“Perhaps one or two things,” Mayson teased gently, while looking at her meaningfully.
“Oh, you,” Evelyn waved a hand dismissively at him. She looked down at the neatly carved wooden bowl that held bread, cheese, and several bits of thin sliced meat. It had been an unexpected gift from Mayson, carved by his own hands.
Mayson watched her as if she was the most beautiful creature in all the world. Evelyn tried not to squirm or say something flippant under his gaze. “Could I ask you something?”
“You can ask. I will not promise to answer.” Evelyn looked up at him.
“If, theoretically speaking, a gentleman was to ask a lovely widow if she might wed him when her period of mourning was up, what do you think the lady might say?”
Evelyn looked out across the pretty meadow where they had chosen to picnic on this day. “Well, theoretically speaking, I would say that if he had the patience to wait attentively for a respectful amount of time, that there would be a good chance that the widow might say yes if she liked him.” She then busied herself with arranging the items in the pretty wooden bowl.
“Would it be rude of him to ask before the period of mourning was up?”
“Perhaps not, if he made it clear that he was willing to wait.” Evelyn let a smile tip up the corners of her mouth, but she turned her eyes to the contents of the bowl.
Mayson warmed to his topic. “Evelyn, do you think you could see yourself as my wife in a year’s time? I will not tease you about it if you say no.”
“I think, Mayson, that you are a very pleasant fellow. In due time, I might say yes. Can you wait a little while for your answer? I would like for us both to be sure.”
“I will wait for you until the moon turns blue and the stars fall out of the sky. I would even wait for you to the ends of time.”
Evelyn smiled. “I’ll not ask you to wait quite that long. But perhaps you might ask me again at the end of summer. I suspect that my answer might be yes, and we could be wed in spring a year from now.”
Mayson did a backflip off the picnic blanket, and followed that up with a series of handsprings. He came back, sat down beside her and captured one of her hands in his. “You have made me an incredibly happy man,” he said.
Evelyn patted the back of his hand with her free one, and smiled with genuine pleasure and amusement. “Goodness! I am glad that you did not ask while we were in the kitchen or one of the drawing rooms.”
“Perhaps a generally good thing,” Mayson said. “Handsprings tend to play the… er… wreak havoc with the china.”
“Indeed they do,” Evelyn replied. “Mayson, I’m not sure I’ve seen anyone who can do the things that you do.”
“As I told you, I learned a great deal from the cook, and I trained with a gentleman from the Far East. I learned a great deal from him.”
“That I might believe. But Mayson, you are not like most of the servants, and you are nothing like any other cook I have ever met.”
Mayson sighed. “I suppose that since I have asked and you have said there is a good chance that you might say yes, that I should tell you who I really am.”
“I am listening,” Evelyn said. “Are you about to tell me that you are a long, lost prince or a convicted criminal?”
“Not quite,” Mayson replied. “But I am practicing a small deception upon the world. Have you heard the maids talk about the ghost of Hillsworth?”
Evelyn laughed. “Oh, I have heard the story. He goes about the hills, and on nights when the moon is full he raises up his hand to display the crescent moon birthmark on his wrist.”
Mayson paused a moment, as if afraid of what she might say next. Then he took a deep breath and said, “Good. I will not have too much explaining to do.” He carefully peeled back the wrist cuff of the thin leather fingerless gloves he always wore. There, on the inside of his wrist was a red birthmark in the shape of a crescent moon.
Evelyn looked at in surprise, then lifted her eyes to his. “You...?”
“I am Mayson Rutley, the Earl of Tolware.”
Evelyn stared at him, round-eyed with shock. “But... I thought...”
“That the Earl of Tolware was dead? That was the impression I wanted to give everyone. My uncle was trying in various subtle ways to get me killed, or poisoned, or to create an accident.”
“Your uncle... but isn’t he still taking care of Tolware?”
“Yes, if you could call it that.”
“But how did you end up here? Is any of what you have told me true?” Evelyn would have withdrawn her hand, but he held it tightly in both of his, as if he were drowning and it was a lifeline.