“I can picture you in a gray cravat,” Eugenia said. “But not for mourning,” she added. “Merely because gray is au courant.”
“You wore gray for how long? Two years? Longer?”
Her eyes fell under his gaze. “I found it difficult to counterfeit joy. Color is a language, after all. A statement.” She took her last spoonful of soup. “What time are we expected at the vicarage tomorrow morning?”
“Nine o’clock.”
“Ought we to have a plan?”
Ward removed the cover from a serving dish holding fragrant lamb stew. “I have a plan. If Howson makes any sort of fuss about my sister’s foolery, I’ll have him removed from his position.”
“How will you do that?”
“Only two things matter in this country: money and rank. I have both, even as a bastard, and if that’s not good enough, Lizzie and Otis do as well.”
“Are you referring to Lord Darcy’s estate?” Eugenia asked.
He glanced at her, and back at the stew. “That, and I settled thirty thousand pounds on Lizzie. I want to ensure that her dowry will overcome any hesitancy owing to her parentage or to my guardianship.”
Eugenia felt a pinch at her heart. He was such a good man. He’d given up his independence, his freedom, his place at Oxford, and now a significant fortune, for the sake of a brother and sister he’d never known.
Her father always insisted that titles and blood didn’t matter, that the only important thing was what a man did with his life. Watching Ward from under her eyelashes, Eugenia had no doubt but that her father would approve.
Later, at her bedchamber door, he took her hand and brought it to his lips. For a dismaying moment, she thought he would walk away without even kissing her. But at the last second, he bent his head and kissed her greedily, every stroke of his tongue making it clear that he planned to make her his.
There was sensual possession there . . . and restraint too. “Eugenia,” he said, voice low and rough. “It’s time for bed.”
“Very well,” she gasped. She turned to open the door, to guide him inside, but he stopped her, a kiss gliding over her throat.
“Alone.” He drew back. “I don’t want to seduce you before you’ve had a chance to recover from the journey. It seems less than gentlemanly.”
She opened her mouth to protest.
“Tomorrow,” he continued, “I mean to abduct you once again—straight to my bedchamber.”
It was a vow, a promise.
Chapter Twenty
Wednesday, May 27, 1801
The following morning, the library served as the gathering place for the trip to the parish church, St. Mary the Virgin. Ward was already there when Gumwater ushered in his sister, whose black dress was relieved only by a snowy white collar.
“You look beautiful, Lizzie,” Ward said. “Given the circumstances, I’m very grateful that you chose not to wear your veil.”
“I wanted to wear it,” Lizzie said, sitting down on the sofa. “But Ruby stayed up most of the night making me this new dress, so I thought it would be ungrateful to wear the veil. It covered the collar.”
Ward made a mental note to increase Ruby’s salary before he remembered that Ruby came with Eugenia, so she was paid by Snowe’s Registry. Perhaps he could lure her away; Otis hadn’t even complained at the idea that he should stay home with Ruby while they all set off for the church.
Just then Eugenia walked through the door. She was wearing a dark plum gown that made her skin glow like a pearl. Hell, she glowed. The sight of her plump, rosy mouth made him want to kiss her, not bow.
But bow he did. Kissed her hand and asked all the right questions about how she’d slept, all the time thinking that he wanted to pick her up, throw her over his shoulder, and take her straight to bed.
Lizzie hopped off her sofa and bobbed a curtsy, smiling up at Eugenia. It abruptly occurred to Ward that a gentleman wouldn’t allow his young sister near the woman he fully intended to seduce.
It was too late now.
Eugenia bent and kissed Lizzie’s cheek, and then she set about teaching Lizzie to be just like her. “I want you to pretend that you’re greeting a bishop,” she said.
“What’s a bishop?” Lizzie inquired.
“He’s an authority in the church,” Eugenia said. “Have you ever been to church on Christmas?”
“I’ve never been to church at all,” Lizzie reported. “That was one of things that bothered Miss Midge.”
“Well, just pretend that your brother is a king and curtsy to him. No, don’t bob up and down as if you were a jack-in-the-box, Lizzie. Bend your head slightly, take your gown in your fingers, very delicately, and slide your right foot forward and shift all your weight onto that foot.”