A Matter of Circumstance and Celludrones (27 page)

Evelyn wasn’t entirely convinced, but just then the housekeeper
appeared at the head of the stairway, putting an end to further argument.

Mrs. Locke apologised for
the interruption, then turned to Lily. “Lord Perth mentioned you’d be wanting
me to pick up some things in town, m’lady.”

“I haven’t drawn up my list yet.” Lily stood, brushing down her
skirts. “It will only take a minute.”

When Evelyn left them to it, she found William waiting for her at the
bottom of the staircase. His immediate concern was for Paisley, but once she’d
reassured him that the girl was resting comfortably, he tentatively brought up
his intent to leave the Harchings service.

Evelyn grabbed him by the hand and marched to the first door that
closed onto the foyer. It was locked. The second was a linen cupboard. Behind
the third was a suitable parlour. She pulled William inside and shut the door.
“Did Lord Harchings say something to you?”

“His Lordship said barely nothing at all, he was that upset.” Eyes
turned down, William shuffled his feet. “I feel bad about what we did to him.”

“
We
didn’t do anything, William.” She placed a hand on his arm
and looked at him until he brought his head up. “I did. Only me. You were
following my orders.”

“I’m not saying what you did was bad, Lady Eve, trying to help Jean,
just that I feel bad for what it led to.”

“So do I, William,” she said, releasing his arm.

“I don’t want to let you down.” He was back to shuffling his feet,
although his gaze remained steady on her. “If you want, I’ll stay until you
find a replacement to accompany you to your sporting activities.”

She rather thought her days of
risqué sport
were well and truly
over. She wondered if she should try harder to encourage him to stay, then she
remembered he’d been with them on the viewing deck last night. He’d witnessed
Lady Ostrich and her immense powers. He’d watched a demon at play. She wouldn’t
blame him if he ran all the way back to Ireland. “You’ll get two months advance
pay, I insist on it. And references, naturally. I can arrange a new position
for you, if you wish? There’s always someone on the lookout for a reliable
driver.”

“That’s not necessary, Lady Eve, but thank you all the same. Greyston
has offered me a place on his crew, for proper this time.”

There went her theory on his running from the demons. “Is that really
what you want?”

His eyes lit up and she almost laughed out loud. William was an
adventurous soul. Of course joining Greyston’s nefarious crew appealed over tooling
a carriage around London until he went on pension.

“If you need anything,” she said as they left the room and started
across the foyer, “anything at all, you know where to…” Her throat went dry as
she saw Devon coming through the French Doors that opened onto the courtyard
behind the house. Their eyes met, only it felt like a collision more than a
meeting, and Evelyn instinctively retreated into the parlour, all the way to
the bay window.

Four upholstered wingback chairs arranged around a cherry wood
pedestal table filled the room, it was so small, and it seemed to shrink to
half that size when Devon stepped inside and closed the door.

A host of apologies, excuses and explanations rose up her throat as he
drew closer, not a single one adequate for the haunted, sunken look on his
face. “I never meant to hurt you, Devon, not like that,” she said hoarsely.

“I wouldn’t still be here if I thought you had.” He stopped behind one
of the chairs and braced his hands on the gilt framed back. “Your heart was in
the right place, if not your head.”

She winced at the insult. It was also the truth.

“When I received word my wife was in a critical condition and I should
make all haste to Edinburgh, I believed that was the worst moment of my life. I
was wrong.” His voice held no inflection of any emotion, and yet Evelyn heard
the pain. His blue gaze, cold and distant, drifted past her to the gurgling
fountain beyond the window. And yet she saw the grief that lingered there. “I
commandeered a dirigible from the Customs Office and that five hour journey was
the longest I’ve ever endured. Were you suffering? Were you still alive? That,
I knew with all my being, was the lowest ebb of my life. I was wrong.”

Evelyn’s heart ached. She wanted to reach out to him, to stroke the tension
from his jaw, to cradle his head to her breast and beg forgiveness. How could
she not have considered the consequences before making such a stupid, brash,
awful decision?

“The Surgeon Chief took it upon himself to meet me at the Dirigible
Docking Yard with the news that I was too l-late.” He swallowed hard and the
silence stretched, thickening the air until she could barely draw a breath.
“Thirty-five minutes. I was a widow, Evelyn, for thirty-five minutes.”

“I am so, so very sorry, darling.” Her knees turned to jelly. She
propped herself upon the wide ledge of the bay window. “I feel terrible.
There’s nothing I can say or do to change what you went through, but please
believe me, if there was, if I could…”

“A mistake, stupid, but still a mistake. I’m not trying to make you
feel worse than you already do. That’s not what I need you to understand.” He
pushed his hands through his hair as he brought his gaze from the window to
her. “What the hell happened on that ship?”

Evelyn gulped and backed down. She wanted to confide in him, more than
anything. A part of her even wanted him to laugh off this demon nonsense as
utter foolishness, demand she never mention such blasphemous rubbish again,
convince her that she was delusional.

Except this was Devon and he wouldn’t stop there. He’d likely declare
everyone involved, including Lily, detrimental to the stability of her mind and
she didn’t think her marriage could bear the strain of another ultimatum.

“An awful, freak accident. The Red Hawk was struck by lightening.”

“Is that a fact?” His eyes were no longer cold and distant. They were
on fire and burning into her. “William claims it was an angel of wrath wielding
a sword of flames.” His lips curled down in a way that left her in no doubt as
to his personal view on that.

“William was petrified of the storm,” she improvised. “He hunkered
below deck at the first roll of thunder and anything he saw of angels and
swords must have been a figment of his tortured mind.”

Devon left his position behind the chair to take a step in her
direction. “Lord Perth was of the opinion that the ship’s engine had
malfunctioned, causing the steam pressure to build until the pipes erupted.”

Evelyn cursed inwardly. Honestly, why hadn’t the lot of them thought
to correlate their stories or, failing that, kept their opinions to themselves.
She decided it wasn’t too late to bat her lashes and pretend ignorance. “I
suppose the engine might have sustained damage during the storm, Devon, I never
asked. Does it really matter?”

“It wouldn’t matter if you’d been at home.” His jaw clenched so
tightly, she fancied she could hear his teeth grinding. “You were on that ship,
Evelyn. The woman lying dead in that hospital bed was a stranger, but it could
have been you.”

“But it wasn’t.” Then she realised what he was accusing her of and
anger fed her weakened limbs. She pushed away from the window ledge. “I didn’t
deliberately place myself in danger. It was a freak accident. You can’t keep me
locked up in a padded room, just in case.”

“And it wouldn’t matter,” he went on seamlessly, as if she hadn’t
spoken, “if you hadn’t run off without so much as a note.”

“You humiliated me in front of my friends, in front of everyone. You
hauled me from the sports field as if I were a child caught out at playing
truant.” She inched forward, fists bunched at her side, nails digging into
fleshy palm. The haunted hollows below his cheekbones lost some of that grey
pallor to the colour of anger. Excellent. She’d made a gross mistake, she had
many sins to account for, but this wasn’t one of them.

Her eyes flashed her own anger directly into his narrowed stare. “You
bundled me into your carriage and proceeded to lecture me the entire journey on
what a selfish, wilful, spoilt brat I was.” The loss of respect she’d felt, the
loss of love, laced her blood until she had to lash out or cry. She refused to
cry. She brought one hand up and slammed her palm at his chest. He didn’t seem
to notice. “And then you kicked me out.”

“That’s an outright lie,” he said, his voice dry and quiet. His eyes
dipped to where her hand was still splayed over his chest, but he made no move
to fling it away.

“You said William goes or you do.” The familiar ridges beneath her
fingers served as a reminder of all she’d lost. Suddenly the intimacy was too
much. She jerked her hand away and folded her arms as a barrier. “You weren’t
threatening to chase yourself off your own estates, Devon. What did you think
that ultimatum meant?”

“Obviously, I didn’t think it through that far. If I thought you’d
choose William over me—”

“I didn’t choose William,” she snapped. “I chose to not succumb to
your ultimatum.”

“You are my wife.” The arrogance of the entire Harchings Ducal
ancestry was stamped upon his tone. “I will not have you risking your life for
the sheer fun of it. If you’re too reckless and foolish to make that decision
for yourself, then it’s my duty to make it for you.”

Red mist clouded her eyes. They’d already been around this circle
twice and his views remained stoically archaic. She spun from him, closing her
eyes on a deep breath. Why couldn’t she just accept his will as a wife was
supposed to? What if he was right and there was something fundamentally wrong
with her? Perhaps she wasn’t meant to feel so deeply, love him so very much.
Then she wouldn’t feel quite so betrayed.

“The day we met,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper, “I was
racing the Clarendon brothers around the mill pond.”

She’d noticed the dashing stranger watching them from the porch, had
imagined his gaze burned into her, had felt an irresistible pull to canter in
that direction on the way back to the stables behind the house. She’d slowed to
a trot, watching him from beneath lowered lids and she’d been right. His gaze
had been fixated, appraising her from head to toe. She knew she made a wild,
striking figure—her hair tumbling loose from the few pins that still remained,
her cheeks as pale as the snow that blanketed the fields, the stark contrast of
the midnight black stallion she sat upon—and she’d revelled in his wicked grin.

“My lips were berry red from cold and passion sparked my eyes. I know,
because you told me. You said my beauty eclipsed the winter wonderland
surrounding me and declared my spirit as bold as the stallion between my legs.
A week later, when you took my hand in yours and swore your heart was mine to
take or break and you wouldn’t accept no for an answer, you said that was the
very moment you fell instantly and irrevocably in love with me.” She turned,
notched her chin for courage and looked him the eye. “And ever since, you’ve
done your utmost to smother that part of me. You swore to love me until your
heart stopped beating, but did you fall in love with me or the image of the
duchess you intended to mould me into? Did you ever really
see
me?”

His brows creased and the stiffness fled his jaw. “I see you.”

“I’m strong enough, I love you enough, to forge breathing space for
myself beneath the thumb of your autonomous authority.” Her legs wooden, her
heart heavy, she skirted the walls of the room on her way to the door. “But if
you succeed in crushing me completely, there’ll be nothing left of me to take
up that fight.” There may not even be enough left of her to love him and not
loving Devon scared her more than anything else.

“Evelyn,” he growled after her as she fled the parlour, but she
couldn’t stop now. She’d only end up convincing him that he’d never loved her
to begin with. While her head suspected that might be true, her heart wasn’t
ready to accept defeat. Not today.

She made it across the foyer, turned down the passage leading to the
main wing and barrelled straight into Armand.

“I was on my way to find you, m’lady. I’ve fit Ana with her new life
cell and restored your automaton.” He looked inordinately pleased with himself
as he delivered Puppy into her arms. “There were several wires connected
incorrectly, causing the motor functions to bypass the vocal operation unit.”

She cradled the silent, lifeless machine against her breast and all at
once it was too much. Tears swelled in her eyes and streamed down her cheeks.

Armand’s smile dried up. “I repaired it.”

“He wasn’t broken, not to me,” she said through the tightness in her
throat. “He was simply different.” She stumbled back and into a set of
powerful, familiar arms.

“What the hell have you done to upset my wife?” Keeping one arm around
her waist, Devon pried Puppy loose from her grip and handed him to Armand. “I
suggest you fix this immediately.”

“That’s exactly what I did.”

“Then un-fix it,” Devon commanded.

With a confounded scowl for Devon, and then one for her, Armand headed
back in the direction he’d come from.

Devon turned her around and folded her into a warm embrace, her wet
cheek pressed to his chest.

“I see you, darling, I always have. I haven’t been trying to fix you
and I’m sorry if I made you feel as if I have.” He held her to him, his chin
resting on the top of her head. “You are right and I’ve been wrong. I see you,
every day I see you, and I love you more. I’m wholly unprepared for the
overwhelming helplessness of it all. I would gladly keep you locked away from
all and any harm and if that means there’s only half of you to love, that’s
still enough for me.”

Evelyn pushed out of his arms, already missing his warmth but needing
to look into his eyes. “I don’t have a death wish, Devon, I would never do anything
dangerously reckless. I may enjoy life to the fullest but I respect my life, I
respect you, and I respect our love too much to do so irresponsibly.”