Chapter 12
One Last Folly
That very afternoon, Lord Arden proved that, at least, he knew how to obey instructions when they did not wound his pride too greatly.
First the flowers arrived. And it was not a bouquet.
Enough violets arrived to perfume the entire sitting room, arranged with a taste that made her smile, for she could picture him giving the appropriate orders so that the arrangements would be spectacular.
With them came a box of lemon drops, tied with a ribbon of pale silk, and a card on which there were only a couple of phrases written in the unmistakable hand of Nathaniel Greystoke:
So that you cannot accuse me of having forgotten the essentials. Do not eat them all—leave me a few drops.
Yours always, Arden.
Eveline held the card while she smiled like a fool.
Alice, who sat near the window, was trying not to look at her, but when Eveline raised her gaze she saw that she was watching her.
‘Do not say anything,’ Eveline warned her.
‘I have said nothing,’ the other defended herself, also smiling, full of pleasure.
‘You are thinking it.’
‘It seems unfair to me that I should be censured even for my thoughts.’
‘Do you think I ought to have married him at once?’
‘No. ’
‘Why not?’ she inquired.
‘Because a suitor must make enough effort for his lady to know the true interest he holds. ’
‘Do you think he loves me?’ she asked in a whisper.
‘Do you not?’ the duchess resolved.
‘I do not know. So many years, and I had not realized that Arden was Arden. ’
‘You will have to explain yourself a little better. ’
‘I mean that he… I…’
‘I understand. ’
‘Understand what? Because I do not understand myself. ’
‘You had never seen him as a man to be considered as a husband. ’
‘Yes. I think that is it. ’
‘And do you like the idea now?’
‘Yes,’ she affirmed with conviction. ‘It still feels a little strange that it is Arden whom…’ She sighed.
‘I already know that you love him; I warned you this morning. You need not go on hiding it, Eveline. ’
‘It is true. I love him, Alice, and this insecurity that overcomes me frightens me terribly. And what if he does not love me?’
‘If he did not love you, he would not have consented to court you. He would have forced you to marry him this very morning. ’
‘There are things you do not know, Alice. ’
‘What there is, is something about me that you do not know. ’
‘What, Alice?’
‘Sometimes I wake in the night and need a glass of warm milk to fall asleep again. So I get up so as not to disturb anyone and go down to the kitchen to prepare it. It does not happen always, but it does sometimes… as it did last night.’
‘Oh, God. You know?’
‘That there were voices in your room last night? A terrible business, the ghosts that inhabit old ducal houses, do you not think?’
‘Does my brother know?’ she asked in alarm.
‘No. So Arden must love you, Eveline, because he could well have forced the wedding this very morning. Do you understand what I am telling you? He had no need to give way for you, and he is doing it.’
‘Do you think I was too proud with him this morning?’
‘I think you needed to know that he is truly interested in you and loves you. ’
‘He has not told me so…’ she confessed in a whisper. ‘That is why I am afraid. ’
‘There are men who find it harder to speak of their feelings. ’
‘My brother was always cold and almost insensible, but with you he has never been so. He was not afraid to tell you that he loved you. ’
‘Arden may find it harder. ’
‘And what if he does not tell me? What if I never come to know that he loves me, Alice?’
‘Words are sometimes not necessary, for there are gestures that speak for themselves. ’
Eveline nodded and set the card on the table carefully.
A short while later, a case of blue velvet arrived.
The maid carried it to the sitting room with the care that incredible jewels deserved, and on opening it, Eveline discovered an exquisite set of sapphires and diamonds: a delicate necklace, matching earrings, and a bracelet that seemed to have been designed to circle her wrist with blue light. There was no ring.
That absence drew from her a loud and frank laugh.
The absence meant that Arden had not forgotten it, but was reserving it to give to her in person.
Yes. Alice was right. There were gestures that said far more than words.
Perhaps he would be benevolent and not make him kneel and offer her a romantic declaration.
Or perhaps not. She wished to have a lovely story she could tell her children.
She would omit that she had had to force him to do all those things, because the important thing was that he was doing them.
For her.
Eveline grazed the necklace without taking it from the velvet.
‘The ring is not there,’ Alice murmured. ‘Why has he not sent the ring?’
‘He has done it on purpose.’
‘Ah,’ said the duchess when she understood the reason.
‘What an irritating man. Now he knows that I shall be thinking all the time of how he plans to give it to me. He will not let me win easily.’
‘Without a doubt. Terribly irritating. Almost unforgivable, in fact, to remember your flowers, your sweets, and your favorite color before you informed him, Eveline. ’
‘Did you notice?’
‘Even Statony, who never observes things that do not concern him directly, understood it!’
Eveline gave her a complicit look.
‘Do you know that I nearly threw myself into his arms when I realized he knew me so well?’
‘For a moment I feared you would. ’
‘I did not, because I would have ended up kissing him, and Statony would not have allowed me to escape the wedding. ’
‘That is why I feared you would give in so soon,’ Alice reasoned.
The duchess left her there to her thoughts. Before going, she winked at her.
She remained alone in that sitting room thinking that she had never known Arden because she had not taken the trouble to do so. Who would have thought that the love of her life had been near all along?
Half an hour later, the maid came in with a bouquet of white lilies.
The smile Eveline had tried to hide grew harder to contain. Arden was learning very quickly to attend her with absolute perfection. Lilies were her second favorite flower. She took the card that accompanied the bouquet and opened it.
And all the warmth the previous gifts had left in her chest vanished as she began to read it.
My dearest Eveline:
I believe our last conversation deserves a more private continuation. I should like to spare you discomforts, and not only you—your family, and a certain earl who seems most disposed to meddle in matters that do not concern him. We both know you will always be mine.
I keep two of your letters. Two adorable mementos of a young woman much in love who raved full of love, written with a vehemence London would find irresistible.
What would your fiancé think were he to read them?
In them you promised me eternal love and assured me you could not live without me.
Do not make me use them, and come tonight to my house.
Alone. You already know the way, for you were there one night, do you remember? Does Arden know it?
We shall have to come to a reasonable arrangement.
The love of your life, C. L.
The world did not collapse. It would have been more merciful if it had.
Eveline was left with the card between her fingers.
Two letters. She remembered them. God, of course she remembered them.
She had written them at eighteen, with all the ridiculous intensity of a girl convinced that passion justified everything and that if she bared her heart she could have what she most desired.
She herself had gone to his house to deliver them.
Stupid! She had put on those pages words that at that moment seemed to her more foolishness than great truths.
Tentwall kept them.
And he meant to use them.
She folded it and refused to grow nervous. He was not the only one with an ace up his sleeve. Eveline went up to her room and there, behind the closed door, opened the drawer where she had kept the promissory notes Gabriel Hope had handed her that night.
Lady Ashbury’s plan had been audacious. At that moment, it had become necessary.
Tentwall would want money. It was the only possible explanation.
Very well. He would have his debts back, and she would recover her letters.
It would be a clean, quick, repugnant, and definitive trade.
She would not tell Oliver until it was necessary.
Nor Alice. Least of all Arden. If Nathaniel saw those letters, if he read the words she had dedicated to that selfish being, all the fragile thing beginning to be built between them would be covered over by a past he did not deserve to have before him.
Luckily she had been clever in one crucial respect, for, knowing Cedric desired her at the time, she had made sure not to allow him even the pleasure of stealing a single kiss.
Giving a gentleman what he desired made him lose interest…
Wait a moment! Arden had not lost interest in her after having made love to her.
More than that, she was forcing him to court her, and he was doing it.
That had to mean he loved her, did it not?
It was not the moment to think of Arden. It was time to act so that her fiancé would not learn how stupid she had been in the past. Fear began to ravage her. And what if Arden read those letters and sent her to the devil? She could not lose him. She did not want to lose him!
Eveline needed to close that door herself and forever. And to do it without being a child watched by her brother or a betrothed protected by an earl.
She would face Tentwall as the brave—though stupid—woman who had written those letters. She would recover them with the promissory notes and burn them. No one would ever find out.
With that idea she began to think of how to leave her house unseen.