“How long do you intend to stay?”
“A few days”
“Is that all?”
Her brows knit in an uncertain frown. “You suggest I stay longer?”
Last week, when the two of them parted at Cremorne Gardens, he wouldn’t have dreamed of suggesting any such thing. But the landscape of his life had changed dramatically since then. He was no longer certain about anything.
“I do,” he said.
* * *
Evelyn stared at him. His words were so entirely at odds with his attentive manner, she didn’t know how to receive them. “What is this?” she asked softly. “What are you trying to say to me?”
“Only that I wonder if, given the circumstances, it might not be best if we took some time apart.”
She stopped breathing. “What circumstances?” A terrible thought struck her. “I haven’t scandalized you with my plans for Hephaestus, have I?”
“No. It’s not that. It has to do with my own situation.”
Her eyes searched his. “Is this about that ridiculous item in the paper?”
“In part.” He paced to the window, giving her his back. His shoulders were taut beneath his coat. “I’ve lately been compelled to face reality.”
She didn’t move. Couldn’t move. Only stood there, waiting for him to elaborate.
When next he spoke, it appeared as though he was explaining things as much to himself as to her. “A dressmaker needn’t be famous in order to marry. Even a moderately successful tailor can afford a wife. But if his business should fail entirely—”
“Yours won’t,” she said.
“If it does . . .” He turned, looking at her as if it pained him to do so. “I’ll not bind you to me at the very moment my fortunes crumble.”
She felt a rush of compassion for him. Goodness, is that what he feared?
“I see,” she said.
And she did.
That didn’t mean she had to agree with him.
Her footsteps were silent on the drawing room carpet as she crossed the room to join him. “What’s to be gained by our taking time apart?”
“It will give you a chance to think about things.”
That sounded ominous. “By things you mean us, I suppose.”
“Us. Our future. Whatever you want to call it.”
“Can’t I think about our future while I’m here in London?”
“Not properly,” he said. “In Sussex, you’ll be free from my influence, and from this damnable attraction we have for each other. You’ll be able to assess your feelings clearly. If they should alter—”
“They won’t.”
“But if they should—”
“What about your feelings?” she asked.
His jaw hardened. “My feelings for you won’t change. I’m bound to you. But you’ll be free. If after a month you’re still committed to this course—”
“A month!” She blinked up at him. “I might consent to stay a fortnight. But I won’t spend a month there on the slim chance I’ll stop loving you. I’m not some changeable milk-and-water miss.”
He loomed over her. “And I’m not some rogue who would coerce a young lady into marrying me against her better interests.”
“You presume I don’t know what’s in my own best interests.”
“You’re young.”
Her chin ticked up. “I’m three and twenty.”
“Yes. Young. All of this is new to you. And none of it is what you wanted when you came here. Is it so out of the question that I ask you to take some time to think things over?” His large hand curved around her corseted waist. The gentleness of his touch tempered his words. He tugged her closer until her wide skirts bunched against his legs. “I’m trying to do the honorable thing, Evie.”
Evelyn realized that. His reasoning was abundantly plain.
He wasn’t only worried about his dressmaking business. He was afraid he was taking advantage of her. That proximity had made her love him. All those sessions in the fitting room at Doyle and Heppenstall’s. The sensual familiarity as he’d fitted her habits, day dresses, and ball gowns.
Many young ladies would have had their heads turned by such intimacies.
Evelyn certainly had. But it had never been only about that. There had always been something more. Respect. Admiration. Friendship and mutual support. He’d believed in her almost from the first. And she believed in him, too.
“I know you are,” she said. “Which is why I’ll do as you ask.”
Relief flashed in his gaze. “Will you?”
“Yes.” She set her hands on his chest. “But at the end of a fortnight . . . I expect you in Sussex.”
Thirty-Five
The small brick house in Birmingham was nothing very remarkable. It was built in a block of identical houses, back-to-back around a communal yard. Evelyn stood next to Anne in the modest dining room. The heavy curtains were drawn shut, blocking out the dusky light of the setting sun. Walls covered in faded blue paper appeared almost black in the dim glow of a brass gasolier that hung over the large round table.
On the opposite side of the room, Uncle Harris, Lady Arundell, and six other black-clad figures conversed in soft tones. Among them was Robert James Lees, the Birmingham boy who had, of late, inspired so much excitement in the world of spiritualism.
Evelyn could find nothing extraordinary about him. Indeed, he looked like any other boy of twelve or thirteen, albeit one decked out in his Sunday best. He wore a plain black suit, and his dark hair was combed into meticulous order, aided by a liberal application of Macassar oil.
He stood in front of a heavy mahogany sideboard, flanked by a gentleman. Not his father, Evelyn guessed, but his spiritualist representative.
Anne looked at the boy with an expression of vague disappointment.
Evelyn couldn’t blame her. After an hours-long rail journey to the West Midlands and a night spent in a loud and keenly uncomfortable Birmingham hotel, their first sight of the much-vaunted boy medium was somewhat deflating.
“He’s spotty,” Anne remarked under her breath.
“He’s just a child,” Evelyn said. “I wonder if he knows what he’s doing?”
“I expect he does,” Anne replied cynically, “in one way or another.”