Page 26 of Wolfhaven

“My name is Hazel. What should I call you? ‘Your Grace’ seems rather formal for our current conditions,” she said with disarming cheerfulness.

“Gareth,” he offered without thinking. He had only two friends who were more than distant acquaintances, Lord Ravensgrave and Lord Thornvale. Together, the three friends were called The Three Damned Dukes.

But this frail old woman with bright eyes and silver hair either didn’t know or did not care about what people in his social set called him. Hazel didn’t look at him as if his face were scarred and his soul broken. She regarded him with the ordinary interest of a stranger greeting an ordinary man. Of a woman meeting a man and eyeing a potential romantic prospect.

His chest filled with a rush of warmth. She was sixty if she was a day. If she was sizing him up, it had to be as a prospect for her granddaughter. He ought to mind the way Hazel eyed him like prime cattle more than he actually did.

“I am delighted to make your acquaintance, Gareth. I knew your aunt at finishing school. Phyllis and I were quite close for a couple of years before we made our debuts the same year. She ran in higher circles than I. We drifted apart after she married.”

Gareth swallowed hard. He was so out of practice with casual conversation that he couldn’t think of an appropriate response. Is that why you felt comfortable accepting her invitation to live on my property without clearing it with me first? seemed needlessly hostile. He possessed little curiosity about his father’s family. That included his aunt, who had been eighteen years younger than his father and to this day viewed her brother’s death as the central tragedy of her life. Gareth couldn’t stand the woman. Nor could he comprehend how she had ever been close with a kind soul like Hazel Ballard.

No wonder Aunt Phyllis hadn’t consulted with him first. She probably thought he would never find out what she had done.

He was saved from having to respond by the clatter of plates. A slice of toasted bread and a yellow mound specked with brown were set before him. He froze helplessly when Evaine’s arm stretched past him to place Hazel’s plate before her. He would swear he sensed every movement of her body as she dropped into the chair next to him.

“Don’t pester the duke, Gran,” she scolded gently.

“I’m not,” Hazel insisted indignantly. “I am making conversation with him. A skill the two of you could both stand to practice.”

Pink spots bloomed on Evaine’s cheeks. She avoided his eye and studiously slathered jam from a small pot that Cogswell had brought back from town, onto her toast. Gareth tucked into his meal, taken aback by his sudden surge of appetite after days of listlessness. Anything to keep his mouth busy and prevent him from saying something that would offend his unwanted, but not necessarily disliked, guests.

“Breakfast was delicious, thank you,” he finally mumbled.

“I would help with the washing up, but I find these heavy plates make my joints ache,” Hazel said innocently. “Would you mind taking this to the sink for me?”

Gareth couldn’t decline without coming off as the world’s biggest arsehole. He took her dishes to the sink and rolled up his sleeves to begin scrubbing. Evaine brought over the teakettle and poured warm water into the plugged basin.

“There should be a hot water boiler somewhere in here,” he said idly, just to fill the silence. “If it hasn’t rusted out, we can try to light it and see if we can get hot water running in this part of the house.”

“I’d rather not waste the fuel,” Evaine said, examining her palms where blisters had scabbed from her attempts to split logs. He could buy wood or coal for the winter, but every penny of expense meant less funds to support his mother.

“But you do enjoy a nice long bath,” Hazel commented. Gareth closed his eyes against the memory of Evaine’s naked body. He could not allow them to stay here in the main house. They needed to go back to the cottage where they belonged.

He rinsed the clean plates and silverware in cold water from the tap and laid them on a dishtowel. Evaine kept coming back to bring him more dirty dishes. Each time, she kept her eyes downcast and her movements hummingbird-quick. First the cutting board. Then the pan. Three knives, two of which didn’t look dirty, but Gareth washed them anyway.

A sharp pain sliced along his thumb. Metal clattered on crazed porcelain. Blood dropped into the soapy water.

“Let me see.” Before he could react, Evaine had taken his wrist and was stretching out his fingers. Testing him for damage.

“It’s nothing,” he muttered. Her nearness was too much. Maddening to be this drawn to a person he couldn’t touch. She would only recoil in horror were he to attempt it.

“You’ll heal,” she said. “But we should bandage it lest you bleed all over your hard work.” Evaine gestured to the stack of clean plates drying on the towel. “Gran, did we bring the first-aid kit?”

“Always.” She shuffled over to where the women had placed their belongings on a sideboard and extracted a small white tin marked with red letters. Evaine pressed a cloth over his wound and waited for Hazel to shuffle over, carefully snip open a foil packet of antiseptic ointment, and tear a piece of gauze. All the while, Evaine resolutely refused to meet his eyes. He stood rooted to the spot, his gaze flicking desperately between his hand and her downcast face, where a faint pink stain grazed the tops of her cheeks. Gareth wanted to pull his hand away almost as much as he wanted to capture her face between his hands and kiss her. Devour her.

He was a beast. He hated himself for wanting her and hated her for not wanting him, no matter how unfair that was. He had earned these scars by trying to do the right thing and failing miserably. It was unreasonable of him to expect her to respond to his newfound and unwelcome font of sexual need simply because Evaine was being kind to a near-stranger, and yet a part of him resented that she apparently did not suffer from a similar affliction.

Her small, smooth fingers glided over his flayed flesh, rinsing the cut in the tap, patting it dry, and dotting stinging ointment along the red streak on his thumb. There was gentle strength in her confident touch. He imagined her hand on other parts of him and immediately felt shame wash over him. She wrapped his wound with the white gauze and said, “There. That should stop the bleeding.”

“It will do,” he said gruffly. “Let’s assess the damage to the cottage. Perhaps we can get you two women out of my house before nightfall.”

Gareth did not miss the glances Evaine and Hazel exchanged. Raised eyebrows and shocked expressions, with the older woman looking slightly chagrined at his rudeness. Her granddaughter’s was a clear I told you so—and that cut more deeply than any knife.

Chapter 14

Evaine

The three of them trudged through the rainswept world past the circular drive and out the gates into the wooded moor.