Bridal Favors (23 page)

Justin had purposefully stayed away from the manor, taking his meals in town while he tried to ferret out news of any recent arrivals—besides Mrs. Vandervoort’s guests, whom he’d adroitly avoided. His questions about anyone sporting a bruised face led to naught. As far as he could tell, no one had scraped their knuckles in the whole bloody town. Soon, the bruises would fade and be useless as a means of identifying his assailant.

Thwarted in town, he’d spent the next few days on the forest roads around Henley Wells trusting Beverly to keep an eye out for the “device.” At least he’d been doing what he was supposed to have been doing. And if in the course of doing it he hadn’t seen Evie—and thus hadn’t been tempted by Evie—didn’t he have a good reason?

What was he supposed to
do
with all these immensely distracting feelings? They were grossly inconvenient. He’d never been a particularly randy chap, yet just the thought of Evie in his arms, pliant and sweetly lax and . . .
There
, that’s all it took. A simple moment of recollection and he was primed and ready.

Not
the best way to conduct a covert operation.

And it angered him that at the ripe age of thirty-two, after what anyone would account several lifetimes’ worth of adventures and dangers, he’d been overwhelmed by a pint-sized, black-haired hoyden masquerading as a dowd in a stiff wool dress.

And now she wasn’t even anywhere around. Where the bloody hell was she?

He popped his head through the door to one of the rooms she’d overturned just as easily and thoroughly as she had his life. A trio of strangers stood by the windows, teacups in their hands. Blast. More of the Vandervoort woman’s friends. They’d been arriving in dribs and drabs for the last few days, well groomed, well dressed, well heeled. They regarded him with interested smiles. He wasn’t interested back. He wanted to know where Evie was.

“Mr. Powell, isn’t it?” one of the men asked.

“Yes,” Justin answered shortly, and after peering around to see if Evie was hiding in some corner somewhere, he left.

Poor Evie.
She
probably was hiding from him, now that he thought of it. If he was rattled by their last encounter, she must be shaken to her very core. Slipping out of side doors, jumping at the sound of a male voice . . .

Suddenly, it seemed essential that he find her and reassure her. And if part of him was aware of the absurdity of this abrupt decision, after dodging her for days, well,
everything
about his behavior lately was absurd. The knowledge didn’t provide him with any comfort.

A knock on the front door attracted his notice, and he moved toward it, distracted by the thought of a miserable Evie ducking him. He pulled the door open. Ernst Blumfield stood outside dressed in dinner clothes with his hat in his hand. Blast.

“I have been invited to dine with Lady Evelyn,” he announced with a shade of conceit. “And, of course, the delightful Mrs. Vandervoort. If you would be so kind—?”

“Don’t know anything about it.” Justin let the door go. It shut with a satisfying click. Since when had Blumfield become so cozy with Evie that he thought himself invited to dinner? And how had he contrived to meet “the delightful” Mrs. Vandervoort? Clearly, matters had become muddled while he’d been assiduously pursuing Her Majesty’s enemies. Humph.

Midway down the hall, a door opened. A pair of trousered legs crowned with a mountain of white froufrou began waddling down the hall.

“Beverly!” Justin called out, striding to meet him.

The mountain ceased moving and turned. “Sir.”

“What the blazes are you doing?”

A short pause. “Pretending to be a blancmange? Sir?”

“Did
she
set you up to this?”

“Yes, if by ‘she’ you are referring to Mistress Persistence, She of Myriad Wants and Needs, Her Most—”

“And just who gave you leave to neglect your duties to me and our other,” Justin groped around for an appropriately discreet word, “
commitments
?”

“You did. Sir,” the blancmange answered. “You told me to stay close to Her.”

“Blast you, Beverly. Where is she?”

“The last time I was the happy recipient of one of her honeyed requests, she was in the east courtyard. Wielding a sledgehammer.”

“How long ago was this?”

“This afternoon, sir.”

“Any idea where she might be now?”

“Mrs. Vandervoort often insists that she join her and her guests for the evening meal.”

“She does?” Justin felt his indignation rising. “That seems a bit autocratic, doesn’t it?”

“I think Lady Evelyn enjoys it. Not that I’m paying such close attention, you understand. But she’s hardly one to mask her feelings.”

“No, she isn’t, is she?” Justin said softly before clearing his throat. “Well, then I ’spect that’s all right.”

The mountain of white froufrou shifted. “Will there be anything else, sir? Lady Evelyn required that I bring these to Mlle. Molière, after which I am to check Quail—”

“Quail?”

“Mrs. Vandervoort’s secretary. The fellow with malaria.”

“Oh, yes,” Justin said, a trifle guilty at having forgotten a sick guest in his home. “Bad luck, that. How’s the poor chap faring?”

“I believe he is on the mend, sir. His fevers come less frequently. But he is wary of leaving his room lest he collapse again. He has a great deal of pride, unlike some others who shall go nameless.”

Justin smiled amiably, not having really attended Beverly’s answer. “Very good. I suspect I should go see if Evie would like a friendly face about, what with all these strangers here.”

The tower of white rustled and a hand dug a small, dark tunnel through the silk and ribbons. A single, morose eyeball glowered at him from the shadowed depths. “Like
that,
sir?”

Justin scowled. “What do you mean?”

“It’s dinnertime, sir.”

“So?”

The ribbons about the tunneled hole quivered with the exhalation of a heartfelt sigh. “Mrs. Vandervoort and her guests generally dress for dinner.”

“I
am
dressed,” Justin huffed.

“Respectably. Sir.”

“Pah!”

“If you return to your room, you will find your black coat is ironed and there are new collars in your drawer. And if you need assistance—?”

“I don’t,” Justin said.

“As you say, sir,” Beverly replied doubtfully, the single eye fixed on Justin’s head. “But perhaps you wouldn’t object to my making merry with a pair of scissors?”

“I would indeed object. There’s nothing wrong with my hair.” With that, he left Beverly and hurried to his room.

Ten minutes later he emerged, settling his jacket more comfortably about his shoulders and yanking the collar into alignment. He headed directly for the great hall as the most likely place to dine. When he arrived, he found he barely recognized the deserted room. It took only a few seconds to realize why. Evie had transformed the place.

From an echoing, drafty vestibule, she’d created a high lofty bower, a romantic fantasy reminiscent of Avalon and Camelot, knights and ladies, and eternal springs. Garlands of white silk flowers fell in graceful swags from the vaulted ceiling high overhead. Atop the beams she’d set hundreds of white candles of varying height and thickness, some half and even three-quarters spent, wading in thick tallow pools of their own luminous wax, creating pearly stalactites dripping from the beams.

Set in the new plaster covering the ceiling were diamond-shaped mirrors. When the candles were lit and the French doors flung wide, the currents of warm air would flutter the garlands and make the candles dance, and the mirrors above would throw back the light a thousand times over. It would be breathtaking.

He wandered into the center of the room and noticed the gleaming glass doors that gave out to the once damp and musty little courtyard. He released a slow appreciative whistle. Whatever she’d paid, Mrs. Vandervoort had gotten the best of the bargain.

The courtyard, too, had been altered nearly beyond recognition. Somewhere, Evelyn had found workmen to dredge and enlarge the mud hole, transforming it into a lovely goldfish pond. Giant white lilies lifted waxy fragrant heads above the smooth, mirrored surface. A charming white footbridge spanned its width, leading to a series of platforms of differing levels and varying sizes, giving the impression of a craggy, magical dell. Each platform blended artfully into the next by means of huge banks of flowers and cunningly fashioned papier-mâché boulders.

How she’d managed, he could not guess, just as he could not guess at the engineering and carpentry skill that allowed the entire thing. And he’d tell her as soon as he saw her. He’d read her need for approval years ago, when she’d sat swinging her spindly legs on her parents’ kitchen table. Her legs were no longer spindly, but the desire to please, the need to prove herself, was intense as ever.

He left and went to the back room where his grandfather had once had his meals served. Laughter filtered through the heavy oak door; the sound of voices, muffled and indistinct, masculine and feminine, followed. He pushed it open.

Inside, twenty people sat around a long oval table. They were an elegant crew. Pomade polished the carefully groomed heads of gentlemen wearing coats so dark they ate the light, and whose high, starched collars were so crisp they dented their smoothly shaven jaws. Unconsciously, Justin ran a thumb along his own jaw. Perhaps he should have shaved.

If the men reminded Justin of urbane Thoroughbreds, the women did even more so. Diamonds winked from their ears and shimmered round their throats. Form-fitting velvet encased their long equine torsos, and spotless white gloves sheathed their slender arms from fingertip to elbow.

They hadn’t spied him yet, and with an unusual prick of self-consciousness, Justin raked his hair back from his temples, looking about for Evie’s dark gray gown. It took him a moment to realize there were no gray gowns, dark or otherwise. Nor any dark, tightly braided coiffures. Nor high-necked gowns of any sort at all. In fact, from where he stood, he could see eight ladies’ faces, and none of them was Evie’s. He also noticed five ladies’ backs, all practically naked.

Clearly, Beverly had been wrong. Evie was not amongst the Vandervoort dinner party. Either that or she had developed a headache. . . .

While he’d been searching for Evelyn, the diners had slowly become aware of him. Conversation grew hushed. The gentleman and ladies seated opposite where he stood looked at him askance, while those with their backs to him turned to see who had interrupted their party.

Only one lithe female form remained facing forward, a lady sheathed in deep ruby-colored velvet, the flawless expanse of her alabaster shoulders a foil for the dark tendrils spilling from a low, loose knot of hair.

Then she, too, swiveled at the waist. For a heartbeat they stared at one another. Then her mouth cocked up at the corners in a smile of casual, offhand welcome.

“Oh. ’Allo, Justin,” said Evie.

Chapter 18

“AH, MR. POWELL.” Mrs. Vandervoort swept her hand toward a seat at the opposite end of the table from Evelyn. “Won’t you join us?”

Justin didn’t answer. He stood in the doorway, gorgeous in dinner jacket, collar, and cuffs that, given their slightly twisted appearance, Evelyn suspected he’d donned without Beverly’s aid.

Her heartbeat thumped into a frenzied rhythm. She tried valiantly to retard it. She had orders to be friendly, bright, and flirtatious, but under no circumstance to let on that she cared for him. She schooled her expression to bland friendliness, knowing that if he looked closely, he’d see how much she’d missed him.

She mustn’t let that happen. But she was having the hardest time remembering why. Oh, yes. Merry. Merry was an expert. After all, hadn’t Merry foretold the abrupt manner in which Justin would emerge from seclusion, as well as how, the moment he saw her, he’d become mute?

She should congratulate herself on her newly acquired sophistication. Four days ago she’d have been uncomfortable with her uncovered figure and new coiffure. Not until she’d seen Mrs. Vandervoort’s expression of cool approbation and the undisguised admiration of the gentlemen had she accepted that she didn’t look bizarre.

I am not naked. I am as covered up as any lady at this table. Ruby velvet looks nice on me. My shoulders are not bony. My skin is unblemished
. She silently recited the litany Merry had given her, wishing she believed it more.

If only she’d had enough courage to really study her image in the mirror. But she hadn’t dared more than a few glances at the polished surface Merry kept thrusting in front of her. Old habits die hard, and it had been the habit of a decade to avoid looking in a mirror.

Be suave, Evelyn
. Only it would be easier to be suave without Justin staring at her so disconcertingly. He hadn’t moved in minutes. He wasn’t smiling, and the rapt adoration Merry had foretold looked more like wary scrutiny.

“Justin?” she said with a calmness she was far from feeling. “Do you anticipate joining us soon, or should we expect you after the cheese course?”

Her dinner companion, a portly Dutchman named Dekker, hid a smile. In answer, Justin paced to the vacant seat originally assigned Ernst, who was unaccountably absent. He sat down, snapped open his napkin, and settled it across his lap. He met her eye. “Where are your spectacles?”