Duplicity Ch. 03

Just then two men, one tall with coppery hair, the other slightly stockier of build and losing his hair, made their way to Evelyn. After taking their turn bowing over her out-stretched gloved hand, they grabbed two vacant chairs close by. Mary and Regina glared at them, then at her, before they stood up together and drifted away.

"Lady Evelyn, I was telling Lord Adams about how well you ride," said the red-haired Henry Wilkes. "I then recalled that I never had the pleasure of showing you my own fine Arabians."

Evelyn offered him a sweet dimpled smile and fluttered her fan. "One beast is the same as another to me, I'm afraid," she said hoping that would be the end of the matter.

The shorter, more stout Lord Adams grunted in agreement and took a drink from the snifter in his hand " Quite right! Such matters as beasts are of no interest to the fairer sex," he admonished Henry, who smiled tightly. " Surely Lady Evelyn would much prefer your gardens. Or my gardens. Do you enjoy gardens?"

Evelyn fixed them both with what she hoped was a bright and interested smile. "My knowledge of gardens are from my sense perception only. Which is to say, very little."

Lord Adams was not put off as he had a advantageous view of her bosom. "Ah but gardening is a most agreeable pastime, though not so conducive to the dreary inconsistent London weather. My country estates flower most beautifully this time of year..." he slurred.

"I believe Lady Evelyn is being modest!" Henry protested gallantly. "I think she means to fool us by saying she knows of neither subjects when I've seen her ride and she takes to horses as though she was borne with an innate knowledge of the beasts."

"An impossibility according to Locke," Evelyn blurted out, in her irritation. She immediately wished she had stayed silent.

Both men gave her a blank, surprised look. "Who?"

"John Locke," she replied reluctantly as she snapped her fan shut. She felt herself being pulled into a conversation she's rather not have then. "I've heard him mentioned on several occasions. I'm merely pointing out one could be of the opinion that we are all borne without innate knowledge or ideas."

Henry looked a bit taken aback. "I'm familiar with the man's work, but I didn't think a gentle lady, so beautiful, would be too."

"Quite!" Lord Adam agreed, his eyes never leaving her cleavage. "That Puritan's drivel shan't be of interest to beautiful young ladies. Book reading is for the homely!" He chuckled at his own cleverness.

Evelyn unfurled her fan again over her chest as and tried her best to keep her smile in place and her voice even. "Surely young ladies, even beautiful ones, ought to have interests beyond gardening or she's likely to be quite bored during the winter months, Lord Adams."

There was deep, rich chuckle behind her, and Evelyn 's spine immediately stiffened.

Henry leaned towards her with a sparkle in his green eyes. "I disagree. One finds a lady's company so much more riveting when she displays a curious mind. It rather enhances her beauty." He allowed himself a quick glance of her swelling neckline and sucked at his lower lip. "I too have read Locke's essay, Concerning Human Understanding wasn't it? I'm sure he is wrong that we arrive in the world without opinions and ideas for I am sure the moment I opened my eyes on this earth, I recognized truth and beauty."

Evelyn slide her fan higher over her bosom. It proved harder and harder to keep her features inert with both men sneaking peaks over her fan to leer at her cleavage.

"It would be hard to determine when our consciousness ignited as our memories do not stretch so far back to our birth," she replied. "I'm sure you would agree that without the necessary memories, we cannot say for certain if we arrived on earth with any knowledge at all or even when sense perception began. Who could say for certain?"

Henry nudged Lord Adams with a wink and a knowing smile, that nearly toppled the stocky, unsteady man from his seat. "Remarkably perceptive is she not?" he said as though he had just discovered a pet dog had learned to speak.

Lord Adams merely grunted as he righted himself and took another sip from his wine glass now that her fan blocked the most interesting part of her. "Now tell us, where did your unique opinions originate?"

"My opinions are formed quite in the way that Master Locke had described, through my experiences, I'm sure," she replied, careful to keep the edge out of her voice

"Had you much experiences then for one so young?" inquired a deep timbre voice just over her shoulders. Evelyn's breath caught in her throat when Lord John rounded the settee upon where she sat, giving Lord Adams, then Henry Wilkes a short, curt nod. He stood between the two seated men facing her, and pressed a palm upon each of the two men's shoulder.

"Remarkably young," Lord Adams agreed with a drunken smirk. He grimaced when Lord Davenport's hand pressed down heavily and painfully on his shoulder.

Evelyn felt all the blood in her body rush to her head as she struggled for her next breath. All three men's attentions were upon her and she was vaguely aware that others had turned to watch them curiously. She really should have feigned an illness earlier. Perhaps she still could.

"I've had the benefit of living in interesting times," she replied, not even sure of what passed her lips under Lord Davenport's steady gaze. How warm and damp her palms felt under her gloves. "So many thought-provoking essays are readily available now."

"Damn nuisance!" Lord Adams declared a bit too loudly. "All the Puritans with their downright blasphemous thinking! I hate them as much as the Catholics!"

"Would that be Locke again?" inquired Lord Davenport, coldly as he peered down his nose at the Lord Adams. "I would hardly group the Lockean freedom of conscious with Catholicism."

"They're all the same to me!" Lord Adams grunted, somewhat befuddled.

"I see the core concept escapes you," Lord Davenport mused archly.

Henry smirked and was glad he wasn't on the receiving end of the Marquess' disdain. Soon Lord Adams lost interest, got up and bowed curtly before moving on.

Lord Davenport turned his attention back to Evelyn. "And how have our times interested you Lady Evelyn?" he asked softly. "What do you take interest in when you are not dazzling us with your sparkling wit?"

Was he mocking her? What double meaning lies behind his seemingly innocent question? "None worth mentioning," she stammered and wished she could keep her voice leveled.

As expected Lord Davenport wouldn't be put off. "Lady Evelyn is immune to flattery," Lord Davenport said for Henry's benefit. "So I think we must have her tell us her thoughts instead."

"Yes, do!" Henry readily agreed, to which Evelyn narrowed her eyes. It's obvious that Henry would readily agree with anything Lord Davenport purposed.

"My thoughts?" she queried of Henry with a growing amount of irritation.

"Yes," Henry replied. "I'd like to know all yours thoughts, dreams, desired...."

"You will be bored stiff if I recounted all that. Perhaps I often wonder what it would be like to travel the known world."

"You mean to leave us?" Henry cried out and made to lean towards Evelyn. Lord Davenport's tight grasp on his shoulder held him painfully in place. "Why you mustn't think of leaving! Not when you've made this Season so much more tolerable--"

"Lady Evelyn," Lord Davenport interjected, "is merely expressing a fancy. No need for theatrics, Henry. Go on and tell us which exotic locale peaks your interest? "

Evelyn nervously bit her lower lip as she was certain that Lord Davenport's civility contained a hint of derision. "It hardly matters as a woman, safe exploration of foreign lands is limited to travel book accounts."

Henry was eager for her to recount some of what she had read. That was that last thing Evelyn wanted to do. Not once did Lord Davenport turn his attention away from her and she was most unsettled by his scrutiny. She wished that he would return to ignoring her.

"We're most riveted," Henry insisted when Evelyn would not say anymore. "I image you have an interesting understanding of everything you read. Women often do, you know, my lord. Their minds are quite singular and different from the way we look at the world. Small things hold a world of fascination for them. I'm most fascinated to learn of your thoughts on everything, Lady Evelyn."

"Mostly I spend my days not thinking at all, or in quiet contemplation of God's will," Evelyn quipped. Henry seemed oblivious to her humor but Lord Davenport was not. In that moment their eyes met and they shared a smile. "That's most agreeable!" Henry interjected cheerfully with a small nervous chuckle as he cast a side glance up at Lord Davenport.

"Then perhaps Lady Evelyn would entertain us in the library with some of her favorite volumes, " Lord Davenport said smoothly and shot a somber, meaningful look at Henry.

"We shall all adjourn to the library then!" Evelyn declared a bit too loudly as she shot to her feet. The other lords and ladies around them gleefully agreed and proceeded to depart the salon. Henry, sensing that he had lost Lady Evelyn's interest swallowed his pride, plaster a cheerful smile on his face and feel in step with a charming lady who he recalled was quite a wealthy widow.

Lord Davenport drew Evelyn back before she could walk away. He merely touched her elbow and she found herself following him into the recesses of a nearby enclosure. She shouldn't be there! She shouldn't allow herself to be alone with him again! And yet, there she remained, waiting on him.

"I mean to speak with you sooner," he murmured intimately to her when they were out of earshot.

"I'm sure we have nothing to say to each other," she croaked. She could hear the laughter of the others drift further and further away. When he took a step towards her, she reflexively took a step back. Rather than pressing himself on her as she half expected him, he stepped back instead, and crossed his arms over his chest.

"Don't we?" he queried, with a lift of a dark thick brow. He smirked at the top of her dark head, a tumble of dark curls pulled back by an invisible fastener. How thick her lowered lashes were as she fixed her gaze off into the distance. He remembered vividly just how velvety soft the skin on her cheeks felt to his touch. "Surely we do after you've allowed me such --- liberties."

"I allowed you nothing!" she protested, with a look of horror as she looked up at him. "Please my lord, this is highly irregular they way you speak to me, the way you... handle me. Please have pity on me! I've done nothing to incur your wrath!"

His smile faded at her words. "You have not incurred my wrath," he replied softly with genuine surprise.

"Then why do you torment me, sir?"

"You've tormented me as well" Lord John replied grimly. With his head bowed, he slowly uncrossed his arms to reach for one of her small gloved hands, hanging helplessly by her side.

Evelyn watched him, entranced as he reach for her right arm and slowly peel the edge of the silky fabric down her elbow, to her forearm till wrist was exposed. She shivered and her lashes fluttered when, clutching her naked arm and wrist, he kissed the blue pulsating vein there, once, twice. She could only watch as he completely removed her glove and traced a finger over the lines on her dampened palm as if he could find the answers to life's mysteries there. Then his grayish blue eyes flicked up and she felt her breath catch again at the raw desire she saw there.

"My cousin once described you as no other woman he had ever met," he said thickly, in a half-whisper as he hung his head, almost sheepishly. "I find myself equally enchanted by you. When you are near I'm not capable of reason. Nothing else seems as important as possessing you. I believe I would tear this house down stone by stone, brick by brick with my bare hands just to have you!"

"My Lord!" she choked, completely undone by the way he peered up at her from beneath his dark brows.

He inched closer and dipped his face down dangerously close to hers as he reached up to caress the flesh on her lower lip with his thumb, "My lack of self control for you, have offended my oldest and dearest friend, my own cousin. I assured him I would stay away from you. It's just that I cannot."

"Am I to blame for this as well?" she asked miserably.

He pressed his thumb over her lips to gently silence her. "I would not put that upon you. Have I been so terrible to you?"

She lost herself in his eyes as she watched his dark pupils expand with desire till she could barely see his blue irises. He dropped his gaze to where his thumb slowly rubbed over her lips and watched her daintily dart her tongue out slightly against his thumb. The sight made Lord John's heart beat thickly in his chest and he breathed out a shaky sigh.

"You see I was the one who behaved most deplorably towards you." He dropped his forehead down to hers and gently nuzzled against the curve of her right cheek, "No matter what... I had no right to accuse you. But I'm completely mad for you, you know. Even when I know you belong to another.... Where it concerns you, I can't seem to help myself."

Evelyn's thick dark lashes fluttered and she had almost stopped breathing when he finally encircled her tiny waist and drew her against the hard length of his body. He kissed her lips, then drew back slightly and punctuated each of his next words with a gentle kiss upon her forehead, her brow, her little nose and finally, back upon her lips again. "I. Can't. Help. Myself."

Without further thought she leaned up into his kiss and felt him take hold of the back of her neck to hold her in place as his tongue probed hers. Unlike before, this time his kiss was deep and gentle. When he rocked back on his feet, Evelyn found herself deeping into him to chase his lips with her own.

"My lord," she moaned breathlessly when he suddenly released her to bend down at her feet. Part of her couldn't fathom what he might be about and her young, excited heart thundered loudly in her chest in anticipation. But he merely stooped down to pick up her forgotten and discarded glove. With a slight crinkle at the corners of his twinkling eyes, he handed it back to her with both hands with a slight bow at the waist before he turned and casually strolled away.

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Lady Ann Seymour was too sophisticated, too wise to make a scene as she watched her erstwhile lover's seduction of another woman unfold. When Lord Davenport first reentered Society, Lady Ann immediately noticed that he seemed to orbit around the pinnacle that was Lady Evelyn. Lady Evelyn had a lovely face and a grace about her that was most attractive. But somehow, Lady Ann thought Lord Davenport was above the ingenue allure. Stoically Lady Ann stood to one side as she observed him sneak glances at the dark-haired young woman for quite some times now. She watched with tempered astonishment as he tried to hide his interest beneath a veneer of indifference. The answer was of course too painful, too disturbing for Lady Ann to even admit to herself.

One evening, Lady Ann decided to test him. They had just dined in her chambers, and he refused another glass of wine. Ann was feeling particularly precipitous, knowing that his mind was elsewhere. She decided to repeat what everyone else was saying about Lady Evelyn, that perhaps the dark-haired, fair-skinned beauty was the natural child of the French king during his years in exile. Ann wondered out loud if Evelyn was untruthful about her age. The girl seemed far too precocious for eighteen. Perhaps the secret was, Lady Evelyn had been maîtresse royale herself!

Lord Davenport said not a word throughout her soliloquy. When she finished, he simply pushed back his chair, gathered his hat and gloves without a word and left her house for the last time. No matter how much Ann apologized and entreated, he would not stay.

When Lady Ann sent him a note shortly after, her note was returned unopened. As did all her subsequent notes. When their paths did cross he was politely aloof and passed her without another glance.

Outwardly Lady Ann was charming and unaffected as she was expected to be. She danced, she laughed, she flirted with all the fashionable young nobles. Even if anyone knew of her dalliance with Lord Davenport she was expect to swallow down the bitter bile in her throat and carry on.

Affairs came and went. That was the nature of such things. Ann had no illusions that he would marry her, regardless of how much she might wish it. The most Ann could hope for was that he kept his arrangement with her even after he took a wife. Then it became clear that was not to be and her heart ached with loss and unexpressed rage when she saw Lord Davenport finally approach the otherworldly Lady Evelyn.

"In time," Lady Ann said ominously to herself as she watched Lady Evelyn take Lord Davenport's hand.. "In due time....."

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The remainder of that evening was spent without incident, pouring over old and new leather bound volumes and in poetry reading. Nothing registered with Evelyn. She sat. She spoke when spoken to. She sipped a small glass of wine, all in a haze.

Lord Davenport was locked into conversation with two serious looking gentlemen. Evelyn watched his lips curl every so often in a knowing smile as though he sensed her attention and could read her thought. That made Evelyn blush to the roots of her hair. Her senses were in an uproar as she fought to maintain her composure. When she finally excused herself to return to the Warwicks early, she truly felt feverish all over.

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Lord Davenport watched her made her excuses to their hosts, then made her escape with her yawning maid in tow. He quickly slipped away before anyone noticed and followed them out to the awaiting carriage. Before the young maid could clamber in after her mistress, Lord Davenport swiftly yanked the surprised servant out of his way. He climbed in after Lady Evelyn and shut the door quickly just as the carriage rambled off.

Evelyn wasn't at all surprised when Lord Davenport pushed his way into her carriage. He was on her in an instant, with his arms around her waist. They both tumbled to the floor of the carriage as it lurched forward. He pressed her back into him and effortlessly tilted her chin back to seize her lips with his.

"Oh!" was all that she said when he ran his fingers through her soft silky hair and caressed her face.

"Unbelievably beautiful," he murmured against her warm skin. He trembled slightly when he grasped her bosom, strapped tightly under the stiff fabric of her bodice. Evelyn's head rolled back, her slender neck arched against his shoulder to offer him all of her.

"Evelyn, sweet Evelyn!" he murmured. His hand reached for the bindings of her bodice and swiftly loosened. Her supple young breast spilled forward into his palm, a heavy handful of soft yet firm flesh.

Lord Davenport knelt on the floor of the rocking carriage and pulled her firmly into his lap as he deepened their kiss. Evelyn clung to him and barely seemed aware that she sat in a dark carriage with her breasts exposed to him. He drank in her beautiful face, eyes closed, mouth slacken as a woman in the throes of ecstasy.

"I want to drizzle honey over these," he said when he dragged his lips over a hardened nipple while he squeezed and teased the other. "And lick it off slowly.... like this. Then I will drink wine from your lips."

If Evelyn wasn't already sprawled on the floor of the carriage, she would surely have fallen over. The carriage rocked them gentled as he cradled her, suckling each of her nipples in turn, sometimes licking her flesh, other times gently biting at her tender peaks. She must have fainted again for she lost track of how long he spent nestled between her bosom, face pressed between the swell of her generous globes. Only when she started to feel her skirts lift and a hand part her knees did she finally snap back to reality.