“Who?” Evie mumbled, her gaze slowly clearing.
“Our father. We’ll go see ’im in ’ell…you an’me.” A laugh rattled in his throat. “’E’ll be running a cribbage game wiv old Scratch ’imself.” He urged the knife against her, seeming to enjoy the way she flinched. “I’ll cut you,” he muttered, “an’ then meself. ’Ow would Jenner like that, to see us arm in arm, strolling into ’ell together?”
As Evie sought for words that might bring him temporarily to reason, a quiet voice came from the doorway.
“Bullard.”
It was Sebastian, looking astonishingly cool and unperturbed. Although the danger to her had not lessened, Evie felt a rush of relief at his presence. He entered the room slowly. “Apparently the record keeping at Tottenham’s leaves something to be desired,” Sebastian commented, not sparing a glance for Evie. His gaze was fixed on Bullard’s face, his eyes light and hypnotic.
“I thought I’d put a bullet in you,” Bullard said roughly.
Sebastian shrugged casually. “A trifling injury. Tell me…how did you manage to get into the club? We have men at every door.”
“Coal cellar. There’s a bolt ’ole in it what leads to Rogue’s Lane. No one knows about it. Not ewen that ’alf-bred Rohan. Go back, or I’ll stick ’er like a pigeon on a spit.” This last came as Sebastian came a step closer.
Sebastian’s gaze shot to the knife, which Bullard now angled as if he intended to plunge it into Evie’s breast.
“All right,” Sebastian said, retreating at once. “Easy…I’ll do whatever you ask.” His voice was soft and friendly, his expression calm, though glittering trickles of sweat had begun to course down the sides of his face. “Bullard…Joss…listen to me. You have nothing to lose by letting me speak. You’re among friends. All your…your sister and I want is to honor your father’s request to help you. Tell me what you want. I can get you morphine to ease your pain. You can stay here for as long as you wish, with a clean bed to sleep in, and people to take care of you. Whatever you want is yours.”
“You’re playing me false,” Bullard said suspiciously.
“I’m not. I swear it. I’ll give you anything. Unless you harm Evie—then I can do nothing for you.” As Sebastian spoke, he moved slowly toward the window, forcing Bullard to turn. “Let her step away from you, and—”
“Stop,” Bullard said crossly, with an impatient shake of his head. A tremor shook him, and he let out an animal grunt. “Damned noise in my ears…”
“I can help you,” Sebastian said patiently. “You need medicine. And rest. Lower your arm, Joss…there’s no need to hurt anyone. You’re where you belong. Lower your arm, and I can help you.”
Incredulously Evie felt Bullard’s arm begin to relax as he was drawn to Sebastian’s soothing voice. At the same time, he turned more fully toward Sebastian.
A deafening blast of sound rent the air. Evie was released with a force that sent her reeling backward. Her dazed mind had only a moment to register the sight of Cam in the doorway, lowering a smoking pistol. Sebastian had deliberately moved into the room to position Bullard so that Cam could get a clear shot.
Before Evie could look at the crumpled heap on the floor, she was seized and whirled around, and crushed against Sebastian’s chest. All the tension he had kept so tightly constrained for the past minute was released in hard shudders as he gripped her against him, clutching her back, her limbs, great handfuls of her hair as it tumbled from its pins. She had no breath to speak, could only stand against him helplessly while he cursed and groaned into her hair.
It seemed that her pulse would never return to normal. “Frannie fetched you,” she finally managed to say.
Sebastian nodded, sliding his shaking fingers into her hair until they curved over her skull. “She told me there was a man in your room. She didn’t recognize him.” Dragging her head back, he saw the tiny cut the knife had made on her throat. His face drained of color as he saw how close Bullard had been to the main artery. He bent to kiss the thin mark, and then dragged his mouth feverishly over her face. “Holy hell,” he whispered. “Evie. Evie. I can’t bear it.”
She twisted in his arms to glance at Cam, who had just draped his own coat over Bullard’s head and shoulders to conceal them. “Cam, you didn’t have to shoot him,” she said thickly. “He was going to let me go. He was lowering his arm—”
“I couldn’t be certain,” the boy said in a monotone. “I had to take the shot when I saw it.” His face was blank, but his golden eyes were brilliant with unshed tears. Evie realized that he had just been forced to kill a man he had known since boyhood.
“Cam—” she began compassionately, but he made a staying gesture and shook his head.
“It was kinder to him,” he said without looking at her. “No creature should have to suffer that way.”
“Yes, but you—”
“I’m fine,” he said, his jaw hardening.
He wasn’t, however. He was pale beneath his golden tan, and he looked so shaken that Evie couldn’t stop herself from going to him and putting her arms around him in maternal consolation. He allowed the embrace, though he didn’t return it, and gradually his tremors quieted. She felt the briefest pressure of his lips on her hair.
That, it seemed, was all that Sebastian was willing to allow. Coming forward, he retrieved Evie and spoke brusquely to Cam. “Go send for the mortuary man.”
“Yes,” the boy said almost absently. He hesitated. “They’ll have heard the noise downstairs. We’ll have to offer an explanation of some kind.”
“Tell them someone was cleaning a gun, and it went off accidentally,” Sebastian said. “Tell them no one was hurt. When the mortuary man arrives, bring him up the back way. Pay him for his silence.”
“Yes, my lord. What if a constable should make inquiries—”
“Send him to the office—I’ll deal with him there.”
Cam nodded and disappeared.
Pulling Evie from the apartments, Sebastian locked the door, pocketed the key, and took her to another bedroom down the hallway. She accompanied him in a daze, trying to make herself comprehend what had just happened. Sebastian was silent, his profile granite-hard as he tried to marshal his composure. With great care, he brought her into the bedroom. “Stay here,” he said. “I’ll send a maid to attend you. And a glass of brandy—I want you to drink all of it.”
Evie looked up at him anxiously. “Will you come to me later?”
He gave her a short nod. “I have to take care of things first.”
But he didn’t return to the room that night. Evie waited for him in vain, finally going to bed alone. Her sleep was broken by frequent awakenings, her hand fumbling to the empty space beside her as she searched in vain for Sebastian’s warm body. Morning arrived to find her worried and exhausted, her gaze bleary as she beheld the maid who had come to light the grate.
“Have you seen Lord St. Vincent this morning?” Evie asked huskily.
“Yes, milady. His Lordship and Mr. Rohan have been up most of the night, talking.”
“Tell him that I wish to see him.”
“Yes, milady.” The maid set a ewer of hot water on the washstand and left the room.
Climbing out of bed, Evie performed her morning ablutions and smoothed her hands over the untamed curls of her hair. Her brush and comb and pins were all in the other bedroom, where—
She shivered with revulsion and pity as she remembered the events of the previous evening. How glad she was that her father had not lived to see what had become of poor Joss Bullard. She wondered what his true feelings for the young man had been, or if he had ever let himself believe that Bullard had been his son. “Papa…” she murmured, staring at her own blue eyes in the looking glass. Ivo Jenner’s eyes. He had taken so many secrets to the grave with him, and had left so much unexplained. She would always regret not having known him better. It gave her comfort, however, to think that he would have been pleased to know that Jenner’s would finally achieve th
e heights he had always aspired to…and that his own daughter had set in motion the events that would result in the club’s salvation.
As her thoughts turned to Sebastian, he entered the room, still wearing the same clothes he had worn the previous evening. His hair was a disordered mass of gold and amber, and his light eyes were heavily shadowed. He looked fatigued but resolute, with the air of a man who had made unpleasant decisions and was determined to stand by them.
His gaze combed over her. “How are you?”
Evie would have run to him, but something in his expression checked her. She stood by the washstand, staring at him curiously. “A bit weary. Not so weary as you seem, however. The maid said that you were awake most of the night. What did you and Cam discuss?”
Sebastian reached up to rub the nape of his neck. “He’s having a bit of difficulty coming to terms with what happened last night. But he’ll be all right.”
Evie stood before him uncertainly, wondering why he was trying so hard to appear remote. As he glanced over her nightgown-clad form, however, he could not conceal the flare of yearning in his eyes. The sight reassured her. “Come to me,” she said in a low voice.
Instead of complying, Sebastian walked to the window, away from her. Silently he gazed at the busy street lined with carriages, the pavements crowded with foot traffic.
Perplexed by his behavior, Evie watched the long, sleek line of his back, and the taut set of his shoulders.
Finally Sebastian turned toward her, his face carefully blank. “I’ve had enough,” he said. “You’re not safe here—I’ve said it from the beginning. And I’ve been proven right one time too many. I’ve made a decision that will not be altered. You are leaving on the morrow. I’m sending you to the country, to stay at the family estate for a while. My father wants to meet you. He’ll be pleasant enough company, and there are a few local families to provide some diversion—”
“And you intend to stay here?” Evie asked with a frown.
“Yes. I will manage the club, and I’ll come to visit you from time to time.”
Unable to believe that he was proposing a separation between them, Evie gave him a round-eyed stare. “Why?” she asked faintly.
His face was grim. “I can’t keep you in a place like this, worrying constantly about what might happen to you.”
“Things happen to people in the country, too.”
“I’m not going to argue with you,” Sebastian said gruffly. “You’ll go where I want you to go, and that’s that.”
The old Evie would have been cowed, and hurt, and would probably have obeyed without further argument. The new Evie, however, was much stronger…not to mention desperately in love. “I don’t think I can stay away from you,” she said in a level tone. “Especially when I don’t understand the reason for it.”
There was a crack in Sebastian’s composure now, a wash of color that crept up from his collar. He raked both hands through his hair, further disheveling the glittering locks. “Lately I’ve become so damned distracted that I can’t make a decision about anything. I can’t think clearly. I’ve got knots in my stomach, and constant pains in my chest, and whenever I see you talking to any man, or smiling at anyone, I go insane with jealousy. I can’t live this way. I—” He broke off and stared at her incredulously. “Damn it, Evie, what is there for you to smile about?”
“Nothing,” she said, hastily tucking the sudden smile back into the corners of her mouth. “It’s just…it sounds as if you’re trying to say that you love me.”
The word seemed to shock Sebastian. “No,” he said forcefully, his color rising. “I don’t. I can’t. That’s not what I’m talking about. I just need to find a way to—” He broke off and inhaled sharply as she came to him. “Evie, no.” A shiver ran through him as she reached up to the sides of his face, her fingers gentle on his skin. “It’s not what you think,” he said unsteadily. She heard the trace of fear in his voice. The fear that a small boy must have felt when every woman he loved had disappeared from his life, swept away by a merciless fever. She didn’t know how to reassure him, or how to console his long-ago grief. Raising on her toes, she sought his mouth with her own. His hands came to her elbows, as if to push her away, but he couldn’t seem to make himself do it. His breath was rapid and hot as he turned his face away. Undeterred, she kissed his cheek, his jaw, his throat. A low curse escaped him. “Damn you,” he said desperately, “I’ve got to send you away.”
“You’re not trying to protect me. You’re trying to protect yourself.” She hugged herself to him tightly. “But you can force yourself to take the risk of loving someone, can’t you?”
“No,” he whispered.
“Yes. You must.” Evie closed her eyes and pressed her face against his. “Because I love you, Sebastian…and I need you to love me back. And not in h-half measures.”
She heard his breath hiss through his teeth. His hands came to her shoulders, then snatched back. “You’ll have to let me set my own limits, or—”
Evie reached his mouth and kissed him slowly, deliberately, until he succumbed with a groan, his arms clamping around her. He answered her kiss desperately, until every part of her had been set alight with tender fire. He took his mouth from hers, gasping savagely. “Half measures. My God. I love you so much that I’m drowning in it. I can’t defend against it. I don’t know who I am anymore. All I know is that if I give in to it entirely—” He tried to control the anarchy of his breath. “You mean too much to me,” he said raggedly.
Evie smoothed her palm over his hard chest in a soothing circle. She understood his desperation, the emotions that were so unfamiliar and powerful that they overwhelmed him. It reminded her of something Annabelle had confided to her, that at the beginning of their marriage, Mr. Hunt had been quite unnerved by the intensity of his feelings for her, and it had taken time for him to adjust to them. “Sebastian,” Evie ventured, “it won’t be like this all the time, you know. It…it will seem more natural, more comfortable, after a while.”
“No, it won’t.”
He sounded so passionate, so certain, that she had to hide a smile against his shoulder. “I love you,” she said once again, and felt a tremor of longing run through him. “You can s-send me away, but you can’t stop me from running back to you. I want to spend every day with you. I want to watch you shave in the morning. I want to drink champagne and dance with you. I want to mend the holes in your stockings. I want to share a bed with you every night, and to have your children.” She paused. “Don’t you think I have fears as well? Perhaps you’ll wake up one morning and say that you’ve tired of me. Perhaps all the things you tolerate so well now will become too exasperating to bear—my stammer, my freckles—”
“Don’t be an idiot,” Sebastian interrupted roughly. “Your stammer would never bother me. And I love your freckles. I love—” His voice cracked. He clutched her tightly. “Hell,” he muttered. And then, after a moment, with bitter vehemence, “I wish I were anyone other than me.”
“Why?” she asked, her voice muffled.
“Why? My past is a cesspool, Evie.”
“That’s hardly news.”
“I can’t ever atone for the things I’ve done. Christ, I wish I had it to do over again! I would try to be a better man for you. I would—”
“You don’t have to be anything other than what you are.” Lifting her head, Evie stared at him through the radiant shimmer of her tears. “Isn’t that what you told me earlier? If you can love me without conditions, Sebastian, can’t I love you the same way? I know who you are. I think we know each other better than we know ourselves. Don’t you dare send me away, you c-coward. Who else would love my freckles? Who else would care that my feet were cold? Who else would ravish me in the billiards room?”
Slowly his resistance ebbed. She felt the change in his body, the relaxing of tension, his shoulders curving around her as if he could draw her into himself. Murmuring her name, he brought her hand to his face and nuzzled ardently into her p
alm, his lips brushing the warm circlet of her gold wedding band. “My love is upon you,” he whispered…and she knew then that she had won. This imperfect, extraordinary, passionate man was hers, his heart given over completely to her safekeeping. It was a trust she would never betray. Overwhelmed with relief and tenderness, Evie clung to him while a teardrop slipped from the outside corner of one eye. Sebastian smoothed it away with his fingers, staring into her upturned face. And what she saw in his glittering gaze stole her breath away.
“Well,” Sebastian said unsteadily, “you may have a point about the billiards room.”
And she smiled as he lifted her in his arms and carried her to bed.
Epilogue
It was nearly the end of winter. Since Evie’s mourning period coincided with Annabelle’s confinement, the two of them had spent a great deal of time together. They were both precluded from attending social events such as balls or large suppers, but that suited the women quite well, as it had been bitterly cold since Christmas, and spring seemed reluctant to arrive. Instead of gadding about town, they huddled next to the great fireplace at the Hunts’ luxurious hotel suite, or more often they gathered with Lillian and Daisy in one of the cozy parlors at Westcliff’s Marsden Terrace. They read, chatted, and did handiwork while consuming endless cups of tea.
One afternoon Lillian sat at a writing desk in the corner, laboriously composing a letter to one of her sisters-in-law, while Daisy reclined on a settee with a novel, her slight frame bundled in a cashmere lap blanket. Annabelle had occupied a chair by the blazing fire, one of her hands resting on the burgeoning curve of her belly, while Evie sat on a stool before her, rubbing her aching feet. Wincing and sighing, Annabelle murmured, “Oh, that feels lovely. No one warned me that pregnancy makes one’s feet so sore. Though I should have expected it, with all the extra weight I’m obliged to carry. Thank you, Evie. You’re the dearest friend in the world.”