‘My great-aunt is made of stern stuff, Lord Finnegan. We will do well enough whilst we wait. Besides, I would not send her back to Hyacinth. That woman is a nasty bully.’
A nasty bully? The way she said it suggested she had been on the receiving end of such harsh treatment. A new knot of guilt was forming in Finn’s gut.
‘There is no need to send your aunt back to Hyacinth Whoever-She-Is.’ Good heavens, what was he saying? ‘And there is no need for either of you to go to the inn. Under the circumstances...’ Stop, man—before you say something that you know you will regret! ‘...and as we are to be brother and sister, I would prefer it if you stayed at Matlock House while you search for a new home.’
Finn stared at the sky and cursed his parents for bringing him up to have good manners.
She stopped walking and turned to face him. ‘I do not wish to inconvenience you, Lord Finnegan.’ But there was hope sparkling in those golden-flecked eyes again and he did not want to be the one to dash it.
‘It is not an inconvenience, madam. Just do not expect me to be a good-humoured host.’
When she rushed at him and wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed his cheek in gratitude, Finn had the overwhelming urge to respond in kind. Except it was not her cheek he wanted to kiss. Instead, he stood stiffly and hoped that the sale would go through more swiftly than any sale had ever gone through before. ‘I suppose we should head back.’ His voice sounded gruff and she disentangled her lush body from his. Instantly, he had the overwhelming desire to pull her back, but resisted.
They set off up the hill and his brother’s fiancée could not stop smiling. And perhaps smiling was contagious because Finn felt the urge to smile back at her. Clearly doing good deeds warmed the heart and his cold, shrivelled heart felt inordinately pleased with itself.
‘Now that you are no longer a doormat, what will you do with your days?’
‘I intend to do whatever takes my particular fancy rather than Hyacinth’s. I am tired of being dragged around town while she makes endless calls on people who are always glad to see the back of us. I hate balls and parties and sitting with the wallflowers. So you see, Lord Finnegan, by contrast this place is paradise. I shall paint outdoors, sing folk songs loudly, wear unsuitable gowns...’
‘The one you are wearing is quite unsuitable enough. It does not fit and it is ugly.’
‘You are a very rude man, Lord Finnegan.’ But she was smiling as she said it.
‘Perhaps. Would you prefer me to lie to you with idle flattery? I assumed that the new and empowered Miss Bradshaw would have the gumption to insist on complete honesty.’
‘I do not have the right figure for gowns to fit properly.’
‘Any decent dressmaker could make you a gown that fits properly. That abomination is shapeless and far too capacious.’
She stiffened in outrage but the faint blush that stained her cheeks was actually very becoming and certainly something that she should do more often. ‘More fabric is flattering to someone with a more generous figure!’
Knowing full well what lay under all of those acres of stiff fabric, Finn was inclined to disagree. ‘Is that one of your awful stepmother’s pearls of wisdom?’
She paused thoughtfully before answering. ‘Yes, it is! And as I am no longer a doormat, I should probably ignore all of her advice going forward. I shall find a new dressmaker as well as a new house.’
‘That’s the spirit.’ Her good mood was infectious. ‘Perhaps you should find a new fiancé while you are about it?’
She simply grinned at that and chatted about everything and nothing all of the way home while she idly picked wild flowers that he wanted to weave into her hair.
Over the course of the next week, Evie fell into a new routine which she rather enjoyed. Because she was an early riser, most mornings she collided with her surly host over breakfast. Usually he was gruff and forthright, occasionally sarcastic, but he never failed to look at whatever gown she wore with utter disgust. This appraisal was always accompanied with one cutting word, although the choice of word varied. Yesterday it had been dull, the day before it had been foul. Hideous, matronly and only one two-word insult—good grief!—had also featured in his daily criticism.
Yet those cutting words somehow spurred her to be the better, braver Evie Bradshaw. The no-longer-a-doormat Evie Bradshaw that she wanted to be. Yes, he criticised her appearance much like Hyacinth had, but her stepmother had criticised Evie personally: her face, her figure, her hair; his criticism was directed solely at the awful gowns Hyacinth had chosen for her. Gowns that Evie had always hated, but had been conditioned to believe were the best she could expect when she was as unfortunately shaped as she was—Lord Finnegan, in his own curt, unfriendly manner, made her wonder if perhaps Hyacinth might have dressed her like that on purpose, which, strangely, motivated her to undo that damage.
Underneath all of that surliness, he was occasionally uncharacteristically considerate, although he did his best not to show it. If he saw her nibbling on toast he put bacon on her plate; he was kind to Aunt Winnie, even though he pretended to be completely put upon. Aunt Winnie insulted him playfully and he gave as good as he got. But even when he was being sociable he never laughed and even the rare approximations of a smile were few and far between. At all costs he avoided them.
Aside from breakfast, the only time Evie got to see him was in passing because he gave his guests a very wide berth. He never ate dinner with them, preferring to take a tray into his study rather than sit down with them, and he apparently never ventured into the bright and airy drawing room at any time of the day. Whether that was because he really had no desire to have anything more to do with them than was necessary, Evie could not say, but she much preferred those few minutes with him in the breakfast room to the hours she sat in the drawing room with Aunt Winnie.
The housekeeper had explained her master’s reluctance to go into that room was because it reminded him too much of his beloved wife. Hardly a surprise when the room was dominated by a large painting of a lovely blonde-haired young woman with a butterfly perched in her open hands.
His wife.
Olivia Grace Matlock.
Perhaps it was the butterfly, when Evie was merely a moth, or perhaps it was the fact that the ethereal beauty of the woman made Evie feel plainer than usual, or perhaps it was the fact that she suspected that this woman still haunted this house and its surly owner—whatever it was, the drawing room was intimidating. And she quite missed his company there.
When their paths did cross, he would engage in brief, usually curt, conversation and then he would take himself off to his study and she would not see him again until the following morning. Though as silly as it was, Evie really looked forward to those mornings. Later in the day, when he was tired, there was an air of sadness about him, almost as if he was already quite done with the day and the effort of being part of it. But in the mornings, he seemed less burdened, much as Evie was feeling decidedly less burdened with each day that passed that she was not in London. Already she had made inroads into the huge task of restarting her life.
The same day that Finn had agreed to allow her to stay had been the very same day that she had made an appointment to visit a dressmaker.
All on her own.
The dressmaker, a lovely woman with a brash northern accent and enormous, coarse hands, had stared at the frock she was wearing in disbelief and asked if the woman who had made it had had the cheek to want paying for such a disgrace to the profession. Then she had gone about draping all the soft and floaty fabrics that Evie had always been told to avoid over her body and dismissing