Chapter 11
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Evelyn shuddered at the sound of the bell ringing for dinner, her head still feeling as if it were stuffed with wool. She had not felt quite herself since returning from the garden party the previous evening, suffering a rather interminable headache and an unsettled stomach.
Naturally, her family had accused her of imbibing too much at the garden party and had not listened when she had tried to explain that she had not had anything intoxicating to drink at all.
She had had one glass of lemonade and one cup of ice, but they continued to insist that she must have snuck some brandy or port when Luke was not looking.
She was just splashing her face with some of the cold water in the basin when a knock came at the door.
Puzzled, she turned. “Come in.”
The door opened to reveal Luke, wearing a particularly grim expression. “Did you not hear the bell? Dinner is about to be served.”
“I was going to wash my hands and face first,” she replied curtly.
“Well, hurry yourself along. We have a guest.”
Her eyes narrowed. “What guest? No one mentioned anyone coming to dinner.”
“It was Father’s idea,” Luke replied, his mouth tense. “He has invited a potential suitor for you. I did not know of it until this afternoon, but you were asleep, so I could not forewarn you. If you had not imbibed so much yesterday, perhaps I could have prepared you.”
Her heart dropped into her stomach. In all the confusion of Hugo and his vengeful flirtations, she had almost forgotten that her father was plotting to make her miserable existence even more dismal. If nothing else, she had not expected her father to find someone so swiftly.
“But… I am unwell,” she said, unable to hide the note of desperation in her voice.
Luke furrowed his brow and glanced back over his shoulder, as if he was contemplating doing something to help. Then, he gave a slight shake of his head and looked at his sister once more.
“I am sorry, Evelyn,” he said. “The gentleman is here and Father is most insistent that you should meet him this evening. I believe he is only in the city for a short while.”
“He has no residence here?”
Luke shrugged. “I do not know.”
“I shall have to live in the country?”
“I do not know,” he repeated.
She did not mind the countryside, but she preferred to have a choice. It was the same with marriage: she did not mind the idea of it, but she preferred to have a choice in the matter.
“Just… hurry up,” Luke said, his eyes pinched at the corners as if, somewhere within him, it pained him to be the one to facilitate whatever was to come.
He did not close the door but moved down the landing and waited like a prison guard. Perhaps he thought she might attempt to flee out of the window or that she might vanish through willpower alone.
At least I have had one good dance before the end of my time in society, she mused with a weary heart, as she turned back to the basin and splashed her face with the cold water, hoping it would be enough to wash away the tears that were so determined to fall.
Ten minutes later, looking more presentable though perhaps a little puffy around the eyes, Evelyn walked into the dining room, guided by her oldest brother.
At the far end of the table, the chair squealing as he pushed it back, was a stranger.
He was neither tall nor short but of middling height, with an unruly shock of dark hair that looked so thick it could probably withstand a gale.
Some gray was creeping in at the temples and appeared to be fading the color from a rather bushy mustache that sat beneath a somewhat rodent-like nose. Twitchy.
He was not as old as she had anticipated, perhaps forty-five or so, with a nervous demeanor. Not handsome, not like Hugo, but not ghastly either.
“This is my daughter, Lady Evelyn,” her father said, as if it were not obvious.
The gentleman bowed his head, fidgeting with the tail of his fob watch. “A pleasure, Lady Evelyn,” he said in a hoarse voice.
“Evelyn, this is Miles Wilson, the Baron of Hemstich,” her father said with a tight smile. A warning that she was to behave.
Evelyn curtsied. “It is nice to meet you, Lord Hemstich.”
It was an unusual name. Bavarian, maybe. Although he did not have any discernible accent.
Will I have to journey to a foreign land? Live there? Her grasp of languages was not terrible, but she did not know any German whatsoever. The romantic languages were where she had mostly dedicated her studies.
“Come and sit,” her father instructed.
Putting on a smile that made her cheeks hurt, she headed around the table to her usual spot and sat down. The baron was beside her, in a seat that normally went unoccupied, for her brothers tended to sit on the opposite side of the table as if she were a leper and her femininity might be catching.
The servants moved forward without delay to serve the first course, though Evelyn did not know how she was going to force any food down. She had no appetite, her stomach full of rocks, each one etched with another disappointment.
He might be pleasant, she told herself. One should not judge by appearance alone, and he is not terrible to behold.
After a few spoonfuls of soup that made her feel increasingly queasy, Evelyn glanced at the gentleman she was probably going to marry.
“Are you Bavarian, Lord Hemstich?”
An odd look flickered across his face as he dabbed his mouth. “No, but I understand the confusion.”
He did not elaborate, returning his attention to the lurid green of his watercress soup.
“I hear you are only in London for a short time,” she continued, if only to avoid having to eat any more of the first course. “Are you a gentleman of business?”
There was that look again, more decipherable this time: it was the expression of someone who could hear a fly buzzing nearby.
“That is not your concern,” he said crisply, as if she had insulted him.
She forced another smile. “Apologies, Lord Hemstich.” She paused. “Do you like London? Do you visit frequently?”
“Not if I can help it,” he replied without bothering to look at her.
Of course…
She could already imagine herself in some drafty manor somewhere, isolated and depressed, penning constant letters to Selina as her only means of contacting the outside world. Maybe she would share more of these awkward dinners with him, starved of conversation and company.
It took every speck of willpower she possessed not to grab her bowl of soup and hurl it at the wall, exploding at last after twenty-two years of pushing everything down.
Alas, her sense of discipline was stronger than that; she could not even bring herself to make a sarcastic remark that it was customary to get to know one’s betrothed before a wedding could take place.
Instead, she just stared down into that green, flecked sludge and spooned in mouthful after tiny mouthful until she was almost in a trance, able to block out everything else but the taste of salt and watercress.
“I thought that went rather well,” Evelyn’s father said proudly, once the baron’s carriage had pulled away from the townhouse.
Evelyn stood in the hallway with her arms crossed and her mood grim, staring at her father with a brazenness she had rarely dared to muster before. Either he was being deliberately obtuse, or he really could not see what a disaster that dinner had been. For her, at least.
“He did not speak to me,” she said coolly. “He has no interest in me. I annoy him, even without saying a word. Surely, there are other options?”
Her father frowned, his mouth pressed into a hard line. “He is perfectly adequate.”
“Were we at the same dining table?” she asked in disbelief. Her father really was that oblivious. “Every question I asked was brushed off, and they were not even invasive questions.”
Matthew, who was halfway up the stairs, leaning against the banister, peered down over the side. “Many gentlemen are aloof when it comes to personal matters.”
“But I did not ask him anything personal,” she protested, her patience fraying like old rope.
“I asked him if he likes London. I asked him if he favors the opera or the theater. I asked him what he likes to read. They were all appropriate questions that one would ask at an ordinary dinner party. Goodness, he would not even tell me if he liked the soup!”
“I do not appreciate your tone,” her father chided.
And I do not appreciate having my life dictated to me, she longed to retort, but courage failed her.
“He is not the gentleman for me, Father. You must see that,” she said instead, hopelessly looking to Luke for assistance. But her brother would not meet her gaze, his attention fixed on the pattern of the wallpaper.
Her father’s nostrils flared. “If anything, Evelyn, he is too good for you. You have failed to find a husband of your own accord, though you have been three years out in society. I will not have a spinster daughter, and so you will marry him if he makes an offer, which I daresay he shall.” He sniffed.
“In the meantime, you shall meet with him a few more times, and see if you cannot be more reasonable.”
“But I—” she began to say, only to be cut off abruptly.
“If you do not obey, Evelyn, then you shall not attend that house party you were so eager to attend,” her father said. “Although I do believe that the baron means to attend also.”
For the first time ever, her father had remembered a society event, turning it into a weapon against her.
“Now, let that be an end to your protests,” he said coldly, as he turned on his heel and marched up the hallway to his study, where the slam of the door ricocheted up Evelyn’s spine, the fading thud filling the townhouse with a sense of finality.