When Alex came home early again that night, Evelyn almost
babbled out the whole story. Only the fact that he was still immersed in his
own world and paying little attention to her prevented her from revealing her
news.
“Can you put together a small dinner for some of my friends
and their wives?” he asked.
Evelyn forgot her own concerns and stared at him in
astonishment. When he looked up impatiently at her lack of reply, she nodded. “Of
course, Alex. It is not as if I have to cook it myself. Deirdre will help me
with the menus and invitations. Just give us a list.”
Alex frowned at her hint of hesitation. “Are you certain? I
can arrange to entertain the men at my club if you prefer.”
Evelyn felt as if she were walking on eggshells. She wanted
to please him and avoid a hideous argument. Yet she could not stand here and
say nothing. “I would be happy to entertain your friends, Alex. I’m just
uncertain that they will be happy to meet me. I have met a few who are hostile
to the idea of a Yankee countess.”
Alex looked thunderstruck, then grim. “Who? Who has not
treated you as your name deserves? I will have them hounded out of town by
sunrise.”
Evelyn sighed at this flare of temper. “I do not want
retribution, Alex, only your recognition of the facts. I am a stranger and an
outsider to these people. I do not know your objective for this dinner, but I
do not want it harmed by my presence.”
Alex gestured in irritation. “You are protecting me again,
Evelyn. If they are such fools as to object to your background, then I do not
need their support. I am not an utter idiot.”
“If my attempting to help makes you an idiot, then I shall
refrain from doing so again. Heaven forbid that a woman should interfere in a
man’s world!” Evelyn could not hold her tongue any longer. “Just give me your
list, and I will worry about my gown and the menu and other such feminine
things and leave the important issues to those masculine minds better equipped
to deal with them.”
“Evelyn, by all that’s holy, you would drive a man to
madness for a simple request! You may speak your mind as you will, but just
stay out of my way while you’re doing it. I have too much to do to leave myself
victim to your tongue.”
“You insufferable ingrate!” Lifting her skirts, Evelyn swept
from the room with head held high, losing her dignity only when she slammed the
door behind her. Chandeliers throughout the house shook at the blow.
Before she could so much as reach the hall stairs, Alex
stuck his head out for the last word. “Cad! The word is ‘cad.’ And this
insufferable cad will be up to warm your bed as soon as you cool down!”
Evelyn mounted the stairs and glanced back over her shoulder
to the arrogant man below. “I’ll cool down when hell has snowballs, Hampton.”
“Good, then I won’t have to waste time warming you up.” He
grinned, then slammed the door behind him again as he retreated into the study.
Evelyn flounced down in the middle of the stairs and burst
into tears.
It wouldn’t do. She would never be able to tell him. The
tension of these last few days had her nerves twisted in such balls that she
could not untangle one emotion from another. Everything she said seemed to
cause an argument. And every argument seemed to lead straight to bed. She had
no objection to that. Alex in bed was as volatile as his temperament. He could
be both fierce and gentle, but most of all, he was loving. It was rather like
living on the edge of a volcano. It was no place to discuss lost daughters.
***
After the days of tension, the dinner was mere child’s
play. The service went well, the food inspired praise, and the company was
congenial. Afterward the ladies retired to the salon, leaving the men to their
politics. Many of the ladies had been to one or more of Evelyn’s tea parties,
and they were eager to take up the enlightening discussions that had ensued
there. Evelyn obligingly provided them with more stories of her home.
After their guests left, and they were left alone in the
privacy of their chambers, Alex drew his wife backward against him and began to
remove the pins from her hair. Instantly suspicious at this solicitousness,
Evelyn tilted her head back to better judge his expression.
“Your discussion went well?” she asked.
“Swimmingly,” he agreed, casting aside the pins and tumbling
her hair over her shoulders. His hands closed about her upper arms and held her
against him as he brushed a kiss against her ear. “There seemed much talk of
starving children. You wouldn’t know aught of that, would you?”
His fingers drifted to the low-cut neckline of her gown, and
Evelyn could scarcely think at all, much less find the direction of his
question. She waited for the moment when Alex’s hand would slide beneath the
silk and satin to find the aching point of her desire. Her breasts strained
upward, eager for his touch.
“Starving children? What was the topic of your discussion?”
she asked.
His hand finally stole beneath bodice and chemise to locate
the sensitive crest that removed all her inhibitions.
He smiled as she arched into his palm. “Do you have some
doubt, my lady? The revocation of the Stamp Act, of course. We will be forcing
it to a vote shortly. Now, why were my guests discussing starving children in
relation to a tax law?”
“Do you have to ask?” Evelyn reached behind her to struggle
out of the hooks preventing his full access to her flesh. Alex obliged by
nimbly unfastening everything in sight. “The act has halted trade, destroyed
the economy,” she informed him. “We are not rural landholders. We live in
cities, just as you do. We don’t grow our own food. We have to buy it. Where
there is no money, there is no food. Of course children are starving.”
The bodice slipped from her shoulders, and Alex tugged
impatiently at the ties of her stays. The excitement building between them did
not affect his speech, however.
“I never mentioned such to them. Do you think they took it
into their own heads to come to those conclusions?”
“Any sensible man ought to be able to divine the results of
his actions,” Evelyn replied tartly. The stays were loosening. Any minute now
the ties to her hoops would fall victim to his hungers. She took a deep breath
as his warm hand slid between whalebone and cambric to cover her belly.
His voice whispered huskily in her ear, “But it was their
wives who brought it to their attention. How is that, my love? How did those
good ladies know of starving children in the colonies?”
“I can’t imagine.” Smiling, she leaned back into him. Her
panniers and gown slid past her hips to the floor. Once all the padding and
material were removed from between them, she could feel his arousal. She rubbed
suggestively against him.
“I can.” He lifted her from the puddle of fabric and turned
her around to face him. Kicking the gown aside, Alex still did not allow her
toes to touch the floor as he met her eyes. “You’ve been interfering again, my
lady. What am I going to have to do about it?”
Evelyn curled her brow up thoughtfully as she wriggled
closer, skillfully finding his shirt fastenings.
“We could argue about it, I suppose. I would say I’m
helping, not interfering, and you could roar something appropriate. And then we
could fall into bed and make violent love. Or you could thank me for my
helpfulness, and I could kiss you all over, and we could fall into bed and make
violent love. Or . . .”
Alex laughed, a slow laugh that started as a chuckle deep
down in his chest and grew over the time and distance it took to reach his
throat. By the time it roared full force, he had her sprawled across the bed,
trapped beneath his weight, and wriggling ecstatically to the rain of kisses
upon her face and neck.
“Let us skip the preliminaries then and go directly to the
main event. Take me in, wife. I want to be reminded who is master here.”
“I’ll grant you supremacy in this, husband,” Evelyn agreed,
lifting her legs to wrap around his hips. “You’re bigger than I am.”
She giggled as he bit at her ear, then drew his head down to
taste her kisses. She still wore her chemise, and he was fully clothed, but the
rough brush of his clothing between her legs was as erotic as his nakedness.
She rose against him and felt him groan between her lips. She wriggled, and his
imprisoning hands left her shoulders to unfasten his breeches.
He might be bigger, but there were one or two things she
could still do to keep them equal. Deirdre’s explanations of months ago had
never rung truer, and she smiled happily as she felt Alex finally naked against
her.
When he lifted her hips and plunged in, she cried out in
sheer joy. There were still some things she preferred that he be master in.
***
When they lay in each other’s arms later, Evelyn knew the
time had come to reveal her secret. Alex was nearly asleep, and so content that
she hated to disturb him, but it had to be done. Mr. Farnley had already
informed her that the girl was on her way.
She twisted her fingers in the dark mat of curls on his
chest and kissed his bare shoulder. “Alex? Are you awake?”
“No.” He settled her more comfortably against his side and
stroked her breast.
“Good. Then I don’t have to tell you that Mr. Farnley found
your daughter.”
Alex lay still, his fingers playing with the nipple rising
to his caresses.
She feared he hadn’t heard her, but she did not dare repeat
herself. “Her adopted father is dead, and the local vicar fears she might be in
danger from overeager suitors. She is only fourteen, Alex, but her father’s
lands—”
His hand moved from caressing her breast to clenching her
arms. He jerked her over him until she could stare down into the black fury of
his eyes. “What father? What have you done now, Evelyn? Did I ask you to dabble
in my life? Did I say, ‘Evelyn, be my wife and interfere in everything I do and
dig up the secrets of my past while you’re at it’? Did I?”
He didn’t shake her, but his fingers were pressed so cruelly
into her arms that he didn’t need to. His face was contorted with fury, but the
small bedside lamp gave enough light to reveal the pain there too. Evelyn
braced one hand against his shoulder to steady herself, then caressed his jaw
with the other.
“Scream at me if you must. I know I have trespassed where I
shouldn’t, but I love you too much to leave you always hurting for what was
done so long ago. I know you didn’t want a wife, Alex, and I know I should be
meek and obedient and grateful for all you have given me, but I cannot. I
cannot be any less than I am, any more than you can be. And I know the man you
are will not blame a child for the sins of her parents.”
“You know a damn lot, don’t you?” Alex wrapped her in his
arms and felt her hair cascading over his arms as she rested against his
shoulder. Soft kisses burned against his throat, and he crushed her, trying not
to control his rampaging emotions. Since first he’d laid eyes on this witch she’d
had this effect on him. Life had been much easier before she turned him inside
out, exposing all his feelings for the world to see.
But it had been a miserable excuse for a life just the same.
“Is she well?” he whispered hoarsely.
Hot tears dripped on his bare shoulder, and he felt Evelyn’s
nod.
“According to Mr. Farnley’s spies, she is fine and happy.
They say she resembles you. She’s very intelligent and has learned all the
local school has to offer. Mr. Farnley thinks she ought to be sent to a girls’
school.”
“Does he now?” Alex growled. “And has he asked the girl if
she wishes to go? What is her name?”
“You will have to ask Mr. Farnley that. Alex, I was worried
about her. I know what it’s like to be left alone in charge of wealth, and she’s
so young. She will have no experience in dealing with fortune hunters.”
“The old goat left her all his land? I’m not certain whether
that proves his stupidity or his intelligence. Surely he must have known the
child wasn’t his.” Alex sighed and ran his hand through his hair as he
contemplated all the complications involved. “I can’t go after her right now,
Evelyn. It’s imperative that I keep battering away at some of these hardheaded
Tories until they see the light.”
“I know,” Evelyn whispered against his ear, twining her long
leg with his. “And I love you for that too. See how fickle I am? I even love
you when you’re contrary. According to Mr. Farnley, the vicar and his wife
broke the news to her already. She trusts them, and he thought that would be
best. She agreed that it might be in her best interests to leave the farm for a
while. They’re already on their way here.”
“Oh, God.” He groaned and closed his eyes and tried not to
imagine this new invasion into his hitherto quiet life. “What in hell do I say
to her? ‘Hello, bastard, where’ve you been all these years?’ Evelyn, this is an
impossible situation.”
“Nothing is impossible,” she announced, slithering off him
and returning to her own pillow. “She is halfway between an adult and a child
and frightened out of her wits. If I am any judge of Hampton behavior at all,
she will react with anger.”
Alex caught her hand and held it. “People respect anger.
They don’t respect the weaker emotions.”
“People are fools. Love is the strongest emotion of all.
Those who dare to love risk everything. Even an infant can show anger. There is
simply no comparison as far as I can see.”
“And how will you tell that to a fourteen-year-old child who
has just discovered that her father isn’t her father, that her real father is a
self-centered bastard who’s ignored her all these years?”
“Very
gently.”
Alex snorted, rolled over, and buried his face against the
sweet scent of her hair. “Tell me again, love. Tell me how strong I must be so
I don’t resort to anger and strangle you in your sleep. And say it gently.”