Chapter 31
Stephan woke to the soft, orange glow of the morning sun flitting through his bedroom window.
For a moment, he simply lay in his bed and gazed at the ceiling.
He blinked, awakening slowly, like a cat stretching in a pool of sunlight.
A sense of peace filled him. Stephan sighed contentedly and rolled onto his side.
Evelina. He inhaled sharply.
She lay fast asleep. In sleep, her face was softened and calm.
His eyes swept over her soft curves, only partially hidden beneath the linens.
She reminded him of a statue he had once seen of Aphrodite, her body draped in fabric that provided modesty while also emphasizing every part of her beautiful, feminine form.
Evelina’s hair had taken a golden tinge from the sun, and he flexed his fingers, thinking about stroking her lovely ringlets.
He would not touch her, though. Otherwise, she might wake.
Stephan frowned and tried to determine precisely when he had begun to care so much about her desires.
He had grown to care some for her, of course.
Evelina had many appealing qualities. She was beautiful and quick-witted and independent.
He would not be vexed to find that she had passed those qualities along to their son.
This was…something else, though. There was no conceivable reason for him to care so much about the inconvenience of waking her, except that the world was so serene in that moment that he could not bring himself to shatter the peace between them.
He lay there for a long time. At last, Evelina began to stir. Her eyelashes fluttered, and she stretched her arms over her head. The motion lifted her breasts, and Stephan inhaled sharply, seized by the memory of touching them not so long ago.
Evelina blinked sleepily at him. “You are here,” she mumbled.
Stephan smiled. “So I am. How do you feel?”
Knowing that she had hesitated awakened a softer side of him, one which Stephan seldom acknowledged. He wanted to ensure that Evelina enjoyed their time together.
“I feel great. I enjoyed…” she trailed off, pink rising to her cheeks. “I can scarcely believe that I was worried about having a congress with you. That was hardly a chore.”
“I believe it is a chore with some men,” Stephan said.
Still, a deep satisfaction settled in his chest. Evelina had enjoyed the encounter. Practically, that meant she would likely be willing to have another congress with him and another—hopefully as many as it took for her to conceive an heir.
“I think…” Evelina furrowed her brow and wrinkled her nose. “I will admit that I had not given it much thought previously, but I suspect that I hesitated because…”
Stephan let his hand rest in his cheek, patiently waiting for her to finish. Maybe she would be willing to try again right in that very moment. His pulse jumped at the thought of having yet another congress. That sounded like a pleasant way to begin the morning.
“I know that I seem confident,” Evelina said. “Sometimes, I even believe that I am. However, I have only just realized that I have carried these feelings of inadequacy inside me for…a very long time. I think that I have wanted…”
She shook her head, seemingly frustrated by her inability to express exactly what she felt.
“Take your time,” Stephan said softly.
Evelina cast him a grateful look. “I thought that I was unlovable and unwanted. My father was…not a good husband and often an absent father. And the late Earl of Thornwall did not want me. He would not even touch me. I just…I thought that there must be something wrong with me. How could he delight so much in the company of his courtesans and not even wish to touch his own lawfully wedded wife? But what we did—just a while ago—it taught me that…well, it was different.”
Evelina sighed contentedly, and Stephan’s heart sank like a stone. It would be easy to agree with her. Their congress had been wonderful, and he had thought many times during the act that he was fortunate to have such a lovely and passionate wife. What was he doing?
Stephan had wanted a wife who would detest his involvement in her life. That was the arrangement they had agreed to. He would marry Evelina, they would produce an heir, and there would be no romantic entanglement, no tender feelings, from either of them.
She kept smiling at him, though, with a soft look in her eyes. Fondness! Evelina was fond of him, and Stephan knew that he had erred. He had let Evelina become too much of his life.
He had let her put flowers in every room and open the drapes to let in the sunlight. He had let her bring her friends into the parlor and entertain them. He had even let her use his kitchens to bake a cake instead of chastising her about what constituted proper behavior for a duchess.
Stephan should not have let her do any of that, but somehow, his respect for Evelina as a strong and independent woman had blossomed into something far more dangerous. Now, what was he supposed to do?
“You are not unlovable.” The words were strangling him. She was not unwanted because with a sharp and horrifying clarity, he realized that he might find her lovable. “I mean, I was rejected by my entire family; I have only felt as though I belonged at war. If either of us is unlovable, it is me.”
There—he had comforted Evelina and made it apparent that he was not a man that she should ever be fond of.
Is she fond of me?
Stephan could not decide if that possibility was more or less horrifying than his own affection for Evelina. If they loved one another, they might wish to be something more than a marriage of convenience, and that was doomed to fail. Stephan could not possibly manage to keep Evelina’s affections.
“You are not unlovable either,” Evelina said.
Stephan shook his head. “I disagree.”
“Why?” she asked. “There is no shame in admitting that you are a human being with wants and needs. Wanting intimacy is not some weakness.”
“Do you really believe that?”
“I think so. You know…I do want a child, but I wonder if—if maybe—if maybe it was just that I was lonely. I wanted a child to love me unconditionally. Maybe that is because I feared no one ever would, and it was so hard seeing my friends marry and have children of their own, while I was left all alone.”
His chest was tight. Something like panic rose inside him as he looked at her. Evelina was so vulnerable in that moment, expressing things which he had never imagined she would.
“During these past few weeks with you…” she trailed off. “I still want a baby, and I know you need one. But after last night—and waking up beside you—I also wonder if my priorities have changed a little. Maybe yours have, too.”
“Why would you say that?”
“Because you were willing to give me time,” Evelina said, “when I was sick. You kept insisting that we had ample time for me to produce a child, but the truth is that we do not have much time. We never had. There are so many things which might go awry, yet…you have been so attentive to me.”
Stephan inhaled sharply. The words were like a knife to his chest. He knew all of that already, of course, but knowing something and hearing Evelina say it were two entirely different matters.
He could not love her, and she could not love him. Any real affection between them would amount to nothing. Stephan had never fled from danger before; he was dependable in battle. He hadn’t flinched from facing the worst that Napoleon had. Evelina, though—
She was a foe he didn’t know how to handle. Even thinking of her as a foe sent contradictory sensations of guilt and pleasure through him. She was not an enemy of any kind. She was his wife, but this arrangement was only one of convenience. What had gone wrong?
“I—I have to go,” he said.
Stephan needed the time and space to think. He needed to be away from Evelina.
“Go?” she echoed. “But why?”
“Because I—this—this cannot work between us!” Stephan exclaimed, climbing out of the bed. “It simply cannot.”
Evelina furrowed her brow and pursed her lips. “You care for me,” she said. “I know that you do. I—I think I have known for a long time, and it only just occurred to me. But you do.”
“It hardly matters,” he said. “Even if I care for you, I cannot—I cannot—I have to go.”
“No,” Evelina said, staring at him in disbelief. “No, you cannot just walk away! We are having a discussion.”
“And I have decided to end that discussion,” Stephan said dryly. “There is nothing to be gained from continuing it.”
Evelina stood and shook her head. Color had risen to her cheeks.
Bathed in the morning light and the glow of her fury, Evelina looked like an avenging goddess.
His breath caught. “No,” she said. “We are married. You cannot just walk away, and I will not tolerate being used for my body and abandoned. You cannot do that to me.”
“Can’t I?” Stephan asked. He left the bed and retrieved his trousers from the floor, aware that Evelina watched him like a hawk. “In case you have forgotten, our marriage is a matter of convenience.”
Evelina stared at him, looking stricken.
“Did you forget that?” He dressed without looking at her.
If Stephan did turn to see Evelina’s expression, he feared that his resolve might crumble again.
“Our marriage is built of contracts and stipulations. It is as convoluted as the stipulation that my father put on me inheriting the dukedom, and you agreed to that.”
She said nothing, but her eyes burned into his back. Stephan swallowed his pride and, at last, turned to her. Evelina stood tall, but tears fell down her face.
“It is what we agreed to,” he insisted. “You cannot fault me for wanting to hold you to an agreement we both made, especially knowing everything that was at stake.”
“Right,” she said, sounding defeated. “Of course, I cannot fault you.”
Her agreement made him feel even more wretched.
Stephan finished dressing and stormed from the bedroom, taking the stairs two at a time.
He considered the possibility that Evelina might have followed him and might be watching from the bedroom door, but when he thought of looking behind him and seeing her devastated face again, his courage abandoned him.
Stephan stepped into the foyer, and Nathanial brightly approached him. “Good morning, Your Grace!”
“Good morning,” Stephan grunted.
Nathanial was too cheerful for the morning, especially when Stephan’s thoughts hissed and buzzed around his head like a swarm of bees. Evelina was—
She was furious because of him. But what could he do? Evelina wanted him to agree and say that he loved her as she did him, and horrifyingly, perhaps he did.
They could never be anything more than they were, though.
The best outcome would be that Stephan would break her heart.
Why did she have to care about him? Why did he have to care for her?
Now, he was placed in the impossible position of still needing an heir from this woman, something that would prove all the more difficult now that they had feelings for one another.
“Is everything all right, Your Grace?” Nathanial asked.
“I am going out,” Stephan said curtly.
He did not wait for a response. Instead, Stephan simply flung open the door and left. The warm spring air of Mayfair swept over him. Bustling maids and elegant couples walked peacefully through the streets, talking with one another and basking in the enjoyable day.
A longing for the sea rose within Stephan so violently and suddenly that he feared he might be ill.
The sea was dangerous but uncomplicated.
He knew who he was when he was at sea, and he knew the moods of the ocean well.
Stephan could look at the sky and tell when the waves were about to become a tempest. He could feel the caress of the wind on his face and know when the waves would soon still until they were like floating on the surface of a looking glass.
Evelina was unpredictable. She was not supposed to love him. That was why he had agreed to let her be his wife. She was brazen and independent and would not need him.
“Absurd,” Stephan muttered.
He shoved his hands into the pockets of his jacket and trudged down the street, his heartbeat thundering as if he had just accomplished some great physical feat. He had to be away from Evelina as soon as possible. He had to banish her entirely from his mind.
Stephan wished that he had thought to call for a coach to whisk him away all the more quickly, but he had too much pride to return to his house and ask.
Maybe if he walked very quickly, he could reach the ports, find a ship, and just leave.
Stephan knew he could not really do that, of course, but it was lovely to fantasize—
“Rothbury?”
Stephan’s head snapped in the direction of the voice. Across the street, Murrayton gazed quizzically at him. His beautiful wife was with him, their maid trailing a few steps behind. “Why are you walking around all alone?” Murrayton asked, his voice full of good humor. “How is your duchess?”
Stephan found some difficulty breathing. Words were even harder. When he thought of speaking, they all fell away from him and dissolved into a string of nothingness. “I—I—she is…”
Murrayton turned to his wife and said something to her that was too quiet for Stephan to hear. Then, the man crossed the street and studied Stephan’s face for a long moment. “What happened?” Murrayton asked, his voice absurdly gentle.
Stephan clenched his teeth together, heat rushing to his face. He was not a man who cared to talk about how he felt ever, and he especially had no inclination to discuss his marital problems—even with his friend. But Evelina…
She was so wonderful and terrible that every suppressed and unspoken thing bubbled up inside Stephan. “I need someone to talk to,” he said. “About Evelina.”