Chapter 6 #2
The last word hung suspended between them, laden with a memory neither could forget.
Tentwall studied her more closely, perhaps seeking in her the eighteen-year-old girl who had once looked at him with an admiration so easy to manipulate.
Eveline was glad that girl no longer existed, though her remains, unfortunately, preserved a rather shameful memory.
‘You are indeed changed,’ he considered after his scrutiny.
‘That is what I like to think.’
‘But not so much. You are still the most beautiful lady in the room.’
Eveline suppressed a bitter laugh.
‘I see your talent for predictable phrases has suffered no damage whatsoever.’
He touched the scar with two fingers, without taking his eyes off her.
‘Some wounds teach better than sermons.’
‘Then you must have learned a great deal.’
Tentwall let out a low laugh.
‘I had not realized how much I had missed you, Eveline,’ he confessed to her without a trace of formality and in a low voice.
She ought to have felt nothing.
Not a shiver, much less an absurd pang of vanity. But she felt it, because there were pains that were difficult to forget, and she hated herself for it at once.
She did not want to remember, and yet everything she had lived through with him would not leave her mind, for though it had been brief, it had been intense—so much so that she ended up declaring her love to him a little before that absurd episode at Vauxhall, to which he replied that marrying was not in his plans for the moment, but he did propose that they amuse themselves.
Exactly. The scoundrel had put forward the possibility of her becoming his mistress.
If Statony had found out about that, the scar on the viscount’s face would at that moment be adorning a well-buried corpse.
And if her brother were to learn that she had been so smitten with him as to consider the possibility for a few seconds, the corpse would be her own.
She drew herself up still more. The encounters with Arden had served her well in cornering a troublesome gentleman. Eveline was going to put all that learning into practice with a true scoundrel.
‘How curious,’ she said. ‘I do not recall having given you permission to miss me. Nor shall I allow you to skip the social rules. I am Lady Eveline, my lord. You will not take liberties with me that I have not granted you.’
‘I never needed permission to think of you. And, of course, neither did you to think of me. I remember well the intense declaration of love you made to me. The years may have passed, my dear, but I am sure that something as strong as what you felt for me cannot have died so suddenly. And I must remind you that those were your very words, for you loved me so vehemently that you were certain you could never stop, do you remember?’
‘Yes, I admit it, I remember it well. A woman can never forget the great follies she plays out thanks to youth and immaturity. Not to remember that could make me trip over the same stone. I do not make the same mistakes twice, my lord,’ she warned him.
Tentwall’s eyes hardened for an instant. Then he recovered his smile, though it was no longer so light.
‘I have not come to discuss the past.’
‘Have you not?’ The great liar… She longed to strike him, but if not even Arden himself had managed to make her slap him after daring to give her that formidable kiss, she would not do it with Tentwall.
‘No. ’
‘What a relief. The past always ends up proving tedious when it is permitted to make an appearance.’
‘I have approached because I wish to speak of the future. ’
‘The future?’ She had missed something.
‘I do not believe in coincidences. Tonight I needed… let us say… a small miracle. Yes, that is it. Do you see, my lady? I can behave like a gentleman if that is your wish. For you, I have recovered my formality.’
‘What is it that you want, my lord?’ she asked wearily.
‘I wish to court you,’ he said simply.
Eveline looked at him with her eyes wide open.
For a few seconds, the room seemed to disappear.
The music went on, the fans moved, the voices rose and fell around her, but that sentence was like a bucket of cold water.
It was so great an effrontery that it almost deserved a round of applause for the conceit.
Then she burst out laughing. The viscount raised an eyebrow.
And seeing that he was not laughing, she stopped.
She cleared her throat with discomfort and sighed.
It seemed the viscount was speaking in complete earnest. Why did men do everything at the wrong time?
She would have been the happiest woman in the world if he had said those words four years ago.
Fortunately, he had not said them, for she suspected she would not have been a fortunate woman at his side.
He was handsome as sin, and her heart beat hard when he was near, but he was the kind of man a woman should never marry.
‘You ought to give thanks that my brother did not call you out to a duel years ago; do not tempt your luck, my lord. Statony has grown more measured since he married, but if he learns that you have dared to speak to me tonight, he will do something more than put a scar on your face.’
‘Statony has never worried me in the least, my lady. It is with another gentleman that…’ He fell silent at once. Cedric did not want to say more than he should.
‘Yes?’ she asked when he stopped.
‘I have changed, Eveline,’ he assured her.
The use of her name was ending her patience.
‘Lady Eveline,’ she warned him softly.
He inclined his head with a courtesy far too late.
‘Lady Eveline. I have changed. I am ready to marry.’
‘What a fortunate piece of news for the ladies of London.’
‘For one in particular.’
‘I wish you luck in your endeavor.’
Tentwall took a step closer, not enough to compromise her, but enough to oblige her to sustain the conversation more firmly.
‘I can offer you what you once so desired, my lady. You once assured me that you loved me; I can make that love spring up again if you allow me. I will give you stability, position, and a home as my viscountess,’ he tried to tempt her.
‘I already have position, Lord Tentwall. And as for homes, my brother owns several. It is exhausting, but useful.’
‘Do not pretend you do not understand what I am telling you.’
‘Do not you pretend you forget what you did to me.’
The smile disappeared.
‘And what of love? I told you I desired you at that time; you were the one who rejected me. Now I am giving you the chance you begged me to give you then. And what if we were destined to have this second chance, Lady Eveline? Think it over well—I have matured, you assure me that you have too, we can have a good marriage,’ he tried to persuade her again.
‘Do you really believe I could forget what you proposed to me so scandalously? You did not want me; you only wanted to enjoy the milk without buying the cow. ’
‘You are not a cow, my lady; give yourself a little more credit.’
‘You know what I meant, and while I have indeed changed, I very much doubt that you have.’
‘I was young.’
‘You still are. You are only three years older than I.’
‘That will depend on whom you compare me with, my lady. ’
‘I will not marry a boy; I want a man. Although that scar makes you resemble a most exciting corsair, you are not—’ She fell silent the moment she realized the explanation was not heading anywhere good.
She saw him smile at her and knew she had made a mistake.
He was not the devil—he was her confounded Achilles’ heel!
Eveline cleared her throat and drew herself up to tell him: ‘You are still handsome, that is the truth, but after coming to know you, I decided that you are only something pretty for a woman to contemplate. There is nothing more in you that is worthwhile,’ she told him without mincing words.
And yes, that felt truly good. Especially when he sighed.
That was when she believed he would turn on his heel and leave. No. He remained at her side. Why so much insistence?
‘I was an imbecile, I admit it.’
‘That has not changed so very much, apparently.’ Oh, yes. Saying that tasted of glory too. She braced herself; at that moment he would turn on his heel, offended.
She counted to five. No. Cedric was still at her side.
He lowered his voice to tell her:
‘I can repair what happened.’
That sentence struck her as so offensive that for an instant all her amusement vanished.
‘No. You cannot repair anything. There are damages that are not repaired with a ring offered years too late, just when a gentleman decides he is at last ready to marry.’
Tentwall looked at her with a mixture of irritation and desire, and Eveline felt once more that familiar alarm she had ignored at eighteen.
Cedric Lancaster could not bear not to be adored; he could disguise it as charm, apology, or passion, but at the bottom of it all there was a hungry vanity she was trampling, and he kept trying to bring her to reason.
He did not understand what was happening.
‘I have heard in this very room the rumors that go about concerning you,’ he said.
‘London would be a mute city without them.’
‘It is said that you are engaged, but that your suitor is not accompanying you tonight. You will agree with me that this cannot be a good sign.’
Eveline held his gaze, but she was thinking of another, far less seemly matter.
She remembered Arden, more precisely his mouth, his tongue grazing hers while she shivered.
She could still feel his hands at her waist…
And there was also the way he had placed her behind him when they were discovered, protecting her even while the two of them were left ruined.
Ah, but then her supposed fiancé had vanished, though not before having fought with Oliver.
And even so, Eveline raised her chin.
‘I am engaged to a real man; anyone who knows him knows it, and he does not need to be around me all the time.’
Tentwall stiffened.