Eve tried to wrap her mind around that bit of information. She shook her head. “No.”
“Ravenworth reportedly bedded her and refused to take her to wife. Her father called Ravenworth out. The two fought a duel with pistols, resulting in Mr. Jenkins getting shot in the shoulder. He missed Ravenworth, who claimed victory, but after what happened, Ravenworth never showed his face in polite society again. Nobody invited him. His own family, from what I hear, refuses to have anything to do with him anymore.” Margaret winced. “He even had a fiancée at the time. Naturally, the lady called off the engagement and chose to marry someone else.”
“And Miss Edwina Jenkins?” Eve asked. “What happened to her?”
“She moved away. From what I gather, her father was able to get her married to a widower who wasn’t too picky about her lack of innocence.”
Eve frowned. “Was Ravenworth actually caught in a compromising position with her?”
“It is my understanding,” Margaret slowly told her, “that he was found in the middle of the act.”
Eve’s back went rigid. “Are you certain of this?”
Her friend leveled her with a frank stare. “It is what people say.”
People had also said Eve’s father was prone to violence after he’d yelled at a woman who’d chosen to comment on his lack of responsibility toward his children. As rude as the woman had been, her statement had been apt, though she’d been wrong to start spreading falsehoods simply because she didn’t like how Papa had reacted. He’d never struck another person in his life, and yet word suddenly had it he probably beat his daughters on a regular basis. The pitying looks Eve and her sisters began to receive had been disheartening. Worst of all, nobody had believed them when they’d insisted their father would never take out his anger on them.
“People say a lot of things, Margaret. Only half of it is true, if that.”
“You don’t believe me?”
Smiling, Eve reached out and squeezed Margaret’s hand in a gesture of reassurance. “I believe you think you know the facts. What I don’t believe is the verity of these facts.” She shook her head gently. “Ravenworth didn’t bed Miss. Edwina Jenkins. I’m not sure what might have happened to make people think he did, but they’re wrong. He has been falsely accused.” She knew this in her heart as easily as she knew her own name.
Margaret stared at her as if she were mad. “How can you be so blind, Eve?”
“How canyou?”
Margaret sat back in her seat. She drew her hand away from Eve’s. “Very well. Explain your reasoning to me. Tell me why I’m wrong to think he did such a thing.”
Eve considered the man she’d come to know, of how generous he’d been and how well he’d treated her, even when he’d admitted to his desire for her. “Because he has had every opportunity to seduce me during my stay here, and yet he refrained. He didn’t even attempt to kiss me. Not for lack of wanting to, for I have no doubt in my mind he did, but because he refused to compromise me any more than I already was by remaining under his roof.”
“Are you saying he never made any advances?”
Eve nodded. “He said a few things he probably shouldn’t have said, but he kept himself under control. Which is just as well, since I fear I would not have been able to resist him if he had tried to lure me into his bed.”
“Eve!”
Margaret’s expression suggested she was thoroughly appalled, but Eve merely shrugged. “It is the truth. Besides, you are my dearest friend and a married woman to boot. Surely I can confide such things in you?”
“Well, yes, I suppose so,” Margaret said a little grudgingly. She bit her lip. “It is merely surprising to hear you talk so candidly on such a taboo subject.”
Eve smiled. “I don’t think I would have done so five days ago, but after meeting Ravenworth and getting to know him… Do you realize he strode through snow and freezing rain to save me after I tried to make my own way to you? I sprained my ankle in the process, and he carried me back here, ensured my every need was met and—”
“Not every need, I suspect,” Margaret murmured, prompting a bit of sputtered laughter on Eve’s part. She slapped Margaret’s shoulder, and for a moment, the two of them shared an amused bit of amicable silence.
“The point is, I think he has been misjudged.”
“And if he hasn’t?”
Expelling a breath, Eve pondered her friend’s question. She didn’t believe it was possible for a second, but if it were… “Then he is not the man I believe him to be. In which case I’ll never see him again. But first, I intend to speak with him. Not once did he share the details of his unpopularity with me. He simply concluded I would not choose a man whom Society would not welcome and determined, therefore, that the past didn’t matter.”
Margaret shook her head. “Men can be so thick sometimes.” She puffed out a breath. “They think they know best and deny us the chance to make an informed decision.”
Suspecting her friend might be speaking from experience, Eve made a mental note to ask her to elaborate on that point later. For now, however, she had a difficult earl to contend with. “I love him though. So if I’m right and he never did ruin Miss Edwina Jenkins, he’d better prepare himself for a few choice words and a hard fight on my part.”
“You hope to marry him, don’t you?”
“I think it goes without saying. If he’ll have me, that is.” She didn’t even dare suppose he wouldn’t.
