for Scotland or the sea. She took a breath, held it for a moment and committed to a plan.
‘If you promise that you will tell them both, I will accept St Aldric the very next time he suggests it, which is likely to be tomorrow evening.’ Now that she had agreed, it was simply a matter of scheduling and giving Sam a strict timetable in which to change his mind. She glanced at the calendar on the writing desk. ‘We shall have an engagement ball next week. The banns will be read starting next Sunday. The ceremony shall follow shortly thereafter. The whole business shall be settled by next month, if that is to your liking. As long as you swear to tell them.’
Her father was looking at her in amazement, as though trying to decide whether to upbraid her for setting standards or show the happiness he felt at getting his way.
‘It is all I want for a wedding present from you,’ she coaxed. ‘And I doubt I would keep the secret for long, now that I have wormed it out of you. I am but a woman, you know.’
He smiled in response to her joke, though she was not being the least bit funny. ‘You are probably right. You are a fickle creature, my dear, and I cannot expect you to keep mum. Accept the duke and set a date for the engagement ball. Invite Hastings to it and we shall settle it all on the same night.’
‘I do not wish to alarm you, Lady Evelyn, but there is an enormous spider crawling on your shoulder.’
Without thinking, Eve reached to brush it off, realised that she felt no such thing and stopped to stare impolitely at her dance partner.
St Aldric smiled affectionately back at her. ‘I have managed to gain your attention at last, have I? A point for me, then. And minus one for you. When faced with such a horror, a young lady is expected to shriek and throw herself into the arms of the nearest gentleman. She is not supposed to settle the matter for herself.’
‘I … am sorry.’ She tried to remember where they were in the pattern of the dance, so that they could continue without a misstep. She had managed to march through it so far without thinking. But clearly the duke had noticed that he did not have her full attention.
‘Is there anything the matter?’ he asked.
Yes. Everything. ‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘I am merely distracted.’
‘As always, you know to call on me, if there is something I might do to aid you.’ He was giving her a surprisingly direct look. Though it was still masked in his characteristic smile, she was sure that he was actively concerned with her and would truly do anything, should she ask.
Let me go. And make Sam love me again. Now there was a request that one did not make of one’s future fiancé. Besides, she was not even sure the second half of it was possible.
‘Was your visit with your old friend a disappointment?’ St Aldric asked, cutting right to the heart of the matter. ‘You seem changed since he has come. More sombre.’
‘I am sorry,’ she repeated, forcing a smile. ‘I will try to be more cheerful.’
‘Do not change for my sake,’ he said. His hand, when next it took hers in the dance, gave hers an encouraging squeeze. ‘You cannot help what you feel. But I take it that your Dr Hastings was much altered since you saw him last. That is bound to be disappointing.’
‘Yes,’ she admitted. Confusing would have been a more accurate way to describe it. There had been nothing disappointing about his kiss.
She glanced at St Aldric, who epitomised disappointment in that particular area. She was being unfair to him. His kisses were as polished and correct as everything else about him. Perhaps it was some flaw in her own character that left her untouched by them.
He continued to smile at her.
She smiled back and felt a wave of the kind of sisterly affection that Sam had tried to thrust upon her, until she had broken his will. This was what it was like, to feel nothing for a man, but to like him well enough not to wish him pain.
‘And now that you have seen him, is your mind altered on the subject of our marriage?’
‘I … don’t understand what you mean.’ She tensed and missed a beat, though he corrected easily to compensate for it. The duke had caught her flat footed, again, both in mind and body. She had not expected his next proposal to include any mention of Sam.
His smile was more sympathetic than jolly. ‘I am not so dense as all that, Evelyn. You had a tendre for the man. I expect you lost your heart to him at a very young age. And that is not an easy thing to forget.’
‘You are too perceptive,’ she said. ‘It is your only fault.’ That was not true. He did not miss a beat when they danced. He was never nonplussed or flustered. If perfection was a flaw, he had it in spades.
‘I will work to rectify it, once we are married,’ he said. ‘If you agree to wed me, I shall be as dense as you wish me to be.’
Was he giving her permission to be unfaithful to him? Surely not. But she could not help but think that, when one’s heart lay elsewhere, there might be certain advantages to a husband who had announced his willingness to turn a blind eye.
If she had wanted that sort of a marriage, she should be satisfied with the response. But it was likely to destroy the respect she had for him, knowing that he did not care enough for her to be hurt by infidelity.
She thought again of the interlude in Sam’s room and tried to focus on the end of it, when he had claimed it nothing more than unworthy lust. On his part, perhaps it had been. But she would have happily died in his arms to give him the peace he requested.
As long as it had occurred after a consummation.
‘Will there be any response to my comment? Or are you to keep me guessing?’
‘Comment?’ She dragged her mind away from Sam and glanced back at the duke again.
‘On my willingness to conform to any demands you might set, should you marry me.’
He had made the offer that she had promised to accept and she had been so preoccupied on thoughts of another that she had not heard him. This did not bode well for the future.
‘I will offer in another way, if you seek something less businesslike. There could be moonlight, candles and your pick of the jewels in my lock room. I could purchase something new for you, if you do not fancy them. I will get down on one knee. Although I have no experience in it, I will serenade you. Write poetry. I will do anything to see you smile. But you know my feelings on the subject of matrimony. I am eager to hear yours.’
Father was right. She had kept him waiting long enough. If she truly wished to have Sam’s approval, it had been given, repeatedly. He proclaimed St Aldric an excellent match. He had also told her, emphatically, that there would be no marriage between the two of them.
Then he had kissed her. Her mind kept coming back to that. She suspected it would, for the rest of her life. Just as she had spent six years thinking of the last kiss, she might spend sixty on this one.
Would the memory of that be enough to sustain her, or would
