Chapter 16
Ives left the house through the terrace doors. He wanted to talk to the grooms about the horse Eva would ride. On exiting, he saw Lance standing near the steps, surveying his domain.
“Do you never sleep?” Lance asked without turning around.
Ives stopped walking. “Often and well. Thank you for your concern.”
“I suppose it is good someone does. I certainly did not last night.” He turned a pursed smile on Ives. “Someone kept slamming around one of the chambers above me, groaning from whatever exertions occupied him.”
“How peculiar. Perhaps you were dreaming.”
“It sounded like you.”
“My chambers are not above yours.”
“Miss Belvoir’s are, in part. Her bedchamber is above part of my dressing room.”
“I doubt she groans like a man, no matter what her exertions.”
“You might, however.”
“How could it be me? My chambers are across the way. If you are implying that I was in her chambers, that is not possible. There is an edict abroad in the land. Remember?”
Lance raised an eyebrow. Ives smiled.
“I will be riding out after dinner tonight,” Lance said. “Do not ask where I am going. Do not presume to lecture me on appropriate behavior. This infernal abstinence is bad enough, but to have to endure it while I listen to you pummel your lover into oblivion is asking too much.”
The pummeling had been fine enough that Ives experienced a spot of chagrin. “I do not think I will be noticing what anyone does tonight, Lance. If you sleep so lightly these days, a long ride might do you good.”
Ives continued on to the stables and had the chestnut mare brought out. All of the horses were spirited, but the head groom assured him that this one was not skittish or impulsive. “She’ll take an easy hand, sir. A lady should like her.”
“Bring them around in half an hour. Saddle the mare yourself, so I am sure there are no mishaps.”
Upon returning to the house, Ives went up to his chambers. He strode to the writing desk, opened a drawer, and removed a letter.
He looked down on it. It bore the seal of the high chancellor. He lifted a knife and sliced through it.
Only one word of the missive surprised him. As expected, he was being appointed prosecutor for the Crown in the case of Hadrian Belvoir. The Crown did not ask or request such things. That would imply one could decline one’s king, or would want to.
The rest of it did not read quite as he had thought it would. The charges, it explained, were counterfeiting and sedition. He wondered if any evidence of that had been dug up, or if he was expected to argue with nothing more than innuendo and supposition in his pocket.
He dropped the letter back in the drawer and slammed it shut.
* * *
“Istill think I am going to fall off.” Padua pouted with worry as her horse bore her over the field, slowly. Very slowly.
“You are doing fine. Try not to sit so stiffly. Good posture is important, but adapting to the horse’s gait will feel natural, and give you more confidence.”
She did not appear convinced. With effort she relaxed ever so slightly.
“If you hate it, we can go back,” Ives said, taking pity on her.
“No, no. I do not hate it as such. You want to give me this experience, so I should be accommodating. I am only a little afraid, but it gets better with each step.”
“I am forever grateful for how accommodating you are, even when you are a little afraid. Have I ever told you that?”
She glanced over, understood his reference, and blushed. “It is not as if I suffered.”
She did not suffer, because she allowed herself to be passionate. He remembered the list he had written about the ideal mistress.
Loyal
Good-humored
Intelligent
Uninhibited
Passionate
Accommodating
Padua was all of those things, and surpassed most women in some of them.
She would never agree to be his mistress, but the list applied to any lover, no matter what her status.
Unfortunately, the most important quality, the one on which there could be no compromise, loyalty, promised to be the biggest problem.
Not because she lacked loyalty, but because she excelled there too.
He paced along, keeping an eye on her and the horse, noticing how she slowly became accustomed to it. By the time they crossed the field, she looked to be almost enjoying herself. He picked up the pace just a little, and she did not mind.
She took interest in the farms, and waved when they passed a family working outside their cottage. The man and woman stopped and stared.
“They appear surprised,” she said.
“It has been some years since they saw a woman ride the estate. Probably not since my mother gave it up.”
She instinctively looked down at her blue riding habit. Another of Eva’s miracles, it had been redone from one of his mother’s. The long train of riding habits had allowed a refitting.
“They do not recognize it,” he said.
“The woman does, I promise you.” She laughed. “Did your mother have dark hair? If so, word might spread that her ghost was seen.”
“Her hair was dark, and her eyes, too, and, I suspect, her moods and perhaps her heart. When she passed, I realized how little I knew her.”
“That is sad.”
It was, he supposed. She had favored Percy, as most mothers would their firstborn.
He and Lance had seen an alliance when perhaps it was just a mother being a mother.
“I am not only ignorant about her, but about my parents’ marriage.
Gareth is evidence that it was not happy, but I do not know if she drove my father away, or if he fled, or if the fault was his. ”
“Perhaps that is why none of you married. All of those ambiguities would not give you much faith in it.”
What an odd thing to say. They had not married because .
. . He smiled to himself. Because none of them wanted to.
Gareth had just married, but then he had the least to lose, and his character had been formed differently.
He did not run at the front of the herd.
He did not run with the herd at all. It would be like him to decide that, evidence to the contrary aside, marriage would be a good idea if the woman were Eva.
They approached the high hill from a different direction. They were halfway up before Padua realized where they were. “Thank you for bringing me back here, so I can see it again.”
He insisted they get down once they reached the top. They stood on the crest. Padua’s eyes glittered while she feasted on the vista.
“I brought you here for a reason, Padua.”
“I do not think this dress, with all this skirt, is manageable for that.”
He laughed and took her hand. “When we were here the last time, I raised a subject that I want to talk about again. I would like us to marry.”
Nothing changed in her expression. She continued to look out over the farms. Her half smile did not alter. She remained at peace. Perhaps, just perhaps, a few lights went out in her eyes.
“You want to do the right thing,” she said. “That is decent of you.”
“On such matters I can be a scoundrel with the best of them. I am not proposing out of obligation. I think we suit each other very well.”
She looked at him. A million stars sparkled now, because there were tears in her eyes.
“We do, don’t we? If this were truly another world—what a scandal you would cause, if you married me.
Could you survive it through your birth alone?
To marry the daughter of a criminal, a man who might be hanged?
I doubt it. I think your brothers doubt it.
They know you cannot have me. It is in Gareth’s eyes when he looks at me. The apology for what will come.”
“I do not care about any of that, damn it.”
“You will care. To have been in the center, then pushed to the edges—I think it is easier to have lived as I have, on the edges from the start. And when do you think to make this marriage? Before you serve as prosecutor, or after he is gone?”
He pulled her into his arms. “Never. I have decided I will not do it.”
She gazed up at him in shock. Her eyes blazed. “But you must.”
“The hell I must. I will not be responsible for giving you that pain.”
She twisted and squirmed out of his hold. She stepped back, and faced him, straight and tall. “Yet I will know the pain anyway. Your refusing to prosecute spares me nothing, and may make it worse than it has to be.”
“It is perverse to suggest that after what we have shared, I go into court against your father, Padua. It is out of the question now. I will remove myself.”
“If you don’t, who will?” She strode to him and stuck her face up at his.
“Some fool who will only think he has won if the accused swings? A man more interested in the coin he earns than in justice? My father may be guilty of playing a minor role in a big crime, but there are those who will make it sound as if he planned it all and grew rich in the process, and worse.”
His temper spiked. He walked away from her, so he might leash it. “After this week, for me to prosecute would be dishonorable. I could never be effective. I must remove myself. Hell, I knew I had to before we even left London.”
“You did?” It was more an accusation than a question.
“Of course. A man cannot do to a woman what I did to you at Langley House, then claim impartiality regarding her kinsmen. Did you really think I would have you like this, then pretend I represented the Crown when your father was tried?”
Her expression cracked. Shattered. She bit her lower lip. She hugged herself, and stomped her foot in an effort to contain her emotion. “But you must. You must.” She stomped her foot again. Her face twisted in anguish. “I have made such a muddle of it. I am an idiot.”
His worst misgivings resurrected from where he had buried them.
They spread all through him like a bad chill.
He almost choked on the disappointment they bred.
“Padua, in my house that first night, you were tempted to try to bribe me. It was in your eyes. Is that what you have been trying to do? Convince me to do other than my best in court?”