“You’ll need to travel with Evie to Hawkridge.”
“The devil I do,” he snorted. “It’s out of the question.”
“But you know that with my travel sickness I’m far better suited to make the trip in the brougham. And with all of my art supplies, another person simply wouldn’t fit. At this stage, it would take another hour, at the very least, to prepare the second town coach. Then you wouldn’t arrive at the estate until well after sunset. It only makes sense that you and Miss Thorncroft share the conveyance that is ready to depart immediately.”
“No,” he said flatly.
“West…”
“No. Absolutely, unequivocally,no.”
Chapter Two
“Mint?” Evie asked,prying the top off a circular metal tin and holding it out to the Earl of Hawkridge. “I find on long journeys there’s nothing worse than stale breath.”
“Oh,” Weston replied icily from the far corner of the carriage where he sat wrapped in shadows and silent disdain, “I can think of at least one thing worse.”
“Suit yourself.” Slipping a hard peppermint between her lips, Evie used her tongue to press it to the roof of her mouth as her gaze went to the window. They’d exchanged the busy streets of London for the rolling countryside of southern England. Here the houses were few and far between, with more sheep dotting the sprawling green fields than people.
The passing scenery reminded her of home. But unlike Joanna, who was boarding a ship at this very moment to return to the sleepy village of Somerville, and their sister, Claire, who’d been unable to leave it, Evie knew that she was exactly where she wanted to be. In a fancy carriage, sitting across from a handsome earl, on her way to an exclusive house party.
Of the three sisters, Joanna was the boldest. Claire, with her quiet scientific mind, was undoubtedly the brightest. But Evie, more than anything else, had always desired to be thebest. And for her, that meant having the unparalleled admiration of her peers.
She’d started her quest for prestige at a young age when she’d made herself into the most popular girl at Chesterbrook Academy for Young Ladies. Some thought that popularity was accidental, a whim of fate, such as it were, but Evie knew that it was much more than that. It was hard work, and cunning, and knowing just the right thing to say to just the right person.
There were those (including Joanna) who considered her aspirations to be superficial. Silly, even. But having her peers gaze at her with envy as she sauntered down the street wasn’tsillyto Evie. Having the best, most beautiful gowns wasn’t silly. Living in the biggest house in the entire village wasn’t silly. Marrying Evan Bridgeton, the eldest son of a senator, wasn’t silly.
It was smart, and practical. It was using the natural traits afforded her as a woman to thrive in a world controlled by men. And ifoccasionallyshe became a bit too consumed with how she looked or how others perceived her, well, that was all part of it.
For all intents and purposes, Evie was on the verge of living a perfect life. She was going to marry the best bachelor in all of Somerville (even if he didn’t know it yet). They were going to have the best children. Host the best parties. Travel to the best places. It was all but etched in stone, really.
Until the War of the Great Rebellion happened and Evie lost…everything.
Including her father.
A skilled physician, Jacob Thorncroft had felt it was his civic duty to help the Union in whatever capacity they needed him. Leaving his three daughters in the care of his mother, he had marched off to war…and ten months later his remains were returned to them in a pine box.
To this day, Evie had never known pain like that. The bewildering, baffling hurt of realizing the last time she had held her father’s hand, kissed his cheek, and told him that she loved him had been just that…the last time.
In her head, she’d understood the risk of war. What it could give, and what it might take. But in her heart…in her heart, she’d never really believed that it washerfather who might be killed.Herfather who might never come home.Herfather who she would never see again.
It still ached, to think of him. Like a bone that had broken and never set right. Enough time had passed that the ache was no longer sharp enough to steal her breath, but all it took was a color, or a smell, or the sound of a deep laugh and she was found herself recalling all of the memories they had made together.
And mourning all the memories they never would.
Without their father’s financial support, it wasn’t long before the sisters were forced to sell their grand house in the middle of town. With tears in her eyes, Evie had watched from the window of her empty bedroom as all of their worldly possessions were loaded into carts and carried away to be sold at auction.
The servants were let go next, and then the carriages were sold, followed quickly by the horses. In the blink of an eye, the Thorncrofts went from being one of the wealthiest and most highly regarded families in Somerville to living in a drafty cottage outside the village with hardly enough room to accommodate the mice living in the attic, let alone three young women and their grandmother.
It was a tremendous fall.
A fall that Evie took personally.
And she’d promised herself, she’dvowed, that the day would come when she returned to the top of that ladder. She would claw her way there if necessary, but she’d be damned if she stayed on a rung where people looked at her with pity in their eyes.
“Would you stop that?” Weston said irritably, drawing Evie out of the past and back into the present.
Blinking, she glanced away from the window to where her carriage companion was slouched in the opposite diagonal corner, his long legs sprawled out in front of him and his arms crossed.
