Chapter 10
CHAPTER TEN
“Explain yourself at once!” Selina squeaked, once she had pulled Evelyn into the seclusion of the gardens where they would not be overheard. “That was… incredible! I have never seen you dance like that before! My goodness, I could feel the… the… frisson between you!”
Evelyn glanced around, not quite certain that they were alone. She had not seen her brother on the dance floor, but that did not mean he would not be lurking somewhere nearby.
“There was no frisson,” she muttered, her mind all tangled up in confused knots. “It was… it was just a dance to say ‘thank you’ for me helping his sister.”
Selina snorted. “It was nothing of the sort. I saw the way he was talking to you, how he kept leaning in, wanting to be closer to you. You do not fool me, Evie. You might have bid on him for me, but I daresay it is you who shall reap the rewards of the cost.”
“That is… ridiculous. He was just trying to… trifle with me, that is all.” Evelyn’s heart would not settle, racing so fast that she could feel it pulsing in her temples.
Ever since her debut, she had longed for a dance like that, so it was rather inconvenient and exceptionally annoying that it had happened with Hugo.
She was not stupid; she knew he had merely been employing his charm to try and prove a point.
The trouble was, it had worked much better than she had expected it to, for she was not impervious in the way that Selina was.
It was a trick, she told that giddily pounding heart of hers. It was not real. It was revenge for me trying to give him advice.
Indeed, if anyone had danced with her like that, she would have been feeling the same way.
She had no choice but to tell herself that, for Hugo was supposed to solve the Sir Anthony problem; he was not going to solve any of Evelyn’s own problems. Namely, whoever it was that her father was going to choose to be her husband.
“I am happy to relinquish him,” Selina said with a grin. “Have him. He is better suited to you anyway.”
Evelyn clenched her hands into fists, her fingernails digging into her gloved palms. “I do not want him, Selina. I want the two of you to fall hopelessly in love with one another. So, please, when I tell you that there was nothing between us just now, I need you to believe me.”
“But why?” Selina frowned. “Surely he is preferable to whomever your father will pick. He is young, he is reasonably handsome, he is of immense fortune, he is well connected, and he seems to have some… attraction toward you.”
Taking a deep breath, Evelyn shook her head. She did not know how to explain that they were not alike, that gentlemen did not fall over themselves to win her favor and her hand, and that her dance with Hugo had just been a trick, a game, an education.
“Because it is not real,” she said with a sigh. “He was just being nice. Trust me when I tell you that. Now, if you do not mind, I think I shall find my brother and depart. I feel rather… unwell, all of a sudden.”
Selina took Evelyn’s hand, her face etched with concern. “Did you exert yourself too much?”
“I must have,” Evelyn replied, gently pulling her hand free. “I shall see you again soon. Enjoy yourself.”
As hastily as she could, she hurried through the walled gardens and across the lawns until she came to the last place she had seen her brother. He was still on the terrace, seated in a wrought iron chair, staring out at the same view that he had scolded her for admiring.
“I would like to leave,” she announced, her voice catching.
Luke glanced up. “Excellent. Not a moment too soon. I have much to do this evening.”
If he noticed there was anything wrong with his sister, he did not say so. As he led the way around the house to where the carriages waited, Evelyn took that time to steady her breathing and to suppress the stinging in her eyes, where silly tears threatened.
It had been the best dance of her life, and it had been a lie, a punishment like everything else in her twenty-two years upon this earth.
“You danced so well together,” Octavia cooed, her arm through Hugo’s, as they wandered the gardens together in the golden light of the early evening.
He had given up trying to convince his sister not to risk the effects of the pollen, for she so desperately wanted to see the famed gardens of Throckley Manor and there was nothing he would not do for her.
She would protest later about her streaming eyes and blocked nose, but at least she would have seen the beauty of the place to make it worthwhile.
“She was a gifted dancer,” he conceded, although it was not a subject he wished to discuss too much.
Indeed, he likely could not have discussed it even if he had wanted to, for he was not sure what to think of what had just happened.
It had been a dance like any other in that the steps were the same and the music was familiar and there were many other couples doing the same thing, but he felt strangely uneasy. He could not explain why.
“I rather like her,” Octavia said. “We ought to invite her for tea one afternoon.”
“You may invite her to tea if she is to be your new friend, but I shall be otherwise engaged,” he replied.
Octavia cast him a curious look. “How do you know you will be occupied? I have not yet told you when I wish to invite her to tea.” She paused.
“This is not because of the lady who bid on you, is it? She is beautiful, I cannot deny that, but you do not seem as interested in her as you do with Lady Evelyn.”
“I was being courteous, not interested,” Hugo argued. “There is a difference, albeit subtle. You asked me to dance with her as payment for her part in preventing you from falling. I did so. There is nothing more to it, so cease your scheming. It shall not work.”
A sly grin crept onto his sister’s lips, one that he did not like the look of. “I am not scheming, brother. I would not know how to. I just think that, perhaps, there is a great deal of merit to Evelyn that you are not fully appreciating.”
“And what merit would that be?” He paused at a bench that sat beside a peaceful fountain, the sound of trickling water acting as a tonic to his somewhat disarrayed mind.
Octavia sat down. “She is an Earl’s daughter, for one thing, which makes her a suitable match. She is so very amusing. I have not chuckled like that in some time. And she is uncommonly pretty, perhaps not in the obvious way that Miss Parsons is, but Evelyn is undeniably beautiful in her own right.”
“Amusing?” Hugo frowned.
Did every person who encountered Evelyn receive a different version of her?
To Selina, Evelyn embodied the very essence of capability, possessed of an immense list of merits and attributes and somewhat unusual qualities.
To Octavia, Evelyn seemed to be a lively, entertaining presence, easy to warm to, easy to get along with.
To Hugo, Evelyn was a conundrum, and a combative one at that.
“You probably scared the humor out of her with all of your flirting,” Octavia remarked with a knowing smirk. “She does not seem too comfortable in the company of gentlemen, but I can understand that well enough.”
Hugo glanced at his sister with a heavy heart, for though she seemed joyful and at ease, he knew that the recent past still troubled her.
There had been an incident two years prior, in which an unpleasant gentleman had tried to ruin her.
Hugo’s friend, Laurence, had stepped in to rescue Octavia, and there had been a duel to maintain her honor.
All had been resolved, but she certainly still carried those grim events with her.
Indeed, she had not even entertained the idea of courtship or dancing with a gentleman ever since.
At first, he had thought it was because she still harbored some unrequited feelings for Laurence, who had married his beloved Joan, but the more time went on, the less certain he became. Rather, it seemed more likely that she just did not trust society’s gentlemen at all.
“Consider her,” Octavia said with a smile. “I think you are more alike than you realize… and possibly just as stubborn. Then again, I have only just met her. I shall have to arrange that tea so I can get to know her better, and then I shall offer my full opinion.”
Hugo smiled tightly. “I look forward to it.”