The Book Of Scandal (8 page)

“You know very well what I mean!”

“You are hardly bound for Perdition, Evelyn, at least not today. You are bound for home.”

“For what was my home,” she said petulantly. “I have not resided there in three years. It is nothing to me now but a place of wretched memories.”

“Ah, how that warms my heart. If they are all truly wretched, then we must make an effort to create some pleasant memories,” he said with a wink.

“Please,” she muttered, and looked down at her lap. “There is nothing about that house that can ever be a pleasant memory.”

He said nothing for a moment, but when he did speak, his voice was low and soothing. “You are not the only one who misses him, Evie. I miss him, too.”

He was referring to their son, their beautiful son, who died at the age of fifteen months. He’d been a sickly baby, and the last fever had come upon him so quickly that he was, for all intents and purposes, lost to them before the doctor arrived. They could do nothing but wait four agonizing days for his death. Frankly, they had waited fifteen months for his death—but he’d been a beautiful boy, and she—they—had loved him dearly.

Evelyn swallowed down an unexpected whimper of grief. Not a day passed that she didn’t think of Robbie. But the raw grief, the grief that had once clawed at her throat every waking hour, had subsided with time. In its place was a distant and dull pain, an ache that pulsed weakly but persistently at the bottom of her heart.

She feared Eastchurch Abbey would bring that excruciating pain back to her. Not just the death of her son, but the implosion of their fragile marriage under the weight of his death as well. Their marriage, which was based on the compatibility of fortune and privilege, had strengthened with Robbie. But with his death had come a cold distance that only deepened with time to the point that Evelyn’s resentments and fears and hurts had nailed her heart firmly closed.

“You can’t avoid Eastchurch forever,” Nathan said a bit curtly.

“You obviously don’t understand, Nathan. This isn’t merely about missing him,” she said bitterly. “It’s about you, too. You are a roué. You’d rather hunt and…and cat about. We were never really meant for one another.”

She could feel him stiffen. “And you would rather carp, is that it?”

No, that wasn’t it at all, but her inability to explain herself clearly had always been her failure with Nathan. She wouldn’t try now, and turned her head and bit her lower lip against the tears that burned the back of her eyelids.

“Perhaps,” he said shortly, “your journey to Perdition might be hastened along to its conclusion if you tell me why you might be involved in the scandal surrounding the prince.”

“I’ve told you, I don’t know why.”

“When was the last time you were in the prince’s company?” Nathan pressed.

“Several times of late,” Evelyn said irritably. “But what does it matter? You know as well as I that the prince surrounds himself with dozens of people. The last time I was in his company, a pageant was performed in his apartments,” she admitted. “It was really awful, about a large woman who made love to a variety of men, and then…” Evelyn frowned as she recalled the vulgarity of that pageant.

“And then?”

“And then she…the woman produced a doll as if she’d just given birth. It was very distasteful, but the prince laughed.”

Nathan seemed not to think much of it. “Did you overhear any talk? Did you speak to him?”

She shook her head. “I conversed with Mrs. Fitzherbert most of the night, actually about nothing more exciting than a new modiste in London. I rarely spoke to the prince directly, and even then, only in passing.”

“I see,” Nathan said, but Evelyn could tell from the timbre of his voice he didn’t see at all. He didn’t believe her. That pricked at her, and she tried to move away, but Nathan held her close. “Stay warm. You’ll catch your death of cold—”

The sudden shouts startled them both; the coach rumbled to an awkward halt. “What is it?” Evelyn asked.

Nathan leaned up and glanced out the window.

“Highwaymen, my lord!” the driver called down.

“Damnation,” Nathan uttered. “We’re being robbed.”

“What?” Evelyn cried, rousing Frances from his sleep.

The coach suddenly began to rock; there was quite a lot of shouting, and then the coach was still. “Everyone step out!” someone outside shouted.

Evelyn’s first thought was Frances, who was scrambling to sit up and look out the window.

“Stand back, Frances,” Nathan said sternly as he lifted his trouser leg and withdrew a pistol from his boot.

“Nathan!” Evelyn exclaimed as she moved to sit next to Frances and gather him in her arms. “What are you about to do?”

He responded by taking aim at the door, then leaning back and kicking the door open with his foot at almost the same moment he fired. The next moment, he had vaulted out the door.

Evelyn’s basic instinct to survive propelled her to the floor of the coach with Frances, her body on top of his. Men were shouting and several more shots were fired from what sounded like a variety of guns. Frances twisted out from beneath her and peered out the open door, but Evelyn pulled him back from the opening.

Within moments, it was over. The robbers had fled into the woods, one of them clinging to the pommel of his saddle, shot in the side, as eagerly reported by Frances.

Frances escaped Evelyn and leapt from the coach when one of the coachmen called “all clear.” Evelyn reluctantly followed him.

The Lindsey men seemed all accounted for, milling about, clapping one another on the shoulder. Frances was squatting next to several dark drops of blood. “Milord! You shot one of them!” he said excitedly.

“It would seem that I did,” Nathan said soberly, and pulled the boy up and away from the blood. “Jenks!” he called to the driver. Evelyn looked at Jenks, noticed his arm hung strangely at his side, and realized he’d been shot, too.

“How bad is it?” Nathan asked, bending a little to see the wound.

“I’ll be all right, milord,” Jenks said, a little uncertainly.

Evelyn looked about for something to bandage his arm, and remembered a clean handkerchief in her reticule. It was a gift from Princess Mary, embroidered by her own hand. Evelyn returned to the coach to fetch it, then marched to where Jenks was sitting, determined to be of use.

“Feels a bit strange, but I’ll be no worse for the wear,” Jenks said unconvincingly. He was growing pale.

Evelyn reached for his arm. “I’m going to bind it tightly, Mr. Jenkins, to stop the flow of blood.”

“Ah, mu’um,” he said, shaking his head. “You don’t need to do that.”

“Do as she says, Jenks,” Nathan said sternly, and helped Jenks remove his coat.

Evelyn wrapped the handkerchief around his arm and bound it tightly. When she was convinced there was nothing more she could do for him, they managed to get his coat back on him.

“Fred, you’ll handle the ribbons and ride postilion, will you?” Nathan said to a coachman, and helped Jenks to his feet. “You, sir, will ride on the bench. We’ll have you properly tended when we reach the abbey,” he promised. “All right then, lads, let’s have everything in order and continue on, and be quick about it for Jenks’s sake.” He gestured for Frances to return to the coach.

“May I ride with Jenks, milord?” Frances asked eagerly. “I’ll mind him properly, I will.”

“I’d not mind the help, milord,” Jenks said when Nathan looked at him.

Nathan nodded, and as Frances scrambled up ahead of Jenks, Nathan cupped Evelyn’s elbow and steered her into the coach. He followed her inside, settling in beside her on the bench and pulling his cloak over them once more before rapping on the ceiling to send them on.

“Highwaymen!” Evelyn exclaimed, still in a bit of shock.

“They are a scourge in these parts,” Nathan said. “They are as thick as grass and strike with alarming regularity.”

“Will they come back for us?”

“They are halfway to France now, you may trust me.” He smiled reassuringly and put his arm around her shoulders, drawing her into his side again.

She did not fight it. “I’m allowing you to do that only because you saved my life,” she warned him.

“Aha, a small victory,” he said, and leaned his head back and closed his eyes.

As they bobbed and swayed down that awful road, Evelyn didn’t mean to fall asleep, but in the safety of Nathan’s arms, when she felt herself sliding into it, she didn’t have the strength to stop herself.

He knew she was sleeping when her body sagged into his. The feel of her body against his reminded him of the nights he’d spent in her bed and the passion they’d shared. As he rearranged his cloak around her, he could picture her holding herself above him, her hands braced against his bare chest, her breasts hanging like ripe fruit, and her gold, wavy hair spilling around her shoulders as she rode him.

The highwaymen were forgotten, replaced by her voice echoing in his head. We were never meant for one another, you and I…

Those words resounded ridiculously in his mind. It was passing strange, actually—the Lord knew they had said worse to each other at one time, but then, her words had bounced off him.

Today, her words made him feel hollow and old.

Her head lolled onto his chest with a delicate snore; lashes fanned out against her cheeks and her lips parted slightly. She was exhausted.

Unfortunately, the roads had been pitted with the autumn rains, making the ride quite rough. He thought of poor Jenks above and realized he was a fool for believing Wilkes when he said this road through Cricklade was the quickest. He tried to keep Evelyn from bouncing by holding her tight, but his efforts were useless. Yet nothing could wake her, and for that, he couldn’t help but smile.

That was another thing he knew about his wife—she could sleep through a cyclone. Worse, she was a horrible thief of the bed linens and covers. How many times had he awakened, shivering and naked, while she slept soundly in the cocoon she’d made?

Eventually, the coach turned into the three thousand acres that made up the estate of Eastchurch Abbey. It was quite late, but Nathan knew when they passed by the ruins of the old Cistercian abbey for which the estate was named and continued down a tree-lined road. As they neared the iron gates that marked the main house—a redbrick, ivy-covered mansion—they passed the church and the churchyard where their son was buried.

As was his habit, Nathan looked in the opposite direction. He would give all if he could take that pain from Evelyn. He would have given his own life if it might have saved his son.

Alas, nothing he could have done would have saved Robert or Evelyn. He couldn’t have stopped it, and Robert’s death and Evelyn’s despair had broken him into pieces. He’d been so broken he’d not had the strength to wrestle cherub angels, and his fear and sadness and inability to surmount emotions that he knew were surmountable had humiliated him. It had taken months, years, to rid himself of that helpless, useless feeling.

He couldn’t fix the damage done then, but as he looked down at the top of Evelyn’s golden head on his chest, he dared to hope that perhaps he could fix it now.

E velyn had a visceral reaction when she walked across the threshold of her home for the first time in three years. It was one o’clock in the morning, but in spite of the late hour, Benton was instantly on hand, still a model of decorum with his clean-shaven face and pristine clothing. He hardly seemed surprised to see her, but then again, the earth could spin away from the sun and Benton would remain stolid. “It is my great pleasure to welcome you home, my lady.”

“Thank you, Benton. It’s good to see you.”

“Shall I show you to your suite?”

Her suite was directly adjacent to Nathan’s through a pair of sitting rooms, and Evelyn’s heart ticked up a notch at the suggestion. “No, no,” she said hastily. “Is there another suite, perhaps?”

“She would sooner be hanged than be so near to me, Benton. Put her in the suite next to the nursery—”

That suggestion stabbed her heart. Her son had died in the nursery. “No!” she said hastily. She couldn’t go near it. She could never see that room again. She could feel her hand start to shake as Benton and Nathan looked at her. “M-my suite will be fine, Benton.”

“Very good, madam.” He pivoted and began walking.

With a glare for Nathan, Evelyn reluctantly followed the butler.

They moved through the main corridor and public rooms by the light of a candelabra Benton held high. But even in that light, Evelyn could see bits and pieces of furnishings were missing, and some things looked a bit drab. There were two pairs of boots in the corridor, which she thought odd, and on one table, the sort of basket one might take fishing to hold the catch, a pair of fishing poles, and a stack of curling, yellowed newsprint.

The house, the beautiful, grand mansion, had been turned into a hunting lodge!

Fortunately, Evelyn’s suite was exactly as she’d left it: pale blue walls, heavy floral drapes. The canopied bed with the intricately embroidered bedcovering, a wedding gift from her aunt. It seemed almost as if no one had entered the room since the day she’d left it.

The moment Benton left her alone, Evelyn collapsed onto the chaise and covered her face, trying to catch her breath, trying not to see her son in every corner of this room. Trying not to think of the horrible, wretched argument she and Nathan had had in this very room the night she told him she wanted to go to London.

“I don’t understand—you sit in the dark and stare out the window, or make a spectacle of yourself, and suddenly, you want to go to London?” he’d railed at her. “I have tried and tried to reach you, Evie, but you have shut me out! You move as a ghost through these halls, you shirk your duty as mistress and wife, and yet you want me to understand that now you must suddenly be in London!”

“I should rather sit in the dark than spend my days gambling and hunting and carrying on like a libertine! We may as well admit it—we are irretrievably broken down!”

“No, not we, Evelyn. You. Go. Go to London! I’ll be glad to see you gone.”

Memories came rushing at her, one after the other, all of them overwhelming. Evelyn stood and walked to the middle of the room, hugging herself. She really didn’t know what to do. She was too restless to sleep, too tired to think.