“He always sounds so dashing to me,” Mrs. Meacham said. “Such a model of fashion and manners.”
Genevieve looked unimpressed. “He sounds like a frivolous wastrel.”
Richard couldn’t restrain a wince, true as her assessment was. She frowned at him in puzzlement, even as Mrs. Meacham launched into a highly colored description of his past escapades and flirtations. All of which only served to paint him as more profligate.
“A man needs to do more with his life than tie a neck cloth to perfection,” Genevieve said repressively.
How Richard longed to defend his real self, but his gut clenched in shame. When he’d set out to become the perfect society gentleman, he’d risen above the foul mire of his parentage. But this particular Phoenix had abandoned his self-respect in the ashes.
Chapter Fifteen
Genevieve was astounded to see the welcome that Mr. Evans received from Mrs. Meacham replayed throughout Little Derrick. She’d always assumed he spent his days with her father or riding the flashy gray thoroughbred that, along with his chestnuts, looked so out of place in their humble stables.
She marched up the village’s single street, past the few shops and the tavern. Behind her trailed Sirius and behind him, whistling and looking hideously pleased with himself, Mr. Evans strolled. He swung her now empty basket as though he hadn’t a care in the world. Which wasn’t quite true. Those reports of Richard Harmsworth’s caperings had upset him. A tightening over his cheekbones. A hint of chill in t
he blue eyes. His reaction intrigued her, given her suspicions that he played the libertine baronet’s cat’s paw.
Which stirred other doubts. It worried her to see a man she mistrusted making friends in the village, although how could she blame the local ladies for succumbing to Mr. Evans’s charm? Even Genevieve found him charming, when she forgot that he was a mendacious snake. She desperately wanted to maintain her anger, if only because it stopped her longing for his kisses. Or at least it should.
She paused at St. Catherine’s. Miss Brown had given her some embroidered hassocks to replace the church’s worn furnishings. “I’ll only be a few minutes,” she said to the man behind her. “Please go ahead.”
She didn’t linger for a reply, but went inside, inhaling the incense-laden coolness. She glanced up at the stained glass window depicting St. Catherine with her palm frond and wheel. From red and gold glory reminiscent of the Harmsworth Jewel, the saint regarded her with disapproval.
“I can’t help it. He annoys me,” Genevieve muttered. Even in the church, she felt hedged in, confined, unable to evade Mr. Evans. Worse, she couldn’t stifle the constant awareness that prickled at her skin and made her blood rush. “Everybody will talk about us.”
Until today, despite Lord Neville’s insinuations, she doubted if even the most avid gossips had suspected Mr. Evans of designs on the vicar’s bluestocking daughter. Now any matrons with matchmaking instincts would be alert for an announcement.
“Can you use your influence to send him away?”
Before I do something I regret. Before I forget that he’s a liar. Before I let him steal my heart as well as whatever else he’s set his sharp eyes on purloining. Before he marks my soul so deeply that I never forget him.
The saint’s face remained cold, untouched by murky mortal concerns. That was once how Genevieve had felt. Before Mr. Evans had disrupted her world. She longed to return to the time when she’d known exactly who she was and what she wanted. Now she was torn between her old desire for independence and the yen to explore the sensual pleasure Mr. Evans offered, whatever disaster that promised.
Tugging her bonnet off, she slid into a back pew and surveyed the empty church. Loving the past as she did, this dim stone space always calmed her. Since the eleventh century, the people of Little Derrick had come here for comfort and counsel and to mark important occasions. Yet today she found neither comfort nor counsel, and Mr. Evans’s larcenous arrival was an occasion she could never mark publicly.
Finding no route through confusion, she sighed and stood. In a matter of minutes, she replaced the old hassocks with the beautiful new ones. Miss Brown was an artist with a needle and her work put Genevieve’s sorry efforts to shame. She wondered if she had the hubris to present the bilious peony cushion to the church. Ostensibly that was her intention, but surely she’d gain more points in heaven if she burned it and scattered the ashes on the vegetable garden.
She took far too long tugging a few wilting flowers from last Sunday’s arrangement. She knew she was hiding. But since Mr. Evans’s arrival, she’d lost so many of her sanctuaries. Her study. The pond. Whenever she set foot in Little Derrick after today, she’d see the humor in his eyes and hear his warm baritone.
It wasn’t fair. Before he’d appeared, she’d been content. She already knew that when he went—as he inevitably would; men of fashion didn’t linger in rural backwaters—he’d leave her fatally unsettled. He made her wish for things she’d never had. He made her resent her narrow life in this isolated village. He made her aware of her body in an extremely improper manner for a woman standing in a church.
Blindly she stared at the carved stone altar, telling herself she could resist him. After she published her article and, if all went to plan, the world lost interest in owning the Harmsworth Jewel, everything would return to normal. She just needed to keep her head and outlast Mr. Evans. He was a patient man—and a kind one, she’d reluctantly noted when he visited her lonely old ladies—but surely he’d tire of this dull village before too long.
She shivered. It was cold in the church, and much as she might like to, she couldn’t skulk in here all day. She wanted to work for a couple of hours. She’d almost finished the article. One last visit to Dr. Partridge at the Ashmolean Museum tomorrow and she was ready to draw the threads together.
The prospect of escaping the vicarage and the village and, above all, the back bedroom’s troublesome tenant, beckoned like a green shore to a drifting ship. Perhaps from a distance, she’d view things differently.
A day away from Mr. Evans. She could hardly wait.
Smiling at St. Catherine, she tied on her shabby straw bonnet. The saint had been generous after all. With a lighter step than she’d managed since the night Mr. Evans had surprised her at the pond, she walked from the church and through the churchyard. To bolster optimism, the clouds broke up and sun lit the grassy area.
She approached the lych-gate with a swing of her skirts, assuring herself that her torments wouldn’t last forever. Life would return to its gentle, even pace and she’d forget whatever madness had possessed her when she’d kissed a rake in the moonlight.
After the brightness outside, the gloom under the lych-gate left her momentarily blind. But sadly not deaf.
“I wondered if you’d sneaked out the back, you took so long.”
Happiness instantly dissolved and the hunted feeling returned. She blinked to accustom her eyes to the dimness and saw Mr. Evans lounging full-length on the wooden bench that ran along the wall of the small stone building. Sirius sat in the corner near his master, still as a statue on a medieval tomb. Mr. Evans cradled her empty basket on his lap.