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Chapter One

Southsea, England. May 1, 1814

“You need a wife,” Lady Evelina Summersby announced, the gilded parlor door slamming behind her loud enough to rouse her husband from his newspaper. He peered over its orderly columns and across the breakfast-strewn table with a curious, bemused air while her bachelor brother regarded her without comment and returned to his letters as if she hadn’t spoken at all. Though paler and sterner than usual, his sister’s countenance remained beautiful and too robust to humor unreservedly, and he had no intention of rising to her bait. Her husband was in better humor.

“I seem to recall having one?” General Edward Orville, Viscount Summersby, hero of Orthez, raised a brow that would’ve sent an entire peninsular division running for cover. Evelina sniffed.

“How very reassuring. Your infrequent correspondence has led me to wonder on occasion, but in this instance, I was speaking to the Major.” Her slender arms crossed as her furious hazel gaze landed on her errant sibling with the force of a blow, knocking his steward’s latest vexing letter clear from his mind.

“Please don’t start.” Major Tristan Ruthven had left Toulouse two weeks before, enduring destroyed French roads and a rough Channel crossing that lasted a full week thanks to recalcitrant winds. A wretched night’s sleep in a comfortable bed had not improved his patience. Summersby’s rented apartments were nicer than any Tristan had enjoyed in at least two years—especially if one figured in the lack of gunfire and cannons in the distance. Though as a busy port, Southsea made a fair approximation of the endless clamor of an army camp. He rubbed his face, wishing the pile of mail in front of him was a better shield from his sister’s glare.

“I’ve been telling you for years, Tristan. And now you’re the seventh Earl of Asherton, with two little sisters, one brother, and a ward to look after. And not one thought in your head for what to do with them, let alone father’s bloody estate—”

“Language, dear heart.” Summersby’s reproof would’ve sounded more authoritative if he hadn’t been chuckling. “People will start calling you the next Billingsgate.”

“Diversions won’t work, Edward. Tristan needs to consider his future. He’s thirty now, and it’s past time—”

“God’s teeth, can’t I be on English shores for a full week before you start this song, Evie?” Tristan corked his ink and carefully laid aside his quill in case an urge to throw the items at his sister’s pristine white muslin dress became overwhelming. They did not yet know whether Louis would throw France back into the Revolution, the ink of Napoleon’s abdication announcement was still wet, and she insisted on twittering on about marriage. His eyes matched Evelina’s in both color and stubborn glint as he met her gaze. “Let it alone.”

“No.” She took a seat in the delicate, red-upholstered chair beside her husband’s, still glaring. “Cecilia doesn’t deserve to be playing governess and hostess for an empty house, the little ones are all but feral since our dear stepmother flitted off to Italy, and now you’ve dragged home that little waif of yours—”

“Lydia isn’t mine. I keep telling you.”

“No one cares about that fact, Tris. You come carting home stray orphans, they become yours. Especially ones that call you papa.”

“I have tried to talk her out of that.”

“Not strenuously.”

“Any conversation with a child of four is strenuous. I assure you.”

“A wonder you keep her if she’s such a trial,” Evie shot back.

“Summersby keeps you, though you’re far worse.” Tristan almost regretted the words as Evie’s lips parted in shock, but he couldn’t help bristling on his ward’s behalf. Lydia Wilder’s parents died two years earlier during the chaotic retreat from Burgos. Captain Wilder took a shot to the right eye at the eastern bridge fending off the French attack. Another officer’s mistress pulled the wailing Lydia from her dead mother’s arms only to fall exhausted into a ditch days later, from which she never arose. Tristan had closed her eyes himself and picked up Lydia. He couldn’t leave her. Countless crying, hollow-eyed little ghosts drifting through clouds of Spanish dust already haunted his nightmares. He’d helped when he could, as had many others, funneling surviving children back toward Lisbon and the stationary regiments where many an orphan was raised ad hoc in barracks and tents. But Tristan owed Wilder better than letting his daughter land in an orphanage.

“Not so bad as you then, as it seems no woman wants to keep your sorry—”

“Ho there, Ares and Athena. No warfare before dinner. Skirmishes only by daylight, please.” Summersby set the newspaper down with a certain finality to its rustling pages. “My wife may not have chosen the timing of her battle well, but her cause is just, Lord Asherton.”

Tristan groaned. “Don’t start the titles, Summersby.”

“Would you prefer Major Ruthven?”

“Yes,” Tristan said readily, earning a laugh from his brother-in-law and a huff from his sister. “I wish to hell that coronet was boring a hole in Arthur or Lance’s thick skulls. They’d know what to do with it.” But Arthur was dead of rotten wounds taken somewhere in America, and Lancelot was at the bottom of the Atlantic with the rest of his crew and passengers.

Evelina’s expression softened, and she swallowed hard. “Wishes won’t bring them back, Tris. We must make do with things as they are now.” Summersby put a gentle hand on his wife’s shoulder and leaned over to kiss her temple—the most ardent show of affection Tristan had seen from him since arriving in Southsea. Ever since learning of Evie’s pregnancy, Summersby treated her like a spun glass figurine. Though considering how noisily sick she’d been for most of the last two days, perhaps that was for the best. “I wanted to give you more time, little brother. Truly. But I can’t. The doctor’s insisted that I refrain from travel. He’d have me wait out the whole wretched time here! He acts as though Bath is the West Indies.”

Meaning Evelina couldn’t accompany them to London or be available to chaperone Cecilia. And if childbirth went badly… But he couldn’t think of that. He had been arguing and reconciling with Evie since their own births, not even a full year apart, and couldn’t imagine the world without her. Lancelot and Arthur were older, much absent, and even worse correspondents than Summersby—he mourned them, but he was in some ways accustomed to their absence. True, he’d spent fifteen years mostly apart from Evie, yet letters, presents, and his infrequent leaves from the army had kept them close.

Tristan risked a glance at Summersby whose expression appeared equally adrift. Wellington had dispatched the General from Spain two months ago, tasked with raising fresh recruits while nursing a recurring fever. Now he found his wife’s health becoming fragile while his own rallied, and he needed to be elsewhere as the allies scrambled to fully suppress and disperse Napoleon’s surrendered empire. “Of course, you will return to Merfield,” Summersby murmured in what he no doubt intended to be reassuring tones. “We will take the trip very slowly and in the most comfortable carriage I can find.”

“I’m sure our own will do just as well,” Evie replied.

“Perhaps. I’ll speak with the doctor. New springs and fittings might help alleviate some of the danger.”

“Do you suppose a carriage spring is likely to stab me in the stomach, dear?”

Tristan leaned forward. “Evie, don’t bite his head off for being concerned.”