She had to smile. “Not a birching. His Grace stormed and fumed and shouted at me for an age—not about riding the horse, but about taking him without permission—then condemned me to mucking stalls for a month. Mama was in favor of bread and water and switching my backside until I couldn’t sit a horse anymore.”

“I gather you were sad when the punishment ended?”

He was a perceptive man, and he’d also known her before.

And there it was again, the great divide in Eve’s life: Before the Accident versus After the Accident. She forced herself not to drop the thread of the conversation, because that divide was private, known only to her.

She hoped.

“I learned a very great deal in that month from watching the horses, listening to the lads, and seeing them working the horses in the schooling ring. I learned how to care for my tack, how to properly groom a beast and not just fuss about with the brushes, how to tack up and untack, when a horse was cool enough to put away, what to do with an abscess or a hot tendon.”

She fell silent. In some ways that had been the happiest month of her childhood.

Of her life.

Beside her, Deene went abruptly alert. Eve followed his gaze to where a little girl was playing fetch with a spaniel. The governess or nanny was on a bench nearby, reading a book.

“Take the reins, Evie.”

Before Eve could protest that she couldn’t take the reins, she did not want to take the reins, and she would not take the reins, Deene had thrust them into her hands.

He hopped out of the still-moving vehicle and approached the child.

“Uncle Lucas!” The girl squealed her greeting and pelted toward Deene, arms outstretched. The horses shifted a bit at the commotion, making Eve’s insides shift more than a bit.

“Steady, gentlemen.” Thankfully, she still had the equestrian skill of sounding more relaxed than she felt. While Deene swept the child up in a hug, Eve also made her hands and arms relax, then her middle, lest the horses pick up on her tension and decide to leave the park at a dead gallop.

She exerted the same discipline over her thoughts as she had her body.

“And, ho.” Obediently, both geldings shuffled to a halt. “Stand, gentlemen.” She gave a little slack in the reins, and thank God, and perhaps Deene’s ability to train a team, the horses stood like statutes.

“Shall I hold ’em, miss?”

The tiger—whose existence Eve had completely forgotten—scrambled off the coach and stood blinking up at her.

“That won’t be necessary. I don’t think his lordship will be long.”

The nanny was speaking to Deene in low tones, her hand plucking at her collar. Deene kept the girl perched on his hip but reached out with one hand and snatched the ball from the woman’s hands. He pitched it quite hard, then set the girl down while the dog ran off after the ball.

While Eve watched, Deene took the girl’s hand and led her over to the curricle.

“Lady Eve, there’s somebody I’d like to introduce you to. This is my niece, Miss Georgina Dolan. Georgie, Lady Eve is my friend, so please make your curtsy.”

The girl dipped a perfect curtsy. “Pleased to meet you, my lady.”

She came up grinning, as if she knew she’d done it exactly as instructed.

Eve smiled down at a pair of dancing blue eyes framed by fat, golden sausage curls.

“Miss Georgina.” Eve inclined her head on a smile. “A pleasure. Is that your dog?”

“Charles. He’s the best. My papa got him for me when I turned seven. Are these your horses?”

“They belong to your uncle.” Who remained at the child’s side, holding her hand. “Their names are Duke and Marquis. I’m sure your uncle would let you pet them.”

“Uncle?” She turned a wheedling smile on Deene. “I don’t want to pet them, I want to ride them.”

“Which would get horsehair all over your pretty dress, my dear, and render your nanny apoplectic.”

The governess, a prim blond, was looking nervous enough, standing just a few feet off, the ball at her feet, the dog sitting nearby and panting mightily.

“You took me up before you a long time ago,” the child said. “When I was just a baby.”

“You were not a baby, but it was a long time ago,” Deene replied, his smile tight. “I’m sure your papa would ride out with you if you asked him.”

A mulish expression blighted otherwise angelic features, giving the girl a resemblance to her uncle. “He will not. Papa is too busy, and he says I can’t have a pony until I speak French and we’re in the country, which won’t be until forever, because the roses aren’t even blooming yet.”

Deene’s lips flattened, which was a curious reaction to a child’s predictable griping.

“I’ll bet you can draw a very pretty pony, though,” Eve suggested. “One with bows in his mane and even one in his tail.”

The child shot Eve a frown. “I thought a bow in the tail meant the horse kicked.”

“At the hunt meet, it can mean that. In your drawing, you can make it just for decoration.”

The nanny had approached a few feet closer, her expression almost tormented. Clearly, the woman wasn’t used to having her charge plucked from her care. Deene’s glance at the governess was positively venomous, but thankfully aimed over the child’s head.

“Can you play some fetch with me and Charles, Uncle?”

“Eve, would you mind?”

“May I play too?” For some reason, she did not want to leave Deene, the child, and the woman to their own devices.

“Oh, please!” Georgina shrieked and clapped her hands together. Marquis took a single step in reaction, which should have sent Eve into a blind panic.

“Settle, Marquis.” The beast flicked an ear at Eve’s voice and held still.

Deene had only to glance at his tiger, and the boy was up at the horses’ heads while Deene himself helped Eve from the vehicle.

“We can play catch, all of us,” Georgina caroled, grabbing Eve and Deene by the hand, “and Charles will run mad between us. He loves to run and loves to come to the park. I love to come to the park too, and I think Miss Ingraham does also. She reads lurid novels, though I would never tell Papa.”

Children were like this. Eve used to volunteer to watch the little ones in the nursery at church, and this startling honesty was something she’d forgotten. She’d been this honest once: I don’t want to pet them, I want to ride them.

She played catch, berating Deene sorely when he threw the ball too high over her head, tossing it gently to the girl, and keeping an eye on the fretful governess. When even the dog was too tired to play anymore, Deene went down on one knee.

“Give me a hug, Georgie. I must take Lady Eve home now, and if we play any longer, you’ll have to carry Charles back to your house.”

The girl bundled in close and wrapped her arms around her uncle’s neck. While they embraced, Deene’s hand stroked over the little blond head, the expression in his eyes… bleak.

He kissed the girl’s cheek, stood, and led the child over to her caretaker. “My thanks for your patience, miss.”

The woman muttered something too low for Eve to hear, and then Deene was handing Eve up into the curricle. The tiger climbed up behind, and Deene just sat there.

He did not take up the reins.

He did not speak.

“Deene?” His face was set in a expression Eve hadn’t seen before—angry and determined, for all she couldn’t say exactly which handsome feature portrayed which emotion, or how.

“Lucas?”

“You’ll have to drive, Evie.”

She didn’t question him. He was clearly in no state to take the reins. She unwrapped them, took up the contact with each horse’s mouth, glanced back to make sure the tiger was holding on, and gave the command to walk on.

“Is there a reason why you’re off balance, Deene?”

He snorted. “Off balance? A fair term for it, and yes, there are many reasons, the most recent being that the climbing Irish bastard who sired my niece had to go and give the damned dog my father’s Christian name. Dolan’s disrespect is about as subtle as a runaway ale wagon.”

* * *

As Eve sat beside him and drove the horses along at a relaxed trot, Deene became aware that he was grinding his teeth, which was hardly proper conduct in the presence of a lady.

“I beg your pardon for my language, Lady Eve.”

She didn’t take her gaze from the horses, just sat serenely on the bench. “I didn’t know you had a niece.”

He should have realized the child might be in the park at an odd hour. He’d set his spies loose in the mornings, when most nursemaids took children for an outing. Now he’d know to keep watch at all hours.

“I am barely allowed the appearance of being her uncle.”

“Her father is protective?”

Deene counted to ten; he counted to ten in Latin and then in French. “He is barely deserving of the name Father. The child is kept virtually prisoner in her own home, and she has no friends. I am not permitted to call on her, though I am permitted to send her presents, and she sends the occasional carefully worded note of thanks. Dolan would never look askance at material goods, but he treats that girl…”

He was nigh to ranting, but Eve did not appear at all discommoded by his words.

“He raises protectiveness to a vulgar art,” Deene concluded. Georgie was a possession to Dolan, just as Marie had been a possession, a prize.

Eve turned the horses onto Park Lane while Deene counted to twenty in Italian.

“What was that comment Mr. Trottenham made about your colt beating Islington’s?” Eve asked.

Ah, she was Changing the Subject, bless her. Deene seized on the new topic gratefully.

“I got tired of hearing the old man brag on his colt and decided to turn King William loose for once.”

She clucked to the horses, who picked up the pace a touch. “King William is a horse?”

Deene propped his foot on the fender. “King William is a force of nature in the form of a colt rising four. He’s going to be the making of my racing stud, if only I can find the right balance of conditioning and competing for him.”

Eve smiled at the horses before them. “He has the heart of a champion, then. He wants to run even when he needs to laze about for a day or two, am I right?”

“You are exactly right. He doesn’t want to run, he needs to run, needs to show the other boys who’s fastest. Put him against a filly, and he’s greased lightning.”

She feathered the horses through a turn made tight by an empty dray near the curb. “I’d forgotten Devlin’s stud farm was originally one of your parcels. Do you spend much time there?”

Without Deene realizing exactly when or how, his ire at Georgie’s father, his towering frustration, and even—a man did not admit this outside his own thoughts—his sense of helplessness faded into any horseman’s enthusiasm for his sport. And Eve did not merely humor him with a pained smile on her features; she participated in the conversation with equal enthusiasm as Deene waxed eloquent about his stud colt.

“I’ve never met a stallion with quite as much personality as Wee Willy. The lads dote on him and cosset him as if he were their firstborn son.”

“Is he permitted apples?”

“In moderation. He’s a fiend for sugar or anything sweet, though.”

“Typical male.” She gave him such a smile then, it was as if somebody had put a lump of sugar on Deene’s own tongue. That smile said she was pleased with him, with herself, with life and all it beheld—and all he had done was talk horses with her.

When they turned onto the square before the Moreland mansion, Deene was almost sorry to see the outing end. He helped Eve down from the vehicle, then paused for a moment, his hands at her waist.

“We never did broach the topic I’d intended to bring up.”

She had her hands braced on his arms, making him realize again how diminutive she was.

“What topic was that?”

He let her go and signaled to the tiger to walk the horses while he offered Eve his arm. “I’ll walk you in, but let’s go by way of the gardens, shall we?”

She took the hint and trundled along beside him quietly until they were away from the street.

“My original agenda for requesting your company this afternoon was not to talk your ear off about King William.”

She took a bench behind a privet hedge and patted the place beside her. “Your agenda was rescuing me from Mr. Trit-Trot, though I fear you’re too late. He has that blindly determined look in his eye.”