Page 65 of Outrageous

They turned toward him, four pale cheeks flushed, two mouths compressed, four willful eyes flashing. Godric had the most powerful urge to pull the covers over his head and sleep until the rain stopped.

Instead he held his hand toward Eva. “Come here.”

She flushed and chewed at the side of her mouth.

“Please? I apologize for being a wretch. Sit with me while I eat.” He could see by her deepening flush, his invitation pleased her. It occurred to him, with no small alarm, that she was halfway infatuated with him and that teasing and playing with her would accelerate the process if he wasn’t careful.

It won’t matter a whit what you do, the snide voice said. She is a young, impressionable girl who is eager to fall in love.

Godric was not so sure that was true. Eva might be young, but her mind was as sharp as a razor, and he’d seen no indication during the Season that she was hanging out for a husband. Indeed, he believed her when she said she didn’t want to marry. He was fairly certain her only problem with Mrs. Crosby’s flirtation was that the woman would be so disrespectful in front of Eva.

Love and marriage are two different matters, my dear, deluded Godric.

“Did you see the way she rubbed against Andrew?” Eva asked.

You see, it’s not me she loves, but Mrs. Crosby she despises, Godric told his smug inner voice.

“Did you?” she demanded.

Godric paused in the act of raising his loaded fork. “Er—”

“He immediately fell into her nasty snare and is madly in love with her.” She tossed the fuming young man a look designed to annoy even the calmest of men, whose number young Andrew was certainly not among.

Her words acted like spurs. “That’s not—”

Eva cut Godric a conspiring look. “You know she’d never even notice such a green sprig unless she was up to something devious.”

“Green. Sprig.” Andrew made a strangled noise of fury. “I most certainly am not in love with her.”

“Oh, that’s right.” She snapped her fingers. “I forgot, you’re in love with your blunderbuss.”

“It’s a—”

“Eva, Andrew.” Godric used the tone he’d always employed on fractious soldiers, and it worked just as well on the two young people. Well, that was something, at least. Not much, but something.

“Can you refrain from bickering every five minutes? How about every five hours?”

The boy glared at Eva, his authority—such as it was—considerably diminished by his ludicrous eyewear and mismatched, borrowed clothing, which was not much better than his tattered dress. “It’s she who always begins these things with one of her smart comments.”

“Better than your stupid comments.”

Godric cleared his throat before they could go at it again and said, “Please, take a seat, Andrew.” Once he’d seated himself—as far from Eva as the small room allowed—Godric said, “I’d like to eat my meal without listening to an argument. Why don’t you tell me, Andrew” —he cut a severe look at Eva, who assumed a martyred expression—“how you came to be on that stretch of road with an, er, arquebus.” Dressed in a blue gown.

The boy pushed his glasses up his nose, momentarily distracted by the fact they were missing an arm and lens on one side.

“The short story is that my cousins beat me up, dressed me in one of my dead mother’s gowns, and then dumped me off at the side of the road with the gun.”

Godric paused with a forkful of—indeed delicious—ham halfway to his mouth. He set the fork down, food untouched. “Is this some sort of rite of passage in your family?”

Eva guffawed but quickly stifled it when he gave her a stern look.

Andrew squirmed, his slender body shifting beneath the borrowed clothing that Godric suspected must have come from the aforementioned son of Mr. Norton, a man whose nightshirt was big on Godric, who was not a small man. Andrew, not a great deal taller than Eva, swam in the huge, rustic trousers, which had been cinched around his narrow waist with twine, rather than a belt.

“My father—Stephen Lowell—died three months ago,” he said, looking oddly dignified for all that he was dressed like a clown. “He was a scholar on the subject of ancient weaponry and had always lived modestly until this past year. It appears that he put money on the ’Change right after Boney got caught. Er, the first time. I did not discover the state of his affairs until after his death. I’m afraid his debts are quite onerous.”

Godric didn’t need to be a genius to see where this was going.

“So you went to your uncle for help?” he said, hopefully moving the story past the painful discovery that Andrew was destitute.