Chapter Twenty-Five
Evelyn awoke to the faint sound of music. How droll, she thought as she rolled over. Someone must be playing the piano. Her mother-in-law? Selina? The melody was too light, too cheerful to come from someone who’d had their hopes so thoroughly shattered the day before. Certainly not Selina, then. Evelyn frowned and opened her eyes.
Alongside her the bed was empty, though the pillow was indented and the sheets rumpled. Without thinking she reached out a hand, feeling for her husband’s warmth. The bed was cold; he must have been awake for some time now. She turned to look at the small porcelain clock upon the mantelpiece. It was blurry.
With a sigh she reached over for her new spectacles on the bedside table. After a quick glance at the clock—startling her with the lateness of the hour—her gaze fell upon the dressing table. She had not had a proper look at herself wearing them yet, and, despite what her hus—what Marcus had said the night before, she did not believe they would suit her. He was a politician, after all, and weren’t all politicians prone to flattery?
Even so, as she crossed the room to examine her reflection, she wore a small, fond smile as she recalled his never-ending praise from the previous evening.
Oh dear. She clutched at her chest. Somehow she looked even more haughty and severe than she’d thought. Leaning forward, she stared intently at herself. Were those… freckles?! Aghast, she pulled back, her hand now covering her mouth.
He had mentioned her freckles before, but she had not believed him.
The piano had paused for a moment, she realized, before kicking up into another buoyant tune. Evelyn glanced about the room; even Milburga had gone. Smoothing down her plait in the mirror one more time, she straightened up. The music, it seemed, was coming from nearby. Donning a wrapper with handsome trimming, Evelyn set out into the hallway, closing the door gently behind her, and listened.
The melody now plinked haltingly, hitting an off note, then repeated from the beginning of the same measure only to hit another sour note. A dog yowled in response.
She smiled. The noise was coming from Marcus’s room.
Evelyn had never been in his room before, and once would never have dreamed of entering. Now, although her newfound boldness gave her enough confidence to go in, she still could not help but gently knock first.
“Come in,” her husband called, and the music restarted once more, this time dancing past the confounding note with ease.
“If it’s the post, Bray, leave it in my study for now,” he said merrily, his back to her as he sat at a modest but well-maintained piano.
Milburga leapt up and bounded over to her, tail wagging. With a warm heart Evelyn bent over to pet the collie, smoothing down her ears.
Then she stood and looked around, drinking in her surroundings. The windows were high, the drapes tasteful. The walls were papered in a lush, colorful floral design done in the modern fashion. The furniture was light and polished, including a pair of spindly occasional tables that were exceptionally handsome. Even the bed seemed to take the piano’s presence into consideration, for it was as large as Evelyn’s but somehow seemed less ostentatious, lacking the heaviness of hers. Although several small portraits hung from a rail, the room lacked any other overt decoration; no ceramics, no oddities or antiques. The relative spareness lent the room a calming effect.
She had assumed his quarters would be the least pleasant in the entire house, judging by the condition of his London house and its lack of comforts. But this place was a sanctuary.
Irritated at being ignored, Milburga barked.
The music halted. Marcus swiveled around.
“Your quarters…” Evelyn began. She felt her cheeks pinken. Somehow this admission cost more than her naked, sweaty shouts of the previous evening. “They’re pleasing.”
Marcus grinned.
“I did not expect them to be.”
“Let’s stop there, shall we?”
Evelyn fluttered her lashes. “You play?”
Marcus gestured for her to come forth. When she finally moved to join him on the piano bench, he turned back to the keys and began picking out the tune once again.
“A bit.”
“I’m afraid I don’t know this one,” she said, attempting a casual tone.
Another incorrect note rang out, and he chuckled. “Neither do I, it seems.”
“What is it?” Her voice rose to the highest pitch she could manage.
“Nothing suitable for your ears, my darling.”
Evelyn raised an eyebrow in a silent demand.
Marcus chuckled. “It’s called ‘They Can’t Hold a Candle to Me.’ It’s a music hall song, a comic song. Sung by a swell.”
She leaned back, her chin raised.
“Do you frequent music halls often, then?”
He shook his head. “Haven’t got the time, do I?” he said with a tinge of sadness.
Evelyn responded with a wordless hum, and allowed her gaze to wander to a smallish portrait of a pretty woman, a tired-looking man, and a small boy. After several seconds she recognized two of the sitters; they were none other than her mother-in-law, Mrs. Hartley, and her husband as a child. The third person must be his father.
“On that note,” Marcus said, still playing, though the melody had slowed out of consideration for their conversation, “I meant to tell you that I shan’t be returning to London. Not until I’m required, that is.”
Evelyn looked at him, that strange feeling welling in her chest again.
“You won’t?”
He smiled, and in that moment she felt as if she were the only one in the entire world for whom he reserved such a smile. It nearly took the breath from her.
“I won’t. I must make myself into a true Knockton man. Especially now, as I’m sure Wright will do everything he can to circumvent your threats and undermine my prospects.” He shook his head and blew out a sigh. “Strange happenings at Methering Manor do not bode well for the ballot papers, I’m afraid.”
“Oh!” she said, her heart racing. Then she straightened her back and smoothed down the front of her wrapper, feeling his curiosity pique at her outburst. “Only, that is to say, I meant to speak with you about that. In fact, I’d begun to last night, but… well. At any rate, Mr. Davies offered me a ride home yesterday.”
Now Marcus raised an eyebrow.
She sniffed. “Why, he’s nearly my father’s age and has never before said or done anything untoward.” She paused now, and made an even further show of rearranging herself on the bench.
Marcus waited patiently.
“He spoke of The Plough, and of the political discussions that take place within. It might behoove you to go and speak with them. And not just once, either.”
Marcus brought his fingers down on the keys with an echoing force. He chortled.
“You want me to go to The Plough? And what, let them all have a go at me?” He laughed some more, shaking his head before pinning her with a confused look. “Why, Evelyn—I would never have expected it of you. Do you truly wish for your husband to go carousing at the local watering hole?”
She huffed. “Carousing? Absolutely not. Politicking? Yes, I do. Why, everyone in Knockton gives their custom there.”
“Everyone aside from your father,” Marcus groused, banging out one long, ominous note. “The town council, Mr. Reed…”
“Precisely!” Evelyn said, exasperated. “Mr. Reed would never dream of it, but you—well, to be perfectly frank, it would not seem terribly out of the ordinary, were you to—”
“Go and have a drink on it with Knockton’s odds and ends?” Marcus said with a jesting grin. His fingers stilled, and the room fell silent as he tilted his head, thinking.
Evelyn suddenly felt ill at ease. She was speaking of things she knew little about. A memory came to her, of one morning at the manor when Edmund and his friends, all of them still drunk from the evening before, folded up the pages of the newspaper to make themselves hats. Woolly Wolfenden. She straightened her shoulders. No, that wasn’t her. Not any longer.
She was a Hartley now. Her gaze drifted back to the family portrait, and she looked into the eyes of the man who had sired her husband, whom she knew little to nothing about. He seemed kind, if a bit put-upon.
“You know, perhaps there’s something to it.” Marcus paused and reached for her hand. With an exaggerated display of gallantry, he placed a kiss upon it. “Thank you.”
He began tapping out the ditty once more, his expression warm and happy.
The fallout from the Wright debacle turned out to be less than Marcus had anticipated. Mrs. Wolfenden remained within her rooms for a week, tended to by Evelyn and his mother, but around town little was said. In fact, at Evelyn’s behest he had called on her father, Baron Methering, to ascertain whether the manor employed any loose lips. The only opinion the baron offered about the entire affair was a grumble about being left high and dry by his butler. Marcus did grow concerned when the housekeeper gave him a wary look as he took his leave—having been unable to endure a third hour discussing the feats of the renowned pugilist Jem Mace—but Evelyn put his mind at ease, vouching for the servant’s prudence and loyalty.
He didn’t even hear a word on the subject during his time at The Plough. Taking Evelyn’s suggestion to heart, Marcus had begun holding court there when the weather allowed for it; as the year drew to a close, they’d had more than a few storms. And although during every visit he merely nursed a drink, Marcus had come to enjoy the conversation of his constituents, even when it didn’t concern politics.
His private acts of charity had continued uninterrupted, thanks to Fennel, along with Dr. Collier’s assistance and oversight. Marcus wondered at that, but his friend’s letter assured him that there was no cause for concern. Perhaps Fennel, being deprived of a household, had surplus energy to put to use elsewhere.
To his surprise, Marcus heeded Dr. Collier, and did not find himself worried at all.
He’d never before spent a winter in Knockton. But one evening, as he sat at the piano, the realization dawned that it suited him. He’d been playing more these past weeks than he’d done in years—and for that he knew he owed his gratitude to one person.
Not one to do anything by half-measures, he’d thrown himself fully into the domestic sphere, into Evelyn’s orbit and her desires. He knew he’d remain in Knockton as long as she would. And he was glad for it.
Glad for their days, when he’d watch her from across the room as she discussed household matters with Mrs. Gill. He would watch her take the air with Milburga from an upstairs window, and in the evenings, watch her hold court before the entire household in the drawing room. He would catch hold of her as she walked past him in the hallway, just to fluster her with a stolen kiss pressed into her hand or neck. And in the night, he would do as he was told, on his knees before her, in her bed or his. They’d always stay through the night, and he could never believe his good fortune. He was besotted; he was hers.
Winter crept along, his family safe and warm within the homey walls of Platt Lodge. Why, they’d even had Baron Methering over for Christmas dinner.
It was a peace Marcus hadn’t known since his youth, before his father had passed.
He hoped his father would have been happy with him now, even as he’d tempered his ambitions for knocking down the powers that be and rebuilding them in a more just manner. Finally, he’d taken his mentor’s advice to heart, and allowed himself a bit of happiness.
It suited him.
So much so that when, in January, he received a letter from the Honorable Arthur Peel, his party’s chief whip, summoning him back to London for the dispatch of party business, Marcus froze at his desk. How would Evelyn react? How long would he be away from her this time? He cursed his last foray into the city, chastising himself for the unnecessary trip.
No, that wasn’t fair. His work was necessary, his aid a matter of life and death to the women who sought it. He simply hadn’t realized at the time that he loved his wife. An easy enough error to make, to be sure. However, this time he knew, and he knew that time spent apart from her would feel hollow and bitter.
He felt overwhelmed with melancholy. How long he sat staring through the letter containing the bland and courteous, yet hateful words, he had no idea.
Eventually he shook off the shock of it enough to set the letter aside and muddle through the rest of his correspondence.
It wasn’t until later that evening, when Mrs. Hartley and Mrs. Wolfenden had retired for the evening—Mrs. Wolfenden still pale and quiet from her most recent trauma—that he dared broach the subject.
Evelyn had seemed more vivacious as of late, with a pleasing color to her cheeks and a luminous shine to her hair. On this night she sat before the fire, a small lap desk balanced elegantly upon her knees, as if keeping it level took her no effort at all. She was reading through plans for the goat willow’s celebration, turning pages every minute or so, crossing things out here, making notes there. The only sounds were the scratch of her pen and the crack and pop of the fire.
And Marcus was about to ruin it all by starting a quarrel.
“How’s all that coming along?” he ventured, gesturing to her work with the open journal he’d been pretending to read.
She didn’t glance up, but her lips pursed momentarily.
“Mr. Reed’s come around to the idea, it seems.”
“Oh, has he now?”
She made another quick note, still not looking up from her work.
“Yes, apparently he’s engaged an arborist from London. Out of his own pocket.”
“Naturally,” Marcus said, smirking. “And, naturally, you refused.”
Evelyn glanced up ever so slightly and gave him a reproachful gaze.
“I did no such thing.”
“What? Even when he’s so clearly attempting to steal a march on your husband?”
Marcus grinned, thoroughly enjoying the thought of James Robert Reed wracking his feeble mind for what he might do to compete with Marcus’s gesture of personally funding the festivities.
Evelyn sighed and sat upright, setting her pen down decisively upon her lap desk.
“Mrs. Henham was over the moon at the idea of a professional appraisal of the goat willow, as were the other ladies. I would never dream of dashing their hopes over something as petty as the ballot.”
“By all means. I know better than to meddle with that cursed tree.”
Marcus stood, ready to share his unfortunate news and get it over with. Evelyn’s gaze remained steadily upon him as he crossed the room and reached out to cup her cheek. Only then did she shut her eyes, leaning ever so slightly into his caress.
“I’ve had word from the party.” Her eyes shot open, but he continued, his voice devoid of emotion. “We’re being summoned to London for some unspecified business matter.”
“Why… but it’s the middle of winter!”
“I know,” he murmured, his gut twisting.
“But the goat willow celebration is in March! And there’s still so much left to prepare…”
The slight wrinkle of a frown had formed between her brows; Marcus gently smoothed it out with his thumb. Unfortunately, this seemed to only bother her more, as she caught his hand in hers, her eyes accusing.
“I shan’t be away for long.”
Evelyn looked away even as she adjusted her hold on his hand, bringing it back to the side of her face.
“Come now. All will be well. You’ll see.”
At that her face softened, and she sighed.
“You always say that, thinking it an adequate balm for any ill.”
“And it is. Haven’t all of our woes always resolved in the end?”
She said nothing, only raised one eyebrow and turned away. Lifting up the top of the lap desk, she stowed away her papers and pen. She was clearly still bothered. Marcus sat down behind her on the couch and slid an arm about her, easing her back into him. He placed a kiss on her neck.
“Marcus,” she chided.
“What is it, darling? What worries you so?”
“It is nothing,” she protested, in that remote tone she wielded more effectively than anyone.
“It is if you speak thusly to me,” he chuckled, placing another kiss upon the pleasing arrangement of hair pinned just above her nape. He closed his eyes and breathed in her calming scent. “In that lady-of-the-manor voice. For as much as I appreciate it in the bedchamber, I otherwise seem to catch it only when I’ve been untoward.”
“You haven’t,” she said firmly.
“Alright then,” he murmured, reaching up to trace the shell of her ear, the line of her jaw.
They remained like that for a long moment, Marcus relishing the feel of his wife, until she broke the silence.
“When we came to an agreement… I understood,” she said haltingly. “I said… well, I knew you would not remain here in Knockton every day of the year, and I offered to accompany you to London if needed… and while I infinitely prefer Lancashire, I… I…”
Her words fluttered about, untethered from any conclusion. Despite her upset, Marcus felt a warmth blossom in his chest.
“Are you trying to tell me that you’ll miss me?” He nuzzled her neck, happiness lighting him from within. “That you don’t wish me to leave you here all alone?”
“No,” she said with annoyance. She adjusted her posture so her spine was ramrod straight, no longer leaning against him.
“I… I prefer when you are close at hand,” she muttered, still forcing a coolness incongruous with her words.
“Do you?” he whispered into her ear, pulling her tighter.
“Marcus!” she gasped, exasperated. “The servants!”
“Could it be, darling, that maybe, perhaps in the smallest, slightest, most infinitesimal fashion, that you care for me? That you love me?”
She froze in his arms.
Marcus kissed her neck, allowing his lips to linger before he lifted his mouth to her ear once more.
“Because—and note that I’ve never once doubted my instincts before—I am utterly, completely, maddeningly besotted with you and your scornful looks, your lofty set-downs. You set out to London to ensnare some idle twat, some useless second son, but where you failed in that regard, you absolutely captured my heart.”
He could feel her breath quickening. “Third,” she breathed, her voice strained.
“What?”
“He was a third son.”
“Was he now?” Marcus chuckled. He ran his hand down her arm, but still she did not budge.
“I love you. And now that you have me, you shall never be rid of me.” He paused to chuckle. “Well, aside from when Parliament stands. But perhaps you shall have your way, and Mr. Reed will defeat me in the next general. Then I can remain at Platt Lodge and go to pot, eating nothing but sad cakes day in and day out.”
Marcus tightened his hold upon her and sighed.
She wouldn’t respond in kind; he knew her well enough by now to know that. But it did not matter.
She’d be at his side, always. And Marcus had found that was all he desired. Just her. In his bed, in his heart. A home for him to return to, after all these years spent burning the candle at both ends, working himself senseless with little to show for it.
Evelyn broke free and reached for her lap desk, then stood and clutched it to her chest. Her face was deathly pale; she would not meet his eyes.
“I shall speak with Mrs. Gill,” she said, her voice breathy. “She shall work with Bray to make sure you are well provided for, with refreshment and what have you.”
Marcus’s heart caught.
Did his wife… love him as well?
Before he could fashion the appropriate jest to uncover the truth, she’d swept away, out of the drawing room.
It was no matter. He would pin her later. After he’d lavished her with his attentions. With a reluctant sigh, he picked up the journal once more. He was too far behind in his reading and his correspondence. Far too dedicated to lazing about with his wife, and now that he’d been beckoned back to London he’d have to catch up.
But as much as he tried to focus on the words upon the page, all he could think of was Evelyn at her dressing table.