“Your brothers mentioned some menial who’d gotten ideas far above his station. I understood it came to naught.”

He let the words hang between them while he nuzzled her temple and waited.

“I made a complete, bleating fool of myself, Deene. I jeopardized everything and everybody I loved. No young lady was ever as stupid as I, or so lucky to escape the worst consequences of her folly.”

“You were very young, as I understand it. I cannot begin to tell you the idiocies I committed when I was very young. I should be dead several times over, of drink, of stupidity, of excess.”

In his arms, he felt her relax fractionally. He might not have said the exact right thing, but neither had he said the wrong thing.

“You are such a comfort to me, Husband. I should tell you this more often.”

Deene propped his chin on her crown. “You are a comfort to me as well, Evie. I used to abhor rainy days, for example, and now I enjoy them even though you keep me preoccupied with things like ledgers, accounts, and other inescapable duties.”

She extricated herself from his arms. “Duties? Duties only, Deene?”

He nodded, his expression solemn—until she hit him with a pillow and started tickling him.

* * *

Eve endured a kiss to her cheek, and then a slow, thorough perusal from her brother-in-law, Joseph, Lord Kesmore. He sat beside his wife for two cups of tea, and then bowed to Eve in parting, muttering something about having to see to the horses.

“Louisa, did you or did you not somehow just give your spouse permission to withdraw?”

Louisa paused in the middle of chewing on a tea cake. “Give Kesmore permission? You must joking. He does as he pleases, and I am happy to have it so, that I might enjoy the same license. What shall I report to Their Graces regarding your situation here, Evie? Is Deene acquitting himself adequately?”

Oh, the reports. No doubt Anna had made one, and soon Sophie and her baron would be dropping by, followed by Maggie and the entire world.

“You may tell all and sundry that I thrive in my husband’s care.” This was nothing less than the truth. Eve glanced at the door, which Kesmore had closed upon his departure. “Louisa, might I ask you something?”

“Of course. Excellent cakes, by the way.”

Which were fast disappearing. “Does Kesmore… study you?”

“Study me?”

“Study your person? Examine you in detail?” When Louisa looked blank, Eve shifted her gaze to the fire crackling in the hearth. “Does he acquaint himself with the details of you… with the candles lit?”

There was no hiding Eve’s blush, but neither was there any disguising Louisa’s grin. “Oh, to be sure, though when I take a notion to study him, the curtains are drawn back, there being a deal of Kesmore to study, him being such a handsome specimen.”

Louisa and… Kesmore.

Studying each other.

“Merciful heavens.”

“Maggie sometimes has to tie Benjamin to the bed, for he’s not inclined to be docile about it when it’s his turn to be studied. I expect Sindal is a more obedient sort of husband. Somehow asking Sophie directly is beyond me, but she has that rosy, well-examined look about her sometimes. Makes a lady feel wickedly special when her husband takes such an interest.”

Wickedly special. Louisa had the right of it. Not just wicked, but wickedly special. “Deene says he is making a science of being my husband.”

“Good for Deene, and good for you, Evie Denning. We worried for you.”

For just an instant, Louisa’s teasing smile slipped, and Eve had to wonder exactly how much her sisters suspected regarding her past. “You need not worry. I am happily married, and I daresay my husband is too.”

“Usually works that way. Where is this husband of yours, by the way? I think Kesmore was looking forward to interrogating him.”

“I expect him back from Town momentarily. Deene is ferociously determined to gain control of the marquessate’s finances, and this requires much in the way of meetings with his cousin Anthony and what I gather are armies of solicitors, merchants, and factors. He’s offered to take me shopping.”

Why she felt she had to add this, Eve did not know.

“He wants to show you off, then, but mind you, he’ll also be spying.” Louisa spoke with great confidence.

“Spying? On me?” That did not sound promising at all. “Why?”

“He’ll lurk in the corner of the shop and watch as you make your selections. He’ll see what you linger over, what you almost purchase, what you consider giving to someone else as a gift but not for yourself. Next thing you know, there will be a little box beside your bed one night or at your place when you come down for breakfast.”

“Kesmore indulges in such activities?”

“Joseph is the most generous man I know. I’m hard put to keep up with him when it comes to the doting and spoiling, but one contrives lest a husband get to feeling smug.”

To think of Louisa—managing, competent, brisk Louisa—being doted upon and spoiled… it warmed Evie’s heart toward her taciturn, unsmiling brother-in-law, and toward Louisa too.

And while she was about it, such thoughts warmed her heart toward Deene as well.

“Come with me, Louisa. I must show you what Deene found for me not two weeks past. It is the best thing ever, though it would not fit in a box to place by my bed.”

Evie rose and took her sister’s arm, steering Louisa toward the door.

“Eve Denning, is that a divided skirt you’re wearing? I haven’t seen you in such a costume since Jenny made one for you years ago.”

“This is the one Jenny made for me, and before you ask, yes. I ride out regularly, provided Deene is with me. That’s part of the surprise.”

Louisa stopped just inside the parlor door. “Did I hear you aright? You’re riding out? Not just driving out? Climbing aboard a horse and trotting around?”

“And cantering, and the day before yesterday, we galloped and even hopped two logs. Why?”

“Bless this wonderful, wonderful day. Westhaven said I was being a ninnyhammer, and for once I cannot mind that he was right. At long last, my baby sister once again rides out.”

Standing right there in the parlor, in full view of the footman across the corridor, Louisa, the Countess of Kesmore, threw her arms around Eve’s neck and burst into tears.

* * *

“If our wives have been weeping when next we see them, you must not remark it.” Kesmore kept his voice down, but the man’s characteristic diffidence was nowhere in his tone.

“Whyever would they weep?” The thought of Eve weeping was alarming, though Deene kept his expression calm as they ambled up the barn aisle.

“I have reason to suspect my wife is with child, and no less personages than Westhaven himself, seconded by Sindal, St. Just, Hazelton, Lord Valentine Windham, and His Grace have assured me a penchant for lachrymosity is to be expected even in such a bastion of sense as my estimable Louisa.”

“Is there a married fellow whom you have not canvassed on the matter?”

“You, for obvious reasons.”

“Eve doesn’t cry much.” Except sometimes, deep in the night, when they’d made a particularly tender kind of love, and then she clung and wanted to be held securely until she dropped off to sleep in Deene’s embrace.

And he wanted to hold her.

Kesmore glanced over sharply. “Your wife had best not be crying on your worthless account, Deene. My lady would take it amiss, and you do not want such a thing on your conscience, presuming you survived the thrashing I would be bound to mete out.”

“Marriage has made you quite ferocious, Kesmore.”

Kesmore paused outside a roomy foaling stall. “On behalf of a woman I care about, I will always be capable of ferocity. See that you recall this should you ever be inclined toward the wrong sort of weak moment. This mare is new, but what is she doing in a foaling stall when she’s neither gravid nor boasting a foal at her side?”

Kesmore was not a charming man, something Deene was coming to like about his brother-in-law more and more. “This is Eve’s mare, and she will always merit the very best care we have to offer.”

“This is a mature animal.” Kesmore was a former cavalry officer, gone for a country gentleman sort of earl who rode regularly to hounds. He extended a gloved hand toward the mare, who sniffed delicately at his knuckles. “She’s in good condition—I suppose she’s come off a winter hunting?”

“She is, and Eve takes her out almost daily. So what have you heard in the clubs about your new brother-in-law’s licentious nature?”

“Not one word, if you must know. I have swilled indifferent wine by the hour, read every page of every newspaper, and all but lurked at keyholes, and I have heard not one thing to your detriment, save that you are unfashionably enamored of your new wife. The suppositions are that you are tending to the succession and dodging all the disappointed debutantes. I saw no reason to disabuse anybody of such notions.”

The mare went back to her hay. “I am enamored of my new wife.”

“I am in transports to hear it. Likely she is as well.”

Deene turned and hooked his elbows over the mare’s half door. “I wasn’t aware a man bruited such sentiments about, or is this another aspect of domestic life about which I am too newly married to be knowledgeable?”

Kesmore looked like he might be considering parting with a smile in a few weeks time, provided the weather held fair. “You’ll learn. They teach us, no matter we’re slow to absorb the lesson. Make the first time count, though.”

“The first time?”