Page 39 of A Sorceress Comes to Call
“It’s true,” he agreed mournfully. “I had to hire an ex-pugilist to sweep them out of my way when I go out. And two footmen to follow after and collect the poor things, give them a little brandy, and release them back into the wild.”
Damn him, he could always make her laugh. She smothered it with a cough and pulled away. He released her immediately but didn’t step back. She could feel the warmth radiating off him and somehow she didn’t seem to be moving away either.
“You look very well,” she said, which was an understatement. Age had only improved him. He had always had a boyish face, and the silver in his hair tempered that. How he was not considered one of the most handsome men in society baffled her utterly. True, he was slim and wiry rather than solid, and he didn’t bother padding his coats to broaden his shoulders, and no, he’d never fought a duel and you couldn’t consider him dashing, exactly, but surely society wasn’t that blind, was it? When his eyes were always good-humored and his lower lip curved just so…
“Something’s weighing on you,” he said, looking down at her. “What can I do?”
Hester rubbed her hand over her face. “You’re here,” she said. “That helps more than I can say.”
“Will you tell me about it?”
She glanced around the balcony. No one was listening here. It would have been ideal, if not so cold.
Richard took off his coat and draped it around her shoulders without a word. The fabric smelled like him, like aftershave and soap and skin. She would have recognized the scent if she were a hundred years old and a continent away.
She hesitated, then shoved her reluctance away, annoyed. Why even invite him if you’re not going to talk to him? He’s your friend, not your security blanket. If you sound like an old woman afraid of her life changing… well, that’s the risk you run.
So they sat down and she told him. She told him everything, even what Alice had said about Cordelia, even the fearful look in her eyes after that very strange dinner.
She told him even of her feeling of doom, though she tried to make light of it, and she didn’t say that it had come over her before Evangeline had even arrived. That was too much, even for Richard. She hedged instead. “I had a terrible feeling when I saw her. You know how people talk about love at first sight? This was like… fear at first sight.” She forced a laugh. “I know that sounds like I’m being histrionic.”
“You are never histrionic,” said Richard. “I once held a goose while you cut out an abscess on its foot with a penknife. Then you took off your apron, washed your hands, and went to the ball that we were supposed to be attending.”
“The goose recovered, I’ll have you know. Lady Mercer gave me updates on him for years, until he finally perished at advanced old age. He was a good sire, too. One of my best lines.”
He shook his head and reached out to take both her hands in his. His hands were very warm and hers were cold. Hester stared at the shape they made together, his larger and darker, with a faint smear of ink on the side of his thumb.
“And so you brought Mrs. Green so that Evangeline would not show herself to advantage. Clever Hester.”
“It sounds quite calculating, when you say it like that.”
“Perhaps. But it’s not as if you forced the lady to be so obviously put out by competition.” He absently rubbed his thumbs across her palms, and she tried to sit still and not to feel the motion like a burning brand against her skin. “If I invited you to a house party and you did not like someone there, you would hardly glare daggers at her over dinner.”
“It’s true,” said Hester. “I’d be very polite over dinner. I’d simply push her down the stairs later.”
“Exactly. This Lady Evangeline is not a subtle creature.”
“Is pushing someone down the stairs subtle?”
“I have every confidence that you would do so discreetly.” His smile was quick, just for the two of them, there and then gone. Lord, she’d missed that smile. “At any rate,” he continued, “I don’t know what I can do in this case, but I will try. Would you like me to tell Samuel stories of matchmaking mothers intruding on my pleasant bachelor life? Or about how my cousin wed an utter shrew in his later years and she has made his life a torment?”
“Did your cousin marry an utter shrew?”
“No, he married a rather nice woman from Virginfort, and I’m told they regularly wander through small villages together, looking for interesting cheeses. But I’m sure I could come up with something. Perhaps I’ll give her dozens of grasping relatives that descended upon him as soon as the wedding wine had been drunk.”
“I don’t think Evangeline’s got any relatives, except Cordelia.”
“The daughter? Yes. She seems very shy, but if what Alice says is true, there’s little wonder.”
“I’m not sure if shy is the right word, exactly. Scared witless and watching everything she says so that she doesn’t contradict her mother, definitely. But she seems to like being around me, and she was definitely charmed by Penelope earlier… but then again, who isn’t?”
“Some of us are charmed by other sorts.”
Hester knew perfectly well what he meant and went back to staring at their hands. “I worry for her,” she admitted. “I want Evangeline gone, but I can’t just turn away from the poor girl.”
“You can’t save everyone, you know.”
“I’m not trying to. But if someone who needs help falls in your lap, you help them. It’s what you do.”
