Although he’d declared himself well-heeled, she certainly had not expected him to possess anything of this level. With its great mullioned windows and the flawlessly maintained front hedges circling the house, Ashton Grange looked like something that might belong to a duchess like Fallon.
A sick little feeling stirred in her belly. With wealth and property came rank and position. Neither of which she wanted. The privileged were always scrutinized. The last thing she needed was scrutiny . . . where someone could pry loose a few truths best left buried.
Mr. Murdoch hopped down from his perch to open the carriage door, looking so weary that Evie felt a stab of regret. The man needed to be resting beside his fire, his feet propped on a footstool, not haring off across the north of England atop a carriage in the cling of winter.
Spencer must have read her mind. Or maybe he saw the tired lines around Mr. Murdoch’s eyes himself. “You can return to Little Billings on the morrow, Murdoch. I’ve a carriage here. One of my footmen shall take us the rest of the way.”
Murdoch snapped to attention. “I’ll not be leaving Missus Evie alone—”
“She won’t be alone. She’ll be under my protection. From here on, she’ll be my concern.”
Apparently that wasn’t good enough. Murdoch cut his gaze to her, arching a bushy, caterpillar brow in question.
Spencer tensed, looked at her, waiting to see how she would respond. Whether or not she would give herself over to him as a wife ought.
Evie nodded. “It will be all right.” She glanced at Spencer. “I’ll be safe.”
The wicked way his mouth quirked, she wondered if she perhaps misspoke.
The front door swung open at that moment. A tall, ruddy-faced woman emerged. “Spencer?” She rushed down the steps. “Is that you, my boy?”
Before Spencer could answer, she flung her arms around him in an unseemly display of affection. “Sweet boy! My sweet, sweet boy. I never thought these old eyes would see you again. Oh, dear, you’re here and we’re only with half staff. It shall take me a week to outfit the place properly—”
Spencer patted her back, sending Evie a glance. “It’s good to be here, Mrs. Brooks. And no worries. I should have sent word of my visit.”
“Indeed, you should have,” she chided. The woman pulled back and clasped his face with both hands. “Ah, look at you. You’ve the look of your mother. A fine, handsome man you turned out.” Her gaze drifted to Evie. “And who’s this you’ve brought with you?”
“This is Evelyn Cross. We’ll be journeying to Scotland in the morning. To wed.”
Mrs. Brooks clapped her hands together. Before Evie could offer a proper greeting, the larger woman enveloped her in her arms. “Ah, lass! I always knew the right one would come along for our lad.”
“Easy there, Mrs. Brooks. I’d like to keep her in one piece.”
Mrs. Brooks pulled back, releasing Evie with quick hands. “Forgive me. I’m quite overcome.”
“We’ve been traveling hard, Mrs. Brooks.”
“Of course.” She waved Murdoch away from their luggage. “Good man, leave that for one of the footmen and move on to the kitchens with you for a meal.” Beaming, she lifted her skirts and led Evie and Spencer inside. “I’ll have you both settled in no time.”
Evie snuck a glance at Spencer as he walked beside her, his face impassive, one hand on her elbow. Strange, but that hand on her elbow felt natural. Good.
“Cook made shepherd’s pie—”
“Ah. I remember it well. The best I ever ate.”
Mrs. Brooks nodded gravely. “It’s the red wine. She uses a liberal hand.”
In the foyer, Evie tried not to gape at the crystal chandelier. The spectacular monstrosity would not fit inside any room of her house. She blinked against its sudden light, welcoming the intrusion, letting it jar her awake, reminding her that this wasn’t natural. None of this was. Not his hand on her elbow, not him, not her . . . together in this mausoleum, soon to be married.
And how could it be natural? Right? He didn’t know her, and he never could. Not with subterfuge sitting between them. Not with a union that would only resemble a marriage, and even then last only a few months.
His hand moved from her elbow to the small of her back as they ascended the stairs. She shivered, that single touch undoing her. For the barest instant, a mere breath, she longed for this to be real and not a sham. For a moment, she considered confessing the truth. Telling him who she was. Who she wasn’t.
A breath swelled up from her chest as she followed Mrs. Brooks down the corridor, her husband-to-be an imposing presence at her side. She exhaled, the air shuddering from her lips as she imagined herself saying the words. I’m not Linnie.
No. She couldn’t risk it, couldn’t risk losing Nicholas. Her gaze scanned the lavish surroundings they passed. Clearly, Spencer possessed the means to wrest her son from her. No magistrate would deny him. Especially in favor of a woman that wasn’t even Nicholas’s birth mother.
She would keep her secret—and she would keep Nicholas. As for her marriage, she would do her best to be a good wife. For however long they were together. According to him, it wouldn’t be very long.
For now, she would simply concentrate on making it through tonight.
Later that evening, Evie brought her brush down vigorously and caught a snarl. Her reflection in the vanity mirror winced back at her. Still, she continued to brush the cloud of golden brown until her scalp tingled and the strands crackled.
Tomorrow they would cross the border into Scotland. Tomorrow they would marry. Tomorrow she would add a new lie to the ever-growing pile.
She’d always justified her decision to take Linnie’s place. Nicholas had needed a mother, and Linnie hadn’t been able to manage it—not without the support of Papa and Georgianna. Evie, however, had been expendable in their eyes.
Somehow she did not think Spencer Lockhart would be pleased to know he was marrying Evangeline Cosgrove’s older half sister. No matter the altruism of her motives.
Unable to stare at herself any longer, she set her brush down and pushed up from the stool. Rubbing her arms, not yet ready for sleep, she turned from the large tester bed.
Muttering to herself, she snatched up her night-rail, convinced there was a library about. Swinging it around her shoulders, she stepped out into the corridor, intent on finding a good book to occupy her thoughts.
With his solitude stolen, Spencer hungrily watched Evie from where he sat ensconced in a wing-backed chair, careful not to alert her of his presence in the library as he drank deeply from his brandy.
He ceased to breathe altogether when she stretched up on her tiptoes for a thin volume on a shelf just beyond her reach. He’d never seen her hair loose and he drank in the sight, following the trail of waves brushing the rounded curve of her bottom. In the low glow of light, her hair gleamed like sun-kissed honey. His palms tingled, itching to bury themselves in the thick locks.
The light from the fire’s dying embers sketched her silhouette perfectly. He stared hungrily at the upturned br**sts outlined through her nightrail. Even more tantalizing was the beautiful view of her tear-shaped bottom. His palms itched, tingled to cup and feel the shape for himself.
He shifted, adjusting himself through his robe. No good. He was hard as a rock. It didn’t help that he was nearly naked. That one pull of his belt would free him. That one stride would bring him directly behind her, only the thin cotton of her nightrail separating them. A lift of her hem and he could press himself against the length of her, rub himself between her sweetly rounded cheeks.
Book in hand, she lowered herself back down, examining the pages and tugging her bottom lip in that achingly erotic way. With a decisive nod, she turned to leave.
And he couldn’t have that. Not yet.
“Couldn’t sleep?”
She gave a small start and dropped the book at her feet. “Spencer. I didn’t see you there.” Firelight moved over her face. With her hair loose, she looked different. Younger. Fresher. The narrow lines of her face less angular, soft.
“You should be asleep,” he murmured. “We’ve a long day tomorrow.”
“I could say the same to you.”
He lifted his glass to his lips, drank deeply, welcomed the warm burn down his throat.
She observed him warily, her gaze traveling over the long stretch of his legs before him.
“I’ll be to bed shortly.” He motioned to the small rosewood table beside him. “Care for a drink?” He leaned over and filled a waiting glass sitting on the tray. “Might help you sleep.”
She opened her mouth—to decline, he would guess—then stopped. Surprising him, she simply shrugged and stepped forward to accept the glass. Her fingers brushed his, igniting a spark.
Sucking in a breath, she sank into the chair across from him, clutching the glass with both hands. She sipped delicately. “When do you expect we’ll arrive?”
“Gretna Green is just a skip over the border.”
Nodding, her gaze drifted, roaming the room, the shelves of books lining the walls, stretching toward the mahogany domed ceiling. “Fortunate your mother left you this house. More comfortable than a posting inn.”
“According to my father, she was one of his greatest mistakes.” His lips twisted. “And he had many.”
“Why was she his greatest?”
“A poor match, he claimed. She was somewhat of an embarrassment to him. Her family possessed a bit of money—owned a factory in Morpeth, but her provincial ways, her inability to accept his many affairs . . .” He shrugged.
She paused to sip again. “Your father must have loved her very much once. In the beginning,” she murmured.
He laughed, the sound low and rough, void of humor. “Yes, he did. She and every other wife. He loved them all in the beginning. In the beginning, he only saw their lovely faces.”
Her eyes widened. “How many wives did your father—”
“Four. My current stepmother, Camila, was the fourth and final. She lasted the longest. She was the most understanding of his . . . habits, his many lies.”
“Lies,” she echoed, her voice strangely quiet.
“Yes, he was a proficient liar, excelling at convincing any woman that he loved her alone.” He felt his lip curl involuntarily over his teeth. “He could make anyone believe anything. Even me. Sometimes I even imagined I meant something to him.”
“He sounds an unpleasant sort.”
Spencer paused to clear his thickening throat. “When I was six, I caught my father with the midwife’s assistant soon after my mother delivered a stillborn son.”
She drew a sharp breath.
“She didn’t live long after that. A fortnight. Then came Camila. Fortunate for her, he beat her to the grave.”
Eyes wide, she gulped from her glass and winced. “You’re not saying your father—”
“Was a murderer?”
She nodded mutely, no doubt horrified at the prospect of marrying a man whose father murdered his wives. A man who spewed forth nothing but lies and venom.
“No. Simply unlucky. His first wife died in a fever. The second in a carriage accident, the third—” His throat thickened here. “And my mother never recovered from giving birth to my brother.” While his father shagged another woman in the next room.
“I’m sorry.”
He grunted. “My father wasn’t. It freed him to marry Camila.”
Evie cleared her throat and sipped again. He wondered if she had considered any of this. That marrying him was entering into his world—a world she knew nothing about. A world she had seen fit to ask little about.
“You look frightened.”
Her gaze snapped back up to his.
“Reconsidering?”
“Of course not. Everyone in Little Billings has seen you and is likely jumping to the same conclusion Peter reached. There is nothing to consider.”