Chapter 26
The next time Lord Burke came to call, Evangeline was ready and waiting for him.
It was plain to see that Joan was infatuated with the fellow.
The viscount had taken her ballooning, of all things, which nearly gave Evangeline heart palpitations, but Joan .
. . Joan had been enthralled by it. Her face had lit up as she described rising through the morning air and gazing over the whole city of London, from St. Paul’s to Chelsea, and she’d called the viscount by his Christian name.
When Evangeline had raised a brow at that, Joan had blushed scarlet and mumbled something about knowing him since childhood, and then she’d gone silent when Evangeline prodded her about, perhaps, possibly being courted by the viscount.
It didn’t bother Evangeline; quite the contrary.
It gave her a small thrill of her own that her dear niece might have fallen in love—with a handsome, charming gentleman, no less, who was clearly just as caught by Joan—and she resolved to do everything in her power to oversee this potential courtship with the utmost propriety while also doing absolutely nothing to inhibit the progress of it.
Marion couldn’t fault that, surely. Burke was a very eligible gentleman, and his hijinks weren’t really any worse than what George had got up to—nor worse than what Douglas, Joan’s brother, was still actively getting up to.
Burke was in fact a close friend of Douglas’s, as Joan had told her several times.
But perhaps it was time to make certain Burke knew he was being evaluated as a suitor.
“How kind of you to call again,” she said to Burke when Smythe had shown him into the drawing room.
Lord Burke’s gaze, which had strayed to the door, jerked back to hers with some evidence of alarm.
Evangeline had purposely not sent Smythe to tell Joan about their caller until after he’d shown Burke into the drawing room. “I’ve wanted to have a chance to have a word with you, sir.”
“Indeed, ma’am?” He was a big fellow, tall and broad-shouldered and exceedingly fit. But today he perched on the edge of the sofa, his hands between his knees like a boy who’d been caught doing wrong.
Which he had done. “Ballooning?” she asked dryly.
Incredibly, he perked up. “Did she tell you about it? I hope Miss Bennet enjoyed it as much as I did.”
That was very interesting. He still looked like a boy, but now one who had a ripping good tale to tell. Much the same way Joan had looked, when relating the same tale. “How much did you enjoy it?” she asked curiously.
“Enormously,” he said with relish, and then began waxing enthusiastic about gas burners and balloon ropes. He also slipped and started to call Joan by her Christian name before catching himself with another covert glance at the door.
Joan had not yet appeared. Evangeline knew that some new dresses had been delivered that morning, and hopefully Joan was trying on one of them.
The colors promised to go very well with her coloring, and the styles were elegant and only the slightest bit daring.
One sight of her, dressed flatteringly, might clarify Lord Burke’s mind.
“I never would have asked her to go up if I weren’t completely satisfied it was safe,” he ended.
“And you are persuaded it was safe?” It didn’t really matter now that they were back on terra firma, but Evangeline wanted to know how considerate he was of Joan.
“Absolutely,” he said without a flicker of hesitation.
She took a breath, and pressed a little. “In all ways?”
Richard had delivered the men’s gossip about the viscount; Fanny had told her the ladies’ view of him.
He was indeed one of the most eligible men in London, but he was also one of the most elusive.
He was never seen in the company of ladies, let alone unmarried ones; he was rarely seen at fashionable society events at all.
Many a hostess had torn out her hair trying to lure the viscount to her party, where one of her single daughters or sisters might catch his eye.
If there had been a ranked list of the biggest prizes on the marriage market, Burke would have been near the top.
Handsome, titled, and rich—very, very rich.
His attentions to Joan had so far escaped anyone’s notice, but taking her ballooning and continuing to call on her would change that. If, by some incredible chance, Burke hadn’t thought of it, and had no intention of courting Joan, he ought to be warned off as soon as possible.
But if, on the other hand, he was considering just that . . .
“Take care not to create any expectation you don’t plan to fulfill,” she told him.
He bristled at this, taking her meaning. “Are you warning me off?”
Oh, very interesting. He wasn’t taken aback, or revolted. He was affronted that she might be trying to deter him.
Evangeline smiled a little. “Rather the contrary! Merely letting you know the scope of the . . . challenge ahead of you.” George. Marion. He would need to impress far more than Joan or even Evangeline.
“What challenge?” he demanded, looking both irked and determined, but then the door behind them opened, and Burke shot to his feet, a strange expression on his face.
Evangeline knew it would be Joan. She turned and saw her niece, wearing a turquoise dress they’d ordered a week ago.
She was pleased to see that the color did flatter Joan’s coloring, and the cut was infinitely better for her curvy figure than the beruffled and beribboned dresses Marion had dressed her in.
Joan looked like a woman, not a little girl dressing up.
And Lord Burke looked like a man who’d just been struck by a thunderbolt to the forehead.
Well, well.
She sat quietly and watched them strike sparks off each other.
Joan was teasing him—something about a wagered shilling—and Burke’s eyes practically glowed with fascination.
Evangeline had seen that look in a man’s eyes before.
In Richard’s, when she’d stood up in the pond and opened her eyes to see him watching her, breathless and entranced.
Within days of that look, they’d been lovers.
“My niece tells me you are rebuilding your house,” she blurted out, feeling suddenly as if she ought to redirect things.
Mentally she sighed at herself; house building?
But it was the only thing she could think of that might cool the sizzling air.
She’d not heard Joan mention anything of his taste in music, books, theater, sport, even politics.
But it turned out that Lord Burke was as enthusiastic about his house improvements as he was about ballooning. Even more remarkable, Joan was as interested in the subject as she’d been at the modiste, asking questions and hanging on his answers about plasterwork and rooflines.
“Would you like to see it?” Burke asked of a sudden.
Evangeline seized the moment. “I should like it above all else,” she said warmly. Joan gave her a startled look. “I’ve often contemplated improvements to my own house, but it’s so difficult to picture them. Have you installed any water closets?” she asked Burke.
He cut a swift glance at Joan. “On every floor.”
Her niece smiled, and soon they were on their way. Evangeline prattled on about the water closets—which she was interested in seeing, actually; such a convenience they would be—to cover her racing thoughts.
He owned a house in Hanover Square. A very good address, even if his house was currently not the most elegant on the square.
Marion couldn’t object to that in the slightest. Inside, the smells of plaster, paint, and sawdust hung thick in the air, but the rooms taking shape were very pleasing.
Another point in his favor. Evangeline strolled through, listening with half an ear as Burke talked about his plans, and Joan responded with far more enthusiasm for new woodwork than one might expect from a London young lady.
She paused just inside the doorway of a parlor. She’d deliberately left them alone in the dining room. What were they saying?
“That was one of my favorite holidays from school,” Burke was saying, almost wistfully.
“Why?” exclaimed Joan. “I meant to say . . . I’m glad you enjoyed your time there . . .”
Her lips parted as she realized they were talking about Helston Hall, the Bennet property in Cornwall.
Evangeline had loved that house, and all of Cornwall, where she could run free and swim in the ocean and ride ponies on the dunes.
But her mother had thought it too rustic and so they’d spent little time there.
Shamelessly she eavesdropped harder. Burke had been there as a lad, invited by Douglas—and it sounded as if they’d got into a great lot of trouble. Evangeline inhaled as something Joan had told her finally made sense.
After the ballooning trip, Evangeline had made a concerted effort to discover how deep and true Joan’s attraction to Lord Burke ran.
Joan had admitted that her mother disapproved of Burke, very strongly.
Marion considered him wild and arrogant and—worst of all—indifferent to propriety.
It all rang true to what Evangeline knew of Marion, but at the same time .
. . Burke was young, handsome, eligible, and wealthy.
Virtually every mother of the ton would be delighted if the viscount began paying attention to one of their daughters.
The unkind thought that perhaps Marion didn’t really want to see Joan wed had crossed her mind, for there were vanishingly few men in London who could possibly meet Marion’s standards, yet still be acceptable to Joan.
But now, listening in on Burke’s and Joan’s conversation, Evangeline realized precisely why Marion didn’t care for Burke.
It wasn’t anything to do with Joan, or his behavior now.
He’d encouraged Douglas’s wilder instincts when her son was still a boy and not yet a rakish rogue.
How much easier it was to blame an outsider, a boy with no parents or protective family to defend him, for her son’s wild behavior rather than admit that she had little sway over his actions.
Evangeline would have laughed, if it hadn’t been such an important point. Perhaps back then, Marion hadn’t fully realized that deviltry was bred deep in the Bennets.
She made herself move away. She was interested in the improvements to the house, and she’d heard enough.
There was genuine trust and feeling between Joan and Burke.
He showed Joan something that made her niece exclaim in delight, and Evangeline smiled ruefully when she realized it was a coal lift, to bring coal straight from the cellar to the parlor.
Decidedly not a rakish seduction in progress.
When they met her in the hall a few minutes later, she looked at Burke with fresh eyes.
He was boyishly enthusiastic, pointing out the skylight above the stairs and the new banister, stealing glances at Joan every few minutes to judge her reaction.
He seemed positively thrilled to show Joan water closets and pipes and new floors—and even more promising, Joan was thrilled to see them.
Again Evangeline drifted away, this time to think.
Burke was so eligible. Roguish ways aside, that was undeniable.
He had an old title and a healthy fortune, soon a very handsome house in a fashionable neighborhood, and he gave every sign of falling hard for Joan.
George, she reflected, had been much the same, although he hadn’t yet inherited when The Honorable Miss Marion Douglas caught his eye.
She blew out a breath. She had been caught up in her own troubles then, and hadn’t paid much attention to how George went about his courting.
But she knew he had reformed his behavior; he gave up some particularly dissolute friends, and curtailed his drinking and gaming.
And he had settled right down after his wedding.
Thirty years later he was still a devoted husband and attentive father. Surely Burke could be the same.
Her companions had gone into the main bedchamber, which smelled of wet plaster.
Their voices were low, echoing indistinctly in the empty room.
Evangeline wished she knew more about Burke, or London society.
She felt the weight of ignorance pressing down on her.
Should she encourage this suit, or dissuade the young man because of Marion’s animosity?
Perhaps he would be undaunted; perhaps he, like George, would change his life to win his love’s favor.
Or . . . perhaps he would be offended, and turn his attentions elsewhere.
Joan was twenty-four years old and had been out for six years.
Fanny reported that she was generally liked, but also something of a wallflower.
Joan’s reactions alone were enough to tell Evangeline that suitors were unusual for her.
She stared out the window at Hanover Square for several minutes before realizing how quiet it had become.
Joan and Lord Burke had not emerged from the bedchamber, but they were no longer speaking.
Evangeline felt a start of alarm. She had suggested Joan let the viscount kiss her, but now she was doubting everything.
She strode after them, determined to keep a close eye on her charge, but with no clear idea in her mind how to proceed.