The thought struck like a blade. His mother had been a beacon of kindness, gone too soon, his only chance at a happy childhood extinguished with her.
“No need to be nervous, laddie,” MacLeod went on, his tone deceptively mild. “You’re the only one of ’em ever gave a damn about this dwelling, kept Langley breathing while the rest would’ve let it rot. Long before your brother’s passing. Time to let that farce in the city go. If Lady Isabella’s got sense, she’ll see the man you are.”
“I’m not nervous.” Ever could tell his damnably perceptive valet that Isabella had seen through his façade the instant they met. She wasthatclever.
However, none of this was real. Ever saw little sense in laying bare the private history of his life to someone preparingto leave it. Such revelations demanded a listener who would stay. Once spoken, the most fragile truths could not be gathered back, and he had no desire to spend them on a passing attachment.
Though he’d claimed otherwise, he had no wish for a broken heart.
“I’m not nervous,” he repeated as the silence began to pulse like the wound on his back.
MacLeod’s gaze flicked up, vividly amused. “Of course you’re not, laddie.” He brushed an invisible speck from Ever’s superfine coat, gave the dark lapel a decisive tug to settle it, then steered him, firm as ever, toward the door. “Yer guests are waiting.”
Ever moved along the narrow corridors, his stride softened by worn runners, the air cool and faintly scented with decay and beeswax. Langley Park carried a quiet dignity he’d always admired, as though the walls remembered every footstep that had crossed them. From deeper in the house came the low murmur of conversation—Isabella’s lively voice threading through it, her family gathered in the dining room, warmth and life spilling into spaces long fallen silent.
Death had a way of leaving things unfinished, and Ever had inherited more than ancient stone and an ailing title—tenants, a village that depended on Merevale, obligations that drained coin faster than he could earn it. The burden weighed heavily on his shoulders, heavier still because he revered every stone in the place. Every blade of wilted grass.
Isabella was right. He could marry. He could marryher. But if that day came, if he was not already too late, he wanted the union to be genuine. Not a remedy, not a rescue, but a choice made with the same fidelity he felt for his home, neglected though it was.
He wanted a woman who would cherish him, as he hoped, quietly and fiercely, to cherish herin return. He’d had enough of lone nights, broken promises, and false identities. He’d had enough ofrunning. While Isabella might be drawn to him, binding her to marriage while she was still discovering what she wanted, when longing could so easily be mistaken for certainty, felt like a theft he refused to commit.
Ever slowed, stopping just short of the dining room entrance, hesitation tightening his steps. Inside, the chamber glowed with candlelight, the air rich with the promise of food and conversation. A footman moved among the guests with glasses balanced on a silver platter while another tended the fire, sparks leaping and settling in the stone hearth.
He might have lingered, content to let the servants finish their circuit and the fire burn lower, if Isabella had not looked up. She didn’t call out, only set her glass aside and came to him, as though it were the most natural thing in the world.
As if she belonged at his side.
“You’re just in time,” she said, looping her arm through his and leading him into the room, the gesture making his heart pound in both warning and benediction.
She’d changed gowns for the evening, radiant in a serene shade of ivory. He let her take charge, accepting the glass of brandy she pressed into his hand before she led him to her brother, Weston, and threaded the talk with steam engines and trade, with an ease that pleased him more than it should have.
It had been ages since Ever entertained as himself, the sixth Earl of Merevale, and not the buffoon.
Or the spy.
Like the rest, she’d sensed his apprehension.
Dinner unfolded easily, and unexpectedly, he enjoyed it. Isabella sat at his right, her sister Penny to his left. The children were upstairs with a maid—four of them, he was fairly certain—and earlier he’d heard them racing along the upper halls, laughter ricocheting down the corridor. The soundcaught him off guard, bright and unchecked, as if joy here required no apology.
When, as a rambunctious child, he’d been forever forced to apologize.
Talk wandered from one subject to the next, settling at last into a cycle of family teasing over dessert and the final glass of wine. The ease of it was foreign to him, and its absence in his own upbringing stirred an unwelcome pang. When the attention turned to Isabella, he hoped the sharp shift in his focus went unnoticed, for he was keenly interested in her.
“Remember the time she embroidered advice onto the hem of Aunt Clara’s pelisse?” Penny’s fair hair caught the candlelight as she laughed, her fondness for Isabella plain beneath the teasing. “And then stood astonished when no one thought to consult it?”
Isabella shot Ever a swift glance, an adorable blush stealing across her cheeks. “I was all of fifteen, Pen. Lord Merevale doesn’t care to hear about that.”
The Duke of Mercer inclined his head. “Society may pretend to prefer its women unremarkable, Isabella, but I’ve found the memorable ones are always the making of a man.”
Weston leaned back in his chair, his expression openly admiring as he gazed at his wife. “Or his undoing.”
Ever spoke without thinking, his tone mild but his conviction unmistakable. “One submits to the whole business of society, its Seasons and rules, in hopes of finding something rare. A woman who can best a man at billiards is certainly rare.”
A brief stillness settled over the table, followed by knowing looks and amused smiles. It occurred to Ever a beat too late that he’d revealed more than he intended. Disconcerted, he straightened in his chair, resisting the urge to do more than lift his glass to his lips and murmur against the rim, “If one is fortunate enough to encounter her.”
An admission that only worsened his position.
The conversation shifted, as it always did, into safer channels, though his new business partners believed him to be the same besotted fool they were. Chairs scraped, laughter resumed, and someone proposed the parlor—cards for those inclined, music for the rest. The Duchess of Mercer, it emerged, played the pianoforte with decided skill.
