One that he refused to make again.
CHAPTER 8
Evelyn stepped out of her chambers and instantly tumbled over a bucket of discarded paint.
“Perdition!” she cursed, hopping on one foot and leaning against the wall to steady herself.
“Now, now, I do hope you will not employ such language when our guest arrives,” Nathaniel said.
She looked up and saw him leaning against the wall again, which appeared to be his preferred pose these days. He smirked at her, and she wondered if he had put this bucket there just to vex her. She understood very well that the sudden burst of renovations that had sprung up everywhere around the manor were his idea to get her to leave. But she would not leave, any more than she would entertain any of these suitors with any sincerity.
She pulled her shoulders back. “You can rest assured that I will be perfectly behaved when our guest arrives. Now, what is his name again? Pembroke? Hensley?”
“Pendleton. The Viscount of Pendleton,” he corrected and pushed away from the wall as he proffered his arm. “Allow me to go downstairs. You should find him most enticing. He is thirty-five years old.”
“And yet far older than I like,” she said.
Ignoring her, he continued, “He is, from what I am told, handsome—not that I would be able to judge another man’s handsomeness. He has a decent fortune and is comfortably settled with a home in Tottenham and a cottage in Brighton.”
She nodded. If she were looking for a husband, these qualities might be enticing. But knowing Nathaniel, and having already met two of his supposedly suitable contenders, she had to be wary.
“And does he also enjoy sermons?”
“I believe it is fishing he likes,” Nathaniel said. “In any case, your fortune will be safe in his hands. Also, he is dull. So dull that he will be no threat to anyone, least of all you. If you and he engage in a courtship, I am certain you’ll be well settled, and you'll be able to do everything you wish to do at his side. He will not con?—”
Another bore… Evelyn did not say it out loud. She already suspected that Nathaniel might be onto her scheme and thus had to pretend to be pleased with this.
“Well, I suppose, as long as he does not quote sermons at me and require me to extract every answer from him by force the way Lord Stafford did, I shall give him a?—”
“That is all I ask,” he said.
He escorted her down the stairs while footmen carried up what appeared to be Chinese hanging paper.
She took a deep breath. “Pray, how much longer are these renovations going to?—”
“Oh,” he said, waving his free hand. “Months, I expect. Years, perhaps. This is quite a large estate that my uncle has done little to upkeep. If I am going to make this my main residence, it must reflect my taste. Do you not think?”
“Indeed,” she said. In fact, she had already visited the Dower House twice under the pretense of visiting Lady Appleton to see how she was. In reality, she had sized it up for her own use in the future. She knew exactly where she intended to put all the furnishings she planned to bring in, for what was there now was old-fashioned.
Not that she was going to tell Nathaniel that.
They had arrived at the bottom of the steps just as a carriage pulled up in the drive.
“He is right on time,” Nathaniel said. “I like a gentleman who can keep appointments in a timely manner. Don’t you?”
She glared up at him, but then reminded herself that she had to reflect a picture of poise.
“Indeed,” she said.
Bennett opened the front door and allowed Lord Pendleton entry. He was tall—almost absurdly so—towering over her by a head and a half. His hair was short and graying at the temples, while his eyes were wide and blue. His chin was oddly small compared to the rest of his face, and his nose had a slight upward slope. He wasn’t conventionally handsome, she thought, but there was a particular alertness to him.
“Pendleton!” Nathaniel said enthusiastically and shook his hand. “May I introduce you to Evelyn, Duchess of Sinclair?” The man bowed deeply.
“A distinct pleasure indeed to meet you, Your Grace,” he said. And immediately she knew that, while he wasn’t unpleasant to look at, there was a good reason Nathaniel had described him as too dull to be a threat.
His voice grated on her—he lisped a little. The way he enunciated his words was so sleepy, so tiresome, so dull. She thought shemight fall asleep at once. It was almost as if his voice was laudanum.
She sucked in air, annoyed at herself for thinking so ill of men she did not even know. It wasn’t right. It wasn’t kind… But the anger inside her sometimes overtook her, leading to having such unkind thoughts. Still, these men were preying on a widow. Though at the instruction of a certain Mr. Sinclair, as she had trained herself to think of Nathaniel as.
