Learning to Waltz (11 page)

He’d hoped to hear her welcome him for her own sake rather than Julian’s. But even if she liked him—and he was not at all sure she did—he no longer expected her to show him any encouragement. After the story she’d told him that evening when they thought the boy would die, he could not fault her constraint. Her early years had borne no resemblance to the halcyon days of his own youth.

He straightened his cravat and buttoned up his coat. In the final analysis, it was better this way. “Of course not,” he said. “Just tell me what time you want to go.”

Evan arrived at the appointed hour on Sunday afternoon, this time accompanied by his groom and driving his phaeton. Deborah still could not believe how easy it had been. She’d asked the favor and he had agreed, without the smallest protest.

It was time he left town—she could not afford to develop such a pleasant habit.

“Really, Mr. Haverfield, you need not have brought your carriage. I fully expected to walk.”

“It was no trouble at all, ma’am.”

“But I’m sure it was. I’m sorry to have imposed on you at all. Molly could—”

“Hush now,” he murmured. He handed her up and threw a rug over her knees. “You are doing the favor, ma’am. My horses need the exercise. Don’t they, Grady?”

“Aye, that they do, sir.”

They were conspiring against her. But his eyes glinted with amusement, and she gave in gratefully. She even found herself smiling back.

“Just tell Grady how fast you want to go. It will be fun.”
Also faster, and warmer, and drier.
If she arrived home exhausted, it would not be from walking. The next favor she had to ask would not be so simple.

She gave Evan’s man a tentative smile and a soft “Good afternoon,” and would have ridden the distance beside him without uttering another word until it was time to say her thanks at the end. The man probably knew Evan as well as anyone, and there were no doubt questions Deborah would have liked the answers to, but she asked none of them. She could not even think of one.

But Grady seemed to be a friendly sort. “It’s a cold morning, right enough. Will the rug keep you warm, ma’am?”

“Oh yes! Thank you.”

“Mr. Haverfield tells me you come from the south somewhere?”

“Yes. From Devonshire.”

“Aye, that’s it. Lydford, wasn’t it? He mentioned it ’cause we visited there a few years back, maybe in ’13 or ’14. Stayed at an inn next the castle and spent a morning climbing down into the gorge. Quite a sight. And quite a scramble to get out again.”

“Yes, I—imagine it would be. I was not there at that time.”

Another couple of reminiscences filled the rest of the short drive, to which Deborah could respond with no more than an “ah” and a nervous smile. Lydford was the very last subject she wished to discuss. She caught the skeptical look he gave her as he pulled the horses to a stop. He thought her mindless, and no wonder.

It was quite a novelty to arrive at the great front doors of Reston Park in a carriage with a groom and a fine pair of matched grays. The footman who descended the steps to hand her down moved with alacrity, treating her with unexpected deference as he handed her into the care of Fleming, the squire’s butler.

Fleming, unswayed by her mode of transportation, made Deborah an infinitesimal bow and showed her into a small morning parlor. The coals were still warm from earlier in the day, and she seated herself as close to the fireplace as possible. She’d half expected to be left in the hall under the watchful glass eyes of stag and boar, like one of the squire’s tenant farmers. “I will inquire if Sir James is at home, madam.” He did not offer to take her cloak.

Half an hour later she was glad he had not. By the time Fleming summoned her to Squire Reston in his library, she was shivering from cold and nerves. The cloak helped hide her shudders. She gazed longingly at the fire burning in the massive fireplace but stood awkwardly where Fleming had left her, just inside the door.

“And bring me that bottle of burgundy,” Sir James shouted to Fleming on his way out of the room. “I don’t care what that damned sawbones says!”

It was not an auspicious beginning.

He bowed. “I beg your pardon, Mrs. Moore. I’ve been ill, but that’s no reason to swear in your presence. Please, sit.” He gestured to a chair in front of the big desk. “Shouldn’t even be out of my bed, but Fleming tells me you have ‘urgent business’. What can I do for you?” He made the journey to the other side of the desk and sat down in his chair. It could have served as a king’s throne. He pulled his thick brocade dressing gown tighter and adjusted the silk scarf around his neck.

“I’m sorry, sir. I didn’t know… that is, I knew you
were
ill, but I thought you were better.” Deborah wanted to go home and forget her errand. Sir James had helped her through the necessary paperwork after Hartley died. The reduced rent he allowed her on the cottage was all that kept a roof over her head. And he’d organized the search for Julian—
that
was a debt she could never repay. But she would far rather be obliged to the squire than the doctor.

She raised her eyes to his, forcing herself to sit straight and speak clearly. “I already owe you far too much, sir, but I find myself in another predicament. I have received the bill from Doctor Overley. It is—”

“Yes, I was glad to hear he brought your boy through, ma’am. He is a fine physician, is he not?”

Deborah doubted the doctor had much to do with Julian’s recovery, but she said, “Of course, sir. Nevertheless, his bill is higher than I expected, and far more than I can pay at one time.”

The squire leaned forward in his chair, leaning his arms on the desk. “Overley is a generous man. I know he is accustomed to receiving payment in installments or in kind. Do you tell me he is unwilling to offer you such terms?”

Deborah stared blindly at her hands, gripped tight together in her lap. Suddenly she felt hot. “The terms he offered I could not accept, sir.” She could not be any more specific and prayed he would not ask.

“What are you saying?” He sat back in the chair, graying brows lowered over his frown. “I hope you’re not implying what I think you are.”

Deborah opened up her reticule and pulled out a very thin roll of banknotes, which she set on the desk in front of her. Then she compressed her lips to keep them from trembling and met his eyes. He looked very severe. “I’ve brought the rent for January. I can promise you a quarter again of that amount until the loan is repaid.” It would take a year.

After studying her for a long moment, he threw up his hands. “All right, all right. Don’t look so stricken. I can do nothing today, of course, but the funds should be in your hands tomorrow afternoon.”

The relief was like an abrupt cure for a toothache. Her shoulders slumped with it. She let out the breath she’d been holding, and then drew in another, deep and relaxing. They both stood, and he shook her hand. “Don’t worry, Mrs. Moore. Be assured you will have no further trouble from Doctor Overley.”

“Thank you, sir. And a merry Christmas to you and your family.”

Deborah hurried outside. Her sweat cooled quickly while she waited for Mr. Haverfield’s carriage to be brought around, and she shivered.

As Grady turned the horses away from the gargoyles and cherubs that adorned Reston Park, she wished she were walking instead. It might have soothed her nerves.

“Heavens, what a beautiful day,” Amanda said with a laugh, breathing hard as they trotted home alongside the Manor wall. Her hat hung down her back, and her hair was a tangle.

“Of course you’d think so—you won,” complained her brother. “Sorry Lookout’s such a slug, Haverfield.”

“Don’t be sorry. If you’d given me a faster horse, you’d have finished dead last.” Evan didn’t mind losing; it had been a good run.

“You think so, eh? I think it’s my superior horsemanship.”

The Manor gates stood at the junction of two lanes. As they rounded the corner, they were met by a racket of jangling harness and hoofbeats louder than their own. There was a screech from Amanda, a yell from Latimer, and a great deal of superior horsemanship from everyone involved.

“Whoa!” shouted the coachman, hauling on the reins. Four big, strapping beasts plunged across the lane, coming to an angry halt an inch shy of the hedgerow opposite. The hapless postilion dragged himself out of the traces, white-faced, and staggered to the leader’s head.

The Earl of Sudbury and his sisters had arrived.

They weren’t supposed to come for a week yet. Evan scowled as the three riders preceded the carriage up the drive and dismounted to await the guests. This took a few minutes, while Sudbury’s coachman realigned his vehicle and drove sedately up to the house.

Latimer’s face divided into two parts, above and below his grin. “I say, what a jolly surprise for Christmas eve, eh?”

Amanda was less enthusiastic. “But the rooms aren’t ready.
None
of the house is ready! And Cook is liable to give notice.” She jammed her hat back on top of her head.

Evan could dredge up no enthusiasm at all.
Damn.
With a houseful of guests, it would be rag-mannered for him to spend half his time in the village.

He took his frustration out on the viscount. “That’s a mighty inconvenient place for your gates, Latimer.”

Latimer did not give up his grin. “Been there for years, Haverfield. Odd that you never complained before.”

Wheels crunched to a halt on the gravel. Latimer pulled open the door and let down the steps.

The first to appear was a chit whom Evan supposed to be Lady Honora. The viscount took her hand and helped her down to the ground. His eyes shone with pride when he turned to introduce her to Evan and Amanda, as though she were already his.

Evan could see why he might want her. She was fair, and quite pretty, her willow-green traveling dress showing her to advantage. She seemed modest, even shy, as she made her curtsies, her voice so soft he could barely hear it.

How different she was from her sister, who now claimed Evan’s hand for her own descent onto the gravel. As Lady Blythe stepped down, she managed to stumble, gracefully, forcing his other hand to her waist to steady her while her dark eyes gleamed up at him.

“
Such
a long drive we’ve had, Mr. Haverfield. I declare I could positively swoon from the tedium of it.” No, nothing modest or shy about Lady Blythe. Evan led her away from the carriage door.

Finally, the earl clambered down and greeted his hostess. “’Tis a pleasure to see you again, Miss Latimer.” Past forty and a widower twice over, Lowell Huntingdon, Earl of Sudbury, had become ponderous, both in girth and civility. He still acquitted himself like a youth on the hunting field, though he creaked slightly as he bowed to Amanda.

He appeared the most travel-worn of the three—even one day in a carriage with Blythe, Evan imagined, would wear most anyone to a frazzle. “I beg you to tell me, ma’am, if we have arrived betimes for your house party. I thought I heard Latimer invite us for New Year’s , but m’sister swore up and down ’twas Christmas. I hope we do not put you to any inconvenience…”

What could Amanda say but “Of course not!”

Lady Honora’s welcome was in no doubt—Frank had already led her into the house. As the coach was driven away to the stables, Amanda and the earl followed. But Lady Blythe, hooking her arm through Evan’s, pulled him in the other direction toward a pond that lay in its own little vale to one side of the drive. “Oh, don’t let us go indoors just yet. I have been cooped up in that moldering carriage for
days
; the fresh air feels delightful!”

Had she not just declared herself ready to faint from fatigue? Moreover, in Evan’s experience, winter travel was chilling, even in closed carriages with blankets and hot bricks. Those bricks cooled off far too quickly. And Blythe’s pelisse, cut low and square to match the neckline of her blue gown, left a quantity of flesh exposed to the weather. But from courtesy, Evan accompanied her across the frosted lawn.

Lady Blythe was a vibrant soul. Like most men, Evan had found her quite appealing on initial acquaintance. She had a fine figure, which she flaunted beneath low necklines, raised hemlines, and dampened skirts. All this was topped by a head of thick, black hair and a face that should be beautiful but somehow lacked… he couldn’t put a name to it.

Perhaps it was a matter of expression, so often arch or condescending. Flirtation seemed to be her only mode of interaction with any man between the ages of eighteen and eighty. She was a courtesan at heart, he thought. She needed either a husband on his death bed or one of those fashionable marriages that left each partner free to pursue outside
amours
. Evan had no intention of satisfying her on either count. And whatever else he might be, the man had to be wealthy—rumor said the family’s coffers were empty.

“We’ve missed you in town, Mr. Haverfield. London is a cesspit in winter. The only thing worse is the country. All the mud! We sank almost up to the axles not two miles from here. And if the weather’s bad, we’ll be stuck inside that horrid, drafty house. But
you
are in the country, so here I am.”