“Spend as much time there as you like. Sketch if you want. I will tell the housekeeper to unlock the doors if you ask. It isn’t as if you are going to steal any of them.”
She gave him a peculiar look, then laughed. “Oh, goodness, of course not. I may be committed todisegno, but I would never have designs on Aylesbury’s old masters.”
“Since you promise to be good, I will see about obtaining entrance to some other private collections.”
Another odd look.
Suddenly, up ahead, Rebecca froze in her tracks. She pivoted and hurried back to Eva. “Hide me.”
Eva took her sister’s hand. “Whatever—?”
“He is here. Of all the bad luck.”
Gareth saw the source of Rebecca’s distress. He nudged Eva, and drew her attention to Sarah and Wesley. A man had just greeted them, and they now chatted with him. Mr. Mansfield. Gareth doubted Mansfield’s arrival in London had been a coincidence.
“You cannot be rude,” Eva said. “I am sure he will be on his way in a minute.”
Their steps brought them to Sarah, who beamed. “Look who is in town, too, Rebecca.”
Eyes downcast, Rebecca greeted him and made a small curtsy.
“It was very bad of Sarah to make him come,” Eva whispered. “Rebecca is quite vexed, and I do not blame her.”
“Your cousin is tenacious, that is certain.”
Not only tenacious. Sarah proceeded to prove she could best most mothers of the ton when it came to throwing a girl and a man together. Somehow, and Gareth missed just how, Sarah and her husband walked on a few steps ahead of Rebecca and Mansfield, with Eva and he in turn following a few steps behind. Which left Rebecca alone to chat with Mansfield.
Which in her pique she did not do.
“Oh dear, she is very, very vexed,” Eva whispered.
“The park is a rustic pleasure in town, is it not?” Mansfield said.
“For those who live in town I suppose it is a pleasure,” Rebecca said. “Since I live in the country, I do not appreciate the respite as much.”
“Surely nature is always a refreshing and welcomed experience,” Mansfield said. “I am told there are poets and philosophers who believe its contemplation can lead to a transcendent experience.”
Eva grasped Gareth’s arm.Transcendent?she mouthed.
“He has been reading up,” he murmured.
“There are indeed,” Rebecca said, sounding like a governess. “It is an old idea born anew recently. It has had several periods of popularity, and derives from Neoplatonist philosophers who first wrote soon after Rome’s fall. One of its proponents was Dionysius the Areopagite, whose works survived to kindle a revival during the twelfth century—”
Eva rolled her eyes. Gareth pantomimed sliding a noose over his neck and jerking up the rope. Eva bit back a laugh until hereyes teared. She then made the motions of loading a pistol with a ball and powder and turning it on herself.
Enjoying the park far more than poor Mr. Mansfield, they trailed in Rebecca’s wake while Rebecca droned on, giving Mansfield a most detailed lesson on Neoplatonism down through the ages.
***
Eva read a book after she prepared for bed. She anticipated enjoying the sleep of the righteous. She deserved some benefit from being good today.
Walking with Gareth in the park had been much harder than she had expected it to be. She had known their affair could only be temporary, that each day it continued increased untold risks for her. She had not known, however, that ending it would be so hard. The more they laughed and joked like friends today, the less she saw him as a friend.
If he had taken her hand and dragged her away to have his way with her, she was not sure she would have found the strength to resist.
Not that he had done anything close to that, or even shown much inclination to do so. Oh, there had been a few mildly flirtatious smiles and looks, and a few innuendos about their past passion, but on the whole, Gareth seemed to have swallowed his promise and their renewed “friendship” without any indigestion at all.
Despite being tired, she tried to focus her thoughts on her book. She feared that when she slipped into bed, a phantom Gareth would be there too. That ghost might invade her mind and arouse her body, and seduce her into thinking any risk was worth embracing the real man again.
