Regency Diaries of Seduction Collection: A Regency Historical Romance Box Set

by Lucinda Nelson

  He couldn’t have her. He knew that. At the same time, though, he wanted to do everything in his power to make sure that she was all right.

  Some charisma that the woman had, perhaps, or his own silly heart falling instantly in love with a beautiful woman.

  He couldn’t run after her, though. Talking with her in the library was scandalous enough. If he chased her down the hallway and talked to her where anyone might see, it would be another thing entirely.

  Besides, he still felt hurt. He had just wanted something more from her. He knew that he couldn’t ask for that. She was undoubtedly right when she said that it would have been improper for her to write back to him.

  If those letters had fallen into the wrong hands, who knew what society would have made of it. Somehow, that had never occurred to him before. Or if it had, he had pushed those thoughts away from his mind.

  He couldn’t help feeling that he had ruined his relationship with her, even though it had been minimal to begin with. She hadn’t wanted to talk to him at all before, and now she had even less reason to do so.

  Not only that, but he hadn’t had the chance to say all of the things that he’d wanted to say to her. Like how he had missed her. How he kept wondering how she was doing. He knew that she wasn’t married; was that her choice or were the men of England just blind and stupid?

  He wanted to tell her that he never forgot how beautiful she was. That he remembered that kiss that they had once shared and that he would like nothing more than to repeat that now.

  It felt wrong to admit any of that, though. She clearly wasn’t thinking back to that kiss. She clearly didn’t feel the same way about him.

  He sighed and rubbed at his temples. No matter how hurt he was, it hadn’t been right to turn her away. He wondered if there was anything that he could do to help her with her father.

  But when she had left, it had seemed clear that Charlene no longer wanted him to get involved. She had kept herself so carefully away from him for the last ten years, and he had to assume that leaving her alone was the best course of action.

  She said, after all, that she had other ideas for how to help Dr. Ellington. He didn’t want to interfere.

  Charlene didn’t need him. She didn’t need anyone. She was just as competent and self-assured as she had ever been. That, at least, made Eric smile.

  He had no desire to return to the ball, after this encounter. To see her there, across the room, to know that he had let her down?

  It would simply be too much for him. He wouldn’t be able to leave her be, to ignore her. Yet that was precisely what he needed to do.

  Instead, he left. Headed home by himself, thinking of his terrible deed. He had promised her that if she ever needed help, then he would be there for her. He had spent the last ten years telling himself that he cared about her. And yet.

  He wondered about the charges against her father. He couldn’t imagine Dr. Ellington doing anything to harm a man.

  Not that Eric knew the other man particularly well, but he remembered the care he had received at the other man’s hands. Besides, was not Charlene’s personality a reflection of her father’s? And Charlene, he was sure, would never hurt a fly.

  The allegations were serious. Eric knew that the doctor could be sentenced to death for what he had purportedly done. How was Charlene dealing with it?

  She must be distraught. Yet the other consequence of refusing to help her was that he could neither console her.

  He sighed and kicked at a loose stone, watching it skitter down the road in front of him.

  The night was clear and beautiful, but the only thing he could think about was Charlene, back at the ball, feeling disappointed in him.

  Of course, he should have known that, with his abrupt departure, he had only opened himself up to lewd questions from his friends.

  The next day at midmorning, Percy and Dalton showed up at his manor-home, leering at him. “Had a good night, did you?” Percy was the first to ask. “She’s not still here, is she? Are we interrupting anything?”

  “Who?” Eric snapped, not in the mood for boasts and brags. He hadn’t slept well the previous night. What sleep he had managed, when he finally got his whirling thoughts to leave him alone, had been troubled.

  He had seen Charlene there in his dreams, her eyes accusing. In one of his dreams, she had been crying, but when he stepped closer and put a hand on her shoulder, intending to comfort her, she faded out of sight and he knew that she was gone forever.

  “Miss Ellington,” Dalton said, as though it was obvious. “Don’t worry, we explained away your absence at the ball last night. Said that you were feeling under the weather but wished your hosts well.”

  “How was she, though?” Percy asked. He lowered his voice. “We did some inquiries, and apparently she’s known to be quite the prude. If you managed to split her legs in one night, you’re practically my hero.”

  “I didn’t bed her,” the young duke said peevishly. “I didn’t kiss her. Hell, I didn’t even lay a hand on her.” Except to catch her wrist, when he initially thought that she would leave.

  He imagined that he could still feel that soft skin beneath his fingertips, the faint beating of her pulse fluttering beneath his index. She hadn’t pulled away from him when he caught her like that. Instead, she had been utterly docile.

  It had sent a thrill through him, making him wonder what else she might allow. What other liberties. Would she let him pull her close? Would she let him kiss her again?

  He hadn’t dared to act on any of those impulses, though. And he certainly hadn’t told her how beautiful she was, or the real reason why he had hesitated when she asked for his help with her father’s jurors.

  “Then what, pray tell, kept you from the rest of the ball?” Percy drawled, looking as though he was sure that he had caught Eric out where he must tell him the truth about his supposed dalliance. If only he had brought Charlene home the previous night. No matter how improper it would have been, if only they could have had one night together, to remember forever.

  Instead, their friendship, if friendship it truly had been, was over, without anything more than the memory of one quick stolen kiss back when they were but children.

  Eric turned away from his friends, giving an unhappy shrug. “I had some thinking to do,” he said. It wasn’t technically a lie.

  Of course, both of his friends looked interested by that. “Perhaps we can help you with your thinking,” Dalton suggested. “I suppose it has something to do with Miss Ellington?”

  “It does,” Eric admitted grudgingly. He knew that at this stage, if he didn’t tell them about the previous evening’s meeting, it would only make them more curious.

  Who knew what sort of stories they might tell to themselves? The best way to curb gossip, Eric’s father had always maintained, was to ensure that all the truth was out in the open.

  Eric stepped back to let his friends inside, calling one of his servants to bring them drinks. Percy sprawled across the divan, while Dalton sat in one of the heavy armchairs that Eric’s father had always preferred.

  Eric himself paced in front of the fireplace.

  “Miss Ellington’s father, as I told you before, is a doctor in Bath. He saved my life when I was younger,” Eric began, trying to keep his tone neutral.

  The last thing he needed was for the two of them to suspect that he was at all interested in Charlene as something more than a friend. He would never hear the end of it if they knew about his attraction to her.

  “Whyever did she wish to meet you last night, if it wasn’t to come here with you?” Percy asked. Suddenly, his eyes twinkled dangerously. “Or is it that you had already had her, back in the library?”

  “I didn’t lay a hand on her,” Eric repeated peevishly. “Not here, and certainly not there. She merely needed my help. Her father is in quite the predicament. Apparently, he has been arrested for allegedly poisoning one of the peers.” He paused.

  Charlene hadn’t given
him all of the details, but he had been able to piece things together as he lay awake all night thinking about their meeting.

  “I seem to remember some being suspicious of the circumstances of the death of Lord Henrich Galveston of Worsceshire,” Eric said quietly, looking back and forth between his friend’s faces for their reactions.

  The two of them tended to pay far more attention to gossip than he did, in part because they had the time to devote to such things. He had been woefully short on time since becoming duke. The two of them, as younger sons, would never know the weight of responsibility that he himself carried.

  Dalton’s eyes widened, and he let out a low whistle. “I had heard a rumour that some thought that Lord Henrich’s physician was poisoning him,” he confirmed. “They said that it was something to do with a dispute over how much the lord was paying to the physician.”

  Eric felt his heart sink as he heard that. He had hoped, somehow, that this wouldn’t be the case that Dr. Ellington was tied up in. If so, even with his involvement, Eric doubted there was much that Charlene could do to prove her father’s innocence. Lord Henrich’s death had shaken all of London.

  The man was not so old, and he had plenty of power. That it was foul play had been automatically assumed from the start.

  The eyes of all of England would be on the trial, and there were plenty who would be looking for nothing more than vengeance.

  As though echoing Eric’s thoughts, Dalton said, “If you get caught up in this, it would be your reputation at stake as well. This is the scandal of the century.”

  Percy nodded in agreement. Eric turned away from the two of them, staring out the window. “And yet, I fear I must get involved,” he said heavily. “I gave Charlene my word, once, that if she ever needed help from me, that she had but to ask. She saved my life, after all. Without her, I wouldn’t be here today.”

  Out of the corner of his eye, Eric could see his two friends exchange glances. He already knew, in his heart, all the reasons why he shouldn’t get involved in this. Perhaps Dr. Ellington really had been responsible for poisoning Lord Henrich. It was clear to most that someone had.

  Eric couldn’t believe that Dr. Ellington had been the man, though. He couldn’t imagine how it would ruin Charlene to lose her father. In his mind’s eye, he could see her as she had been in his dream, sobbing as though her heart was broken. He knew that he had no choice.

  He was going to help her, however he could. Perhaps she truly did have other ideas about how she could help the man, but it wouldn’t hurt for him to attempt to help Dr. Ellington as well. It was the least that he could do.

  As soon as Percy and Dalton left, he sent out inquiries around London, looking for any information about the doctor, the trial, or anything else that anyone might have heard. He did it in secret, not wanting anyone to realize, just yet, that he was getting himself involved in this. Someone out there must know something, though. He was sure of it.

  He’d just see what his inquiries turned up, and then he would figure out how to act from there. It was the least that he could do for her, he told himself.

  In his heart, he knew it was because he was still fascinated by her, though, more than the fact that she and the doctor had saved his life.

  Chapter 7

  Miss Charlene Ellington

  The last thing Charlene wanted to do tonight was to head to yet another ball with Miss Matilda, but she couldn’t bail on her duties just because she had other, more important, things on her mind at the moment.

  She still had no idea how she was going to save her father, but she knew that she was running out of time to figure something out.

  Perhaps the ball would be a good thing, though. Perhaps some other brilliant idea would come to her.

  In any case, Lord Eric would be at the ball tonight, she suspected. She was sure that she would have heard if the duke had left London already.

  Instead, it seemed like every young woman in the city was planning new dresses with the hope of snaring the man’s affections. It bothered Charlene more than she would ever admit to hear Matilda talk with her young friends about how fetching a man the young duke was.

  Something made her want to tell them all about the time that she had saved the man’s life.

  She bit her tongue every time. The last thing Eric needed was for her reputation as a nobody to wear off on him. Not that it ever really could.

  Of course, Charlene had given up hope that Eric would change his mind about helping her. He had made it very clear that he had no desire to get involved in her family’s drama.

  Still, she couldn’t help but want to see him again tonight at the ball. Up close, not just from across the ballroom, through a sea of people. She would never dare to approach him again as she had before, however.

  She hadn’t expected to see him like this, though. She froze, taking in the scene in front of her. Lord Eric and Lady Annabelle Cartridge, the daughter of a viscount. The two of them were together out in the gardens.

  Charlene only saw them because Matilda had somehow managed to escape her watchful eye and Charlene had had to attempt to track the girl down. Now, she cursed herself for twice the fool.

  She had let Matilda get away from her, under the guise of wanting to talk to Miss Madeleine about her dress, and now she realized that she had foolishly assumed that because Lord Eric wasn’t engaged to anyone, the young duke didn’t have any paramours.

  She tried to push her feelings aside. What did it matter to her that Eric was evidently interested in Lady Annabelle? They were a great match. Lady Annabelle was young, beautiful, and accomplished. She came from a good family, and they would make a wonderful political match.

  And yet.

  There was something about seeing Eric with someone else, some other woman, that made her feel like a vice had clenched around her heart.

  It was silly, she knew. Lord Eric would never be interested in someone like her. He could never be. That kiss, once upon a time, had merely been a sign of his thanks because she had saved his life. Nothing more.

  Suddenly though, jealousy welled up inside of her, even more strongly than it did when she was forced to listen to Matilda and her friends gossiping about the young duke. Somehow, she had come to think of Eric as hers, if not in name then in the heart.

  The way that he was currently looking at Lady Annabelle belied that, though. He had no feelings for Charlene, and he never had. She should have realized that, at the very latest, when he had refused to help out when she needed him.

  He was going to make a great match. That was probably the whole reason that he was in London at the moment, and the reason he didn’t want to get caught up in the politics of helping her out with her father.

  He was looking to be married. His advisors likely wouldn’t like that as a duke, he remained unmarried.

  He wouldn’t remain unmarried for long, if Lady Annabelle had her way, Charlene was sure.

  Charlene paused there for another moment, watching the two of them. She couldn’t believe that they were being so obvious, so open in their affection for one another.

  If Charlene had discovered the two of them like this, who knew how many other people had already seen the two of them. It made her want to say something, but she had been raised better than to interrupt a moment like this, even if it was improper, and especially if it was only her jealousy that made her want to come between the two of them.

  It was hard for her to back away from the two of them. She had to find Matilda, she reminded herself, before the girl could get herself into the same sort of trouble that Lady Annabelle was apparently intent on bringing on herself.

  Not that anyone would ever chastise the viscount’s daughter for being caught talking with a handsome suitor in the gardens during a party like this.

  They were merely chatting, and although it was improper for the two of them to be there alone together, well, perhaps the woman’s family had already consented to the match.

  Still, she felt sadness set
tle into her heart as she walked through the halls, peeking into different rooms in her search for Matilda. She should never have expected that that kiss from Eric meant anything more.

  After all, it wasn’t as though she had anything that could attract him to her. She was comely enough, but she was no beauty of a kind like Lady Annabelle.

  And then there was her family. They had enough money that Annabelle had once hoped to marry well. Enough money that she could stay here at court and assume a position here. But her father was a doctor, nothing more. He certainly didn’t have a title.

  Then there was Charlene herself, and her accomplishments. Middling French, and the ability to prescribe the correct medicine and treatment for nearly any ailment that one could have.