Tempted

Evan twitched at the summons and stood stiffly, to follow his father back to the library, where candles had been set out on the broad table to light the ladies’ embroidery and hemming. Their pale dresses and colorful shawls looked oddly out of place against the dark leather furniture. Evan could remember when the library had been a man’s haven and wondered that his father permitted this invasion of his sanctuary. He sat where he could watch Judith, and she gave him a sympathetic smile. He desperately wanted to ask after Gram, but only in private. He would wait.

The conversation was desultory, perhaps owing to Angel’s having taken a pout. She tsked over her embroidery. Judith, hemming seam after seam, appeared to be making a shirt. And Lady Mountjoy was doing delicate work on a garment so small it could only have been intended for… Evan’s eyes flew to her waist. Of course. She was in the early months of pregnancy. That accounted for his father’s solicitude, perhaps also for her irrational behavior toward him. He would have found out soon enough that Lord Mountjoy lived. Evan vowed not to make her uneasy during his stay. All he needed was to be accused of causing her to miscarry.

Judith was watching him, and now blushed a little, as though she could read his thoughts. Evan supposed her situation might be hard. It would be easy enough for them to turn such an amiable girl into a drudge. If she had been nursing Gram, perhaps they already had. Something must be done about that.

On the other hand he must remember that he had no say in anything. There was his grandmother’s bequest, though. Perhaps he could—

“I asked if those horses of yours are Andalusians,” Lord Mountjoy shouted. “Are you deaf?”

Evan twitched. “A little, from the shelling. Two of them are from Andalusia. The gelding I bought in Portugal. Bose is riding the horse he took with him from England. Odd that he should have survived when…”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“I only got a quick look at them,” Judith said. “What are they like?”

“Lovely when they are better fed. You can ride my mare when they are rested.”

“I don’t ride.”

“Would you like to?”

“No, I don’t care to,” Judith said softly.

Evan did not know how he knew it, but this was a lie. And there did not seem to be a good reason for it. She was blushing and looked tearful. He felt so bad about causing her any kind of pain that he excused himself and went to bed.

Bose had been waiting for him.

“So when’s the wedding?” Evan asked.

“Well, that rather depends on you,” Bose said, helping him off with his dress uniform.

“Me?”

“If we mean to stay, she’ll marry me on the spot. But if we are to be off junketing again, she isn’t sure.”

“Bose, this is impossible. You can’t link your future to mine. I have no idea what I’m going to do.”

“I was thinking we would give it a few days, see what the old gent means to do by you. He was always fair with me.”

“He was?”

“He paid my wages the whole time I waited on you at Cambridge, and sent us money in Spain.”

“I didn’t know that. So that’s why I always had something to eat even when no one had been paid for months.”

“It strikes me you don’t know your father very well. He seems such an amiable man.”

“With everyone but me. Yes, I agree, he can be quite charming.”

“Perhaps if you didn’t argue with him so much…”

“But I didn’t, at least not that I remember. But there’s a great deal I don’t remember from before the accident.”

“You were groggy for weeks…Sending you off to school like that was not well-done of him, but perhaps he regrets that now.”

“That’s past mending. All in all, I’m not sorry. In spite of having you to lean on, I think I amounted to more than if I had stayed home.”

“I agree. And an engineer might be much in demand in civilian life, unlike most of these soldiers.”

“You think I should muster out?”

“You’re not getting any younger.”

“Thank you very much. Whereas you, five years my senior, seem to get younger before my eyes.”

“That is because you are looking at a man in love.”

“Truly, Bose, you are sick of army life, aren’t you?”

“It’s time to move on to something new, time for both of us to move on. I only hope…”

“What?”

“That you won’t let your pride stand in the way of your future the way it did before.”

“Bose. I have been facedown in mud and blood so many times I don’t remember what pride is. I know we won a lot of battles, and that is some consolation, but for myself, I feel beaten by the war.”

“Then listen to your father when he talks. Don’t take everything he says amiss.”

“I shall be polite to him for your sake and Joan’s.”

“Polite isn’t enough. Be kind to him, for your own sake. If we ride away from here now, you might never see him alive again.”

Evan recalled how empty he had felt when Lady Mountjoy let him believe his father was dead, and knew Bose was right. If he left Meremont again, he would not return. It hurt too much, and he wasn’t entirely sure why this was so.

Chapter Two (#ulink_4cc4a48a-f70f-5ab7-b134-72ade499dd50)

Evan rose at dawn and dressed himself. He realized it must be hours until breakfast, so he took a walk to the stable to check on their horses. He then wandered down the lane toward the fields. If the house mystified him, the grounds disoriented him. He expected things would have changed, but there were huge trees growing where he did not even remember small trees. The only familiar parts were those Gram had described. He could call up her voice telling him about the lane with the bridge over the stream and the cottages beyond. And there was the small beech wood where one could walk quite unobserved from the lane.

Evan found a path that he must have taken as a boy. It had been kept open by some inveterate walker, and he felt a friendly sympathy for the unknown boy.

He sat down on a rock to rest and try to puzzle out the past, but the crucial memories eluded him. It seemed such a profitless task. He was what he was now. Why unearth memories that were likely to be painful?

He started at a movement among the new foliage, and almost dropped to a crouch before he remembered where he was. A lithe figure picked its way along the path. Not a boy though, but a girl, wearing a shawl and bonnet that looked old-fashioned even to a man who had been absent from England for years.

“Good morning, Judith,” he said quietly, so as not to startle her.