Chapter 27
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
She seems surprised to see me, Hugo mused.
Although that might have been an understatement, for Evelyn was standing in the doorway of the drawing room as if she had just seen a ghost. Hugo was beginning to wonder if they would have to conduct their conversation with her hovering on the threshold, not daring to set foot inside the room.
The view was not something he had any intention of complaining about. She looked exquisite in that unusually colored gown that she had worn to the opera, and he had not missed the pleasing sight of his necklace around her throat, the lower of the two thin chains draping over her collarbone.
Her necklace, he reminded himself. He had just been the one to buy it.
Her hair was half done, curled and pinned on one side, but smooth and hastily held in place with a hair slide on the other side.
Absently, he wondered what her hair looked like when it was down, unfettered by adornments and styles, just falling naturally.
Would it be wavy or straight? How long was it?
Would it be soft and silky if he were to run his hands through it?
“Apologies for the intrusion,” he said, since she was not going to be the one to speak first. “I understand that you have an engagement this evening, so I shall not trouble you for long.”
The word ‘engagement’ stuck in his throat like a fishbone, especially as he had been informed that it was her betrothed that she would be dining with this evening.
Josiah Bartlett had been most brusque and impatient at the idea that anything might delay the occasion, but Hugo had been insistent upon speaking to Evelyn before he departed.
“What are you doing here?” Evelyn finally said, edging into the room. “Is something the matter with Octavia? I meant to visit her but… I have not yet found the time.”
Her hesitation invited assumptions as to the true reason that she had not visited his sister: either her father had not permitted her to leave the townhouse, or she had not wished to cross paths with Hugo.
“There is nothing the matter with my sister,” he replied.
Evelyn frowned. “Then, why are you here?”
“I came to call upon you because… I have finally reached an agreement with Miss Parsons,” he said with as bright a smile as he could muster, despite seeing her in that gown, knowing it was for the admiration of someone else.
For a short while, she seemed frozen, unblinking. “You are… to be wed?”
“What? No.” He could have smacked himself for the mistake. “What I mean is, we have come to an agreement about the last of our outings. It is to take place tomorrow at the botanical gardens. I thought you should know of it, since you will undoubtedly be in attendance.”
Evelyn’s features began to thaw, and she moved further into the room until she reached the opposite settee. Gingerly, she perched on the edge, her hands clasped in her lap, her posture stiff as if she were not at all comfortable.
“Selina did not mention it, but I have not seen her either,” she said.
“I was passing,” he insisted.
Her throat bobbed. “Yes, well, thank you for telling me. However, I imagine that my dear friend would prefer to have the last outing with you on her own.” She cleared her throat.
“I have a lot to contend with, so I am not sure that I will have the time to accompany Selina. Her chaperone will suffice.”
It was not the answer he had hoped for when he had come to call upon her. In truth, he had been counting on the fact that Selina would have asked Evelyn to join her for the final excursion. Not once had he supposed that she would be too busy, or too unwilling, to be part of it.
“You are, of course, referring to your upcoming nuptials?” he asked, aiming for nonchalance. “I remember Frances and Joan being rather frantic in the weeks before their wedding. Being unwed myself, I am often surprised by how much work goes into such events.”
Evelyn turned her face away to watch the clock on the mantelpiece, her jaw so sharp that he had a sudden impulse to run his fingertips along the line of it.
And as his gaze wandered down the curve of her neck, he was struck by the same instinct that had almost overwhelmed him at Ashcroft: a yearning to kiss that smooth skin, all the way to the peak of her shoulder.
“Yes, exactly,” she mumbled in reply.
“You must be excited,” he said, frowning, searching the profile of her face for answers. “Is it not the day that all young ladies dream of?”
Her eyes pinched. “There is too much to do to be excited.”
Again, it was not a clear answer, her vagueness frustrating him.
“Have you seen your betrothed much since your return?” he pressed. “I noticed he did not leave with you and your family.”
She swallowed. “No, tonight will be the first time since.”
“Are you looking forward to it? Are you to be married here in London?”
“Your Grace, I really must continue to get ready for the evening,” she said, her voice catching, a sort of terror in her face as if this was the last thing she wished to discuss.
“Is this what you want, Evelyn?” he said, intensely serious. “Is marriage to that man what you want?”
She twisted around to face him as though he had pulled her toward him himself, her pretty face draining of color, her dark blue eyes misting up. A strange noise sounded in the back of her throat, like she was trying to find words but could not force any of them to emerge.
“Please, Your Grace, just go,” she managed to say, at last.
“I will not go until I hear your answer,” he replied sternly. “Is this what you want? Is the baron what you want? Is this the future you have truly accepted for yourself?”
Her breath hitched, her face falling. “Please, Your Grace, I need you to l—”
“What is the meaning of this?” A harsh voice interrupted, as Evelyn quickly turned away again, dropping her chin to her chest.
Hugo shot a dark look at Matthew, who stood puffed and haughty, no doubt thinking he could avenge himself after his scolding in the Ashcroft woods.
“I came to pass on a message,” Hugo said coolly.
Matthew raised an eyebrow. “It takes this long to pass on a message?”
“It takes as long as it takes,” Hugo replied.
And I cannot go until I know. Although perhaps her pale face and her plea for him to leave had already given him his answer.
“My sister is busy,” Matthew said, puffing his chest a little more. “She has important matters to attend to, and you are disturbing that. My father might be too polite to tell you to leave, but I am not. If you have given your message, you can go.”
It was an interesting conundrum that Hugo found himself in.
Ordinarily, he would have the grounds to tell this impudent creature to watch his tongue and mind his manners, but things were rather more complicated when one was in said person’s home.
Station did not matter as much as ownership, courtesy dictating that Hugo should heed whatever was asked of him in a household that was not his.
“There is still much that I must discuss with your sister,” Hugo replied. “When I am done, then I will leave.”
If it had been Josiah, or even Luke, perhaps Hugo would have been more obliging. But there was something about Matthew that he simply could not stand. A disgust that had begun to form within Hugo the very moment he had heard about the ‘jape’ with the toads.
“I have asked you to go,” Matthew shot back. “Are you intending to defy me in my own home?”
“With respect, it is your sister’s home too,” Hugo pointed out. “She should be just as free to hold a conversation within her own drawing room as you are.”
Matthew’s face reddened, flushed with the raspberry hue of swallowed fury.
Before the man could burst, however, Evelyn stood abruptly. Shaky hands smoothed over the silky fabric of her skirts, her shoulders pulled back as she turned and settled her gaze upon Hugo.
“You really should leave, Your Grace,” she said. “I have received your message, and I have explained why I am unable to attend. Please, be on your way… and I hope that your final outing with Selina is… satisfactory.”
Suspicion creased Matthew’s eyes, though his smirk spoke of a man who was rather pleased with the outcome.
“I am sure I shall hear all about it from my friend,” Evelyn added, an urgency in her voice.
Despite his unwillingness to leave without hearing her say that a future with the baron was what she wanted, and his reluctance to give Matthew the satisfaction of seeing him leave, Hugo could not refuse Evelyn’s request. He was clearly causing her distress, and it was the very last thing he wanted.
With a nod of his head, he acquiesced. But not before murmuring, in a low voice, “I knew that necklace would become you perfectly.”
With that, he walked out, frustration and confusion buzzing through him, as if a nest of wasps had been set loose in his veins.
“Why was he here?” Matthew demanded to know in the wake of Hugo’s departure, oblivious to his sister’s distress.
Evelyn kept her gaze fixed on the floor, her hand moving to the necklace at her throat, lightly twisting the chains around her fingertips. “He told you. He came to give me a message.”
“What message?” Matthew asked bluntly, with that same command in his voice.
She swallowed past the aching lump in her throat. “To invite me to chaperone his outing with Miss Parsons. He was passing, so he thought he would deliver the message on Selina’s behalf. It is not as if I have been allowed to see her myself.”
“You will soon be married. What need do you have for friends?” Matthew said, so lost in the wilderness of their father’s way of living that he really thought that was the only way to exist. To isolate, to rarely socialize, to have no one beyond one’s own family, one’s sons.
Evelyn moved forward, turning to slip past him. “I should return to my chambers to ready myself for dinner.”
“He is not to come into this house again,” Matthew snarled as she went by him. “I do not know why father allowed him in.”
Evelyn flashed her brother a bitter smile, her heart cracking in her chest. “I would not worry about that, Matthew. He has no further reason to visit this place.”
Without waiting for the contemptuous remark that would assuredly follow, she headed up the stairs to her room, her fingertips still wrapped with the chains of the necklace.