“Makepeace,” Asa corrected absently. “I have to work with her and you seem to know her better than anyone else. I’d like to learn more about her.”
“I’ll not tell her secrets.”
Asa shook his head. “I won’t ask you to.”
“A matter of business.” Jean-Marie narrowed his eyes. “Is that all you’ve come about?”
Asa glanced away, hesitating. Harte’s Folly was naturally the most important thing on his mind at the moment… well, every moment. It was his life’s work, his soul and heart. But there was something about Eve Dinwoody. Her strict sense of order, her sharp retorts, the vulnerability she strove to hide.
The way she’d watched him when he’d modeled for her.
He wouldn’t say that he’d become friends with the woman—how could he? She was from a different class, a different life from his, and they seemed to argue over nearly everything to boot—but they were certainly no longer enemies.
And if his purpose had been entirely business, would he even be here right now? On the evening after his bloody stage had collapsed?
He looked back at Jean-Marie and said truthfully, “No, I haven’t come only because of business.”
Those must’ve been the passwords for entrance to the house, for something cleared in Jean-Marie’s face. He nodded and stepped back. “Come. You can speak to me in the kitchen.”
Asa followed him into the house. Instead of going up the stairs, though, they made their way down a hallway to the back of the house.
A pretty red-haired woman looked up in surprise as they entered the kitchen. She was bent over the hearth, stirring a simmering pot.
“Tess,” Jean-Marie said gravely. “We have a visitor. This is Mr. Asa Makepeace, the owner of Harte’s Folly. Mr. Makepeace, Tess Pépin, Miss Dinwoody’s cook—and my wife.”
Jean-Marie said this last with his chin lifted proudly.
Asa had never heard of a black man’s marrying an Englishwoman, but the theater held all manner of folk. His sense of shock at new things had long ago been dulled.
He bowed. “Mrs. Pépin.”
The cook blushed a fiery red and dropped her spoon on the hearth. “Oh! A… a pleasure to meet you, sir. Would you like some tea?”
“I’d be most grateful,” Asa said. He hadn’t stopped for luncheon and his belly was beginning to feel hollow.
Mrs. Pépin nodded and ducked her head as she busied herself with a kettle.
Asa glanced at Jean-Marie.
The other man gestured to the battered kitchen table. “Will you sit?”
“Thank you.” Asa took the seat, watching the cook as she poured hot water into a teapot. Was she as aware of her mistress’s ills as Jean-Marie?
The bodyguard seemed to understand his hesitation. “Tess ’as been my wife for three years now. She came to Miss Dinwoody’s service two years before that, but Tess is a cautious woman. It took me two years to woo ’er and make ’er mine.”
The cook glanced at her husband, an expression of faint reproach on her still-pink cheeks.
Jean-Marie grinned at her, flashing white teeth in his ebony face. “Ah, but it was worth the wait, I assure you.”
That made Tess blush again as she tutted under her breath and laid the tea things on the table.
Asa hid a smile before sobering and looking at the bodyguard. “And you? How long have you been in Miss Dinwoody’s employ?”
“A little over ten years,” Jean-Marie replied. “But you have it wrong. I am in the Duke of Montgomery’s employ, as is my wife and Ruth, the maid. Miss Dinwoody is supported by ’er brother.”
Tess banged a pot on her stove. “That man.”
Jean-Marie frowned. “Oui, that man. I owe ’im—”
His wife whirled on him, her spoon held out. “You long ago repaid the debt you owed him. He keeps you from living the life you ought, the life you want.”
She stopped, glanced at Asa, and bit her lip before turning back to her stove.
Asa’s eyes narrowed. It always seemed to come back to the duke. He remembered first meeting the Duke of Montgomery. The man had found him and Apollo drinking wine among the ruins of the burnt theater. Asa had already downed a bottle of smoke-flavored wine, but he remembered the duke’s guinea-gold hair, his mincing manners, and the extravagant falls of lace at his wrists. At the time Asa had been more interested in the money the duke had offered—a windfall, entirely unexpected, entirely beyond his dreams—than the man himself. He’d dismissed the duke as an aristocratic dandy, dabbling in the theater on a whim.
Now, a year later, he knew better. Montgomery had strong-armed MacLeish into designing and building the new theater for the garden, had insisted the garden open this autumn, and in general had wormed his overly manicured fingers into every aspect of Harte’s Folly.
Asa no longer disregarded Montgomery. The man was powerful and strange, his motives known only to himself.
“How did Montgomery come to hire you?” Asa asked.
Jean-Marie pulled out a chair to sit down at the table. “Ah, but ’ere is a tale. You will ’ear it?”
Asa nodded.
The other man looked pleased. “Me, I was a slave, a slave on a sugar plantation on the island of Saint-Domingue in the West Indies. I was brought there as an enfant from Africa, or so ma mère told me when I was but a very small boy.” Jean-Marie shrugged his shoulders expressively. “She died when I was only seven or eight years, so I know very little else of where I was born. I grew to manhood there on that plantation, one among many African slaves. The mistress took a liking to me and doted on me, keeping me in the ’ouse to do little chores for ’er.” He sent Asa a sharp look that belied the smile that played around his mouth. “It is much better, you comprehend, for a slave to work in the ’ouse rather than in the fields?”
Asa didn’t know, but he could imagine. To labor all one’s life at the mercy of another man’s whims without respite, surcease, or hope of anything better… That wasn’t living.
That was existing in hell.
He looked the other man in the eye and nodded once, firmly.
Jean-Marie nodded in return and his smile grew cynical. “Yes, it is so. And I ’ad cause to understand this when my mistress died. I was fifteen. ’Er eldest son came ’ome and, seeing that I was young and strong, sent me to the fields. But I ’ad been spoiled. A year later when the overseer whipped an old woman for moving too slowly, I took the whip from his ’and. Then I was overpowered by many men and the overseer whipped me as well—for over an hour.” Jean-Marie’s smile was gone entirely now and he looked grim. “I have the scars still.”
His wife quietly placed a bowl of stew before Jean-Marie and laid her palm on his shoulder.
Jean-Marie covered Tess’s hand with his own. “They left me ’anging in the stocks that night as a lesson to any other slave who might dare to rebel. But I escaped and went running. I did not get very far.” He looked over his shoulder finally at his wife’s anxious face. “Come, chérie, come and sit and partake of your excellent stew.”
She nodded and brought two bowls to the table, handing one to Asa before sitting with her own. Asa noticed she scooted her chair closer to her husband’s as if to give him silent comfort.
Jean-Marie looked again at Asa. “So I was caught and of course beaten and then they decided to hang me by the neck. But what do you think? The Duke of Montgomery ’ad arrived in the port the night before. ’E saw the men gathered to ’ang me and ’e bought me from them. ’E sent for a doctor, paid to ’ave my wounds cared for, and, when I was recovered sufficiently, brought me with ’im on his travels. ’E taught me English, clothed and fed me, and waited patiently for months until I was strong and whole again.”
Jean-Marie shrugged and took a spoonful of the stew.
“Why?” Asa demanded. “The duke doesn’t strike me as a man with an ounce of pity for others.”
Jean-Marie shot him a sly glance. “You do not think ’e saved my life and made me well again out of Christia
n charity?”
Asa snorted and took a bite of the stew himself. It was excellent, thick and meaty with big chunks of potatoes, carrots, and parsnips. “No.”
“You are correct then,” Jean-Marie said imperturbably. “The duke wanted a man who owed his life completely to ’im. As I do.”
“Why?”
“Ah, that is the question.” The footman nodded as if Asa had said something very wise. “’E needed a man ’e could trust perfectly to guard ’is sister.”
“And that’s you?” Asa narrowed his eyes. “You guard her safety?”
“Oui, for ten years now, but I guard more than just her safety. I am ’ired to make sure no man ever touches the mistress,” Jean-Marie said.
“Montgomery’s worried about his sister’s virtue?”
“Non.” Jean-Marie shook his head once. “’E is worried about ’er sanity.”
Asa put down his spoon. “What do you mean?”
“You saw what she was like this afternoon,” Jean-Marie said soberly. “She ’as demons, ma petite. Demons that come in the form of men and of dogs.”
Asa clenched his fists on the table. It wasn’t hard to guess why a woman might be afraid of men, but he wanted it stated. “Why?”
“Non,” Jean-Marie said gently. “That question is not mine to answer.”
Asa stood. “Then I’ll ask her.”
The other man stood as well. He’d doffed his coat on entering the kitchen and his shoulders in a white linen shirt were broad and powerful. “I cannot let you hurt ’er.”
Asa set his jaw. He should leave. Forget about Miss Dinwoody and her overprotective brother and her so-called demons.
But he couldn’t.
He couldn’t.
Asa set his fists on the kitchen table and leaned toward the other man. “You think this is protecting her? Keeping her from ever touching a man? In constant fear whenever she leaves this damned house? This isn’t a life, my friend. This is a bloody grave you’ve buried her in.”
He expected anger, but strangely, Jean-Marie’s lips curved, though he didn’t look particularly amused. “You ’ave a better way of caring for ’er, then? You, who ’ave known ’er only days?”
Asa thrust out his chin. “Damn it, yes. I may not know what to do right now, but this”—he swept his hand across his chest, encompassing the kitchen and the house—“ this isn’t it.”
The bodyguard stood staring at him for a full minute, his face expressionless. Then he cast his eyes upward, as if he could see through the ceiling to his mistress on the floor above. “Bon. Then you go to ’er.”
EVE BENT OVER her magnifying glass, carefully peering through it at the miniature she was working on below. It was of a young lady, her head turned to the side, dark locks pulled back from her face.
Eve dipped her brush in carmine paint and carefully applied color to the lady’s tiny smile. She looked happy, her painted lady, and Eve felt a small, sad pang of envy.
The door to her sitting room opened.
Eve didn’t look up. “You can leave my supper on the table, Ruth.”
“I’m not Ruth,” came the answer in a deep voice.
She inhaled and froze. She’d heard the knocking at the front door earlier, of course, but when no pounding footsteps had sounded afterward, she’d assumed that Jean-Marie had successfully chased Mr. Makepeace away.
Apparently she’d been wrong.
She looked up to see Mr. Makepeace holding a tray of food like a badly trained footman.
He caught her eye and tilted up one corner of his wide mouth. “Your cook made coddled eggs for you and some sort of stewed fruit.” He gave the tray a suspicious look.
She swallowed and nodded. “Prunes.”
He glanced up. “What?”
She gestured to the tray. “Stewed prunes. My favorite.”
He gave her a look of such patent, horrified disbelief that despite herself she nearly laughed. “Really.”
“Yes, really.” She smiled innocently. “Would you care for some? I’m sure Tess wouldn’t mind making more.”
“No!” He paused and cleared his throat, then began again more quietly. “That is, I’m sure the prunes are delicious, but I already ate in the kitchen.”
His reply sobered her. “With Jean-Marie, I expect.”
He watched her warily as he set down the tray on the low table before the settee. “Yes. He said you were unhurt from the stage collapse.”
“He was correct.”
No doubt their tête-à-tête had gone beyond that. They’d probably discussed her and her bizarre reaction to a simple kiss. She ought to feel betrayed by Jean-Marie, but all she felt was weariness.
She’d been living with this affliction for over a decade and sometimes she was simply tired of it all.
Eve rose and crossed to one of the chairs opposite the settee. Tess had given her a light supper, one she could easily eat and digest after the distress of the day, and Eve was grateful. Tess was not only a good cook, but a thoughtful woman.
She picked up the small plate of tender coddled eggs and sat back in the armchair.
Mr. Makepeace sat opposite her on the settee and watched her eat for a minute before he abruptly said, “I’m sorry.”
She paused a moment, the fork lifted to her lips, then nodded mutely and ate.
He ran a hand through his wild hair. “I was angry—upset because of the stage collapse and our argument—and I should never have kissed you.”
“Why did you do it, then?” she asked.
He shrugged and sat back, his legs spread in masculine ease. Why did men always take up so much room on a settee? “As I said, I was angry.”
“And that made you want to kiss me,” she said, intent on his reply.
He grimaced. “Yes.”
“Why?”
He looked at her a moment, his eyebrows drawn together, and then suddenly sat forward. “I don’t know, exactly. That’s just how men are. Sometimes we confuse anger—aggression—with passion and we turn it on the women around us. Men are very primitive.”
“Yes,” she said quietly. “They are.”
“That doesn’t mean…” He reached out a hand toward her, apparently without thought, but then curled his fingers into a fist and withdrew it.
She watched, regretting that he couldn’t simply touch her like any other woman.
He inhaled. “I would never hurt you, Eve. You or any other woman.”
“I know,” she whispered, staring at the hand he’d reached toward her. It lay on his knee now, large and masculine, several scabbing cuts marring the tanned skin. She had an unaccountable longing and had to blink back the moisture in her eyes. “I do, but it doesn’t make any difference, not really. Whether you mean harm or not, whether you are a good man or a bad one, I cannot stand to be embraced by you or any other man.” She raised her eyes to him. “I am broken in this way.”
His expression didn’t change, but she watched as the hand on his knee curled into a fist so tight that white showed around his knuckles. “I’ll try not to touch you again and I’ll certainly not embrace you again without your permission.”
Her brows drew together. Didn’t he understand? She’d thought she’d made herself more than clear. “My permission won’t be forthcoming.”
He nodded, oddly formal, as if he’d accepted a challenge to a duel. “As I said: I will not kiss you nor touch you in any other passionate way without your express word.”
She frowned at him a moment longer, then mentally shrugged and bent to her small bowl of stewed prunes. Tess always used a dash of brandy, and the liquor burst against her tongue as she bit into one of the soft, sweet fruits.
Mr. Makepeace cleared his throat. “Jean-Marie told me I should ask you why you’re this way.”
She glanced up in alarm.
He shook his head immediately. “But I think it best that you tell me when you want to—if you want to. I’ll not ask.”
“Thank you.” She blinked down at her prunes,
feeling suddenly lighter. He was letting her hide still. Pretend to be normal. If it was up to her, then she would never tell him what had happened.
It wouldn’t matter anyway. She was how she was. It had been this way for over a decade with very little change. She had resigned herself to being this way until she died.
She inhaled, setting her bowl back down on the tray and then folding her hands in her lap. “How are the dancers who were trapped in the wreckage?”
He, too, seemed to relax at the change of subject. “Polly and Sarah had little more than bumps on the head. The doctor said they would recover with a few days’ bed rest.” He hesitated. “I’ve made arrangements for Deborah’s body to be transported home, and sent enough money for a proper burial.”
She nodded. “I’m glad. And Polly and Sarah? Do they have someone to look after them?”
“I’ve hired a nurse for them.” A corner of his mouth quirked, flashing a dimple. “Of course it was with Montgomery’s money—Deborah’s burial funds as well. Do you think he’d want his money used thus?”
“I doubt it.” She lifted her chin. “But he put me in charge of the money and I think this a fair and just use of it. Polly and Sarah wouldn’t have been injured and poor Deborah killed if they hadn’t been dancing on that stage.”
“That’s my girl.”
He smiled then, that wonderful smile, wide and intimate, and she blinked back at him, not a little dazzled.
Oh, he knew it, too, the terrible man. He tossed his arms across the back of her settee, lounging back like a lion newly fed. “Have you your sketchbook?”
“Yes, of course,” she said cautiously. “Why?”
“I’m here.” He shrugged broad shoulders. “I thought I might model for you again.”
She opened her mouth, ready with a half dozen objections—and then shut it again. The truth was, she liked sketching him.
And she had made it a part of their bargain, hadn’t she?
Eve got up and went to her desk, picking up both sketchbook and pencil before turning back to return to her chair.
She halted, however, when she saw what Mr. Makepeace was doing: untying his stock.