Page 7 of Wicked Highland Heroes

Chapter Two

“Eve,” her father said to her back, “in less than a day, the news that you shot Lord Rushton has spread across England like wildfire.” Eve paused in leaning over the conservatory’s roses she was watering and released a sigh before moving to the next rosebush, as he added, “The story has set Society on its ear. A fact evidenced by these.”

She twisted and looked across the camellias at him. He held up a silver tray piled with cards and invitations.

Eve shrugged. “My mother and sister have always enjoyed an active social life.”

“Indeed?” He picked up an invitation. “Lady Hamilton.” He dropped it and picked up another. “Lady Roxeburgh.” He tossed the card beside the others and pulled another from the pile. “Lady Morton—she was, last I heard, in London.”

“Manchester is a favorite of London society,” Eve replied. “Especially this time of year, before the height of the London Season.”

He dropped the card onto the mound and set the tray on the small worktable to his right. “These invitations, one and all, include your name.”

Eve grimaced and once again faced the roses. “The gossipmongers are looking for fodder. The fact I shot the earl will silence any gossip that I was fraternizing with him.”

“You are damned fortunate the magistrate has not demanded your arrest,” he snapped. “I cannot hush things up as I did last time.”

“You will never forgive me, will you?”

“You ran away with the one man I forbade you to marry, and will not marry the one I command you to wed.”

She inhaled the roses’ scent. “Lord Rushton has no wish to marry me and I have no wish to marry him. Why should we do something we both hate?”

“Because you have no choice.”

“Rubbish,” she said. “My choice is to not marry him.”

“That is not a choice, Eve. Unless…”

She knew that unless. “The answer is no, just as it was last month.”

“His calling card is among the others,” her father said. “He will forgive you, even believing you compromised yourself with Lord Rushton.”

Eve had no idea why her father thought Lord Somerset held her in such affection, but kept silent.

“You have not told me why you will not consider his suit.”

“I do not love him,” she replied.

“You are too old to be choosy.”

She turned. “Thank you, Father.”

“It will be one or the other. Your involvement with Lord Blane pales in comparison to this escapade.”

Of that, Eve wasn’t so sure.

In the five years since her connection with him ended, Lord Blane had proven himself to be a gambler—and a bad one at that. His father had paid his debts in the sum of eight thousand pounds, and yet Lord Blane continued to gamble. All those years ago, when he’d presented himself to her father as her lover and the father of the child he swore she carried, her father wrote him a bank draft with the agreement that he disappear into Scotland or France for at least a year. Eve fully expected to one day read in the paper that his body had been pulled from the Thames. The dull ache that had once been sorrow at a love lost was now sorrow for a life wasted. Despite his deceit, Blane wasn’t a bad man. The compulsion, the disease, was consuming him. He would eventually succumb completely and make a wager even his father couldn’t, or wouldn’t, cover.

“Do you not want children?”

Her father’s tone and the question jarred her. “What am I teaching my children if their father doesn’t love their mother?”

“Respect.”

“That is not enough of a reason to marry, even for the sake of bearing children.”

A knowing light entered his eyes. “You forget to whom you are speaking. You are a strong woman, but you are a natural woman.”