Page 38

“Y ou do know that you are an absolute imbecile,” said Walden cheerfully. “Don’t you?”

If Richard had not been riding a horse, he would have thrown something heavy at his friend’s head. As it was, he scowled.

“Yes, that will help you get the woman of your dreams back,” said Walden with a snort. “You really are an ass, you know.”

“Yes, I think we have that portion of the conversation covered,” Richard said darkly.

Apparently, they had not.

He had not invited Walden out for a ride in Green Park for a dressing down, but it appeared that was what he was to receive. Irritating though it was, what Richard found far more irritating was that he did not seem able to dispute a single one of his friend’s points.

It was infuriating.

“I mean, you must have known,” said Walden fairly, as though Richard was supposed to be an expert in the ways of love in general, and artistic daughters of earls specifically. “Could you not predict that she was going to explode?”

“No,” Richard said curtly as they guided their steeds around a corner of the path.

No, he had not. And perhaps that had been his own fault. The plan had seemed so clever at the time, so wonderful. Perfect.

It had never occurred to him that Evelyn would not have been impressed and then overawed—in the best possible way, of course—with his plan.

His proposal.

To see her vanish down the stairs and not even be able to catch her as she’d fled out of the door had been a bit of a shock to the system.

“It explains where you’ve been, I suppose.” Walden’s words jolted Richard back into the moment.

“‘Where I’ve been’?”

His friend rolled his eyes. “You know they asked me at White’s whether you wished to give up your membership?”

Richard winced. They had in fact rescinded his membership, despite Verwood paying his annual dues promptly, while he had been in France. It was galling. It was nonsensical. And it had been a hell of a headache with the paperwork to reinstate him.

“I haven’t been that absent,” he said aloud.

Walden scoffed, his mare nickering at the sudden noise. “Man, I have seen neither hide nor hair of you for almost a month! You haven’t come to the theater, you entirely ignored my invitation to that Mozart concert—”

“In my defense,” Richard said, a half-smile creasing his lips, “I did not want to go.”

“And though some said you had attended the Dalmerlingtons’ ball—”

“I did!” protested Richard. “You and I spoke there! I mean, I did not stay for long…”

“Not long enough to have a proper conversation, and I was only half an hour late. If you asked Lady Romeril, she would say that I was on time,” said Walden, his lips quirking.

Richard sighed. She would, too; the doyenne of Society had very clear rules and expectations on when a gentleman should arrive at a ball. It was most provoking. It was apparently very gauche, indeed, to be the first at a ball—but someone had to be, did they not?

“And you lied to her.”

His stomach twisted, nausea most unpleasant rising as bile clenched around his throat. “I did not lie.”

“An omission of the truth, then,” said Walden, and Richard was surprised to see a serious look on his friend’s face. “An error.”

An error.

That was putting it mildly. Richard could not recall making such a disaster of his decisions. He had always relied on his gut and it had never failed him—well. Other than the fire. And this.

At the moment, he could not tell which was worse.

“I did not lie,” he repeated.

“Look, I am hardly one to berate you. The truth is a beautiful thing and therefore, it doesn’t do to take it out into the sunlight too often.”

Richard looked over at his friend with a scowl. “You are laughing at me.”

“I am pointing out that truth is a delicate thing and even when someone feels like they are telling the truth, they could be lying,” said Walden, staring unflinchingly. “For example. What were you doing in France all those years?”

Oh, hell.

Though he endeavored not to drop his friend’s gaze, Richard was not able to think of a clever lie in this moment.

The truth would not do; telling the truth, all of it, could only bring danger to those he cared about.

Was there still not danger? Wasn’t that why he was constantly being asked to return to France?

So, a version of the truth, then.

But was that enough? Were there gradations of the truth? If so, when was there too much falsehood mixed in with a story to call it the truth?

Richard sighed. “Don’t make me lie to you, Walden.”

“You take my point.”

“It is poorly made, but I take it all the same,” Richard said, shaking his head dolefully. “There is a difference, I know, between telling the truth and telling a lie. But the gray area in between, the vagueness, the omission of details…”

His voice trailed away as he looked around them.

They had come out near the top of the park.

Luscious trees in full leaf fluttered slightly in the lazy, summer wind.

There was hardly a cloud in the sky, drawing out the inhabitants of London with parasols over the ladies and top hats on the gentlemen.

There was a buzz of heady warmth in the air.

This was the sort of weather in which scandal was born.

“You truly think you’ve lost her, then?”

Richard turned. Walden was beholding him with a compassionate, almost pitying look. In any other situation, he would feel hard done by, examined like that. At the moment, Richard would take all the pity he could get.

“Yes, I think so,” he said quietly. “I knew how she felt about liars. I did not consider myself one, but… there it is.”

There it is . The end of a love story that had only just begun. God, he was an idiot.

It was, in its own way, mortifying. Here he was, a viscount from almost the cradle, a man who had served his country and lived on his wit and ingenuity… and he had completely underestimated her. Underestimated what she needed.

Evelyn had been most clear with him about her expectations, and he had failed her.

Mortification was not enough.

He had been stupid. Richard was loath to admit it, even to himself in the quiet of his mind, but he had been. What on earth had he been thinking?

All he had wanted was a distraction. Something to entertain. Something to make sitting endlessly in a chair worth the oxygen required to breathe.

In the end, it had almost led to something perfect.

Almost .

“You know, I have to congratulate you.”

Richard bit down the sarcastic retort. “Oh, yes?”

Walden nodded thoughtfully as their horses slowed to a gentle walk. “Having never fallen in love myself, I have never much seen the use in it. Now that I have seen you in that state, I think I can firmly say that I have no wish to enter it.”

Richard could not help but laugh. “And that is worth congratulating me?”

“You have taught me something that no one else has,” said his friend with a grin. “And I consider myself a relatively worldly man. I am impressed.”

Richard wasn’t. It was the opposite of impressive, what he had managed to do: take a woman who had never harmed anyone in her life, and hurt her.

“So, you are a liar.”

“No, not a liar, I—”

“You kept this a secret from me…”

“But perhaps you did not truly love her.”

Attention snapping to his riding companion, Richard scowled. “You think so? You think the agony I am in does not meet your arbitrary idea of love?”

“Well, I’m just saying—”

“Evelyn is everything, you hear me? Everything.” His lungs were too tight; he did not know how the words were coming out, and all Richard knew was that not defending Evelyn in this moment would be tantamount to a second betrayal.

“She—the light she brings into a room! She doesn’t create shadows; she merely beautifies a space, bringing a sort of… a golden…”

Richard swallowed. At some point, he had drawn his horse to a halt, the stallion stamping his feet and ready to be away, but he couldn’t ride. He couldn’t do anything except try to explain just how he felt about Evelyn.

“When I look at her, it’s like… like all my perspective has altered.

Like looking at a Canaletto. Everything else is still there, but it just doesn’t matter.

What matters is her. What anchors me to this ground is her.

” Conscious that he sounded like a complete fool, Richard did not cease.

What was the point? He had lost everything of importance.

Why not lose his dignity? “And her hair—like burnt umber. Her eyes, a mixture of cerulean and forest green, and her smile… When she smiles, I want to set the world alight because nothing will ever compare to her—nothing!”

He had shouted the last word. He had not needed to; Richard was almost certain that Walden, who was after all only a few feet from him, would have heard it if whispered.

He was panting. His hands had gripped the leather of his reins so tightly that his fingers were going numb.

Richard forced himself to slow his breathing, though the pounding of his pulse did not appear to be slowing.

“You really do love her, don’t you?” said Walden quietly.

Heaving a dry laugh, Richard shook his head. “It’s more than love. More than obsession, more than need. I don’t have a word for it.”

“And she’s clearly had an impact on you, hasn’t she?”

It was not a question, more a remark, and not one that Richard understood. “What do you mean?”

“‘Cerulean’? ‘Burnt umber’?” His friend shook his head ruefully. “I have never heard you speak of such things before. She has changed you, Sempill—I am not saying for the worse. It’s pleasant to hear you speak so passionately. Unexpected, but pleasant. You have always held in check such emotions.”

Richard swallowed.

Yes, he had. He had met a woman who defied Society and denied their expectations, clung on to her dream of being an artist and worked far harder than any gentleman, and she had changed him.

“I don’t know what to do,” he said, his voice broken.

Walden sighed. “You have to do something.”

“I can’t.”

“You must, man!”

Richard’s temper was rising to the surface again.

“Well, what do you suggest? I cannot take back earlier words; I cannot change the past! No matter what I say or do now, I will always be a liar in Evelyn’s eyes.

She will always look at me and see a man she does not, cannot trust. How do you win back someone’s faith? ”

Walden looked helpless. “I do not know.”

Richard did not know, either. No one did because there was no answer. There was no way back. He had burned the path he had walked on without even realizing, destroying any chance to be with her.

Sighing heavily, Richard dismounted and patted the side of his steed’s neck. “I am sorry, old friend.”

“Are you talking to me or the horse?”

Richard rolled his eyes. “I get more sense from the horse.”

“Perhaps.” Walden dismounted in turn, pulling two carrots from his saddlebag and handing one wordlessly to Richard.

The two men fed their horses and stood in silence.

There was a nervous energy within Richard that demanded he do something, but there was nothing to be done. Evelyn was not the sort of woman to be impressed by anything so pedestrian as a declaration of love or flowers or jewels.

Hell. He hadn’t even prepared a promise ring. What was wrong with him?

“You have to do something.”

Richard looked up. Walden was staring with a serious expression. “What do you mean?”

“I hate seeing you like this—it’s worse than when you came back from France doing whatever it is you were doing out there, which I am sure was completely legitimate and not at all in the service of Her Majesty’s government,” said Walden with a slow and theatrical wink.

Richard rolled his eyes. “Yes, thank you for your discretion.”

“My pleasure. But seriously—you have to win her back. This is killing you.”

“There’s nothing to be done,” Richard said heavily, patting his horse once more. “I broke her trust, Walden. That isn’t something you can just… just paint over.”

For some reason, his friend shrugged. “Well, if you say so. Now I come to think about it, parts of France are much safer. What say you and I head over there and explore a few of the sights?”

An anger Richard had never known before burned. Just go back to France? Just return to where he had been grievously injured? Go back to the country where so many of his enemies lived, he had ceased attempting to keep track?

Give up on Evelyn?

“You must be out of your mind.” Richard snarled, the rage coursing through him a welcome respite from the agony of heartbreak. “Is this your subtle way of revealing a death wish?”

“I don’t know what you’re getting so het up about,” his friend said mildly. “You were the one who said that there was nothing to be done about Evelyn.”

“ Lady Evelyn Chance to you,” snapped Richard, his anger not subsiding. “Just because I haven’t thought of a way to win her back, that does not mean I am just going to give up! I can’t just—the thought of leaving for France! I can’t just leave her, I…”

Walden was grinning.

The hackles on Richard’s neck started to dwindle. Only then did he notice that quite a few people in Green Park were watching him. Staring, in fact. Pointing.

Hell in a hamper.

“You’re very clever, you know that?” he said dully.

Walden clapped him on the back. “I know that, have known that for years. The question is: are you clever enough to win back this woman of yours?”

Richard set his jaw as he inhaled slowly.

That was indeed the question. Am I?