Table of Contents

Cover Page

Praise

Excerpt

Dear Reader

Title Page

About The Auther

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Epilogue

Copyright

Praise for Laurel Ames’s previous titles

Besieged

“A must read for anyone with an ounce of romantic blood…”

—Rendezvous

“A romantic tale that will capture your heart! Wonderful!”

—The Literary Times

Playing To Win

“A truly delightful and humorous tale…”

—The Paperback Forum

“…a pleasure to read.”

—Affaire de Coeur

Homeplace

“Ms. Ames has a tremendous talent…”

—Affaire de Coeur

“…the perfect summeread…”

—The Literary Times

Teller of Tales

“…so hauntingly good.. it seems impossible that this is her first published work.”

—Affaire de Coeur

Evan released her and jumped back as though expecting a blow.

“I suppose that was a demonstration of strength against weakness,” Judith said hotly.

“No, for women are the strongest of all. Father may think he is in charge, but he must report in to Helen each night.”

“She does what he says.”

“She may perhaps give an inch here or there, but eventually she will win the war and he will do what she wants even if it means getting rid of me. You could be such a woman. I am yours already.”

“I don’t want you.”

“That’s not true,” he said, taking a step closer. “Those lips don’t lie well.”

“I must not want you!”

“You, perhaps, should not want me, but that doesn’t change the fact that you do…I”

Dear Reader,

Fans of Laurel Ames and the Regency period rejoice, for this month Ms. Ames is back with her new novel, Tempted. This RITA Award finalist is known for her unique characters, and her current hero, military engineer Evan “Mad” Mountjoy, is no exception. Add a heroine with an indiscretion in her past, and a little intrigue, and you have the perfect mix for what Affaire de Coeur calls an “exciting, unusual, and delightfully quirky Regency.” Don’t miss it.

Ana Seymour’s sixth book for Harlequin Historicals, Gabriel’s Lady, is a heart-warming Western set in a goldmining town in the Dakota Territory. It’s the story of an eastern do-gooder who heads west to rescue her brother, only to fall in love with his disreputable partner.

For those of you whose tastes run to medieval novels, look for Knight’s Ransom, the next title in Suzanne Barclay’s dramatic ongoing series, The Sommerville Brothers. And Emily French rounds out the month with her emotional tale, The Wedding Bargain, about a Puritan woman who defies her community to marry a bondsman with a tortured past.

We hope you’ll keep a lookout for all four titles wherever Harlequin Historicals are sold.

Sincerely,

Tracy Farrell

Senior Editor

Please address questions and book requests to:

Harlequin Reader Service

U.S.: 3010 Walden Ave., P.O. Box 1325, Buffalo, NY 14269

Canadian: P.O. Box 609, Fort Erie, Ont. L2A 5X3

Tempted
Laurel Ames

www.millsandboon.co.uk

LAUREL AMES

Although Laurel Ames likes to write stories set in the early nineteenth century, she writes from personal experience. She and her husband live on a farm, complete with five horses, a long spring house, carriage house and a smokehouse made of bricks kilned on the farm. Of her characters, Laurel says, “With the exception of the horses, my characters, both male and female, good and evil, all are me and no one else.”

This book is dedicated to my computer expert husband, Don, who makes all the books possible.

Chapter One

Devonshire County, England

April 1814

Two riders moved up the road through a light rain. It was not wet enough to force them to seek shelter, especially considering that the red Royal Engineers’ uniform of the slighter man had already faded much from the weather, and the worn batman’s uniform of the larger man covered a frame so substantial it would have taken much to melt him. The young captain rode stiffly, as though it hurt him to move, his servant with a relaxed slouch, partly owing to having to lead two horses loaded with baggage.

They came not to a ruined Spanish village nor to some godforsaken Portuguese valley, but to an ordinary English country house. “It looks different than I remember it, Bose,” Captain Mountjoy observed.

“We haven’t seen it for ten years, Evan lad. Recollect you were little more than a boy when we left.”

“I was fifteen. I think I would have remembered something of Meremont.”

“As I said. Let’s see if this grandmother of yours is still alive.” The older man urged his hard-muscled horse to a shamble and rode not to the main house, but to a smaller house set off to one side. He dismounted, and his mount gave a sigh of relief, waiting patiently as its rider rapped at the door, then tried to peer in a dusty window.

“It’s shut up,” Evan said sadly. “Gram must be dead. I surmised that when her letters stopped. We may as well go.”

“Go? You mean leave again without even inquiring? Are you forgetting I might want to find out if Joan has been true to me after all these years?”

“Sorry, Bose. I am a selfish lout I was forgetting you have a reason to come back here.”

“You have, too. You are the eldest son. There is something owing to you.”

Evan winced. “No. I don’t mean to go up to the house. You go round to the kitchen and ask after Joan.”

“While you wait here in the rain? We’ll ride down to the stables, at least pull the horses in out of this weather for a bit. If you’ve turned chickenhearted on me you can cower there.”

An unexpected smile stole over Evan’s tired face as he turned his mare and trotted it toward the stable block. They dismounted, and Evan took the bridles as Bose sprinted for the house. The stable boys gaped at Evan, then turned out to attend to a carriage and pair that arrived unfashionably at the back door. The lady who descended from this equipage cast a dark look at him and, rather than entering the house, strode across the courtyard, muddying her hem on the cobbles.

“Who might you be?” she demanded.

“Captain Mountjoy, ma’am.”

“And I am Lady Mountjoy, now,” she claimed, with a challenging tilt to her chin. “I married your widowed father in good faith and with certain expectations. I tell you plainly, sir, you are not wanted here.”

“I know that,” Evan said with a certain glint in his brown eyes. “I only came to inquire if Gram—my grandmother— is still living.”

“She died in January. She left you something, I believe. You may consult with her lawyers in Bristol.”

“No, don’t unsaddle them,” Evan said gently to the wide-eyed stable boy, passing the lad a coin.

Lady Mountjoy did not like being ignored. “There is nothing for you here,” she insisted.

“I know. I’m only waiting for Bose to come back from the house. Is everyone else…well?”

“We go on perfectly fine without you. There is no entail, you know. Nothing need be left to you. Nothing has been left to you.”

Evan’s heart thudded to a stop. “Father—he’s dead then?” His voice was high, like a boy’s. He staggered a little, but the mare propped him up.

Evan took the woman’s silence for assent. Why would this come as such a shock, since his father had never once written? And why would it hurt so much? He scarcely even remembered him.

“She’s here!” Bose crowed, “and as happy to see me as the day I—pardon, ma’am.”

“Who’s here?” Lady Mountjoy demanded.

“An acquaintance of mine—Joan.”

“And she is also, as I recall, a servant of mine. Keep your distance from her,” the woman warned, her blue eyes flashing.

“Bose, this is the new Lady Mountjoy.”

“And the new mistress of Meremont. Now be off with you, both of you.”

Bose opened his mouth to protest, but Evan said, “It’s all right, Bose. I had not meant to stay.” The young captain remounted wearily, and his mare stared round at him, realizing the oats and hay she had been contemplating were not to be hers. He rode out, leaving Bose to follow, but stopped and turned at the road to take a last look at his home as he waited for his batman to catch up with him.

“I think I used to call it Merry Mount when I was little. I cannot remember why. I was never merry here.”

“You can’t just leave. You have certain rights!”

“Apparently not. I knew he had remarried from Gram’s letter. She said the new Lady Mountjoy was very protective of ‘her’ children’s rights. I can scarcely blame her. We’ll put up in the village till you see your Joan again and settle if she is to come with us or no.”

“To where?”

“Most likely America, after my leave is up. Though with the war, they may not let her…Bose! How thoughtless of me. You can leave the army, marry Joan and raise fat children here.”

“Not bloody likely. I’d not have a moment’s peace, not knowing what scrape you had got into. We will put up in the village, though. Can’t push these horses much farther, anyway.”

Bose had seen a rider approaching at a trot and gaped in such a way that Evan stared at him.

“So, you’re home!” boomed the old man in the saddle.

Evan twisted involuntarily and gave a grunt as he strained his cracked ribs. “Father!”

“Did you mean to just ride by without even stopping?”

“No—yes,” Evan gasped, as the constriction in his chest relaxed and relief flooded through him like a strong draught of brandy. “I thought you were dead.” He shook his head to clear it of the giddiness. So his father was not dead, after all. Now why had Lady Mountjoy bothered to lie to him?

“All the more reason for you to stop, eh?”

“No! I—”

“Well, you are stopping now. We have things to settle. Your grandmother has left you her entire fortune. She always did favor you over the others.”

“Only because no one else cared about me.”

“Nonsense. I have always treated you fairly. Too fair to deserve being ignored for ten years.”

“But you never…” Evan faltered, for his father had ridden on toward the stable, and Bose had followed with the horses that carried all his dry clothes. He really had no choice but to stop. Oddly, he did want to stay, to speak to his father again. As he rode back to the stable he vaguely wondered if he had been forgiven after all this time. No, that was too much to hope for.

* * *

Evan rode in and dismounted with a grunt. Molly, his mare, snorted her approval of his coming to his senses and went gratefully with the groom.

“Well, come along,” his father demanded. Evan followed the older man to the back door through what was by now a downpour, then down the hall to the library.

Evan looked about him uncomfortably. “You’ve changed the room about.”

“No, we haven’t,” stated his father, looking up from the decanter and glasses. “It’s always been this way.”

“This isn’t how I remember it.”

“You were no more than a boy when you left. It’s only natural things would look different to you.”

Evan ignored his father’s invitation to sit, but stood turning himself by the fire, until the worst of the rain had dried off his clothes. The uniform did not actually dry, of course. Rather, the water seeped through to his skin, making him feel clammy. But this was such a familiar sensation by now that Evan did not regard it. Accepting a brandy from his father reminded him of his recent shock and subsequent relief. He should have known the old man would be too stubborn to die. This last thought brought a puzzled frown to his face. Why had Lady Mountjoy lied to him? Had the desolation he must have shown pleased her? He didn’t care. He could not say that he loved his father, but it was disquieting to think of him dead.

“As I said, your grandmother has left you pretty well off. Rather cut up poor Terry’s expectations.”

“Terry?”

“Your brother, remember?”

“Yes, of course. I wasn’t thinking.”

“You are not famous for your thinking.”

Evan smiled. Nothing in all these years had changed. If his father had welcomed him with open arms he would have felt strange indeed. To be cut at, though, was such a familiar feeling he quite liked the man for it. His first impression was that his father looked unfamiliar. The hair, though full and magnificent, was white, the face lined, the body thickening perhaps a bit around the middle. Still and all, he was a fine figure of a man, but not one Evan remembered well except by his voice.

“What happened to your face?” his father asked.

“What?”

“You’ve a bloody great scar under your lip and, now that I look closer, one on your forehead.”

“I scarcely remember. They do not signify.”

Lord Mountjoy tugged at a bell, as he had already done several times.

“Bose must be turning the servants’ hall on its ear,” Evan offered.

“No doubt you are right. Stay here. There is someone I want you to meet.”

Evan had an uneasy feeling he knew whom, so he poured himself another brandy and took up a position by the fireplace so that he could gauge his effect on his new mama to the full.

She entered the room, toying nervously with a lock of her brown hair. Her cheeks flushed when she saw him, and she sent him a forbidding stare. She almost taunted Evan to say aught against her.

“May I present Lady Mountjoy? My son, Evan.”

“So pleased to meet you at last, dear ma’am.”

“Likewise.” She plopped down in a chair and continued to stare at him with a puzzled look. He had not snitched, and she could not fathom why.

“May I get you something, my dear?” Lord Mountjoy asked. “Oh, where are the girls?”

“They took the pony trap to Wendover. I expect they will stay there until the rain lets up.”

“You’ll meet Judith and Angel at dinner, I’m sure.”

Evan recalled Gram mentioning that the “new Lady Mountjoy” had some younger sisters.

The door was pushed open by a boy of six or so in ruffles and short coats. He ran to Lord and Lady Mountjoy expectantly, and Evan felt an impulse to warn him not to foist the pup he was strangling onto his father. But the boy laid the whining animal on Lord Mountjoy’s knee with impunity. Smiles softened both their faces, and Evan knew a pang of remorse. His parents had never smiled on him in such a way, not that he could remember. And this was the same man who’d had nothing but gruff admonishments for him, to stand up straight, or take the food to your mouth, not your mouth to the food.

Lord Mountjoy glanced up, and the genuine smile was replaced by a forced one as he introduced Evan to his new brother, Thomas. Thomas shook Evan’s hand in quite an adult manner. Evan knelt and smiled his own genuine smile, hoping the child would fare better in this house than he had.

There was a firm knock at the door, followed by the entrance of a prim woman in cap, apron and gray gown, whose worried face split into an indulgent smile when she saw the child. “I might have known…” she said, then started when Evan got up from his kneeling position. Her face grew wary, angry almost, and she glanced sharply at Lady Mountjoy to see if this stranger was permitted to touch her darling. Evan had thought that the wispy hair escaping her cap was gray, but he now saw it was blond, and that she was, in fact, not old.

“This is my oldest son, Evan,” Lord Mountjoy said. “This is Nurse Miranda.”

Evan had a frosty nod bestowed on him.

“Run along now, Thomas,” Lord Mountjoy said. “You can keep the pup in the stable, not in the house.”

“Yes. Nasty, dirty thing,” Nurse agreed. “You must not bring it into the nursery again.”

“I must go, too,” Lady Mountjoy said, getting up and leading Thomas to his nurse. “I suppose we should kill the fatted calf if there is time.”

“I’m sure you shall contrive something equally fitting, my dear.”

Evan watched them depart and wondered what the nurse would say to the boy about him, perhaps that he, too, was a nasty, dirty thing that should be kept in the stable. He felt a moment of dizziness overtake him as he put down his glass, and he rested his hand on the table until it had passed. It was caused not only by the brandy, but by riding so many miles in an unfit condition, plus two more or less sleepless nights and a weariness he could no longer shake.

“I hear Bose in the hall. You may have your old room. Terry has Gregory’s and I see no point in displacing him.”

Evan flinched a little at his dead brother’s name and left the library without a word. He climbed the stairs on knees that ached for days at a time now. Twenty-five years old and he was falling apart. He stopped uncertainly on the landing. Then he seemed to hear Gram’s voice reciting, “Your room is at the top of the stairs on the left.”

“Will I ever live there again?” an uncertain voice—his own, he supposed—asked.

“I don’t know, child.”

He went toward that door, not so much because of the voices in his head but because of the thump of baggage coming from within. He entered and sat on the bed, to marvel numbly at Bose’s eternal energy. It was a small room with a fireplace across one corner. The furniture consisted of no more than a bed, a small desk and a hard, wooden chair. Evan’s baggage was piled under the window. It was not as he had remembered it and yet he could not say what was wrong.

“You look all in, lad. Give me those wet clothes and roll up for a nap until dinnertime.”

“Perhaps you should be the captain,” Evan joked as he rose to strip off his wet uniform. He crawled between the covers, naked except for bandages, and let the sheets dry and warm him.

Evan awoke with a certain stiffness hanging about his limbs. He stretched and relaxed, then took a deep breath and grunted at the stab of pain. It was such a familiar pain by now that he ventured to think the ribs felt a shade better. The knees still ached. “Bose?” he asked experimentally.

“He’s asleep, but I can wake him if you really need him,” the woman said as she set her sewing aside and got up from the small chair by the window.

The voice was firm, but gentle, and Evan regarded her in puzzlement. It was not that it was odd for him to wake with a woman in his room, but he usually remembered who she was. And of this beauty he had no memory at all. That fine tawny hair, those kind blue eyes and that kissable mouth— those he would have remembered.

“May I get you anything?” she asked, coming to stand over him.

“Just your name. I seem to have mislaid it.”

“Judith. I’m your aunt, now that I think of it,” she said with a chuckle.

“Uh, I don’t have an aunt.” And if I did, he thought, she wouldn’t stir me like this.

“You do now. Two of them, though I dare say we are both younger than you. Angel and I are Helen’s sisters. But I should not be teasing you when you are not even awake.”

“Nor should you be here,” Evan said, remembering his naked state.

“I caught Bose preparing to curl up for a sleep outside your door, so I sent him to his own room.” She had trouble keeping her eyes from straying to Evan’s chest and shoulders.

“We have been away from civilization too long.”

“Is he always like that—a faithful hound?”

“More like a bossy nanny most of the time. Now that I come to think of it, I’m surprised he let you send him off.”

Judith shrugged and smiled. “Do you need him?”

“No, let him sleep. Believe it or not, he was the one who wanted to get here in such a hurry.”

“Ah, yes, our Joan. She has spoken of nothing else since you arrived. She said you rode a hundred and fifty miles in less than three days, and in this weather.”

“It’s what we’re used to.”

“Yes, I know,” she said sadly.

“You—you have been following the war, then?”

“I have read the accounts in the Times,” she said warily, unwilling to let him know she had read his letters to his grandmother.

“I should have liked to read those papers myself, to see if the reports bear any resemblance to what really went on.”

“Gram saved them. I will find them for you—later. Perhaps you should not come down to dinner tonight. You have a bit of a fever.” She almost touched his forehead, as she had while he slept, but stopped herself in time.

“Oh, I shall do,” he said cheerfully, sitting up and revealing the bandages around his chest.

“Yes, I’m sure you will,” she said, whisking out of the room and closing the door behind her before he could see her blushing.

Judith closeted herself in the room she shared with Angel, and leaned against the door until her heart settled down to a more normal rhythm. She had helped nurse Terry when he was wounded, but had never felt like this. Perhaps it was because Evan was exactly as she expected—handsome, fine and hard muscled, with that understated masculinity. His straight brown hair fell across his brow most charmingly, and the scar under his lip crinkled when he smiled. His eyes were brown and brooding, as though he was always thinking of something else.

She must get a grip on herself. Between the two of them there could never be anything. He was Lord Mountjoy’s heir and must marry someone of his own station. And that was the least of the reasons.

Why had she so fastened on his character to the point where she fantasized about him? She realized it was because she envied him. He might have been spurned by his father, but he had not whimpered and cowered in some corner. Instead, he had done something with himself. She wished she could have led such a life, hard though it might have been. She had got from his letters a sense of his belonging where he was, of making a place for himself, just as she tried to do.

She had heard all about him from Gram, but without his letters, she would have known only what he’d been like as a boy. Reducing war news to mere asides, his missives were filled with rollicking tales of camp life, foreign foods and customs. One would have thought he was a young man on a grand tour, with safe conduct through all those foreign parts, rather than a soldier in the thick of battle.

Without knowing it, Evan had made her laugh. Unconscious of her existence, he had made her care about him. And he had been a comfort to his dying grandmother without knowing she was dying. Judith had wondered if any man could ever read as well in person as Evan had on paper. Now she knew.

Owing to his falling asleep again, and Bose’s not coming to his room until close on five o’clock, Evan was the last to enter the library, where the family gathered before dinner. It was evident to him, as he scanned their faces, that he had been the subject of their conversation. Lady Mountjoy had high color again, his father was stern, Judith sympathetic. The younger girl—Angel, as she was introduced—looked on him with particular interest. He caught his breath, for she seemed too young, too beautiful to be real. But then she blushed and dropped her eyes and became all too human. Had she faced him down he might have liked her better. A figure moved toward him, one who reminded him vaguely of himself. “Terry?” he asked uncertainly.

“Hallo, Evan. We thought you was dead.” Terry shook his hand and left a mist of brandy fumes in the air.

Evan was still struggling for a reply when Lord Mountjoy helped his wife to her feet. Evan would have been inclined to fall in beside Judith, but Angel pushed past her and appropriated his arm. Judith rolled her eyes heavenward in such an automatic response that Evan grinned in spite of himself.

“You don’t look that old,” Angel confided, staring at the lines around his eyes. “I was thinking twenty-five was very old, but you don’t look much older than Terry.”

Evan smiled and nodded, wondering how he was going to make it through the evening. He sat up straight at dinner. He hadn’t much choice, the way Bose had strapped up his cracked ribs. And he remembered to take his soup to his mouth and not crouch over his food like a hungry animal, as Terry was doing at this moment. Evan could remember many occasions recently when he had hunched ravenously over a crust of bread or a piece of half-cooked meat. But there was a time and place for everything. In his father’s house he could not help but sit at attention as he ate.

Evan glanced at Lord Mountjoy, who was staring at Terry. But his father merely shuddered and looked away. Was it possible the old tartar had mellowed? Evan did not care to find out. He remembered his dizziness from before and took only enough wine to dull the ache in his knees. Riding did not bother him in the ordinary way, not even riding for long stretches at a time, but he had been badly trampled at Bordeaux the previous month, and now a dull ache would creep down to his right knee in particular, nagging at him for days on end. In spite of Angel’s opinion, he felt worn-out, used-up and numb to anything else that might happen to him.

“I think the courtesy of an answer is due your brother,” Lord Mountjoy demanded.

“Sorry, I was not attending.”

“I only asked if you had seen many battles,” Terry repeated.

“Yes.”

“There’s your answer, Terry—yes, he has seen many battles,” Lord Mountjoy quipped.

Evan smiled. “Such conversation is not particularly good table fare, not for children, anyway.”

Angel raised a belligerent chin, as did Terry.

“In that case we shall leave you to your port and your talk of war,” Lady Mountjoy declared as she rose with dignity. Judith left them with a sad smile, Angel with a definite flounce.

Evan realized the meal was over, though he had scarcely touched the food on his plate.

“You always were able to clear a room,” his father said with satisfaction.

“I don’t remember that,” Evan answered.

“You also have a very convenient memory.”

“I am not a child,” Terry interjected, a little the worse for wine.

“I never said you were,” his brother answered.

“Who were you referring to then?”

“Judith and Angel.”

“But Judith has got to be all of twenty-four.”

“Really? Why isn’t she married then?” Evan asked, wondering how such a treasure could have been passed over.

“No fortune,” Terry said.

“I shall provide for the girl,” Lord Mountjoy stated. “A very proper young lady she is, and the greatest help to me.”

Evan stared at his father, for now that he thought of it, one of their long-ago mealtime arguments had been over his father’s philandering. He couldn’t recall the memory so much as he could recite the conversation—his own condemnation and his father’s gruff and unconvincing defense.

“How is she a help to you?” Evan asked pointedly.

“Keeps my library in order, helps me write—damn you, boy, you have a nasty mind,” his father said as he caught Evan’s meaning. “How did you think she helped me?”

“I didn’t know. That’s why I asked.”

“I feel as though she is my daughter. She is too good, almost, for this household.”

“That I can belie—Pardon me,” Evan said, breaking off abruptly. “I was determined to be polite to you, since you invited me in. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t strain yourself. I am not used to any consideration from you.”

Evan fell silent again. Terry, who had been glancing from one to the other, took his turn at conversation. “So you were in a great many battles?”

“It has all blurred together for me, I’m afraid. I was always knee-deep in mud, working on siege parallels, or up to my waist in freezing water trying to shore up a bridge.”

“Didn’t you see any real action?”

“Enough to suit me.”

“Terry, he doesn’t want to talk about it,” their father said.

“Oh, you only had to say so.” Terry drained his glass.

“You are going to have a head tomorrow,” Evan observed.

“Sorry, it isn’t everyday one is displaced. I think I shall go straight to bed.” Terry rose valiantly, but wove his way out of the room.

“Whatever did he mean, and does he make a habit of that?”

“He is not such an aesthete as you promised to be, but no, he does not in general drink his meals.”

“I was wanting to ask about Gram. How did she die, I mean?”

“Who is to say what gives out? The heart, I expect, is what—”

“I know she was old. You don’t have to remind me of that. Was she…alone—lonely?”

“God’s death! Do you think I have no proper feelings, even for a mother-in-law? Of course she wasn’t alone. I was there, and Judith. If you want to know what she said, speak to Judith. She stayed with her more than anyone.”

“Thank you. I didn’t mean to accuse you of neglecting—”

“You have no right to accuse me of anything!”

A slight flush rose to Evan’s face, but he looked his father squarely in the eye—and read resentment and anger there. No surprise; it was what he expected. Evan saw disappointment, too. That also was no surprise. He had always disappointed his father, he thought. He simply could not remember all the details.

Lord Mountjoy got to his feet and walked steadily toward the door, leaving Evan brooding at the table. “Are you coming or not?”

Evan twitched at the summons and stood stiffly, to follow his father back to the library, where candles had been set out on the broad table to light the ladies’ embroidery and hemming. Their pale dresses and colorful shawls looked oddly out of place against the dark leather furniture. Evan could remember when the library had been a man’s haven and wondered that his father permitted this invasion of his sanctuary. He sat where he could watch Judith, and she gave him a sympathetic smile. He desperately wanted to ask after Gram, but only in private. He would wait.

The conversation was desultory, perhaps owing to Angel’s having taken a pout. She tsked over her embroidery. Judith, hemming seam after seam, appeared to be making a shirt. And Lady Mountjoy was doing delicate work on a garment so small it could only have been intended for… Evan’s eyes flew to her waist. Of course. She was in the early months of pregnancy. That accounted for his father’s solicitude, perhaps also for her irrational behavior toward him. He would have found out soon enough that Lord Mountjoy lived. Evan vowed not to make her uneasy during his stay. All he needed was to be accused of causing her to miscarry.

Judith was watching him, and now blushed a little, as though she could read his thoughts. Evan supposed her situation might be hard. It would be easy enough for them to turn such an amiable girl into a drudge. If she had been nursing Gram, perhaps they already had. Something must be done about that.

On the other hand he must remember that he had no say in anything. There was his grandmother’s bequest, though. Perhaps he could—

“I asked if those horses of yours are Andalusians,” Lord Mountjoy shouted. “Are you deaf?”

Evan twitched. “A little, from the shelling. Two of them are from Andalusia. The gelding I bought in Portugal. Bose is riding the horse he took with him from England. Odd that he should have survived when…”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“I only got a quick look at them,” Judith said. “What are they like?”

“Lovely when they are better fed. You can ride my mare when they are rested.”

“I don’t ride.”

“Would you like to?”

“No, I don’t care to,” Judith said softly.

Evan did not know how he knew it, but this was a lie. And there did not seem to be a good reason for it. She was blushing and looked tearful. He felt so bad about causing her any kind of pain that he excused himself and went to bed.

Bose had been waiting for him.

“So when’s the wedding?” Evan asked.

“Well, that rather depends on you,” Bose said, helping him off with his dress uniform.

“Me?”

“If we mean to stay, she’ll marry me on the spot. But if we are to be off junketing again, she isn’t sure.”

“Bose, this is impossible. You can’t link your future to mine. I have no idea what I’m going to do.”

“I was thinking we would give it a few days, see what the old gent means to do by you. He was always fair with me.”

“He was?”

“He paid my wages the whole time I waited on you at Cambridge, and sent us money in Spain.”

“I didn’t know that. So that’s why I always had something to eat even when no one had been paid for months.”

“It strikes me you don’t know your father very well. He seems such an amiable man.”

“With everyone but me. Yes, I agree, he can be quite charming.”

“Perhaps if you didn’t argue with him so much…”

“But I didn’t, at least not that I remember. But there’s a great deal I don’t remember from before the accident.”

“You were groggy for weeks…Sending you off to school like that was not well-done of him, but perhaps he regrets that now.”

“That’s past mending. All in all, I’m not sorry. In spite of having you to lean on, I think I amounted to more than if I had stayed home.”

“I agree. And an engineer might be much in demand in civilian life, unlike most of these soldiers.”

“You think I should muster out?”

“You’re not getting any younger.”

“Thank you very much. Whereas you, five years my senior, seem to get younger before my eyes.”

“That is because you are looking at a man in love.”

“Truly, Bose, you are sick of army life, aren’t you?”

“It’s time to move on to something new, time for both of us to move on. I only hope…”

“What?”

“That you won’t let your pride stand in the way of your future the way it did before.”

“Bose. I have been facedown in mud and blood so many times I don’t remember what pride is. I know we won a lot of battles, and that is some consolation, but for myself, I feel beaten by the war.”

“Then listen to your father when he talks. Don’t take everything he says amiss.”

“I shall be polite to him for your sake and Joan’s.”

“Polite isn’t enough. Be kind to him, for your own sake. If we ride away from here now, you might never see him alive again.”

Evan recalled how empty he had felt when Lady Mountjoy let him believe his father was dead, and knew Bose was right. If he left Meremont again, he would not return. It hurt too much, and he wasn’t entirely sure why this was so.

Chapter Two

Evan rose at dawn and dressed himself. He realized it must be hours until breakfast, so he took a walk to the stable to check on their horses. He then wandered down the lane toward the fields. If the house mystified him, the grounds disoriented him. He expected things would have changed, but there were huge trees growing where he did not even remember small trees. The only familiar parts were those Gram had described. He could call up her voice telling him about the lane with the bridge over the stream and the cottages beyond. And there was the small beech wood where one could walk quite unobserved from the lane.

Evan found a path that he must have taken as a boy. It had been kept open by some inveterate walker, and he felt a friendly sympathy for the unknown boy.

He sat down on a rock to rest and try to puzzle out the past, but the crucial memories eluded him. It seemed such a profitless task. He was what he was now. Why unearth memories that were likely to be painful?

He started at a movement among the new foliage, and almost dropped to a crouch before he remembered where he was. A lithe figure picked its way along the path. Not a boy though, but a girl, wearing a shawl and bonnet that looked old-fashioned even to a man who had been absent from England for years.

“Good morning, Judith,” he said quietly, so as not to startle her.

“I didn’t even see you there, you were so still.”

She sat down beside him, which spurred him to ask, “Do you often stop to rest here?”

“Not rest, just listen and think. The way through the wood is too short otherwise. I was just taking some bread to Mrs. Gorn. She’s quite alone now.”

“Isn’t that a job for Lady Mountjoy?”

She looked at him accusingly. “She would do it, if she could.”

“Sorry, that was a stupid thing for me to say.”

“Especially now that you know she is increasing. I saw your face when you guessed. You looked—well, satisfied, as though you had caught her out at something.”

“Did I?” Evan thought back over the previous agonizing evening. If his face was that easily read, they must all think him a cold, brooding fellow. “It had only solved a puzzle for me, about why she doesn’t want me to stay. Her irrational dislike for me makes sense in light of her pregnancy. Women do often act out-of-character when pregnant …don’t they?”

Judith hesitated, and Evan thought she was on the point of denying that her sister disliked him, but instead she asked, “Had you ever thought that perhaps that is the one time they are more truly themselves, when all that matters is the baby and providing for it?”

“I had not thought about it, but then I have not had much time to observe women, let alone wonder about them. You, for instance, are a complete mystery. I would have guessed you to be the type of person who likes horses, not hates them.”

“But I love them!” she said passionately, then looked away.

“But not to ride?”

“I drive tolerably well,” she said, clasping her hands in her lap.

He looked at the strong, competent hands laid against the faded material of her gown and inspiration hit him. “A riding habit. You need a new one, don’t you?”

“No, I don’t want one. What are you that you read my mind like that? It’s not fair.”

“That had to be it. You would love to ride, but you must have a riding habit to do it in. We will go into Exeter and buy you one.”

“We will not. What would people think of me? Men do not buy women clothes.”

“Not even their aunts?”

“I am not related to you by blood at all. It would be highly improper.”

“Improper for me to bring gifts to my family—all my family? You could help me pick out exactly what Helen and Angel would like. We’ll go before breakfast, if you can drive me.”

“I can’t. I have work to do.”

“What sort of work?”

“That’s none of your business.”

“You don’t strike me as the sort of person who would put your own interests before your family, even if it meant putting off your work.”

“No, of course not. I mean—”

“You were just using that as an excuse not to help me. Very well. I shall go myself. But I fully intend to buy you a riding habit, whether you want one or not. Of course, left to my own devices, I shall probably choose red, or make some other crucial blunder, but there you have it. I am a soldier and prone to blunder.” He got up decisively.

“No, you must not,” she said, jumping up.

“Not red?”

“No, you must not buy it at all.” She stamped her foot in frustration. “They will think I coerced you.”

“No one coerces me. Hasn’t Father told you how stubborn I am?”

“Time and again.”

“What else did he say about me?”

“Only that you were very unforgiving.”

“Me unforgiving? That’s a good one. Well, do you mean to come with me or no? For I am off now.”

“I will help you choose gifts for your father and the others, but you must not buy me anything.”

“Oh, well, half a loaf…Come then.” He held out his hand to her so commandingly that she took it, and he very nearly dragged her the rest of the way through the wood. She fetched it back when they came at last to the stable.

Before Judith fairly knew what had happened, they were on the road to Exeter, with not so much as her reticule about her, and Evan thrusting the reins upon her. She did not like being poor and resented being made to feel poor by someone she held in awe. She would rather have had her reticule, even if it was empty. But that was what she was like— a sham.

“We shall be late to breakfast,” Judith warned as Evan helped her carry the pile of packages from the stable to the house.

“I’m sure there’ll be something left for us. Then we will go riding and see if that habit looks as good with you on horseback as it did in the shop.”

Judith thanked him hastily and ran up the stairs with her plunder, leaving Evan to find the breakfast parlor on his own. The main hall ran from front to back; cross halls ran the length of the house. Evan opened several doors on the north end of the house before concluding that the shrouded ballroom, salons and drawing room were not much used. If they had been in use when he was a boy, he could only think that he had been barred from them, for nothing looked familiar. The south end of the house contained the library and dining room, what looked like a morning room full of sewing baskets and, finally, the breakfast parlor.

“Where the devil have you been?” Lord Mountjoy demanded of Evan as he sat down.

“Exeter, shopping. We have bought you some tobacco.”

“What nonsense! Haring off first thing in the morning to go shopping. I said I had things to discuss with you.”

“Oh, did you mean this morning?”

“Of course I meant this morning.”

“Could you please pass the ham?” Evan asked of Judith, who had just slipped in and seated herself.

“I want you in the library directly after we’ve eaten.”

“Sorry, I have an appointment,” Evan replied.

“A what? A what?” his father sputtered.

“Evan, it can wait—” Judith started to say.

“Judith has promised to show me the countryside.”

Lady Mountjoy frowned at her sister, and Angel increased her pout. Evan could not help noticing that Angel was dressed in a new muslin of the latest cut, and thought perhaps she was expecting a compliment.

“I should be available in an hour or two if that is convenient.”

“No, it is not! You be in the library in ten minutes—ten minutes!”

“No, I don’t think I can manage that. I suppose tomorrow will do as well.”

“No, it will not.” Lord Mountjoy threw down his fork and left the table. Evan merely cocked an eyebrow at his fuming exit.

“Now see what you have done.” Lady Mountjoy rose from the table and with a penetrating stare commanded her sisters to come with her. Angel went in a pet, but Judith sat gazing at her plate.

“We do make a spectacle, don’t we?” Evan asked of Judith.

“Evan, please have this meeting with him. We can go riding afterward. Besides, it will take me an hour to change.”

“I see,” he said suspiciously. She rose then, forcing him to do so, and he walked with her into the hall. She ran up the stairs, but turned to look back at him with an admonishing expression.

“I’m going. I’m going,” he promised with a laugh and went to knock at the library door.

“Come!”

Evan entered the room as he would that of a commanding officer who had sent for him without telling him why.

“So you have finally found it convenient to talk to me?”

“I’m sorry. I did try to be civil, but I am so unused to it, it is a bit of a strain.”

“For me as well. Look that over and tell me what you think.” His father tossed a document across the desk.

Evan sat down and read for a moment only before he said, “This isn’t Gram’s will. It’s yours. Why do you want me to read this?”

“Just read! You did learn that at your expensive school, didn’t you?”

Evan sighed and read slowly through the document, not believing any of it.

“Have you finished?”

Evan jerked as he had always done at the sound of his father’s voice, bursting on the silence like a shot. It was a habit he resented. If the French cannonading had not made him blink, why did this old man set his nerves on edge? “Yes, I’ve finished, but I don’t understand it.”

“I had thought you intelligent enough to comprehend a simple testament—”

“I mean, why me? Do you really mean to leave everything to me, when we have not spoken for ten years? Surely Terry has a better claim on you. If not Terry, then Thomas.”

“Thomas is as yet unformed and too young to worry over. Terence is…not like you.”

“Which is to say he does not drive you to the verge of apoplexy.”

Lord Mountjoy gave a grudging smile. “No, he does not. In fact, he agrees with every judgment I pronounce, even if I am dead wrong.”

“Are you?”

“What?”

“Ever wrong?”

Lord Mountjoy leaned back in his chair and braced his elbows on the arms, his fingers propped together in a steeple as he regarded Evan. “More than once I have erred quite fantastically, especially where you were concerned. I feared I would never have a chance to set that right.”

“If you mean to buy my loyalty after all those years of neglect, you cannot.” Evan resisted the impulse to fling the document in his father’s face, but merely laid it on the edge of the desk.

“I had no such thought. I am merely doing what is best for Meremont and everyone concerned. I have already spoken to Terry about it.”

“Let me guess—he agreed with you.”

“He is the most exasperating boy in that respect. Yes, he did.”

Suddenly Evan chuckled. “This is absurd. We should never get along.”

“I do not expect us to. In fact, I don’t want you under the same roof with me. Even I cannot take being rubbed raw at every meal. You may refurbish the dower house for your own until my death, then I’m sure you will give it over to Lady Mountjoy for her use.”

“A rather bleak future for a young mother. I wish you a long and prosperous life, Father.”

“She is not the most biddable of women, but she does give in to me.”

“Not too soon, I hope. Otherwise, you might hold her in the same regard as Terry.”

“No, we have had some rare battles, especially over you.”

“Indeed. I still don’t see what you want with me.”

“I don’t want someone who only agrees with me. I want someone who knows about things. The buildings need repairs. We need a new bridge over the stream to get our crops to market. I want to build a canal—”

“A what?”

“A canal to the Exe. I have bought up almost all the land I need.”

“Oh, no, Father. Not a canal. Have you any idea of the expense?”

“Some idea, but I’m sure you can work that out exactly…Don’t argue for just one moment, until I finish my thought. I also want someone who will disagree with me when the need arises.”

“And not out of mere playfulness?”

“Do you imagine we could ever be on such a footing?” His father looked at him intently.

Evan took a moment over his answer, sighing heavily at the wasted years behind him. Then he thought of Judith and smiled. “I can imagine it, with the right woman to keep us from each other’s throats, but I do not think we will come to such a state painlessly.”

“Then let us come to it by whatever road we must. It is the only way I can see for this family to survive. Do you agree?”

“I agree to try,” Evan said, rising. He looked at his father’s extended hand and shook it.

“Good. We’ll discuss the canal later.”

Evan opened his mouth, then closed it and went up to his room, shaking his head.

“You just had to do it, didn’t you?” Bose demanded. “You had to argue with him.” He tossed a pair of Evan’s boots to the floor with enough force to draw a complaint from him.

“Mind what you are about.”

“Disappearing for half the morning, then arguing the entire way through breakfast. What could you have been thinking of?”

“My head was turned, and I did apologize.”

“There should have been no need. I thought you were past such raw-recruit antics. I shall most likely never win Joan now. Don’t expect much dinner, is all I can say, for she is in tears in the kitchen, expecting us to be thrown out at any moment.”

“Bose, you are an admirable traveling companion, and sometimes even a passable batman, but your intelligence gathering leaves much to be desired,” Evan said, as he straightened his stock and searched out his riding crop.

“Don’t even speak to me. I shall hope to be taken on as a groom here. I wash my hands of you. What do you mean, intelligence?”

“Any moderately well run establishment would allocate at least one footman to stand outside a door where a crucial conference is being held, and keep the maids from crying into the shelled peas by reporting that everything is going to be fine.”

“It is? But you just had a rousing fight with him.”

“Yes, that’s what he likes about me. At least that’s what he says.”

“That makes no sense. Are you sure you have it right?” Bose asked, as Evan was about to leave.

“Seems odd to me, too, but he wants us to stay. He means to leave the place to me to run. Of course, I shall be instantly saddled with a family who doesn’t like me, with one exception. But that’s no worse than breaking in a new troop, don’t you think?”

“I’m sure there is a difference, but I don’t know what all it might be,” said Bose in awe.

“No sense borrowing trouble from tomorrow in any case. Of course, there’s no saying what might happen at dinner.”

Lady Mountjoy had watched Evan and Judith ride out and had waited by the morning-room window so that she could speak to her sister directly once they returned. When they came up the back steps of the house, Judith saw Helen staring at them and wiped the smile from her glowing face.

“Angel, leave us a moment,” Helen Mountjoy commanded a few minutes later, planting herself in her sisters’ bedroom.

Angel grimaced at Judith on her way out, drawing a smile from her. Judith was sitting on the bed in her shift and reached for her tired blue evening frock. Helen helped her pull it over her head.

“Where did this riding habit come from?” Helen asked as she turned to shake out the creases from the long green skirt hanging by the mirror.

“Evan bought it for me,” Judith said calmly, thinking of their first ride and how Evan had praised her natural riding ability.

“That’s not proper. It’s also very dangerous.”

“So I told him, but somehow he managed to talk me into it. I keep going over it in my mind, and I can’t quite make out how I agreed to it. It must have been when he threatened to buy me a red one.”

Helen sat on the bed beside her sister. “I know you are very sensible in the ordinary way, Judith, but he’s a man.”

“I know,” Judith said, combing her hair.

“And a soldier.”

“Yes, I know,” she said emphatically.

“I fear he may persuade you to some indiscretion.”

Judith went pink in the face, but not from anger. “After being tricked once, I could never be taken in again. Besides, Evan is different from Banstock. Evan is a war hero. While Banstock’s troop never left England.”

“And Evan is stronger. He could take what he wanted, and you could never stop him.”

“But he would not do such a thing under his father’s own roof. Besides, I feel I know him already from his letters, and from Gram talking about him. I think he will be a very good friend to me.”

“Friend? Does he know the sort of relationship you have in mind?”

“Do not worry. I shall keep him at arm’s length. He will be the big brother I never had.”

“Do you mean to stick by your decision never to marry?”

“We did agree that it is best this way. At least I will never have to deceive anyone.”

Helen hesitated as she ran her fingers in circles on the coverlet. “You don’t mean to tell Evan the truth, then?”

“And give him a disgust of me? No, I could not bear it.”

“I don’t like him, Judith. I tell you, I don’t like him.”

“Merely because he is a soldier and strong?”

“He is also dangerous,” Helen said ominously.

“Nonsense, Helen,” Judith said, as she rose to arrange her hair. “I can handle him.”

“I don’t mean physically dangerous. When he arrived, I tried to send him packing.”

“You didn’t!” Judith whirled. “I know you don’t like him, but this is his home.”

Helen pushed herself to her feet with much less grace than her sister. “Well, it didn’t work. Then, when Hiram introduced us, Evan acted as though we had just met.”

“But that was very kind of him.”

“It was very clever of him. I warn you, Judith, behind those sad, hurt eyes lurks a formidable intellect.”

“You make it sound as though he is plotting against us.”

“He is a soldier and not one to miss the main chance. What better way to entrench himself here than to marry you?”

“But that’s silly! We’ve only just met. Besides, I will never marry.”

“Captain Mountjoy does not know that.”

“Then I have only to tell him so.”

“There is no reasoning with you when you have taken one of your romantic starts.”

“If we are speaking of romantic starts, what about a new widow who suddenly marries a man nearly twice her age?”

“That was different,” Helen said, holding her head up proudly. “I had advertised as a housekeeper, not a wife. I think in the beginning Hiram simply felt sorry for me, caught with young Ralph and almost no pension.”

“Not to mention two sisters, one of whom was a fallen woman.”

“But that wasn’t your fault. I advised you to go with Banstock. I believed him when he said he preferred to be married in Bath rather than Bristol.”

“I believed him, too. So do not worry about me being taken in by another man. I mean to be very careful.”

“Very well.” Helen kissed her lightly on the cheek. “We must go down now. I so hate to be the last to go in to dinner.”

“Helen?”

“Yes, dear?”

“You do love Lord Mountjoy now, don’t you?”

“Very much. You see, I thought he was only trying to save us. I never expected he actually wanted me, or that I would be having a child to him.” She stroked her round stomach affectionately. “He is the best of men.”

“Yes, I know.”

After Helen left, Judith stroked the green dress that became her so well. Evan had picked the color. If Helen perceived that he was no gudgeon, then Judith herself should be wary of him. Still, Gram had had a high regard for her grandson. Judith supposed that she should not let one devastating experience color her judgment of all men. But what did it matter, really? She was going to be a spinster aunt and remain at Meremont forever. So why should she not enjoy Evan’s gallantry? She was completely safe from him.

Evan determined to show Bose that his fears were ungrounded. By dint of speaking only when he was spoken to, Evan made it through the evening meal without a single hitch, though he was called to attention half a dozen times for not answering. He could not help noticing that Judith wore the same gown she had the previous evening, and that when the candles were set out in the library, she picked up a basket of mending. He occupied himself with ruses for providing his future wife with a more extensive wardrobe immediately. She could sew; that was something. So all he had to do was put the materials into her hands. That was surely not the same as buying her clothes. It came to him that he was taking a lot for granted in expecting her to accept his proposal. She was too good for him. But he had better ask her. Then, of course, he could say she was working on her trousseau. Yes, that was the best plan of action. He nodded to himself as though he had just finished the work plan for the next day and was surprised that the table did not contain innumerable maps and drawings to roll up and put away.

His father was staring at him, and Evan smiled blankly. Lord Mountjoy scowled. “I asked if you were going to ride about the place tomorrow with me. But I suppose you are too deaf to hear me.”

“Sorry, I was not attending. May Judith come as well?”

“If she wishes.”

“I want to go, too,” Angel said.

“Not on one of my horses,” his father declared.

Angel looked appealingly at Evan.

“Afraid I can’t afford to have one of mine lamed, either,” he said warily, assuming the worst.

“It’s not fair.”

“Best stay home, child,” Lord Mountjoy said more kindly. “You would only hold us up. You are forever dropping things.”

“Terry, may I ride one of your horses?” Angel asked sweetly.

“No, absolutely not. You don’t even like to ride.”

“How shall I ever grow to like it if I am not given the chance?”

“Liking it isn’t enough. You have to be good at it,” Evan said, but he was looking at Judith, who blushed becomingly.

“Is Judith good at it?”

“Very.”

“I believe the ladies will go up now,” Helen interrupted ruthlessly. Evan soon followed them, since he had no desire either to drink or argue, and Terry’s less-than-coherent grumbling would lead him to one or the other. He was interrupted in the process of undressing himself by a knock and threw his shirt back on before opening the door to Lady Mountjoy.

“I mean to talk to you.”

“Sit down, please.”

“I shall require only a moment. I may have to put up with you, but I will not have my sister preyed upon by you. If you lay one finger on her I will—I will shoot you.”

Evan blinked at her and then smiled. “I admire your fortitude, and I should have spoken to you before, so as not to worry you. My intentions—”

“I know what a soldier’s intentions may be. I cannot live in a house without being aware of what is going forward below stairs.”

“Oh, Bose. But he and Joan have known each other for decades. It’s only to be expected that his affair progresses more rapidly than—”

“His affair, as you name it, disgusts me.”

“But his goal is marriage, as is mine, I assure you.”

“A man may promise anything…”

“If you have been disappointed by some man at some time, that does not mean we are all cut from the same cloth.”

“I flatter myself I know what cloth you are cut from. I’ll send her away if I have to. You will not have Judith.”

“But I want to marry her. She will be Lady Mountjoy someday…or is that it? A sister you have taken for granted for years, almost turned into a drudge, might someday have precedence over you?”

“I’ll see you in your grave before I’ll see her married to you.”

She turned on her heel and exited, with Evan thoughtfully closing the door behind her. He realized he might have to revise his plans. But what could not be taken by direct assault could be had by patient siege, and he knew how to be patient.

The ride about the estate was not the casual affair that Evan had anticipated, but a tour of the lands acquired in anticipation of his father’s canal project. They were all under cultivation, as it happened, but the acquiring of them might well have beggared him. Evan could see some point to it, if they had a manufacture to ship goods from or even a woolery, but with the current price of corn and cloth, it would never pay for itself. He did not, however, ruin the ride by saying so. Judith was in her glory, garnering compliments on her new skill from both Lord Mountjoy and Terry. Evan liked to see her smiling shyly at them, since most of the things he said to her drew a suspicious look.

They returned to the house with hours to spare before dinner, so Evan invited Judith for a walk. He led her toward the dower house and found them a seat in its neglected garden. Even in its overgrown state it seemed very familiar to him. It should. He had spent many days here recovering from the accident that had claimed his brother.

“I miss her,” Judith said, picking a flower and twirling it sadly between her fingers as she sat sideways on the stone bench.

“So do I. I would have come if I could.”

“She did not expect you to. She would not even let me write that she was ill until she knew she could not—”

“It was your hand that wrote those last letters for her then?” He took her hand and turned it over, to regard the ink stains lovingly.

Judith swallowed but did not pull back. She liked the touch of him too well. What harm would it do, after all? “I suppose you did not get them all, if you didn’t know she was dead.”

“I must have been on my way home by the time those would have reached me.”

“It was little enough to do for her. We used to sit out here and she would talk.”

“Of what?”

“The war.”

“She did not know about our victories then.”

“She had every confidence you would triumph in the end. She—she let me read your letters.” Judith stared down at the flower and their joined hands, and wondered if she had said too much.

“Then I fancy you know me a great deal better than I know you.”

“I know that there was a great deal you left out so as to spare her. She used to rant at your lack of detail.”

“That sounds like her.” Evan smiled. “If I could not be here with her, I’m so glad you were. There isn’t anyone else I would rather have had with her.”

“Lord Mountjoy was not inattentive. He—he read your letters, too. Or rather, I read them to the both of them. He has them now. It was the only thing he wanted.”

“Father? I’m surprised.”

“I do not know what is between you two,” she said finally, drawing her hand back, “except that it is in the past. I only know that I like you both and would rather not see you at odds with one another.”

“He must have mellowed indeed.”

“He has always treated me gently, as though we are old friends.”

“Why is that?” Evan asked suspiciously.

Judith studied her hands for a moment. If ever there was a time to tell Evan the trials that his father had shared with her it was now, but her courage failed her. “I think because of the time we spent here together,” she lied, her voice milky with tears.

“I would not have thought it of him.”

“People can change. They can see what they’ve done wrong and try to make up for it,” she pleaded.

“Are we talking about him or me?”

“I had meant…” She stopped when she realized she had been speaking about herself. Tell him, she thought, but any way she arranged the admission, it sounded sordid.

“Yes, if the shoe fits…Is there the slightest chance that an educated and proper girl such as yourself would ever consider marriage to a worn-out soldier?”

“No, never!” She jumped up in shock.

“Oh,” he said, slowly rising, knowing he had moved too fast and not wanting to panic Judith further.

“I mean I shall never marry.” She turned her face away.

“But why not?”

“I have found a…higher pursuit—my studies.”

“Do they consume all your time?”

“Nearly all.”

“When you are not sewing.”

“Yes.” She looked from side to side, as though searching for a means of escape.

“How is it that you sew a great deal and have nothing to show for it?” He could see a tear sparkling on her eyelashes. “Don’t mind me. I’m just a clumsy soldier. Think of me as your brother if it will help.”

“I have to think of you as a brother or I will not be able to think of you at all,” she said desperately.

Evan studied her intense face and knew she was not indifferent to him. “And as a brother I should be able to buy you some bolts of fabric to sew with. Once again you had better help me pick them out.”

“Why are you doing this?” She looked into his eyes.

“There is so little I can do. Humor me?”

“It is not right. People will talk.”

“Who are these unnamed people who talk so much?” he asked with a forced laugh. “I think they should mind their own business.”

She nervously brushed away a tear and said, “I don’t know. It’s what Helen always says when she does not want us doing something.”

“People will talk no matter what you do. It’s a waste of energy to pay any attention to them.”

“I should like to ignore them, all of them,” she said wistfully.

“Good, we will go shopping again tomorrow.”

As they found their way back to the house, Judith thought again that she should tell Evan why she would not marry. But she could not bear to think of him disgusted with her, angry even. In spite of reading all his letters over and over, she did not know him well enough to guess how he would react. If he pressed her, of course, she would have to confess, but she rather thought that she had nipped his suit in the bud, that he would become much like Terry. Now she had only to worry about controlling herself around him. His slightest touch, whether to help her off her horse or up from a seat, made her heart pound with desire.

Chapter Three

Evan’s inspiration to include Angel on this next shopping expedition was a wise one, since she chivied Judith into more extravagant fixings for finery than would have occurred to Evan. He drove the gig home himself. Such intense discussions of hemlines and laces would have distracted even such a staunch mind as Judith’s from her driving.

They heard Lord Mountjoy shouting in the library from the courtyard and ceased their merry laughter. Evan shooed the girls upstairs with their packages and wondered whether he should intervene on Terry’s behalf. Having listened to many such lectures, Evan was not cowed, except to shrug in sympathy at the monologue that issued from the library. His father might have been speaking to him, for some of the lines were the same. And yet the words were all he remembered, his father’s disembodied voice nagging at him. He looked around the hall. Unless it had changed vastly, he did not remember it any more than he did the library or dining room, or even his bedroom. But he knew he could walk into the dower house and go through it blindfolded. What freakish tricks the mind played.

The library door burst open. “I thought I heard you come in.”

Evan jumped at his father’s intrusion.

“Get in here. I need you.”

Evan moved reluctantly into the room, but Terry was nowhere in evidence. There was instead, lounging in one of the chairs, a surly young lad of no more than fifteen years, who bore a resemblance to Angel in one of her pouts.

“I want you to take him in charge. You made it through school. If he has a prayer in the world, it is you.”

“Me? Take him in charge? But who is he?”

“Helen’s son, Ralph. He is incorrigible. Well?”

“Sorry to be struck stupid, but I did not know of his existence until this moment.”

“And I did not know of yours until today,” Ralph said resentfully.

“So we are even then?”

“Not by a long shot. I suppose I won’t even get the barrens now,” Ralph countered.

“The barrens?” Evan asked.

“Don’t you remember anything?” his father demanded. “The moorlands. Not good for much except pasturing sheep, but they would yield a living if properly managed.”

Ralph looked up, a spark of malice in his eyes. “Is that where Terry is to be exiled now?”

“That is none of your affair, you young cur.”

“Do you like farming?” Evan asked blankly.

“No, I should sell it and go back to London.”

“Back to London?”

“He was sent down from school a month ago, but he copped the letter out of the post and has been philandering in London.”

“Pretty exciting this time of year, all littered with the ton?” Evan asked.

“And expensive.”

“He ran out of money and into debt,” Lord Mountjoy said, as though Ralph could not hear him.

“How many subjects did you fail?” Evan asked casually.

“All of them,” Ralph said proudly.

“A great temptation, the life at Oxford or Cambridge, as I recall. Better than half my class got sent down, for one

reason or another, by the middle of each term. Their fathers got them back in, of course, for as long as it seemed worthwhile.”

“It’s a total waste,” Ralph said.

“Not to the fathers, who have got rid of a troublesome lad for months at a time.”

Evan had not been aware of his father leaving the room, but when he bothered to look around, he noticed his absence.

“Were you sent there to get rid of you?” Ralph asked.

“Oh, yes.”

“Toying with the maids, or was it the bottle?”

“I killed my elder brother.”

Ralph gasped. “You never!”

“Ask anyone. Tell me, of all these subjects you failed, does any of them have an appeal for you?”

“No.”

“You’re telling me you are interested in absolutely nothing?”

“I like poetry.”

“Poetry? That’s a tough one. Never could quite get it myself.”

“I only like it because it’s quick to read.”

“Quick to read, long to understand. Suppose we make a deal. You teach me poetry and I’ll tell you what I know about geometry.”

“What use is that to me?”

“Can’t fire a gun, even a little one, without geometry.”

“I’m a fair shot.”

“But could you fire a twelve pounder and have the vaguest notion where the ball would fall, what elevation to use to hit your target?”

“With practice.”

“Not good enough. You can’t be all day finding the enemy’s range or you would be blown to bits while you are about it. Take it from me, geometry can be useful for a variety of things. Of course, we shall have to tackle algebra first. You will need to know how to solve a formula. Tell you what. You pick out a book of poetry for me to study and I will hunt up my textbooks. They must be at Gram’s house. We’ll start after lunch tomorrow.”

“I didn’t agree.”

“Well, I think if you understand poetry, the least you can do is help me out. It isn’t easy courting your sister when I am only an ignorant soldier.”

“You and Angel?”

“No, Judith, but keep that quiet if you would. I’m not entirely sure she will have me.”

“She’d be a fool not to.”

“What, a murderer? It’s only by the greatest exertion that I will ever prove myself worthy of her.”

Evan left young Ralph staring at his back. The boy was not much different than the regular run of recruits. One had only to find a common ground, appeal to that and establish a rapport. About lying to the boy and manipulating him, Evan had no qualms. One did what one had to in time of war.

But this was not war…or was it? Perhaps he had not exaggerated his fears of gaining Judith’s hand, if Lady Mountjoy had any say. What better way to win that good lady over than by helping her recalcitrant son?

Was there another reason? Perhaps he did see a bit of himself in Ralph. His own rebellion had not been as blatant and he’d had more cause…Of course, he did not know what Ralph’s upbringing had been like. Perhaps it had been worse than his own. He did know his father had a talent for mishandling striplings.

There was also Judith. Perhaps she was attached to this brooding nephew of hers. Any way he looked at it, helping Ralph had to be a winning proposition, but only if he succeeded. He went to get the key to search for his old textbooks in the attic of the dower house.

He was right about remembering the place. Except for the covers over Gram’s furniture, it looked the same, and it was heavy with memories of her. She had been like a mother to him. Why this was, he could not quite remember. He thought his own mother must have been rather sickly. He found his trunk of books in his bedroom. It was a room he remembered well. “Why didn’t I come back in time?” he asked the empty air, then went back to the main house.

“Well?”

Evan jumped, despite his prone position on the bed. That one word shouted at a man comfortably ensconced in the Times made him cringe. “Am I the only one you shout at?”

“You don’t attend me half the time,” his father said from the doorway. “How else am I to get your attention? Are you going to take the boy in charge?”

“On one condition.”

“What is that?”

“That you do not interfere or question what I am doing.”

“Interfere?”

“I had a commander who always trusted me. I might not do things the way he expected, but I always got results. That was enough for him. I should think you could trust me that far.”

“I have no choice. Nothing I say makes the slightest impression on Ralph.”

“Well, as long as he regards you as our common nemesis, I may be able to gain his confidence. So have a care you shout at us both in equal measure. I would not want him to think I am conspiring with the enemy.”

“Nemesis indeed! Do you think I don’t have the boy’s best interests at heart?”

“No, I believe you do.” Evan’s eyes had strayed back to the paper when a sudden thought struck him. “Only tell me truthfully, was I ever that callow?”

“You were worse, and sanctimonious into the bargain.”

Evan shuddered a little. “I am justly punished then. How could you stand me?”

“I couldn’t.”

“Oh, yes, I was forgetting.”

“And don’t think you can steal the paper away to your room every day when others might wish to read it.”

“Sorry, Father.”

Lord Mountjoy harrumphed and left. On the way down the stairs he tried to count the number of times Evan or Terry had said that to him, not paying the slightest attention to what they had done, so that he had to issue the same command again the next day. He would never understand these young bloods—never.

Evan rode with Judith again in the morning, and she showed him her favorite paths. Some of these were not entirely suitable for riding, in that they had to duck limbs and brambles and even get off and walk in places. They fetched up in the garden of the dower house to cool the horses. “Father says I can take up living here,” Evan remarked, glancing up at the dusty windows.

“Oh, I am glad. I do not like to see it shut up like this.”

“I was thinking of that, too. It’s a big house. It will take some work to set it to rights.”

“Let me help. I would love to do it.”

“It strikes me you already do enough for others, perhaps more than you should.”

“I owe them something, Helen and Lord Mountjoy. They needn’t have brought me here.”

“But to be ordered about by your sister when you might very well be managing a house of your own…”

“I am content. I do not know what would have become of us if not for Lord Mountjoy.”

“How did they meet, anyway?”

“Sister advertised herself as a housekeeper, but she insisted Angel and I would have to come with her.”

“Surely she did not offer you as servants?”

“No, and I believe that is what intrigued Lord Mountjoy. Her very helplessness in the face of financial disaster had a certain appeal to him.”

“How can you speak about it so objectively? It was your future, too, your disaster.”

“I had an offer of marriage.” Judith blushed and studied her gloved hands. “At least I thought it was an offer of marriage.” She was feeling more courageous today, perhaps because of the horse.

“A good offer?”

“Don’t look at me so. You have no idea what it is like. I did it to help my family, and when he…when it didn’t work out, it seemed wiser to cling together if Lord Mountjoy would allow it.” She finished with a blush, embarrassed once again that she had not confided in him.

Evan had a notion there was more to the story than this, but only the present concerned him now. “Well, he always was a managing fellow.”

“I feel almost sorry for him, having all of us thrust upon him. Especially me, which was uncalled for, and Ralph. What was the row about yesterday?”

“Ah, I am to whip Ralph into shape for school. He, in turn, will teach me poetry.”

“What?” she asked, halting Molly and turning to stare at him suspiciously.

“You were probably unaware I have such aspirations.”

She laughed in his face. “You have not, and you know it.”

“Ah, but Ralph does not know it, so take no notice if we wander about discussing odd bits of verse. Who knows but what I may gain a little polish, after all—at least do not laugh in this disarming way. It is infectious.”

He put his free arm around her back and silenced her with a kiss. She countered with a blow that fairly made Evan’s head ring. It also startled Taurus into a rear, which nearly dragged Evan off his feet.

“I’m sorry,” she gasped, one hand thrown up over her mouth, the other still clutching Molly’s reins.

“So am I,” Evan said, giving his head a shake and calming his horse.

“I didn’t mean to hit you so hard, but you caught me off guard.”

“I should hate to think what you are capable of when prepared for a kiss,” he said, feeling his cheek.

“You must not! You must never do that again.”

“And you must think me a beast. But war has a way of giving one a certain impatience with life.”

“Things done impatiently are usually done unwisely,” she said almost to herself.

“That has the ring of your sister about it.”

“I’m sure she has had reason to say it often enough.”

“I must agree with it, even knowing it comes from her. Can you forgive me?”

“If you promise never to do that again.”

“I promise I will never force myself on you again. But you do see what I mean about needing polish?” he asked with a grin.

“Why are you helping Ralph?” she demanded. “And do not continue with this nonsensical story about wanting to learn poetry.”

“Perhaps I am doing it to get in your sister’s good graces.”

“Even if that would work, why would you care what she thinks of you?”

“I should like her to be more at ease, for the babe’s sake if for no other reason.”

“What would you care about her baby, another half brother?” she taunted callously.

“The way you say that, so coldly…it gives me a chill. Do you imagine I went about putting infants to the sword? When you have been engaged in such a ghastly business as war, any baby, no matter whose, is a ray of hope, a promise that something will continue.”

She stopped ahead of him, saying nothing. He dropped the reins and walked around in front of her to discover tears on her cheeks. “What is it? I know, my rude talk. I am hopeless.”

“No, it’s not that,” she said, thinking how sweet it would be to have a baby and be allowed to keep it. “I have tried to imagine what it was like for you.” Her voice was rich with the wetness of the tears. “I would rather have been there…”

“In Spain?”

“Anywhere but here.”

“But it is fairly pleasant here.”

“I am talking foolishly. Please don’t regard it.” She brushed the tears away with her gloved hands. “Are the horses cool?”

“Yes.”

Judith let Evan lead the horses to the stable and retreated to her room to change. She had missed another chance to tell him, but it wasn’t the sort of thing one blurted out to a near stranger. The quandary was that the more she knew him, the better she liked him and the more difficult it was to tell him she had been ruined. Except for the rides she must not be alone with Evan again; it was as simple as that. If they became no closer, there would never be a need to reveal her guilty secret.

As promised, directly after lunch, Evan and Ralph tackled algebra for two hours. They were consigned to the breakfast parlor for this exercise, since Helen and Angel went to sew in the morning room, and Judith and Lord Mountjoy conducted business in the library during this part of the day. The post had been fetched by then, and there were always letters to be answered, after which Lord Mountjoy would retire to peruse the Times and perhaps catch a nap. Evan was well aware of the schedule and, intentionally or not, was always plotting how he could get to the newspaper before his father. No chance of it today. The post, which was deposited on the hall table, had been taken up by Judith on their return, and she had gone directly to the library to sort it in preparation for the afternoon work. Evan had not as yet discovered where she secreted the paper, but he would.

By dint of presenting each lesson as a useful means of solving a practical problem, Evan managed to hold Ralph’s interest. But nothing could alleviate for Evan the dullness of Chaucer. He had not thought Ralph would take him seriously enough to present British poetry from a historical perspective.

Within a day Ralph proved to be a welcome addition to the household in several ways. Not only did he now share the bite of Lord Mountjoy’s tongue, he brought a wealth of gossip from London to enthrall Angel and delight Judith in spite of her pursed lips. He also made a fourth for whist, which was the only game Lord Mountjoy countenanced of an evening. That is not to say the play was peaceful. Terry was hounded for his dullness, though Evan guessed this was from a surfeit of drink. Evan himself was constantly chastised for not attending, and Ralph for being cocky when he won.

Evan sensed there was trouble brewing with Terry but could not conceive how to stop it. It came to a head the next morning when Evan caught his brother returning from a night’s carousing, mounted on Evan’s Andalusian colt.

“He’s come to no harm,” Terry claimed.

“He might well have. You had no right to take him without asking. Surely you knew I meant to ride him myself this morning.”

“Why ask you, then? You would have refused. You never gave me anything. Now you have taken everything.” Terry’s broad gesture swept full circle to indicate Meremont.

“I never meant you any harm. I scarcely know you.”

“Is that my fault, cooped up here with Father while you were off in Spain, covering yourself with glory?”

“It was mud.”

“What?”

“Mud was the only thing I was ever covered with in Spain!” Evan shouted.

“You…” Terry lunged, but failed to connect with a blow, flailing away, rather, as his brother tried to hold him up. Finally Evan pushed him, and Terry, enraged at falling in the muck, grabbed a pitchfork and ran full tilt at him. Evan sidestepped and tripped him up.

“Give me that before you hurt someone,” he commanded as he wrested the pitchfork away from him.

By this time one of the stable boys had run to the house for help.

“I hate you!” Terry shouted. “You were supposed to be dead. You were supposed to die in Spain. Why did you come back? You ruined everything.”

Evan got him in a headlock, but Terry struggled desperately against his grip with the violence of the berserk as his air was slowly cut off. “Do you mean to kill me, too?” he gasped.

Evan let go his hold and took a step back. “I didn’t mean to kill Gregory. I felt very much toward him as you feel toward me now. He had everything, even Father’s love. And I had nothing. I did not mean to ruin everything for you.”

Terry’s resentful look was mixed with puzzlement and defeat. “It doesn’t matter. Father is probably right. I would only waste it all anyway.” He stared at a steaming pile of muck.

“What the devil is going on here?” demanded Lord Mountjoy as he burst through the doorway and pulled up short at sight of his filthy sons.

“Nothing, Father,” Evan said in that automatic singsong of his.

“Nothing! But what—? You don’t intend to tell me, do you?” He looked pointedly from one son to the other. “I thought not. Everything has to be a conspiracy against me. Well, I should be used to it by now. I don’t know why I worry…” Lord Mountjoy stomped out of the stable and toward the house, talking to himself.

Evan chuckled first. “Does he often do that?”

Terry snickered. “More and more of late.” He wiped his eyes on his sleeve. Evan went to him and put his arm about his shoulder, causing Terry to wince a little. “I hurt you, didn’t I? I’m sorry. Just tell me when you want to borrow the colt. You’re more important to me than him.”

“Do you mean it?”

“Of course I do. You’re my brother.”

“No, I meant the part about borrowing your horse.”

“Yes, I mean it. Let’s get you cleaned up and to bed. You will look rank at breakfast if you don’t get an hour or two of sleep.”

“I am a mess.”

“You should have seen me at your age.”

Judith encountered the unlikely pair on the stairs and gave them a wide berth. “I shall be a bit late,” Evan warned.

“Take your time,” she said with amusement, wrinkling her nose at the stench they were carrying in with them.

“A madhouse!” Lord Mountjoy shouted, coming out of the library. “I live in a madhouse! Oh, Judith, where is yesterday’s paper? I’ve searched the entire library.”

“I put it under the blotter on your desk so no one else could get at it.”

“Bless you, my dear. You’re the only one, the only one who cares about me at all.” The force of this was somewhat lost on Judith, since it was bellowed up the stairway for the benefit of his sons.

“What the devil is all the racket?” Ralph complained, coming out of his room with his robe askew.

“Racket, is it? Back to bed with you, you ungrateful whelp,” Lord Mountjoy shouted.

Ralph’s face disappeared, and Angel only peeked over the banister before disappearing again. Judith thought perhaps she should go check on Helen, but sat on the stairs instead, listening to both the ranting of Lord Mountjoy in the library and the rumblings from Terry’s room. Evan finally tramped down the stairs and lifted her to her feet.

“What’s the matter, Judith?”

“Our lives were sadly dull before you came to Meremont.”

“God grant we may enjoy some dullness when I am safely ensconced in Gram’s house.”

Lady Mountjoy, far from being asleep upstairs, whirled out of the breakfast parlor. “You! I thought I told you no more riding alone with this—this soldier. It is highly improper for you to go unescorted in his company.”

“But—”

“She is right, Judith,” Evan agreed.

“What?” demanded Judith and Helen in unison.

“I have been giving it some thought, and as we are not related by blood, I think we do need a chaperon to protect your reputation, especially since I am a soldier. So nip upstairs and get Angel into her riding habit. Run along. Taurus will be rested enough to ride by then.”

“But—but will she come?” Judith asked uncertainly as she groped her way up the stairs, not at all sure of Evan’s sincerity in wanting Angel to join them.

“She has been wanting to learn to ride. Of course she will come.”

“You think you have got around me with this trick, but I won’t countenance your attentions to either of my sisters,” Helen said.

“Even a soldier could hardly seduce both of them at once.”

“Watch your mouth, young man, or I will do as I said.”

Lady Mountjoy exited just as her husband came into the hall. “What is going on out here? I cannot even read in peace.”

“Nothing, Father,” Evan said innocently.

“Nothing, is it again? If I hear that from you one more time I’ll strangle you with your own stock. What are you doing standing in the hall?”

“Just waiting to take the girls riding.”

“The girls? Both of them?”

“That’s right.”

“I won’t have that Angel on one of my horses, do you hear me?” Lord Mountjoy pointed an accusing finger.

“She may ride my gelding.”

“We haven’t had a moment’s peace since you returned. It’s a madhouse, a madhouse!” He slammed the library door after himself.

Bose peeked around the door frame.

“The coast is clear for the moment,” Evan said with a vague smile.

“Have you any idea what that sounds like from below?”

“No, are we vastly entertaining?”

“Don’t give me that innocent look. What have you been up to?”

“Other than a brawl with my brother and a shouting match with Father and Helen, nothing. Make us something fortifying for breakfast, will you? I shall need it after Angel’s riding lesson.”

Bose went grumbling down the back stairs to the kitchen, Judith reappeared with an excited Angel and Evan stared only momentarily at the concoction on the child’s head.

True to form, Angel lost her hat at the slightest hint of a canter and clutched the saddle so desperately she made no pretense of reining her horse. That was a mercy, since she could not then jab the animal in the mouth. He and Judith had a tolerable time laughing at Angel.

Breakfast was strangely quiet after the commotion of the morning, each of them avoiding the prospect of another argument. Lord Mountjoy stared hard from one to the other of his strange family, almost daring them to break the peace. He did not do so himself except to adjure Ralph to mend his dress with some shirt points he could see over. To this end the algebra lesson was cut short and the poetry skipped altogether in favor of Ralph going shopping.

Evan found Judith in the garden beside the house, fitting Thomas with a new jacket. Thomas was talking quite volubly to her about his puppy, which he was leading by a piece of rope thick enough to tether a bull. Evan laughed at this arrangement and wrestled with the pup with one hand, as Thomas looked on proudly.

“Aunt Judith, are you sure you have taken all the pins out this time?” Thomas asked cautiously in his high, light voice.

“I thought I had. Why? Is one sticking you?”

“No, I just hoped you had made sure.”

“It’s a wonder you trust me at all, Thomas, as many times as you have been stuck,” she said, and smoothed the fabric along his arm with a loving touch.

“It doesn’t hurt. It’s only a bit of a surprise.”

“Like falling off a horse, then?” Evan asked. “You usually don’t get hurt, you’re just taken aback to be suddenly on the ground.”

“I have seen your horses,” Thomas said, round eyed. “They are tall but not as fat as Father’s.”

“They will be if they keep eating their heads off in his stable.”

“I shall have a pony next year, but I would rather have a horse.”

“A pony is more of a challenge,” Judith said bracingly. “I have more trouble getting Betty to do what I want than I have with a horse.”

“She’s right,” confirmed Evan. “Ponies are much smarter than horses. If you can manage a pony and get it to like taking you about, you will be able to ride anything in future.”

“Truly?” Thomas questioned, then flinched as he caught sight of his nurse approaching from the house. Judith saw her, too, and there came into her face such a look of resentment that Evan was shocked. Judith quickly removed the garment and helped Thomas back into his old coat, buttoning it up as she would if she were sending him someplace cold. She hugged him for a moment, as though she were not going to see him again for a long time. “All finished, Miranda,” she said in that tearful voice Evan was coming to know.

“You spoil him more than his mama,” Miranda said, taking the boy’s hand possessively and giving Judith an admonishing look. Evan supposed this frown was for letting him talk to the boy. The pup trailed after them, valiantly trying to hold his head up on the end of his heavy tether.

Judith’s face was a swirl of emotion—regret, longing, jealousy. “You could have a little boy like that,” Evan said.

She flashed him a look of horror.

“I mean when you are married and have a home of your own.”

“No!” she said, shaking her head slowly. “I can never have a son like Thomas.”

He would have pressed her, but he was afraid to make her cry. What did she mean? That she thought herself to be barren? If a doctor had told her this for certain perhaps that’s why she spurned his advances.

“Why does Miranda always drag him away when I am about? Does she think I will eat him?”

“I don’t know,” Judith said, carefully folding the coat as though the warmth of the child were still in it.

“I expect the other servants have filled her head with stories about me killing Gregory.”

“But you did not. Overturning the curricle was an accident.”

“Why then?”

“It must be because Thomas was so sickly when he was little.” The way Judith forced the explanation out, Evan knew she was lying to him. “If not for Miranda, we might have lost him. He is almost as much her baby as ours.” Evan nodded vaguely as she gathered up her sewing rather distractedly and fled toward the house.

Evan was nonplussed. Judith seemed such a sturdy, good-humored soul most of the time. It was only the mention of anything relating to marriage or children that disturbed her. It wasn’t going to be easy courting her then. He would have to go slower. Perhaps he could learn to pace himself to civilian life. He would certainly try for Judith’s sake. To this end he decided to go fishing.

Judith lay facedown in her pillow. It had been a long time since she had cried like that. It had a cleansing effect. The world was no brighter when she finished, but she felt emptier, which was somehow better than feeling as though she was going to burst.

“What is it, Judith?” Helen asked. “Is Evan bothering you again?”

“No,” she said, sitting up on the bed. “I didn’t hear you come in.”

“That’s because I didn’t knock. I saw you run from him. I knew I would find you crying. He’s bringing it all back, isn’t he?”

“It isn’t Evan. It’s—it’s everything. Do we still need Nurse Miranda? Thomas is nearly six now.”

“We will need her when the baby comes. She may as well stay.”

“But she scarcely ever lets Thomas play.”

“She plays with him. I have seen her. She loves him very much.”

“I just think, as badly as we need money, we could do without her. I could take care of Thomas.”

“Now we all agreed that was not wise, didn’t we?”

“That was a mistake. I should never have given him up. Never!”

“But what were we to do?” Helen asked. “I was the one who was getting married. Are you jealous of me?”

“No, I’m not jealous. I just want my son back.”

“But you have him. We all live in the same house.”

“I don’t have him. He is your son now, but you don’t love him—not like I do.”

“Of course I love him. You tell me this is not Evan doing this to you, but I don’t believe you. You never regretted your decision before. It was the only way.”

“I know. It’s not fair.”

“Life is not fair. If the world made any sense, men would ride sidesaddle and women would run the government.”

Judith gave a reluctant laugh.

“When my baby comes,” Helen said, patting her stomach, “Nurse will be so busy with it, you will have Thomas all to yourself. Mark my words.”

“Yes, I’m sure you are right. You almost always are.”

Evan borrowed the gear he needed from Terry and worked his way down the stream from where it ran past the stable to near the bridge. It was a shallow stretch of water now, but from the breadth of its bed and the height of the banks, in flood time, he guessed, it could not be forded. It had quite a few inviting pools that he did not so much remember as instinctively find. He knew he used to fish here, for his grandmother had told him so, but there was nothing familiar about it.

He pondered this as he tried one pool after another. He supposed a stream would change a good deal in ten years, but why had everything else changed so much? Indeed, some of his memories were truly faulty. Perhaps it was him. Perhaps he had remembered wrong or the memories had become distorted with time. He also remembered things that were not there, trees and pieces of furniture. He supposed he could have invented these, but why would he, since he tried never to think of home? He had, he realized, spent a lot of effort wiping out all thoughts of the place.

He had only just baited his hook atop a big rock by one of these pools when a shot whistled past his head. He rolled off the rock backward, landing in the shallows and staring through his wet hair at a figure in white. Much as he wanted to right himself, his every instinct was to lie still on his back and hold his breath. After regarding him for a moment, the woman moved off into the woods, a dark object showing up against the white of her dress—a pistol.

Evan breathed and rolled over, watching as a drop of blood splashed onto the wet stones and washed away. He felt his head and located the cut near his hairline. He was about to bind that up when he discovered, to his dismay, that the fishhook had gotten lodged in the skin between his thumb and forefinger. He really felt like weeping, but instead he laughed. It was the sort of thing that had got him his half-mad reputation in Spain. He could laugh in the face of the worst disaster because he could not do anything else.

He collected his gear and stumbled toward the house. Ralph gave him a start when he appeared out of the small woods in his shirtsleeves. He waved a dark object at Evan, who almost crouched to duck until he realized it was only a book. He waved back, paused and racked his brain to try to remember if the figure in white could have been a man with his shirttail hanging out because of the heat. No, he could not be sure. With the blood and water in his eyes he could not even say for sure if the figure had been wearing white. It might as easily have been cream, buff or light gray.

“What happened to you?” Judith asked, making him flinch again and driving his heart against his ribs. “You’re soaked, and why do you look at me so oddly?”

Evan had by now ascertained that the dark object Judith held by her faded muslin dress was also a book and not a pistol. Why had such a thought even come into his head, and did everyone have to be walking about with books like this? His nerves had not been so badly knocked about when he had been in Spain.

“Fishing,” he gasped with relief.

“It looks like the fish won. You’ve got a hook in your palm.”

“I know.”

She took his hand and turned it over to examine the position of the hook. “It would probably be less painful to push it the rest of the way through and nip it apart rather than trying to extract it.”

“Can you do it?” he asked, fascinated by having her handle him rather than the other way round.

“I do have a brother. I can manage it if you don’t wince too much. Come to the stable. There are sure to be some cutters there.”

“What did happen to you?” she asked, to distract him as she deftly twisted the hook and exposed the barb on the other side of his hand. He did not flinch at all, just watched dispassionately.

“I fell off that big rock at the end of the path.”

“Hence the cut on your head. But why?”

“If you must know, someone took a shot at me,” he said with a reckless smile.

She looked suitably horrified. “I thought I heard shooting.” She bound up his hand, which was not bleeding at all, with her worn, lace handkerchief. It was a quite unnecessary operation, but Evan would never have said so. He did not mean to return the handkerchief, either.

“What are you two doing, or shouldn’t I ask?” Terry propped his shotgun against the wall.

“Someone fired at Evan near the stream,” Judith told him.

To Evan’s surprise, it was Terry who glanced at the shotgun, not Judith.

“It was a pistol shot,” Evan supplied. “I saw who did it, but only at a distance.”

“I heard the shot and went to investigate, but I didn’t see anyone by the time 1 got there. What did the person look like?”

“I was upside down in the creek with blood and water in my eyes. I have only the vaguest impression of someone in white.”

“And yet you made out that the shot came from a pistol?” Judith questioned.

“I could tell that from the sound as it whizzed by.”

“They don’t sound anything alike, Judith,” Terry advised. “Someone in white?”

“Is that significant?”

“No, why should it be?” Terry asked with a laugh.

Evan did not like the way Terry and Judith glanced at each other. They knew who it was and they were not going to tell him. He had never felt like one of the family, but had never felt such an outsider as at that moment.

Evan had been under fire for years, sometimes for days at a time, yet none of it had unnerved him as much as that one bullet, perhaps because it had been fired by a woman. And neither Judith nor Terry had said “he,” though the natural assumption would be that it was a man.

It had to be Lady Mountjoy. She must be unhinged to think she could get rid of him this way. He had already decided that she was unsettled by her pregnancy. And she had given him fair warning. He would just have to be careful…but for the rest of his life? He thought of carrying the tale to his father for only a moment before discarding that idea. How could he tell such a man that his wife was mad or close to it? He certainly could not tell Judith he suspected her sister, even if she suspected her as well.

By the time Evan delivered his battered body into the hands of the stunned Bose, he was in the mood to pick up and leave, and said as much.

“I knew it! I knew it couldn’t last! You’ve argued with him again, haven’t you?”

“No, as it happens. But someone shot at me near the stream. I might as well stay in the army, if—”

“Are you serious? They shot at you on purpose?”

“Yes. It wasn’t you, was it?” Evan asked playfully.

“Don’t tempt me. Did you get a look at him?”

“No.”

“Then how do you know it was on purpose?”

“You’re right. It was probably an accident,” he said to appease Bose. Being sniped at was such an ordinary thing to an engineer that, after the initial surprise, he was inclined to shrug it off, anyway.

Chapter Four

Ralph’s shirt points drew no more than a sniff from Lord Mountjoy at dinner. Evan had gone to the library early so that he could observe Lady Mountjoy when she came into the room, but she did not seem at all surprised to see him alive, merely offended at his stare.

Perhaps she did not even remember shooting at him, Evan decided. It was possible that once the child was born the madness would leave her—or get worse. He glanced anxiously at her and drew such a look of sheer hatred that he had no stomach for dinner.

Perhaps Judith’s reluctance to accept his attentions came from her sister’s poisonous comments about him. And why not? They were probably true, whatever she said. He was a soldier, flighty, unreliable, violent. He must have done far worse things than even Lady Mountjoy could imagine.

“Stop it!” his father said in the middle of the second course.

Evan froze, convinced his abstracted crumbling of his bread had drawn this censure. But when he looked up, it was Lady Mountjoy his father was staring at.

“Helen, I won’t have you looking daggers at the boy all through the meal.”

“Father, don’t,” Evan pleaded.

“Then I will eat in my room, sir, until you find your wife’s company more to your taste than your son’s.” She rose and left with the stateliness of a queen.

“You don’t help matters by saying nothing.” Lord Mountjoy turned on Evan this time. “Have you no conversation?”

Evan sighed. “It’s not working, Father.”

“Ralph!” Lord Mountjoy shouted, redirecting his attack. “Tell me what you have learned so far from this wastrel.”

To Evan’s surprise, Ralph threw himself valiantly into the breech and discoursed on algebra for a good three minutes with more enthusiasm than accuracy. Judith then filled the ensuing silence by leading her nephew on to speak about his poetry.

“I didn’t know you wrote it yourself,” Evan finally said in amazement, comforted by the assurance that Ralph, at least, was not his would-be assassin.

“Mere schoolboy stuff,” Ralph declared.

“It is not,” Judith vowed. “He sends me a poem in nearly every letter, and they are good.”

“Why does he never send me poems?” Angel demanded.

“You wouldn’t understand,” Ralph said. “It’s no good if you have to explain them.”

“It’s always the same. I’m too stupid or I wouldn’t understand. Nobody thinks I know anything.”

“Would you be willing to read some for us tonight?” Evan suggested. “I’m sure I won’t understand them, either, but I would like to.”

“Stuff and nonsense,” Lord Mountjoy grumbled under his breath.

“Oh, but it’s not,” Evan said spontaneously. “Everything we do—the wars we fight, the work, the struggle to farm the land—everything is done to make such things as poetry and art possible.”

“Well, I know that,” Lord Mountjoy said. “I stay here and work like a laborer to keep that young lounger in school so he can write poetry.”

“I’m sure Lord Mountjoy would not want to hear my poetry,” Ralph mumbled.

“Of course I do. Haven’t I just said I do? You will read for us tonight. I should get something for my money.”

Ralph had taken the request quite seriously and scurried to his room after dinner, to meet them all in the library with a sheaf of papers. Lady Mountjoy was there and so pointedly ignored Evan that he wasn’t sure if it was better than being hated. As soon as the women had settled to their work, Lord Mountjoy looked expectantly at his stepson, and Ralph stood, with more relish for the task than Evan would have expressed under similar circumstances.

“‘The Torn Soul,’” he read.

“Another bitter morning.

The full moon sees me to my classes

With a smudge of blue across his face

As though he has been tending my fire.

I go where they send me to learn

Prudent lines of language,

The science of machines and

The vagaries of politics and wars,

When all I really want to think about is the moon.

But there is always the night.”

“Is that it, then?” Angel broke the silence to ask.

“Yes. What do you think?”

“Well, it’s bit short, isn’t it?”

“The length has nothing to do with it,” Ralph said defensively. “It’s the meaning—”

“It doesn’t rhyme,” Lord Mountjoy rumbled.

“I know it doesn’t rhyme. I do know how to make a rhyme. But there is a difference between rhymes and poetry.”

“I like it,” Evan vowed. “I’m not quite sure why I like it. Maybe because it does not rhyme. Too much of the singsong is distracting from the meaning for me. Now that I think of it, I’m quite sure that’s why poetry usually makes me nod off.”

“You mean, like when you say, ‘Nothing, Father’?” Lord Mountjoy asked.

Evan glanced at his father in amused surprise.

“The moon is always a woman,” Terry said a little blearily, but with great conviction.

“It needn’t be,” Ralph maintained.

“In every poem I have ever read, the moon is feminine.”

“He’s got you there, Ralph,” Lord Mountjoy said with satisfaction.

“Let me see,” said Judith, taking the sheet and reading it over. “You know, Ralph, I like it already, but perhaps it works even better with the moon as a woman.”

Ralph thought through the poem in his mind and finally took the paper and made a note with a stub of pencil he pulled from his pocket. “I think you’re right. It does read better.”

“Aha, so we are right,” Lord Mountjoy said.

“An intelligent man is always open to good ideas, no matter who they may come from,” Ralph said. Terry smiled crookedly, and Lord Mountjoy looked at Ralph a little suspiciously.

“Why a woman?” Angel asked. “Why would the moon always be a woman?”

“Tradition,” said Ralph. “It was the smudge of dirt that threw me. One does not think of a woman with a smudge of dirt on her face, but I suppose she might have if she were tending a fire.”

“That’s no answer,” Angel complained.

“It has to do with the changeableness of woman,” stated Lady Mountjoy. “They are well-known for their inconstancy, whereas men are so reliable,” she added without looking up from her work.

Evan chuckled in spite of himself. “Poetry and satire in the same evening,” he said. “My cup runneth over.”

Lady Mountjoy’s mouth softened, not into anything approaching a smile, but at least she did not glare at him.

“I don’t understand,” Angel protested.

“I knew you wouldn’t,” Ralph declared.

“You know so much just because you have been to school. Why does it cut off like that? What do you mean by ‘There is always the night’?”

“I mean I may be at someone else’s beck and call to study and learn what they please in the daytime, but at night I can dream or write whatever I please, that they can’t kill the romance in me.”

“You see,” said Judith helpfully, “the moon is a metaphor, for dreams, romance, whatever you will.”

“A what?”

Ralph turned back to Angel. “It means it stands in place of just saying those things—”

“It would be much simpler all around if you did just say those things without all the bother. I don’t like your poem at all,” Angel said defiantly.

“Well, I do,” said Lord Mountjoy. “It tells me more about Ralph than I have found out all the times I have talked to him. Now if we could just get it to rhyme,” he mused.

“Thank you ever so much for the help. If you don’t mind, I shall go upstairs and work on it some more.” Ralph bolted from the room before he was likely to be subjected to Lord Mountjoy trying to impose a rhyming scheme on him, and Evan caught Judith grinning at the same thought.

“You were going to tell me about your canal, sir,” Evan said, to distract his father.

“My what? Oh, yes, yes, the canal. Terry, bring one of those candles over to the desk. I have my plans right here.”

As the clock chimed ten, the ladies rose and put away their work. It struck Evan that they led a very dull life here. He could not remember exactly what life had been like at Meremont before, but his Gram had always served tea in the evening, and they had had three meals a day instead of two. He knew that this present situation was not from any paucity of food, but due rather to the scarcity of help. Witness how Bose had been pressed into service in the kitchen in his spare hours. Of course, that might be voluntary, for nothing would put him closer to Joan than helping out at the house rather than lounging about the stable.

Once Evan looked at the map and realized how much land his father had bought up, he could see why they might be beggared. There had to be close to a thousand acres. That brought the size of the contiguous holdings of Meremont to nearly two thousand acres, if one counted the barrens. He stared at his father, trying to divine if the man had become unhinged. Several things suggested this: the will, for one; now this talk of the canal. Lord Mountjoy glanced up at him for approval of the route he had mapped out.

“What’s this bit of land here?” Evan asked. “You haven’t inked it in yet.”

“We haven’t got it yet. Fifteen acres of worthless riverbank. It belongs to Lady Sylvia Vane. With any luck we shall get it for free.”

“How so?”

“We shall if Terry does not drink himself to death before he has her promise of marriage.”

“I suppose I am good for something,” Terry said.

“Such a sacrifice for a bit of land,” Evan said with a smile. “Is she worth it?”

“She’s beautiful,” Terry said.

“Do you love her?”

“I don’t love anyone else. I may as well marry Sylvia.”

“I hope you show her a little more ardor than that,” his father said critically, and Terry smiled crookedly.

“I hope you have not got another aging spinster with an odd plot of land you need. I would not be willing to make such a sacrifice.”

“All that I require of you is that you build the canal. How many men will it take, do you think?”

“Hundreds, unless you want it to take years.”

“We cannot wait years. We need it done in a year.”

“Impossible!”

“Then we will merely hire more men.”

“Have you any idea what this all will cost?” “That’s the other thing I require of you. You must work out what it will cost.”

“I’ll start surveying it tomorrow,” Evan agreed wearily, hoping that he could discourage his father from the foolish scheme by laying in front of him the figures, before his brother leapt into what was bound to be a disastrous marriage.

Judith rode with Evan as usual in the morning. Angel was not yet up, so Evan made Bose go with them. They went north to scout again the area where the canal was to go, the canal from nowhere. Where on earth was he to start from? There would be water aplenty to feed the thing from all the streams that ran through the district, but the point of origin was only vaguely sketched in on the map. The gap in the hills, he supposed. There was a group of buildings there, and he asked Judith what they were.

“A factory village where they used to fire pottery. There’s still plenty of clay left, I hear, but since the owner died the place has been shut up.”

“Then how can Father think this canal will be profitable?”

“You think it’s a bad idea?”

“I think it’s a disastrous idea. I’m just putting off telling him so.”

“That will cause an explosion,” she said.

Bose looked accusingly at Evan.

“Bose, go scout about that village. You can catch up with us later.” Bose clenched his teeth and rode off. Judith followed him with her eyes but made no objection.

“When you first came here you seemed to enjoy setting your father’s teeth on edge.”

“I really didn’t do it on purpose, but he was so prepared to take umbrage it took no effort at all.”

“In fact, you fell in to the way of it quite naturally. Was that what you were like when you were young?”

“I can’t for the life of me remember if I used to bait him or not. That was all so long ago. If I was in the habit of discomfiting him on purpose, I would have thought I would have outgrown it.”

“If you had grown up here, perhaps you might have.”

“What do you mean?”

“Even though Helen is a decade older than me and practically raised me, we relate as adults because I have grown into that role. Our relationship has changed because we have always been together. Your attitude toward your father has never changed, since you haven’t seen him in all this time.”

Evan reined in his horse. “You’re telling me that I’m still playing the rebellious youth to his authority figure?”

“Even though he has no authority over you at all.”

“In other words, I should grow up,” he said with a grin.

“Or at least strive to act as though you have,” she countered with a prim smile.

Evan gave a crack of laughter. “You don’t pull any punches, do you, my dear?”

“I am not your dear.”

“That is what Father calls you,” he said, kneeing Taurus into a walk. “I’m merely trying to act grown-up, like him.”

“If you want to do so by bantering at me instead of him, I am agreeable. At least it will be fair play.”

“Meaning you are more able to defend yourself. Yes, I am well aware of that.” He felt his jaw.

“Whether you seek to or not, you do hurt him, and I don’t like it. I care about him too much.”

“Why do you care about him so much?” Evan asked, reining in his horse again. Judith pulled up beside him.

“Because he is a kind and good man. That should be enough.”

Evan stared at her, but the sincere look she returned convinced him to accept her assertion at face value. “Perhaps he has mellowed.”

“Evan, he is embarking on the last great enterprise of his life. This canal project is the last thing he will have a chance to do that will make a difference in the world. I will not have you dashing those dreams. Can’t you just agree to build it?”

“I suppose I have done more for lesser reasons. Very well, mon général,” he gibed, saluting. “I will do as you say. But I am doing it for you, not for him.”

“Do it for yourself, for your sons.”

“I won’t have any sons.”

“Of course you will…eventually.”

“But not by you?”

“No,” she said with a shudder.

He studied her face. Her expression was stubborn, but in defense of his father or in a determination not to cry?

“Then I will do it for Terry’s sons.”

“Don’t lay that at my door, Evan,” she snapped. “It’s not fair.”

“No, it’s not. I’m sorry. But I don’t think I want sons, anyway. Not if they have to go through what I’ve gone through. It’s just not worth it.” He urged Taurus to a canter, and Molly fortunately followed him without command, for Judith was too numb to guide her.

She could not always tell if Evan was joking. He did so often use a joke to turn aside her sympathy or concern. It was as though he could not handle someone caring about him, since he’d never been used to it. Instead of eating up attention, he shrugged it off very much like a little boy who feels he has outgrown the need for mothering. She had watched it happen with Ralph, and she was watching Thomas begin to spurn that sort of coddling. It broke her heart to steal a few moments alone with him, then have him get impatient when she only wanted to love him a little.

She supposed men eventually grew mature enough to accept affection again and return it. But Evan had never known it, except from Gram, and she was gone now.

They rode the rest of the way home in silence and stopped at the dower house out of habit, to walk the horses in the garden.

“I’m sorry if I was cruel to you. I cannot imagine what you went through in Spain. It was very bad of me to rip up at you when you have already suffered so much.”

“What gave you the idea I suffered? I had the time of my life.”

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.