“One must be, to scale the Little Matterhorn or sail through a typhoon.”
“Have you really?” she asked with interest, then gave a tiny shake of her head. “I am trying to say, you must think me very uninhibited, then and now. And despite how I have behaved, then and now, I am not. Not really. If I were to swimin your pond regularly, people would discover it. They would whisper about it. They would impute all manner of shocking and inappropriate behavior to both of us, but especially to me, and I don’t wish for that to happen.”
“How would people discover it, if they have not thus far?”
Again she looked aggravated. “Your staff! Gardeners and groundskeepers and bailiffs will roam over the property and pass right by that pond. Some of them may even wish to swim in it, too, very likely on the same hot days I would choose.”
He shook his head. “It is not so large a property that I require a bailiff or a groundskeeper to oversee it. I suppose I must have a gardener, but he shall tend only the area near the house. I give my word that the pond will remain private and undisturbed for your use.”
“That’s ridiculous!” she burst out. “It isyourpond. You must be able to use it as much as you desire.”
“My desire is that you use it.”
Her eyes narrowed. “And perhapsyou’llbe the one roaming over the property, covertly watching for any trespassing neighbors swimming naked in the pond?”
He raised his brows. “Naked? I intended to stay away, for your privacy, but if there will benakedswimming?—”
“Oh, stop,” she exclaimed, trying to fight back another smile. “Stop teasing!”
Richard sobered at once. “I will.” He hesitated. “But in return, I beg you to think less badly of me. You fear I came here because I am only interested in something illicit and sinful. I am not.” He leaned toward her. “I am interested inyou.”
“That’s much the same thing,” she said under her breath. “Why?”
He had the sense his entire future hung on this answer; if he said the wrong thing, she would always view him with suspicion and doubt. And he did not want that—not at all. “I cannot fullyexplain it,” he said honestly. “I said earlier that I thought of you, and I did. On cold nights in Mongolia, and hot nights in Delhi. I never forgot how you urged me to remember the children in the foundling home, and how my actions could benefit them, nor how you said I could call on you to speak of my adventures. I wished to do so, before, and then after, but there seemed to be a conspiracy to prevent me doing so. I... found that maddening.” He spread his hands in a gesture of helpless frustration. “You made me laugh. I wanted to speak to you again.” He paused, trying to think how to describe it. “It was like being caught in a small avalanche, where the only way to survive is to allow yourself to be borne along, even though you cannot control your flight.”
She stared at him, then reached for her tea again. “That sounds thrilling. At least until the ending, when you are buried by snow and freeze to death.”
He laughed. “Not always. And I am not afraid. May I call on you again?”
After several minutes, a faint smile touched her lips. “Yes, Sir Richard. You may.”
Chapter 8
“Sir Richard Campion has returned to London,” was Evangeline’s greeting when Fanny came to tea two days later.
“At long last! Yes, I know.” Fanny helped herself to one of Cook’s tiny cakes with a frosted violet on top.
“You knew!” Evangeline stared at her old friend. “And you didn’t say a word to me?”
Fanny raised her brows as she chewed the petit four. “You said you never wanted to see him again. You said you’d had your fun with him and that was that, the urge was sated, the itch was scratched. You told me to order Brumley not to reveal anything about you at all if he should happen to ask—which he did, by the by, more than once. I took your word that you were done with him.”
“I am! I was!”
“Then what does it matter if he’s in London or Paris, or wandering the streets of Kolkata for that matter?”
Evangeline chewed her lip in discontent. “Itdoesn’tmatter. It took me by surprise, is all.”
“I know how you feel. I was quite shocked by the way Mr. Brummel fled the country. Sneaking out of his box at CoventGarden, during the curtain call! The gossips may never recover. At least he did not leave a poor, abused wife to be dunned by his creditors, as Lord Byron did.” She sipped her tea. “How did you hear of Campion’s return?”
Evangeline frowned into her tea. “I didn’t wish to see him again because I didn’t want... an entanglement.”
“Of course.” Fanny took another little cake, this one with a sugar-encrusted rose petal on top. “And having discovered he is once more nearby and available, you have reconsidered becoming entangled with him?”
“No,” she said at once.
“I see,” said Fanny in the tone that indicated she had noticed Evangeline was avoiding her questions.
Wise woman.
