“He wants her ladyship,” Aelfreth said when the horse was making desultory circles on the rail. “He kept looking at her spot, and she’s not there.”

Even Deene had seen that much. It was pathetic, how a dumb animal…

“Keep walking him, Aelfreth. My wife has taken me into dislike, but she’s as smitten with the damned horse as ever, or I very much mistake the matter. Bannister, have my saddle put on the mare.”

When Deene reached the house, he was relieved to find Eve in one of her divided skirts, her hair neatly arranged into a bun pinned snugly at her nape.

“You’re feeling better.” He made the observation cautiously, no longer certain of anything except that where his marriage ought to be, a battleground was forming.

“Somewhat. I will try a quiet hack on Sweetness, mostly because I think you and I need a chance to speak privately, Deene.”

This did not bode well. If she was going to tell him she wanted her own bedroom, he’d fight her. If she wanted to visit her parents, he’d go with her. If she was going to try to talk him out of trying to gain custody of Georgie…

He’d listen. He wouldn’t make any promises, but he would listen.

“A hack is exactly what I had in mind.” He took her by the hand and led her to the stables, almost as if he were afraid she’d go marching off somewhere else did he turn loose of her.

When they reached the stables, Eve stopped in her tracks and dropped his hand. “My lord, what is your saddle doing on my mare?”

“A change of pace, so to speak. Willy was stale this morning. I was thinking you could hack him out, and I’d take your mare.”

Ah, the reaction was satisfying. Eve came to an abrupt halt, blinked, and then… she smiled. A slow, sweet curving of her lips, a genuine expression of pleasure that had nothing to do with firing shots or joining battles.

Until she cocked her head. “Are you trying to bribe me, Deene?”

“I am not—unless you want me to bribe you?” Though bribe her in what regard?

“Bribe me.” She put her hands on her hips and glared at him, as if…

“Oh. As in, you will not suffer any more headaches if I put you up on Willy?” Crudely put, but he’d apparently gotten the right of it. “This has not crossed my mind. The horse was dull this morning, not mentally engaged in his work, and I think having you up on him will address what ails him. And as for the rest of it…” He glanced around and saw the lads were all giving them a wide berth. “I need an heir, Evie, and you are my wife.”

He’d kept his voice down, but where such idiot words had come from, he did not know. They were the truth, of course, and no insult to anybody, but they’d come out of his mouth like so much ammunition, when what he’d wanted to say was something else entirely. Something to do with needing her in his arms and in his life.

Eve tugged on her riding gloves, looking damnably composed. “Shall we mount up?”

He tossed her onto Willy’s back—such a little thing, his wife, and so full of dignity—then swung onto the mare. Willy was a gentleman and Sweetness not given to coming into season at the first sight of a stallion, else the ride would have been a disaster, though Deene privately considered Bannister was right: as long as Willy had Eve’s attention, the horse would have nothing to do with mares or work or anything else.

Rather like his owner.

When the horses had cantered and trotted and hopped logs and otherwise had a good little romp—with Eve and Willy looking like they’d been hacking out together for years—Deene brought the mare back to the walk.

“If we’re to have a private discussion, Wife, then we have exactly one more mile in which to have it before every lad on the property will overhear us.”

She readjusted her reins then petted her horse. “Can you be dissuaded from filing this suit, Deene?”

“I don’t think so.” He spoke slowly, wondering where even the smallest doubt might come from. “Dolan was not my sister’s choice, and as far as I’m concerned, he cost her her life.”

Eve grimaced. “How does a husband cost his wife her life?”

“He forces children on her when she has already shown that her constitution is not suited to childbearing. I can only think what my sister suffered…”

He fell silent and disciplined himself not to tighten his hands on the reins. “She begged me with her dying breath to look out for her family, Eve. I cannot abandon the child now.”

“You’ve tried being a doting uncle?”

“Dolan won’t have it.”

“Here is what I will not have, Deene. I will not have you spending us into the poorhouse to create scandal, when in a few years, I am likely the one who will be responsible for presenting Georgie to Polite Society. I can prevail on Mr. Dolan to see reason in this regard if you’ll allow it.”

The mare came to a halt without Deene consciously cueing his mount. “It’s ten years until her come out, Evie. I cannot wait ten years to keep a promise to my sister, not when Dolan can betroth the girl wherever he pleases at any point, and have the contracts be binding on all parties. He can ship her to Switzerland, or France, to her relations in Boston or Baltimore, for God’s sake… Marie wanted her daughter raised here, in the style befitting…”

Eve regarded him steadily, Willy standing as still as a statue beneath her. “You need an heir, Deene, and I am happy to give you as many heirs as the Lord sees fit to bless us with, but I will not bring down more scandal on my family, much less allow you to use my good name, my standing, and my entire dowry to do it. Find another way to keep your promise to your sister, or until I do present your niece to the sovereign ten years hence, I’m afraid—should you file those papers—I will be besieged by an entire, possibly never-ending plague of headaches.”

She touched her heels to Willy’s sides, and the colt bounded off, a flat chestnut streak against the undulating spring grass, the woman on his back completing a picture of grace, beauty, and strength as she rode him home.

Ten

Eve realized after about a week that her strategy wasn’t working. Part of the problem was that other than preventing Deene from starting his lawsuit, she wasn’t entirely sure what her aim had been.

To keep him at arm’s length?

That wasn’t happening. Each night, he made deeper inroads on her attempts to separate their routine: he brushed her hair, he attended her baths, he helped her into and out of her clothing, and he asked for her assistance with his.

The staff was colluding with him, telling him when she ordered a bath, when she’d asked not to be disturbed in the middle of an afternoon. It was maddening, really, to find such a pleasant, considerate husband where Eve needed to find a calculating, underhanded, self-interested opponent.

And if she’d intended to keep him from her bed?

That wasn’t happening either. Each night he tended to his ablutions, then climbed between the sheets and took her in his arms. If she turned her back to him, he rubbed her back or her neck and shoulders. His attentions were unselfish, pleasurable, and in no way could Eve consider them intimate advances.

And for all Eve had been denying her husband—and herself—marital congress, the damnable papers were still in the drawer in the library. That was beyond maddening. He’d said he needed an heir. She’d said she’d oblige him as long as suit was not joined. What was the damned man waiting for?

“I do not understand you men.” Eve announced this to her brother when Westhaven stopped by ostensibly to offer good wishes to the newlyweds. Deene was out spying on some promising three-year-old colt, which meant Eve had her brother’s company to herself.

“We often don’t understand ourselves, much less you women. You are looking a trifle fatigued, Eve. Do I tell Her Grace married life agrees with you or make up some other fabrication?”

He spoke quietly—Westhaven was not given to dramatics—but Eve was relieved at his insight.

“Deene and I are quarreling.”

Westhaven picked up a sandwich and demolished it in about two bites. “I can’t very well call him out for you, love—he’s your husband now, and I was under the impression this marriage was motivated at least in part by your desire to see the man remain above ground.”

“You are no help.”

He studied her for a moment over his tea. In the opinion of his sisters, marriage was maturing Westhaven from being merely handsome into a sort of breathtaking elegance. He was going to make a marvelous duke—though this did not mean he lacked for shortcomings as a brother. “Anna and I went through a ninnyhammer stage, though we were fortunate to tend to it before the nuptials, for the most part. Even if I don’t call Deene out, I can talk to the man if you want me to.”

“What would you say?” Eve rose, wondering if her sisters had brought their marital troubles to Westhaven, and whether his prospective role as head of the family meant they had the right to do so.

“I would say that time, honesty, and kindness can see two people in love through almost any difficulty.”

“My husband is not in love with me.” She realized immediately what she’d admitted. “We are not in love with each other.”

A silence, a damnable, knowing silence from her brother had Eve wanting to cry. She crossed her arms over her middle and pretended to be watching the flowers bob in the breeze, when what she was really doing was looking for her husband to come in from the stables.

“Evie?” Westhaven had risen as well to stand by her elbow. “What is the problem?”

There was such concern in his eyes, Eve had to swallow three times before she could trust her voice. “He wants to sue Georgie’s father for custody, and I have forbidden it.”

“Forbidden it?” An ominous note of puzzlement laced Westhaven’s voice.

“I have… intimated that my favors would be withheld did Deene pursue this course, and not just because I want to avoid the scandal, Westhaven.”

“You have forbidden your new husband to keep a deathbed promise to his only sibling?”

“You don’t understand.” And that Deene had explained the situation to Westhaven was disconcerting. “He married me to finance the lawsuit—I saw the estimated costs, projected out over five to eight years, Westhaven. The costs of litigation exceed even the settlements I brought to the marriage, plus interest.”

“A man doesn’t typically expect to lose money when he marries a duke’s daughter.”

This was not sympathy she was hearing from her brother. Normally, his misplaced capacity for common sense would provoke Eve to railing at him or smacking his meaty shoulder.

She felt instead a need to make him—to make somebody who cared about her—see the entire mess her marriage was becoming from her perspective.

“In addition to the money, Deene wanted my consequence as a proper wife, and he wanted to be able to present himself as a doting father by the time the suit reached the courtroom. He has been diligent in assuring this aim.”

“For God’s sake, Evie, he’s a man newly married. Anna and I were so diligent in the first few months of our marriage we were out of our clothes more than we were in them. Ask any of our siblings, they’ll say the same, and so would our parents.”

Were the circumstances different, this revelation would have fascinated Eve—and warmed her heart in some way not possible prior to her marriage.

“You love your countess, Westhaven, and she loves you. It makes a difference.”

“And Deene is merely a convenience to you?”

“I am a convenience to him.”

Westhaven ran a hand through his hair, a gesture Eve associated with the few times he found himself at a loss. “You ride out with this merely convenient husband of yours, Evie. I’m told you ride his prized stallion.”

“I weigh no more than a jockey, and we only hack.”

“You are being deliberately obtuse, Sister. That horse has the potential to earn Deene as much coin as all his acres in Kent put together.”

This set Eve to pacing the room, because she hadn’t realized King William’s financial promise was of such magnitude. “He’s a wonderful horse, but even there…” She trailed off, while Westhaven watched her tack around the room.

He was damnably patient, was Westhaven.

“I’m back in the saddle, Gayle, but my riding is… off. There’s something missing. I have the skills, and I enjoy it tremendously, and I love… I enjoy the time I spend with the horses, but it isn’t what I thought it would be.”