“I always wondered if Cunningham ever wanted to do my father harm, for saddling him with me,” she mused. “Not only did my spirits not moderate, I believe I drove him mad.”
“I don’t wonder.”
“Oh, not in any good way. He might have genuinely wanted to murder me.” Evangeline flexed her foot in his grasp, and he obligingly rededicated himself to her arch. “He expected I’d give him children, but not once was it even suspected.”
Richard thought about that. “Did it distress you?”
“Lord, no! It was awful enough to be his wife. At least it was only my own person and happiness I had to preserve against him. He would have been a strict and distant father, dictating every facet of his heir’s life, and I would have fought him fiercely to protect my child. Better for us all that no such child ever existed.”
“Ah.” He was quiet again for a moment, still rubbing her foot, propped on his thigh. “I do not blame you, then. It is difficult to mourn such men.”
She clicked her tongue. “That’s the thing, you see. I didn’t mourn him. He was a respectable man, but when he died, I was so relieved to be free of him.” She sent him another sideways glance. “See what a sinner you’ve taken up with.”
He shrugged. “He ought to have lived a life that inspired more affection.”
She blinked at him. “Oh my. I see you shan’t be a good influence on me at all.” But she said it in a tone that suggested deep approval of that fact.
“I have no desire to influence you to be anything you are not.” He returned her look with a heated one of his own. “I admire you precisely as you are now.”
She arched her back, and his gaze dropped at once to her breasts, exposed above the steaming water. “You’rea wild and reckless one, Sir Richard.”
“Indeed. And we are only beginning to know each other.” She laughed at that, and he grinned. “I have found that there are few accurate predictors of how wild, or staid, one may be. I have known hell-raisers who have achieved their seventieth year, and placid men still at university.”
“So it’s something immutable within us?”
He lifted one shoulder, slowly working his massage up her ankle. “No. A wild young man might settle down in his maturity—in fact, I believe this is the expected course, with wild young men. And a somber, respectable woman may reach a point where she no longer cares what anyone thinks of her, and casts off all inhibitions.”
She raised her arms in the air with a smile, as if to saySuch as I, and he laughed.
“I am pleased to see even an unsatisfactory marriage has not quelled your spirit,” he told her.
Her smile faded. “Oh . . . perhaps not entirely.”
Damn. He’d expected her to laugh, too. He said nothing and concentrated on rubbing her foot and ankle.
“My second husband was a scoundrel,” she said after a long silence, startling him. “I didn’t mean to marry him. It was... an accident.”
His fingers paused. How on earth did one marry accidentally?
“I suppose I should tell you now, or someone else most assuredly will,” she went on. She put her head back again and stared up at the ceiling. “Cunningham was my father’s choice, for my first husband, and when he died, I felt entitled to enjoy myself a bit. So I did. I carried on with all sorts of gentlemen, including the Earl of Courtenay, who pursued me so ardently...” She paused. “And I fell for it. I began an affair with him, and that outraged my father. He engineered another marriage by threatening to call out Courtenay for his ‘vile seduction and despoiling of a decent widow,’” she finished in a mocking voice. “Courtenay wanted only an affair, not marriage. We were completely aligned on that matter, or so I thought, until my father threatened him with mention of pistols at dawn.” She paused, clearly mastering herself and continuing in a lighter tone. “To my astonishment,Iwaged a fiercer protest than he did. Who would have guessed such a rogue would be an utter coward?”
“How could your father compel you?” Richard asked, not distracted. “You must have been of age.”
“Six and twenty,” she confirmed. “He had written the settlements of my marriage to Lord Cunningham in such a way that he had control over my property inherited from Cunningham, including my dowry funds. He could have left me penniless, if I disobeyed. My mother wept, begging me to atone for my sins. She completely took my father’s side.”
She fell silent and Richard realized with fury that she was fighting for composure, even after all these years. “Had you no one else? No ally to turn to, no friend to aid you?”
“My brother, George, was the one person who might have come to my aid, but he was newly married, with an infant son.” She paused. “The birth was difficult for his wife. He wasdistracted, and in truth, there was nothing he could have done. When George heard of it, he did corner Father in his study. The whole house could hear them shouting. My mother begged me to come away into the garden, but I listened at the door. It wasmyfuture they were arguing over. Father threatened to cut off his income, too, if he interfered.”
Richard, scowling, reached for her other foot.
“You mustn’t be severe on George,” she went on, misunderstanding his silence. “Looking back, I suspect he knew far better than I how lascivious a rake Court was, and how dim the prospects of a contented marriage were. He tried to prevent it, but our father was implacable.”
Thank God she’d had someone to argue for her, since her father seemed to have been an arrogant tyrant. “Are you still close with your brother?”
“Hmm?” She smiled, a touch wistfully. “We are still cordial, but after Court’s death...” She swished her arms through the water. “Have you any siblings?”
Richard had to breathe deeply for a moment before replying. “A younger sister. She is responsible for my presence in England, as it happens. Her husband was an Englishman, and when he died suddenly last spring, I came with all haste to help her. She has two boys.”
