‘As always, you know to call on me, if there is something I might do to aid you.’ He was giving her a surprisingly direct look. Though it was still masked in his characteristic smile, she was sure that he was actively concerned with her and would truly do anything, should she ask.
Let me go. And make Sam love me again. Now there was a request that one did not make of one’s future fiancé. Besides, she was not even sure the second half of it was possible.
‘Was your visit with your old friend a disappointment?’ St Aldric asked, cutting right to the heart of the matter. ‘You seem changed since he has come. More sombre.’
‘I am sorry,’ she repeated, forcing a smile. ‘I will try to be more cheerful.’
‘Do not change for my sake,’ he said. His hand, when next it took hers in the dance, gave hers an encouraging squeeze. ‘You cannot help what you feel. But I take it that your Dr Hastings was much altered since you saw him last. That is bound to be disappointing.’
‘Yes,’ she admitted. Confusing would have been a more accurate way to describe it. There had been nothing disappointing about his kiss.
She glanced at St Aldric, who epitomised disappointment in that particular area. She was being unfair to him. His kisses were as polished and correct as everything else about him. Perhaps it was some flaw in her own character that left her untouched by them.
He continued to smile at her.
She smiled back and felt a wave of the kind of sisterly affection that Sam had tried to thrust upon her, until she had broken his will. This was what it was like, to feel nothing for a man, but to like him well enough not to wish him pain.
‘And now that you have seen him, is your mind altered on the subject of our marriage?’
‘I … don’t understand what you mean.’ She tensed and missed a beat, though he corrected easily to compensate for it. The duke had caught her flat footed, again, both in mind and body. She had not expected his next proposal to include any mention of Sam.
His smile was more sympathetic than jolly. ‘I am not so dense as all that, Evelyn. You had a tendre for the man. I expect you lost your heart to him at a very young age. And that is not an easy thing to forget.’
‘You are too perceptive,’ she said. ‘It is your only fault.’ That was not true. He did not miss a beat when they danced. He was never nonplussed or flustered. If perfection was a flaw, he had it in spades.
‘I will work to rectify it, once we are married,’ he said. ‘If you agree to wed me, I shall be as dense as you wish me to be.’
Was he giving her permission to be unfaithful to him? Surely not. But she could not help but think that, when one’s heart lay elsewhere, there might be certain advantages to a husband who had announced his willingness to turn a blind eye.
If she had wanted that sort of a marriage, she should be satisfied with the response. But it was likely to destroy the respect she had for him, knowing that he did not care enough for her to be hurt by infidelity.
She thought again of the interlude in Sam’s room and tried to focus on the end of it, when he had claimed it nothing more than unworthy lust. On his part, perhaps it had been. But she would have happily died in his arms to give him the peace he requested.
As long as it had occurred after a consummation.
‘Will there be any response to my comment? Or are you to keep me guessing?’
‘Comment?’ She dragged her mind away from Sam and glanced back at the duke again.
‘On my willingness to conform to any demands you might set, should you marry me.’
He had made the offer that she had promised to accept and she had been so preoccupied on thoughts of another that she had not heard him. This did not bode well for the future.
‘I will offer in another way, if you seek something less businesslike. There could be moonlight, candles and your pick of the jewels in my lock room. I could purchase something new for you, if you do not fancy them. I will get down on one knee. Although I have no experience in it, I will serenade you. Write poetry. I will do anything to see you smile. But you know my feelings on the subject of matrimony. I am eager to hear yours.’
Father was right. She had kept him waiting long enough. If she truly wished to have Sam’s approval, it had been given, repeatedly. He proclaimed St Aldric an excellent match. He had also told her, emphatically, that there would be no marriage between the two of them.
Then he had kissed her. Her mind kept coming back to that. She suspected it would, for the rest of her life. Just as she had spent six years thinking of the last kiss, she might spend sixty on this one.
Would the memory of that be enough to sustain her, or would it become a bitter reminder of how a marriage might feel, if it was to the right man?
It did not really matter. Sam had thrust her from the room and was probably still planning to leave the country. And all because she had forced him. If she continued to do so, she would lose his friendship along with his love.
She turned to St Aldric, this time with her full attention, or very near to it. ‘I am sorry. I never meant to be cruel to you, or to keep you waiting so long. You are right. It is time that I answered.’
To her surprise, the man at her side looked eager to hear her response. And there was a flicker of doubt in it, as though he was not sure what it might be. She had been so focused on herself and her own wishes that she had been tormenting him with her indifference.
He deserved better.
‘Of course I will marry you. At the time of your choosing.’
‘A special licence is the thing, I understand,’ he said. ‘Brides all want them, to show that the groom is ardent and has some pull with court. I will procure one. But the actual ceremony need not be hurried. We must allow enough time to celebrate the event …’
He continued to plan, as eager as a bride, while Eve retreated to a place where life was simpler, endings happier and kisses as passionate as she knew they could be.
Sam roused to the sound of a knocking at the door. Or perhaps the hammering was in his skull. It was no less than he deserved. Life at sea had inured him to strong drink. But the quantity he had taken in the last day and a half was enough to send a sailor’s brain to pounding.
‘Doctor Hastings.’
Without another thought he was out of the bed, his hand on his case of medicines. ‘What is it? Am I needed?’ He shook his head to clear it, ready to face whatever emergency awaited him.
‘Nothing so dire, I’m sure. There is a letter for you, sir.’ The innkeeper waited nervously in the hall, a liveried footman from Thorne Hall beside him.
Probably a cheerful missive from Evie, expecting him to dance attendance on her, as though nothing had happened between them. But he would not forget the sight of her, kneeling between his thighs.
He shook his head again, harder, and let the pain it caused be a distraction. The girl was far too headstrong for her own good. And naïve as well. The best way to protect that innocence was to stay far away from it. Sam rubbed a hand over his dry eyes. ‘Whatever it is, tell him he can take it to the devil.’
The footman looked alarmed, but did not budge. ‘I am to put it into your hand directly and wait for an answer, Dr Hastings.’ Tom had been an underfootman when Sam had left the Thornes. He had been younger than Evelyn, no more than a child and already in service.
Had she chosen him for this, sure that Sam would remember the boy with sympathy and not wish to give him trouble? She was a demon to torment him with tricks like that. But it was another proof that she knew him as well as he knew himself. He sighed. ‘Very well, then.’ He held out his hand for the letter. ‘Wait.’ Then he closed the door on the pair of them and broke the seal.