“You do not have to be afraid. I promise to behave myself. I am utterly harmless.”
His expression, most amused by his own words, put the lie to his reassurance.Come with me and I will show you the most wicked delights,those teasing eyes promised.
“I am not afraid of you, sir. Your horse, however, terrifies me. Could you keep back a bit more?”
He held back, but still followed. “Are you going to the town? It is some distance. At least a mile.”
“I would not accept a ride with you, even if I had five miles to walk. Please, be on your way, and I will be on mine.”
A nod of acquiescence. He turned the black beast, trotted down the lane, then halfway up the drive to the house. He then sat there looking at it. He had given up the game because something interested him more than dallying with her.
Eva looked back one more time before the bend in the road took the rider out of her view. He appeared magnificent, withthe breeze blowing back his hair so his fine profile cut the sky, his gaze absorbed and pensive. If she were a good artist and not just a middling copyist, she would feature him in a grand composition full of dashing action. Instead, she painted his image on her memory.
Her ruined shoes did not bother her on the half mile to her family home. Nor did the clumsy weight of the painting. She smiled all the way. How bad can a poor spinster’s day be when the most beautiful man she had ever seen in her life flirts with her?
***
How like Percy to let the property go to ruin. Percy had known he would never win in Chancery, so while his lawyers kept the case languishing in court, he had simply let time devalue the object of the contest.
Gareth rode out his frustration, galloping hard. By the time he handed the stallion over to a groom at an inn, the worst of his anger was gone.
The next day he rode into Coventry much recovered. He had a lot of practice at swallowing disappointment, and had learned early that if he allowed Percy to ruin his mood for days on end, he handed Percy a victory.
Besides, Percy was dead. That thought alone made the day sunnier.
He dismounted in front of an elegant house of more than average size. No ruin this, but then Percy had never been able to touch what their father had given to Mrs. Johnson. Gareth hoped that Percy’s last thought had been one of fury over how neatly Father had worked that out.
Mrs. Johnson received him in her delicate drawing room. He strode over, bent, and kissed her. Her arm encircled his shoulders so the kiss became an embrace.
“It is so good to see you, Gareth. I assume you have heard the news.”
He settled into a chair. “I returned as soon as I read about it, Mother. Terrible news. Just terrible.”
His mother maintained a sober face, but her eyes sparkled at his ironic tone. “Yes, terrible. He was still so young. Why, what, thirty-three? So sudden and unexpected too.”
“A tragedy.”
“Have you been back to Merrywood yet?”
“I thought I would see you first. I will head there in the morning.”
She reached over and patted his arm affectionately. He rarely had to explain much to his mother. They were of like minds, just as surely as they were of like visage. His eyes, his nose, even his mouth came from her. Had Allen Hemingford, the third Duke of Aylesbury, been less sure of her he might have suspected Gareth was not his bastard at all. Instead, he had accepted his mistress’s claim, and fulfilled his contract to her.
That contract, worked out when she was eighteen, had not only provided this house, a carriage, servants, and an income for life. Being shrewd, she had also insisted her children by the duke be provided for, and be allowed to have the surname Fitzallen in the ancient way—bastard of Allen. Percy had never been able to interfere with the income Gareth received, either. The house near Langdon’s End was a different matter. Aylesbury had left that to him in a codicil to his will. Percy had contested the legacy before his father was cold.
Not that the income came close to his mother’s. On it, he could live as a gentleman bachelor with a decent degree of fashion. Asit was, however, almost all of it went to the lawyers pleading his case in Chancery.
So he had found ways to augment it. Fortunately, he inherited his mother’s shrewdness, and doing so had not been too difficult after finishing the education also provided in that contract. An eye for art had helped.
Other gentlemen might not invite him to their parties and would never introduce their sisters and daughters to him, but his blood meant they might trust him to find a buyer when they had a collection to sell. With the economy in shambles these days, a great deal of art was changing hands. It was the sort of occupation that did not reek of trade, since he did it all as a favor for everyone involved.
“You just returned, you said.” Mrs. Johnson spoke while she served the coffee one of her servants had brought. She was entitled to four of them. There had been a Mr. Johnson for a short while. Perhaps as long as a week, Gareth guessed, before the man took the healthy payment made to him and sailed to America.
When the duke had met Amanda Albany, she was unmarried. An innocent. What the duke wanted was not done with unmarried girls. So he arranged a marriage for her, with an army captain by the name of Johnson. Only it was not Johnson’s nuptial bed to which young Amanda Albany had gone that wedding night.
“I disembarked less than a week ago. Why? Does it matter?”
“It may. I have been in correspondence with old Stuart. You remember, the footman with the limp. He and I have remained friends since Allan died. He says there is some question about Percival’s death. The coroner has left the entire matter open, and investigations are being made by the magistrate.”
