The School for Brides (34 page)

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Authors: Cheryl Ann Smith

BOOK: The School for Brides
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I
t took Eva some time to discover Noelle in an animated conversation with Abigail near a small lake at the back of the property. The two women were clearly arguing. Raised voices carried across the meadow; though Eva couldn’t understand the words. As she neared, Noelle turned her head, saw her arrive, and flushed guiltily. Abigail turned, and put her hand to her mouth.
“Eva,” Noelle said sharply, “I—we—” She snapped her mouth shut. Both women’s faces turned pink, a matching set of flushes high on their cheekbones. Abigail appeared skittish, ready to flee, and Noelle put a protective arm across her body.
Eva walked around a tree stump and stepped close. She sensed that the conversation she’d interrupted involved her. Her life appeared to be the topic of interest to everyone close to her, the subject of endless speculation. It rankled to be the subject of gossip. Her business was not anyone else’s concern.
“Is something amiss, ladies? Noelle? Abigail?”
Abigail became fascinated with her hands. Noelle seemed suddenly stricken mute, an unusual condition for her. “If you do not tell me this instant why you’re hiding in this weed patch discussing me”—Eva paused and put her hands on her hips—“I will drag both of you down to the lake and push you in.”
Noelle darted a glance at Abigail, who refused to look up but visibly quaked under the scrutiny.
“Coward,” Noelle said, and Abigail pulled her lower lip between her teeth and worried it for a moment.
“You tell her,” Abigail finally said. Her voice dropped to a breathless whisper. “I cannot.”
Noelle let out a sharp sigh, drawing the attention back to her. Eva focused on her face. Like Harold, her sister was clearly troubled. Several heartbeats passed before Noelle finally opened her mouth and her shoulders drooped. “Abigail is our sister.”
“What?” Eva gasped. She’d expected hurdles while unraveling the tapestry of this confusing story, but not this. Her shock couldn’t be greater. “We have a courtesan sister?”
Her mind fractured into bits. She couldn’t pull together a single clear thought. After Harold’s confession, she’d thought the worst of the secrets were behind her. No revelation made by her servant and friend compared to this one. She was in shock.
Noelle shook her head. “Abigail is Margaret.”
Eva’s expression of shock widened as she glanced from one face to the other. Why had she never noticed the similarities in the two sisters; the cut of their jaws, the likeness of their noses? She supposed it wasn’t clear without the two standing side by side. Clearly Margaret favored the coloring of their mother, though she did have a hint of amber in her eyes.
The shyest of her courtesans was her sister. Eva slumped against the stump. Darkness called to her mind, and she blinked to keep from dropping to her knees.
Abigail rushed to her side and fanned her with a hand. “I think you should explain quickly, Noelle, before she faints.”
Their eldest sister joined them, hesitant, as if she expected Eva to regain her strength and claw her eyes out. At the moment, Eva could do nothing but hold herself up. Two shocks in one morning had undone her. Had the sky chosen to fall at that moment, she wouldn’t be able to lift her hands to cover her head.
“Actually, I forced Margaret to pose as a courtesan and made up a story for her,” Noelle rushed to explain. “She was adamantly against it. She wanted no part of the deception.”
“I wanted no part of you. You were a shameful secret better kept hidden, and I hated you,” Abigail-Margaret admitted. She reached to take Eva’s limp hand. “Mother cursed you and your mother every day of our lives. I thought you were a twisted troll and your mother was a deceitful sorceress who stole Father from her and was responsible for his death.”
Eva flinched. Father was traveling to see them when his coach slid off an icy road and tumbled down a ravine. It was easy to see why the sisters would blame Mother and her for the tragic accident.
Margaret added, “As you have learned, it is impossible to refuse Noelle when she has her mind set. I finally agreed.” She squeezed Eva’s hand. “When I saw how you helped and cared for the courtesans, I realized I’d been so very wrong about you. Father’s death was an unfortunate accident. And when you risked your life for Yvette, I knew that I would be happy to call you my sister.”
Eva trembled, then burst into tears. “You two are the strangest pair,” she sobbed as Margaret slid an arm around her shoulders and hugged her close. “You should run from me. I am the product of Father’s betrayal of your mother.”
Margaret smiled. “Mother spent her life making Father miserable. Charlotte gave him happiness. I know that now. We cannot change the actions of our parents, and if you can forgive us for our deceit, we can be sisters. Now and always.”
Tears flowed freely as the three women held each other. Eva knew she should be angry, yet she couldn’t fault them for wanting to know her, deception aside. She’d known about her sisters since she was a child and had grown up thinking they were spoiled wretches. To discover they were not was a delight.
Eva pulled back and looked into the pair of damp faces. “Please do not tell me there are other offspring from Father scattered about. I don’t think I can take any more surprises.”
Noelle shook her head and grinned. “I think we are the total of his children. Unless he had youthful indiscretions that bore fruit, he was completely devoted to your mother and to us girls. We were enough to keep him busy.”
Margaret sniffed and rubbed her face on her sleeve. “I think we are about to add to our family,” she said slyly. “A duke, if I am not mistaken.”
It took a blink to discover Abigail-Margaret was speaking of her duke. “I cannot wed him.”
Her sisters looked at each other. Noelle said, “Eva refused him. We shall see if he has the stamina to bring her to heel. I suspect His Grace is not easily cowed, if last evening is an indication. He will find a way to protect Charlotte and to have his duchess. Wait and see.”
“If only we all were so lucky in love,” Margaret said with a sigh as they soothed Eva’s concerns.
 
 
L
ater, Eva changed out of the soiled stable boy’s clothing and into a patched green dress that showed a hint of ankle. The borrowed too-large boots appeared with each step from beneath the high hem. The only slippers Mrs. Moore could produce were several sizes too small, so Eva clunked around the empty rooms, out of sorts and with much on her mind. She was without a mission or family to turn to, and far from home.
She missed her mother.
Caged in what was a once fine if modest home, she felt like an invisible observer of her own life; as if the twenty-three years of her existence were a dream. Everything she thought she knew about herself was now taken from her, and the narrow gray view in which she saw her life had widened into bright color and light, all because of a vengeful duke and a pair of curious sisters.
She wanted to go to Nicholas and throw herself on his chest. Unfortunately, it was not a good idea to spend much time in his presence. Harold saw to his care, and she’d check on him when he was sleeping. She worried that she’d take one look deep into his eyes and beg him to wed her. Or bed her.
Either was unacceptable.
It was Mother’s image that kept her feet from walking along the hallway to his door. Charlotte was, as always, her priority.
“Eva?” Noelle appeared at the top of the stairs. She was breathless. “Come quickly, His Grace has taken a turn.”
Eva gathered her skirts and raced up the stairs, tripping in her haste. She ran past Noelle, then shoved through the open door. Her heart pounding, she hurried to the bed, expecting to find him near death. Instead, he was sleeping peacefully, a slight flush on his face. She bent and put her hand to his head. The skin was warm but not hot.
Confused, she turned to Noelle. “He has no fever.” Nicholas stirred.
“I never said he did.” Noelle backed out the door, slammed it shut, and a click followed. Eva hurried to the panel and twisted the handle, but the lock held fast.
“Noelle, open this door at once!” she called. The response was a soft giggle, followed by the sound of retreating footsteps. “Noelle!”
Chuckles came from the bed. She discovered Nicholas staring at her, amused. “I see you are pleased,” she snapped.
Eva was deathly weary of the manipulations of those around her, as well intentioned as they might be. She looked around the room to see if there was an object with which to break the lock. There was nothing but a tray of food on a table beside the bed, along with a bottle of wine and two glasses.
Obviously her captivity had been carefully orchestrated and was intended to be long in duration. “Were you involved in planning my imprisonment, Your Grace?”
He grunted as he changed position. “I am as innocent as a suckling babe,” he said with a wink. “Though I cannot say I am disappointed to share a cell with you, love.”
“Hmm.” She shot him a skeptical look. “You, Your Grace, may not have been involved in Noelle’s scheme, but you are no innocent. Many times I have been a victim of your less than innocent actions.”
His half smile dissolved into a lecherous grin. “Indeed?” He held up the sheet to expose himself down to his navel and the dark hair trail leading farther south. “Join me, and I will put my vast experience to good use.”
The man had been shot less than a day before, and yet he managed to think with the part of his anatomy thankfully still hidden under the sheet. He was so very male, and cut from the same cloth as all men. They could find a stiff wind blowing up their trouser legs arousing.
“I think it best if you concern yourself with getting well, Your Grace.” She narrowed her lids. “I plan to return to London by the end of the week, with or without you.”
He dropped the sheet. “My heart is wounded. What a cold wench you are, Miss Winfield. You’ve thrown my proposal back at me, then refused a dying man a last few moments to escape the inevitable call of death.”
“Death?” She scrutinized him from top to bottom.
For a man close to death, he was looking remarkably well. “Harold assures me the wound was in the muscle and missed all important organs. If you rest, you should be fit in a few days and ready to travel to Collingwood House. Then you can seduce half the women of London without fear of dropping dead.”
“Had you proposed such rampant seduction a few weeks ago, I might well have considered the idea as having merit.” He caressed his gaze down her body. “Unfortunately, a dowdy spinster has captured my attention. I desire no other. Now, if I can convince her to become my duchess, I will be content.”
The warmth in his eyes and the affection in his words melted her insides. Why did life have to become so muddled? Why couldn’t she slip beneath the sheet and let him do with her what he wished? It wasn’t as if she’d not been naked and writhing beneath him several times. But this was different. Emotions added to the mix made for difficulties she couldn’t ignore. The business between a duke and his courtesan was the sharing of bodies without love. His desire to wed her had knocked her off her feet.
And there was no convincing him of his mistake.
“I cannot, and I will speak no more of it,” she said stubbornly, her emotions frayed. She was on the brink of launching herself headlong out the window onto the overgrown grass below. “You know, and must accept, the reasons for my refusal. It is best for all of us.”
He watched her with his incredible eyes, and she struggled to remain stoic. How she loved him!
“My noble and self-sacrificing spinster will give up a chance at happiness to save everyone around her from the ills of the world.”
“And what is wrong with taking care of my family? Is it wrong to protect my frail mother? She became a courtesan because she had no family, no one to help her after her aunt died. But she has me now, and I’ll not fail her.”
Nicholas pondered her statement before answering. “Nothing is wrong with protecting her, love. I admire you because of your devotion.”
Unsure of what to do next and rendered speechless, Eva waited. Finally, he patted the bed. “If these are to be our last moments alone, I ask you to grant me one last wish: that I may spend these moments of our captivity holding you in my arms.”
This was one wish she could grant. She gave him a shaky smile, strode to the bed, and kicked off her boots. He eased her down beside him and pulled her gently into his arms.
Careful not to jostle the bandage, she snuggled against his chest. Immediately, his warmth and essence infused her. She pressed her cheek to the light dusting of hair on the broad expanse and inhaled his spicy scent. He nuzzled his face tenderly into her hair. No further words were needed.
 
 
S
unset cast a myriad of lights over the white plaster wall above the bed as Eva stirred and opened her eyes at the sounds of excited voices drifting up from below. She hadn’t realized she’d fallen asleep in Nicholas’s arms until he stirred beside her and slid an arm around her waist. The noise had pulled him from slumber, and his eyes opened, too.

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