Chapter 8
“Sir Richard Campion has returned to London,” was Evangeline’s greeting when Fanny came to tea two days later.
“At long last! Yes, I know.” Fanny helped herself to one of Cook’s tiny cakes with a frosted violet on top.
“You knew!” Evangeline stared at her old friend. “And you didn’t say a word to me?”
Fanny raised her brows as she chewed the petit four.
“You said you never wanted to see him again. You said you’d had your fun with him and that was that, the urge was sated, the itch was scratched.
You told me to order Brumley not to reveal anything about you at all if he should happen to ask—which he did, by the by, more than once.
I took your word that you were done with him. ”
“I am! I was!”
“Then what does it matter if he’s in London or Paris, or wandering the streets of Kolkata for that matter?”
Evangeline chewed her lip in discontent. “It doesn’t matter. It took me by surprise, is all.”
“I know how you feel. I was quite shocked by the way Mr. Brummel fled the country. Sneaking out of his box at Covent Garden, during the curtain call! The gossips may never recover. At least he did not leave a poor, abused wife to be dunned by his creditors, as Lord Byron did.” She sipped her tea. “How did you hear of Campion’s return?”
Evangeline frowned into her tea. “I didn’t wish to see him again because I didn’t want . . . an entanglement.”
“Of course.” Fanny took another little cake, this one with a sugar-encrusted rose petal on top. “And having discovered he is once more nearby and available, you have reconsidered becoming entangled with him?”
“No,” she said at once.
“I see,” said Fanny in the tone that indicated she had noticed Evangeline was avoiding her questions.
Wise woman.
With a huff, Evangeline set down her teacup. “I discovered his return when he came upon me bathing in his pond.”
Fanny’s brows went up again, higher this time. “Indeed!”
“I didn’t know it was his pond,” hissed Evangeline. “At the time, it was no one’s pond!”
Enlightenment dawned on Fanny’s face, and—curse her—a little smile crossed her lips.
More of a smirk, actually. “Ah, I see. The little pond not far from here? The one you regularly go swim in? And if it is now his pond, that suggests he has taken that ramshackle old manor across the hill? Which means he is your neighbor?” Evangeline had nodded in grim silence at each query and now her friend looked vastly amused.
She took another cake. “Is he as handsome as he was four years ago?”
“No.” Evangeline threw herself back into the cushions and blew out an enormous sigh. “Even more so.”
“Oh my,” murmured Fanny.
“He came to call on me,” Evangeline continued, staring up at the ceiling. “Strolled up to the front door with a bouquet in hand and bowed like a gentleman.”
“Promising,” said Fanny in approval.
“Then he sat right where you are sitting and said he wanted to make my acquaintance properly this time,” she raged on. “He said he had thought of me every day he was gone. What unspeakable cheek! He was gone for four years!”
“Oh my,” murmured Fanny.
“Then he invited me to swim in his pond any time I liked. How is a woman to respond to that sort of thing?”
Fanny pursed her lips. “By fetching a towel?”
“Fanny! Can you imagine the scandal if people knew? Merely that he said that to me?” Evangeline glowered at her. “And I’ve been so good!”
“You’ve been so bored,” corrected Fanny.
Evangeline sighed, deflating like a burst ballon. That was true. “I’m doomed! Everything I do leads to scandal.”
“Would that we all experienced such doom as being pursued by a handsome, exciting man,” said Fanny wryly. “So he only came here to pursue a new affair?”
She picked at her skirt. “He says not.”
Fanny nodded sagely. “He was crude and lascivious, urging you to swim naked in his pond so he might discover you more often?”
Against her will, Evangeline smiled. “No.”
“He brought flowers. I presume he drank some tea. He’s even more handsome than he was four years ago. He wants to know you as you really are.” Fanny gave her a look. “If I were you, I would restrain myself from descending into a melancholy of despair over this tragic state of affairs.”
Evangeline sat up. “No. You would seduce him again.”
Fanny smirked again. “Well, if it had been a while since a man warmed my sheets, and an appealing potential lover presented himself, willing and eager, not to mention proven capable of satisfying any and all of my desires . . . I would be well within reason to do so.”
Fanny knew she hadn’t had a lover since Allen’s ball.
She did not know that no lover Evangeline had ever had had been half as appealing as Richard Campion, because Evangeline had not wanted to admit that fact.
She had tried to erase him from her mind; she’d flirted with a number of gentlemen, thinking she would discover that Campion wasn’t so special after all.
She’d been certain that, sooner or later, a new man would make her forget about piercing blue eyes staring deep into her soul as he whispered that he wanted to be her friend as well as her lover, and that she would find equal pleasure in his arms.
It hadn’t worked. Every other man had let her down in one way or another, some dramatically and some quietly. She’d eventually given up. She wasn’t sure she could even remember them all. But the memory of her one night with Sir Richard still sent a little tremor through her.
“I won’t do it,” she declared. “I am done with him. It was only one night, and trying for more can only ruin the memory of how perfect that night was. I should forget it, and forget him, and find a new man who can please me just as well as he did.”
Fanny regarded her for a few moments in silence. “Perfect?”
Evangeline flushed. “It was . . . fairly magnificent.” He was magnificent, she thought to herself. Likely still was.
Her friend shook her head, brow wrinkled in pity. “My dear, if you can find another such man in Britain, I suggest you set a trap and devote every waking hour to luring him into it. They are surpassingly rare.”
Evangeline glared at her. “Where is the solace and comfort you are supposed to be offering? I pour out my heart to you and receive this in turn.”
Fanny laughed. “When you are so stubbornly refusing to admit that you still want him, and adamantly insisting you will not accept what he is offering, no matter how desperately you want it, you do not need solace, my dear. You need someone to tell you to stop being a fool.”
When the cakes were gone and Fanny had left, Evangeline wandered restlessly through the house.
Had that night truly been perfect? Save for the fact that she hadn’t woken in his arms to experience another just like it?
She replayed the memories in her mind and found no flaw, nothing that left her dissatisfied, except his declaration that he wanted more.
That had given her a start. She hadn’t been in the habit of seducing men, having always been the one seduced, but it had never occurred to her that the man she seduced would want more than a few nights of mutual pleasure.
It certainly wasn’t common among Englishmen, who were pleased to seduce a woman and equally pleased to be spared the burden of supporting a mistress.
Well, perhaps a few nights of pleasure was all Sir Richard had meant.
He was a young man, far younger than she—Evangeline had not forgotten that important fact—and to him, an affair of a few weeks’ time might be an eternity.
Perhaps that was all he’d intended: to call on her, amuse her with his stories, make her climax three times a night, and then drift away on some new adventure. Really, what was so wrong with that?
Evangeline began to calm down as she thought about it.
It was slightly mad to assume she would end up facing marriage to every man she bedded.
She knew it wasn’t true; she’d had other lovers, and none of them had ever come close to falling to one knee.
Just as Sir Richard had gone on his planned travels, no matter what he said in the flush of passion.
She was being silly. A hearty man such as Richard Campion wouldn’t even want marriage to a woman as old as herself.
She had money, it was true, but she wasn’t old enough that she was likely to die soon and leave a wealthy widower.
She was too old to have children, perhaps even unable, after two childless marriages.
She had always been strong-willed and independent, and if the thought of ordering her about ever crossed Sir Richard’s mind, he would soon discover how fruitless that was.
No, he’d only wanted someone to gaze at him adoringly as he spoke about himself, like most men.
Even if she could admit that he was a fascinating topic.
And they did suit each other very well in bed, although so had she and Court, in the beginning.
That hadn’t lasted, and there was little reason to think it would last with Sir Richard, either.
Which suited her perfectly, as Fanny had pointed out.
Yes. She was safe from him. Surely, as Fanny said, there was no real danger in allowing herself a few weeks of private pleasure. Campion was an explorer. No doubt he would make it all very easy for her and leave the country again in three or four months.
Very well, she decided, aware that she was breaking her own rule on thin justification. Let the man come to call on her. Let him talk to her, and make her laugh, and perhaps even seduce her. It would only be a few weeks.
No man was irresistible.