Gerhard eventually took lodgings in London, explaining that he might as well be in town where there was more chance of finding company, and Richard hardly noticed his absence.
Don’t fall in love with me,whispered Evangeline’s voice in his memory.
Too late, my darling,was his silent reply.
Evangeline never toldRichard about Marion’s visit. She never told him what Fanny related in the days after, that wagers had been placed on their relationship, and that they were now fixtures in the gossip rags, with all manner of wickedness and indecency ascribed to both. She never told him that she had chosen him over her family and society.
He had stood up for her. Not with a stern word in private, as George had done with Ramsdale, and not by countering ugly gossip, as Fanny tried to do. Richard had pulled a foot-long knife on Stephen Halesworth, in a dining room at White’s, of all places, and told him—in front of Lord Allen and other men of consequence—to close his mouth about her, or Richard would make him. And his friend had not talked him out of it, but had backed him up.
No one else had ever done that for her. Marion recoiled from anything scandalous, and pressed George to do the same. Her own father had sold her into marriage to an old man and a rakehell, on the grounds of preventing scandal. Her mother had offered nothing but empty expressions of the gratification she should find in doing her respectable duty, which had been the biggest load of tripe Evangeline had ever heard.
Richard chose her, publicly and unreservedly. He was wrong to act as he had, of course—he’d all but told White’s entire membership, and by extension the entire ton, that they were lovers, and implicitly threatened anyone who spoke ill of her.Sooner or later the proximity of their respective homes would become public knowledge, and the gossips would feast on it.
But she... did not care. She didn’t care if every living soul in London believed him to be her lover; hewasher lover, and she had never felt a moment of anything other than satisfaction or delight at that fact.
She stopped going to London. Instead, they rode together and took long, rambling walks. They took holidays to Cornwall instead of Brighton or Bath. Solly, with some encouragement, created a theatrical group with the servants of both households. Sometimes Richard’s nephews, on holiday from school, would participate, too, and send them all into gales of laughter. They attended private parties and dinners hosted by friends, and occasionally an opera.
Neither ever mentioned it, but both knew and understood that theirs was an attachment that excluded all others. Evangeline had never been so happy in all her life.
She didn’t spend time pining over what could never be. It hurt that Marion was willing to cut her off over something as unreliable and cruel as gossip. She supposed she ought to be angry at George for allowing it, but she expected he had done like she had, and chosen his wife over all others. She did miss seeing Joan, but every time she thought of her brother or her niece, the entertainments in London she had exiled herself from, she would catch sight of Richard and remember that she had made the right choice.
Until six years later, when a letter arrived in the hand of a Bennet footman. She tore it open to see a plea from her brother. Marion was ill—dangerously so. George was taking her to the seacoast immediately. He needed someone to chaperone Joan in their absence.
There is no one else I can trust so well as you to see that she is not sunk into melancholy or grief about her mother,he wrote.Please help me.
Included was a brief note from Marion herself:I would be forever in your debt, Evangeline.
It was forgiveness, acceptance, a chance to return to the embrace of her family—everything she had told herself she did not regret losing, but somehow still yearned for, deep in her heart. Evangeline clutched the letter to her breast for a moment, before calling for Solly to pack her trunks as she wrote her reply:Of course I will come.
Then she went to tell Richard.
Chapter 23
1822
“Solly! Goodness, where did my straw bonnet with the blue ribbons go? Do you think I shall want it, if we drive in the park?”
“I’m sure I don’t know,” returned her companion, who was folding stockings. “But it will be possible to send for it, if you want it later.”
“What? Oh, yes,” said Evangeline in distraction. She went into her bedroom, then turned around and came back out. “And my satin slippers. I suppose it’s very likely I shall have to attend a ball?—”
“They are already packed,” Solly assured her.
Evangeline pressed one hand to her temple. Good Lord. One would think she was moving her entire household permanently to London, instead of just herself for a few weeks. “Do you think—?” she began at the same time Solly held out her bonnet and gloves.
“Perhaps,” said Solly gently, “you should go on, and I will follow with the baggage.”
Evangeline looked at her and grimaced. “I’m interfering terribly with the packing.” Solly agreed with a wry smile. “Then I shall go. Oh! I must deal with Louis... Louis! Where is he?”
“He must be here. Perhaps he has tucked himself into a trunk and hopes to be spirited along.”
Evangeline laughed, but it was bittersweet. She couldn’t take the dog with her. Marion would never want a dog in her house. But Louis was a perceptive little creature. He was almost surely hiding from the tumult in the house, afraid of what it presaged.
She told her coachman she wanted to go to Humberton Hall before departing for London, then went in search of Louis. She found him in the conservatory, under the chaise. “There you are,” she said, getting down onto her knees and leaning down to look at him. “Come out, sweet pup.”
He just looked at her.
“Come here, my Louis,” she crooned, extending her arm under the chair to stroke his fur. “Come to your mama.”
