Page 49 of Loving a Beast of a Marquess
“That was uncalled for,” Evangeline allowed, “although, you must confess there was some provocation.”
“Not that warrants his behavior.”
“I will admit he has his faults.” As did, she reflected, they all. “But he has been kind to me. Heiskind, Aunt. He knows all about Papa and has known for quite some time.”
Her aunt’s eyes widened so much she thought they might fall from her head. “He knows?”
“And he has promised to keep silent until we are both married. He does not want to be the Duke, Aunt.”
“Why, then, has he been lingering here like a spider in its web?”
Evangeline could hardly hold back the laughter that image provoked. “If he is a spider, you must allow him to be a handsome one.”
“Evangeline!”
“He wished to ask Papa for advice as we must all do when we find ourselves alone.”
“He is not alone. He has his mama and all the sense that six and twenty years in the world will give you.”
“Which you must admit is but little when you are as reviled as he.” Evangeline sank down until her face was beside her aunt’s in the reflection; one fresh and young, one older and fading. Her father’s sister was all she had left of him. “Confess, Aunt—he has behaved well to us these past few weeks.”
“If you mean he has been as polite, as I would expectanygentleman to be, then I will confess it but no more.”
“I love him,” Evangeline said, testing the words out as though they were precious, coated in glass, and liable to shatter any moment. “Can you really imagine a man as cruel as you say he is could inspire such feeling in me? Is my judge of character so gravely wrong as to be so mistaken in him?”
Dorothea gaped at her niece in the mirror before patting her head clumsily, her eyes filling with tears. “I had hoped for something different,” she said, her voice choked.
“By which you mean better,” Evangeline said dryly. “Cheer up—he is a Marquess and Papa’s heir. The title and the estate stay in the family, I become a Marchioness then a Duchess once he inherits the title, and all is well with the world. I call that an excellent match.”
“Yes, but will you be happy?”
Evangeline laughed. “Exceedingly. And if that’s your main concern, you have nothing to fear. He will make me happy, and I hope to make him so, and together we shall curb each other’s faults until there is nothing left but joy.”
“If you say so,” Dorothea said doubtfully. “I will do nothing to stand in the way of your happiness, of course, but consider, my love—you should be careful around Lady Harley.”
“His mother? I thought she was your friend.”
“She is, but I…” Dorothea shook her head as though to clear it. “There is something about her I cannot trust. She knows more than she says. There is a secret there, and she sees too much.”
“You mistrust her because she is observant?”
“Any woman who is observant knows too much,” Dorothea said darkly, “and any woman who knows much but says nothing is not to be trusted.”
* * *
To Zachary’s surprise, the evening meal was a success. Not unmitigated, admittedly—Lady Pevton was still a trifle nervous, and she knocked the potatoes from the footman’s hands when he attempted to serve her, and Mr. Trimly still regarded him with suspicion—but largely successful. Percy was still present endeavoring to engage them all in conversation, and Evangeline was there, smiling at the table as though she was sitting in her own form of heaven.
His Evangeline. It hardly seemed as though it could be true. Even now, after she had accepted his hand and kissed him with enough passion to assure him of her affection, he struggled to believe it. Any second, he expected the bubble to burst. Perhaps the assembled would rise up and laugh at his presumption in thinking a lady like Evangeline could ever love someone like him.
She had not said it. There had been a moment when she might have done in the space after he had said those fateful words, but instead, she had seemed so taken aback by him as though she could not comprehend that he might be capable of loving her.
Or indeed that she might be lovable.
Thatin itself was absurd, but he had time to prove his love to her if she would but grant him the opportunity.
As for Percy… He looked across at his friend, smiling at his mother as though the world was at peace, and his stomach sank. That was an apology he did not relish making, but it would have to be done.
He’d overreacted. Evangeline had made that plain. And she expected him to apologize to her entire family for behaving in such a way no matter the cause.
