Chapter 3
Richard Campion awoke in an unfamiliar bed surrounded by an unfamiliar perfume.
It took him only a moment to remember whose it was and how he’d got there.
He rolled over and buried his face in a pillow, inhaling deeply.
Evangeline. Even her name hinted at the almost-religious fervor she’d stoked in him.
Never in his life had he been so struck by a woman.
She was tall—perhaps that was it? She’d looked him straight in the eye when she invited him to come with her, right then, walking out of Lord Allen’s ball where he was a guest of honor.
And he’d done it: gone without a single thought for his host or the guests who were waiting to speak to him or even for his companions, who had presumably stayed at the ball and wondered at his disappearance.
But no; it was not just Evangeline’s stature.
She was beautiful. Magnificent. Mischievous dark eyes that sparkled with some private amusement.
Dark hair that looked darker still against her bare skin when it fell to her waist. Lush, generous curves that made him want her the moment he laid eyes on her.
A full, soft mouth that mesmerized him whether she was telling him to take off his clothes or whispering that she was too old for him.
He had been in London for over three months now.
How had he never met her before last night?
Every other ball his sister Clemency had begged him to attend had been dull and ordinary.
If he had known England contained a woman like her, he would have given in to his sister’s pleading and gone to parties much sooner.
He bounded out of bed and threw open the drapes so he could find his clothes. He had to see her again—although first he had to find her. He shook his head at himself; he had slept much too late, and too deeply, if he hadn’t heard her rise. She must be downstairs at breakfast.
All thought of his impending journey to the steppes vanished from his brain. All desire to see the yaks and yurts of Mongolia was gone. He had the clarity of a man who had just seen a holy vision and meant to devote his life to worshipping it.
There was a tap on the door when he’d got his clothes turned right side out and back on. “Ja!” he barked, buttoning his breeches. “Come!”
The man who had admitted them the previous evening came in, a tray in his hands. “Good morning, sir. I’ve brought coffee, tea, and the morning papers, if you care for them.” He set it down on the dressing table.
“No, I don’t,” he said as he pulled on his waistcoat, which looked as though a wagon had run over it. Karl would be appalled, as it was his one fine suit of clothing. “Where is Lady . . .” He blanked on her title for a moment; Evangeline, was all he could think. “Lady Courtenay?”
“She has left, sir, but she bade me make you at ease. She expresses her regret that she cannot see you off and wishes you a safe and rewarding journey.”
He froze, hands on his buttons. “Gone? When did she leave?” It was still early. His sister, Clemency, rarely rose before noon the day after a ball. And Evangeline had spent half the night making energetic and uninhibited love. He’d heard the clocks chime two in the morning.
“Yes, sir.” The butler poured a cup of coffee, expression serene and unreadable. “Is there anything else I can bring you?”
“Yes,” he said. “Her direction.”
Sunlight gleamed off the man’s spectacles. “I’m very sorry, sir, I do not have that information.”
Very well. He could find it elsewhere. “Is my host awake? I wish to pay my respects.”
“Alas, Her Ladyship is unable to see you. She extends her apologies and also wishes you a safe journey.”
Annoyed, Richard drank the coffee as he yanked on his stockings. Lord Allen would tell him. Allen had already told him about her, and the man disliked her enough to tattle even more.
But he was wrong about that. At the Allen house, the butler reluctantly roused Lord Allen only after Richard insisted, but it was all for naught.
“Lady Courtenay?” Allen groused. “What can you want with her?”
“Her direction.”
Allen eyed him sideways. “Stay away from that woman. Man to man, she’s a siren, luring you to your doom.”
Richard frowned. “Rot.”
Allen lowered his voice. “Mind you, I don’t blame a fellow for wanting to ride her once or twice.
Those bubbies are magnificent . . .” He cupped his hands suggestively in front of his chest, then dropped them and grew stern.
“But her late husband was a friend of mine, and he told such tales of her shrewishness and demands . . . Keep your distance, I strongly advise you.”
Richard glared at him.
Allen seemed to think he’d been persuasive.
His tone softened. “I like you, Campion. First-rate adventuring, and a damned sight more exciting than a London Season. I tell you this for your own sake. Consider Lady Courtenay like one of those savage beasts you met on the African savannah—splendid to behold, but wild and untamable, and liable to kill any man who gets near enough to catch her.” He yawned and scratched his belly.
“And your ship leaves within days! Your man was telling me about the tides and the North Sea, and we can’t have you missing it over any woman, let alone that one!
I’ve a mind to come to the docks and see you off myself. ”
“I want to see her before I leave,” Richard repeated.
Allen’s cheer faded. “Campion,” he said, almost sternly. “The woman buried two husbands, good men both.”
Every widow had buried at least one husband, by definition. “Why is that a mark against her? Did she kill them?”
Allen’s face turned red. “I—I never said that!”
Richard nodded. “Then I see no scandal. Men die all the time.”
“She’s a termagant!”
“I have faced hungry lionesses in Africa. I am not afraid of a lone Englishwoman.”
Allen stared at him. “Then you’re a damned fool,” he said, wrapping his dressing gown around him.
“And I’ll not contribute to it. Go to Mongolia.
See the Huns. They’ll be more hospitable than she will be.
I’m telling you now, she’s not worth the trouble.
You’d do well to get this strange taste for trouble out of your mouth.
” He stalked from the room without another word.
Steaming, Richard went home. When he reached his lodgings, Gerhard was railing at the porter who had already taken much of their baggage to the docks, including apparently a box of navigational instruments Gerhard wished to keep by him.
Karl, his manservant, did protest when he saw Richard’s evening clothes, crumpled and abused, but even he was distracted.
He helped Richard into fresh garments and bundled away the evening clothes; they would not be going on the journey, but into storage.
Gerhard quit his argument with the porter when Richard said he was going out on an errand. “What errand? I have completed everything that needs doing. We wait only upon the tide now. Are you going for food? I also am hungry.”
“No. I have to do something,” he said, putting on his hat. “A personal matter.”
Gerhard had been his friend since both were small boys. He ran after Richard. “You go to see Mrs. Murray, to bid her farewell?”
“No.” His sister had declared that she would come to see him off at the docks, and neither her husband nor Richard had been able to dissuade her. He didn’t need to go see her.
“Who, then?”
Richard hesitate. “A woman.”
Gerhard’s ears pricked up. “Who? One of the wealthy ladies who has sponsored our journey? Perhaps I should see her, too.”
“She is not a sponsor.”
“Ah. Then she is a lover. Which one did you choose? The blonde lady from the theater?”
Richard frowned. He barely remembered the woman who had invited him to her home, murmuring that her husband was in Wales for the month. He never accepted those invitations. Gerhard thought that was a bit prudish of him, but Richard wanted no part of a jealous husband. “No.”
Gerhard kept up his protests and questions, dogging his heels and blustering about the tides and schedules until Richard managed to outpace him.
He had an excellent sense of direction and retraced his steps to the house where he had spent the previous night in erotic bliss, but the same butler who had poured his coffee that morning said the lady of the house was not at home.
The man remained obstinately ignorant of Lady Courtenay’s direction as well.
He turned away in bitter disappointment. Whom could he ask? Not his sister. Allen had refused. He didn’t know many people in London, and certainly none well enough for him to confide his very deep, very personal interest in Lady Courtenay.
Grudgingly, he returned to his lodgings. He sent Karl to ask at the post office, but the man returned with no information. She did not have a house in London, it seemed.
His trip through the North Sea and the Baltic into Russia and the far eastern provinces had been planned over the previous eight months.
Most of the funding for it came from people like Lord Allen, who wanted to stand on the dock and wave them off and boast of their connection to the brave explorers.
Gerhard was rumbling about nailing him into a cask and shipping him to Copenhagen.
All his belongings had been either put into storage or packed for the journey.
Beleaguered and thwarted on all sides, Richard boarded the ship.
He was coming back to London, in a year and a half—two years at the most—and he would not forget Evangeline.