Chapter Nine
Where a rake guards his heart.
Of course, he followed her every directive like a recruit given marching orders. Missives passed between their London residences in quick succession the following week.
Which was how Ever found himself preparing to host his first dinner since his brother’s passing at Langley Park, his family’s ancestral estate—a house that had stood too long and seen too much to bother with nerves.
If only that indifference extended to its new owner.
Naturally, he and Isabella hadn’t traveled to Derbyshire together.
Ever was firm on that point. The brazen chit he was pretending to court possessed a talent for disorder that thrived in close quarters, and he had no wish to arrive already undone.
So far, she’d tempted him beyond measure in carriages and offices alike.
He told himself the distance was for propriety, for her family, for the smooth running of this impromptu country gathering.
In truth, it was to give him two days to collect himself before she blew in—a dazzling tempest disrupting every plan, every thought.
This evening would be their first interaction since what he’d come to think of as the sensual mishap, and the beguiling ride afterward, when he’d nearly forgotten self-possession existed at all.
When he’d been forced to cradle a flask to keep himself from laying Madam Mischief across his Brougham’s velvet squabs and sinking inside her.
A swaying conveyance could be a boon, in certain ways.
Ever simply couldn’t forget her tight warmth closing around his questing fingers, her distinctive taste lingering on his lips. Sustenance for a man long starved, as it were.
Like a hapless lad, he’d watched for her arrival.
His heart gave a traitorous leap when her carriage appeared on Langley’s pebbled drive, the lawn stretching wide and green beyond the windows of his bedchamber.
He’d crossed to the glass without thinking, drawn there as though the moment had always been inevitable.
When the door opened and Isabella stepped down, his breath caught, leading him to believe it might be fate.
Her gown of startling indigo, near the shade of the sky above, lifted in the breeze, catching the light and casting it across the ancient stone walkways.
A gilded curl had escaped its pins and brushed her jaw.
Her expression was open, alight with curiosity, as though she were arriving somewhere thrilling rather than a place weighted with centuries of expectation.
Her joie de vivre was impossible to ignore, her joy casting his home in a different light, offering him a new understanding of a place he loved yet so often questioned, given how much of what he’d experienced there had been heartbreaking.
Ever pressed a hand to his belly and exhaled.
Damn, he had it bad.
In more ways than one.
Indeed, he’d stroked himself to completion often enough since the sensual mishap to bring a faint burn to his cheeks when he tried to calculate the total.
The taste of her marked him like a rookery tattoo.
So he’d made a promise to himself—a vow—that he would permit the two remaining kisses of the three they’d agreed upon.
(He didn’t count the trifling one in the carriage, folding it into the earlier as a matter of basic erotic bookkeeping.)
But they would not, could not, engage in further oral activities.
Or, God forbid, make love.
No sampling of her nipples, which he’d longed to taste since catching a glimpse of Isabella’s lush bosom trembling as she came.
No more climaxes—for either of them. He would not be the man who awakened something in her only to watch that knowledge carried elsewhere once their ruse reached its inevitable end.
At present, the thought of another man touching her made him want to splinter bone.
Finally, the most confounding element of this entire arrangement was his desire to know her.
She made him laugh, this unconventional young woman, often when he least expected it.
Her mind was swift and untethered, darting in directions his own followed with alarming ease.
Conversation with Isabella didn’t exhaust him or demand performance; it sharpened him, unsettled him, left him wanting more.
He liked her as much as she liked him, which was a colossal predicament.
His bedchamber door opened without ceremony, admitting MacLeod, a valet who had served the Trentham men since before Ever was tall enough to see over the hedges.
Age had bent him into a permanent forward-leaning stoop, as though perpetually bracing against a strong wind, but his pale blue eyes—clouded and faintly milky—missed nothing at all.
“Well,” MacLeod said, surveying him with critical satisfaction, “if this is how ye look before dinner, I’d hate to see yer wedding day.”
Ever shot him a warning look. “This isn’t—”
“Of course not,” MacLeod supplied. Crossing to Ever, he took the ends of Ever’s starched cravat in his shaky hands, nonetheless tying the linen strip with brisk efficiency.
“She’s a fine one, your lady friend. Sharp-eyed.
Curious. Lovely. Took to the west gallery as though it were built for her.
Asked about the roof beams, the repairs.
Said she appreciated how it still felt lived in, hadn’t lost its origins, being rebuilt and such. ”
Ever didn’t like how quickly his chest warmed at that. He loved the west gallery—his favorite spot in the house.
MacLeod nodded, as though confirming a private thought. “Reminds me of your mother. Same admiring way of eyeing the place. Not judging it. Listening. Buildings whisper, if ye listen. I always say.”
The thought struck like a blade. His mother had been a beacon of kindness, gone too soon, his only chance at a happy childhood extinguished with her.
“No need to be nervous, laddie,” MacLeod went on, his tone deceptively mild.
“You’re the only one of ’em ever gave a damn about this dwelling, kept Langley breathing while the rest would’ve let it rot.
Long before your brother’s passing. Time to let that farce in the city go.
If Lady Isabella’s got sense, she’ll see the man you are. ”
“I’m not nervous.” Ever could tell his damnably perceptive valet that Isabella had seen through his facade the instant they met. She was that clever.
However, none of this was real. Ever saw little sense in laying bare the private history of his life to someone preparing to leave it.
Such revelations demanded a listener who would stay.
Once spoken, the most fragile truths could not be gathered back, and he had no desire to spend them on a passing attachment.
Though he’d claimed otherwise, he had no wish for a broken heart.
“I’m not nervous,” he repeated as the silence began to pulse like the wound on his back.
MacLeod’s gaze flicked up, vividly amused. “Of course you’re not, laddie.” He brushed an invisible speck from Ever’s superfine coat, gave the dark lapel a decisive tug to settle it, then steered him, firm as ever, toward the door. “Yer guests are waiting.”
Ever moved along the narrow corridors, his stride softened by worn runners, the air cool and faintly scented with decay and beeswax.
Langley Park carried a quiet dignity he’d always admired, as though the walls remembered every footstep that had crossed them.
From deeper in the house came the low murmur of conversation—Isabella’s lively voice threading through it, her family gathered in the dining room, warmth and life spilling into spaces long fallen silent.
Death had a way of leaving things unfinished, and Ever had inherited more than ancient stone and an ailing title—tenants, a village that depended on Merevale, obligations that drained coin faster than he could earn it.
The burden weighed heavily on his shoulders, heavier still because he revered every stone in the place. Every blade of wilted grass.
Isabella was right. He could marry. He could marry her. But if that day came, if he was not already too late, he wanted the union to be genuine. Not a remedy, not a rescue, but a choice made with the same fidelity he felt for his home, neglected though it was.
He wanted a woman who would cherish him, as he hoped, quietly and fiercely, to cherish her in return.
He’d had enough of lone nights, broken promises, and false identities.
He’d had enough of running. While Isabella might be drawn to him, binding her to marriage while she was still discovering what she wanted, when longing could so easily be mistaken for certainty, felt like a theft he refused to commit.
Ever slowed, stopping just short of the dining room entrance, hesitation tightening his steps.
Inside, the chamber glowed with candlelight, the air rich with the promise of food and conversation.
A footman moved among the guests with glasses balanced on a silver platter while another tended the fire, sparks leaping and settling in the stone hearth.
He might have lingered, content to let the servants finish their circuit and the fire burn lower, if Isabella had not looked up. She didn’t call out, only set her glass aside and came to him, as though it were the most natural thing in the world.
As if she belonged at his side.
“You’re just in time,” she said, looping her arm through his and leading him into the room, the gesture making his heart pound in both warning and benediction.
She’d changed gowns for the evening, radiant in a serene shade of ivory.
He let her take charge, accepting the glass of brandy she pressed into his hand before she led him to her brother, Weston, and threaded the talk with steam engines and trade, with an ease that pleased him more than it should have.
It had been ages since Ever entertained as himself, the sixth Earl of Merevale, and not the buffoon.
Or the spy.
Like the rest, she’d sensed his apprehension.
Dinner unfolded easily, and unexpectedly, he enjoyed it.
Isabella sat at his right, her sister Penny to his left.
The children were upstairs with a maid—four of them, he was fairly certain—and earlier he’d heard them racing along the upper halls, laughter ricocheting down the corridor.
The sound caught him off guard, bright and unchecked, as if joy here required no apology.
When, as a rambunctious child, he’d been forever forced to apologize.
Talk wandered from one subject to the next, settling at last into a cycle of family teasing over dessert and the final glass of wine.
The ease of it was foreign to him, and its absence in his own upbringing stirred an unwelcome pang.
When the attention turned to Isabella, he hoped the sharp shift in his focus went unnoticed, for he was keenly interested in her.
“Remember the time she embroidered advice onto the hem of Aunt Clara’s pelisse?” Penny’s fair hair caught the candlelight as she laughed, her fondness for Isabella plain beneath the teasing. “And then stood astonished when no one thought to consult it?”
Isabella shot Ever a swift glance, an adorable blush stealing across her cheeks. “I was all of fifteen, Pen. Lord Merevale doesn’t care to hear about that.”
The Duke of Mercer inclined his head. “Society may pretend to prefer its women unremarkable, Isabella, but I’ve found the memorable ones are always the making of a man.”
Weston leaned back in his chair, his expression openly admiring as he gazed at his wife. “Or his undoing.”
Ever spoke without thinking, his tone mild but his conviction unmistakable. “One submits to the whole business of society, its Seasons and rules, in hopes of finding something rare. A woman who can best a man at billiards is certainly rare.”
A brief stillness settled over the table, followed by knowing looks and amused smiles.
It occurred to Ever a beat too late that he’d revealed more than he intended.
Disconcerted, he straightened in his chair, resisting the urge to do more than lift his glass to his lips and murmur against the rim, “If one is fortunate enough to encounter her.”
An admission that only worsened his position.
The conversation shifted, as it always did, into safer channels, though his new business partners believed him to be the same besotted fool they were.
Chairs scraped, laughter resumed, and someone proposed the parlor—cards for those inclined, music for the rest. The Duchess of Mercer, it emerged, played the pianoforte with decided skill.
Isabella stood as though to follow her sister, then hesitated.
A moment later, with the others gone, she appeared at his side, close enough for him to catch the teasing trace of her scent.
It struck him as intoxicating, like the orangery of his childhood when citrus trees had filled the air with warmth and promise.
Another entry for the future of Langley, when funds allowed.
“Thank you,” she said softly. Then she touched his sleeve just above the wrist, that spot she’d found again, sending heat through him.
“For what?” he asked, though he knew Isabella Anstruther-Colbrook, of all women, would never let the matter of his gallantry lie.
“For speaking,” she said after a beat. “For speaking up for me. For defending me. My brothers do, of course. They always have. But it’s different hearing it from someone else. I’m accustomed to making blunders at society dinners that send men running.”
“I’m not running, sprite, though perhaps I should.” He leaned in, his whisper brushing her ear. “For both of us.”
Her fingers tightened briefly on his arm, then loosened, as though she meant to withdraw but found herself reluctant. “Thank you,” she said again, quieter this time.
When Isabella turned to rejoin the others, Ever remained where he was, bewildered, his glass forgotten in his hand.
A straightforward dinner had become a delicate arbitration he hadn’t realized he was conducting.
She was a clever negotiator, gaining ground by doing what he feared to do—offering those small vulnerabilities that gave another person power.
Her simple gratitude told him she’d been hurt, shunned, and was looking to him to be the better man.
How could she know he longed to be a better man?
And how was he to guard his heart against her now?