Читать книгу Tempted - Laurel Ames - Страница 10

Evan rose at dawn and dressed himself. He realized it must be hours until breakfast, so he took a walk to the stable to check on their horses. He then wandered down the lane toward the fields. If the house mystified him, the grounds disoriented him. He expected things would have changed, but there were huge trees growing where he did not even remember small trees. The only familiar parts were those Gram had described. He could call up her voice telling him about the lane with the bridge over the stream and the cottages beyond. And there was the small beech wood where one could walk quite unobserved from the lane.

Evan found a path that he must have taken as a boy. It had been kept open by some inveterate walker, and he felt a friendly sympathy for the unknown boy.

He sat down on a rock to rest and try to puzzle out the past, but the crucial memories eluded him. It seemed such a profitless task. He was what he was now. Why unearth memories that were likely to be painful?

He started at a movement among the new foliage, and almost dropped to a crouch before he remembered where he was. A lithe figure picked its way along the path. Not a boy though, but a girl, wearing a shawl and bonnet that looked old-fashioned even to a man who had been absent from England for years.

“Good morning, Judith,” he said quietly, so as not to startle her.

“I didn’t even see you there, you were so still.”

She sat down beside him, which spurred him to ask, “Do you often stop to rest here?”

“Not rest, just listen and think. The way through the wood is too short otherwise. I was just taking some bread to Mrs. Gorn. She’s quite alone now.”

“Isn’t that a job for Lady Mountjoy?”

She looked at him accusingly. “She would do it, if she could.”

“Sorry, that was a stupid thing for me to say.”

“Especially now that you know she is increasing. I saw your face when you guessed. You looked—well, satisfied, as though you had caught her out at something.”

“Did I?” Evan thought back over the previous agonizing evening. If his face was that easily read, they must all think him a cold, brooding fellow. “It had only solved a puzzle for me, about why she doesn’t want me to stay. Her irrational dislike for me makes sense in light of her pregnancy. Women do often act out-of-character when pregnant …don’t they?”

Judith hesitated, and Evan thought she was on the point of denying that her sister disliked him, but instead she asked, “Had you ever thought that perhaps that is the one time they are more truly themselves, when all that matters is the baby and providing for it?”

“I had not thought about it, but then I have not had much time to observe women, let alone wonder about them. You, for instance, are a complete mystery. I would have guessed you to be the type of person who likes horses, not hates them.”

“But I love them!” she said passionately, then looked away.

“But not to ride?”

“I drive tolerably well,” she said, clasping her hands in her lap.

He looked at the strong, competent hands laid against the faded material of her gown and inspiration hit him. “A riding habit. You need a new one, don’t you?”

“No, I don’t want one. What are you that you read my mind like that? It’s not fair.”

“That had to be it. You would love to ride, but you must have a riding habit to do it in. We will go into Exeter and buy you one.”

“We will not. What would people think of me? Men do not buy women clothes.”

“Not even their aunts?”

“I am not related to you by blood at all. It would be highly improper.”

“Improper for me to bring gifts to my family—all my family? You could help me pick out exactly what Helen and Angel would like. We’ll go before breakfast, if you can drive me.”

“I can’t. I have work to do.”

“What sort of work?”

“That’s none of your business.”

“You don’t strike me as the sort of person who would put your own interests before your family, even if it meant putting off your work.”

“No, of course not. I mean—”

“You were just using that as an excuse not to help me. Very well. I shall go myself. But I fully intend to buy you a riding habit, whether you want one or not. Of course, left to my own devices, I shall probably choose red, or make some other crucial blunder, but there you have it. I am a soldier and prone to blunder.” He got up decisively.

“No, you must not,” she said, jumping up.

“Not red?”

“No, you must not buy it at all.” She stamped her foot in frustration. “They will think I coerced you.”

“No one coerces me. Hasn’t Father told you how stubborn I am?”

“Time and again.”

“What else did he say about me?”

“Only that you were very unforgiving.”

“Me unforgiving? That’s a good one. Well, do you mean to come with me or no? For I am off now.”

“I will help you choose gifts for your father and the others, but you must not buy me anything.”

“Oh, well, half a loaf…Come then.” He held out his hand to her so commandingly that she took it, and he very nearly dragged her the rest of the way through the wood. She fetched it back when they came at last to the stable.

Before Judith fairly knew what had happened, they were on the road to Exeter, with not so much as her reticule about her, and Evan thrusting the reins upon her. She did not like being poor and resented being made to feel poor by someone she held in awe. She would rather have had her reticule, even if it was empty. But that was what she was like— a sham.

“We shall be late to breakfast,” Judith warned as Evan helped her carry the pile of packages from the stable to the house.

“I’m sure there’ll be something left for us. Then we will go riding and see if that habit looks as good with you on horseback as it did in the shop.”

Judith thanked him hastily and ran up the stairs with her plunder, leaving Evan to find the breakfast parlor on his own. The main hall ran from front to back; cross halls ran the length of the house. Evan opened several doors on the north end of the house before concluding that the shrouded ballroom, salons and drawing room were not much used. If they had been in use when he was a boy, he could only think that he had been barred from them, for nothing looked familiar. The south end of the house contained the library and dining room, what looked like a morning room full of sewing baskets and, finally, the breakfast parlor.

“Where the devil have you been?” Lord Mountjoy demanded of Evan as he sat down.

“Exeter, shopping. We have bought you some tobacco.”

“What nonsense! Haring off first thing in the morning to go shopping. I said I had things to discuss with you.”

“Oh, did you mean this morning?”

“Of course I meant this morning.”

“Could you please pass the ham?” Evan asked of Judith, who had just slipped in and seated herself.

“I want you in the library directly after we’ve eaten.”

“Sorry, I have an appointment,” Evan replied.

“A what? A what?” his father sputtered.

“Evan, it can wait—” Judith started to say.

“Judith has promised to show me the countryside.”

Lady Mountjoy frowned at her sister, and Angel increased her pout. Evan could not help noticing that Angel was dressed in a new muslin of the latest cut, and thought perhaps she was expecting a compliment.

“I should be available in an hour or two if that is convenient.”

“No, it is not! You be in the library in ten minutes—ten minutes!”

“No, I don’t think I can manage that. I suppose tomorrow will do as well.”

“No, it will not.” Lord Mountjoy threw down his fork and left the table. Evan merely cocked an eyebrow at his fuming exit.

“Now see what you have done.” Lady Mountjoy rose from the table and with a penetrating stare commanded her sisters to come with her. Angel went in a pet, but Judith sat gazing at her plate.

“We do make a spectacle, don’t we?” Evan asked of Judith.

“Evan, please have this meeting with him. We can go riding afterward. Besides, it will take me an hour to change.”

“I see,” he said suspiciously. She rose then, forcing him to do so, and he walked with her into the hall. She ran up the stairs, but turned to look back at him with an admonishing expression.

“I’m going. I’m going,” he promised with a laugh and went to knock at the library door.

“Come!”

Evan entered the room as he would that of a commanding officer who had sent for him without telling him why.

“So you have finally found it convenient to talk to me?”

“I’m sorry. I did try to be civil, but I am so unused to it, it is a bit of a strain.”

“For me as well. Look that over and tell me what you think.” His father tossed a document across the desk.

Evan sat down and read for a moment only before he said, “This isn’t Gram’s will. It’s yours. Why do you want me to read this?”

“Just read! You did learn that at your expensive school, didn’t you?”

Evan sighed and read slowly through the document, not believing any of it.

“Have you finished?”

Evan jerked as he had always done at the sound of his father’s voice, bursting on the silence like a shot. It was a habit he resented. If the French cannonading had not made him blink, why did this old man set his nerves on edge? “Yes, I’ve finished, but I don’t understand it.”

“I had thought you intelligent enough to comprehend a simple testament—”

“I mean, why me? Do you really mean to leave everything to me, when we have not spoken for ten years? Surely Terry has a better claim on you. If not Terry, then Thomas.”

“Thomas is as yet unformed and too young to worry over. Terence is…not like you.”

“Which is to say he does not drive you to the verge of apoplexy.”

Lord Mountjoy gave a grudging smile. “No, he does not. In fact, he agrees with every judgment I pronounce, even if I am dead wrong.”

“Are you?”

“What?”

“Ever wrong?”

Lord Mountjoy leaned back in his chair and braced his elbows on the arms, his fingers propped together in a steeple as he regarded Evan. “More than once I have erred quite fantastically, especially where you were concerned. I feared I would never have a chance to set that right.”

“If you mean to buy my loyalty after all those years of neglect, you cannot.” Evan resisted the impulse to fling the document in his father’s face, but merely laid it on the edge of the desk.

“I had no such thought. I am merely doing what is best for Meremont and everyone concerned. I have already spoken to Terry about it.”

“Let me guess—he agreed with you.”

“He is the most exasperating boy in that respect. Yes, he did.”

Suddenly Evan chuckled. “This is absurd. We should never get along.”

“I do not expect us to. In fact, I don’t want you under the same roof with me. Even I cannot take being rubbed raw at every meal. You may refurbish the dower house for your own until my death, then I’m sure you will give it over to Lady Mountjoy for her use.”

“A rather bleak future for a young mother. I wish you a long and prosperous life, Father.”

“She is not the most biddable of women, but she does give in to me.”

“Not too soon, I hope. Otherwise, you might hold her in the same regard as Terry.”

“No, we have had some rare battles, especially over you.”

“Indeed. I still don’t see what you want with me.”

“I don’t want someone who only agrees with me. I want someone who knows about things. The buildings need repairs. We need a new bridge over the stream to get our crops to market. I want to build a canal—”

“A what?”

“A canal to the Exe. I have bought up almost all the land I need.”

“Oh, no, Father. Not a canal. Have you any idea of the expense?”

“Some idea, but I’m sure you can work that out exactly…Don’t argue for just one moment, until I finish my thought. I also want someone who will disagree with me when the need arises.”

“And not out of mere playfulness?”

“Do you imagine we could ever be on such a footing?” His father looked at him intently.

Evan took a moment over his answer, sighing heavily at the wasted years behind him. Then he thought of Judith and smiled. “I can imagine it, with the right woman to keep us from each other’s throats, but I do not think we will come to such a state painlessly.”

“Then let us come to it by whatever road we must. It is the only way I can see for this family to survive. Do you agree?”

“I agree to try,” Evan said, rising. He looked at his father’s extended hand and shook it.

“Good. We’ll discuss the canal later.”

Evan opened his mouth, then closed it and went up to his room, shaking his head.

“You just had to do it, didn’t you?” Bose demanded. “You had to argue with him.” He tossed a pair of Evan’s boots to the floor with enough force to draw a complaint from him.

“Mind what you are about.”

“Disappearing for half the morning, then arguing the entire way through breakfast. What could you have been thinking of?”

“My head was turned, and I did apologize.”

“There should have been no need. I thought you were past such raw-recruit antics. I shall most likely never win Joan now. Don’t expect much dinner, is all I can say, for she is in tears in the kitchen, expecting us to be thrown out at any moment.”

“Bose, you are an admirable traveling companion, and sometimes even a passable batman, but your intelligence gathering leaves much to be desired,” Evan said, as he straightened his stock and searched out his riding crop.

“Don’t even speak to me. I shall hope to be taken on as a groom here. I wash my hands of you. What do you mean, intelligence?”

“Any moderately well run establishment would allocate at least one footman to stand outside a door where a crucial conference is being held, and keep the maids from crying into the shelled peas by reporting that everything is going to be fine.”

“It is? But you just had a rousing fight with him.”

“Yes, that’s what he likes about me. At least that’s what he says.”

“That makes no sense. Are you sure you have it right?” Bose asked, as Evan was about to leave.

“Seems odd to me, too, but he wants us to stay. He means to leave the place to me to run. Of course, I shall be instantly saddled with a family who doesn’t like me, with one exception. But that’s no worse than breaking in a new troop, don’t you think?”

“I’m sure there is a difference, but I don’t know what all it might be,” said Bose in awe.

“No sense borrowing trouble from tomorrow in any case. Of course, there’s no saying what might happen at dinner.”

Lady Mountjoy had watched Evan and Judith ride out and had waited by the morning-room window so that she could speak to her sister directly once they returned. When they came up the back steps of the house, Judith saw Helen staring at them and wiped the smile from her glowing face.

“Angel, leave us a moment,” Helen Mountjoy commanded a few minutes later, planting herself in her sisters’ bedroom.

Angel grimaced at Judith on her way out, drawing a smile from her. Judith was sitting on the bed in her shift and reached for her tired blue evening frock. Helen helped her pull it over her head.

“Where did this riding habit come from?” Helen asked as she turned to shake out the creases from the long green skirt hanging by the mirror.

“Evan bought it for me,” Judith said calmly, thinking of their first ride and how Evan had praised her natural riding ability.

“That’s not proper. It’s also very dangerous.”

“So I told him, but somehow he managed to talk me into it. I keep going over it in my mind, and I can’t quite make out how I agreed to it. It must have been when he threatened to buy me a red one.”

Helen sat on the bed beside her sister. “I know you are very sensible in the ordinary way, Judith, but he’s a man.”

“I know,” Judith said, combing her hair.

“And a soldier.”

“Yes, I know,” she said emphatically.

“I fear he may persuade you to some indiscretion.”

Judith went pink in the face, but not from anger. “After being tricked once, I could never be taken in again. Besides, Evan is different from Banstock. Evan is a war hero. While Banstock’s troop never left England.”

“And Evan is stronger. He could take what he wanted, and you could never stop him.”

“But he would not do such a thing under his father’s own roof. Besides, I feel I know him already from his letters, and from Gram talking about him. I think he will be a very good friend to me.”

“Friend? Does he know the sort of relationship you have in mind?”

“Do not worry. I shall keep him at arm’s length. He will be the big brother I never had.”

“Do you mean to stick by your decision never to marry?”

“We did agree that it is best this way. At least I will never have to deceive anyone.”

Helen hesitated as she ran her fingers in circles on the coverlet. “You don’t mean to tell Evan the truth, then?”

“And give him a disgust of me? No, I could not bear it.”

“I don’t like him, Judith. I tell you, I don’t like him.”

“Merely because he is a soldier and strong?”

“He is also dangerous,” Helen said ominously.

“Nonsense, Helen,” Judith said, as she rose to arrange her hair. “I can handle him.”

“I don’t mean physically dangerous. When he arrived, I tried to send him packing.”

“You didn’t!” Judith whirled. “I know you don’t like him, but this is his home.”

Helen pushed herself to her feet with much less grace than her sister. “Well, it didn’t work. Then, when Hiram introduced us, Evan acted as though we had just met.”

“But that was very kind of him.”

“It was very clever of him. I warn you, Judith, behind those sad, hurt eyes lurks a formidable intellect.”

“You make it sound as though he is plotting against us.”

“He is a soldier and not one to miss the main chance. What better way to entrench himself here than to marry you?”

“But that’s silly! We’ve only just met. Besides, I will never marry.”

“Captain Mountjoy does not know that.”

“Then I have only to tell him so.”

“There is no reasoning with you when you have taken one of your romantic starts.”

“If we are speaking of romantic starts, what about a new widow who suddenly marries a man nearly twice her age?”

“That was different,” Helen said, holding her head up proudly. “I had advertised as a housekeeper, not a wife. I think in the beginning Hiram simply felt sorry for me, caught with young Ralph and almost no pension.”

“Not to mention two sisters, one of whom was a fallen woman.”

“But that wasn’t your fault. I advised you to go with Banstock. I believed him when he said he preferred to be married in Bath rather than Bristol.”

“I believed him, too. So do not worry about me being taken in by another man. I mean to be very careful.”

“Very well.” Helen kissed her lightly on the cheek. “We must go down now. I so hate to be the last to go in to dinner.”

“Helen?”

“Yes, dear?”

“You do love Lord Mountjoy now, don’t you?”

“Very much. You see, I thought he was only trying to save us. I never expected he actually wanted me, or that I would be having a child to him.” She stroked her round stomach affectionately. “He is the best of men.”

“Yes, I know.”

After Helen left, Judith stroked the green dress that became her so well. Evan had picked the color. If Helen perceived that he was no gudgeon, then Judith herself should be wary of him. Still, Gram had had a high regard for her grandson. Judith supposed that she should not let one devastating experience color her judgment of all men. But what did it matter, really? She was going to be a spinster aunt and remain at Meremont forever. So why should she not enjoy Evan’s gallantry? She was completely safe from him.

Evan determined to show Bose that his fears were ungrounded. By dint of speaking only when he was spoken to, Evan made it through the evening meal without a single hitch, though he was called to attention half a dozen times for not answering. He could not help noticing that Judith wore the same gown she had the previous evening, and that when the candles were set out in the library, she picked up a basket of mending. He occupied himself with ruses for providing his future wife with a more extensive wardrobe immediately. She could sew; that was something. So all he had to do was put the materials into her hands. That was surely not the same as buying her clothes. It came to him that he was taking a lot for granted in expecting her to accept his proposal. She was too good for him. But he had better ask her. Then, of course, he could say she was working on her trousseau. Yes, that was the best plan of action. He nodded to himself as though he had just finished the work plan for the next day and was surprised that the table did not contain innumerable maps and drawings to roll up and put away.

His father was staring at him, and Evan smiled blankly. Lord Mountjoy scowled. “I asked if you were going to ride about the place tomorrow with me. But I suppose you are too deaf to hear me.”

“Sorry, I was not attending. May Judith come as well?”

“If she wishes.”

“I want to go, too,” Angel said.

“Not on one of my horses,” his father declared.

Angel looked appealingly at Evan.

“Afraid I can’t afford to have one of mine lamed, either,” he said warily, assuming the worst.

“It’s not fair.”

“Best stay home, child,” Lord Mountjoy said more kindly. “You would only hold us up. You are forever dropping things.”

“Terry, may I ride one of your horses?” Angel asked sweetly.

“No, absolutely not. You don’t even like to ride.”

“How shall I ever grow to like it if I am not given the chance?”

“Liking it isn’t enough. You have to be good at it,” Evan said, but he was looking at Judith, who blushed becomingly.

“Is Judith good at it?”

“Very.”

“I believe the ladies will go up now,” Helen interrupted ruthlessly. Evan soon followed them, since he had no desire either to drink or argue, and Terry’s less-than-coherent grumbling would lead him to one or the other. He was interrupted in the process of undressing himself by a knock and threw his shirt back on before opening the door to Lady Mountjoy.

“I mean to talk to you.”

“Sit down, please.”

“I shall require only a moment. I may have to put up with you, but I will not have my sister preyed upon by you. If you lay one finger on her I will—I will shoot you.”

Evan blinked at her and then smiled. “I admire your fortitude, and I should have spoken to you before, so as not to worry you. My intentions—”

“I know what a soldier’s intentions may be. I cannot live in a house without being aware of what is going forward below stairs.”

“Oh, Bose. But he and Joan have known each other for decades. It’s only to be expected that his affair progresses more rapidly than—”

“His affair, as you name it, disgusts me.”

“But his goal is marriage, as is mine, I assure you.”

“A man may promise anything…”

“If you have been disappointed by some man at some time, that does not mean we are all cut from the same cloth.”

“I flatter myself I know what cloth you are cut from. I’ll send her away if I have to. You will not have Judith.”

“But I want to marry her. She will be Lady Mountjoy someday…or is that it? A sister you have taken for granted for years, almost turned into a drudge, might someday have precedence over you?”

“I’ll see you in your grave before I’ll see her married to you.”

She turned on her heel and exited, with Evan thoughtfully closing the door behind her. He realized he might have to revise his plans. But what could not be taken by direct assault could be had by patient siege, and he knew how to be patient.

The ride about the estate was not the casual affair that Evan had anticipated, but a tour of the lands acquired in anticipation of his father’s canal project. They were all under cultivation, as it happened, but the acquiring of them might well have beggared him. Evan could see some point to it, if they had a manufacture to ship goods from or even a woolery, but with the current price of corn and cloth, it would never pay for itself. He did not, however, ruin the ride by saying so. Judith was in her glory, garnering compliments on her new skill from both Lord Mountjoy and Terry. Evan liked to see her smiling shyly at them, since most of the things he said to her drew a suspicious look.

They returned to the house with hours to spare before dinner, so Evan invited Judith for a walk. He led her toward the dower house and found them a seat in its neglected garden. Even in its overgrown state it seemed very familiar to him. It should. He had spent many days here recovering from the accident that had claimed his brother.

“I miss her,” Judith said, picking a flower and twirling it sadly between her fingers as she sat sideways on the stone bench.

“So do I. I would have come if I could.”

“She did not expect you to. She would not even let me write that she was ill until she knew she could not—”

“It was your hand that wrote those last letters for her then?” He took her hand and turned it over, to regard the ink stains lovingly.

Judith swallowed but did not pull back. She liked the touch of him too well. What harm would it do, after all? “I suppose you did not get them all, if you didn’t know she was dead.”

“I must have been on my way home by the time those would have reached me.”

“It was little enough to do for her. We used to sit out here and she would talk.”

“Of what?”

“The war.”

“She did not know about our victories then.”

“She had every confidence you would triumph in the end. She—she let me read your letters.” Judith stared down at the flower and their joined hands, and wondered if she had said too much.

“Then I fancy you know me a great deal better than I know you.”

“I know that there was a great deal you left out so as to spare her. She used to rant at your lack of detail.”

“That sounds like her.” Evan smiled. “If I could not be here with her, I’m so glad you were. There isn’t anyone else I would rather have had with her.”

“Lord Mountjoy was not inattentive. He—he read your letters, too. Or rather, I read them to the both of them. He has them now. It was the only thing he wanted.”

“Father? I’m surprised.”

“I do not know what is between you two,” she said finally, drawing her hand back, “except that it is in the past. I only know that I like you both and would rather not see you at odds with one another.”

“He must have mellowed indeed.”

“He has always treated me gently, as though we are old friends.”

“Why is that?” Evan asked suspiciously.

Judith studied her hands for a moment. If ever there was a time to tell Evan the trials that his father had shared with her it was now, but her courage failed her. “I think because of the time we spent here together,” she lied, her voice milky with tears.

“I would not have thought it of him.”

“People can change. They can see what they’ve done wrong and try to make up for it,” she pleaded.

“Are we talking about him or me?”

“I had meant…” She stopped when she realized she had been speaking about herself. Tell him, she thought, but any way she arranged the admission, it sounded sordid.

“Yes, if the shoe fits…Is there the slightest chance that an educated and proper girl such as yourself would ever consider marriage to a worn-out soldier?”

“No, never!” She jumped up in shock.

“Oh,” he said, slowly rising, knowing he had moved too fast and not wanting to panic Judith further.

“I mean I shall never marry.” She turned her face away.

“But why not?”

“I have found a…higher pursuit—my studies.”

“Do they consume all your time?”

“Nearly all.”

“When you are not sewing.”

“Yes.” She looked from side to side, as though searching for a means of escape.

“How is it that you sew a great deal and have nothing to show for it?” He could see a tear sparkling on her eyelashes. “Don’t mind me. I’m just a clumsy soldier. Think of me as your brother if it will help.”

“I have to think of you as a brother or I will not be able to think of you at all,” she said desperately.

Evan studied her intense face and knew she was not indifferent to him. “And as a brother I should be able to buy you some bolts of fabric to sew with. Once again you had better help me pick them out.”

“Why are you doing this?” She looked into his eyes.

“There is so little I can do. Humor me?”

“It is not right. People will talk.”

“Who are these unnamed people who talk so much?” he asked with a forced laugh. “I think they should mind their own business.”

She nervously brushed away a tear and said, “I don’t know. It’s what Helen always says when she does not want us doing something.”

“People will talk no matter what you do. It’s a waste of energy to pay any attention to them.”

“I should like to ignore them, all of them,” she said wistfully.

“Good, we will go shopping again tomorrow.”

As they found their way back to the house, Judith thought again that she should tell Evan why she would not marry. But she could not bear to think of him disgusted with her, angry even. In spite of reading all his letters over and over, she did not know him well enough to guess how he would react. If he pressed her, of course, she would have to confess, but she rather thought that she had nipped his suit in the bud, that he would become much like Terry. Now she had only to worry about controlling herself around him. His slightest touch, whether to help her off her horse or up from a seat, made her heart pound with desire.