A Notorious Countess Confesses: Pennyroyal Green Series Page 10

  Mrs. Sneath nodded approvingly at this introduction, as if was only what she deserved.

  When they exchanged curtsies, Adam was uncomfortably reminded of a bullfighter confronting a bull. Something about Mrs. Sneath’s red hat and cape.

  “Lady Balmain,” Mrs. Sneath began briskly, officiously, “the spirit you displayed today is precisely what we, the members of the Committee to Protect the Poor of Sussex, appreciate. I can only assume that a poor soiled dove like yourself has perhaps has suffered a bit at the hands of men, and now would like to serve as a cautionary tale and perhaps help others less fortunate as a way to redeem yourself in the eyes of society. Your speech today was brave, very brave indeed.”

  She beamed her approval.

  Out of the corner of her eye Evie saw the vicar straighten alertly, as if something delightful had just occurred. He said nothing at all. He simply turned his head toward, Evie, his expression benign and expectant.

  But the bloody man’s eyes were glinting.

  “Let me think now … have I suffered at the hands of men …” Eve tapped her chin thoughtfully. “Well, I suppose I did suffer a bit when Lord Englenton sent a string of pearls to me after my first performance at Covent Garden rather than the sapphires I wanted. It was very disappointing.”

  And then she smiled, slowly. It increased in width and brightness, until it was, when full grown, decidedly wolfish.

  Mrs. Sneath’s smile congealed. Her mouth was clearly unwilling to relinquish it, but the light in her eyes went out, and they darted wildly from the vicar to Evie and back again.

  “I did return the pearls, however,” Evie confided sadly. “It wouldn’t have been right to keep them.”

  Mrs. Sneath’s body nearly deflated with relief. “Of course you did, my dear. Because keeping them would have been sinful.” She said this firmly, as if her conviction alone was enough to make it true, enough to purify Evie’s soul.

  “It certainly would have been sinful! Because I preferred the necklace sent to me by Lord Eskith, and it wouldn’t have been fair to play the two against each other, now, would it have been? Duels are a nasty business.”

  Mrs. Sneath’s smile wavered again. “Quite,” Mrs. Sneath decided to say, finally. Albeit somewhat hoarsely.

  She sent an imploring, almost conspiratorial glance at the vicar, one that said: She certainly doesn’t know the definition of sin, does she? Perhaps she can be taught.

  Mrs. Sneath was certainly indomitable, and not stupid. She had a sense of Evie now. She just hadn’t decided how to manage her.

  The vicar nodded once, encouraging Mrs. Sneath to continue. His hands were folded behind his back now. For all the world as if he’d settled in to enjoy a cricket match.

  Mrs. Sneath rallied. “Well, it’s heartening anytime a still-young woman like yourself decides to repent her ways,” she tried. Her eyes were glittering determinedly now. Her words had the stentorian ring of a woman accustomed to getting her way.

  Evie took a breath. She tipped her head in apparent thought. And then she leaned toward Mrs. Sneath and lowered her voice.

  “Mrs. Sneath, may I confide in you? I feel I must be truthful in all things.”

  She leaned toward Evie, and righteous hope and dawning triumph circulated with hopeless, prurient curiosity on her face.

  When their heads were very close together Evie said in a conspiratorial hush: “What would you say if I told you I repent nothing at all?”

  Mrs. Sneath’s face blanked. And then she reared back and blinked rapidly, as if she’d just sustained a slap to the side of her head. “I’m afraid … I suppose I don’t …”

  “Oh, don’t be afraid,” Evie interjected soothingly. “I’m quite harmless. But I do know a thing or two about getting what I want, and it strikes me that you might find this skill useful when it comes to helping the poor of Sussex. And I should like you to tell the women of your committee that they should never allow men to treat them like anything other than queens. If they’d like to know how to accomplish this, I’d be delighted to share what I know about men.”

  And then Mrs. Sneath and Evie stood apart.

  Mrs. Sneath appeared stunned motionless. And then the gears of her mind began almost visibly, furiously working. Her eyes twitched.

  At last, something like a faint delight settled across her face.

  “I’ll convey this to the ladies,” she said finally.

  “Thank you, Mrs. Sneath.” Evie gave her a small, regal smile, which Mrs. Sneath, little did she know, imitated, before she curtsied and ferried her information about the countess away to the ladies.

  “Why is it,” Adam said conversationally, after a moment, “that I suspect everywhere you go, Lady Wareham, uproar ensues.”

  “A wise man once told me to be who I am.”

  “Ah. But what I neglected to tell you is that I haven’t any wisdom at all. I simply do a lot of guessing, and it somehow comes right much of the time.”

  “We’ll just have to see if this is one of the times, won’t we, Reverend Sylvaine? At least I’m never dull.”

  “There are days when I long for the opportunity to feel boredom,” he said, half to himself.

  “Oh, look, she’s returning and she’s bringing reinforcements.”

  Mrs. Sneath was indeed returning. She was flanked by Mrs. Margaret Lanford, she of the glorious Tea Cakes with Currants, as well as two young women: a young woman with blond curls whose gaze was so fixed to the vicar he might as well have been the North Star, and who tripped over her feet once on the way there and was seized by the elbow and righted by Mrs. Sneath. The other young lady had dark hair and powerful dark slashes of eyebrows and a direct, intelligent, albeit slightly imperious gaze. It was the sort of face doomed to be called handsome the whole of her life, never “pretty.” Her posture was arrogant, and her dress was a bold yellow, in the first stare of fashion. She was a rich man’s daughter, Evie knew almost instantly.

  “Lady Wareham, I’d like to introduce Mrs. Margaret Lanford, Miss Amy Pitney, and Miss Josephine Charing.”

  They all exchanged nods and curtsies when Mrs. Sneath made the introductions. Josephine was the blond young lady, it turned out; Amy was the imperious one.

  Their eyes were bright and fascinated. The younger women were flushed and a bit fidgety, perhaps with the excitement of viewing what Mrs. Sneath likely characterized as a fallen woman at such close range. Evie was tempted to hold out her hand for them to sniff.

  She wasn’t much older than the two youngest, but the gulf in experience was as wide as the Atlantic Ocean. Appalling and fascinating them would have been child’s play—and might be very entertaining—but that would only keep them at a distance. She told herself firmly: You wanted friends, Evie. Be a friend.

  After a moment of staring, Mrs. Lanford handed over her basket. Evie took it as graciously as a queen being handed a scepter.

  “I’m very much looking forward to tasting the tea cakes, Mrs. Lanford.”

  “I hope they’re to your liking,” Mrs. Lanford said stiffly.

  “I’m certain they will be.”

  What if they were indeed like rocks? Perhaps she could invite Paulie Lanford over and they could skip them like stones across the pond behind the manor.

  Mrs. Lanford nervously craned her head over her shoulder. Looking for her husband, Evie thought, who seemed to have made himself scarce. “I must away,” she muttered, and ducked a shallow curtsy and hastened off.

  Mrs. Sneath cleared her throat, which felt very much the equivalent of sounding reveille.

  “We’ve discussed it, and we thought one of the best ways for you to decide whether you’d like to join our Lady’s Society, Lady Wareham, is to experience a little of the work we do. We are very much concerned with the children, with the poor, the elderly. The weak and defenseless.”

  The three pairs of eyes across from her were shining, and not entirely benignly.

  Ah. So some sort of test was imminent, it seemed. So be it. Evie gave them a
regal, neutral smile. “A sound plan.”

  “We should like you to join us at the O’Flaherty house tomorrow.”

  “I’d love to,” she said immediately, even though she hadn’t the faintest idea what that meant and even as she thought she heard the vicar suck in a breath.

  “I’ll bring my carriage round to Damask Manor at eight o’clock in the morning. Until then, Lady Balmain.”

  They all curtsied their farewells. Josephine trailing a look and a smile at the vicar.

  She turned to Adam, a question on her face. “The O’Flahertys?”

  “That would be Mr. and Mrs. O’Flaherty,” he said slowly. “They’re a poor family. I’ve rallied some men to help with repairs there. We’ll begin tomorrow.”

  “Is there anything in particular I ought to know about the O’Flahertys?”

  He paused. “Let me put it like this, Lady Wareham. I think you’ve just been given the equivalent of the task of cleaning the Augean stables. Figuratively speaking.”

  “What are the Augean stables?” She wasn’t the least bit sensitive about the gaps in her education. There was no point in apologizing for it. She simply acquired information as she could from whom she could, and she quite liked knowing things. As she’d told him, it was remarkable what could be useful.

  “Do you know who Hercules was? Strong chap, Greek, was given a lot of tasks to perform to prove his worth?”

  “Mmmm. A friend may have mentioned him to me once or twice,” she said vaguely. “My education in the classics is a trifle patchy, Reverend, and I admit I wasn’t trained in the traditional feminine arts, so to speak. Though I do know how to sing, play a little pianoforte, sew passably, and I do know quite a number of useful French phrases. Je voudrais fumer ton cigare,” for instance.”

  She thought she might succeed in disconcerting him through stealth. She’d just said, in the most conversational tone achievable, very nearly the most prurient thing possible.

  It was a French euphemism: “I would like to smoke your cigar,” which of course meant something else entirely.

  She did like how still he went. How the blue of his eyes intensified. How he didn’t blink for a good, oh, three seconds or so.

  But then he just shook his head ever-so-slightly, to and fro.

  And in the end, she was the one who felt the flush beginning.

  How did he do that?

  “The Augean stables were filled with endless horse muck, Lady Balmain,” he told her. “Piles and piles of it.”

  “Oh, Reverend Sylvaine. You’re such an incorrigible flirt.”

  He grinned and touched his hat. “Good day, Lady Wareham. I’m off to retrieve my ginger cake. Good luck tomorrow.”

  Chapter 10

  WHEN HE RETURNED to the vicarage an hour or so later, he discovered Colin sitting comfortably at the kitchen table, eating an apple.

  Adam reflexively, guiltily, thrust the basket holding the ginger cake behind his back.

  “Oh, there you are, cousin,” Colin said pleasantly. “And a good day to you. Mrs. Dalrymple let me in.” He finished his apple with a final bite and balanced the core delicately on the table.

  Then he shifted in his chair, fished about in his coat pocket, and one at a time, counted pound notes out onto the table while Adam watched. One. Two. Three. Four. Five.

  “Because I heard you lost your mind and bought a ginger cake for five pounds. And I know you can’t spare the blunt.”

  Olivia must have tattled.

  Adam scowled at him. And then he heaved the basket up onto on the table.

  Colin peered in. “Looks like a ginger cake, all right.”

  “All of those people supposedly gathered self-righteously to help the poor, then shunning something that could have been had for a shilling. The pleasure people take in mass condemnation … people I know and generally like were savoring the torture of her. I would have done it for anyone.”

  “Now, here’s a philosophical dilemma for a vicar … is it a lie if you don’t know you’re lying? Is it a lie if you’re lying to yourself?”

  “Is it a sin if I tell my cousin to bugger off?”

  Colin laughed. “Very well. You might well have done it for anyone else. And it’s a rare day ginger cakes baked by countesses who used to be courtesans come on the market. One must snap them up when one can. For the bargain price of five pounds. Nothing quixotic about that at all.”

  “Very well.” Adam shook himself out of his coat. “For the sake of discussion, let’s assume you’d baked a ginger cake and donated to the auction. Here you sit now, a churchgoing, cow-raising, cousin-tormenting ordinary sort of bloke besotted by his wife. But all of those things are recent developments. You weren’t even given a proper shunning when you were in Newgate. Instead, you were immortalized in song. A broadsheet with your signature on it fetched a good hundred pounds, from what I understand, for a pub owner in London. In other words, when you were at what many would consider your most incorrigible, the townspeople would have been rioting for the opportunity to buy your ginger cake. Not sitting in cold silence and savoring your discomfort over something that could have been had for a shilling. Now that I think of it … fetch me my quill! I feel a sermon about hypocrisy coming on. ”

  Colin listened to all of this with equanimity, nodding along. “Oh, I wager if we dig about some, we can find a few pockets of resentment toward me. I assure you I wasn’t, and I’m still not, beloved by everyone. But it’s not Evie I’m worried about. I know I’m hardly in a position to judge her, am I? I’m worried about you.”

  Adam was silent. And then:

  “What,” he ground out, with infinite, infinite patience, “precisely are you worried about?”

  Colin opened his mouth to speak. Then shut it again. Considered what he was about to say. “Will you … sit for a moment?”

  Adam sat. Heavily. Whipped off his hat, flung it across the table so that it skittered like a dealt card, loosened his new cravat. Glared balefully at Colin.

  Colin seemed to be considering where to begin. He toyed with the apple core somewhat diffidently.

  “Have you ever been in love?”

  “Colin. For the love of God.”

  “I have,” he said bluntly. “And when you lose love, it tears a hole out of you. The pain can be gruesome. I thought I lost Madeline once, and I swear for a few days I thought I might never be whole again.”

  “Perhaps you should write a poem about it. Add another verse to your song.”

  Colin blithely ignored the sarcasm. “But you see, I had a lot of practice with women even before she appeared. A lot of it. And Evie Duggan … how shall I put this? It’s as though … you’re fencing with a foil, and she’s fencing with a sabre. You’re in two very different classes, my friend.”

  “Oh, please. Certainly you can manage more originality than a sword metaphor?”

  “Listen to me, Adam. Men have made fools of themselves over her since she first showed an ankle at the Green Apple Theater. For most of her life it has practically been her professional responsibility to break hearts. She plays them like a hand of cards, keeping, discarding, coming up trumps. She’s not cruel, she’s just practical. I suppose we all do what we need to get by. Her past is likely to crop up at unlikely moments, and not in pretty ways. Me, I’ve made a fool of myself countless times in so many ways over many women. But you’re … just not the sort. You’re like Chase, or Marcus: You’ve an innate … dignity. An authority, which I suspect you were born with. Useful in a vicar, that. And as I rather like you, it would pain me to see her make a fool of you. And I should hate to see you hurt.”

  “I see. So my new directive is to spare you pain.”

  “I know you will because you’ve an altruistic nature.”

  Adam barked a laugh, and it tapered into a long-suffering sigh. “If you’ve such a high opinion of my gravitas, consider the possibility that my judgment is just as solid.”

  It was interesting to be compared to Captain Chase Eversea, Colin
and Ian’s brother, who was born with an air of command and had proved it in the war. Colin, as the youngest of his family, ought to know how Adam had come by his gravity. How watchful and careful he’d learned to be, and why.

  “Ah, see. You’ve just demonstrated your dangerous naïveté. Some women are simply like shooting stars; you have to look. You have to reach for them. You have to try to catch them. Judgment doesn’t figure, Adam. Other … things … figure.”

  “Sabers,” Adam suggested sardonically. After a moment. Figuratively speaking, of course.

  “Sabers,” Colin agreed. “Sabers always figure. And from what I understand, the lady truly knows how to handle a sword.”

  Adam’s curled his fingers into a fist, and the knuckles whitened. Je voudrais fume ton cigare.

  He disliked hearing her discussed this way.

  Which really rather proved Colin’s point.

  “I expect the town will view your ginger-cake heroics as charity. I’ll finance your folly this time, but if you lose your head again, I can’t promise anything …”

  “Thank you for your concern. But I didn’t lose my head this time,” Adam said with infinite, infinite patience. “and I don’t intend to lose it. My dignity, you see, makes this impossible.”

  Colin grinned at this.

  All of the things Colin said about her were likely true. And it was true she attempted to steer him with flirtation. And it was probably true she’d given her body to men in exchange for money. But these things warred with the other things he knew about her: Her expression when she spoke about her husband and how he died. How her hands knotted when she talked about wanting friends. Her leap to the defense of Margaret Lanford and her tea cakes, even after what the audience had done to her. And then there was her beauty, and he seemed to find something new in it every time he saw her. All of this had wound tighter and tighter and tighter. Until the auction …

  Watching what the audience had done to her had been unbearable.

  Colin was right, of course:

  He had lost his head today.

  Possibly the first time in history Adam Sylvaine had ever done such a thing. It had been as reflexive as defending himself against a blow.