Chapter Nineteen
The ball lasted into the middle of the night. By the time they returned to their Birmingham hotel, Marcus barely had energy to deal with the puppy he’d procured earlier that day, let alone attempt to decipher the enigma that was Evelyn.
The next day they made their way back to Lancashire, tired and sullen both. The puppy was the only member of their party with enthusiasm for the trip, and it bounded about the compartment, tail whipping back and forth.
Evelyn had politely thanked him for the gift of the collie that morning, with no indication that she actually meant it. Her lack of enthusiasm had brought him low, but now, as they neared Blackburn, she was eyeing the creature with curiosity.
Hope stirred in his chest.
“Have you considered a name?” he ventured.
Evelyn did not look his way; her gaze remained fixed on the dog as it rolled about the compartment floor, having apparently found some irresistible smell baked into the worn carpeting.
“Milburga,” she finally said, with a measure of authority.
“Milburga?” Marcus echoed, unable to detach his opinion from his tone.
“Yes,” Evelyn said, giving him a stern look as she leaned forward and held out one gloved hand to the newly christened canine.
“Well,” Marcus said, clearing his throat, “far be it from me to decide. I don’t believe I’ve named another living creature in my life.”
Milburga accepted Evelyn’s invitation, licking her kid glove with gusto, tail swishing to and fro. But that was not enough for the dog, for it reared back and attempted to leap into Evelyn’s lap. Unfortunately, it misjudged its own length and made it only halfway, leaving its hind legs scrabbling against the bench.
“Oh,” Evelyn gasped, catching the animal’s lower half reflexively.
Marcus was up in a flash, dropping to his knees to assist her. But it was unnecessary; Evelyn had lifted the wiggly pup into her arms, leaving Marcus at her feet like a penitent suitor with one hand atop her skirts.
Without conscious thought on his part, he felt his gaze drawn to hers, and his breath caught when he saw her light eyes looking back at him. Something about this moment felt different. Blast it, everything had felt different recently. Bit by bit, his admiration for her had transformed into something else entirely.
Affection.
Marcus swallowed and dropped his gaze to his hand resting upon her lap. Directly underneath it, separated by all her feminine trappings, was her lovely thigh. His fingers itched, wanting to dig into her succulent flesh.
Again without thought, he reached up and caught her chin with one hand.
She started, but did not retreat. Her eyes fell to his mouth.
He kissed her.
A different sort of kiss this time. Slow, aching. With a touch as light as a gentle breeze, he ghosted a caress along her jawline, entreating her, begging her. To what, though?
Marcus dared not think it, even as his other hand slid along her waist, up her side.
For he had other ambitions, a nation to change. He’d sooner see himself upon a plinth, wrought in marble: a monument to his tireless fight for egalitarianism and progress. Wasn’t that what he’d vowed to himself upon his father’s untimely death? To make a difference in this cruel world?
But she—she had made a difference in his world, in a startlingly short period of time.
Evelyn leaned forward into him, as if hypnotized. With an urgent hunger, her lips willed his to move faster.
Milburga let out an annoyed sound, halfway between a groan and a whine; she apparently had no desire to be squashed between them. Marcus drew back and smirked at the dog.
“You have an opinion on the proceedings, have you?”
Milburga snapped her wedge-shaped jaw in his direction before repeating the vocalization, warning him back.
“Goodness, I think you’ve offended her sensibilities,” Evelyn said, smoothing down the puppy’s ears.
Marcus stood and returned to the bench opposite, brows raised. “A talkative dog,” he mused. “And prudish to boot.”
At that, the hint of a smile lit upon Evelyn’s lips. Despite his trepidation, Marcus could not ignore the surge of happiness in his chest.
“She’s not prudish,” Evelyn said, lifting her head. Milburga imitated the gesture, throwing her own head back so she might nuzzle her mistress. “She’s refined.”
Marcus glanced out the window, choosing not to mention the period of the trip during which the animal had rather noisily licked its rear for several minutes. The buildings of Blackburn came into view, easily recognizable even in the dusk’s fading light.
“It’s late,” he observed. “But if we make haste we might return home in time for supper. I’m absolutely famished.”
“We need not wait to eat,” Evelyn said, looking into her puppy’s face as if she were speaking to her. “I’ll have Dutton purchase us a sad cake. There ought to be a street vendor out at this hour.”
“Sad cake?” Marcus said, incredulous. “I wasn’t aware that consumables possessed emotions.”
“Yes, sad cake.” Evelyn looked up at him as she stroked her pet, her expression changing to one of surprise when she saw his own. “Why, you’re serious. You do not know of sad cakes?”
“Ought I?”
“Or perhaps Chorley cakes?”
Marcus shook his head.
“My goodness.” Evelyn’s eyes widened. She pressed her lips together and turned to look out the window, appearing to think. “I did not realize…” she started, then shook her head before looking back. “They’re large, flat pastries, filled with currants. They ought to be big enough to split—that is, unless one is in Chorley. They’re smaller there,” she explained.
“And why are they sad?”
Evelyn blinked. “You know, I cannot say?”
Marcus chuckled.
Evelyn tilted her head as if she meant to elaborate further on the strangely named delicacies, but the bell began to clang as they approached the station, preventing any more conversation.
They stepped out onto the platform and made their way to the waiting carriage. Once Evelyn and Milburga were safely within, Murphy, the coachman, motioned to Marcus and marched over, his face dour as usual.
“Sir, I apologize, but I reckon you should know.” He glanced sideways at the cab of the carriage, then stepped backward, away from the open door.
Marcus followed, positioning himself so that he blocked Evelyn’s view of Murphy as much as possible.
The coachman cleared his throat and began again.
“It’s Mrs. Wolfenden, sir. Why, she came down the morning you left, decked out in her fancy clobber, and demanded I drive her to Methering Manor. When I refused and told her you’d expressly forbidden it, she turned tail, fetched her habit, and rode over on Gerry.”
“The cart-horse?”
“Aye, and didn’t return till supper, she did.”
Marcus glanced over his shoulder. Evelyn sat primly in the carriage, looking at her hands folded in her lap, very obviously pretending not to hear the conversation happening just outside the door, even as her pursed lips and knit brow betrayed her concern. By god, she was a terrible actress. The collie puppy sat alongside her with quite the opposite comportment, head cocked as if doing its best to signal that it was eavesdropping.
Marcus looked back to the coachman with a sigh.
“And yesterday?” he asked with resignation, knowing the answer.
“Rode out on Gerry again. I suppose she reckoned he wouldn’t be missed, it not being a market day. I shared your instructions with the grooms, but, well… I apologize sir, I should have been cannier about it all.”
“And today?”
“She was still out when I left to come here, sir.”
“Right,” Marcus said, lifting his hat to run a hand through his hair. “Thank you, Murphy. I appreciate you telling me, as well as all your efforts.”
The coachman nodded, then turned and climbed back up onto the bench.
What a complete shambles.
Marcus climbed into the carriage, then shut the door behind him with more force than needed.
“Is everything alright?” Evelyn asked.
He heard Murphy call out to the team, felt the carriage jerk forward.
He sagged back against the seat, dragging his hand over his face. Wasn’t the point of this marriage to solve his problems, rather than serve him up a variety of new ones?
“No. Your brother’s addlepated widow is apparently embarking upon a very public and potentially ruinous affair.”
“Selina?” she challenged. “Why, I’ve taken issue with her familiarity toward Wright, but—”
“Did you not just hear? She’s left the house every day we’ve been gone, riding out to the manor on her own. Even when I explicitly forbade her use of the carriage for such jaunts.”
Evelyn’s eyes widened. “She wouldn’t.”
“How am I to take it, then? Surely she doesn’t leave to play the doting daughter-in-law. Why, I’d be surprised if your father was even aware of her presence.” Problems and possible solutions banged about in his head. “Has she no relations?”
“None to speak of, anymore.”
Marcus blew out another sigh. “I am sorry, but I don’t see any other option. You must accompany me to London. All three of you.”
Evelyn froze.
“I am well aware that this was not the understanding, and that we’ve already hashed it out for a second time. But Evelyn, I fail to see—”
“I will not, Mr. Hartley.”
Her eyes were lit with fire, her words wounded and thick with hauteur.
“Think of your niece,” he said sternly. “Surely she doesn’t deserve a mother with such a reputation.”
“I will handle it,” Evelyn said airily, reaching over to pet her collie.
“You?” Marcus said, with not a small amount of skepticism.
Her eyes snapped back to him, deathly cold.
“You think me incapable?”
“It’s nothing to do with what I think,” he said, softening his tone. “It’s what is logically the soundest course of action. Which is to remove Mrs. Wolfenden from the source of the temptation.”
“Logically sound course of action?” she repeated in disbelief. “Mr. Hartley. This is my family. I know her, and you do not.”
“And do you know this Wright?” he growled, angry now. “Even as you claim him to be above reproach, as he carries on with the widow of his former employer?”
“My father is his employer,” she interjected. “Never my brother.”
But Marcus was not done.
“You think because Mrs. Wolfenden is silly and your butler appropriately subservient that there’s no world in which he might have encouraged these attentions and allowed her to compromise herself?”
Marcus was seething now, picturing the faces of the many women who had sought him out over the years, the consequences of their past recreational activities weighing heavily on their bodies and minds, and indeed, on their very lives. He could see the fear in their eyes, the shame in their hunched shoulders.
Evelyn’s lashes fluttered, but she remained still, her shoulders squared, hands folded in her lap as if in challenge: I will not lose this.
“Well. You may have nothing to say to that, no worldly experiences of which to speak, but trust me in that I’ve had more than enough to know what’s afoot here, and what shall come to pass without intervention.”
“I am not—”
“Think back to when we first met, darling wife.” The last words came out as a taunt.
He instantly regretted it, for she reared back as surely as if he’d shouted at her.
“I… I apologize—” he stuttered.
She would not have it.
“As I said.” She made a show of smoothing her skirts, avoiding his gaze. “I know my family. You do not. In fact, I would surmise that you know them as little as you know the rest of your constituency.”
Now she looked up, her eyes blazing, her lovely mouth pressed into a hard line.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Ignorant of our goat willow, our sad cakes. Why, it’s no surprise I could not place you when first we met, since you seem so keen to mention the occasion. I did not know you because you have no local presence or connections to speak of. Why, you spend nearly the entire year in London! Do not correct me, for I asked Mrs. Gill. She told me.”
Marcus swallowed, stunned by both the accuracy of the charge and the venom with which it was leveled. Et tu, Mrs. Gill? Betrayed by his own housekeeper.
They rambled on down the road, the sounds of hoofbeats and the rattling carriage filling the silence between them.
Milburga sneezed.
“You have my measure, it seems,” Marcus said flatly.
Something in Evelyn’s face faltered for a moment as her brows drew together. But just as quickly as it had come, she schooled the woeful expression away. Once more she tipped her chin upward as she looked at him askance.
“Very well,” he said, turning to look out the window. “I shall leave for London tomorrow. Alone. I’ll expect you to have everything well in hand when I return.”
“Which will be…?”
Her voice was smaller than he’d ever heard it, and damn it but his heart tightened. Still, he could not summon the words to apologize, not when she’d struck such a low blow.
“Who’s to say?”
They sat in silence for the rest of the drive.