“He’s asleep, but I can wake him if you really need him,” the woman said as she set her sewing aside and got up from the small chair by the window.
The voice was firm, but gentle, and Evan regarded her in puzzlement. It was not that it was odd for him to wake with a woman in his room, but he usually remembered who she was. And of this beauty he had no memory at all. That fine tawny hair, those kind blue eyes and that kissable mouth— those he would have remembered.
“May I get you anything?” she asked, coming to stand over him.
“Just your name. I seem to have mislaid it.”
“Judith. I’m your aunt, now that I think of it,” she said with a chuckle.
“Uh, I don’t have an aunt.” And if I did, he thought, she wouldn’t stir me like this.
“You do now. Two of them, though I dare say we are both younger than you. Angel and I are Helen’s sisters. But I should not be teasing you when you are not even awake.”
“Nor should you be here,” Evan said, remembering his naked state.
“I caught Bose preparing to curl up for a sleep outside your door, so I sent him to his own room.” She had trouble keeping her eyes from straying to Evan’s chest and shoulders.
“We have been away from civilization too long.”
“Is he always like that—a faithful hound?”
“More like a bossy nanny most of the time. Now that I come to think of it, I’m surprised he let you send him off.”
Judith shrugged and smiled. “Do you need him?”
“No, let him sleep. Believe it or not, he was the one who wanted to get here in such a hurry.”
“Ah, yes, our Joan. She has spoken of nothing else since you arrived. She said you rode a hundred and fifty miles in less than three days, and in this weather.”
“It’s what we’re used to.”
“Yes, I know,” she said sadly.
“You—you have been following the war, then?”
“I have read the accounts in the Times,” she said warily, unwilling to let him know she had read his letters to his grandmother.
“I should have liked to read those papers myself, to see if the reports bear any resemblance to what really went on.”
“Gram saved them. I will find them for you—later. Perhaps you should not come down to dinner tonight. You have a bit of a fever.” She almost touched his forehead, as she had while he slept, but stopped herself in time.
“Oh, I shall do,” he said cheerfully, sitting up and revealing the bandages around his chest.
“Yes, I’m sure you will,” she said, whisking out of the room and closing the door behind her before he could see her blushing.
Judith closeted herself in the room she shared with Angel, and leaned against the door until her heart settled down to a more normal rhythm. She had helped nurse Terry when he was wounded, but had never felt like this. Perhaps it was because Evan was exactly as she expected—handsome, fine and hard muscled, with that understated masculinity. His straight brown hair fell across his brow most charmingly, and the scar under his lip crinkled when he smiled. His eyes were brown and brooding, as though he was always thinking of something else.
She must get a grip on herself. Between the two of them there could never be anything. He was Lord Mountjoy’s heir and must marry someone of his own station. And that was the least of the reasons.
Why had she so fastened on his character to the point where she fantasized about him? She realized it was because she envied him. He might have been spurned by his father, but he had not whimpered and cowered in some corner. Instead, he had done something with himself. She wished she could have led such a life, hard though it might have been. She had got from his letters a sense of his belonging where he was, of making a place for himself, just as she tried to do.
She had heard all about him from Gram, but without his letters, she would have known only what he’d been like as a boy. Reducing war news to mere asides, his missives were filled with rollicking tales of camp life, foreign foods and customs. One would have thought he was a young man on a grand tour, with safe conduct through all those foreign parts, rather than a soldier in the thick of battle.
Without knowing it, Evan had made her laugh. Unconscious of her existence, he had made her care about him. And he had been a comfort to his dying grandmother without knowing she was dying. Judith had wondered if any man could ever read as well in person as Evan had on paper. Now she knew.
Owing to his falling asleep again, and Bose’s not coming to his room until close on five o’clock, Evan was the last to enter the library, where the family gathered before dinner. It was evident to him, as he scanned their faces, that he had been the subject of their conversation. Lady Mountjoy had high color again, his father was stern, Judith sympathetic. The younger girl—Angel, as she was introduced—looked on him with particular interest. He caught his breath, for she seemed too young, too beautiful to be real. But then she blushed and dropped her eyes and became all too human. Had she faced him down he might have liked her better. A figure moved toward him, one who reminded him vaguely of himself. “Terry?” he asked uncertainly.
“Hallo, Evan. We thought you was dead.” Terry shook his hand and left a mist of brandy fumes in the air.
Evan was still struggling for a reply when Lord Mountjoy helped his wife to her feet. Evan would have been inclined to fall in beside Judith, but Angel pushed past her and appropriated his arm. Judith rolled her eyes heavenward in such an automatic response that Evan grinned in spite of himself.
“You don’t look that old,” Angel confided, staring at the lines around his eyes. “I was thinking twenty-five was very old, but you don’t look much older than Terry.”
Evan smiled and nodded, wondering how he was going to make it through the evening. He sat up straight at dinner. He hadn’t much choice, the way Bose had strapped up his cracked ribs. And he remembered to take his soup to his mouth and not crouch over his food like a hungry animal, as Terry was doing at this moment. Evan could remember many occasions recently when he had hunched ravenously over a crust of bread or a piece of half-cooked meat. But there was a time and place for everything. In his father’s house he could not help but sit at attention as he ate.
Evan glanced at Lord Mountjoy, who was staring at Terry. But his father merely shuddered and looked away. Was it possible the old tartar had mellowed? Evan did not care to find out. He remembered his dizziness from before and took only enough wine to dull the ache in his knees. Riding did not bother him in the ordinary way, not even riding for long stretches at a time, but he had been badly trampled at Bordeaux the previous month, and now a dull ache would creep down to his right knee in particular, nagging at him for days on end. In spite of Angel’s opinion, he felt worn-out, used-up and numb to anything else that might happen to him.
“I think the courtesy of an answer is due your brother,” Lord Mountjoy demanded.
“Sorry, I was not attending.”
“I only asked if you had seen many battles,” Terry repeated.
“Yes.”
“There’s your answer, Terry—yes, he has seen many battles,” Lord Mountjoy quipped.
Evan smiled. “Such conversation is not particularly good table fare, not for children, anyway.”
Angel raised a belligerent chin, as did Terry.
“In that case we shall leave you to your port and your talk of war,” Lady Mountjoy declared as she rose with dignity. Judith left them with a sad smile, Angel with a definite flounce.
Evan realized the meal was over, though