“Your father would strangle me before I got to the end of the sentence.” Evangeline pressed her fingertips to her forehead and inhaled loudly. “Joan, dearest, you must understand. I never had children of my own. Your parents paid me the greatest compliment they could have when they left you in my charge. I don’t pretend that I know what it’s like to leave a child to someone else’s care, but I know I would throw myself in the Thames if something happened to you—and not merely to spare your father the trouble of doing it himself. Please, my dear, dear girl, please don’t try to make my heart give out by going ballooning again.”
“I didn’t know we would,” she replied in a very small voice. “Tristan didn’t tell me.”
“Nor did he tell me, more fool him!” said her aunt tartly. “I shall speak to him about that.”
“Very well,” she whispered, thoroughly cowed now.
Evangeline hesitated, then shook her head and went to the cabinet in the corner. “A year of my life, gone in one morning!” She unstopped the brandy and poured herself a generous finger. “It’s a good thing I never had children; I would have made a terrible mother.” She tossed back half the brandy in one gulp.
“Oh, don’t say that!” Joan hurried across the room. “I’m very sorry. I shouldn’t have gone. I just—I just didn’t think of it that way. It seemed a daring adventure, and there were the ropes, and Tristan said it would be perfectly safe ...”
Her aunt eyed her closely. “And you don’t get enough daring adventure on your own, do you?”
It seemed disloyal to Mother, but she shook her head anyway. She didn’t. Whether it meant she was a wild hoyden at heart, ungovernable and reckless, or that she was a very disappointing daughter for being unable to respect her mother’s teachings, all she knew was that ballooning had been one of the most thrilling things she’d ever done in her life. When the car left the ground and Tristan gathered her into his arms to steady her, she’d felt alive and nervous and exuberant all at once, and more excited than ever before in her life.
Evangeline took another sip of her brandy, then put the glass down. “Come here.” She led the way to the sofa and patted the cushion near her. When Joan took the seat, Evangeline leaned forward. “Was it exciting because you’ve always longed to go ballooning? Was it exciting because your mother doesn’t allow you to venture off much, and it was just the chance of doing something new?” She paused. “Or was it exciting because Lord Burke took you?”
She blushed. “I’m sure it would have been the same with anyone else.”
Evangeline raised one eyebrow. “Oh? It didn’t have any special meaning because Tristan was there?” She drew out his name for significance, making Joan realize she had been calling him that since she returned.
“He did ask me to call him by name,” she defended herself. “I’ve known him since we were children, and he’s such firm friends with Douglas, and of course I wouldn’t call him by name in public. But as for the rest ...” She lifted one hand and let it fall. “I suppose all of those things made it exciting.”
“I see. And yet you remain convinced he has no intention of marrying you.”
“He didn’t mention that, no.” She avoided her aunt’s gaze.
“And if he were to mention it ... ?”
Joan didn’t say anything.
“I thought as much,” said her aunt gently. “Why do you believe your mother is so set against him?”
“She thinks he’s wild—and he is,” Joan added, trying to be fair to her mother. “He can be rude and arrogant and completely indiscreet. He doesn’t care what people say about him, and you know how Mother prizes propriety.”
“And yet?” Evangeline prodded. “What has changed your mind about him?”
She closed her eyes. “I never had such a thrill as today,” she confessed. “And he arranged it just for my enjoyment. He infuriates me, but partly because he often says the things I long to say but dare not. I look forward to seeing him because there’s something irresistible about him: it’s like a contest I grow more and more determined to win every time he confounds me.”
“He’s a very handsome fellow,” remarked Evangeline. “And I must say, he hasn’t been rude in my hearing.”
She squirmed. “I think Mother’s opinion of him was formed at an early date, when he came home with Douglas on holiday from Eton. They got up to so much trouble, even Papa raised his voice with them.”
“Nonsense. It would be cruel to hold a man’s childhood antics against him.”
“He hasn’t done much to redeem himself since then. He reinforces Douglas’s dissolute inclinations and seems to thrive on being wicked.” Joan sighed. “She made me swear not to dance with him again.”
“Ah. And does your father share this disdain for Lord Burke?”
She blinked. “I’ve no idea. I can’t recall ever hearing his opinion of Tris—Lord Burke. Most likely he agrees with Mother, though.”
For the first time a faint smile touched Evangeline’s mouth. “That would be hypocritical of him! I daresay a ballooning outing would have been just the thing to appeal to my brother when he was younger, although he wouldn’t have wanted any ropes tying him to the ground. Lord Burke reminds me a great deal of your father at the same age, to be perfectly honest. And I well remember how he changed when he met your mother.”
Sometimes notorious rakes fall in love ... “How did he change? I cannot imagine Mother falling for a scoundrel.”
“He was a scoundrel until he wanted to please her,” said Evangeline. “And she disdained him at first—oh, yes!” She nodded at Joan’s amazed expression. “She wouldn’t dance with him, and when he begged to know why—he was considered a catch, you know—your mother told him exactly why. He gave up his worst friends, curtailed his gaming, and kept asking her to dance. I know gossip held that she played him like a fish on a line and tamed him to her hand, but if he hadn’t wished to win her favor, it wouldn’t have mattered. For her, he changed some of his habits, and she grew to understand him and accept the rest.”
She nibbled her lip. “But what about you? You said you didn’t love your husbands.”
