“I’m not such a little lass,” Evangeline said, smiling. “My father calls me his grand big girl, and so I am. Would you like to sit down, ma’am? I could ring for tea if you would like some.”
“Oh, no, I don’t drink that vile brew. Nay, I only drink the distilled ochre bark from the pine nut tree. Aye, ye’re a grand big girl all right, a perfect height ye are. Now, ye think I’m going to croak it here, right on this carpet, don’t ye, lass?”
“I sincerely hope that you won’t. Please, sit down. Tell me who you are and what I may do for you.”
“I’m Mrs. Needle.” She stopped cold, expecting, naturally, that Evangeline knew exactly who she was.
“Hello, Mrs. Needle. I’m very glad to meet you.” What was she to do?
“Ye’re not as pretty as she was—her dead grace—but ye’ve more character than that sly little peahen, who hadn’t hardly enough character to fill a thimble, and ye’ve got the heat in yer eyes. Smart eyes ye’ve got, not a little lassie’s eyes, not her dead grace’s eyes. She had tempest eyes, all quivery with temper when she was thwarted. Jest a young little thing she was: spoiled, petulant, and demanding one minute, the little charmer the next, aye, a winsome child, fooled my boy but good, but that didn’t last long. A pity she tried to cheat my boy, thwarted him she did, all because she was terrified she’d die birthing another babe. Then she died anyway.
“Aye, and jest look at that chin of yers, all strong and no nonsense, that chin. Ye’ll give as good as ye get. What do ye think of that, my little lassie?”
Evangeline said after all that, without hesitation, “What do you mean, I’ve got heat in my eyes?”
The old lady laughed, a dry, choking laugh that made Evangeline think her fine old bones would crumble with the strength of it. “Och, little lassie, ye won’t know until ye have his hands on ye. Once that happens, ye’ll niver be the same again. Ye’ll be lost and found, both at the same time, jest as it’s supposed to be, but hasn’t yet been for my boy.”
“Mrs. Needle!”
It was Mrs. Raleigh, standing in the open doorway, her hands on her hips, looking as if she’d faint and spit at the same time. Her gown today was a pale lavender with darker lavender lace at the wrists and neck. Her hair was a billowing rich white piled atop her head. Her ring of keys looked even shinier today than yesterday.
“Mrs. Needle, whatever are you doing here? This is his grace’s cousin, Madame de la Valette. It’s very early. Surely you should be resting in your room.”
But Evangeline didn’t want the old lady to go anywhere. She wanted to know more about this heat in her eyes business, but she was afraid it was over now.
“Oh, it’s ye, Clorinda. Always sticking yer nose in between the cracks where it don’t belong. I need more time with the little lassie here. She’ll be jest perfect, don’t ye think? I’ve waited and waited and so I told her grace, and she shook her head. Doubted she did, but now she’s come jest as I knew she would.”
“Mrs. Needle, Madame needs to come have her breakfast. Perhaps she can visit you later.”
“Actually, now is a very good time for me, Mrs. Raleigh. I’m not at all hungry, and we were just—”
“No, little lassie, ye go with Clorrie here. She frets, ye ken? All will be well, ye’ll see. I know ye’re afraid, but it will be all right. I promise ye. I’ve already seen it all. Aye, I can see ye and my boy laughing. It’s good.” Evangeline stared at her, mesmerized. This mad old lady knew she was afraid? How, for God’s sake? How did she know things would be all right? She and her boy were laughing? It was nonsense, an old lady’s madness. Nothing would ever be all right. The only thing she could look forward to was saving her father, if Houchard allowed her to save him. All else was betrayal. She turned reluctantly to Mrs. Raleigh. “Yes, very well. May I take you back to your rooms, Mrs. Needle?”
The old lady laughed one of her creaking laughs and waved a small veined hand. “Och, no, lassie. I’ll make me own way back to the North Tower. Ye don’t worry aboot things, no, don’t.”
“Now, Mrs. Needle,” Mrs. Raleigh said, seeing Evangeline’s pale face, “you don’t want to make Madame uncomfortable. She doesn’t understand you just yet. Give her a while.”
“Time grows short,” Mrs. Needle said. “I had to come now. Mind to yer own affairs, Clorrie. Now ye may take my little lassie here down to her breakfast.” The old lady shuffled out of the bedchamber. She turned, studied Evangeline for a very long time, then said finally, “Ye’ll come to the North Tower, Madame. I’ll wager yer only memories of yer cousin are from yer child’s mind. But ye’ve come home, just as I hoped ye would. We’ll talk, lassie. Aye, there’s much we have to speak about, but we must do it soon. So little time left.”
“I’ll come,” Evangeline said. She didn’t move, just stared after the old lady as she made her way slowly and painfully down the long corridor. She felt gooseflesh rise in her arms.
Mrs. Raleigh sighed and lightly patted Evangeline’s hand. “Mrs. Needle was the old duke’s nurse. She’s been here forever; some say she came with the Conqueror. The present duke allows her to do anything that pleases her. Actually, there’s no harm to her. If you do go to the North Tower, be warned. Mrs. Needle is considered a witch, a healing witch. You’ll be able to smell her concoctions before you are even allowed into her inner sanctum. “You’re pale, Madame. Did she say something to overset you? Of course she did. She’s always mysterious, prides herself on leaving folks’ brains all scrambled. She quite enjoys it. Come now, you’ll forget once you have one of Cook’s raspberry scones in your mouth.”
Evangeline said, “She must be very old indeed.” “That’s the truth of it,” Mrs. Raleigh said, walking beside her. “His grace will not hear of removing her from Chesleigh. Of course, no one has ever suggested it, even when the wind is blowing from the wrong direction and one of her potions pervades the entire castle. Once everyone’s eyes watered for two days. I remember quite clearly the burned cinnamon. Dreadful. His grace just laughed. His grace indulges her every whim.
“I must say, though, that her herbal laboratory is magnificent. Everyone brings her clippings and sprigs of this and that. It’s interesting. Normally she stays in the North Tower. But she came to see you. Perhaps she’d just heard about you and was curious. I doubt she’ll bother you again.”
Evangeline shivered. She knew she’d see Mrs. Needle again. In fact, she’d go to the North Tower to search her out herself.
“It’s very early, Madame. I was surprised to find you awake and dressed.” Mrs. Raleigh eyed the same gray muslin gown she’d been wearing the day before. “Such a pity about your luggage. We will see what the duke wishes to do about that.”
“I assure you the duke won’t do a thing, Mrs. Raleigh.”
“Well, he already has Dorrie attending you.” Evangeline thought a moment. “Yes, you’re right about that. He moves quickly.” “His grace decides something, and it’s done before the stable cat, Lambert, can catch another mouse. Did you find her satisfactory last evening?” “Dorrie is very nice.”
“You didn’t ring for her this morning. That is why I came myself, to see that you were all right. The poor girl was worried that she’d displeased you.”
Evangeline thought of her own dear Margueritte, always humming, always laughing, always chattering even if no one was there, always looking at Evangeline’s father with lustful eyes. “Dorrie will suit me just fine, Mrs. Raleigh. I promise to let her assist me this evening.”
Evangeline imagined that she was the first nanny to be assigned a maid, but she didn’t say anything more. Mrs. Raleigh, doubtless all the staff, believed her position with Edmund to be nothing more than a sham, something to salve her pride since she was indeed a poor relation. Poor or not, she was related to the duke, and thus she would have a maid.
“His grace is already in the breakfast parlor. He always rises early. He has told Bassick that he won’t be leaving for London today.” She rubbed her lovely, narrow hands together. “Now we
shall have him here for at least another week, so Mr. Bassick believes, and I’ve never known him to be wrong before, and that pleases everyone, Madame. All of us thank you for keeping him here.”
She was keeping him here? No, surely not. Surely he had other reasons for remaining unless, of course, he wanted to be certain that she wouldn’t strangle Lord Edmund in his bed. It would have been easier if he’d simply settled her in and removed himself back to London. But things didn’t tend to unfold in a nice orderly manner. Then, suddenly, with no warning she was back in Paris, in that narrow room. And, he was there as well, staring at her closely as he said, “Do you know how to bed a man?”
She stared at him, shriveling on the inside, white as her lace on the outside.
“You are nearly twenty years old, not a young chit with stars in her eyes and the sense of a goat. Have you ever bedded a man?”
She shook her head. She watched, just as a rabbit would watch a snake slithering toward it, as he walked to her, stood there, smiling down at her. Then he reached out his hands and cupped her breasts. “Very nice,” he said, low. “He will love your breasts. You, naturally, will do whatever you must to succeed.” She jerked away, but he hadn’t released her. It hurt and she gasped. “Oh, God,” she said, and stumbled.
Chapter 9
“What, Madame? Goodness, are you all right?” Mrs. Raleigh grabbed her arm and held her firmly.
Evangeline shook her head, but Houchard was still clear in her mind, damn him. He was always there, sometimes so clear she just knew she could reach out and touch him, and he would speak to her, his voice clear and hard in her ear, or he would touch her, stroke her with as much feeling as he would stroke the arm of a chair.
She managed a pathetic smile. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Raleigh. I was just thinking about something else, something that happened to me in France. Forgive my inattention. Who is that gentleman with the huge white wig?” She pointed at a large portrait, its frame heavy with gold, painted early in the last century.
“Oh, that was the Fourth Duke of Portsmouth, Everett Arysdale Chesleigh. I’ve heard that he was a wild one, that duke. Too handsome, if you ask me, and all the girls swooned around him. At least most of his bastards are dead now.”
Evangeline wasn’t thinking about the fourth Duke of Portsmouth. She was thinking about this one, a man who was too handsome for his own good as well, and for any woman’s peace of mind. She’d been very aware of him every moment, not just because she was terrified that she wouldn’t succeed in convincing him to allow her to remain, but also because he looked at her the way several other men had looked at her, most notably the Comte de Pouilly. Only with the duke she wasn’t at all offended. It made her feel warm in places she’d never before even been aware of. It made her feel slightly off balance, but that was something that during the past week had been her constant companion, so it wasn’t all that noteworthy. But the warmth, that was something strange, something she couldn’t explain. She just knew she liked it.
She’d played a role with him. She’d parried his questions with her rehearsed answers, always wondering what he was thinking, how he was reacting when she said something that was the least bit out of the ordinary.
His moods changed so quickly, from an arrogant hauteur that was such a deep part of him, to the indifferent politeness when he’d withdrawn, deep into his own thoughts. Well, there was nothing for it.
She had to succeed. She had no choice, none at all.
Mrs. Raleigh’s graceful, birdlike movements, her soothing chatter, continued as she led Evangeline down the long, carpeted corridor in the west wing to the wide, curved staircase that rose in ancient dignity to the upper floors. She followed Mrs. Raleigh across the vast Italianate entrance hall, with its massive chandelier hanging from a silver chain at least the thickness of her upper arm, past the library and the formal dining room. They entered a small octagonal room that was flooded with the bright morning light from the low, wide windows. There was no heavy furniture, no dark wainscotting, just this light, airy space, the walls painted a pale yellow. Several of the windows were open, a gentle, warm breeze billowing out the gossamer light draperies.
She stopped in the middle of the room. “How very lovely.”
“I thank you. Doubtless my mother would also thank you. She ordered the room done this way some twenty years ago.”
Startled, Evangeline looked at the duke, who was seated at one end of the small table, just lowering a newspaper. He wore a buff jacket and light brown knit riding breeches, exquisitely tailored from what she could see of them. His dark hair was tousled, his complexion healthy and tanned. He’d already been outside, probably riding along the cliffs.
He was without a doubt the most exquisite man she’d ever seen in her life. But then again, she hadn’t seem all that many gentlemen. Perhaps those in London would put him to shame, although she tended to doubt it.
She realized she was staring at him and quickly looked down at the toes of her slippers.
“Is something wrong, Madame?”
Yes, she wanted to tell him. You’re what’s wrong. It’s painful for me to look at you. I held you in my child’s memories. I’d hoped you would look differently now, but you don’t. I’ve lost my mind.
She said coolly, getting a hold on herself, “No, nothing, your grace. Just a moment of visual distress.” She thought he laughed. She remembered suddenly how she had envied Marissa all those years ago, lucky Marissa who had secured his hand. But Marissa hadn’t been so very lucky. Dead when she was but twenty, in an accident, she’d heard.
She gave him a wicked look, a look that was quite natural for her to give to him, a look that seemed to have been waiting inside her, for him to come so she could give it to him. And she knew he liked that look, all that wickedness that promised everything, yet only promised. She shrugged, seeing no hope for it. He was giving her a bland, very knowing smile, as if he knew what she was thinking. Well, he was right. Why not tell him? Her wicked smile grew sharper when she said, “Actually, I was thinking that you look splendid.”
He sat back in his chair, his arms crossed over his chest. “A dose of French candor. I thank you for the compliment. If I were a lady, I could preen and demand that you become specific in your compliments, but alas, I’m a gentleman and thus I must take the general compliment and content myself with it. But I do wish I knew what the specifics were in this case.” The wicked smile faded. “Have I embarrassed you? Yes, I believe that could be called a discreet flush starting on your neck. Come and sit down. Mrs. Dent has prepared a breakfast that will have us feeling fat as geldings.”
She refused to look at him again as she slipped into the chair on his right. She knew he was no doubt quite used to being shamelessly flattered, to being endlessly admired, undoubtedly to being compared to a god.
No, he wasn’t a god. She remembered Houchard’s graphic descriptions of the duke’s likes and dislikes, particularly when it came to women, and wanted to sink through the floor.
No, none of that would come to pass. The duke would never see her as anything more than a fully dressed penniless widow here to take care of his son, if only his son would cooperate and adore her at first sight. He mustn’t ever see her as a woman who admired him more than was proper. Bassick, smiling at her, poured her rich black coffee, then, after nodding to the duke, left the morning room.
She was English, she’d always said about herself. She wished she could smash the French part of her out of existence. The funny thing was that even as a child, she’d never liked the heavy English breakfasts, but she’d been thinking about him, about this damnable situation, about what Houchard had told her, and piled her plate high with kidneys, scrambled eggs, kippers, and bacon. Slowly, not wanting to draw attention, she shoved the plate away and reached for a slice of toast. She began spreading it with thick butter. “You didn’t sleep well.”
Evangeline nearly choked on her mouthful of toast. She forced herself to chew slowly. When she swallowed, she took a sip of
coffee, then gave him a cool smile. “You’re wrong, your grace. How could one not be perfectly content in such a beautiful room and a comfortable bed?”
“I suspect that anyone wouldn’t sleep particularly well in a new place. Did you hear strange noises? The castle rattles and moans. When there’s a storm off the Channel, you sometimes think you’ll be buried beneath a pile of stone. You’ll become used to it.” “Yes, I can see that would be possible. You’re right, for a moment there I’d forgotten the moans and the chains rattling.”
He didn’t smile, merely toyed with his fork. “Do you always come awake ready to fence with words?” “No, not usually. Very well, if you’re going to pry. I didn’t sleep well because I was scared you’d find fault with me today and boot me out. I don’t want to starve in a ditch, your grace.”
“Oh, I haven’t changed my mind. Stop your worrying, if that is indeed the truth you’re telling me.” “I had an early morning visit from Mrs. Needle.” He speared up a piece of thin-sliced ham, his fork pausing halfway to his mouth. “Mrs. Needle came to see you? How very odd. She scarcely ever leaves the North Tower anymore. What did she want?”
“Simply to meet me, Marissa’s cousin. She said some strange things, but she was kind to me.” “She’s a witch.”
“That’s what Mrs. Raleigh told me, but not a bad witch. She heals people.”
“She tries. She quacked my tiger, Juniper, last evening. I haven’t heard otherwise, so I will assume he’s still breathing and twitching. You’ve only eaten a slice of toast. Mrs. Dent will be upset if she doesn’t have you waddling by spring. Come, try the kidneys, they’re quite delicious.”
She looked at the kidneys on her plate and actually shuddered.
“You’re tall, Madame, and at the moment far too thin, except for your—” He was looking at her breasts, fully and completely at her breasts. At least he hadn’t said it aloud. That showed some restraint. He was outrageous, but of course she knew that already.