“I am your only nephew.”
“Precisely.” Amelia’s sudden grin alarmed him. “And, because you are my favorite and only nephew, I have remedied the situation on your behalf. You would have known sooner if you did not insist on scurrying away with your feeble means of avoiding me trailing behind you.”
A sick feeling churned in Evan’s stomach, his blood running cold. “You have… remedied it? How, might I ask, have you done such an impossible thing?”
“There is to be a dinner at the house tomorrow evening. There, you are to meet your future wife, who will be residing here. A party has been arranged too, but I shall speak more of that in due course,” Amelia replied, with a sly smile that further tightened the invisible noose around his neck. “Indeed, your bride ought to be arriving this afternoon, and from what I hear, she is quite the delight. I took great pains to select the perfect match for you, and though I am certain you will be shocked for a short while, you will have plenty of time to become acquainted during her stay here.”
Shocked was more than an understatement. Evan could not move, his legs leaden, his innards twisting into knots, while his heart raced violently in his chest, threatening to break a rib as it tried to burst free of his body. It was a devilish move from his aunt, and they both knew it as they looked at one another, neither wanting to be the first to glance away.
“I could not bring such disdain upon a young lady,” he began to protest, finding his voice though it sounded strangled. “Why drag her through the mire with me, Aunt? It would be unjust—nay, unkind.”
Amelia continued to smile her irreverent smile. “Because her reputation is in need of as much improvement as yours,” she said. “So, cease whatever protest is forming upon your tongue, and do me this one favor. I do not ask for much, my dear boy. Please, do this, for me.”
After raising him for four-and-ten years, Amelia knew him far too well. She knew he would not be able to reject her plea, for she was the only mother figure he had ever known. He would have done anything for her. Almost anything… and that line was on the verge of being overstepped.
“Is she… wayward?” Evan asked, still seeking a way out.
Amelia shook her head. “Not in the manner you are thinking. She is a renowned spinster, that is all, and her father is eager to see her wed.”
“So, she is old?” Evan tried not to grimace, envisioning someone of his aunt’s nine-and-forty years. Amelia still looked exceptionally beautiful for her age, but that did not mean he wished to marry someone two decades older. Indeed, he did not wish to marry at all.
Amelia shook her head again. “Not yet a true spinster. She is two-and-twenty. A rather fair age to wed, I should think.”
“I… will attend the party,” Evan said, after a moment or two. “I will meet with her, but… I cannot promise she will not resist a union, once she inevitably learns of my reputation.”
He thought it best to lay the blame of a failed engagement upon this mysterious woman pre-emptively, for he would certainly try his best to ensure a match did not proceed beyond the party.
Amelia shrugged. “You might be surprised.” She paused. “Of course, I shall have to inform your father of what I have arranged, though I cannot imagine he will have any complaints. I thought it best to tell you first, seeing as it pertains to you. Perhaps, you might prefer to be the one to write to him?”
Evan’s dread at the prospect of meeting a bride he neither knew or wanted transformed into cold, icy serpents that slithered up from his abdomen and bit deep into his lungs, pouring venom into his chest that burned up his throat, leaving it with no place to go but out of his mouth. “Speak of that man again in my presence, and I will do you no favors, no matter how much I adore you.”
Balling his hands into fists, digging his fingernails into his palms to ease the spike of rage that buffeted his insides, he strode away without another word. Amelia could scheme and plot whatever she liked, testing his graciousness, but bringing his father into the conversation was one thing he would not, could not, would never tolerate.
* * *
“Tell me again why we could not rest at home for a few days?” Olivia felt every hour of the lengthy journey they had taken from Lord Jodrell’s ball, just outside London. She did not even know what part of the country she and her mother, sitting at her side, were in.
Her mother, Laura, continued to stare out of the carriage window, as she had been doing for the past few hours like a child seeing the countryside for the first time. “Oh, how can you complain when it is such a beautiful day, and such a beautiful part of the world?”
“Because I am in last night’s gown and I look as if I have been dragged through every one of these hedgerows backward,” Olivia replied. “One might suspect you do not actually wish for me to make a good impression upon this marquess.”
This scoundrel,rather,she grumbled inwardly.
Her mother turned sharply. “That is certainly not my wish!” she enthused. “You must make a good impression, my darling. Your father has told me such wonderful things about this gentleman. Why, I feel as giddy as if I were the one being introduced to my betrothed!”
Olivia wondered if her mother was quite well, only to realize that her father might not have told the entire truth to his wife. Indeed, Olivia doubted her mother would be quite so “giddy” if she understood that they were on their way to meet a notorious rogue.
“Remind me why Father is not joining us when this is, apparently, of great importance to him?” Olivia prodded a little, wondering if she ought to inform her mother of the marquess’s infamous nature. Perhaps, that was why Olivia’s father had matched her with such a man, taking pity on a similarly wretched creature.
Laura shrugged. “He has business to attend to that could not wait. He has given you his apologies, Olivia—do not make this a quarrel that it does not need to be. He will join us when he can.”
“Business, you say?” Olivia’s words were barbed, but if her mother noticed, she did not show it as she resumed her observation of the countryside.
“Mm, yes. Something pertaining to copper mines. I was not listening properly.”
In case you heard the truth?Olivia held her tongue, aware that it was unfair to upset her mother over something beyond her control. Laura Agarn was bound to a marriage that had never served her, and, as Olivia had learned, it was easier for Laura to find bliss in feigned ignorance than to struggle through the painful reality.
“Did he tell you when his business would conclude?” Olivia watched her mother’s face for any indication of secret knowledge.
