The Deception (Baron 3)

“That too,” Evangeline said, not turning to him.

“I’m a prince, am I?”

“A metaphor, your grace,” she said over her shoulder to the duke, “nothing more. Merely an example Edmund could understand.”

“I rather liked being a prince among men. I’m really not impressive? Didn’t you tell me just an hour ago that I was splendid?” “I don’t remember.” “I’ll really be taller than Papa?” “There is no doubt at all in my mind.” Edmund beamed at that. “It’s all right that you’re here, then, and not Phillip or Rohan. Do you know any stories about Gilly, the racing cat champion?”

“Not as yet, but you can be certain that I will discover stories about Gilly.” “Did you perhaps bring me a present?” “What a greedy little beggar you are, Edmund,” the duke said. “You will make your cousin think that I deprive you.”

“Well, I did bring you a present, Edmund. I hope you will like it.” Evangeline withdrew a small wrapped box from the pocket of her gown and held it out.

She’d thought of Edmund. It pleased the duke. He watched his son rip away the paper and push open the lid of the box. Edmund crowed with pleasure as he drew out a carved wooden pistol, so finely constructed with wires and weights that the hammer cocked and the trigger could be pulled. However had she afforded it? Had she spent her last groats on a toy for his son? It was an expensive piece.

Edmund couldn’t believe his good fortune. He hugged the gun close, then held it away from him, stroking it, admiring it. “Oh, my goodness. Even the barrel is hollow, Papa. Now I can duel, now I can make Ellen take away the green beans.” He clasped the pistol in one small hand and aimed it at Ellen. “Don’t worry about the green beans yet, Ellen, I’m just practicing. After you don’t bring me green beans anymore, will you pretend you’re a bandit so I can practice shooting you?”

Ellen drew up very tall and straight. “Certainly, Lord Edmund, I am yours to kill.”

Excellent, Evangeline thought, she’d brought out the killing instincts of a little boy.

“Papa, will you teach me how to aim properly?” “Only if you promise not to torment Ellen.” “I promise,” he said, but he wasn’t looking at Ellen. He was staring at Evangeline with naked adoration. “Thank you, Eve. Phillip never gave me a gun. Rohan didn’t either. Phillip doesn’t like guns.”

And Evangeline knew that Houchard had succeeded beyond his wildest dreams. Like this Phillip friend of the duke’s, she would have never given a small child such a gift, but Houchard had said the boy would be mad for it, and so he was.

The three of them, Edmund skipping between Evangeline and his father, waving his wooden gun about, walked downstairs. The duke said, “Should we take your cousin riding with us, Edmund? We can show her perhaps one or two of the paths we take to go to our hiding places. It’s a beautiful day. Umberto, our Italian gardener,” the duke added to Evangeline, “says that there will be two days of summer weather, so hot that we’ll be sweating like stoats.”

She just stood there, her mouth open, shaking her head. “I’m sorry. I can’t. I don’t own a riding habit.” She looked down at her muslin skirts. “I can’t ride in this. I’m sorry.” And, he thought, she seemed ready to burst into tears. He said easily, “How I wish that occasionally—just every once in a while—I was presented with a problem to test my mettle. Ah, not this time. Just a small problem that I’ve already addressed. Perhaps you’ll even consider me yet a prince among men. Evangeline, go to your bedchamber. I’ll send Mrs. Raleigh to you.”

“But why? There’s nothing for it. This gown won’t change itself into a riding habit.”

“You have known me for nearly twenty-four hours, Evangeline. Have I given you any reason at all to distrust me?”

“No. But on the other hand, you’re a gentleman, and gentlemen have odd notions about ladies’ clothing and—”

He lightly touched a finger to her mouth. “Go,” he said, and she went. “Trust Papa,” Edmund said, but he was looking at his gun, not at her. She wondered if he even knew what they were talking about.

Thirty minutes later, Evangeline made her way down the wide, ornately carved staircase clad in an elegant royal blue riding habit, a plumed riding hat set jauntily over her plaited and pinned hair. She’d stared like an idiot when she’d opened the door to her bedchamber, and there’d been Mrs. Raleigh, holding the beautiful habit in her arms, smiling at her, telling her that it had belonged, naturally, to Marissa. “Indeed, her grace only wore it once, as I remember. It’s from her favorite modiste in London, Madame Fallier.”

“Oh, goodness. Surely I can’t wear my cousin’s riding habit. Besides, it wouldn’t fit. I am much larger than my cousin. No, Mrs. Raleigh, I simply cannot wear my cousin’s riding habit.”

Mrs. Raleigh just shook her head. “Surely you don’t think this was her only riding habit? It is merely the newest one, ordered just months before her death. His grace ordered it altered for you, Madame, early this morning. Unfortunately, I had only enough time to let down the hem. Since her grace’s death, we do not have a seamstress on staff.”

“Three inches,” Evangeline said when she met the duke and Edmund, who was showing Bassick all the finer points of his gun. “Mrs. Raleigh let the hem down three inches. Look, it nearly covers my ankles.” “I see that it does. Ankles would surely overset me. This addition greatly relieves my mind.”

She laid her hand on his arm. “It is very kind of you. Why, you even foresaw that I wouldn’t have a riding habit and you ordered it up. You are too kind, your grace.”

“I can see that more alterations are in order.” He was staring at her breasts. She hunched forward, and he laughed. “No, don’t do that. I suppose Mrs. Raleigh has some ideas on enlarging the jacket at least another five inches?”

“She said that she would have to add material from the skirt. The waist is too tight as well.”

“I hope the skirt has enough extra material to—ah—cover your other parts.” Bassick frowned at the duke and cleared his throat. “You acted very quickly,” she said. “Yes, I tend to act quickly when meticulous deliberation isn’t required.”

She knew he was jesting with her. But she didn’t understand what the jest was, and so she just nodded.

“So that went sailing right over your head, did it? I’m shocked, utterly stunned really, that you don’t understand my impertinent reference, Evangeline. The sainted André, surely he knew about easing into things, about moving forward to the next step only after being completely certain when it was appropriate to move forward?” She stared him down. “He was very deliberate.” “Ah,” he said, lifting his fingers to straighten the dyed blue feather on her riding hat. “I wonder, would you tell me what he was deliberate about?”

She couldn’t think of a single thing. Then she thought of her father’s meticulous housekeeping accounts and said, “André never paid the butcher until he remembered eating every haunch of beef that came from the shop. And that required that Cook keep all her menus, with proper notations. Now, that certainly demonstrates a high level of meticulous deliberation, don’t you agree?” He stared at her, fascinated. “A haunch of beef?” She gav

e him a triumphant look and called out, “Edmund? Are you ready to go? Would you show me all your special paths?”