“If you all felt that way, there was probably good reason.”
He raised her hand and kissed it, as if grateful she did not scold him. “I became a lawyer specifically to annoy him. It was a small revenge. He lectured on and on about how it was beneath us for me to do this, and I would listen and nod, listen and nod. When he learned I had discarded his advice and preference, he became a madman. I enjoyed the fit it gave him.”
“Was it not reckless to goad? He became the next duke. He had the chance to exact some revenge, too, I would think.”
“Only financial, but Lance and I were left portions from our mother, and my father provided for Gareth. Percy tried to use allowances to get us to heel, but we chose not to become his dependents. He would have made that hell.”
“I have no siblings, good or bad, so I find it sad that you had a brother who did not know how fortunate he was. I have often regretted that I have no sister or brother. While I do not envy you your brother Percy, I get wistful when I see the rest of you together.”
Again that kiss on her hand. An apology this time? Or an expression of pity? His attention remained on the horse and the road, but she wondered if his thoughts hadturned to how they met, and what waited in London. She had little family, and soon might have none at all.
The lane angled up a steep hill. At the top a lovely vista waited. They looked down on an autumn countryside dotted with farmhouses. A village’s homes clustered in the distance.
“This is beautiful, Ives. For someone who has only known cities, it looks like heaven. So open and so peaceful, and so very quiet.”
He jumped out of the gig and tied the horse to a stump. He came around and unbundled her from the blanket, then helped her down. “We can sit here for a while, if you like.”
“I would enjoy that.”
He spread the blanket on the ground. She sat and he joined her. For a few minutes she just feasted her eyes on the prospect beyond and below.
“How did the dressmaking session go this morning?” he asked.
“Very well. Eva is very talented at remaking dresses.” She turned her attention to him. “Did you ask her to do that?”
“That is not how I provide my lovers with new wardrobes.”
“They expect better, I suppose.”
“It is not a matter of expecting, so much as requiring, Eva. I am at a disadvantage with you in many ways. I dare not offer you what I normally offer, lest it offend you.” The look in his eyes invited her to fix hisdilemma by declaring she would not be offended and would like having a new wardrobe too.
Which she would. What woman wouldn’t?
“It would be easier for you if Iwerean opera singer, you mean,” she said. “Then everything would be normal. Since it is not, you do not know what to do about me now, do you?”
“No.” He took her hand. “That is not true. I know what I am supposed to do. In such a situation, a gentleman offers marriage.”
“I do not think I would want that.” Especially if it were because he was supposed to do it. Only in her heart she truly did not want that. He would be the scandal of the year if he married a woman whose father was in Newgate for counterfeiting, and suspected perhaps of much worse.
Then there was the matter of the trial. She worried now that if Ives did not prosecute, someone less honest and more ruthless would. If there had been one misgiving last night, it had been that she did not bind him to her cause, but instead might force him to abandon the entire case.
“Ives, perhaps it would be better if we did not—”
“No. At least not yet. Of all the choices, I reject that one. Unless you insist, of course.”
He expected her to choose now. Did it end here, on this hill?
She gazed out at the peaceful land. “How different this is from London. So far away from it in more than distance. I might be in a different world, that is hownovel and new this place is. Magical.” She looked at him. “I rather like how separate it is from what waits for me there.”
There were reasons, good reasons, why she should indeed insist, but they were also far away and right now, sitting here with his strength beside her and the intimacy a recent memory, none of that seemed to weigh much.
“I will not insist, even if it would be the wise path. Of course, not succumbing to begin with would have been the smartest thing, for both of us. I will not insist. At least not yet, as you said.”
Her answer pleased him.
“If you are not the kind of woman I normally have as a lover,” he said,“I have concluded I have to rethink things. Do it differently. It should not be too hard.”
“Do what differently?”
