Chapter 3

CHAPTER 3

Once the door closed behind Basil, Evangeline chuckled to herself. This morning had started out just as dull and dismal as the others since she had come to London. It should have felt different, this day marking one year since her husband's death. The problem was, she did not quite know how to go about feeling different.

Then Basil had come and swept off all the dullness of the day like a ludicrous cyclone bent on making as much mischief as possible. He had changed everything.

She walked to the window overlooking Grosvenor Square and caught sight of him crossing the street. Once on the other side, he turned to look about him before noticing her. His shameless smile spread across his face. He took off his hat and swept an elegant bow to her right there in the street. Evangeline shook her head and chuckled as nearby pedestrians stared at his antics. He took no heed of them. Holding her gaze a moment longer, he turned and headed toward Brook Street .

Evangeline sighed and pressed her lips, looking after him. Her mother had been right. The Continent had changed him.

When he had left on his Grand Tour, before Bonaparte's rampage had desisted all travel, he had been a promising young man. Being a younger son, his father had had great hopes of a career in law for his clever offspring. But Basil had returned from his continental travels (keeping well away from France and madame le Guillotine ) a changed man. Prone to drink, vulgar company, and laughing too much.

Though Evangeline had heard what it was like living abroad and had been told stories of her French cousins by her grandmère, she had never been outside of England and had no wish to. Basil Morley's cautionary tale was not the only one she had heard. Poor man. What could have happened overseas that had turned him into such a wastrel?

She thought of the things he had said to her only moments ago, and a rush of heat swept up her face. It was common knowledge that once a wife had produced an heir, she was free to carry out any extramarital affairs she cared to have, so long as she was discreet about it. But as Basil had said, no one was so discreet that whisperings of who was paired with whom among the Upper Ten Thousand did not make the rounds. Even with that, Basil had somehow known she had never indulged in that pursuit. Had never been permitted, even if she had wished to. Lord Ramsbury had been a very jealous husband.

She had not gone into the marriage, at sixteen, under the delusion that she loved him back—he was too much her senior for such feelings. She had had a duty to her family to make a splendid match as befitted her father's station and stoke the pride his ancient title carried. So, when one such match presented itself so suddenly in the earl's offer, with her barely out of the schoolroom, she did not shirk from her duty.

Once she had grasped the actual intentions of her new husband and the part she was expected to play, the understanding gave her much peace of mind. Quite frankly, the knowledge of his plans had done little to change her everyday life. In his strategies to exact his revenge upon his heir, he had never treated her cruelly. Quite the opposite, much of the time.

She had never found out the particulars of the falling-out between the two men. Ramsbury had never spoken of it and had forbidden her to ask, but it had not been long after her marriage that the whisperings and gossip in town informed her that his reaction to the final row between the cousin who was to inherit and himself had been so visceral that he had lost no time in finding a young wife to put as many heirs between him and his next in line as possible. But to say that he was fond of her , and not the part of pawn she played, was a pill she was not fool enough to swallow.

Ramsbury had made it clear to her that if she was ever caught in any extramarital enterprise, she would never see her children again. She was his wife. He would not share her with anyone else, no matter how many sons she gave him.

The warning had been unnecessary. From her infancy, she had been bred to obey. Rebellion or selfishness of any kind had not been tolerated if the good family name, first of her father's, then her husband's, would suffer. Reputation was everything, and Lord Ramsbury had been a man very puffed-up in his own self-consequence. He had named his first son and daughter Henry and Henrietta, for goodness' sake.

Have you never wondered ?

Foolish man. What did Basil know of struggle? When had he had to choose between his happiness and the happiness of those dearest to him? Any inclination that took his fancy was his to indulge in whenever he chose. And he chose to indulge frequently, if the accounts were true. All her life, Evangeline had had to say no to this and no to that. Refusing Basil's outrageous proposal had been easy enough, but it was still just another no.

No, no, no…

She stilled, her eyes, still taking in the scenes of the street, glazed over as an epiphany struck her. Slowly, she refocused her gaze to her own reflection, barely visible in the glass. She opened her mouth. "I can say, ‘ no .'"

She had no managing, irritable husband now. Her parents could not bully her into doing what they thought best for her. Not anymore. Not if she did not let them. She was thirty-three years old with sixteen years of marriage behind her.

And now she was alone.

She looked past her reflection to the square again and she caught the movement of her children playing. Little Gregory, seven years old, saw her across the square and waved enthusiastically to her before charging after one of his older brothers.

A tiny smile crept into the corners of her mouth as her eyes narrowed in determination. "I can say ‘no!'" she cried.

"What are you talking about?"

Evangeline whirled around. She had not heard her mother come in.

"Evangeline how could you have lost track of time. What did that Morley boy want with you? Now we are late. Evangeline, what is it? Why do you look so queer? What has he done to you?"

What had he done? Basil had unwittingly shown her just how much power she had in the word ‘no.'

She faced her mother, head high, shoulders back. "Mama. I am not going to Mrs. Audley's. She is dull and stuffy, and if she says anything at all to me, it is always something critical and I am in no humor to stand it today. I will not go. You will make my excuses, if you please."

Lady Bancroft's face stiffened and turned an alarming shade of red. "Evangeline, how dare you say such things? You will certainly go. She is expecting us. Stop being nonsensical. Has Morley driven you mad?"

Evangeline laughed as she strode past her mother. "We shall soon find out. I am not going to Mrs. Audley's. I wish to play with my children. It is just the thing I need this morning. Not to sit indoors sipping tea, striving to mind my manners."

"Evangeline! You are coming with me."

Evangeline turned in the doorway. "No," she said firmly before her voice was captured by a string of giddy laughter as she sallied forth out of the room and up the stairs.

Some minutes later, leaving a bewildered Dobbs to shake her head over her mistress's state, Evangeline came down again dressed in her sapphire blue ballgown. She held her biggest fan in one hand (encased in a short glove of yellow kid) and an unopened umbrella in the other hand (encased in one of her best evening gloves, reaching up past her elbow). An ornate necklace of emeralds adorned her breast, clashing with the blue of her dress. Several ostrich plumes, pinned hastily into her hair, floated and waved through the air as she swept across the entry hall and out the door without so much as a spencer or shawl. In a matter of only a few steps, she marched into the garden in the center of Grosvenor Square and called out to her children .

Henry and Henrietta, fifteen and thirteen respectively, stared at her. "Mama," Henry said. "What on earth are you doing?"

"Why are you dressed like that?" Henrietta asked, already aware of the stares Evangeline was accruing from onlookers. Miss Pitt and Haney looked as shocked as the children.

"I found I was in desperate need of some air and a walk with my darlings. Will you all take a turn or two with me? Henry? Ettie? What do you say?" Evangeline asked.

Henry and Ettie looked at each other then back at their mother with some hesitation. "No?" Evangeline asked. She turned to her five younger children. "What do you say, my sweets?"

A chorus of yesses from Charlotte, Simon, Gregory, William, and Adele met her delighted ears. "Excellent!" she cried. "Then follow me."

"Can I hold your fan, Mama?" twelve-year-old Charlotte asked.

" May I," Evangeline said before Miss Pitt could correct Charlotte herself.

"May I hold your fan, please?"

The fan was handed over.

"I want the umbrella!" ten-year-old Simon cried, already reaching for it.

"No, I want it!" yelled a seven-year-old Gregory.

"You shall share it. Gregory for one turn and Simon for the other. Shall I open it for you? Yes, I shall."

Gregory laughed. "Open it? Mama, it is not raining."

"More's the pity. Now, once again, follow me. And after this, we are packing and going back to Amsbrook first thing tomorrow."

And so, Evangeline Payne, Countess of Ramsbury, mistress of Sherbourne Abbey, paraded around the garden with her five willing children in tow while Henry and Ettie looked on, clearly embarrassed, but with laughter and wonder in their eyes. Evangeline cared not a jot for what her neighbors and other onlookers were thinking as they stared at the strange procession. They must have thought she had lost her head. Perhaps they made their own conclusions about the state of her marriage with this demonstration on the day she was out of mourning.

Did it matter to her?

No. No!

Basil Morley, bless the man, had shown her what had been right in front of her all along. He had helped her realize what she truly was. A creature almost as mythical and elusive as a unicorn.

She was a wealthy, young, widow.