Chapter 12 #2
She waited until the house was wrapped in the confused activity of the night.
The Duke and Duchess of Statony had planned to attend a party, and she excused herself, pleading a terrible headache.
She put on a simple gown, borrowed a dark hooded cloak of Oliver’s, and prepared to go meet a scoundrel and settle accounts with him.
And had she been more attentive when she slipped out among the shadows of the night, she would have realized that someone was watching her with the utmost attention.
The Earl of Arden was in the street, half hidden by a tree he adored on account of its usefulness.
He had intended to climb up to his lady’s room.
He needed to see her alone, because the memory of the previous night had pursued him all day with such intensity that the violets, the sweets, and the jewels had barely sufficed to keep him within an acceptable courtship.
He wanted to hold her again in his arms, undress her, kiss her, caress her, and make love to her.
And when they had both been sated, he would have begun again until the sun began to rise and he had no choice but to leave her side.
He had gone to Statony’s house because he could not bear the distance. He needed her like the air to breathe. And he trusted that the same was true for her.
And then he had seen her come out.
Alone and stealthy. Wrapped in a cloak and with the unmistakable haste of a woman who did not wish to be seen.
Arden went motionless and, for a second, was unable to think. Then he did so with a cold clarity. He had to follow her and find out what calamity his reckless betrothed was scheming.
Eveline got into a hired carriage. He ran to his own in great haste and ordered the coachman to follow the other discreetly, but without losing sight of it. He promised him an extra incentive so that he would carry out his instructions well.
The journey was not long, but to Arden it seemed interminable.
Eveline’s carriage stopped before a house on a secondary street north of Oxford Street. She got down, looked around, and climbed the steps.
The door opened before she knocked a second time.
Arden had already left his own carriage and reached her as the door was closing behind her.
He did not wait for an invitation or to be announced before slipping into the place.
The earl entered with such violence that the footman, a young man, backed away until he struck a little table in the entrance hall.
‘My lord, you cannot—’
Arden did not even pay him any attention.
Cedric Lancaster appeared at the back of the hall, dressed for a private evening, with a smile that died the moment he saw who had just invaded his house. The scar crossed his face under the light of the candelabra, and his expression tensed.
Eveline could not believe what she was seeing. The man she had believed she loved and the one she did love together under the same roof…
‘Arden…’ she whispered.
Nathaniel did not look at her. He could not, because if he looked at her and saw guilt, fear, or the least shadow of that weakness Eveline had felt for Tentwall, they might end up hanging him for killing a viscount.
He crossed the hall in three strides and seized Tentwall by the collar of his coat. Yes, he had thought better of it and was resolved to kill him and pay the consequences.
‘Give me a single reason not to kill you, you damned bastard,’ he said with a calm so cold that the servants vanished in great haste.
Tentwall tried to laugh, but the sound came out strangled because of the pressure the earl exerted on his neck.
‘Tha…t will not chan…ge what she fee…ls for me,’ the other mocked with some difficulty.
‘Nathaniel, for the love of God!’ she cried from behind.
‘Do not come near, Eveline,’ he ordered her, without taking his eyes off Tentwall.
She did not obey. Of course not. She never heeded anyone. Eveline placed herself behind her betrothed and touched his shoulder.
‘It is not what you think,’ she noted in desperation.
‘Get out of here at once!’ he barked at her.
‘Nathaniel, listen to me!’ she had to shriek more forcefully.
‘What, Eveline?’ he asked, his voice broken by a violence he barely controlled. ‘Are you going to ask me not to hit him?’
‘Oh, no. I want you to strike him very hard,’ she answered, almost without breathing, ‘but do not let him hurt you if he defends himself. I would give him his due myself, but I do not have your strength.’
The silence that followed was very brief. The earl did not make the mistake of looking at her in case the other took advantage of the lapse to try to overpower him; nevertheless, he began to smile.
Tentwall had just time enough to understand that smile did not bode well for him. The punch caught him on the jaw, and a dry crunch was heard. Cedric fell backward onto the hall carpet, knocked over an umbrella stand, and ended up on the floor with a hand to his face.
Eveline whistled.
Arden drew a long breath, slowly. Then he turned to her.
‘Have you gone mad?’
‘Of course not. Do not start irritating me.’
‘Do not start irritating you, woman? I find you entering that scoundrel’s house at night,’ he pointed at him with his finger, ‘alone, dressed in a cloak you must have stolen from your brother, and you expect me not to be irritated?’
‘I did not come to see him for pleasure. In truth I was dying to do what you have just done, so it was a stroke of luck that you followed me. And we shall speak later of that obsession of yours with always following me everywhere,’ she dared to lecture him.
‘I hope for your sake that what you say about this visit is true, Eveline. And you are fortunate that I am always in the right place when you do mad things,’ Nathaniel reprimanded her.
‘Do not use that tone with me. It offends me that you doubt me. ’
‘I shall use whatever tone I please until you assure me you have entirely forgotten that scoundrel,’ he pointed at him again with his finger, ‘and explain to me what the devil you are doing here. Do you still love him?’
The question made her sulk. Arden’s anger was justified, but the question hurt her. Tentwall stirred on the floor, but neither of them paid him any attention for an instant.
‘Is that what you think?’ she asked. ‘That I have come because I cannot forget him and I love him?’
‘What would you have me think?’ he replied.
‘Do you want the truth?’
‘Of course I want the truth, woman!’ he shouted.
‘I will explain it to you, but you must promise me that you will not be angry with me or abandon me. ’
‘This grows worse and worse; speak at once, Eveline. I have no patience left.’
She bit her lower lip and weighed the possibility of running off.
And what if he left her when he knew the truth?
No. She must not lie to him or flee. She would confess everything and find out whether Nathaniel was willing to offer her his loyalty despite the things she had done. Confounded letters of a stupid girl!
‘I have not come because I love him, desire him, or have been unable to forget him. ’
‘Well then?’ he goaded her harshly.
‘I have had to come because he has two letters of mine.’
Arden frowned.
‘What letters?’
Eveline breathed deeply. Years ago, she had handed her love in writing to a man who did not deserve it, but there was no longer any way to hide it.
‘Letters I wrote him when I believed I loved him,’ she said. ‘Stupid letters, intense and compromising. Nothing brazen, only the romantic reveries of a girl who believed herself in love.’
‘Did you kiss him?’
She was left with her mouth open.
‘Is that the only thing that worries you?’
‘Did you kiss him at any time? Did you lie to me when you told me no one but I had kissed you?’
‘And what if I had kissed him?’ she dared to goad him.
‘I would have to kill him. So tell me the truth, Eveline. Did he touch you in any way he should not have?’
‘No. He tried several times to kiss me, but I knew I must grant him no favor. Satisfied?’
‘I am very far from satisfied.’
‘Then focus on what matters, because Tentwall means to use those letters.’
‘If you do not give him money?’ the earl conjectured.
‘That is what I believe, yes,’ she corroborated.
Arden turned his head slowly towards Tentwall.
The viscount, who was beginning to sit up, had the prudence to stay where he was and sat back down on the floor.
‘Have you tried to blackmail her?’
‘I have requested compensation for certain private mementos. Yes.’
Arden advanced a step.
‘Now I really am going to kill you.’
‘No,’ Eveline intervened, holding his arm. ‘You are not going to do it.’
The touch of her hand stopped him only because it was she.
‘I have to do it, Eveline, release me. I am an earl; I will find a way out of a murder I shall justify well.’
‘I have come to make a trade,’ she continued. ‘I had a plan when I came here, and we are going to follow it. ’
‘What plan?’
‘He hands me my letters, and I give him the promissory notes he owes to Gabriel Hope.’
‘Hope? What does Hope have to do with all this?’ He knew he was Alice’s brother and that he ran a gaming club.
‘Tentwall owes him a great deal of money, and I have managed to get hold of the promissory notes. ’
‘I do not even want to think how you got them. ’
‘Lady Ashbury accompanied me when I visited the club, so it was all… sensible. More or less. ’
‘Heavens, we shall remove to my country house and you will not leave it. You know that, do you not?’
‘The promissory notes and the letters; do not forget what matters, Nathaniel.’
Tentwall, from the floor, had the audacity to laugh.
‘I am glad she will not become my wife. I always knew she was a problem in skirts. Though I must admit that little Eveline has learned to play.’
‘Lady Eveline to you, scoundrel,’ Arden corrected him.
The viscount got to his feet with effort, while touching his jaw. His eyes went from her to Arden, and in them there was hatred, but also a fear Eveline had not seen so clearly until that night.