Chapter 31 #2
Evangeline stifled a grin at the thought of Denny kicking Lord Burke in the seat of his breeches and slamming the door behind him.
“I also questioned Burke directly about his intentions,” she forged on.
“He didn’t retreat at all when I warned him about raising expectations.
If anything, he seemed to grow more determined. I do believe he cares for her, Marion.”
He’d damned well better, after what he did last night, she thought grimly.
“I was persuaded that he was in earnest when he invited us to see his house, currently being repaired and redecorated into an exceedingly modern, handsome home in Hanover Square. Joan was very taken with the house, and when I overheard him asking her opinion of finishing touches like paint colors and plumbing, she answered him very eagerly.” She paused.
“I cannot imagine how deeply in love I would have had to have been, to enthuse about coal chutes and water closets at her age.”
Marion gave a reluctant laugh. “So said George.”
“She told him?”
The other woman nodded. “With great enthusiasm, in George’s telling.” She sighed, turning her head to look out the window. “I want my daughter to find love and happiness. Of course I do. But I don’t want it to be short-lived. If only Burke were a more respectable sort of gentleman . . .”
Evangeline crossed her fingers under the table. “I believe he’s not so bad as his reputation suggests. If I had any doubt, I would have chased him off with a pitchfork.”
She still might, if this rebounded horribly on Joan, but didn’t mention that.
“I have known more than my share of rakes and scoundrels, as you know,” she went on, choosing each word with care.
“Believe me, I learned painful lessons from every one of them. I asked several friends for the most scurrilous gossip they could find on Burke, so that I could know the worst, and all reports came back that he’s possibly the most elusive, prized bachelor in London.
He’s no saint, but his affairs are discreet.
He’s not in debt, and he has an extremely large fortune.
His vices are the usual ones a man of his age and station would have, and he does not pursue them immoderately.
And . . . if he willingly calls upon a young lady, and takes tea with her, and dances with her in front of all society, he knows precisely what he is doing, and he is doing it of his own free will because nothing on earth could induce him to do it against his will.
” She tried to smile, despite the hammering of her pulse.
“I do believe Douglas would thrash him senseless if he trifled with Joan, and he knows it.”
Marion continued to stare out the window.
“Perhaps you are right. Douglas . . .” She touched one hand to her brow.
“I cannot think about him. My main purpose is to prevent Joan being caught in a scandal.” She looked at Evangeline with compassion.
“You know well how vicious and unkind that always is to a lady.”
She nodded, a hard lump in her throat.
“It is not easy, as a mother, to see your children unhappy,” Marion went on.
“For years I’ve hoped and prayed a gentleman would appear who loved Joan for who she is, whom she loved in return.
I know she dreams of that, too. Joan has always found it desperately unfair that Douglas is allowed far more freedom and .
. . well, more excess. George assures me Douglas knows his bounds and keeps to them, and I take his word for it.
But as much as I would like to see Douglas married and settled, it is far more important for Joan.
Life is harder for a spinster than a bachelor.
” She hesitated, glancing at Evangeline.
“But I cannot bear the anguish I would feel if either of them should be married in a way that prevented all future happiness.”
Evangeline couldn’t move. Even her heartbeat felt sluggish.
Marion meant Court. If Court hadn’t got himself shot, she would still be tied to him for life, still forced to put up with his public affairs, his arrogant selfishness, his complete lack of care for anything about her.
She might have remained respectable and been received by every hostess in London .
. . but she would have been beyond miserable.
“Could Burke make my daughter happy? I don’t know,” Marion went on in the same measured tone.
“If she loves him, I hope he can. But I am afraid . . . He has been wild his entire life. I don’t know that he knows how to be a good husband.
Douglas, at least, has had George as an excellent example.
” She seemed to gather herself. “I shall do my best to reserve judgment. If Joan cares for him, it will matter. But in the meantime . . .” She poured more tea.
“Do tell me about this dressmaker who creates gowns my daughter likes better than anything in Ackermann’s. ”
By the time Joan peered around the door, Evangeline had begun to breathe easier.
Her heart leapt when Marion apologized to her daughter for insulting the gold gown; Evangeline couldn’t fathom her own mother openly apologizing for anything.
And Joan responded with perfect contrition about causing her mother to worry.
Evangeline drank her tea in relieved silence, saying prayers of gratitude to every deity she could think of. They’d squeaked through, it seemed. Burke remained an open question, but now Joan’s parents were on hand to deal with him, and Joan showed every sign of confidence in her choice.
When the post arrived, she seized the chance to excuse herself. Joan followed her to the door. “You’re leaving?”
She clasped her niece’s hand, fondness filling her heart. “Yes. I miss my Louis, and now your parents are home, you’ve no more need of me.”
Joan looked at her with big eyes. “I’ll miss you.”
The faintly forlorn note made her eyes grow damp. And I shall miss you, she thought. Perhaps she would be able to see Joan more often, especially if she married Lord Burke. She hoped she would. She was still angry at the young man, but not irrevocably.
When Joan asked what she should do, though, she rallied her confidence. “What does your heart tell you to do?” she asked gently.
“It would be easier to answer if I knew what his heart felt,” her niece muttered.
Make him tell you, she thought. But as she was doing her best to reassure the girl, she spoke encouragingly. “Men don’t always blurt it out, you know. Some of them take a fearfully long time to acknowledge that it is love they feel.”
It had taken Richard six years—but then, he said he’d been following her lead, and that he had wanted to say it forever. She had promised to think about that. In a fortnight, he would tell her again, and ask her . . . Ask her . . .
And that moment, just as it appeared she and Joan had skirted true disaster and would pull through unscathed, was when it all went wrong.
“You lied to me.”
Joan and Evangeline both froze at Marion’s voice. Slowly they turned, to see her holding a letter, her eyes wide. Bloody hell. Evangeline wasn’t sure to whom Marion was speaking, but she had a terrible feeling she knew what was in that letter.
“You disappeared from the Brentwood ball with Lord Burke last night and weren’t seen again.” Marion gazed, aghast, at her daughter.
Joan’s lips parted, but she said nothing, her face pale.
“I made her come home,” said Evangeline in a rush. “I felt a headache . . .”
Marion gave her a look that sent a chill to her bones—anger, humiliation, fear. “And you were remarked searching the house for Joan!” She turned to her daughter. “Where did you go, young lady?”
Joan did not share Evangeline’s devious, sneaky soul. Instead of putting up her chin and brazening it out, she stammered, she blinked, and her cheeks went from white to scarlet in the blink of an eye, as damning as any confession.
Stricken with guilt, Evangeline lowered her gaze to her hands and listened as Marion recounted every fact that had so alarmed her last night: Burke’s disappearance, at the same time as Joan’s, after they had danced together—“indecently close!” Marion exclaimed in dismay.
Joan flinched with each word. She looked as if she would cry, even before her mother started talking about sending George to deal with the man. “Oh Joan, what have you done?” she finished in despair.
Evangeline’s knuckles were white; her fingers had gone numb. She made herself look up, her throat painfully dry, and Marion sent her a look filled with such betrayal, she simply bowed her head. Marion sent Joan back to her room, then turned on her. She had got to her feet but now swayed unsteadily.
“Evangeline,” she said, her voice thick, “did you lie to me?”
She took a deep breath. “No. I . . . I omitted a few things.”
Marion gave a little sob, then collapsed into her chair.
“She did go off with him,” Evangeline made herself say. “Or perhaps he led her away. I did look for her, but discreetly. I . . . I do not know what happened between them.”
Without a word Marion held out the wretched letter. Evangeline would rather read her own death warrant, but she took the paper.
Althea Crocker, read the signature at the bottom.
Dimly Evangeline remembered the woman in the retiring room with a loose button on her glove.
The letter was polite, even effusive, but—like Catherine Brentwood’s note to Evangeline—that was merely a sugarcoating on malice.
She wrote of her delight at seeing Joan in society, even if so surprisingly attired; her astonishment that the elusive Lord Burke danced such marked attendance on Joan; her concern at noting Joan wasn’t seen at supper; and how frantically Evangeline had been searching the whole house.
She made it sound as if Evangeline had run up and down corridors screaming Joan’s name.
She ended with concern for how it would look, Joan disappearing with Lord Burke from the ball and neither ever returning.
She hoped Joan hadn’t suffered a misadventure.
Lady Crocker, of course, had two unmarried daughters of her own. And, now that Evangeline thought about it, the woman was also friends with Lady Ambrose.
“This puts the most spiteful exaggeration on everything,” Evangeline said quietly. “She merely saw me glance in the retiring room for Joan.”
Marion had leaned back, resting her head on the chaise behind her. Her face looked bloodless, and lines of stress bracketed her mouth. “Althea Crocker is a horrendous gossip. If this is how she’s portraying it to me . . .”
It would be even worse when she told others. How well Evangeline knew that.
“I am sorry,” she whispered. “Surpassing sorry.”
“So am I,” said Marion, as a tear leaked down her cheek, quickly followed by another and another. “But I must leave it to George now, and I have no idea what he’ll do.”