Veiled in Blue (29 page)

Her eyes widened in shock. “So that’s why you hate them?”

He shook his head, but paused. “Not entirely. Our families have never seen eye to eye. I fear Caroline took him to her bed partly to spite me. To do something to make me react. It was William who issued the challenge to race her new phaeton. Caroline was a good horsewoman and carriage driver, but she was not good enough for my new team of bays. She took them anyway, her phaeton overturned, and she died.”

“I’m so sorry.”

He swallowed, and his eyes gleamed. “So am I, but now I’m torn. If that had not happened, if I had not been jerked back to earth, I might not have met you and fallen so deeply in love with you.” His lips moved into a smile. “Caroline made me afraid of love. I thought I had lost my senses and fallen deeply in love, but the emotion was shallow compared to the feeling I have for you. I imagined that love meant losing yourself in the other, indulging them in every possible way, but it doesn’t. After Caroline’s death, I vowed never to allow myself to fall in love with anyone again.”

He gazed at her, and kissed the tip of her nose. “I was so wrong. The moment I saw you I wanted you, but I was no longer the wild youth who had cut a swath through London or the bitter man who vowed revenge on everyone who drove a sensitive woman to her death. I was a widower with a daughter. That was what I told you. I should have said more to you, but at heart, I have always felt I was that and everything else came second. I was wrong, wasn’t I?”

“No.” She cupped his cheek. He turned his head and kissed her palm. “I wanted Julius Vernon. Now I want the Earl of Winterton, although he is more than Julius. I’ll do my best to become worthy of you.” Hearing the inner life of his first marriage gave her an understanding she had not been privy to before. She could go on. She would do it.

“No, you will not. You will be you. I want Eve, not some imitation of her.” He gazed down at her. “Of course you must think of other matters, but never become other than you are today, now.”

Now she felt sorry for Caroline. “Did you love her when she died?”

His smile was wry. “You’re sparing me nothing, aren’t you?”

“I need to know.” She wouldn’t have the courage to ask him again. He might not want to talk about his first marriage, the events that had molded him after this.

He lowered his gaze, thought for a moment, and then lifted his eyes again to meet hers. “I thought I did, but when she died I felt nothing but relief. I adored my daughter. I still do. Caroline did not believe she had to change. Her parents had not, and neither had mine. I did not want that for our daughter, and the trouble that lay ahead for her worried me. The relief filled me with guilt.”

Eve understood. Julius had assuaged the guilt at his relief by trying to ensure the country was as stable as his marriage had not been. The wild card had to be eliminated. Eventually that had led him to her, Eve, the daughter of his enemy. “Did you marry me out of guilt?”

He gave a one-sided smile. “No. I came to Appleton to discover you, and I found more than a daughter of the Pretender. Frankly, I don’t care whose daughter you are, except as it affects your safety. I only care whose wife you are.” Briefly, he tightened his hold on her. “Mine, in case you were wondering.”

Laughing, she shook her head. “You’ve made that perfectly clear. Now I have to learn to become the Countess of Winterton. I meant to make you suffer much longer, Julius. It was too bad of you.”

“I know. I can think of more ways of apologizing.”

Eve looked forward to that part.

After they had breakfasted and dressed, Julius left his wife to a bewildering selection of fabrics and styles. Protesting he would look at them when she had narrowed her choices, Julius went downstairs to face his father. He found his parent in the muniments room on the ground floor. The main door of the Abbey opened on to the first floor and the public rooms. Julius went by these and through a door a visitor might easily overlook. Down the cold stone stairs stood a small unprepossessing door. Julius took out his key and unlocked it. When he went through, he relocked it. Only from this site was it apparent the lock was a sturdy one indeed.

Julius strode down the passage to the only open door along the narrow stone-flagged corridor that resembled a closed-in cloister. The searcher of antiquities would find this place interesting. So would the seeker of treasures. This part of the building was all that remained of the ancient abbey. A few humble stone-built cells that would have housed monks devoting their lives to prayer and contemplation, giving it the air of tranquility Julius loved. He’d come here sometimes, in the course of his frantic careening through life, searching for the stillness he found so hard to grasp. Now his soul was at peace, set, for once, on the right course. This place only admitted a few people. Not even Augustus could come here without permission.

Julius’s steps echoed on the ancient grey stone. The ridges and ruts had once fascinated him, wondering who had passed along this place before him. These days he took them for granted.

The door at the end lay open, and Julius swung into it. Sun streamed into the room from the high-set barred windows. Two men sat at the large square table, a pile of papers stacked between them.

His father and the estate steward looked up at him, but said nothing. There was no formality here, so Mr. Norris did not get to his feet and bow. Instead, Julius nodded to him and took a seat. The hard wooden chair resisted him uncomfortably. No maids came here, so dust lay on the few surfaces they had not used recently, and the floor was unpolished and gritty.

Julius reached into his pocket and drew out the papers he needed to lodge here. He put them down in front of his father. “My marriage certificate.”

The duke grunted and adjusted glasses that pinched his nose. “You have always been thorough, Winterton.”

Yes, he had. Julius leaned back while his father perused the papers closely and then passed them to Mr. Norris, who studied them with equal meticulousness.

“We need to draw up a formal settlement. Eve has nothing except herself. I want her taken care of.”

Julius might as well never have left home, for all the differences he noted here. The glass cabinets and iron safes contained the deeds of property and the titles accumulated by his family over the centuries, mostly in the form of Letters Patent. Mr. Norris had copies in his office for safekeeping, but these were the originals, required by the courts in the event of disputes, and so more valuable than any of the treasures locked in the other rooms in this small section of the Abbey. Medieval documents with the seals of long-dead kings and barely literate letters and wills all added to the family holdings. Julius had seen them all. Read most of them, a task imposed on him as extra work in his youth.

The room smelled of mustiness, nothing else, none of the potpourris or pastilles his mother employed in the grand rooms upstairs. Julius waited patiently until Mr. Norris put the paper on the pile in the center of the table.

“I will draw up a copy and take it with me, sir. It is in order, although your titles are not evident.”

The duke snorted inelegantly. “Why did you do it?”

Julius raised one shoulder in a half-shrug. “Why do you think?”

“It’s a big step to take merely to thwart your mother’s ambitions.”

“It wasn’t only that.” Julius took his time framing his answer. “I resented my mother’s machinations, it is true, but I could have said no without too much trouble. Or rather, not said yes. However, I have suspected one of her bosom-bows for some time.”

His father cocked a bushy brow. “You intrigue me. Are you saying your mother has missed something? I would be fascinated to discover what she has overlooked.”

“She knows already. The McComyns fought for the Stuarts.”

“So did many people who have since been forgiven. They did not repeat the offence.” Julius’s father glanced at his steward and man of business. “Do you know what he’s talking about?”

Norris shook his head. “Not a clue.”

Julius was not surprised. “It’s new information. I’ve seen Augustus, and yes, he told me to let you know that he would be here in a few days.” Not that Augustus enjoyed shooting half-tame birds any more than Julius did, but he had to report to his parents sometime.

The duke waved a paper at him. “You did not show me this one before.”

It was the letter from Augustus, informing Julius of Eve’s identity. Julius had thoughtfully written the translation of their code under the original.

The duke tossed the note across the table to Norris. “You failed to tell me that she is a Stuart until after you married her.”

“It doesn’t matter. I would have married her anyway. I have no mind to be parted from Eve or to bring her a moment’s unhappiness.” A moment more of unhappiness, that was.

“You brought trouble to the heart of the family.”

Julius snorted. “And my cousins did not?” Three of his cousins had married Stuarts. They seemed to have an unholy fascination with the family. “The Young Pretender has taken to visiting London clandestinely, parading in front of the authorities. He has a network I would prefer stopped, people who are keeping him safe. Oh, the government is aware of his trips, but with the death of Pelham, sense seems to have left Westminster. The powers-that-be have decided to take Stuart prisoner if he shows his face in town again.”

The duke sucked in a sharp breath. “They would not be so foolish.”

“Yes they would.” Julius had heard from his cousin and had it confirmed in other quarters. “In my opinion, that course would be disastrous. If the Pretender is taken prisoner, he will become a martyr. He will foment exactly the kind of unrest this country would do well to avoid.”

“In that, at least, we agree,” his father admitted. “To arrest him is to play into his hands. How sure are you of this information?”

“Reasonably sure, otherwise I would not have brought it to you.” Julius had gathered the information from a variety of sources. The Pretender was hunting down his father’s legitimate children and creating a deal of unrest in certain government circles. His last throw of the dice before he melted into obscurity.

“I won’t stay here long. I want to take Eve to Hampshire. We’ll call it a honeymoon.” He barely refrained from shifting in his seat as the ramifications of having Eve to himself and no need to follow convention occurred forcibly to him. They could stay in bed all day if they wished, or wander around the gardens and perhaps find a bower or grotto to stay in for a while.

Much better than shooting grouse with society’s elite.

* * * *

“Do you know your letters?”

The child glared at Eve. “Naturally. I am six years old.”

She was also stunningly pretty, precocious, and more than a little spoiled. Add to that, resentful of Eve. Although she was wearing a new gown, the equal in appearance of anyone else in this house, Eve still felt like a governess the moment she’d stepped into the nursery wing, which was situated close to the chambers Eve was sharing with her husband. She had slipped away, bored with the measuring and the styles. On a visit to the powder room, she’d left by the outer door instead of using the inner door to return to the pretty boudoir.

If she didn’t do something useful she’d go mad.

She’d found the child on the brink of a tantrum. When the little girl had spun around and demanded, “Who are you?” tilting her head in arrogant disdain, Eve knew she had found Julius’s beloved daughter. As the child tapped her foot on the floor, Eve had answered her. “I’m the Countess of Winterton.”

Some might consider her approach unguarded and cruel, but Eve had taken this child’s measure instantly. Eve needed the upper hand, or the girl would run her ragged. The tilt of the chin, the cool blue eyes, and the miniature gown, an exact copy of a lady’s fashionable one, told Eve all she wanted to know. The servants, hanging back, stared at her in horror.

“My mama was the Countess of Winterton,” said Caroline, losing not an iota of confidence.

Eve had guessed well. “I did not bear you, but I’ll ensure you are taken care of as if you were my own daughter. I’m your father’s wife, though I will leave it up to you what to call me.” Knowing the power of expectant silence, she waited.

The child flicked a glance over her, one she must have inherited from her father. The first time he’d seen Eve properly dressed he’d given her just such a look.

Prepared for the reaction, she let her lips curve into a gentle smile. “I’m pleased to meet you, Caroline. Very pleased.” She knew better than to say something like she hoped they would be friends. That would put the girl in charge. However, bending to her level might help. She bent her knees and crouched in a satisfying susurration of silk. “My name is Eve. I married your father very recently. He did not have time to tell anyone.”

“He has to marry someone,” the child said. She kept her arms folded but lowered her gaze before flicking it up again. “My grandmother said so.”

If Eve had been more sentimental, she might have expected a fulsome welcome, or a tantrum. But this child had control. True, she was not happy with her attendants for some reason, but no screams had emerged from the room as Eve had approached, merely a firm little voice. This would do, for now. “Is there something amiss here?”

“My maid appears to have forgotten my pastels.” The chin trembled, just for a second.

Oil-based coloring chalks. “Then we shall find you some. Unless they turn up in your luggage.”

“Papa is here. He enjoys drawing with me.”

Ah, now she understood. Her time with her father meant more to the child than she wanted to admit to Eve. “I will ensure we find something that will serve. I promise.” Eve met Caroline’s eyes and inclined her head.

The child studied Eve, her eyes wide, and then she gave one decisive nod. “Thank you.”

Eve relaxed a tiny bit. She had expected an indulged sprite, the terror of the nursery, like the ones she had taught when she was a governess, but Caroline was a different kind of child. Strong-willed, but with added control. Where had she learned that? Was Julius’s almost terrifying control of himself responsible? Did Caroline wish to please him, and so had emulated him?