“You don’t even h-have a clock,” she complained.
“I’m counting by heartbeats. You’d better hurry, love.”
Evie glanced anxiously down at the row of pearl buttons, which seemed to have multiplied. With a defeated sigh, she dropped her arms to her sides. “Just go on and rip it off,” she mumbled.
She heard his silky laugh, and a sluice of water. He stood with streams runneling over the sleek, muscled contours of his body, and Evie gasped as she was pulled into a wet, steaming embrace.
His amused voice curled inside the sensitive shell of her ear. “My poor little put-upon wife. Let me help you. As you may recall, I have a way with buttons . . .”
Later, as Evie lay beside him, deeply relaxed and still tingling in the aftermath of pleasure, she said drowsily, “Phoebe told me about your conversation during the walk back to the house.”
Sebastian was slow to reply, his lips and hands still drifting over her gently. “What did she say?”
“She was unhappy about your opinion of Edward Larson.”
“No more unhappy than I, when I learned he’d broached the subject of marriage with her. Did you know about that?”
“I thought he might have. I wasn’t certain.”
Propping himself up on one elbow, Sebastian looked down at her with a frown. “God spare me from having to call another Larson ‘son-in-law.’”
“But you cared very much for Henry,” Evie said, surprised by the comment.
“Like a son,” he agreed. “However, that never blinded me to the fact that he was far from Phoebe’s ideal partner. There was no balance between them. His force of will never came close to matching hers. To Henry, Phoebe was as much a mother as a wife. I only consented to the match because Phoebe was too bullheaded to consider anyone else. For reasons I still don’t fully understand, she would have Henry or no one.”
Evie played with the light mat of his chest hair. “Whatever Henry’s faults, Phoebe always knew he belonged to her alone. That was worth any sacrifice. She wanted a man whose capacity for love was unqualified.”
“Does she claim to find the same capacity in that spineless prig Larson?”
“I don’t believe so. But her purposes for marriage are different this time.”
“Whatever her purposes, I won’t have my grandsons raised by an invertebrate.’
“Sebastian,” she chided softly, although her lips quivered with amusement.
“I mean for her to partner with Weston Ravenel. A healthy young buck with sharp wits and a full supply of manly vigor. He’ll do her much good.”
“Let’s allow Phoebe to decide if she wants him,” Evie suggested.
“She had better decide soon, or Westcliff will snap him up for one of his daughters.”
This was a side of Sebastian—high-handed to the verge of being autocratic—that almost inevitably developed in men of vast wealth and power. Evie had always been careful to curb such tendencies in her husband, occasionally reminding him that he was, after, a mere mortal who had to respect other people’s rights to make their own decisions. He would counter with something like, “Not when they’re obviously wrong,” and she would reply, “Even then,” and eventually he would relent after making a great many caustic observations about the idiocy of people who dared to disagree with him. The fact that he was so often right made Evie’s position difficult, but still, she never backed down.
“I like Mr. Ravenel too,” Evie murmured, “but there’s much about his background we don’t know.”
“Oh, I know everything about him,” Sebastian said with casual arrogance.
Knowing her husband, Evie thought ruefully, he’d read detailed reports on every member of the Ravenel family. “It’s not a given that he and Phoebe are attracted to each other.”
“You didn’t see them together this morning.”
“Sebastian, please don’t meddle.”
“I, meddle?” His brows lifted, and he looked positively indignant. “Evie, what can you be thinking?”
Lowering her face to his chest, she nuzzled the glinting hair. “That you’re meddling.”
“From time to time, I may adjust a situation to achieve a desired outcome for the benefit of my children, but that’s not meddling.”
“What do you call it, then?”
“Parenting,” he said smugly, and kissed her before she could reply.
Chapter 15
The morning after the farm tour, a multitude of carriages and horses crowded the front drive of Eversby Priority as the majority of wedding guests finally departed. The Challons were staying on for another three days to deepen their acquaintance with the Ravenels.
“Darling,” Merritt had entreated Phoebe during breakfast, “are you very sure you won’t come to stay with us at Stony Cross Park? Mr. Sterling and I are going to spend at a least a week there, and we would all love to have you and the children there. Tell me how I can persuade you.”
“Thank you, Merritt, but we’re settled and comfortable here, and . . . I need some quiet time after the wedding and all the socializing.”
A teasing light had appeared in Merritt’s eyes. “It seems my powers of persuasion are no match for a certain blue-eyed charmer.”
“No,” Phoebe had said quickly, “It has nothing to do with him.”
“A little flirtation will do you no harm,” Merritt had pointed out reasonably.
“But it can lead to nothing.”
“Flirtation doesn’t have to lead anywhere. One can simply enjoy it. Think of it as practice for when you start mixing in society again.”
After exchanging farewells with friends and acquaintances, Phoebe had decided to take her children and Nanny Bracegirdle for a morning walk before the heat of the day accumulated. Along the way, they would finally return the little black cat to the barn.
Although Phoebe had meant to take care of that particular errand yesterday, the plan had been derailed when Justin and Ernestine had taken the cat outside to one of the estate gardens to “answer nature’s call.” The creature had disappeared for the better part of the afternoon. Phoebe had joined in the search, but the fugitive was nowhere to be found. Toward evening, however, while changing for dinner, Phoebe had heard a scratching sound, and saw a pair of black paws swiping beneath the closed door. Somehow the cat had managed to slip back into the house.
Taking pity on her, Phoebe had sent for another plate of scraps from the kitchen. The cat had eaten voraciously, practically licking the glaze off the porcelain. Afterward she had stretched out on the carpet, purring with such contentment that Phoebe hadn’t the heart to send her back. The cat had spent the night curled up in Ernestine’s mending basket, and this morning had breakfasted on kippers.
“I don’t think she wants to go back to the barn,” Justin said, glancing up at Phoebe as she held the cat against her shoulder. Nanny walked beside them, pushing Stephen in a sturdy wicker pram with a white cambric parasol cover.
“The barn is her home,” Phoebe replied, “and she’s happy to be returning to her brothers and sisters.”
“She doesn’t look happy,” Justin said.
“She is, though,” Phoebe assured him. “She—ouch!—oh, galoshes—” The cat had climbed higher on her shoulder, its little claws perforating her muslin dress. “Nanny, I do wish you’d let me put her in the pram with Stephen. There’s plenty of room for her to ride near his feet.”
“The cat can’t ride with Baby,” came the adamant reply.
Unfortunately, Phoebe’s plan to return the cat to its proper home was foiled soon after they reached the hay barn. She managed to pry the cat’s claws from her dress and set her on the ground by the barn door. “There’s one of your friends,” Phoebe said, seeing a gray cat loitering near a tool shed. “Go, now . . . shoo! . . . Go and play.”
The gray cat hissed balefully and slunk away. The black cat turned and made to follow Phoebe, her tail raised as if she were tipping a hat in hopeful greeting.
“No,” Phoebe said firmly. “Shoo. You can’t come with us.”
But as they tried to walk away, the black cat followed.
Phoebe caught sight of a workman she recognized. “Good morning, Neddy.”
He approached and touched the brim of his cap. “Milady.”
“We seem to have borrowed one of the barn cats. We’re trying to return her, but she keeps following. I don’t suppose you have advice on how to make a cat stay?”
“If I could make a cat do that, it’d be a dog.”
“Perhaps you might hold her long enough for us to escape?”
“I would, milady, but she’d shred my arms to ribbands.”
Phoebe nodded ruefully and sighed. “You’re probably right. We’ll go on our walk. Hopefully she’ll lose interest and return to the barn.”
To Phoebe’s dismay, the cat kept pace with them, and began to meow uneasily as the barn disappeared from sight. They proceeded along an ancient drove lane, once used for taking cattle on foot between summer and winter pastures. Beech trees shaded the sunken path, which was bordered by hedges and earthen walls. As they neared a small wrought-iron footbridge arching across a stream, the cat’s cries became plaintive.