Chapter 18
Now that he had taken residence near London, Clemency began suggesting he join a club.
Richard had little interest in this. He’d seen how Englishmen carried on, away from ladies, and he found it ridiculous and frankly disappointing.
They wagered immense sums of money on trivial things, when he and Gerhard had staked their very lives.
They argued politics past the point of all reason, even when they agreed.
They drank constantly, which mainly led them to behave like fools and idiots.
And they gossiped worse than any women Richard had ever known.
“But it’s the thing to do!” Clemency protested.
“You must know by now that I am not good at doing what is expected.”
“You don’t even know what you are refusing,” she said crossly. “Have you ever been to a club?”
“Yes, I have been. I have dined at one and played cards at another.”
Her mouth opened in a round O. “When?”
He turned and raised his voice. “Gerhard! To which club did Sir Harold Stephenson belong?”
“Watier’s,” said his friend from the desk by the window, where he was writing a letter.
“And Captain Bucking?”
Gerhard paused, thinking. “Brooks’s, I believe. Far worse dinner fare.”
Richard turned back to his sister. “And I did not care for either of them.”
“There are others! Daniel was a member at White’s, and I suppose Rafael will put his name down there as well.”
He raised his brows. “Have you ever been to one of these clubs?”
She flushed. “Of course not. They are for gentlemen, not for ladies.”
“You have missed nothing,” he told her, “and I am content to miss them as well.”
“What else will you do with your time?” she pestered. “Since you have taken a house, I presume you mean to stay.”
He did. But he did not want to tell his sister so, partly because she was trying to manage him and he didn’t want to reward that, and partly because he didn’t want to tell her it was only somewhat due to her and her sons.
And perhaps she had a point. He had already vowed not to make a nuisance of himself to Evangeline, for fear of giving her a disgust of him.
Perhaps he ought to find something else to occupy his time.
He had no need to work; he had an inheritance from his family that kept a single gentleman—who had no estate, wife, or children to support—in good comfort.
But neither was he interested in another adventure now.
“I will find something,” he told her vaguely. “Perhaps I will take up watercolors.”
She sat with the frustrated look on her face that told him the battle had been paused, not ended, and certainly not decided. He returned to his book, but with only half attention.
Sure enough, she couldn’t hold herself back for very long. “I took tea with Lady Allen at Mrs. Fitzwilliam’s the other day,” she burst out, “and she told me Lord Allen would give his team of grays if you would attend his club with him!”
Richard paused. Allen . . . “Henry Allen? We attended a ball at his home once.”
His sister brightened. “We did! Years and years ago, but both Lord and Lady Allen remember it well. You left a lasting impression upon them.”
As had Allen, on Richard. He’d wanted Evangeline’s name and direction from Allen, and the man had refused to give it.
Gerhard’s chair creaked as he rose from his chair and came to sit on the sofa across from Richard.
His eyes gleamed with mischief though his expression was calm.
“Surely you remember, Richard. I certainly do. It was only a few nights before we left for Copenhagen, in the year Twelve. It was a benefit ball. I remember it because—”
“Very well,” interrupted Richard, sensing Gerhard was about to remark that Richard had left that ball early and not come home until late the next morning, looking rumpled and dissolute.
“If Lord Allen wishes to have me to dine with him at his club, I suppose I shall say yes, since we are prior acquaintances.” He didn’t have fond memories of the man, but he also didn’t want his sister to know he’d left her at a ball so he could make love to a woman he’d just met.
Clemency gave a happy chirp and clapped her hands. “I will mention it to Lady Allen! Oh, she will be so pleased.”
“Why will it matter to her?”
She blinked at him. “Why—well, Richard, you’re a bit . . . famous.”
He rolled his eyes and Gerhard gave a snort of laughter.
“You are,” insisted his sister, blushing pink. “Not everyone has raced ahead of Napoleon’s troops through Russia and then had to skirt a war in India on the way home! Not everyone has been to Mongolia or Africa!”
“They are imagining you astride a yak, or milking one of those Kashmir goats,” said Gerhard, and Richard finally laughed.
“Gerhard has done all those things as well,” he told his sister. “Let him be famous. He was nearly as brave and daring as I was.”
“In truth, I saved him from many a disaster,” countered Gerhard to Clemency. “But only for your sake. I knew you would miss him too deeply if I allowed a Gurkhali to cut him down, or a crocodile to eat him.”
She beamed at him. “Oh, Gerhard. You ought to be famous, too.”
The big man turned pink and lowered his eyes. “Ach, no. I would not be good at it.”
“Of course you would!” She leaned toward him and put her hand on his.
“You are every bit as daring as Richard, and so much more sensible besides. You deserve more credit.” She turned to shoot an indignant glare at Richard, and so missed the searing glance of helpless adoration Gerhard gave her before averting his eyes again. “You should credit him more, Richard.”
She was still holding Gerhard’s hand and he seemed perfectly willing to sit there, in that chair, until he turned to stone, as long as her hand was on his. Richard, seeing it, only smiled. “I believe I have done Gerhard some favors in my time.” And his friend sent him a look that agreed.
Evangeline was very glad she had told Richard not to fall in love with her, because she was in grave danger of doing just that with him.
He came to see her every few days—not often enough for her to feel he was always about, but not infrequently enough that she got used to his absence.
He brought flowers, and poetry, and once a basket of freshly picked strawberries, asking if she had any cream.
Then he fed them to her, one by one, and licked the cream from her skin when it dripped.
He was, as Fanny kept hinting, practically perfect.
“Dine with me tonight,” she said one afternoon. The words left her lips before she even knew she was thinking them.
He put down the book he’d been reading aloud, a new Waverley novel called Guy Mannering.
It was outrageous and full of adventures and schemes and twists of fate, and they were both enjoying it tremendously.
They were, as usual, in the conservatory, with the dogs dozing by the door that stood open into the garden, now filled with the buzz of insects in the late afternoon sun.
Earlier they had taken a walk, arguing good-naturedly over some point of political drama she didn’t even recall, then enjoyed a sumptuous tea before settling down for a quiet read, lying relaxed and lazy beside each other on the chaise.
A practically perfect day, in other words.
“Do you mean it?” he asked, his lips brushing the hair at her temple.
She nodded. It was the first time she had asked him to dine with her.
She had resisted that so far on the theory that, if he came to dinner, it would be just the two of them at the table, late into the night, and it was very likely she would invite him to stay even longer, and then he would spend the night in her bed, and she would have crossed a line she’d drawn for herself.
But still she’d asked him, and even though her heart seemed to patter a little more frantically than before, she didn’t withdraw the invitation.
“I would be delighted,” he murmured, nuzzling her ear. The book fell to the floor with a soft thud as he rolled toward her. Then he went still. “Alas.” He sighed. “I cannot. A prior engagement.”
“Oh.” Flustered, Evangeline sat up. “Of course.”
He also sat up. “I could cancel.”
“Goodness, don’t do so on my account!” She put up her hands to fix her hair, which had begun to slip from the pins.
“I would rather dine with you.”
She flapped one hand at him, forcing a laugh. “Nonsense. I wouldn’t wish to steal you from your friends and companions.” She wondered whom he was dining with; a party of ladies and gentlemen? Only other gentlemen? Or perhaps a ball or soirée, the likes of which she was rarely invited to attend?
She got to her feet, wincing as her back complained.
Lounging on the chaise with a man’s arm around her was extremely pleasurable, but she was getting too old for it.
Refusing to show any discomfort by stretching or rubbing her back, especially when he rolled lithely to his feet in one swift motion, she summoned a smile.
“Forget I asked. An impulse of the moment, I’m afraid.
You lulled me into such a state with your dramatic reading, I forgot myself. ”
“No, no, it was a marvelous impulse!” He ran one hand over his head, looking torn. “You should always give in to such impulses, regarding me.” He looked up, more determined. “Ask me again. I will make a better answer.”
“Don’t be silly, darling. I couldn’t possibly tear you away from the company of your fellow men. Or the ladies,” she added hastily, reminding herself that she had nothing to be jealous or envious of, by her own decree.
“No ladies,” he said at once. “Only gentlemen. I don’t even like them much. I shall send my regrets. I only accepted because my sister persuaded me—” He stopped, and something about his expression told Evangeline he hadn’t meant to tell her about the dinner, or the companions, or why he was going.
Which was his right. And it was not her right to know.
“Then I completely withdraw my invitation,” she said lightly.
“I wouldn’t dream of disrupting Mrs. Murray’s plans for you.
Of course your companions would miss you.
” She made a little face of amused resignation.
“And I should hate to be blamed for taking you from them!” She went to the open door and peered up at the sky.
“It begins to look like rain again,” she said, wishing she’d never asked him to stay.
Richard followed her, touching her arm. “Clemency wants me to join a gentleman’s club,” he began.
She turned and tapped one finger on his lips. “You don’t owe me an explanation, or any information at all about your activities. I am not your keeper, darling.”
He caught her wrist. “No, I—I will tell you. Not because I must, but because I don’t wish to keep anything from you.” He paused, searching her face. “I am to dine with Lord Allen and some of his friends this evening, at White’s.”
Allen. Her stomach dropped. She suspected Allen knew about her first tryst with Richard, four years ago; it had been his benefit ball, for goodness’ sake.
She didn’t know how he could know, as she and Richard had slipped out separately and Fanny, the one person who did know, wouldn’t have told a soul, especially not Henry Allen.
But somehow, immediately after that ball, there had been a renewed burst of gossip that Lady Courtenay was up to her old tricks, seducing decent men at fashionable parties and tempting them toward ruin.
Her own sister-in-law had written to her about it, half indignant that it might be false, half worried it might be true.
Evangeline had tried to reassure her, but she knew Marion—who was respectable, social, and very fashionable—would have listened to every whispered word.
And Richard was dining with that treacherous, beastly man. She forced a pleasant look to her face. “I hear the new chef at White’s is an improvement on the previous. I shall be very surprised if he is better than your cook, though.”
He was still looking at her with an odd expression. “My sister believes it is a very English thing to do, dining at a club. I agreed to it, to please her, but I have grave doubts I will enjoy it.”
“Well, you cannot know until you try it, can you?” Her smile felt more confident now, and she gave his chest a little pat. “Allen has a reputation for knowing his wine, so in that respect at least it should be an enjoyable evening.”
A thin line formed between his brows. “You don’t object to my going?”
Of course she wished he wasn’t going to dine with Allen—Allen, of all people, Court’s dear friend who had blamed her for Court’s miserable demise, whose wife would happily spread vitriol about her around all of London.
If Evangeline had her way, her world would never again intersect with that of the Allens.
She raised her brows. “Why should I? He’s obviously an admirer of yours, and your sister approves. If you wish to dine with him, you should. My opinion hardly matters.”
“It does,” he said in a low voice. “To me.”
She hesitated. The temptation to say don’t go was powerful—but she had removed those words from her vocabulary, with him. He was not hers; she was not his. She was not in love with him, and didn’t want him to fall in love with her. She didn’t.
With a poise she didn’t feel inside, she looked him right in the eye and said, “Go, by all means.”