Page 77 of Evie and Louis: The Story so Far

“I know,” she said, smiling at him.

“Evie,” he said, lowering his voice and her heart beat faster as her anxiety returned. “I know ye are not in love with me. The truth is, I’m nae in love with you either, but I like ye a good deal. I think love could come, for we’re friends already. I think we suit, and I reckon we could be happy together, if ye gave me a chance. I’ll nae ask ye the question now, for I know you’ve doubts. ’Tis only natural. But I will ask ye, and soon. So, I’d like ye to have a think about it. A very serious think about it.”

He drew out the ‘r’ in ‘very,’ and she realised she liked his accent a good deal. It was rough, warm, and charming. So very different from another man, another accent. His words would be clever and seductive, so dreadfully sophisticated. Far more knowing and worldly than she could ever hope to be. She could handle Muir, she knew where she stood with him, and what to expect. He was not an unknown quantity, did not have secrets and a past which haunted him. He would be simple and direct and so much easier.

“Will ye do that for me, Evie, love?”

Evie, love. Would that be his endearment for her? Would he call her that with affection and a warm look in his eyes? Ma petite. Muir did not love her, and she did not love him. The trouble was, she did not know if anyone else loved her, or why on earth they wanted her, or if she had a chance of holding onto a man like that, because who could hold him? No one she’d ever seen. Beautiful women had come and gone, far more beautiful than her, and he’d never cared, not for one of them.

She blinked hard.

“Evie? Have I made ye cry?”

She shook her head, swallowing hard. “No. No, of course not. I… I am very honoured, Muir, and I shall think about it seriously, I promise. Very seriously indeed. You have my word.”

19th June 1842, Fort William, The Highlands, Scotland.

After a considerable perusal of all the fabrics on offer, Louis selected three different swatches—royal blue, fuchsia, and a deep, lush purple—and presented them to Lady Balderston, who looked at them with an expression that dithered between avaricious desire and doubt.

“They’re rather bright,” she said, and Louis heard the quaver of vulnerability. “I never wear bright colours anymore.”

“I know,” Louis replied, watching her steadily. She had worn nothing but dull greys and the occasional greyish lilac since he’d arrived. He placed her somewhere about seventy years, but she was still a handsome woman, straight and proud, with a slender frame and thick white hair. She’d been a beauty once, until life had ripped the heart from her. “But if your husband loved you as much as you loved him, he would want you to celebrate life, to show the world the beautiful and formidable woman who loved him so well, in all her glory. He would be proud of that, I think. I would be.”

She blinked hard and sucked in a sharp breath.

“Well,” she said, her voice unsteady. “Whoever the young woman is you are pursuing stands little chance, I think. You, monsieur, are quite deadly.”

He smiled then, wishing that was true. “Non, only honest. You had something strong and true, and you mourn the loss of it. Your pain is tangible even after all this time, and yet I envy you.”

There was silence as she studied him.

“She won’t have you?” she asked, sounding astonished.

Louis shrugged. “I do not know. Her family has taken her away from me and put her in the proximity of gentlemen who are more suitable prospects. Far younger and far more innocent,” he added with a huff of laughter at her enquiring expression.

“And did you take action to secure her regard before she left?”

“I did not know she was leaving, and she is very young, and very naïve, and I am afraid to taint that, to move too quickly and give her a disgust of me. I am her friend,” he said helplessly, wondering if there were four more cutting words in the English language.

“Monsieur,” Lady Balderston said, drawing herself up straight and fixing him with a steely gaze. “Whilst I do not doubt for a moment that you are far from innocent—no man who looked like you could be—I know a good man when I see one. Your charms, however, are beyond compare and I suggest you employ them at the first chance you get. The girl would be a ninny to let you escape.”

Louis reached out and took the lady’s hand, raising to his lips and kissing her fingers. She blushed and her eyes grew a little misty. “She would be a greater one to accept me. I am not an easy man, my lady. I have a past, and I suspect I will be the very devil of a husband, but I love her, with all my heart, and I would never betray her.”

“Then I stand by my comment,” she said, tightening her fingers about his for a moment. “My husband was rather a devil. He had a past too, a rather dreadful one, but I never had cause to doubt his feelings for me, and I never once regretted our marriage, even though it was not an easy one. I’d marry a faithful, loving devil over any good, dull, easy man in a heartbeat. So there, young man. The next chance you get, kiss the girl. Employ all your wicked wiles and leave her in no doubt of your feelings. Then there are only her own for her to wrestle with.”

Louis watched as she stalked away from him, with a genuine smile on his face for the first time since he’d discovered Evie was gone.

“I want these colours,” Lady Balderston’s imperious voice demanded of the modiste as she thrust the three colour swatches under her nose.

With a soft huff of laughter, Louis headed for the door. Once outside, he drew in a deep breath. It was cool and damp, but it had stopped raining, which was a mercy. Deciding to stretch his legs, as the lady would be busy with her fitting for some time yet, he strolled down the main street, considering what Lady Balderston had said to him. Kissing Evie would be an inevitability if only he could get anywhere near her. He was going out of his mind, and he doubted his iron self-control would be in evidence if he ever saw her again. That he might not was too painful to contemplate. No. He would not consider that. He would find her. Even if they took her to the end of the earth, he would find her, and….

A burst of laughter, light and musical, drifted from a shop doorway and Louis halted at the mouth to a small side street. His heart reacted to the sound, crashing about behind his ribs whilst his senses—so dull of late—all leapt to attention.

He drifted towards the sound, hardly daring to hope, peering in windows as he went. A milliner's shop, busy, but not with anyone he recognised, next a carpenter, though the shop was closed, a sign on the door announcing a return this afternoon. The carpenter’s workshop was set a couple of foot back from the rest of the shop fronts and Louis moved past it, hardly able to breathe. He did not have time to see what the next shop sold as a bell tinkled and the door opened.

“I’ll see you in the milliner’s,” called a familiar voice, and then everything stopped, the noise of the town about him, the sound of a dog barking farther down the street, his heart.

He stood there, staring, unable to move or speak, as she turned away from the door.