Chapter 9
“Louis!” Evangeline put her hands on her hips and huffed in irritation as she surveyed the garden. “Louis!”
The little dog did not come. He had been in the house an hour ago, snuffling for any dropped crumbs from the breakfast table, and now he was nowhere to be seen.
She’d looked through the entire house, especially the kitchens, and not heard a bark or the tap of his tiny paws on the floor.
She called one more time, then went back inside.
“Is he not there?” Solly sat in the morning room, where the light was best, re-attaching the trimmings that had been torn from a bonnet the last time Evangeline wore it.
“No. He must have wandered off again.” She took down her pelisse from the hook beside the garden door. “I’ll have to go find him.”
“He always comes home on his own, sooner or later,” remarked Solly in her offhand way.
“It looks like rain, and I don’t want to have to bathe him, if he comes back with his fur full of mud.”
Solly just looked at her. She’d been doing that a fair amount since Sir Richard Campion’s unexpected visit the other morning, when Evangeline had thrown all good sense out the window and received him. Which led to the even greater thrill of hearing him profess that he was intrigued by her.
He wanted to know her.
Also, he kissed like a man who could make her forget every good intention she’d ever had in life. She’d not forgotten that, either.
Solly had been with her four years ago, when she’d returned home after her night with him.
Solly had eyed her—disheveled, wearing her horribly crumpled gown of the previous evening, but glowing with sated bliss—and simply shaken her head.
How Solly knew Sir Richard was the source of the glow, Evangeline had no idea.
Unless she’d been glowing like that after taking tea with the man? Perish that thought.
Regardless, she was not walking out in hopes of meeting Sir Richard. She was thinking only of her dog. “He can’t have gone far. He was here less than an hour ago.”
“And the rain will be here soon.”
“Then I shall walk briskly.” She buttoned the pelisse and took down Louis’s lead.
“I’ll prepare a hot bath for when you return, soaking wet and freezing cold,” said the other woman.
“That will be lovely, thank you.” She swept out of the house before Solly could say anything else.
Wind rustled the trees around her as she strode through the garden. Lovely and wild, it was her favorite thing about Wyndham House. It sprawled around the side, more cottage garden than formal parterre, and it soothed her just to step into it.
Wyndham House had been her escape from the horrid, spiteful whispers after Court’s death.
His heir, a nephew, had ordered her from the Courtenay house in London a few days after the hasty funeral, and Evangeline had been only too happy to go, just as she’d been only too happy to quit Cunningham’s house.
The one good turn her father had done was insist on a large widow’s portion, which had allowed her to buy her own house for the first time in her life.
Here she was mistress and master, lord and commander.
She liked it. That was another reason she would never marry again.
The house sat nestled into the edge of a copse, hidden from the road.
Not far from the end of the garden ran the path into the woods, the one she had followed to the secluded pond.
A faint roll of distant thunder sounded, but the sky was still mottled with patches of blue.
She hesitated only a moment, then took the path toward Humberton Hall.
Louis had roamed every inch of her property; there was nothing there to intrigue him. Besides, the paths that went northward were overgrown. Louis could scramble under the brush, but she could not.
Humberton Hall was tidier than she remembered.
The garden had been severely cut back, the garden paths had been raked, and now one could see all the windows, which were much cleaner than they’d been the last time she was here.
When was that? Evangeline wondered as she climbed the rise.
Three years or more. Old Lady Elmore, who’d had it then, had fancied herself a grande dame and something of an eccentric, and she’d made a point of inviting Evangeline to one of her dinner parties.
She’d never been invited back. Evangeline supposed arguing that women deserved the right to vote had been a bit too eccentric for Lady Elmore.
The path led around the side of the house, past the windows of the dining room. Evangeline smiled, remembering Sir Richard calling it dreary. She meant to go to the front door, like a proper caller, but a familiar bark stopped her.
She stopped. Regardless of the threatening skies, the windows stood open, emitting the smell of freshly cooked bacon. She heard a clink of silver on china, and a faint murmur of voice. Another bark sounded.
“I say, there,” she called. “Sir Richard!”
A moment later he appeared at the window, coffee cup in hand. “Good morning, Lady Courtenay.” He bowed, not looking surprised at all.
“I do beg your pardon for disturbing you,” she said, “but I’m missing my dog. Have you seen him, by any chance?”
He grinned. “Ah. The fluffy ginger fellow with an ungovernable passion for bacon?”
“Yes,” she said wryly. She’d been fairly certain Louis was here the moment she’d caught the scent. “I take it he has invaded your house and forced his acquaintance upon you.”
“My door was open,” he replied, “and I was pleased to make his acquaintance. Won’t you join us?”
As if she had much choice, if she wanted to retrieve her wayward dog. Still, Evangeline had already untied her bonnet, and her heart skipped a beat as she followed his gestured invitation to come through the garden to the terrace door.
Inside, the dining room was not as dreary as she remembered. Sir Richard had removed most of the furniture, she realized, along with the draperies, so the room felt bigger and brighter even on this gray day. And it was painted a pale blue, not the deep red of Lady Elmore’s day.
“Lady Courtenay, allow me to present my friend and companion in travel, Gerhard von Rieger. Gerhard, this is Lady Courtenay, my new neighbor.”
She curtsied to the other man in the room, a very large fair-haired fellow who surveyed her with interest. “A pleasure, sir.”
“A very great pleasure, my lady.”
Sir Richard pulled out a chair from the round table in the center of the room. “Won’t you join us? I have rung for tea.”
“Oh no,” she tried to say. “I’ve only come to fetch my incorrigible dog.”
At her voice, Louis trotted around the table and gave a sharp little yip. He came over to sniff her hand, but dodged when she tried to slip the lead over his head. He ran back around the table.
“He has been establishing his dominance over Hercule,” said Sir Richard, his hands still on the back of the chair he’d pulled out.
“Hercule?”
He smiled. “My dog.”
Louis yapped again and Evangeline took a few steps into the room. Louis was climbing over the largest dog she had ever seen, a mountain of black and brown and white fur, who seemed to be tolerating Louis with great patience.
“He is from the mountains near Zürich,” explained Sir Richard. A gray-haired older woman carried in a tray with a steaming teapot, which she set on the sideboard. “Danke, Frau Loretz.” Her host got a cup himself and began pouring. “He has taken to your dog—Louis?”
“Prince Louis the Only, my pampered little despot of a canine.” Evangeline watched her pet sniff at the big dog’s chin before giving it a delicate lick.
The larger dog returned the lick, nearly tumbling Louis over.
“Have you been feeding him bacon?” She glanced over in time to see a guilty look flash across Sir Richard’s face, and an amused expression on Mr. Rieger’s.
She sighed in exaggerated despair. “He will never go home with me now. Take good care of him, sir, he is yours from this day forward.”
“Nonsense.” Sir Richard carried the cup to the table and set it in front of the chair he’d pulled out. “His affections are only distracted and will swiftly revert the moment I have no more bacon.”
She laughed, and finally gave in and took the seat, setting her bonnet aside.
The smile Sir Richard gave her was downright sinful.
He would tempt her into so much trouble, if she weren’t careful.
Not that she minded much about her reputation anymore, but her appetite for being the focus of scandal had faded over the years.
She sipped her tea, startled—in a good way—to realize it was the same type she favored. She eyed her host over the rim of the cup. Could it be chance? He was drinking coffee, as was the other gentleman, who was watching her with unnerving interest.
“My favorite kind of tea,” she said lightly. “What a coincidence we favor the same brew.”
Sir Richard’s smile deepened, his eyes merry. “Indeed, madam. The very happiest coincidence.”
It wasn’t coincidence. He’d remembered what tea she served him and now he had the same in his own house, ready to serve to her, when she came to see him. As if he’d known she would.
Yes, Evangeline thought, I am definitely doomed.
Richard’s heart was thumping, and his skin prickled all over.
From the moment the little orange dog had come sniffing around his terrace, obviously enticed by the sizzling rashers of bacon Frau Loretz had just brought out, his senses had sharpened to the clarity that he found when facing a river boiling in full flood or a near-vertical wall of rock.
Fate was leading her back to him, in the form of a hungry Pomeranian.
Which was not to say he hadn’t played a supporting role.
He’d opened the doors wide. He’d set the plate of bacon near them.
He’d dropped a few pieces of meat on the flagstones, in case the dog should prove shy, and had to order Hercule back to his place by the hearth to ensure the proper party was ensnared.