It was her home—narrowly, by the skin of her teeth, so to speak. Today she would be leaving here forever if Andrews had not caught a cold. Or if he had not come upon Captain Morris minutes before his death instead of minutes after. Or if the captain had not saved his life at Salamanca. How strange was the seemingly random pattern of events in one's life.
He made his way back to the house well before noon. He would not put it past Cecil Morris to arrive early, and he would not for worlds miss his visit.
His wife was in the drawing room, he discovered after changing into dry clothes, busy at her embroidery again, though he had the feeling that she had picked it up only when she heard him coming, to avoid the awkwardness of being tête-à-tête with him. He stood watching her for a few moments until he noticed that her cheeks had turned pink. He crossed to the window and stood looking out.
Cecil Morris's carriage drove into sight at precisely ten minutes to twelve.
“Here he comes,” Aidan said.
“Agnes will show him up,” she said.
“Yes.” He turned and watched her thread her needle through the cloth with steady hands and fold her work carefully before putting it away in a tapestry bag. He moved slightly to one side of the window, into the shadow cast by the draperies. They were both listening to the sound of hooves clopping and wheels crunching on the terrace below. A carriage door banged, and then the knocker rattled loudly against the front door. The housekeeper would not have opened it unbidden for this particular visitor, of course. For once Aidan felt in charity with her.
His wife turned her head to look at him before standing and moving closer to the drawing room door to greet her visitor. Moments later the door was flung open without even the courtesy of a knock and crashed against the round table behind it.
“Ah, Cecil,” Eve said. “Good morning. A rather dreary day, is it not?”
Aidan was aware of the rumbling sound of other vehicles approaching up the driveway, but he did not turn his head to look. He did not move at all.
“I am amazed you are still here, Eve,” her cousin said, taking off his hat and greatcoat, shaking droplets of water from both, and tossing them onto a nearby chair. “I expected that you would preserve some dignity by leaving before noon. You are not about to grovel and beg me to allow you to stay, are you? I would not hear of it, you know, and I abhor scenes.”
“I hope Aunt Jemima is well?” she asked politely.
“I trust everyone else has already gone,” he said, “and that that woman who calls herself a housekeeper and has so degraded the tone of the house for the past year or so is on her way.” He drew out a pocket watch and consulted it. “They have two minutes of their allotted time left, the pack of them. You too, Eve. And then one hour's grace, which I will grant out of the kindness of my heart. At one o'clock I have men arriving, including the parish constable, who will haul the stragglers off to the magistrate. We cannot have vagrants as a financial burden on the parish, can we? Now, if you will excuse me.” He paused to laugh at his own intended joke. “Or if you will
not
excuse me, as a matter of fact, cousin. I have wagons arriving and must go down to supervise their unloading.”
“Cecil,” Eve said, “I really must ask you to leave. Our midday meal is almost ready and I have not found you courteous enough to merit an invitation. I do not want anything of yours unloaded into my house. In fact, I expressly forbid it. Please go down immediately and see to it that it does not happen.”
“Now see here, Eve,” he said, his chest puffing out and his face turning a deep red, “I am not putting up with your antics, and don't think I will just because you are my own first cousin. I have never liked you, and today I don't mind telling you so. You are to leave the house right now, this minute. You have had your chance to take your personal belongings with you, but you have lost it. Now, are you going to go without any more fuss, or do I have to lay a whip about you?”
His accent had slipped into something quite distinctly Welsh, Aidan noticed. He cleared his throat, and Morris turned his head sharply to peer into the shadows by the window. His expression changed to one of obsequious heartiness.
“My lord!” he exclaimed. “Have you come calling again? You ought to have told me so as soon as I arrived, Eve, and I would have given you an extra couple of hours to entertain your guest—might I even say,
our
guest? What are a few hours between close relatives, after all? You will perhaps understand, my lord, that my dear mother has lived in a cottage, though a very comfortable, spacious one, I must hasten to add, all her married life and is understandably impatient to move into her new home here. Left to myself, I would gladly have given Eve until the end of the week.”
“Did someone mention whips?” Aidan stepped farther out into the light.
Morris laughed heartily. “A joke between cousins,” he said.
“Ah.” Aidan took a few more leisurely steps forward until he was close enough for the other man to be fully aware of the significant difference in height between six foot one and five foot four or five. “I have frequently been accused of lacking a sense of humor and now I know it has not been without reason. I believed you were serious.”
Morris's laugh was a little more strained this time.
“I am something of a killjoy too,” Aidan said. “Even in fun, I simply could not allow you to—ah, lay a
whip
about my wife.”
There was a brief, heavy pause.
“Your wife.” Morris had gone slack-jawed.
“My wife.”
Morris laughed once more with arch jocularity. “You are the dry one,” he said with a broad wink. “You had me going there, my lord. No sense of humor, eh? It is the driest one I ever heard, I will give you that. And when were the banns called? Huh, huh? You forgot about those, did you?”
“Miss Eve Morris,” Aidan said coldly, half expecting a conspiratorial dig in the ribs with an elbow at any moment, “did me the honor of marrying me by special license in London the day before yesterday. She is now Lady Aidan Bedwyn of Ringwood Manor. And I believe I heard her a minute or two ago telling you to take yourself off.”
“Now see here—”
“You can leave under your own power,” Aidan said, “or I can assist you—but
not
with a whip, you may be relieved to understand. Only a coward and a bully threatens those who are weaker than himself with whips or other weapons when he possesses two perfectly serviceable hands. Before you go, though—”
“Married! You have married Eve?”
Morris's face had turned a dangerous shade of purple. Spittle had gathered in the corners of his mouth and sprayed out with his words. The truth was just beginning to dawn upon his mind, Aidan suspected.
“To a gentleman, Cecil,” she said. “Therefore, I am the rightful owner of Ringwood Manor today, and you are not.”
“No!”
He whirled about and glared at her. “This cannot be. Whoever heard of a marriage by special license? It cannot be valid. And if you say it is, you are lying or using trickery and flummery and I will have you exposed and punished for it. And if you ever expect mercy or charity from me—”
“Silence, man!” Almost unconsciously Aidan had adjusted both his tone and expression to those he used on men who were unwise enough to challenge his authority on the battlefield or parade ground. It did not involve raising his voice or making any menacing gestures, but it had its effect on Morris as it always did on others. He turned back to Aidan, bug-eyed, his face paling.
“Although you are my wife's cousin,” Aidan said, taking one step closer so that Morris had to tip back his head to look up at him, “I have detected not the faintest trace of familial sentiment toward her in your words or your manner. You are no longer welcome here, sir. You will take your leave as soon as I have finished speaking, and you will never return. Never! Not even to the extent of setting one toe over the boundary of the park. Do I make myself understood?”
Cecil Morris stared mutely up at him.
Aidan lowered his voice. “Do I make myself understood?”
No sound came out and he cleared his throat. “Yes.”
“I will be leaving my wife here when I return to my battalion in the near future,” Aidan continued. “But I have long arms, Morris, and I have powerful friends in England, including my brother, the Duke of Bewcastle, with whom you were so impressed when I first met you. If I hear the merest whisper of a suggestion that you have been harassing or even slightly annoying Lady Aidan Bedwyn, those arms and those friends will reach out and cause you bodily harm. Do you understand me?”
“Yes.” The voice had become an ignominious squeak.
“Good.” Aidan, his hands clasped at his back, continued to look down at the man for several seconds longer, having discovered prolonged silence to be an effective weapon in further weakening jellylike knees in even the most recalcitrant of soldiers. “You will leave now.”
Morris turned and glanced at Eve. He opened his mouth but closed it again, leaving unsaid whatever he itched to say. And wisely so. Aidan would have loved an excuse to pick the man up by the scruff of his neck and convey him down the stairs and out to his carriage with his boot toes scraping ineffectually against the floor. Morris stumbled toward the door, gathered up his coat and hat with ungainly haste when he thought Aidan was coming after him, and disappeared. Aidan closed the door and turned to his wife, his eyebrows raised.
Her eyes were alight with merriment. “Oh,” she said, “I am
so
glad you stayed. I would not have missed that for worlds. It was priceless!
You
were priceless.”
She came hurrying toward him as she spoke, both her hands outstretched. He took them in his own and squeezed them tightly.
“I confess,” he said, “that I rather enjoyed it myself.”
“Thank you!” she cried, returning the pressure of his hands. “Thank you so very much for everything. You will never know how grateful I am.”
She was flushed and vivid and pretty again, as she had been in London two afternoons ago. She lifted her face to his—for what purpose he never afterward understood—and he bent toward her for no conceivable purpose at all. Somehow their mouths met and pressed together for a few timeless moments until they both jerked back and dropped each other's hands as if they had just scalded each other.
What the devil! It was surely one of the most excruciatingly embarrassing moments of Aidan's life—perhaps
the
most—especially as she stood there looking up at him, wide-eyed with dismay, color flooding her cheeks, and he could think of nothing to do but clasp his hands behind his back and clear his throat.
“I beg your pardon—”
“I do beg your pardon—”
They spoke simultaneously, just like a damned Greek chorus. Lord help him! He had just kissed his wife. Or she had kissed him. Whichever.
“I beg your pardon,” he said again. “I'll go up and see if Andrews has finished packing my bags.”
“Will you stay for luncheon?”
No. It was time to be gone. He was starting to wonder about her as a person. He had had a few tantalizing glimpses of a warmhearted, loyal, fun-loving woman, and it was not good for him to think of her as a person. Worse, he had caught himself more than once with lustful thoughts about her, most notably last night after he had gone to bed and realized that he was spending a night under the same roof as his bride for the first and only time in his life. It had been alarming and had felt disloyal. And then
that
thought had felt disloyal.
“I do not believe—” he began.
The drawing room door opened behind him, and he turned sharply, wondering if Morris had had the temerity to return. But it was Mrs. Pritchard, still dressed for the outdoors, her shoulders damp from the rain.
“Oh, good,” she said, “you are both still here to tell me all about it. I had to get down from the carriage outside the stables and walk all the way to the house. Cecil and all his wagons are blocking the terrace. He would not even look at me though I called a very cheery good afternoon and asked him how he did. Now,
do
tell me everything.”
Her eyes were sparkling with mischief, Aidan noticed. Both hands were resting on her cane.
“Oh, Aunt Mari,” Eve said, her hands clasped to her bosom, “you ought to have heard Colonel Bedwyn. You really ought. He spoke with such quiet, refined menace that even I was quaking. I almost felt sorry for Cecil.” She laughed—actually it sounded more like a girlish giggle. “Almost, but not quite.”
“He made the mistake,” Aidan said, “of threatening to remove my wife from the house with a whip.”
“Oh, very stupid,” the aunt said with a chuckle. “I wonder how he could have been so brave with you standing here, Colonel.”
“That was the best part,” his wife added. “He did not see Colonel Bedwyn in the shadows. You should have seen his face when he noticed.”
Mrs. Pritchard laughed as she removed her hat and shook the raindrops off it. “I'm glad I caught the two of you together,” she said. “I paid a number of visits this morning. I thought it important that our neighbors know what has happened. All of them have been awfully worried about what was going to happen to Eve. Luckily, because of the rain I found everyone at home. I have wonderful news.”
Aidan felt instant apprehension. The woman had that matchmaking gleam in her eye again.
“Everyone was so delighted,” Mrs. Pritchard said, “to know that you are to remain mistress of Ringwood, Eve, my love, and that it is Colonel Bedwyn you have married that they all agreed that something ought to be done to celebrate. I explained that the colonel must go soon to return from his leave, but that was not going to stop anyone. Even as I speak all is being made ready for an assembly in the rooms above the inn this evening.”
“Aunt Mari—” Eve began, sounding as aghast as Aidan felt.
“Surely,” Mrs. Pritchard said, fixing pleading eyes on Aidan, “you can stay for one more night, Colonel. Surely—”
“Aunt Mari—”
Aidan held up one hand. Aghast he might feel, but there was perhaps some wisdom in the idea.
“I have just recalled,” he said, “that Cecil Morris seemed not to believe in the validity of a marriage by special license. It is conceivable, I suppose, that more of the people in this neighborhood may share his ignorance. My leaving today might give rise to doubts and rumors that would cause unnecessary difficulties. A public appearance together, a wedding celebration, would certainly alleviate those doubts.”