He rose out of his chair in a moment, his arms around her, his lips in her hair, as she surrendered to his touch.
“I want to go, Evan.” She lifted her face to his, her eyes beseeching him, her lips on his, yearning to be far away, and quickly so. “Let’s go home.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
April 30, 1806
16 South Audley Street
Mayfair, London
Inès awoke alone the two days after Evan and she had arrived in London. She stretched, satisfied with the sound sleep she had had. They had received a courier from Dover who had come with a letter from Bordeaux. It was in code, dated two weeks ago, and from Rafe Durham. Zephora was recovering well. He would bring her to England soon.
The lack of specifics was acceptable, given the circumstances. How Rafe had even gotten a letter out of France astounded both Evan and her. That they had survived was an accomplishment. Even Luc, who had arrived in London last week and was living in rooms he had taken near St. James’s, was amazed that the five of them had done so well to escape.
She would never get over their collective good luck.
A hand to her rounded stomach had her smiling. It was a perpetual smile these days…and it was time to discuss it with her husband.
After devouring the eggs on the breakfast tray that Mary had brought to her, she went to push aside the newspaper there,then paused to read the first article. The government had found it seemly to approach the French with an offer of negotiations. The death of William Pitt had brought a new group to power in the government, Evan had told her yesterday, who continually tried to make peace with Bonaparte.
“That will never work,” he’d said.
Inès had agreed.
French ambitions on the Continent were at an all-time high. They wanted everything, the world. With their new laws that allowed for anyone’s arrest without cause and their extension of slavery in their territories, she knew they would not win. French spies did not sail home simply because a few government officials thought it best to talk to their longstanding enemy.
She wondered if Faucon still roamed the British Isles. La Mère was gone. Perhaps even mourned by her colleague.Evan had assured Inès that he still employed guards for her.
“No one will take you from me ever again,” he’d promised, and she believed every word.
So she turned her thoughts to her mission of the morning. She found her heavy wool robe and slippers, then went in search of the man she longed to see.
She found him on the first floor in his study.
“Have you eaten?” she asked when she rounded the open doorway.
He beamed at her, handsome fellow that he was. “I did. And you?”
“I finished but wanted good company and discovered I must search for it.”
“Well,” he said as he rose, pushed back his large wooden chair, and rounded his desk, “I wonder if I might qualify.”
She twiddled his loosely tied cravat and let her gaze dance into his. “You are the only one who does.”
“Madam,” he said with a hand over his heart, “I am honored.”
She took his hand and put it to her own heart. “Come walk with me in the long gallery, will you?”
After they were married, Inès had often come up to walk this specific hall and view the Earl of Halsey’s long gallery filled with family portraits. When she had been in others’ homes, she had marveled just as often at the ancestral lineage and many portraits of the families of Kane, Earl of Ashley, and Godfrey DuClare, Viscount Ramsey. Today, however, she wished once more to walk among those who were her husband’s progenitors.
“Do you think any of these fellows good looking?” Evan had stopped before a large picture of three men, one older than the other two and all clearly her husband’s ancestors, of noble nose, wide jaw, and broad shoulders.
“Stunning,” she told him, and danced backward. “But one back here, I really love.”
He followed her, the smile on his face the one she had hoped to see first thing upon awakening this morning. “Oh, no. Not him!”
“Him!” She stood before the one in lavish lace and blue and gold silks, a cavalier whose nameplate declared he wasRakehell, Rascal and Thief! Reginald Gaylord Mannerly, 3rd Earl of Halsey. 1632-1699.
