Chapter 14
Rowe and Evo stood facing each other inside Jackson’s boxing academy, stripped down to shirts and breeches for fighting. Rowe had one arm up in front of his face as he urged Evo to try and get through his guard. The young earl swung wildly and Rowe caught it.
“Shift your stance to something more natural. Your feet should be closer together. Now try again, and this time feint with your right hand and strike with the left.”
Evo stood upright. “But then you will know what I am about to do. I’ll never get a hit in that way.”
“You’re not likely to get a hit in any other way, either,” Rowe shot back with a grin. He wasn’t the most talented of Jackson’s pupils. His cousin Miles had always outstripped him. But he would enjoy being Evo’s superior while it lasted, which was likely not for very long.
Gentleman Jackson, the owner of the famous academy, finished a conversation and came over to bow before him. “Lord Pembroke, how do you do?”
Jackson’s birth was common, but due to his talent for pugilism and genteel behavior, he was on easy terms with gentlemen and peers alike. Indeed, it was considered an honor to spar with him. He glanced at Evo, giving a smile and slight bow.
“This is the Earl of Poole,” Rowe said. “His sister is married to Miles Shaw.” The name meant something to Jackson, and he turned to Evo. “Well, let us see how you do.”
Evo looked more nervous than he had before, and with a nod, Rowe encouraged him to carry on. Evo adjusted his steps with conscientious attention, then feinted with his right and struck with the left as Rowe had advised him. He delivered a stronger blow but one that was easily deflected.
“Stand like this.” The boxing master shifted so that he had pivoted to an angle.
“And hold your arm higher. Don’t reach, but let your opponent come to you.
Then when you strike, pull back and send it out from your shoulder.
” He guided Evo’s arm as he instructed him, and even Rowe benefited from the reminder. “Now try again.”
Evo did so, and his punch flew out with strength. Although Rowe blocked it, he immediately felt the difference.
“Ha! That’s something to show,” Evo exclaimed. “No one my age will be able to get one over me. Thank you, sir.”
Rowe’s respect for Jackson grew. Not many people could inspire Evo into a position of both humility and gratitude.
When they had had time enough in the ring and were thoroughly spent, they went to change before strolling out of the academy down Bond Street.
It crossed Rowe’s mind that he was spending an awful lot of time with a puppy to whom he was unrelated.
He could not say why he did so. At first it had been for Miles’s sake, because he knew his cousin was interested in Lady Dorothea.
Miles had told him how desperately Evo was in need of male guidance, according to his sister.
So they had started that way; afterwards, he began to like Evo for his own sake.
To guide a youth toward a nobler character was an honorable way to spend one’s time, he was learning.
Perhaps he would not be the terrible father he had always feared.
Something else added interest to his time spent with Evo.
He finally knew his heart well enough to realize that Camilla could not be classed with the rest of the Society women, nor was her significance that of a mere relation to his cousin.
She was not even simply a member of the family he liked exceedingly well.
She had taken on an importance in his life, which—knowing his fear of all heart-related commitment—was truly to say something.
He had ruminated over her words at Almack’s more than once—what she had said about husbands and wives being friends.
Although he had evidence of it right under his nose with couples like the Harwoods and the Shaws, he had many more examples of those who only proved the contrary.
What was to say he would be one of the lucky ones?
That was what made him wish to abandon any effort before even trying.
However, a marriage to Camilla might be the closest thing he could have to friendship with a wife.
Not that he was ready to think of her in those terms. Oh no.
It was more likely her determination to keep up a reserve that had something to do with his persistence in seeking opportunities to see her.
He wanted to break through her shield and reach the young woman he knew was inside, and this challenge was beginning to consume him.
He and Evo had walked a ways in silence toward where he had stabled his phaeton and the handsome set of matched bays both Evo and Joanna had found cause to praise.
“Your sister does not seem to smile as much these days. I wonder if you know why.” They passed by White’s, and Evo, walking beside him, had donned a modish top hat.
With a flash of humor, Rowe thought he missed only a walking cane in order to be a proper gentleman, though he was still rather slight.
“Which sister?” Evo said with the air of someone who didn’t care very much what the answer was.
“Why, Lady Camilla,” Rowe answered. “When we were at Elmscote, she was more forthcoming, and she smiled more. Is she unhappy, do you think?”
Evo shrugged. “How should I know?” They continued in silence, and perhaps his flippant reply began to work on his conscience. “To tell you the truth, Camilla has always had odd humors.”
“Is that so?” Rowe asked in a mild voice, not putting too much faith in Evo’s assessment.
He could not tell if this was a mere brother’s expostulation, or if he truly believed it.
Rowe had never discerned any odd humors in Camilla except for that tendency to speak her mind and say the most surprising things.
When she had commented on his habit of fleeing from marital commitment to his mother, he had nearly betrayed his shock.
He, who was always able to hide what he was thinking.
One did not speak in such a way in Society, and even for her, it was a most disconcerting observation.
“Well, yes. I suppose I like her best out of all my sisters. She says what she thinks and stops there. Not a jaw-me-dead.”
“No, that she is not,” Rowe said, wishing she sometimes spoke more.
“Now that you put the idea in my mind, however, she doesn’t smile as much,” Evo mused. “In fact, she has been rather down in the mouth lately.”
“Since when?” he could not help but ask.
Evo shrugged again. “I don’t know. She is like this every time I come down from school. I suppose it has been at least since last summer.”
“Hm.” Rowe steered the conversation to other matters as they walked the remaining distance to the mews, but the disclosure weighed on him.
He had a vague suspicion—little more than a niggling doubt—that he had been the one to remove the smile from her face.
After all, she smiled easily enough around his friends and the suitors who flocked into her orbit.
If he had been the one to chase her smile away, he wished he knew how to put it back.
On Sunday, Rowe’s sister appeared with her husband a half hour before the dinner hour.
His mother had apprised him of the Moffats joining them for the evening, so it came as no surprise to Rowe.
Though he supposed he would not have wondered at it, even if he had not been warned.
Mary was clearly bored with her own married life and came to pester him about his.
Sounds of her divesting herself of cloak and bonnet while talking without cease to their mother reached Rowe where he sat in the drawing room.
Since Mary felt herself at home in his house, he would not trouble himself to welcome her.
She and their mother could finish talking in the entryway for all they wished, since they did not seem to be in any hurry.
He wondered what tonight would bring, having his mother, sister, and Lady Camilla’s family over for dinner.
Over the course of the past week, his feelings for Camilla had begun to crystallize.
They had been there since Elmscote, he suspected, but they were so foreign to a man like him, he did not recognize them for what they were—constancy.
The feelings awoke again when he sought her out at Almack’s, when he looked for her attention in her drawing room, in the way his spirits plunged when Evo had said she smiled no longer, and even in his anticipation of seeing her tonight.
Without his becoming aware of it, Lady Camilla seemed to have secreted away a portion of his heart.
He knew he would begin pursuing her—he couldn’t help it—but did not want to go about the courtship in an ordinary way.
With Camilla, such a thing would prove awkward.
They knew each other well; they had been friends.
Oh, he supposed she might have had a tendre for him much like a schoolgirl, but he had thought of her as no more than a friend.
That was behind them both, for his heart had changed, and she was a schoolgirl no longer.
Rowe missed the friendship that had been there before she had pulled her heart out of his reach.
His first objective, therefore, must be to see her smile again.
He wanted her to respond to him in more of her natural manner of old.
Mary entered the drawing room at last, and he rose to greet her, then shook hands with his brother-in-law. “How do you do, Moffat?”
“Well, I thank you.”
“Dare I hope that you have finally decided to settle down?” his sister asked him, coming right to the point. She has no finesse, he thought, looking at her dourly. How could they be related?
“You ought to know better than to ask me questions I have no intention of answering.” He went over to the sofa and sat, crossing one leg over the other.
“You need not answer, Pembroke. The fact that you have gone ahead and invited Lord Poole’s entire family based on our mother’s suggestion can only lead me to understand one thing.”
“That I am an obedient son?”