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“Forget it. There won’t be anything of value to find. I have enough information about what’s left to tear out to interest an auction house. With luck I’ll never have to set foot on the premises again after we leave today.”
“Gareth?”
“Hm?”
“I’m sorry I was such a bitch when you gave me the hair comb yesterday.”
He brushed a kiss on her forehead. Evaine sighed and snuggled closer.
“None of us were at our best yesterday. Let’s survive this day and get out of here. Did you give any thought to where you and Hazel might go?”
“A bit.” She sighed. “Probably back to London for a little while. I’ll try to find a boarding house for us and look for work. The auctioneer I worked for might take me back. Not that the pay or the hours were enough.”
“What if you stayed with me?”
Both of them went still. Gareth cleared his throat.
“Wolfhaven isn’t my only estate. I have a smaller one about three hours away from London, in Sussex. Wulfmere’s been run on a skeleton crew for years, but it’s comfortable enough. It’s where I stay whenever I’m not in London…” He trailed off.
“As your…what are you offering, exactly, Gareth? Are you asking me to stay as your mistress?”
“If you want—as my guest.”
“People will talk,” she said.
“They don’t have to know.”
“Servants gossip. You know that. Word will get around that one of the damned dukes has taken a mistress. Whether or not we are doing anything. It doesn’t matter.”
“It would solve your immediate problem,” he said defensively.
“So would selling myself on street corners. I’m not going to do that, either.”
Hurt silence stretched between them.
“I appreciate the offer, Gareth. I do. But it doesn’t help us in the long run. I need to find work. If I get a reputation as that girl who was the duke’s mistress, this becomes a hundred times more challenging. I already have a stain from what happened at Girton. That was why the auction house fired me, you know.”
“You didn’t tell me that.”
“I had the audacity to ask for more hours. They told me they were doing me a favor keeping me on. No one else would hire a woman of loose morals. I tried applying for other jobs but what he said proved to be true. Any time I was asked to submit a reference, Girton came up. I would tell employers that I left to care for Gran. They would ask around. That story always came up. They would decide I had lied to them, and the offer would be rescinded. I need to go far away from London if I’m ever going to outrun my past.”
“I wish I had the luxury of running,” he said wistfully.
“You’re doing one better. You are destroying it.” She kissed his cheek. Felt the prickle of his stubble against her lips. “It’s a kind gesture. But I can’t say yes.”
“Try and get a little rest before the sun comes up fully. We have a long day ahead of us.”
Gareth turned his back to her. She had hurt him by rejecting his offer. But she knew if she went with him, she would never be anything more than his mistress. She would never be able to build a family.
Besides, such arrangements rarely lasted for the long-term. When it ended, she would be worse off than before.
When Gran inevitably passed she would be alone in the world.
Evaine couldn’t cut off the possibility of finding…if not love, then at least a marriage. Gareth was never going to offer her the kind of stability she needed to create a family of her own.
She slept fitfully. When she awoke a few hours later both Hazel and the duke were already up and out of bed. The pistol was gone. Presumably, he had reclaimed it. She changed her clothes and pinned her dark tresses up. In a conciliatory gesture, she wore the shell hairpin, too.
Evaine packed her overnight satchel and other belongings. She didn’t possess much. The bulkiest object was the quilt which sat tied with a string atop her trunk.
