Anna Campbell: A Rake's Midnight Kiss

When he placed Hecuba on the floor, the cat regarded both humans with sulky displeasure before stalking away. He plucked the embroidery frame from Genevieve’s hold. She waited for some complimentary remark. For purposes that she hadn’t yet fathomed, the man seemed determined to charm.

A silence fell. Genevieve dared a glance. He maintained a scrupulously straight face.

“It’s a peony,” she said helpfully.

His mouth lengthened but, to give him credit, he didn’t laugh. “I … see that.”

“Really?” She retrieved her embroidery and inspected it closely. Even she, who knew what it was supposed to represent, had trouble discerning the subject.

Without invitation, Mr. Evans settled on the window seat. He crossed his arms over his chest and extended his long, booted legs across the faded rug. Surreptitiously she inched away.

“I believe you assist your father with his work.”

Unfortunately, he couldn’t have said anything more liable to annoy her. Her eyes narrowed and old grievances cramped her stomach. “I am most helpful, sir,” she said flatly.

The evening light through the window lay across his hair but caught no shine in the brown. Hecuba rubbed against his ankles, purring fit to explode. Catching Lord Neville’s glower from across the room, Genevieve bent over her sewing. Surely he didn’t imagine she encouraged this decorative interloper. And even if he thought that, he had no right to censure her behavior.

“At Leighton Court last night, the vicar praised your abilities.”

“Are you surprised to hear of a woman using her brains?” she asked with a sweetness that would warn anyone who knew her.

He sighed and leveled a surprisingly perceptive regard upon her. “I have a nasty feeling that somewhere I’ve taken a wrong step with you, Miss Barrett.”

For a bristling moment, she stared into his face and wondered why she was so certain that he had ulterior motives.

“It hardly matters.” She should turn his comment aside. After all, he wasn’t likely to become a fixture in her life. Even if he lingered in the neighborhood, the vicarage’s fusty medievalists would soon bore him.

“If I’ve inadvertently offended, please accept my apologies.”

Curse him, he’d shifted closer and his arm draped along the windowsill behind her. She stiffened and, abandoning pride, slid toward the corner. “Mr. Evans, you are presumptuous.”

His lips twitched. “Miss Barrett, you are correct.”

“Pray be presumptuous at a greater distance.”

His laugh was low and attractive. “How can I argue when you’re armed?”

She realized that she brandished the needle like a miniature sword. Despite her annoyance, the scene’s absurdity struck her and she choked back a laugh. She stabbed the needle into a full-blown peony that sadly resembled a sunburned chicken. “You waste your attentions, sir.”

“I hate to think so,” he said with a soft intensity that had her regarding him with little short of horror. Was that a challenge? And how on earth should she respond?

Luckily her father spoke. “Mr. Evans, Lord Neville wants to see that codex. Are you interested?”

The vicar’s question shattered the taut silence. Mr. Evans blinked as if emerging from a trance. She realized she’d been searching his face with as much attention as she gave a historical document.

He turned toward her father. “Of course, sir. Lead on.”

Without the gentlemen and Sirius, the parlor felt forlorn. As though Mr. Evans’s departure leached the light away. Genevieve glanced across to where her aunt stared into space, hands loose in her lap.

“What a lovely man,” she said dreamily.

Genevieve stifled a growl and stood to collect the teacups and place them onto the tray. “He thinks he is.”

Aunt Lucy’s stare was surprisingly acute. “Because he treated you like a woman and not some moldy book from your father’s library, you’ve taken against him.”

“Don’t be a henwit, Aunt. That kind of man flirts with any female in reach. Today that’s you, me, and Hecuba.” Hearing her name, Hecuba curled around Genevieve’s ankles. “It’s too late to make amends, you minx.”

“I hope he’ll be a regular visitor,” her aunt said. “I worry that you’ll never find a man to marry.”

Shocked, Genevieve nearly dropped the tray. “Aunt! Don’t be absurd. Even if I liked Mr. Evans—and I don’t, he’s too conceited—I don’t want a husband. I’ve got my work.”

It was a familiar argument. Her aunt was a conventional woman and couldn’t bear for her niece to die a spinster. In Aunt Lucy’s eyes, any halfway eligible man who wandered into Genevieve’s vicinity was a likely match. She’d once even suggested Genevieve set her cap for Lord Neville. What a nauseating thought. The man was at least twenty years too old, he was bullying and dictatorial, and his touch made her skin itch with revulsion.

“Work won’t keep you warm at night.” Aunt Lucy paused. “I suspect Mr. Evans would be very … warm.”

To Genevieve’s chagrin and Hecuba’s delight, Mr. Evans stayed for dinner. Carefully Genevieve watched for any disdain for their humble fare or the country hour of the meal. Obscurely it griped her more than any sneer would when the fellow expressed his pleasure with arrangements and tucked in with hearty appetite.

As usual, discussion focused on the vicar’s scholarly preoccupations. At present, he was obsessed with proving that the younger prince in the Tower had survived. While her father harangued an apparently fascinated Mr. Evans, Genevieve caught the disapproving arch of Lord Neville’s eyebrows. He’d also joined them and now sat beside her. Thank heavens, they had leg of mutton and there was plenty, although plans for using the leftovers for cottage pies faded with every mouthful.

“Do you intend to stay long in the neighborhood, Mr. Evans?” she asked when her father finally lifted his wineglass, allowing someone else to squeeze in a word.

Mr. Evans, on her father’s right beside her aunt, smiled at Genevieve with practiced charm. She could imagine that smile had set countless female hearts fluttering. Unfortunately for Mr. Evans, Genevieve Barrett was made of sterner stuff. Or at least she wished she was.

“I hope so. I’m in the fortunate position of having leisure to follow my inclinations.” A mocking light in his eyes hinted that he guessed how his efforts to please irked her.

“You’re acquainted with Sedgemoor, I believe,” Lord Neville growled, slicing at his mutton as if it were Mr. Evans’s hide.

Genevieve could imagine how Mr. Evans’s friendship with Camden Rothermere grated on Lord Neville. Lord Neville might dismiss what he termed the fribbles and flibbertigibbets infesting London society, but she’d long ago recognized the pique behind his derision. His lordship wasn’t sparkling company and wouldn’t shine outside antiquarian circles. Even in scholarly circles, he earned respect more for his family and fortune than for his intellect. While he was far from a stupid man and he had a magnificent collection that she’d been privileged to work on, Lord Neville remained a dilettante.

Mr. Evans sipped the fine claret that Lord Neville supplied to her father and answered with a coolness that only emphasized his lordship’s churlishness. “We were at school together. I’m proud to call him my friend.”

“Where are your people, Mr. Evans?” Until now, Aunt Lucy had sat quietly. The price of sharing her brother’s roof was enduring arcane discussions that held no shred of interest for her. “Evans is a Welsh name, is it not?”