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He rode out on a crisp November morning a week or so after leaving London as courier to his uncle and aunt and wondered at the meandering route they only seemed to decide a day at a time.
Wherever they were going he had settled into being Mr Hancourt again, he reflected, as he got a lower bow from the landlord of the Swan and Whistle than Mr Carter would have done. Life was less dangerous than it had been as a humble ensign, lieutenant, then captain of the 95th Rifles. Colm once swore to manage without a family who saw him as an embarrassment, but eight years of war had tempered him. He managed a self-deprecating grin at the thought of that angry resolution and hoped he was a better man than he was when he invented Mr Carter.
But for Miss Evelina Winterley he might even be content and it would be so much better if he could forget her until she was under his nose again, but somehow he couldn’t. He had too much time riding ahead of the ducal carriage to think right now. While Miss Winterley should have vanished from his thoughts after her father’s warnings it was impossible to forget a lady of character and grace to order. He caught himself smiling at thin air as if she was smiling right back. Just as well he was riding ahead of his uncle and aunt today and not by the side of the coach because this way neither of them could ask what he was grinning at.
He groaned quietly. This was nonsense, wasn’t it? He had nothing; he wasn’t quite nobody, but what sort of a gentleman lived off his wife’s dowry and his uncle’s charity? Not his sort, he told himself against the wild thunder in his blood that turned hot and primitive at the thought of having Miss Winterley as his wife. Her father was right and even if she wanted him right back that would fade when the sneers and whispers made her wonder what sort of a fool she was to wed the penniless son of her mother’s last lover. He didn’t love her; they had only met three times, for heaven’s sake, so how could he? This stupid feeling that they were perfectly designed to fill the dark and empty places in each other’s lives was a snare to avoid at all costs. Longing for a woman he couldn’t have would drive him mad. He could stop himself wanting what he couldn’t have if he worked hard enough. If he put his mind to it and perhaps wasted far too much of his meagre savings on a mistress, he could stop himself longing for impossible things and forget how urgently he wanted Miss Winterley that night at Warlington House and ever since.
Lord Farenze had made it very clear he was to arrive at Darkmere as the Duke’s nephew and act as if he had no idea Miss Winterley ever met a librarian in a dusty book room, or a lowly clerk in the respectable confines of Green Park. Colm thought the man was worrying without cause. He hadn’t seen any signs she even liked him in the lady’s lovely turquoise gaze. The sneaky idea that if his lordship was worried about his daughter’s feelings he must have good reason to be banished somehow. Yet he only had to think of their first meeting in Derneley’s neglected library to become that tongue-tied idiot again and as for that confounded kiss…
Best not to think about that. What else was there? At that dangerous point the yard of tin sounded and he turned round to see a groom waving at him to stop.
‘Colm, dear boy, we were supposed to turn off at the last crossroads, but you’re so deep in thought we missed it. Anyone would think you were Wellington busy planning a battle,’ Aunt Barbara said when he was in earshot.
He’d been thinking of Miss Winterley most of the morning then and wasn’t it a good thing her father didn’t know? ‘I am a clod, your Grace,’ he admitted with a sheepish grin. ‘We could take the next turning and get back to Berry Brampton as best we can.’
‘I’d sooner find somewhere Rooksby can sweep round so we can head back rather than risk being jammed down a narrow lane,’ the Duke argued mildly.
‘I should be paying attention,’ Colm replied, feeling a fool for letting Miss Winterley get between him and his duty yet again.
‘I quite thought the Duke of Linaire would be here by now,’ Eve said to her father as they rode back to Darkmere in Verity’s wake one day in early December. Chloe had given up riding until her latest baby was born now and Verity wanted to spend as much time as possible with her beloved aunt. Verity’s life was changing and she was poised on the edge of womanhood. Eve shivered at the thought of that night at Warlington House and feelings she didn’t want to think about ran through her as Carter’s kiss felt so vivid on her lips it was almost as if she could still feel the warmth, strength and excitement of his touch with all her senses. Verity wasn’t the only one confused by the war between mind and body as she tried to come to terms with a new reality.
‘The Duke said they were to call on friends and fellow scholars on the way,’ Lord Farenze replied, seeming oblivious to the battle she was waging against a heady memory. ‘Are you bored with our company then, Eve?’
‘No, but it will be awkward for you to meet Lord Christopher Hancourt’s son under your own roof, won’t it, Papa?’
‘Maybe I already know him,’ her father said with that closed expression she had seen a little too often lately.
‘What’s he like, then? Goodness knows what he’s been up to so far, it seems a deep dark family secret.’
‘Goodness might know, but you’ll find out soon enough.’
‘I wish you’d stop being so mysterious and tell me about him.’
He shot her a sceptical look, as if he’d like to get inside her head and have a good rummage about. ‘I shall let you judge for yourself.’
‘Why do you seem to dislike him already? You were living apart from my mother when Lord Christopher Hancourt became her lover.’
‘Maybe I can’t forgive his father for being such a confounded idiot then?’
‘There are so many of them in the world according to you, Papa,’ she said sweetly. ‘What was so special about that one?’
‘You think I’m a grumpy bear?’ he said, neatly avoiding her question.
‘I think you might be if you hadn’t had the sense to marry Chloe. She usually laughs you out of your dark moods now and I’m very grateful for the improvement in your temper.’
‘If my temper is so uncertain, I like to think my daughter is shrewd enough not to provoke it too often.’
Eve couldn’t tell if he knew how disturbed she was by Mr Carter. He should have faded more with every mile they travelled from London, but it was as if she had brought the fogs and gloom of the capital with her to Darkmere and him as well. Try as she might she couldn’t get the wretched man out of her head.
‘I did say it improved when you married Chloe, didn’t I?’ she teased lightly enough.
‘So you did.’
‘I shall risk it and ask again why you hated Lord Christopher for running off with my mother so much then.’
‘It’s complicated.’
‘And you still think me too young to hear the full story, I suppose? To you I’ll always be so; isn’t it about time you realised that I need to know?’
‘I’ll discuss it with you after you wed and can understand the contrary passions of men and women better. The truth is I don’t really want to think about your mother and her last lover at all. If Lord Christopher Hancourt ever thought she would bring him joy, I suppose I ought to pity him, though.’
‘You acquit me of any stain from my mother’s sins, but seem reluctant to give his son the same immunity, Papa.’
‘I never said I was logical about it,’ he said austerely.
Eve almost gave up on the subject to stop that bleak look silvering his eyes whenever he thought of his first unhappy marriage.
‘Hancourt