Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Nineteen

The Marquis and Marchioness spent the night at the Marston’s house after all the merriment went into the small hours. Deirdre expressed immense pleasure that all her children were back under the same roof, safe and sound, and it brought a sense of ease and contentment that ran deep. The next morning, after breakfast, Deirdre called a small meeting in the morning parlor, where the sun shone in and warmed the room, bathing it in soft, early light. Deirdre sat on a sofa with Ariane on one side and Patrice on the other, Rowan and Samira shared a chair that was, ostensibly, built for one, and Evangelina sat by Ezekiel’s side on a loveseat.

Evangelina squirmed slightly – she’d never been requested to sit down with a Marchioness, a Dowager Viscountess, and a Viscountess, even if they were her sister-in-law, mother-in-law, and sister, respectively. She couldn’t help but feel she was being sat down to discuss some issue, some deficiency, in herself. Zeke gave her leg a reassuring pat.

“I cannot tell you how relieved and overjoyed we all are to have you back,” said Deirdre Marston.

“I think similarly to how glad we are to be back,” Zeke said a bit wryly.

“Yes,” his mother smiled. “Well, now that you are, I think it is time to consider what next steps need to be taken.”

“I completely agree,” Zeke said. “It is dangerous for the Earl to still be out and about in the world, even if we have heard nothing of him since. Perhaps more so, since we cannot keep tabs on him if he’s gone to ground.”

“I completely agree with you, Brother,” said Rowan, his hand moving in long, delicate strokes up and down Samira’s arm. “However, that is not the meeting we are having at the moment. It is the one you and I shall have with Conway directly afterward.”

Zeke cocked a brow and surveyed the assembly of women around him. “Then what, pray tell, is this little congregation about?”

“Public opinion,” Ariane stated simply.

“God save us all,” mumbled Zeke.

Evangelina tried not to smile at his comment. She was a mess of nerves, everything from the Earl and his dangers to that of society’s own pitfalls; at that moment, she was hardly sure which was the more significant.

“There were a few expressions of…surprise at the news of the marriage,” said Deirdre. “Which is not a great shock and to be expected, but it should perhaps be addressed.”

“And how do we address it?” asked Zeke, twining his fingers with Evangelina’s.

She loved the feel of his hands in hers. Evangelina loved his hands, strong and graceful, powerful and delicate, able to wield a pistol or a paintbrush, to touch her roughly or sweetly as her body demanded. Her face heated at the thought, and as though Zeke could feel her thinking, he glanced over to her, which only made her blush worsen.

Ariane’s chipper tone broke Evangelina of her temporary reverie. “With a ball of course!”

Zeke snorted, his attention diverted from Evangelina, but with his hand still in hers. “Of course. That is this family’s solution for everything, is it not?”

“It is a wonderful way to show everyone that our family is extremely proud of the match, Ezekiel,” said Dierdre, a bit chiding. “You and Evangelina will be the guests of honor.”

“When do you think we should have this little – or, I assume, not very little – event?” asked Zeke.

“Two weeks,” announced Dierdre.

Zeke glanced to Evangelina again, this time his look not making her blush but instead making her go white. “What do you think, my dear?”

Evangelina’s jaw hinged open, but she struggled to produce any words. “I–well…”

She glanced around her, Samira nodding encouragingly, Ariane and Deirdre waiting patiently, Rowan distracted by the feel of Samira’s skin under his fingertips.

“I’m certain whatever you have planned is perfect,” said Evangelina quickly.

She was sure that was true, but she felt unsettled, out of control. After such an experience where she had no say in even what was happening to her own body, she yearned for agency. Evangelina looked to Zeke, but he was seemingly distracted now, glancing to Rowan as the other man, finally and likely quite briefly pulled from his addiction to Evangelina’s sister, looked up to meet his brother’s eye.

Zeke nodded in the direction of their mother. “Very well. I shall leave you ladies to the planning. Rowan?”

Zeke stood abruptly and moved from the room, Rowan planting a kiss on Samira’s forehead and walking quickly out after his brother.

“Well,” said Deirdre briskly. “Now that the menfolk are gone, I suppose we should get started.”

Evangelina agreed, but watched the door a long moment as it closed behind the men. Her stomach twisted, wondering what they were saying on the other side, and bristling that she was not there with them.

Zeke paced back and forth in the hall as Rowan joined him.

“You are not pleased with the plan?” asked Rowan, observing his brother’s agitation.

“I am not pleased that there is a madman about who abducted my wife, shot me, and would likely do even worse if he got the chance purely for the sake of revenge,” Zeke hissed.

Rowan breathed deeply. “Listen, I know you’re angry, but anger doesn’t help. Not right now.”

Zeke narrowed his eyes. “What the hell do you mean?”

Rowan rubbed his chin, leaning close to his brother. “Conway and I have a plan, or, at least, the makings of one. Come with me.”

Zeke followed as Rowan led him back to his study, their glasses from the night before cleaned up by an industrious and quick staff. Conway was waiting, his boots up on Rowan’s desk, which Rowan pointedly ignored.

“You say you have a plan?” demanded Zeke, not waiting for formalities.

“We’re going to use the ball the ladies are talking about right now to draw Claymore out,” explained the Marquis.

“Draw him out?” Zeke cocked a brow. “What for?”

Rowan leveled a cool look at his brother. “So we can kill him.”

Evangelina squirmed in her seat once more. Under normal circumstances, she would have relished all the talk of color palettes and guest lists, of gowns and music, of food and drink. It would have been a dream come true, but she could not help but think of how Zeke had rushed out and how Rowan had followed, the ominousness of Rowan’s promise that they would talk about how to address the problem of the Earl next. While she was stuck in the drawing room talking about a ball, her husband and the men of the family were presumably making important decisions that held her very life in the balance. The anxiety, the frustration, built and built inside her. She knew she had a choice; she could shut off the valve and block it out, remain passive and help with the discussion of what flowers to have at the event, or she could let the feelings flow, and she could take action. Finally, Evangelina stood from her seat, in the middle of the Marchioness talking, which Evangelina knew was incredibly rude, but she could no longer take it.

“Excuse me,” she said, then rushed from the room.

Evangelina hurried into the hall and got about a quarter of the way down it when Samira called out to her, rushing from the room at her heels.

“Eva, where are you going?” asked Samira.

Evangelina turned. “To find my husband.”

Samira walked toward her while Evangelina stayed in the same place. “He’s with Rowan and Conway.”

“Yes, I’m aware,” said Evangelina, a bit curtly. “Talking about the Earl, who kidnapped me, tried to sell me, and shot my husband.”

Samira reached out and gently squeezed Evangelina’s arm. “I am sorry, my sweet darling. I know it has been taxing for you–”

Evangelina jerked her arm back. “Do you know what they’re planning?”

Samira pursed her lips, a flash of confusion in her eyes. “Yes.”

“I thought as much,” Evangelina said with a small scoff. There was no way Samira Acharya – Samira Marston, the Viscountess – was going to sit blithely by while her husband planned anything. Of course she knew.

“Do not worry about it, my sweet sister,” said Samira, her smile small and soft. “We will take care of everything.”

Evangelina could count on one hand the times she had been truly angry with her sister, and this was most certainly one of them. With a furious huff, she turned on her heels and stomped on toward Rowan’s study. Without knocking, she threw open the door and found the three men inside, huddled together in conspiratorial fashion. All of them looked up at her upon her entrance, eyes similarly wide.

“I am not a child!” cried Evangelina by way of greeting. “I do not need to be shielded from this as you all apparently think I must be.”

Samira entered the room in the middle of the sentence, and Evangelina turned to her sister. “I know you think you are protecting me, but you are not. All of you –” she looked back at Rowan, and at Zeke in particular then. “You kept from me the realities of the danger I was in, and if I would have known the truth, I never would have stepped away from Carson. The blame lies only at the Earl’s feet, but it never would have been possible for him if you all had been honest with me.”

To his credit, Rowan dropped his gaze, hanging his head in clear understanding of her words. Zeke kept his gaze trained on Evangelina, as if he could not look away.

“And now, you do it again! You rush off to your secret meeting where you can make plans that affect my life,” said Evangelina forcefully. “You make me a pawn in the game of my own existence, and I shall not have it.”

“You are right,” said Zeke, jarring Evangelina to her core. His words, soft and strong in sharp contrast to her own, loud and quavering, cut through the haze of anger and fear that surrounded her. “Come here, and we’ll tell you what we have planned.”

“Samira, will you shut the door?” asked Rowan.

Samira pulled the door closed behind her and with the click of the latch, they were all sealed inside.

“This is a lovely spot to sit and think.”

Samira’s voice broke through Evangelina’s silent musings, and she welcomed it. She turned to her sister’s approach and smiled, patting the stone bench beside her. Samira was indeed right; the place in the garden Evangelina found was a secluded little alcove with a bench that provided just the perfect amount of privacy but did not make one feel totally isolated.

“I’m glad I found you,” said Samira, sitting beside her sister. “We haven’t gotten much chance to talk yet, given everything.”

Evangelina nodded. “It has been quite a lot.”

Returns from kidnapping, pregnancy announcements, murder plots. Indeed, there seemed to be no small things the sisters had been dealing with.

“How are you feeling?” asked Evangelina.

Samira laughed. “Shouldn’t I be asking you that?”

“I’m not the one with child,” Evangelina countered, then stilled. “I don’t think.”

“Well, it’s not official yet, but other than a bit of queasiness in the mornings, I am doing quite well,” Samira put her hand on her stomach. “But, Eva…you said you do not think you are, so it might be possible that you’re with child? That is, you and Ezekiel have…?”

Evangelina flushed, but could not keep the small smile from her face. “We have.”

“You seem pleased,” Samira observed.

“I certainly am,” agreed Evangelina. “I told you about everything I went through after I was taken, about Zeke saving me, nearly dying for me. I didn’t know I could feel so much for a person than when he rescued me.”

Samira pursed her lips. “Sometimes gratitude and love can feel very close together, Chintu.”

Evangelina huffed. “That is not what I mean, Sam.”

Her sister only waited, and Evangelina went on. “I did not start those feelings when he saved me, and when I felt them strongest, it was when we were alone, when the danger was past, and he was good to me. Zeke cares for me as a person, cares for my spirit and soul as well as my mind and body. When I reach for what I want, I find it is only him.”

Samira smiled then. “Well, it seems you have found your knight in shining armor after all.”

“It seems so,” Evangelina smiled in answer. “I know it is different than I might have envisioned, but I am happy, Samira.”

Taking Evangelina’s hand in hers, she squeezed it softly. “I am so very glad to hear it. After everything going the way it has, I was afraid you might not be.”

“Rest assured,” said Evangelina. “I am happy. I will be happier when all this nasty business with the Earl is behind us, but as long as I have Zeke and you and Mama, I will count myself the luckiest of women.”

“You are very good, my dear,” Samira said. “I have missed you so much.”

Evangelina smiled, tucking herself into her big sister’s side as Samira wrapped an arm around Evangelina. “I missed you, too.”

They were silent a moment, absorbing the simple peace of being together.

Finally, Evangelina cocked her chin up to look at Samira. “So, I heard you and Rowan broke into the Earl of Claymore’s safe.”

Samira winced. “Callista needs to keep her mouth shut.”

Evangelina shrugged. “Well, I find her supremely helpful, especially when I discover my dear sister is an extremely talented thief, and she never told me!”

“Oh,” said Samira quietly. “Yes, I suppose that is true.”

It was obvious that Samira felt very awkward about it all, that she was not sure how to talk to Evangelina as an equal. It frustrated Evangelina deeply, but she did understand how things were difficult when change occurred, that negotiating a relationship that had fundamentally shifted was not an easy thing.

“Sister, I know you have spent my whole life protecting me, being the one who made sure we were safe and well,” said Evangelina. “But I am not a child any longer, and as much as Zeke and Rowan needed to learn that, so do you. I will always need my big sister, but not in the same way. You may come to me with thoughts and ills, with problems and fears, as I have always come to you. In fact, I would very much like you to do that.”

Samira nodded slowly. “We are in a brave new world.”

“That we are,” agreed Evangelina. “And that does mean you must let me negotiate my own life. While I appreciate all you’ve done to protect me, you must be honest with me.”

Samira swallowed hard. “I can do that.”

“Good,” Evangelina wrapped her arms around her sister and hugged her tightly. “I love you.”

“I love you, Evangelina,” Samira kissed Evangelina’s cheek, and the sisters held each other a long while, then sat together, in each other’s company, for longer.

Later that day, Evangelina stood in the dressmaker’s shop, turning this way and that as the modiste held up different fabrics. They were beautiful, midnight blues, lovely, spring greens, gorgeous, pale purples, deep, scintillating crimsons, but none caught her. Evangelina knew she would need to draw every eye at the ball, and she would have to be the diamond she had always dreamed of being, if their plan was to work.

“What about something silver?” asked Evangelina. “Do you have something that could make me shine?”

Madame Seraphine’s eyes glittered. “Indeed I can! I will make you look like a shining jewel, a star fallen to earth.”

Evangelina smiled. “Perfect.”

As Evangelina waited, she tried to ease the coil of nerves in her stomach. She thought over everything they had told her that day, the “plan” that seemed to hinge on a lot of ifs. If the Earl showed up, if they could get him before he got her, if he wasn’t simply deranged enough to start hurting people in the middle of the party…

“It will be a taunt that’s impossible for him not to answer,” Rowan had explained that morning. “A grand ball for the happy couple, and in his eyes, what was stolen from him being celebrated.”

Evangelina knew that things had to end, that they could not go on indefinitely with all of them looking over their shoulders to make sure the Earl wasn’t hiding in every dark alley to snatch her, to kill Zeke. But pushing Claymore seemed equally foolish; when an animal was backed into a corner, that was when they were the most dangerous.

“Here we are!” said the happy, lilting voice of the modiste as she came back into the room, returning Evangelina to the present moment.

When Madame Seraphine displayed the fabric for her, it was indeed perfect. She wrapped it around Evangelina’s body, and Eva could see it become the incomparable gown. Her mind unfolded the possibilities, the glorious feel of the fabric swirling around her as she danced in Zeke’s arms, the stunned looks of the crowd, and in them, a pair of cold, animalistic yellow eyes seeking her destruction. She shuddered, pushing the thought away.

“Yes,” Evangelina breathed. “It is perfect.”

Madame Seraphine was deeply pleased, and she quickly issued orders to her shop girls. In a moment, she turned back to Evangelina.

“Shall I make something special underneath for you, Mrs. Marston?” the modiste’s eyes glinted.

Evangelina flushed. “No, no. That is not strictly necessary any longer, if you catch my meaning.”

Madame Seraphine smiled coyly. “Oh, I knew that. It is written all over you when you walked in. You are a well-loved wife indeed.”

Evangelina’s cheeks stained crimson under her soft, tawny complexion, and Madame Seraphine’s smile widened.

“I see I am right,” she winked. “But it does not have to be a necessity, lady. It is about luxury, about how it makes you feel.”

Evangelina caught her lip between her teeth, the wheels turning in her mind. She had taken a great stride today in proving she was not the child they all thought her, not the child she so often thought herself. But that was a long process, not something that changed with one decision.

“That would be much appreciated, Madame Seraphine,” Evangelina nodded.

Madame Seraphine’s smile was bright as she moved away. It wasn’t as though Evangelina needed to seduce her husband exactly, but she did have a plan, and a garment of the kind this modiste specialized in would help quite nicely.