Back in Hop Gardens, the beverage had smelled weak and ashy, but in dreamland the heat of its rich perfumed scent tantalised her nostrils.
Sweet and strong with a hint of…clove?
That was odd. And she hoisted one eyelid.
A steaming cup of tea in the daintiest chinaware she had ever come across hovered below her nose.
Clasping the fragile handle was a substantial masculine hand. Blearily, she followed it to a neat starched cuff, billowing shirt sleeve and then a bared throat.
All she could do was goggle.
Casper sat on the side of the bed, hair damp and jaw shaved. Every inch a duke, whilst she’d been drooling on her pillow… One eye still glued shut… Naked.
“Blugh,” she managed.
“I shall leave you to wake.” He grinned. “Drink your tea, I’ll return in one quarter of an hour.” After placing the cup by the bed, he sauntered from the chamber.
Evelyn yawned. Then…
Threw back the coverlet, moving as though the bed were afire. She ran to the water closet, scrubbed her face with a cloth, swallowed half the tooth powder she found in a cupboard, yanked a brush through her hair, checked the clock, swatted rose water over her skin, sneezed, threw on a spare robe, checked the clock again, straightened the bed, found three diamonds, blushed, threw herself in, breathed deep, smoothed her brow to serene and seized her tea.
The clock chimed its quarter and the door swung open.
A girl could never be late with Casper as beau.
He bore a tray with buttered toast, pots of jam and more tea.
“I thought,” she said, as he settled upon the bed and she dived upon the toast, “we could discuss matters in the rear parlour.”
Casper played with an errant curl upon her shoulder. It was most distracting.
“I wish to talk here. Parlours are for staid conversation and separate chairs. Besides which, it’s smokier than the Gunpowder Plot down there.”
Oh.
Appearing far too handsome this morning in her most humble opinion, he filched a piece of toast to spread marmalade upon it, and she knew he was giving her time to gather her thoughts and speak, but those thoughts were still a hubbub of misgivings and reflections.
“I tried so hard to find a way out.”
His gaze flicked up. “I know you did.”
She shifted the tray to one side, took his broad hand within hers. “After Father died, we sold all we owned and moved to cheaper lodgings, then cheaper still. I found work and we about managed… But then Artemisia became so sick, and the coal never seemed to heat that attic. All my wages went on food and rent. I tried so hard and yet it was never enough, and we sank further and further.”
“Did your father leave no provision?”
Evelyn shook her head. “He left only debt. Papa spent well when money flowed and times were good, but he never considered the morrow. He wasn’t selfish, just…”
“Thoughtless,” Casper murmured. “My father never even spent well, just lost and lost and lost. Until there was nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“The Rothwell coffers weren’t merely empty when I came to the title, but rotten through. The day following his interment in the mausoleum, I had servants demanding wages, tailors with their bills, mistresses wanting severance pay and gambling vowels from every nobleman in town. We were destitute.”
She stroked that aristocratic chin. Full of admiration that he’d built his empire from naught, strengthened and shored its foundations with gold till it groaned beneath the weight.
“When Artemisia became ill, I even… I went to beg Mama’s family for help, but they said Mama had made her bed and must lie in it, her daughters to suffer the consequences.”
Casper swore, hand tightening upon hers.
