“Then I completely withdraw my invitation,” she said lightly. “I wouldn’t dream of disrupting Mrs. Murray’s plans for you. Of course your companions would miss you.” She made a little face of amused resignation. “And I should hate to be blamed for taking you from them!” She went to the open door and peered up at the sky. “It begins to look like rain again,” she said, wishing she’d never asked him to stay.
Richard followed her, touching her arm. “Clemency wants me to join a gentleman’s club,” he began.
She turned and tapped one finger on his lips. “You don’t owe me an explanation, or any information at all about your activities. I am not your keeper, darling.”
He caught her wrist. “No, I—I will tell you. Not because I must, but because I don’t wish to keep anything from you.” He paused, searching her face. “I am to dine with Lord Allen and some of his friends this evening, at White’s.”
Allen. Her stomach dropped. She suspected Allen knew about her first tryst with Richard, four years ago; it had been his benefit ball, for goodness’ sake. She didn’t knowhowhe could know, as she and Richard had slipped out separately and Fanny, the one person who did know, wouldn’t have told a soul, especially not Henry Allen.
But somehow, immediately after that ball, there had been a renewed burst of gossip that Lady Courtenay was up to her old tricks, seducing decent men at fashionable parties and tempting them toward ruin. Her own sister-in-law had written to her about it, half indignant that it might be false, half worried it might be true. Evangeline had tried to reassure her, but she knew Marion—who was respectable, social, and very fashionable—would have listened to every whispered word.
And Richard was dining with that treacherous, beastly man. She forced a pleasant look to her face. “I hear the new chefat White’s is an improvement on the previous. I shall be very surprised if he is better than your cook, though.”
He was still looking at her with an odd expression. “My sister believes it is a very English thing to do, dining at a club. I agreed to it, to please her, but I have grave doubts I will enjoy it.”
“Well, you cannot know until you try it, can you?” Her smile felt more confident now, and she gave his chest a little pat. “Allen has a reputation for knowing his wine, so in that respect at least it should be an enjoyable evening.”
A thin line formed between his brows. “You don’t object to my going?”
Of course she wished he wasn’t going to dine with Allen—Allen, of all people, Court’s dear friend who had blamed her for Court’s miserable demise, whose wife would happily spread vitriol about her around all of London. If Evangeline had her way, her world would never again intersect with that of the Allens.
She raised her brows. “Why should I? He’s obviously an admirer of yours, and your sister approves. If you wish to dine with him, you should. My opinion hardly matters.”
“It does,” he said in a low voice. “To me.”
She hesitated. The temptation to saydon’t gowas powerful—but she had removed those words from her vocabulary, with him. He was not hers; she was not his. She was not in love with him, and didn’t want him to fall in love with her. She didn’t.
With a poise she didn’t feel inside, she looked him right in the eye and said, “Go, by all means.”
Chapter 19
Richard regretted it the moment he walked into White’s.
Instinct had told him not to go, this afternoon. He’d noticed Evangeline’s mood dim the moment he said Allen’s name; too late he remembered what Allen had said about her, four years ago. It was idiotic to think she didn’t know how the man felt about her.
But she’d told him to go, and he, riven with indecision, had gone, because not going would have meant telling Clemency and having to endure her pestering about why. She knew about his infatuation with Evangeline, obviously, but he hadn’t gone out of his way to tell her how much time he spent with his lover. His love.
The line between lover and love was becoming thinner and fainter with every hour he spent with her. She’d told him not to fall in love with her; how could he help it? She was beautiful. She was clever, and funny. She would argue with him about topics both trivial and weighty, and then burst out laughing at the end. She was kind, especially to animals—Richard lived in daily expectation that he would wake to find Hercule had slipped out of his house and gone to live with her and Louis—and warm andso sensual in bed that he would swear his skin grew electrified when she touched him.
And here he was, dining with a man who didn’t like or respect her.
“Is it too late to reconsider?” he muttered to Gerhard, whom he had pressured into coming with him.
“He has seen us,” reported Gerhard, peering over Richard’s shoulder as they relinquished their coats to the footman. “It is too late.”
“Damn,” he said under his breath, straightening his shoulders and striding grimly into the club. It was old-fashioned and stuffy, to his eyes, the sort of place where men whose families had been indolently wealthy for generations would feel at home.
“Campion!” cried Allen, beckoning with his free hand. His other hand already held a glass of wine. “Marvelous to have you join us, what? And Rieger! Welcome, welcome! Come, I’ve taken a private dining room this evening.”
Allen introduced them to his friends. Sir Paul Brentwood. Lord Arthur Dunstan. Mr. Edward Parker-Philips, and Viscount Halesworth. They all seemed particularly English to Richard, with their schoolboy nicknames and casual arrogance. Brentwood was called Woody, Parker-Philips went by Stumps, and Halesworth was Swole. Dunstan apparently had the ridiculous title of Nimblesticks. Allen alone seemed to have escaped. Richard didn’t look at Gerhard, who would find it all as ridiculous as he did.
But they had done this before. Granted, he had been more enthusiastic several years ago, talking about his travels and where they hoped to go next, mindful of the fact that sponsorship would be immensely useful, but he had not forgotten how this game was played. He summoned a cordialsmile and greeted each of them as if they were destined to be real friends.
Sir Paul was keen to hear about their journey into Mongolia, while Parker-Philips kept asking about their improvised flight through Russia, when Napoleon had invaded virtually on their heels. He was very disappointed when Richard told him they had been able to move much faster than the French army, and had only seen Moscow burn from a safe distance.
“A bit less dramatic than I expected,” he complained. “Not having to exchange fire with the damned French.”
“But far more beneficial to our health, not to be shot on the Russian steppe,” replied Gerhard.
