him, he needed to know.
Mrs. Nelson looked at him. Wariness filled her expressive brown eyes and, for a moment, he thought she would withhold that piece he longed for. “Eve,” she offered with the same relish as a lady being relieved of her possessions by a highwayman.
Eve. He rolled her name through his mind. Tempting, bold, it perfectly suited her. The unease grew in her eyes and she darted her tongue out. He took in that slight, subtle movement as she ran that pink tip over the plump flesh of her lower lip. An unexpected wave of lust slammed into him. I’ve been too long without a woman. There was no other accounting for this reaction whenever she came near. Unnerved by his body’s response, he jerked his chin and Eve immediately sprang into movement, flitting from corner to corner.
Lucas concentrated on his breathing to rein in this desire raging through him. “How does a lady come to be cleaning my chambers, Eve?” he asked suddenly and she stumbled.
Eve fiddled with the dusty rag in her fingers. “I don’t know—”
“Come,” he scoffed. “If you’re a servant born, then I am a charming rogue.”
“I am a widow,” she said, her voice peculiarly hollow. Why did that admission emerge so haltingly? “There are few options for women.” With that, she devoted her attention to her task at hand the way a scholar did a new journal.
So the lady was a widow. And yet... “Your husband left you uncared for?” It was curiosity, not callousness that called forth that question. At one time, he’d have been a gentleman who’d had words of regret for her loss. “What of his family?” Who was the bastard she’d wed that he’d left her relegated to the role of maid to Lucas’ miserable self?
“There is no family,” she said tightly.
Ah, so the lady didn’t wish to speak on it and, yet, she’d pressed him to allow her entry into his world. He opened his mouth to level her for that double standard, but the accusation died. Eve’s lips were drawn at the corners, her skin pale, and her eyes strained.
And mayhap he wasn’t the wholly deadened, emotionless monster he’d been taken for...he didn’t want to be the one to drag forth this lady’s pain. He’d already brought more suffering and endured far more than any person had a right. Lucas settled back into his bed and stared up at that cheerful mural, counting the moments until she went and allowed him to remember how it felt to feel nothing.
Then she began to sing.
“Was in the merry month of May
When flowers were a bloomin'
Sweet William on his deathbed lay
For the love of Barbara Allen...”
On the surface, there was nothing immediately memorable about Eve Nelson’s voice. Discordant, slightly off-tempo, and pitchy, she’d never grace the concert halls of Europe. And yet... As she sang, there was a husky realness to those lyrics. A flawed imperfection to her tones which were very real and very much...alive. When he’d otherwise dwelled within a state of numbness.
“...He turned his pale face to the wall
And death was on him dwellin'
Adieu, Adieu, my kind friends all
Be kind to—”
“Must you do that?” he rasped, whipping his head sideways to where she stood.
Eve’s too-large eyes formed even rounder circles in her pale face. “I...” She sighed. “Yes, I must.”
He furrowed his brow.
“Not that I must do it,” she prattled, as she discarded one cloth for another. “Rather, I have to do it.”
What was she on about?
“It’s a dreadfully inconvenient habit,” she muttered, speaking more to herself as she set to work dusting his armoire. “As a girl, I used to have nightmares, and my...” She froze, her gaze trained on the mahogany piece before her, grew distant. Wordlessly, Eve resumed her cleaning in silence.
Her nightmares, past, present, and ones to come, were her own. Just as his demons would forever belong to him, holding him trapped inside the prison of his mind. “And what happened when the nightmares came?” Because he’d been haunted by them for two years, with still no mastery of himself or his past. Nor would he ever have that mastery. The war had stolen all remnants of the carefree man he’d been.
“My father taught me to sing through it,” she said, her words so faint he strained to hear. “Said only the weak admitted their fear.” There was not a thing weak about this woman before him. “He helped me reclaim control of my thoughts. To turn them over to something good and so when I’m distracted, I do it without thinking.”
That meant, as she’d been cleaning his rooms, she’d been in some way troubled. Should he expect anything else of a person forced to step inside his chambers? Only, Eve Nelson was not the weak and cowering figure like all the others that had come before.
“I’ve finished cleaning, Captain,” she murmured, gathering up her supplies. “If there is anything you require—?”
“There is nothing I require,” he barked out, by rote, more than anything.
She nodded and then dropped a curtsy. With a long, graceful step, she started for the door. An odd panic filled his chest.
“There is one thing,” he called out and she wheeled around. Surprise marred her heart-shaped face. “Do not call me Captain,” he urged gruffly. “Do not call me Rayne.” He wanted no reminder of a title linked to war or a surname, by family legend, cursed years ago when they’d lost the legendary Theodosia sword.
She tipped her head and a brown curl popped free of her chignon and fell over her damp brow.
“My name is Lucas. Now get out.”
Eve yanked the door open and collided with a servant carrying a tray.
The young serving girl cried out and the pitcher, plates, and silverware tumbled to the floor in a noisy explosion of glass. From down the hall, another servant shouted and the frantic fall of his footsteps resounded off the walls as he rushed forward to clean the mess.