When the cakes were gone and Fanny had left, Evangeline wandered restlessly through the house. Had that night truly been perfect? Save for the fact that she hadn’t woken in his arms to experience another just like it? She replayed the memories in her mind and found no flaw, nothing that left her dissatisfied, except his declaration that he wanted more.
Thathadgiven her a start. She hadn’t been in the habit of seducing men, having always been the one seduced, but it had never occurred to her that the man she seduced would want more than a few nights of mutual pleasure. It certainly wasn’t common among Englishmen, who were pleased to seduce a woman and equally pleased to be spared the burden of supporting a mistress.
Well, perhaps a few nights of pleasurewasall Sir Richard had meant. He was a young man, far younger than she—Evangeline had not forgotten that important fact—and to him, an affair of a few weeks’ time might be an eternity. Perhaps that was all he’d intended: to call on her, amuse her with his stories, make her climax three times a night, and then drift away on some new adventure. Really, what was so wrong with that?
Evangeline began to calm down as she thought about it. It was slightly mad to assume she would end up facing marriage to every man she bedded. She knew it wasn’t true; she’d had other lovers, and none of them had ever come close to falling to one knee. Just as Sir Richard had gone on his planned travels, no matter what he said in the flush of passion.
She was being silly. A hearty man such as Richard Campion wouldn’t even want marriage to a woman as old as herself. She had money, it was true, but she wasn’t old enough that she was likely to die soon and leave a wealthy widower. She was tooold to have children, perhaps even unable, after two childless marriages. She had always been strong-willed and independent, and if the thought of ordering her about ever crossed Sir Richard’s mind, he would soon discover how fruitless that was.
No, he’d only wanted someone to gaze at him adoringly as he spoke about himself, like most men. Even if she could admit that hewasa fascinating topic. And they did suit each other very well in bed, although so had she and Court, in the beginning. That hadn’t lasted, and there was little reason to think it would last with Sir Richard, either.
Which suited her perfectly, as Fanny had pointed out.
Yes. She was safe from him. Surely, as Fanny said, there was no real danger in allowing herself a few weeks of private pleasure. Campion was an explorer. No doubt he would make it all very easy for her and leave the country again in three or four months.
Very well, she decided, aware that she was breaking her own rule on thin justification. Let the man come to call on her. Let him talk to her, and make her laugh, and perhaps even seduce her. It would only be a few weeks.
No man was irresistible.
Chapter 9
“Louis!” Evangeline put her hands on her hips and huffed in irritation as she surveyed the garden. “Louis!”
The little dog did not come. He had been in the house an hour ago, snuffling for any dropped crumbs from the breakfast table, and now he was nowhere to be seen. She’d looked through the entire house, especially the kitchens, and not heard a bark or the tap of his tiny paws on the floor. She called one more time, then went back inside.
“Is he not there?” Solly sat in the morning room, where the light was best, re-attaching the trimmings that had been torn from a bonnet the last time Evangeline wore it.
“No. He must have wandered off again.” She took down her pelisse from the hook beside the garden door. “I’ll have to go find him.”
“He always comes home on his own, sooner or later,” remarked Solly in her offhand way.
“It looks like rain, and I don’t want to have to bathe him, if he comes back with his fur full of mud.”
Solly just looked at her. She’d been doing that a fair amount since Sir Richard Campion’s unexpected visit the other morning, when Evangeline had thrown all good sense out the window andreceived him. Which led to the even greater thrill of hearing him profess that he was intrigued by her.
He wanted toknowher.
Also, he kissed like a man who could make her forget every good intention she’d ever had in life. She’d not forgotten that, either.
Solly had been with her four years ago, when she’d returned home after her night with him. Solly had eyed her—disheveled, wearing her horribly crumpled gown of the previous evening, but glowing with sated bliss—and simply shaken her head. How Solly knew Sir Richard was the source of the glow, Evangeline had no idea. Unless she’d been glowing like that after taking tea with the man? Perish that thought.
Regardless, she wasnotwalking out in hopes of meeting Sir Richard. She was thinking only of her dog. “He can’t have gone far. He was here less than an hour ago.”
“And the rain will be here soon.”
“Then I shall walk briskly.” She buttoned the pelisse and took down Louis’s lead.
“I’ll prepare a hot bath for when you return, soaking wet and freezing cold,” said the other woman.
“That will be lovely, thank you.” She swept out of the house before Solly could say anything else.
Wind rustled the trees around her as she strode through the garden. Lovely and wild, it was her favorite thing about Wyndham House. It sprawled around the side, more cottage garden than formal parterre, and it soothed her just to step into it.
Wyndham House had been her escape from the horrid, spiteful whispers after Court’s death. His heir, a nephew, had ordered her from the Courtenay house in London a few days after the hasty funeral, and Evangeline had been only too happy to go, just as she’d been only too happy to quit Cunningham’shouse. The one good turn her father had done was insist on a large widow’s portion, which had allowed her to buy her own house for the first time in her life. Here she was mistress and master, lord and commander. She liked it. That was another reason she would never marry again.
The house sat nestled into the edge of a copse, hidden from the road. Not far from the end of the garden ran the path into the woods, the one she had followed to the secluded pond. A faint roll of distant thunder sounded, but the sky was still mottled with patches of blue. She hesitated only a moment, then took the path toward Humberton Hall.
Louis had roamed every inch of her property; there was nothing there to intrigue him. Besides, the paths that went northward were overgrown. Louis could scramble under the brush, but she could not.
