Bridal Favors (18 page)

She smiled serenely. She needn’t have worried about any awkwardness on Justin’s part after their harmless intimacy last night. “Are any of those for me?”

He looked at the correspondence in his hand as though he was trying to make up his mind whether or not any were, indeed, for her, before thrusting a little stack of letters in her hand. “Here. These.”

“Why, thank you.”

He stood looking at her expectantly. “Aren’t you going to read them?” he demanded gruffly.

She studied him. If she hadn’t witnessed him coming from Mrs. Underhill’s room herself, she would never have believed he was a debonair lady-killer. He just didn’t fit the mold. Not at all. He’d crossed his arms over his chest and was regarding her impatiently. There was nothing in the least suave about him.

“Tell me, Justin. At some point in the last few years did you sustain a knock on the head?”

“What?” he asked, looking tellingly at the letters she held. “I think you ought to read your posts. One looks as though it was written in a foreign hand.”

“It would have to have been a hard knock, I imagine,” she mused. “Perhaps enough to render you unconscious.”

“Whatever are you talking about, Evie?” he asked. “No, I was never hit in the noggin. Why?”

“Well, I’ve heard that being hit on the head can in some instances actually alter a person’s personality so much that after the blow he is unrecognizable as the person he was prior to it.”

“And what,” he asked, “has this to do with me?”

She shrugged. “Oh, nothing. It would just explain so many things.”

He regarded her suspiciously. “Have you been drinking, Evie?”

“No.” She sighed, reluctantly giving up on the notion that a brain injury had ended Justin’s lady-killing career. “No. I haven’t been drinking.”

“What sort of woman are you, then? My sisters can’t leave a letter alone for ten seconds, and here you are holding the blasted things as though they were bills from the coal steward. Aren’t you interested?”

“Of course I am.” She slipped her finger beneath the flap of the first one and withdrew several sheets of paper.

She thumbed to the last page. “Aunt Agatha must be employing a secretary for her correspondence. I didn’t recognize this as her handwriting,” she murmured, going back to the first page to read. “Ah! They’ve abandoned Paris for the Alps, and are thinking of taking a ship down the African coast, of all things—”

“Yes, yes,” Justin said, pointing to another letter. “You’ll want to study it at your leisure. Best look at the next one and make sure it’s not creditors.”

“I suppose.” She opened the next one and read the short note with increasing pleasure. “Another cheque. Again presumably from Mrs. Vandervoort,” she murmured and stacked it beneath her aunt’s letter before opening the last one.

“Why, Justin, what an eye you have! It is, indeed, a foreign hand. It’s from Mr. Blumfield. He asks me to join him on a picnic this afternoon and, listen, he apologizes most profusely for not respecting my independence and autonomy.”

Justin craned his neck to look at the letter. She hid it against her chest.

“Go on,” Justin sneered delicately. “The poor blighter didn’t actually write ‘independence and autonomy,’ did he?”

“He most certainly did,” Evelyn sniffed. “
I
find his formality charming.”

Justin made a derisive sound. “Sounds like my father’s aunt Bessie. Pinched of nose, thick of skull. You’re not going, are you?”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“You have things to do.”

“No I don’t. Everything is running along smoothly, and I should like a picnic.”

“Well,” he said, looking blustery, “if you don’t think the wedding will suffer from your dereliction of duty.”

“Don’t be an ass, Justin. For some reason you dislike Mr. Blumfield. I suspect it’s because he’s foreign.”

“Are you accusing me of being a xenophobe, Evie?” he asked haughtily.

“If the phobe fits . . .” She trailed off with sweet smile. “Now, if you’ll excuse me. I have things to see to before I leave, and I know you wouldn’t want me to be derelict.” For once, she had the last word.

It wasn’t the best day for a picnic. It was cloudy and humid and still. Ernst had picked her up promptly at eleven o’clock, respectfully admiring her tidy brown worsted dress and neatly plaited hair. He’d already picked the picnic site, proclaiming it the prettiest place in East Sussex.

For a while, it appeared that Ernst’s only contribution to the conversation was going to be an occasional mumble, and Evelyn had begun to feel a shade alarmed at the prospect of spending an entire afternoon in monologue. Then she’d asked about his bicycle, and he’d launched into a comprehensive discourse on the benefits versus the practicalities of the new vulcanized tires. From there on, they’d had no troubles.

Soon, Ernst drove the wagon off the road, hopped out, and unhitched the pony. Evelyn descended, waiting while Ernst unloaded his bicycle and two large, cumbersome-looking wicker hampers.

“I will use my machine to transport these one at a time to my little idyllic place,” he said.

Oh. So they weren’t there yet. Well, good. A bit of exercise before a meal always stimulated the appetite and invigorated the spirit. “Mr. Blumfield—” Evelyn began.

“Ernst, please.”

She dimpled. Well, she would have dimpled had she owned them, but she could have sworn she felt little dents developing in her cheeks. “Ernst. You must allow me to carry one of the hampers. I am perfectly capable.”

“As I am well aware,” he answered solemnly.

She picked up one of the hampers and immediately listed forward. Gads! The man must have packed a stove. Still, she smiled valiantly and shifted the weight to her hip, happy to note that he didn’t try to appropriate it from her. He sincerely respected her independence and autonomy. Heavens!

It took twenty minutes to hike to Ernst’s picnic site. Most of it uphill. And through a creek. Clouds of midges swarmed up from the grass as they trudged across a rutted field and up a steep slope toward the edge of the forest. Her boots had not been intended for cross-country meets and soon rubbed blisters on her heels. The brown worsted she’d worn as least likely to show grass stains wasn’t up to camouflaging the dark rings spreading under her arms.

Ernst, on the other hand, looked perfectly at ease. He pushed his new bicycle with the wicker hamper affixed to the handle, chattering gaily about the contraption’s braking system. Finally he stopped. “Here. It is a lovely place, yes?”

“Yes, it’s charming,” Evelyn said. It didn’t look appreciably different to her from any of the other half dozen places they’d passed.

“I think that in the hamper you carry I have packed a nice blanket. If you would be so kind?”

“Gladly.” She gave her heartfelt assent. She could use a spot of respite. She flipped open the hamper and withdrew a heavy wool blanket. She gave it a sharp snap and settled it on the grass beneath a huge oak.

Gratefully, she sank to her knees while Ernst carefully leaned his bicycle against the trunk and returned with the other picnic basket. He sat down beside her and said shyly, “Perhaps you would do the honors, Miss Evelyn.”

Evelyn looked at him blankly. “Excuse me?”

He wagged his finger in a jocular fashion. “I always loved watching my mother make the preparations for our meals. There was something so feminine about the way she arranged things and set things out. I have missed a woman’s presence in my life.”

“Oh.” Flattered, if a trifle doubtful, she dutifully began pulling things out of the hamper. She unloaded and arranged cutlery, plates, napkins, glasses, and several items wrapped in waxed brown paper, found a thermos and mugs, and, after looking at Ernst, who said, “Please, do,” filled them with iced coffee.

Ernst sighed happily and lay back on the blanket. Evelyn gave a mental shrug and unwrapped a loaf of bread, a quarter round of cheese, several apples, and a haunch of ham. After another encouraging nod from Ernst, she sawed through meat and bread and created heroically proportioned sandwiches, one of which she then presented to Ernst.

Ernst, who’d been dreamily studying the cloud configurations overhead, came to with a blink and accepted the plate.

“How restful it is here, is it not?” he asked, leaning on his elbow and gazing blissfully into her eyes. “Everything is perfect.”

Evelyn had been on the cusp of responding that she would give him her opinion regarding the restfulness of the setting after she’d actually experienced a few minutes of it, but the look in his eye forbade her. He looked so content. And so young.

“Just peachy,” she said, taking a bite of sandwich.

Ernst talked while he ate. He spoke of his mother and father, of the little castle in Bavaria where he’d grown up—Gads, not another moldy white elephant, thought Evelyn—and his brother’s ill health. He asked her about her family, was suitably impressed that her grandfather was a duke, but not so impressed that it was awkward, and remarked how amazing it was that someone as accomplished as she was not yet some man’s treasured wife. Clearly, she had high standards, as well she should, but was there someone who, perhaps, had some hope of making her his?

It was the last that broke through Evelyn’s pedestrian concern with blisters and jettisoned her right back into the realms of romance. She’d never had one offer of marriage and here Ernst took it for granted that she had had several offers, all of which she’d turned down. And he was serious!

She finished the last bite of her sandwich and put down her plate, cupping her chin in her palm and staring raptly into his eyes. “No. No one.”

Except Justin
.

Her eyes widened in horror. Where had that come from? And it wasn’t even true!

“Is something wrong?” Ernst asked solicitously. “You look surprised. Unhappily surprised. A bug, perhaps?”

“No. Oh, no.” Evelyn tittered nervously. “Now, you were saying . . . ?”

“I was saying how surprising it is that a woman with your qualities, so capable and so charming, so little, yet so very . . .” She never found out what he’d been about to say because at that moment he leaned forward and kissed her.

A real, honest-to-heaven kiss.

He pressed his lips firmly against hers and made an appropriately kissy sound. His mouth was warm and his mustache tickled a little. And that was about it.

It wasn’t bad. It wasn’t wet. It was even pleasant. But it was not anything she was going to lose sleep over. Or dream about.

“I am sorry,” Ernst exclaimed worriedly. Trying to read her expression. “It is only, well, I was carried away.”

Perhaps kissing was an acquired taste. Like Roquefort cheese. Well, she was certainly willing to give it another go and from the look on Ernst’s face, so was he. She smiled encouragingly and he reached out, gently clasping her shoulders. He closed his eyes. Should she close hers? He leaned in, closer, closer . . .

Something rustled loudly in the limbs of a nearby oak.

Her head snapped up, Ernst’s kiss went amiss, and Justin Powell fell out of the tree.

Chapter 14

“JUSTIN?” EVELYN STARED disbelievingly. Even though the tree he’d fallen from was forty feet away, she could see his face was red. As well it should be.

She rose in a flurry of serviceable brown worsted and unadorned cotton petticoats and marched over to him, Ernst hastening after her. A few feet away, she stopped, set her hands on her hips, and tapped her toe. He didn’t look up until he’d finished dusting himself off. And why
now
he should evince interest in his personal appearance when he hadn’t shown any before could only be construed as suspicious.

“Well?” she demanded.

“I’ve torn the knee in these trousers,” he said severely, as if this were somehow her fault. “I liked these trousers.”

“Are you all right, Mr. Powell?” Ernst asked anxiously. Dear Ernst, trust him to show kindness in the face of such monstrous intrusiveness. “That was a nasty fall.”

“I didn’t fall,” Justin said with quelling hauteur. “I jumped down and lost my balance. Jumping being my only recourse given the goings-on I unwillingly witnessed.”

She opened her mouth to respond to such patent swill but all that came out was a choked sound. “Ah!”

Poor Ernst turned pale. “I assure you, I have—”

“Save your assurances, Blumfield. What you and Miss Powell do is none of my concern.”

“We weren’t doing anything!”

Justin managed to look superior and bored and disbelieving all at once. No small feat for a man who’d just fallen from a tree. “Hm. As you say. Regardless, it is no concern of mine. My only concern is
Bubo Formosa Plurimus
.
Minor
.”

Ernst’s eyes widened. “Excuse me?”

“It’s a bird, Mr. Blumfield,” Evelyn explained, eyeing Justin. He raised his brow defiantly, daring her to disbelieve him. She wavered in her indignation. She supposed it wasn’t
inconceivable
he’d been up that tree watching birds.

“I was so close to the female I could have touched her,” he said. “Then
you
two came along. I did my best to ignore you, hoping that you’d tuck into your dinner and be off. But as soon as it became apparent that things of a private nature were taking place, I made myself known.”