Chapter 7 #2
‘Let us speak rather of Tentwall’s duel. Do you remember that the viscount is what matters here, Lady Ashbury?’ she returned the lecture. ‘Why did that duel never come to light? I do not remember hearing anything about it, and it is a most juicy rumor to be a secret,’ she considered.
Lady Ashbury looked at her with a gentleness unusual in her.
‘Some things must be resolved far from the newspapers, from anxious mothers, and from the ladies who turn a woman’s misfortune into an entertainment.
It was all managed with discretion. There were trusted seconds.
Discreet gentlemen. And with enough common sense for the matter never to reach the public sphere. ’
‘You speak as though you knew the details very well. Did you help?’
‘I always help to keep society from collapsing upon its own sins when it suits me.’
Eveline could not hold back a faint smile.
‘That means yes.’
‘That means you are a very impertinent young woman.’
‘Statony would attest to your words, and Arden would second the motion. He detests me, you know.’
‘Your brother does not detest you. He loves you.’
‘Only because I share his blood, but I was actually referring to Arden. ’
The confession again touched something Eveline did not wish to face. She lowered her gaze to her gloves. They were impeccable. She was not. Nothing within her had been right since the kiss at Hounslow Park.
‘Marry Tentwall. You need only tell him yes. You know you could persuade Statony with ease. You and Alice have that ability, to his misfortune.’
‘In my youth I would have leapt towards that precipice without a second thought. When I met him, despite knowing what he truly was, I convinced myself I could change him, that I would tame him, just as Alice has done. ’
‘Statony was no libertine, Eveline. ’
‘Do they not say that reformed libertines make the best husbands, Lady Ashbury?’
‘Perhaps it is said by the very women who try to console themselves while their husbands keep their mistresses in discreet houses. No, Eveline. I do not believe in a man’s redemption where his taste for women is concerned.
I will always prefer one who is correct, honorable, and who has shown me that I am first for him. ’
‘And where shall I find that gentleman, Lady Ashbury? I want to be happy; it is the only thing I ask. ’
‘And what if you have already found him and not yet realized it?’
‘Arden?’ she inquired with her eyes wide open.
‘Why not?’
‘He left the country estate in great haste.’
‘So did you, did you not? You came running to London.’
‘I did not flee from him. I returned to the city with my family. It is very different.’
‘Arden would no doubt qualify that difference with considerable energy.’
Eveline raised her head.
‘Why should he? I have the feeling you are hiding things from me, Lady Ashbury.’
‘I know many things. On this occasion, not enough of them.’
‘Well, I know enough to say that Arden does not want to marry me.’
Lady Ashbury did not answer at once. Eveline would have liked her to deny it quickly. To say one of those firm phrases that mature women used when they wished to drive a piece of nonsense from the mind of a younger woman. She did not, and that silence felt to her like a confirmation.
‘Did he tell you so?’ she asked at last.
‘He did not have to. He disappeared. My brother had a purple cheekbone before leaving for London. No one has told me anything, but I am no idiot. Oliver must have demanded that he marry me. Arden refused. They fought. And my supposed fiancé fled before I could ruin his life.’
‘I suspect that interpretation has more imagination than justice.’
‘Lady Ashbury…’
‘But I understand your doubts. Men never speak when they ought to. Alice could tell you a few things about your brother. She will not, of course, because she would not betray his confidence. ’
‘Such as, for example, the matter of a dark library?’
‘What library, my dear? We are speaking of Tentwall. How many times shall I have to repeat it to you?’
‘Arden. We were speaking now of Arden,’ she had to remind her patiently.
‘Are you sure you do not love him? You mention him at every opportunity you can. To say nothing of your being caught kissing him.’
That was worse than a retort. Eveline looked away, because her eyes filled with a humiliating moisture and she did not intend to shed a single tear at a ball. Least of all over Lord Arden. There were limits even to her talent for complicating her own existence.
Why did scandals always have to pursue her?
‘I do not want to marry a man who detests me,’ she said. ‘Nor do I want to fall again into the hands of one who comes near me because he needs my dowry.’
‘Then accept neither of those two.’
‘You speak with admirable ease.’
‘Age helps a great deal in saying what other people prefer to adorn. You are mistress of your own destiny. Your brother would never let you fall. You have the security many other ladies will never have.’
Eveline breathed slowly.
The music changed on the other side of the room. A burst of laughter rose near the punch bowl. The world had not stopped to accompany her shame, and that, though unjust, proved useful. While the others danced, drank, and hunted rumors, she could remain on her feet.
‘Tentwall was my first great love,’ she confessed, in a lower voice.
Lady Ashbury did not seem surprised.
‘I know.’
‘I believed I loved him in a way that was…’ She stopped, searching for a word that would not make her feel even younger.
‘In an absolute way. Ridiculous, perhaps, but absolute. I would see him enter a room and everything else lost importance. If he smiled at me, I believed the day had improved. If he paid me attention, I thought it meant something. I stained my reputation only so that he would notice me and see how brave I can be. ’
‘At eighteen, one tends to confuse a scoundrel’s attention with destiny. It is one of the many reasons mothers ought to carry smelling salts and a list of forbidden men stitched into the lining of their reticule.’
Eveline would have laughed had she not felt so weary.
‘It shames me to admit that a part of me still remembers him.’
‘To remember is not to surrender.’
‘And what if I am not so strong? What if he speaks to me again of what might have been, of how he has changed, of repairing the past? What if he still knows how to make me waver?’
Lady Ashbury stopped moving her fan.
‘What is it that you want, Eveline?’
The duke’s sister swallowed with great difficulty.
‘I want him to go far away from me; never to come near me again; I want to be able to look at him and send him to the hell he deserves to be in, but when he appears…’ She closed her fingers over her skirt.
She sighed. ‘When he appears, I remember the girl I was and I feel furious with her. With myself. With everything. ’
‘I heard you give him his due. You are strong, my dear. ’
‘And what if next time I falter?’
‘Only you will live with your choices, Eveline. Choose well, for your whole future depends on it. ’
‘And are there only Arden or Tentwall? Or, what amounts to the same thing: must I settle for a man who detests me or for another who I know will look at every woman who smiles at him and will be faithful to me only until he tires?’
‘What do you want from me, exactly, my dear?’
‘Guidance, I suppose.’
Lady Ashbury smiled at her. She looked like a cat that had eaten the jar of cream.
‘I have a solution for one of your problems.’
Eveline looked at her warily.
‘Legal?’
‘What an unflattering question.’
‘That is not an answer.’
‘Let us say it will not require blood, which is already an improvement over certain masculine alternatives.’
‘Lady Ashbury…’
‘I shall need to know something before I tell you what has occurred to me, Eveline.’
The young woman realized that this conversation had just changed shape drastically.
The dowager countess had decided something, and Eveline suspected the world was about to become more dangerous for her.
Alice adored Lady Ashbury, but she had also remarked to her that she was a woman one must be careful with when she had made a decision.
It did not matter. The duke’s sister threw her worries to the wind. What could go wrong if she placed herself in the capable hands of so wise a lady?
‘What do you need to find out?’
Lady Ashbury came a little closer and lowered her voice just enough that only she could hear her.
‘Eveline, my dear, do you still have that scarlet mask the newspapers spoke of so much at the time?’