The longer he worked at the tense muscles of her neck, the more she rested against him. “Give me a week, Lucas.”
“Do something for me.”
She was becoming a warm, boneless press of female against him with results as predictable as they were inappropriate. “What?”
“Drive out. Take that little fellow who was in the traces today, hitch up one of your sister Sophie’s great beasts, but don’t hole up here and fret yourself into a decline. Drive out, Eve Windham. Get into the sunshine, call on the neighbors with your news, let Her Grace show you off a bit, but get the ribbons into your hands again soon.”
She pulled away a little to peer up at him. “This is an odd request, but I’ll tend to it.”
“And my only request until I can squire you about in Town.”
She blinked. “My headache feels better.”
He’d been able to ease her headache, and she liked him a very great deal. Deene kissed her cheek, waited until she’d disappeared into her room, then strode off to have that drink His Grace had mentioned.
Eve had agreed to drive out. A celebration was, indeed, in order.
To the eye of a devoted and loving baby sister, marriage and motherhood agreed with Maggie Windham Portmaine in every particular. Eve found a softness about her eldest sister, a warmth in her gaze, and a gentleness of manner that hadn’t been present before the Earl of Hazelton had taken Maggie to wife.
And yet, the discussion Eve had in mind was likely the most difficult she’d ever undertaken.
“I am so pleased you’ve brought Deene up to scratch, Evie. He is more than passingly handsome, and I’ve long suspected he holds you in special esteem.” Maggie smiled a smile that had her green eyes sparkling, making a gorgeous counterpoint to a glorious mane of red hair.
“At least you aren’t prosing on about the proximity of Denning Hall to Morelands, Deene’s friendship with St. Just and Bart, or our ranks being appropriate.”
God in heaven, Eve hadn’t meant to sound so grumpy.
Maggie put her teacup down and surveyed her sister. “Is this marriage to your liking, Eve? You can always join our household. Benjamin has already said so—you or Jenny, any time. You’d love Cumbria, too. I’m sure of it.”
Join their household? To be enveloped in the marital bliss of a couple who’d found each other despite daunting odds, settled down, and promptly conceived the requisite heir? At least Deene was sparing Eve that fate.
“I am pleased to be marrying Lucas, but I did not come here exclusively to discuss the nuptials.”
Maggie’s smile was feline. “Of course not. Who needs to discuss anything when that exquisite ring says it all?”
Eve glanced down at the ring Deene had given her the day after… the day after it had happened. She now had two milestones in her life: the accident and it.
“This is a Denning family heirloom, not part of the entail.” And the ring was quite pretty, green emeralds in a delicate gold setting that did not dwarf Eve’s hand. Deene had put it on her finger and whispered something about the rest of the parure being for their wedding night.
Almost as if they were truly…
“If you didn’t come here to show off your ring and glory in making a magnificent catch, then what else is there that could possibly merit discussion?”
Eve glanced at the half-open door, and was gathering her courage to get up and close it when Maggie’s husband stuck his head past the jamb. “May I interrupt for a moment?”
“Husband.” Maggie was on her feet, her arm twined around Hazelton’s waist in a move that looked comfortable and natural.
Eve topped up her teacup. “Greetings, Benjamin. You’re looking well.”
Well, handsome, content, quietly glowing just like his wife.
While Eve was back to wanting to smash teapots.
“And you are looking engaged.” Hazelton left his wife’s side long enough to kiss Eve’s cheek. “I don’t need to tell you Deene is a fine prospect, Eve Windham—and I’ve reason to know.”
Deene had had some hand in the matter that had brought Maggie and her Benjamin together, but Eve did not know all of the details. Perhaps when she and Deene were married…
Though likely not.
“He speaks highly of you too, Benjamin. Shall we save you some tea cakes, or are you going out?”
“I’m to meet my cousin Archer at the club for luncheon, so I will decline. Lay waste to the cakes. My love, I will be back in time to drive out with you, if that’s your wish.”
They exchanged a look suggesting driving out might not be at the top of Maggie’s list of wishes. Eve ate two tea cakes in succession while Maggie left for a moment to walk her husband to the door.
“You can close the door,” Eve said when her sister returned. “I have a delicate question to ask you on behalf of a friend.”
Maggie closed the door and resumed her seat on the sofa. “Ask. If I know the answer, I’ll tell you, but if it’s about the wedding night, expect it to be lovely. All the idiot notions that circulate among the debutantes are just that.”
Lovely? In Eve’s mind, an image arose of Canby raising his hand to deliver a stout blow. She recalled the sharp pain of a window sash gouging at her back, and the memory of saddling her mare in the predawn darkness, hands shaking, guts roiling.
Her hands did not shake as she sipped her tea—surely a sign of progress?
“As it happens, this question relates to wedding nights, though certainly not to my own. I’m sure Deene will acquit himself competently.”
“Jenny suggested confidence in the same regard when I expressed my concern for you.”
Another cake disappeared, while Eve mentally hopped over what Jenny had likely said, and forged on to even more difficult terrain. “My friend is concerned that on her wedding night, her husband might be disappointed to find his bride had suffered a lapse, one lapse, years previous.”
“He might…?” Maggie’s brows drew down. Eve ate the last cake with chocolate icing. The ones with almond icing started to appeal strongly as well.
Maggie nibbled a fingernail. “She’s concerned he could detect her lapse, though it occurred years previous? Afraid the physical evidence of her purity was tangibly destroyed?”
Plain speaking. Even married and besotted with her earl, Maggie was still capable of breathtakingly plain speaking.
“That’s it exactly. Will he be able to tell?”
The question lay between Eve and her sister, leaden and ugly, just as it lay between Eve and any hope of a decent future with Deene.
“Might your friend not ask a midwife?” Maggie was studying the teapot as if she’d never seen a teapot before.
“Midwives talk. My friend is watched over by her family very carefully, and even arranging such a meeting would be difficult.”
Also beyond daunting.
“Benjamin knew.” Maggie said this softly, her eyes taking on a distant quality. “He knew he was my first, though not until…”
“Not until he was your first. I see.” Not the answer Eve had longed for desperately.
“Can’t your friend take her intended aside and have a quiet talk with him?”
“I’ve asked her this myself many times.” Countless times. “She does not want to make any premature or unnecessary disclosures, because if her intended reacts badly, then the choices are to cry off or to go through with a doomed marriage.”
“But he might not react badly at all, and then your friend need not worry herself to death over nothing.”
Might. Might was quite a word to hang one’s entire future on. And if Eve cried off at Deene’s insistence, would the idiot men in her family start cleaning their dueling pistols again?
They might.